"What's going on? What's happening?" He stepped up to the bed and gasped. "Why is he back on the respirator?"
"Detective, come with me." Doctor Prentiss nudged Danny out of the room but the careworn man refused to leave.
"No! Tell me, why is that thing back in his throat?"
The doctor beckoned the two nurses out of the room before he explained the situation. "I'm afraid he took a turn for the worse. He had two consecutive seizures early this morning, each one lasting over two minutes."
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WHAT? Why didn't you see this happening? Why couldn't you have prevented it?" Danny raved like a lunatic, prompting the doctor to take a firm hold of his shoulders to calm him down.
"Listen to me, Detective."
"Why aren't you doing anything to help him? Go in there and fix it?"
"Detective, please listen to me!" Prentiss shook him out of his madness. "He's not responding. We need to - "
"Do you mean to tell me he's brain dead?" The doctor's silence was self-explanatory. Danny grabbed his head and gritted his teeth in anger. He felt himself coming apart at the seams. Tears rushed to his reddened eyes and he felt his chest tightening under the clamp of his aching heart. His emotions were strewn all over the place.
"We will do an MRI to see what the problem is and whether or not we can repair the damage but if we can't -" The doctor approached him and broached a delicate subject. "I was informed that he has a living will and he's also an organ donor."
"Oh please, spare me! Not now!" Danny lashed out. He could not deal with this now.
"You're his medical power-of-attorney. We cannot remove him from life support without your consent."
"That's right and you're not gonna."
"It's your decision."
"You're damn right it is!" Danny clasped a hand to his puffy eyes as he attempted to keep his mental exhaustion from sending him spiralling down into the depths of madness. "Just leave me alone, please."
The doctor reluctantly left the distraught man alone in the room with his dying partner.
Danny approached the bed and leaned over Steve. He took his limp hand in his. "Why are doing this, huh? Can't you see you're hurting your friends? I can't do it, babe. I just can't. I know that's what you want but," Danny choked on the emotional lump caught in his throat. He hung his head to try to contain the torrent of tears streaming down his face. "I just can't have them pull that plug. Not now, maybe never. The thought of them harvesting your organs before your body gets cold disgusts me." He gasped in a few gagging breaths as he felt the rush of emotions swallowing him whole. His body weakened by weeks of emotional distress was starting to betray him. He tried but he couldn't handle the thought of a senseless end to a life that was taken too soon. "I can't handle this right now. I'm sorry, I just can't. " He leaned forward and placed a kiss on Steve's forehead before leaving the hospital.
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He drove aimlessly down the streets for hours to regain a semblance of sanity before he returned to Steve's house. Numbed with grief at the thought of losing his 'brother', he lay down on the couch and curled up on his side and stared into nothingness for what seemed an eternity.
He finally stood and went to the desk. He sat behind it and sucked in a few quavering breaths before he opened the top drawer to take out the envelope. He stared at it for a moment. He then closed his eyes to squish out the tears, after which he climbed upstairs to Steve's room to grab a backpack with camping gear.
He then plonked down the stairs to the kitchen where he grabbed a few bottles of water and power bars. He stuffed the envelope and the items into the bag and casting once last glance at the house, he headed out the door to his car and never looked back.
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During the drive, he called Chin to leave a message on his voice mail saying that he would be away for a while as he needed to be alone to contemplate making the most heart-wrenching decision of his life.
He was an emotional mess and his frail body would not take any more strain. He decided to head to a place where he knew he would find solace and peacefulness. He veered his car in direction of Pololu Valley.
Hiking and camping were his least favorite activities but he needed to get to the place where Steve once took him. Up there he would be at peace together with his memories of a more blissful past before facing a grim tomorrow.
He sat on a boulder overlooking the valley. The intoxicating stillness filled him with a sense of serenity that momentarily abated all the concerns and worries that plagued his mind.
"Hi there!"
Danny's body jolted at the sudden bolt out of the blue and swiftly turned his head toward the voice. "Damn! You scared the hell outta me!"
"Sorry, didn't mean to," the young hiker with a backpack apologized timidly.
"Where d'you come from?"
"From the trail. I saw you sitting there dangerously close to the edge of that cliff and I thought you might need help."
"S'okay. I'm fine," Danny dismissed.
"You don't sound fine," the boy remarked.
Danny stared up at him annoyed. "Excuse me?"
"You look like you could use a friend," he said as he settled uninvited beside Danny on the boulder.
"Ah sorry, I don't mean to be rude but I'd rather be alone," Danny snubbed.
"No you don't," the young man replied snidely. "Want to talk about it?"
Danny broke into a bitter laugh at the insolence. "No."
"I think you do," again with the impudence that was beginning to jerk Danny's strings.
"Look, I thank you for your concern...?"
"Tim."
"Tim, but -"
"What's yours?"
"What?"
"Your name?"
"It's Danny."
"Nice to meet you, Danny. You have girl problems?" Tim casually probed.
"You're a little Nosy Parker, aren't ya?"
"I've been called worse. Friend in trouble?"
"You might say that," Danny mellowed out. "I came up here to clear my thoughts to think things through."
"And you're sitting here wondering what to do."
"Something like that."
"I can tell he's a very close friend of yours."
"More like a brother actually."
"Sick is he?"
"He had a brain aneurysm but the surgery didn't go well. He then lapsed into a coma that lasted four months and just this morning," he choked as the raw emotions surfaced, "this morning his doctor told me he'd taken a turn for the worse."
"I'm sorry."
"As his medical proxy I need to make a decision."
"I know exactly how you feel for it happened to me once."
Danny turned to the young man with watery eyes. "Really? What did you do?"
"Although it tore my guts out I complied with my friend's wish. No matter how much it hurt I knew it was the right decision to make."
"I'm sure I have similar instructions in that envelope." Danny said as he fingered the Manila envelope that he had kept in his hand. "He left it to me in case something bad happened to him."
"You haven't opened it?"
"I'm afraid to read what's in it even though I have a pretty good idea of its content."
"You feel that if you abide by his last wish that you'll be killing him." Danny hung his head. "You're not. You'll actually be releasing him."
"I'm afraid to let him go."
"That's being selfish."
"I know," Danny sniffed back a tear.
The hiker stood and patted Danny's shoulder. "Open that envelope. That's what he wants, Danno." Then he left as quickly as he came.
Suddenly it dawned on Danny. "Hey wait, how did you know he cal -" he turned and the hiker was gone, "he called me Danno? Hey, where are you?" A sudden chill crept up his spine at the disturbingly mysterious encounter. How could he have known that Steve called him Danno? How was it that Tim had found him in the middle of nowhere? Who was he? Rather, what was he?
However the young hiker had given Danny the incentive that he desperately needed to tear open that envelope. He closed his eyes to squish out the tears that blurred his vision and with a trembling hand, began reading the handwritten letter.
'Hey Danno!
I know you hate it when I call you that. Heck that's why I do it. You must know by now that I enjoyed raising your hackles once in a while. You looked so funny when I did and I often needed the laugh.
If you're reading this letter, then I must be in dire straits to put it mildly. I guess I didn't wait for backup and slipped up big time. Whatever it was I have no doubt that you had my back but the circumstances being what they must have been, fate kept you save from my insane behavior. I smile just thinking about the face you must have made when you find out I goofed. You said I had a face for every situation, but you weren't far behind, my friend. You had a tone to match a face as well. Guess we were two of a kind. I like knowing that we were. The thought of us working together side by side or the little outings we used to go on brought me great pleasure on a daily basis. You are my best friend - the brother I never had.
Enough with that mushy stuff and on to serious matters. Sorry for being so brutal but I'm sure you have enough on your mind without me adding to your emotional torment with words dipped in rose water. I don't know what happened to me, obviously, but if I ended up lying flat on my back with a tube stuck down my throat and that there's no hope whatsoever of me ever coming back to the way I was before, then pull that damn plug.'
Danny's heart leapt into his throat and tightened the airway so fiercely that he felt like he was being strangled. He could no longer hold back his tears that flew freely from his stinging eyes.
'I beg of you, Danny. Don't let me live like this if I can call it live. It's inhuman and you don't want to keep me a vegetable. That's not how you want to remember me, I'm sure.
I hate to put this burden on you but you're the only one who can make that decision. I imagine it'll be hard as you will believe you're killing me but actually you'll only be releasing me.'
Danny looked up from the page and sighed deeply to discharge the penned up tension. Those were the friendly hiker's exact words.
Along with this letter you will find copies of documents that my lawyer has in his possession. All the assets I have are in your name. Upon my legal death they will be turned over to you. You do whatever you want with them. I wanted to leave the house to Mary but after discussing it with her, she suggested that I turn it over to you so that you can finally have a decent abode instead of that crummy apartment of yours. And Grace loves the beach. I know, I know you hate it and the sound of the waves is a real torture but as I said, you do whatever you want. I won't challenge your decision from beyond. Sorry, a little dark humor there. But I expect I'll be watching you from up there, even if you don't believe in a higher power that rules our universe aside from the governments, of course.'
Danny couldn't help but chuckle at Steve's humor, which brought a slim ray of joy in this otherwise sombre sky.
'It's been a blast, Danno. Sorry if that was a pun. I'll see you around babe and don't forget, I love you brother.
Your Hoaloha,
Steve'
Danny folded the letter and released his emotions.
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Following a good cleansing of the body and soul, Danny reluctantly decided to rejoin civilization. He had made a decision regarding his partner's medical condition and needed to return to the hospital to inform the doctor and his friends.
He dialed Chin's number. "Chin?"
"Danny? Where the hell are you? We've been trying to reach you, brah."
"I had to get away and clear my thoughts and I lost track of time. Besides I left you a message in your voice mail. Didn't you get it?"
"I did but it didn't tell us where you were going nor that your phone would be out."
"I didn't know where I was heading. I just drove around aimlessly and ended up in the Pololu Valley. There's no cell reception in the mountains and after that my phone went dead on me. Why? What's wrong?" Danny's brows creased. "Is it Grace? She's with her mom in England."
"It's not Grace, it's Steve." There was a slight pause.