Synopsis: When an argument between Danny and Steve spirals out of control and they both say things they don't mean, can one of them survive a deadly accident to apologize? DANNY!WHUMP and STEVE!ANGST. NO SLASH. Friendship only.

Disclaimer: I don't own Hawaii Five-0 and am not getting any monetary gain for this story, just playing in CBS's sandbox for a while. These characters and storylines remain the property of CBS. No disrespect intended, just great characters that inspire their own stories.

Rated: T for violence and injuries. Not a Death-Fic.

Notes: Angst and Hurt/Comfort are kinda my thing and I haven't ventured into the Hawaii Five-0 space yet…so here goes.

Please take a second and let me know if you're excited about the next chapter?!

Chapter Five:

Silent Emotions

The slow surge back to awareness doesn't happen all at once like it does in the movies. Small things catch his attention first, pressure mixing with pain. Something presses uncomfortably against his arm and has him trying to understand what's happening and where he is. The rough feeling of a bandage over his head and the slow ebb and flow of pain emanating from there is making his stomach clench uncomfortably. The ache increases to a crescendo of pulsing pins and needles and he wants to cry out. But he can't wake up. It's terrifying to be trapped inside one's own mind. No control of the situation. No understanding of the situation.

For Danny Williams it's tantamount to death. This inability to move, he can feel his heart rate rising as fear trip-hammers through his body. He's struggling to breathe and there's a fiery agony emanating from his side. All he can do is endure the pain. He feels it when someone lays a calming hand on his chest, it's like being branded and he can hear the low rumble of words, but he can't make out the voice. Come to think of it he can't understand them either. That thought causes more panic inside the prison of his medicated mind.

Steve! Grace! Kono! Chin! Someone help me?! He swears he calls out, but no one answers and he knows he didn't hear anything. Did I call out? Everything is muddled and his thoughts are drifting like a dense fog. The harder he reaches for them the more illusive they become. And then a warm wash of relief floods through him. It starts in his hand and works its way back through his entire body until Danny is a part of the fog. Medication. He no longer cares about grasping the thoughts, he simply floats along. In the distance he can see blurry objects, they might be faces, but he can't bring himself to care enough to focus…so he drifts.

H50 H50

The twitch of muscles under his hand has Steve sitting up and trying to rub the sleep from his eyes. The voices of nurses bustling around outside Danny's room confuse him for a moment before he remembers where is. The SEAL turns and stares down at the smaller man in the stark white sheets. Danny's blue eyes are wide open and staring into space. Shock courses through Steve as he scrambles up from the chair and then leans over his friend.

"Danny?" Something's not quite right about Danny's reaction. His gaze flickers to Steve and then drifts off again. It's like getting slapped in the face, which is way worse than getting punched and not something that the Navy man is used to dealing with.

Steve gulps back the rising fear that there's something seriously wrong with the other man. "Hey, Danny? Can you hear me?" The wandering gaze shifts back to him and there's so much confusion in those blue eyes that Steve's heart clenches. "Do you know where you are?"

It takes a moment before Danny's gaze drifts back to Steve and he winces in pain before shaking his head. "Do you know who I am?" It nearly kills Steve to ask this. Danny looks away and blinks slowly after what feels like an eternity, he nods. But there's no relief in his eyes and there should have been. Steve's not sure what to make of that, so he sinks back into the chair and leans forward, resting his elbows on the bed.

Danny's watching him with wary hooded eyes and Steve's insides twist uncomfortably. "I…uh…I guess you're wondering what happened?"

Danny blinks but his gaze doesn't waver. Steve nods and takes a deep breath. "You were in an accident…"

H50 H50

Something inside of Danny remembers the accident. But when he'd woken up earlier, there was no one there, he was alone. Steve had been gone…hadn't he? He can't tell what's real and what's not. Danny knows that this is really Steve McGarrett sitting in front of him, but there's a nagging feeling inside his head that he's missing some huge piece of information. Something had happened between himself and his partner, but the specifics are locked inside his drugged mind.

Danny opens his mouth to say something, but the words won't come. That starts a panicky reaction that he's helpless to stop. His chest seizes painfully and he grinds his teeth together when the tube in his side pulls, causing a cacophony of fire to spread through his body. A strangled cry of pain is all that escapes his parched lips as he tries arch in reaction. But the pain that sets off in his back eclipses the fire in his side. Steve's blue-green gaze flashes to Danny and then his mouth is moving. But Danny can't make out what the other man is saying. It's all muddled together in mish-mash of tones that don't seem to form coherent sentences.

The faster Steve's lips move to worse Danny feels. He knows he should understand, but he just can't and that has him moving from panicked into terrified.

H50 H50

An alarm goes off and Steve is once again shoved away from Danny as medical professionals try to deal with the detective. He leans against the wall and folds his arms protectively around himself. This is taking more out of him than he would have thought possible. Steve had seen men after they'd been hit with an IED and it hadn't destroyed him the way watching Danny suffer is doing.

He'd considered calling Grace after Danny had woken up earlier. But as he watched the people hustle around the small bed, he was grateful beyond belief that he hadn't done that. Grace would've been terrified to see her father going through this. It was twenty minutes before Danny drifted off into medication induced sleep and Steve was allowed to move next to him again.

Dr. Kekoa steps into the room and sighs when he sees Steve sitting there. "Commander McGarrett, can I speak with you?"

Steve forces his tired body up and follows the doctor into the hallway. "What's going on with Danny?"

"Detective Williams suffered from a reaction to the medication combined with the trauma to his brain. It's unusual to have auditory and comprehension issues with associative verbal paralysis. However, I believe that's what happened to your partner. He was able to hear what you were saying, but his brain is still trying to straighten everything out." Dr. Kekoa frowned and looked over Steve's shoulder into Danny's room. "I'm hopeful that if I keep him sedated for a few more days, then his brain will be able to catch up with the rest of him."

It feels like the man just kicked him in the gut and Steve has to physically tell his lungs to breathe. "You're going to keep him sedated? Like in a coma?"

"Sortof, I think that will offer him the best chance at a full recovery."

Steve simply nods, his gaze shifting back to Danny's sleeping form. "Is it permanent? The auditory comprehension thing?"

Dr. Kekoa thins his lips. "I don't believe so. He shouldn't have been able to come out of the induced sleep and when he did, his brain couldn't facilitate the necessary functions to understand what's happened to him."

Steve smiles slightly at that. Because leave it to Danny to defy the rules of modern medical science. He can only hope that his partner continues to beat the odds.

"You really should go home and get some sleep Commander. It'll be several hours before Detective Williams wakes up." The doctor holds his finger up to a passing a nurse. "I need to go deal with something." He turns back to Steve. "Think about what I said. You're no good to him if you can't keep your eyes open."

"I appreciate it doctor, but I'm okay right here."

The doctor nods and then strides from the room leaving the two men alone. Steve turns back toward Danny and settles into the chair that's beginning to feel like part of his anatomy.

H50 H50

Danny rolls over and over, his body thrown in all directions as his car careens off the edge of a road. All he can think about is the fact that he isn't going to get the chance to say goodbye to Grace and that Steve will blame himself for this. Accidents happen and if he could say that to his guilt-seeking partner he would. The car slides another twenty feet and then comes to rest against something and Danny feels his head smash into the window.

Immediately his brain goes fuzzy. It's difficult to hang onto thoughts or make sense of what just happened. He knows that he was in an accident, that his car is likely totaled. That part sucks. He just got the new Camaro and he's getting tired of waiting for the dealership to ship cars from the mainland. Looks like he'll be waiting again. Which means that he'll have to ride along in Steve's monster truck. It's nice, but it's not the Camaro and Steve will never let him drive it.

He focuses on that thought. The fact that he never gets to drive his own car and Steve never lets him drive his truck. What the hell is up with that anyways? Pain lances through his body and pulls him back to his current situation and he groans before trying to reach up and undo his seatbelt. Agony pulses in his arms and he forces his eyes to focus.

"Shit." He mumbles when he sees the odd angle of his right arm and the blood seeping from the knife wound on his left. No wonder he can't move either of them very well. The whole world is upside down and that's confusing the shit out of him. As he looks around the interior of the car, he can hear the thunder booming in the distance and the water from the heavy rainfall is streaming across his roof...below his head.

'So both windows are smashed out, great.' He thinks. His eyes land on his cell phone lodge in the console just above the water and he wonders if he can grab it? Several painful attempts later Danny has managed to get the phone into his left hand. He's never been particularly ambidextrous and trying to force his bleeding limb to obey is causing him to see spots in front of his already blurry vision.

Slowly he slides his bloody finger over the unlock button and pulls up McGarrett's number. The picture is from several months ago at one of Grace's cheerleading competitions. Steve had insisted on being there since it was a finals competition and there was no way that Danny was missing that. Pain that has nothing to do with his massive injuries courses through him and he clenches his jaw in response. His own angry words replay through his head. Telling Steve that he was responsible for his father's death? What the hell had he been thinking?

Steve telling him that Danny was the biggest mistake he'd ever made. It hurt. The realization that his best friend regretted the day they became partners hurt in ways that Danny couldn't quantify. He remembered telling the SEAL that he could fix the 'whole partner' thing. He has no idea what he meant by that comment and now looking at his own situation, Danny hopes that he gets the chance to make it right.

Before he can press the 'send' button on Steve's number the car shifts and jars the phone from his trembling fingers. Danny can't handle the wash of agony that spreads like wildfire through his system and his world shrinks to a pin point of light. Before that light blinks out, Danny sends a prayer up… "Please let me make it through this. I have work to do." And then the world blinks out of existence and Danny falls into unconsciousness.

H50 H50

TWO DAYS LATER

Kono slips past the nurse at the front desk, three cups of coffee in her hands. Her brown gaze takes in the activity near Danny's room and she releases a pent up breath when there is none. That means that nothing awful happened in the last eight hours while she was gone. She takes a deep breath and walks into her friend's room. Worry creases her forehead when she sees Steve slumped in an uncomfortable position in the chair next to Danny's bed. She's started thinking of that chair as 'the torture chair'. It has folded Steve's six-foot frame into a pretzel and she knows that he's going to pay for that later.

Chin stands near the window staring out into the bright Hawaiian sun. Kono hands him a cup of coffee, which he gratefully takes. "How is he?" She asks, tilting her head in Danny's direction.

"No change." Chin takes a drink and turns so he can lean against the windowsill. His eyes land on Steve and he frowns.

"And the boss?" She asks.

Chin sighs and shakes his head. "He's a mess. I know the doctor's told him that Danny wouldn't wake up again for a while, but two days? Steve isn't handling this very well. Grace has been here twice and if anyone could have pull Danny out of this, it's her."

"I swear this is like torture." Kono whispers before settling next to her cousin.

"Yeah, it is. I haven't slept through the night since it happened." The bags under Chin's eyes are a testament to his profound concern for his friend. Danny is one of the few people that he trusts implicitly. The Jersey native had told him once that he 'had Chin's back' and he'd proved that over and over in the last four years. This team that they all fight so hard for? It doesn't work without Danny Williams.

"Me neither." Steve's voice interrupts the natives and they both turn to look at him. His scruffy beard and tired eyes stare back. He looks at the extra cup of coffee in Kono's hands. "That for me?"

She smiles and hands it to him. "Thought you could use a pick me up." Kono sets her purse down and pulls out a bag of malasadas. "Hungry?"

Steve shakes his head and takes a grateful sip of the coffee. "Nah, I'm good. Thanks." His shoulder is killing him today. He keeps refusing the pain medication because it might make him 'loopy' and he wants to be clear headed when Danny wakes up. He's had four days to think about how he's going to fix this with his partner. Four days…it's been four days since Danny's accident and subsequent hospitalization. Doctor Kekoa removed the chest tube late the previous afternoon, so Danny was slowly healing, but it isn't fast enough for Steve.

A soft groan from the vicinity of the white sheets has three sets of eyes flashing toward the smaller man in the bed. Blue eyes meet their surprised stares.

"Danny?!" Chin says before he's moving closer to the bed. "How ya feeling, brah?" Kono can't help the smile that spreads across her face.

Danny blinks a few times and finally manages force some words past his chapped lips. "Thirsty."

"I'll go." Kono says when Steve starts moving toward the door to get a nurse. A moment later she returns with a small cup of water and ice chips. The doctor is right on her heels and Chin winces when he sees disappointment in Steve's eyes. He hasn't had a chance to say anything to the detective.

Twenty minutes later the stream of nurses and doctor's exit Danny's room. They still don't have any answers about the extent of the damage to his spine, but at least he can move his toes. So that's a positive. Chin gently takes Kono's arm and pulls her from the room.

She leans in and hugs Danny as best she can. "We'll be back."

"Can you bring Gracie?" He asks quietly.

For Steve it's like being knifed in the back. He would have happily gone to get the little girl and bring her to see Danny. He leans further into the wall, if that's possible, and waits for the cousins to leave. Once they do, he's trying to figure out what to say to the injured man looking at him from the confines of the hospital bed.

Danny, true to form, starts talking first. "I'm sorry."

"What?" Steve can't hide the surprise in his voice as he stands up and moves closer to the bed.

Danny's chewing on the inside of his cheek. It might be from pain, but it might be because he's struggling to find the words. "About what I said…about your dad." His blue gaze falls and he stares at the bedding. "I'm sorry. It wasn't fair and I crossed a line."

Steve very rarely gets caught off guard. Generally Steve is two steps ahead of every situational turn; it's what makes him good at his job, the ability to think ahead. But Danny Williams got ahead of him on this one and cracked open the emotions Steve's been desperately trying to hide. His eyes burn and he has to sit down before his legs fail and he falls. Danny's apologizing for something I knew he didn't mean at the time. Lying in a hospital bed, having nearly died, and he's worried about what he said to me?

H50 H50

The room feels two sizes too small and Danny can't bring himself to look at Steve. What if he doesn't accept my apology? What am I going to do? They've fought over the years. In truth, they fought more than anyone Danny had ever known and that included Rachel. But he can't imagine his life without the stubborn SEAL. His memories are jumbled up and he's not sure if he actually woke up before and Steve wasn't there or was that a dream? The memory of being alone squeezes some of the air from his lungs and he has to force himself to take a breath.

Without meaning to Danny checks out of the situation in front of him and gets drawn into memories. Or were they dreams? He doesn't know anymore. Danny can't imagine that Rachel wouldn't care enough to at least make sure he's okay, or that she would keep Grace from knowing what's going on with him.

"Danny?" Steve's voice pulls him out of the thoughts and he turns to look at the other man. Worry has etched deep lines into the SEAL's face as he leans over the bed. "You with me now?"

"Yeah, sorry."

Steve shakes his head and sinks into the chair. "Stop apologizing. None of this is your fault."

A wave of pain surges through Danny and he grits his teeth and rides it out, finally managing. "Then whose is it? Cuz I'm pretty sure I was driving when this happened." He's silent for a moment then continues. "Maybe it's a good thing you usually drive."

It feels like someone just sent an arrow through his heart when Danny says that. Steve's eyes widen and he shakes his head. "You don't mean that."

Danny can't help the slight smile that works its way onto his face. "No. I don't."

Steve smiles and then his face clouds again. "Danny, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean what I said." Emotion has him gulping down a lump in his throat. "You are the best damn partner I've ever had. A stubborn son of a bitch, but the best partner." There's a brief pause. "In truth, you're the only partner I've ever had." Danny starts to respond, but Steve holds up a hand stopping him. "No, it's my turn to talk." Danny's eyes are filled with concern, but he stays silent. "I've had a lot of team members in my life, but I've only ever had one partner. And that's you, buddy."

It's truth in its purest form and Danny can see that. He wants nothing more than to permanently remove that devastated look from his friend's face. He doesn't know how to answer the other man. "So how bad is it?" It's a lame attempt at changing the subject, but Steve jumps on the bait.

"How bad is what?"

Danny tilts his head to the side. "My car."

Steve's face splits into a wide grin. "Totaled."

"Son of a bitch, I really liked that one." Danny's words are soft as he starts to drift off again. Steve can finally lean back in the chair next to the bed and breathe a sigh of relief. His friend. No, his brother is going to be okay…they are going to be okay.

H50 H50

Steve watches as Grace pulls out picture after picture for her father. She's chattering about everything from school to the new puppy step-Stan got her. Danny listens carefully to everything his daughter has to say, his eyes are heavy, but he's happy. The bruising on his face had started to fade from angry black and purple to sickly yellow and green. And the swelling in his left eye has gone down enough that he no longer looks like he went twelve rounds with Mike Tyson.

The doctors had come by earlier to check Danny over. They removed the bandages around his head, except for those covering the burr holes. So he didn't look like something that escaped the mental institution anymore. The swelling in his arm had gone down enough that they were planning on setting his arm the next day, so one more surgery.

"And the puppy, I'm naming her Miley, skidded across the floor. It was hilarious." Grace's animated story had Danny smiling and shaking his head.

"A puppy named Miley, huh?" He looks over at Steve and rolls his eyes slightly. "And where, pray tell, is Miley going to sleep when you're at my place?"

Grace straightens and becomes extremely serious. "She's going to sleep with me. I have to take care of her dad. She's my responsibility."

Danny has to admit that he's kinda impressed by his daughter's very adult answer to his question. Chin's eyebrows rise and he smirks from his position near the window and Kono snorts a laugh. Steve also tries to hide a smug smile. Danny glares at them in turn and then looks back at Grace. "Well okay then." He shifts his gaze to Steve. "You do realize that we're all riding in your truck for a while, right?"

The smile fades. "I have a strict 'no dogs in the truck' rule." Steve answers quickly.

"Well, I don't currently have a car so that means you, as my partner, are responsible for driving me around. That includes my daughter's dog." He is so poker-faced when he makes the statement that Steve can't help the laugh that bubbles up from somewhere inside his soul.

"Okay."

Danny narrows his eyes. He wants verbal confirmation of this. "Okay what?"

Steve huffs in mock annoyance. "Okay, the dog can ride in the truck."

Danny smiles and leans back into the pillows. "Fantastic."

"You want us to come back later?" Kono asks when she sees how tired their teammate is.

Danny shakes his head. "No. I like having you guys here." He shifts a little. "Helps me sleep."

TBC…

Author's Note: The last chapter is the epilogue. We'll get to see Danny deal with the return to work and Steve deal with having to watch it. Plus, remember the guns? Well, that case isn't quite done yet. One more twist in the story that will put a bit of wrinkle in Danny's recovery. Thanks so much for the response to this story you guys have been amazing.

PLEASE REVIEW: I was thinking that I might do a sequel to this one and cover what happens in the aftermath of this accident and case in that one. Let me know if you guys are interested in that.