Synopsis: The road to recovery isn't as easy as Danny Williams thought it would be. Steve McGarrett is hiding inside his mile-high emotional wall and, without meaning to; he has started blocking Danny out. But when gun smugglers come searching for payback, will Steve be there for Danny? Or will his Jersey partner be forever silenced. 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 opened a can of worms in the first story, 'Words can Kill'. Here's the sequel.

Chapter Eleven:

Bond of Brothers

Steve could feel the painful return of consciousness. His chest hurt. His entire body was aching in a way that only happened after things went sideways in life. The pressure in his head was trying to split his skull open and he wondered whether or not it was worth shoving his eyelids open. He was pretty sure it wasn't. Pain had a way of making a person hyperaware of their body's present condition and waking up was no exception to that rule. He allowed his thoughts to wander and eventually licked his lips as thirst crept through his throat.

"Steve?" Chin's voice cut through the haze and he couldn't deny where he was anymore. If the smell of antiseptic hadn't been enough of a clue, the presence of his friend was. He wondered for a moment why he was hearing only the older cop. Where's Danny? Never once in the all the time that he'd known the Jersey cop had he left Steve alone in a hospital…never.

Suddenly he was struggling to get up, his body reacting instinctively to the absent personality in the room before his mind had completely caught up.

"Steve! Calm down. You're safe." Chin said as he placed a gentle palm on Steve's chest, forcing him back down.

The SEAL sucked in a breath as his muscles contracted with a fiery pain that was spreading outward from the soft pressure on his chest. "Ouch…" He managed to croak out. His eyelids popping open and he immediately squeezed them shut again as the light pierced his pupils and pain lanced through his head like shattered glass. "Where's Danny?"

Steve heard Chin suck in a breath. "You don't remember?" The other man asked quietly.

"I'm guessing I'm missing something, Chin." He mumbled. He forced his eyelids open again. "Is it Danny? Is he hurt?"

"What's the last thing you remember?"

Steve reached up and rubbed his hand down his face, the IV line dragged over his chest and he groaned when it pulled painfully on the needle in his hand. "Uh…the Benichi case. The woman that convinced a student to take out her husband."

"Steve…that was two weeks ago. You don't remember anything else?" Chin's eyes were concerned, but he was definitely holding something back.

He could hear the surprise in his friend's voice, which meant that Steve was missing time. He was no stranger to concussions; he'd had enough of them in his life to know that he would get that time back eventually. But he also knew that he must be missing something very important…and where the hell was Danny?

"Chin? Where is Danny?" He concentrated on making the request very clear and one that his friend couldn't talk his way out of.

"He's still in surgery."

Steve's eyes shifted several times as he tried to understand that. "How bad?"

"Bad." The one word answer wasn't what Steve wanted to hear. If Danny had been able he would have been sitting by Steve's bed when he woke up. Which meant, that he hadn't been able…

Steve forced his aching body higher in the bed. "What the hell happened?"

Chin sighed and sank into the chair next to his boss's hospital bed. "We don't know exactly. Danny was taken three days ago and you were taken forty-eight hours after that. I found you swimming in the ocean, Steve. I have no idea how you got there—"

"—Danny?" He was going to keep circling back to that until Chin answered his questions.

"He was in a lava tube."

Snippets of memories were tickling the edges of Steve's conscious mind, but they didn't make sense. He was in that tube with Danny…and then he was in the ocean. Why would I leave Danny? He wondered silently.

"He was kidnapped?" Steve reasoned after a moment. It wasn't unusual for Five-0 to make enemies. They had managed to cut the crime rate in Oahu by close to fifty percent over the last four years. He'd been taken by Wo-Fat, Kono had been taken, even Chin himself had had been kidnapped and dropped in the middle Halawa prison. Danny had been forced to cooperate with bad guys, but he'd never been taken by any. So the list of people that could have a grudge against the blonde cop was massive and thinking about it hurt Steve's head.

"What about his injuries?" Steve's skull was throbbing painfully, but he didn't want to be drugged, so he kept silent about the pain.

Kono's voice interrupted the pair and Chin stood up clearing a place for her to sit down. Adam leaned against the door of Steve's room. "Broken arm, four broken ribs, two cracked, stabbed in the side and that's severely infected, they're trying to remove the necrotic tissue, and the compressed discs in his back are worse." She took a breath and Steve knew that she wasn't saying something.

"What else, Kono?" Every injury that she listed off was like being branded with guilt, that happened whenever any of his team was injured. Steve was trying to wrap his head around the laundry list of life threatening problems his friend was currently fighting. Any one of those would have been bad enough, but combined they were a recipe for disaster.

She swallowed and looked over at Adam, he stepped inside and laid supportive hands on her shoulders. "He has a grade three concussion and it's being compounded by pneumonia."

"How did he get taken?" Steve wasn't a hundred percent that he wanted to know this, because he had a sinking feeling that somehow this was his fault. He knew that he'd been unfairly punishing Danny over the last several weeks. But he just couldn't seem to get on top of his own anger and guilt. Steve knew from past experience that it took him longer than the average person to move on from something. And having the images of Danny and that crash vividly painted inside his head hadn't made that any easier.

H50 H50

Danny was standing in the deserted airport. His hands hanging limply at his sides, his phone held loosely. The message from Rachel was very clear. She'd waited for him as long as she could and he'd chosen Steve and Five-0 over her and Grace. And now she was gone. He pulled his lower lip between his teeth and swallowed the lump that was preventing him from breathing normally.

For the first time in his life, Daniel Williams didn't know what to do. His heart was stuttering in his chest and it felt as though the room was closing in on him. 'Panic attack'…he knew the signs. Every time he thought about small spaces it was the same. He had to get out of there, right now. He scrambled out of the waiting area and hustled to the Camaro, his breaths coming in short ineffectual pants. He leaned against the silver car and just tried to breathe.

Eventually, he slid behind the wheel just as his body failed him and he had to leaned out the side again…and threw up the meager contents of his stomach. He'd lost his family. Danny didn't regret helping Steve that night. Steve had been falsely accused of killing the Governor. There was no doubt in Danny's mind that he'd made the right call…but it was heart-wrenching to know that he'd sacrificed his one chance to make his own small family whole again.

And if that hadn't been enough. 'Which it most certainly had been.' Danny hadn't been able to save Steve. His friend was in prison, Five-0 had been disbanded, Kono was suspended pending investigation, and Chin? He'd gone running back to HPD. Now there was only Danny looking out for their 'Ohana' and he'd lost his own family in the process. The realizations were painful and all he wanted to do was crawl inside a bottle of Scotch and stay there for a month.

He wiped the spit from his mouth and pulled the door shut. The drive home had been awful. Okay, well no…the really awful part had happened when he walked in the door and saw a pair of Grace's flip flops sitting innocently by the couch. All the emotions of the past twenty-two hours crashed down on him and Danny was helpless to stop it. He sank down onto the floor of his apartment and cried. He cried for all the things that 'might' have been and all the things he'd lost. Emotions welled up from the black pit he usually kept them hidden in and broke down his last reserves of strength.

Two days later…

He was driving toward his spot. The place that overlooked the ocean and always helped him think. Because Danny needed to think right now. He needed to decide how to best help Steve. It was late and his friend had been in prison for two days for a murder he didn't commit. The moon was full tonight, casting its gentle white light down on the road as Danny drove. The air wafting through the open windows of the Camaro smelled like the flowers that bloomed year round, mixed with the earthy scents of grass.

Danny's phone rang; he ignored it after glancing down and seeing that it was Rachel. He pinched at the bridge of his nose in resignation as the phone stopped ringing. He reached down and shifted into fifth gear when the road opened up. The familiar rumble of his car didn't calm him like it normally did. Instead it reminded him that Steve wasn't in the car too.

He hadn't even made it a mile before his phone started ringing again…Rachel. "Shit." Danny sighed and swiped the 'answer' button. "Didn't you say everything in the message?" He asked immediately.

"Daniel." She admonished and he groaned at her ability to make him feel like he was the bad guy in all of this. His heart ached at the way her voice slipped in and wrapped itself around his soul. At some point he was going to have to accept that he and Rachel were over…but he wasn't ready to deal with all that yet.

'And here we go with the 'Daniel's' he thought bitterly as he waited for her to continue.

"Grace and I will be back in two weeks." She said quietly.

That surprised the Jersey cop. He swallowed nervously. Had she changed her mind about them? Danny wasn't sure that he could keep allowing Rachel inside his heart. Every time it got more difficult to recover when she ripped it out. He was afraid that if it happened again, he wouldn't…recover. "Why?" There was so much more that he wanted to say to her, but he knew that it needed to be said in person.

There was a pause and he got a sudden sense of foreboding. "What's going on, Rachel?"

He rounded a corner and sighed as he pulled off into a space near the road. His blue gaze shifted to the moonlight shining off the surface of the ocean. Once she started speaking he was glad he'd stopped. Because she dropped one hell of a bomb on him and he likely would have crashed his car trying to absorb it.

"I'm moving back in with Stan. We're going to try and make it work."

Danny swallowed and took that in. Why was she telling him all this. She'd already made it clear that they were over, so what was the point of the conversation. If she'd wanted to hurt him, she'd already accomplished that in a way he would never fully recover from. "I don't need to know that. Why…why are you telling me all this, Rachel. We're not married and you made it abundantly clear that you wanted nothing from me beyond my kids…so…I don't understand what's happening right now." And the sad part was, he really 'didn't know what she was getting at.

"Kid." She corrected quietly.

"What?" He hadn't really been listening, but he couldn't have heard that correctly. Something in his stomach twisted painfully and he knew that he was about to have his world blown apart…again.

"Kid...the baby…I'm further along than I thought." She pulled in a ragged breath. "You're not the father, Daniel."

Everything she'd done to date had nothing on that one statement. Rachel had managed to out do herself with this one. "It's Stan's?" He asked quietly. "That baby…Stan is the father?" Every syllable he uttered was like trying to cut his own heart out with a spoon and he closed his eyes, dropping his head onto his chest. He hadn't known she'd been sleeping with both of them at the same time.

"Yes. We're going to try and make it work…for the sake of the baby." She said softly.

Danny swallowed the lump of emotion and leaned back against the seat.

"I'm sorry, Daniel." She whispered before the line went dead.

Danny slowly pulled the phone from his ear and let it drop onto the seat next to him. He pressed the palms of his hands into his aching eyes and allowed the disappointment and the anger wash through him.

H50 H50

Steve was staring at the roof of his cement cell. His arms thrown behind his head and his legs crossed at the ankles. He was thinking about the ocean and the fact that it had been three days since he'd last been swimming. The feeling of freedom that he got from slicing through the water in long fluid strokes was missing from his life and he hated it. He missed having beers on the lanai with Danny. He missed his own bed. He missed Danny.

It was strange. Steve had been gone from Hawaii for close to twenty years and he'd only been back for one, but he'd already fallen into comfortable habits…and he missed them.

"McGarrett! You got a visitor." A guard's voice pulled him from his musings.

He knew it would be Danny. His partner was the only one that had been to visit him since he'd been arrested. He understood…he really did. But the fact that Danny was the one that had lost his 'everything' and he was the one that was trying like hell to get Steve through this? It meant everything to the SEAL. Kono couldn't visit. Her suspension prevented that and Chin? Steve still wasn't sure what was happening with the older cop.

The moment he saw Danny, Steve knew there was something wrong. The man's blue eyes were haunted and dull. And he was wearing a cheap t-shirt. Which for Danny was like parading a broken heart around on his sleeve. Something had happened with Rachel. Steve pressed his lips together and sank down, grabbing the phone off the wall.

Danny tilted his head at the look on his friend's face, he knew. Somehow his super-ninja-SEAL partner knew.

"What happened, Danny?"

Danny sighed. He hadn't slept since getting the phone call the previous night and he was tired and heartsick. And the only person he could talk to was wearing bright orange and staring at him through a plexi-glass window. "How's Rachel? She and Grace okay? What about the baby?" Steve pressed.

Danny wanted to explain to Steve so badly his chest was aching. But he couldn't lay this guilt at this man's feet. Not right now. Because Steve would think 'he' was responsible and he wasn't. This was entirely Danny's fault. It was the culmination of so many choices. "She's uh…Rachel's good. How're you? You good?"

Steve knew that he wasn't going to get the man to talk if he didn't want to, but damn if he wasn't willing to try. "Danny…come on man. You look like shit."

"Why thank you, Steven. I appreciate the anti-compliment. How about, 'Hey Danny. Thanks for coming to visit me while I rot in this hellhole?'" He sighed and scrubbed a hand through his blonde hair when Steve continued to stare at him in silence. "You don't look all that great either, babe." Danny finished lamely.

Steve's eyebrows cut down in concern. "I know, but I'm in prison. What's your excuse?"

Danny licked his lips and looked away from Steve for a moment before muttering. "Been a rough couple of days."

"Yeah, buddy. I know." Steve leaned forward. "Seriously, Danny…what's going on with you?"

After taking a deep breath, Danny leaned back in the chair. "Uh…me and Rachel…it's not going to happen." He finally admitted.

Steve's eyes widened and his mouth dropped open in surprise. Last he'd heard things were going really well for the detective and his ex-wife. They were even expecting another baby. "Why not?" He had a sinking feeling that he knew 'exactly' why Danny wasn't getting his second chance.

"She wants to stay in Jersey." Danny said in a stilted voice. He wasn't ready to tell Steve that Rachel was actually coming back and that she was carrying Stan's child. He shuddered internally at the thought.

Danny's hands were woefully still and Steve watched his friend suffer without the ability to do anything about it. "Does that mean you're going back too?" He didn't want to ask the question. But it would certainly explain Danny's haggard look.

Danny shook his head. "No. I'm not going back to New Jersey. My place is here."

H50 H50

It took another four hours before Danny was wheeled into ICU. His lungs were functioning only because of the ventilator that was breathing for him. Steve had fought like hell to be aloud to see his partner. His memory was still fractured, but he knew that neither of them should be alive.

Chin wheeled him into the ICU after arguing vehemently with the desk nurse. Kono and Adam had stayed in Steve's room, because they couldn't have that many people in Danny's room.

Danny looked small. Steve knew that his partner was short, by comparison to himself, but seeing him hooked up to so many machines that they dwarfed the snarky blonde, was terrifying. Danny's face was discolored with bruising, a bandage covering his left cheekbone. His hands were silent and still where they rested near his sides. His right arm was back in a cast.

The ventilator was making a slight 'whoosh, whoosh, whoosh' as it breathed for the other man. The faint beeping of the heart rate monitor told Steve that Danny was alive, but that was the only indicator. There were no other movements from his partner.

"What are his chances?" Steve finally murmured.

Chin inhaled deeply and sat in the tiny chair near the window. He couldn't tell Steve that Danny's chances of coming out of this whole were less than twenty percent. That was something that the other man didn't need to know…not yet. "He's strong, Steve. He'll make it."

Steve didn't turn away from the bed. "You didn't answer my question, Chin." He resolved quietly.

"The doctor's won't know for certain until he wakes up."

Now the SEAL turned toward his older friend. "And when will that be?"

Chin shook his head. "They don't know."

Steve reached out and carefully picked up Danny's left hand. It was colder than it should be. "Can I have a minute with him, Chin?" He asked.

The other man nodded and stepped to the door. "I'll be right outside if you need anything."

"Thanks." Steve muttered. His eyes dropping back to Danny. Once Chin was out of the room Steve leaned forward in his wheelchair ignoring the pains of his body. "Danny…I know you can hear me, buddy. So I need you to do something for me." Steve pulled in a breath. "I need you to fight. Grace needs you to fight." At the sound his Grace's name Danny's heart rate picked up slightly and then settle back into the same rhythm. "We're not done cleaning up this island yet, pal. You and me, we got unfinished business." He paused as he tried to figure out what he wanted to tell the unconsciousness man. "And I can't do this without you, Danny. I can't. You blew into my life and you changed it in ways I didn't know I needed. And I can't go back." He laid leaned further forward and laid his head on the white linen of the hospital bed, near Danny's shoulder. "Please, Danno…just fight. Like you've fought everything else in your life…fight this."

H50 H50

Kono was leaning against Adam as he dozed. Steve and Chin would be back soon and she couldn't bring herself to leave. An Asian doctor stepped into the room. He was tall in an expensive suit, which Kono found odd. Most doctors in this place wore scrubs because the nature of the job. To many good clothes could get ruined in the pursuit of medical care.

The man looked at her and she could see that she'd surprised him, but not as much as the empty bed had. "Where's the patient?" He asked. The slight Russian accent caught her off guard and she sat up straighter, Adam's eyes opened, but he stayed silent.

"Steve went to visit a friend." Kono answered.

The man frowned. "He's not supposed to be out of bed yet." The words were right, but the sentiment was all wrong and it set off every warning bell that Kono had developed as a cop over the last four years.

"Uh, yeah…his attending said it was fine. Doctor…" She waited for him to fill in the last name since he wasn't wearing a nametag.

"Doctor's fine." The man said quickly. "I'll just stop by later then." He turned and left the room.

Kono looked over at Adam, he was wearing the same confused expression she was. "That was weird." He observed.

"Yeah, it was." She shook her head. "Something about that guy is off."

Chin and Steve appeared at that moment and Kono jerked her head to the door as soon Chin helped Steve settle back in the bed. He nodded and followed her to just outside Steve's room. "What's up, cuz?"

"We need to put HPD outside Steve and Danny's rooms. No one gets in to see them without our authorization." She was keeping her voice low in case the man was still creeping about somewhere.

"Why? What happened?" Chin wasn't doubting his cousin's instincts, but he wanted all the facts. As Kono explained about the 'doctor' he could feel his anger rising slowly and surely. "And you think this might one of the guys involved with Danny's kidnapping?"

Kono nodded. "Get a sketch artist down here and I'll give him a description, but yeah…I think this might be one of the guys."

Chin nodded. "Okay. I'm gonna go sit with Danny and you stay here with Steve until Duke can assign us a couple of patrols."

H50 H50

The man watched as nurses and doctors trickled in and out of the detective's room. He held the syringe tightly in one hand. Eventually he tucked it inside the pocket of the white lab coat. He was pretty sure that Five'0's female officer suspected something, so he needed to act quickly. He started toward Danny's room.

TBC…

Author's Note: Sorry for the cliffhanger…I know, I hate them too. But the story's coming around toward a conclusion and this seemed like a good place to stop for Chapter Eleven.

Thank you to everyone that took a moment to review the previous chapter. You guys are phenomenal.

PLEASE REVIEW: And I won't make you wait too long to see what's happening with Danny.