So, I thought this chapter was done... even had another version of it uploaded to add to the story... when I realized that I had given Rachel a sit-rep without doing one for Mary. So of course I had to go back and write the other half of the chapter. Sorry for keeping you all waiting. I'll try to be quick with the next chapter, too.
BTW, still taking votes on who's talking to whom in terms of the giving comfort...
And I always love reviews...
Sit-Rep
"What I don't get is why they roughed them up so bad." Kono pondered aloud as they left the hospital. "None of the other hostages had even so much as a broken nail."
"I dunno, cuz. Maybe just because they're cops." Chin answered. "Maybe because Steve and Danny pissed them off. We'll have to ask them when we wake up."
"Yeah. We can't exactly ask the bad guys, can we?" Kono's tone was completely unrepentant; she hadn't known how badly her teammates had been hurt while in the firefight, but having seen them and heard the appalling lists of their injuries, she was glad that none of the three gang members had survived the shootout. They deserved what they got.
Chin sighed as they neared Kono's little red sports car. "We need to get in touch with Rachel and Mary. You got a preference?"
"Why don't I drop you off at your place and you can call Mary, and I'll go to Rachel's to tell her. I think I'd rather tell her in person."
"You sure, cuz? Rachel can rant every bit as well as Danny."
"Yeah. I'm sure."
"Alright, but I still think I got the easy job. Call me if you need me, okay?"
.
H
5
0
.
Kono punched in the code at the gate and drove right up to the house. Danny's right. She really needs to change that code. She sighed. Danny.
Gathering her nerves, Kono got out of her car and knocked on the door. To her surprise, Rachel answered it herself. When she saw Kono standing there, she paled and sagged against the doorframe as her hand flew to her mouth. "He's not...?"
Kono stepped in and wrapped an arm around Rachel, offering her physical as well as emotional support. "No, Rachel, he's not dead. He's hurt badly, but the doctors expect him to recover." Taking a step towards the lavish living room, she added, "Come on, let's go sit before you fall down."
Rachel let herself be led over to the couch. After they were both settled on the seat, she raised her eyes to meet Kono's before letting them roam the room and the windows. "I'm sorry; I overreacted, I guess. I just thought... when I saw you standing there...
"You have no idea how many nightmares I've had, where Danny's partner came to tell me he was dead. The idea of that, of having a police officer, someone I knew, one of Danny's friends, coming to my door with tears in their eyes, to tell me that the love of my life was dead... that used to eat at me constantly. It was one of the things that drove us apart, that constant worry. It haunted me. It still does, in fact. Although now I usually imagine Steve, his face contorted in grief of his own, and yet trying to hide his pain and offer me support, because that's who he is.
"But when I saw you standing there, all drawn and sad, all I could think was, 'Oh, God, it's finally happened."
She met Kono's eyes again. "And you have no idea how happy I am that I was wrong."
Kono swallowed. Now for the hard part. I have to tell her. All of it. "It could have been, Rachel." Kono gulped back the tears that were forming in her eyes just thinking about the possibility. "If we'd been late- if we hadn't gotten there when we did and got them help- I'm not sure how much longer they could have held out. They're both hurt bad, Rachel. Real bad. Broken bones and internal injuries and needing transfusions. Steve's on oxygen and they're both hooked up to heart monitors and EEGs. The doctors are doing repeat scans every few hours to make sure they don't start bleeding into their brains. They've got them rated on some coma scale, even though they're hopeful that they'll wake up tomorrow as the anesthesia from surgery wears off. But the doctors also said it might also be okay if they don't wake up all the way, because they're going to need a lot of sleep to heal and if they're sleeping they won't be in pain."
Kono reached for the other woman as tears streamed down her face. Wrapping her in a hug, she repeated the most important fact. "But he's alive, Rach. He's alive. Him and Steve both. They're both alive, and they're both fighters. They're gonna get better. We just gotta give 'em time, and make sure they don't overdo it, being SuperSEAL and his Backup-Man and trying to save the world."
The last sentence wrung a smile and a giggle from Rachel, although the tears didn't stop.
"My Danny? Overdo things?"
"Momma?" Grace's sleepy voice interrupted from the hallway, waking up as she realized who was sitting on the couch. "Auntie Kono?" She ran into the room and threw herself into Kono's arms. "Is Danno okay?" She pulled back to look unhappily at her favorite 'aunt'. "Mommy said you and Uncle Chin found Danno and Uncle Steve this morning, and you were gonna tell us when we could go see them as soon as the doctors told you. Why didn't you call? Why didn't you come sooner? I was really worried! Is Danno okay?"
"I'm sorry Grace. I'm sorry you had to worry for so long. Your daddy and uncle Steve were hurt bad, and it took a long time for the doctors to fix up all their hurts. They only came to tell us about your Dad," she checked her watch, "about an hour ago. And since then, all I did was visit your Dad and uncle Steve for a few minutes, drive uncle Chin home, and come here to tell you and your Mom."
"But they did fix him up, right? And we can go see Danno and Steve in the hospital tomorrow, right?"
Kono looked over at Rachel, and then back at Grace. "If your Mom says so, Gracie. But you have to realize, if you go see your Dad tomorrow, he might not be awake. The doctors said mostly all he's going to do for a pretty long time is sleep. Wake up sometimes to eat, and then fall back asleep." Kono stopped and sent Rachel a questioning look, to see if she wanted her to tell Grace more about Danny's injuries. Rachel silently nodded her okay to continue.
"The other thing is that because your Daddy's hurt, they have him hooked up to a lot of machines. He has tubes stuck in his nose to make sure he gets enough oxygen, and there are little leads..." How do I explain this to her? "Um, like little stickers with wires on them, attached to your Dad's chest and head."
"Why does he need those?" interrupted Grace, her tone caught somewhere between fearful and curious. Kono hoped she could explain this without making it even more frightening to the little girl.
"Well, the wires are hooked up to monitors- TV screens- and they make pictures. The doctors look at the pictures they make and can tell how your Dad's doing... How much better he's getting," she amended.
"So my Danno's getting better?"
"Yes, Gracie, your Danno's getting better. Even though right now he has so many bruises and bandages that he looks like a half-wrapped mummy that someone decided to spray paint, he is getting better."
"Good." Grace's tone was firm.
"Now, Grace, I think you'd best be getting back off to bed," Rachel admonished. "You need to sleep, too."
"But, Mom, I wanna stay up and talk to Aunt Kono some more."
"No 'but's, young lady. Back to bed."
Kono yawned. "Don't worry, Gracie. I think I'm going to go home and go to bed, too." I've been awake more than forty-three hours in a row now, but it feels like at least twice that long. This has been the longest forty hours of my entire life.
.
H
5
0
.
The cell phone rang once, and Mary grabbed it so hard it shot out of her hands. She grabbed after it awkwardly, fumbling around with fingers made clumsy by worry. Finally getting the flip phone open, she started barraging it with questions even before she got it to her ear.
"Is Steve okay? What's happening? Did he wake up? Are there problems? What..."
"Shh, Mary," Chin intoned calmly, interrupting before Mary could work herself into any more of a frenzy. "Steve's in the ICU..."
"The ICU?" Mary shrieked.
"Hey, could you keep it down, lady?" asked the guy in the seat next to her. "Some of us are trying to sleep here."
Chin frowned at his phone, having clearly heard the other voice. "Mary, where are you?"
"On a plane, halfway to Hawaii. Because I'm worried out of my mind about my brother, since someone- I believe his name was Chin Ho Kelly- called me this morning to tell me he'd brought Steve to the hospital unconscious and completely unresponsive and that he'd call me back as soon as they had any news. And when, after four hours- four freaking hours!- no one had called me back and no one would answer their phones, I called the hospital, who told me he was still in surgery. So I got on a plane, because I knew whatever was wrong, it had to be serious," Mary whispered, her voice every bit as her brother's SEAL growl. "Now spill! Why is my brother in the ICU? What happened to him, how bad is he hurt? He's not gonna..." she gulped, "die... is he?"
Chin sighed deeply. "The doctors say he's stable. He's really badly beat up, but they expect him to recover."
"What do you mean, beat up? A little beating wouldn't stop my brother. Dammit, we're talking about someone who threw himself out of an ambulance with a shiv stuck in his side."
'Yeah, well, this was a systematic beating that basically lasted close to twenty-six hours, with time outs only when Steve was out cold," Chin said, unaware that his statement had taken away Mary's ability to to breathe on the other end of the phone. "It involved several guys, something wooden that left splinters in his scalp, and according to the forensics team, a crowbar. They don't expect Steve to wake up for a day or two, because his head took such a beating."
"Oh. God." Mary managed to gasp. "But you said he's alive?"
"Miss? Are you okay?" one of the flight attendants laid a hand on her shoulder, having noticed Mary's sudden paleness and shallow breathing. The fact that it was after midnight in LA and over ninety percent of the passengers were asleep had made her more attentive to those still awake.
Mary lifted a hand to wave her off, but the smile she tried to paste on looked more like a grimace. "Chin?"
"Yes, Mary, he's alive. The doctors are watching him very closely, and they expect him to recover." Chin took a breath, having heard the other woman's voice over the phone. "How about you?"
"Better, now, I think."
"I doubt that."
"No, really. At least now I don't have worry trying quite so hard to rip my guts apart."
"Yeah, waiting is the worst. It doesn't matter what the doc has to say, as long as you don't have to sit there and imagine the funeral anymore, eh?"
"Yeah," Mary managed to choke out. Suddenly an awful possibility presented itself to her, and she just had to ask Chin one more thing.
"Chin... he's not... he can't.. he wouldn't want to live if..." Mary closed her eyes and steeled herself to just admit the possibility. "Steve's not gonna have brain damage, is he?"
Chin swallowed hard. He'd asked the same question while staring at his friend in the ICU. "We won't really know for sure until he wakes up, but the doctors say there's no sign of brain damage on the X-rays, CAT scans, or MRIs."
As he heard Mary start to cry, Chin tried to think of something he could say that would be comforting. In the end, he decided to take a stab at humor. "Hey, come on. We both know Steve's got a hard head. Danny once told him that the reason SWAT wears helmets and Steve doesn't is because Steve's thick skull could probably stop a bullet."
Several hundred miles away, Mary coughed out half a laugh and wiped tears off her cheeks. Swallowing, she replied, "Thanks, Chin."
"That's what ohana's for," he replied. "When does your flight get in? Do you have somewhere to stay?"
"I've got a spare key for the house." The shake in her voice told Chin exactly which house she meant.
"Do you know the security codes?"
"The key wouldn't do much good without those, would it? I'll take a cab there when I get in, and see you tomorrow at the hospital?"
"Okay. And Mary? Try not to worry. Steve'll get through this."
As he tossed his phone on the nightstand, Chin couldn't help thinking, I was wrong. Telling someone this kind of news over the phone is way harder than telling anyone in person could possibly be.