I do not own Hawaii Five-0 or any characters. No copyright infringement intended.

Notes: I have no idea where the next bit came from. Cervantes anyone? And all I ever think about with Sancho Panza is his darn little mule, his tubby little body, and how he so willingly trotted on his Rucio after Don Quixote and his horse, Rosinante. Yup - that's my visual. Not exactly Danny .. but well .. you probably get the concept!

H5O* H5O* H5O* H5O* H5O*

Chapter Six: Letters P through R, and then some S and T

Kono rubbed her face before twisting her long hair into a messy knot. She had managed to sleep, but not as well as she'd hoped. Now, it was starting to rain and the sound on the window almost made her want to go back to bed. Her time awake had helped her think up some new words in the alphabet though, so she started in on the game as soon as Danny stopped his pacing.

"You look better, Danny." He did for the reluctant amount of rest, hot shower and change of clothes. He was definitely more engaged and much less volatile as he huffed a knowing sound in her direction. She was smiling coyly at him though, and he couldn't help the wry chuckle as he slumped into a chair. He was in a better frame of mind and willing to pick up where they had left off, but Kono would go first.

"Okay. So, tell me what you have."

"Proficient, quick and resilient." Danny's mouth gaped open and his chuckle returned with a bit more of a commitment.

"You used a dictionary or at least Googled all of that."

"I didn't!" Kono was indignant at the idea. "I absolutely did not! What did you come up with?"

He actually hadn't even tried to think of anything. In a state of exhaustion, Danny had finally fallen into a blessedly dreamless sleep and then hadn't even tried to think of anything once Kono had picked him up to return to the hospital. His mind was mostly empty and he was trying to keep it that way.

"Nothing. Quixotic, maybe."

"Quicks?" Kono's face instantly fell blank. "Quick ... what?"

"Quixotic. It means .. oh never mind." Rather than explaining it, Danny tried to change the topic as he went back to mulling her choices. "It doesn't matter, you're right."

"Oh no! You have to give me a clue on that weird word!" Danny sighed before rolling his eyes and trying to describe what he meant to her.

"Like Don Quixote ... he exemplifies being unrealistic and impractical." Kono seemed to have no idea what Danny was getting at as she continued to stare at him with a lost expression. In turn, he looked at her in utter disbelief because he couldn't quite believe that Kono had no idea of the classic or at least some part of it.

"Dream the impossible dream? Tilting at windmills? Man of LaMancha? The Quest?" There was still nothing, literally zero emotion on Kono's face and Danny was nearly beside himself. Turning partly in the chair, he looked at her straight in the eye.

"Seriously? Do you EVER get out?"

"Shut up, Danny." His honestly stunned reaction finally made her defensive and Kono glared back at him. "I surfed a lot."

"Uh huh. Frank Sinatra maybe?" She stuck her tongue out at that and Danny shook his head in total disgust before trying one more way to explain what he meant. "He goes on these crazy, impractical missions using even more crazy, impossible methods. How does delusional strike you?"

"It doesn't actually." Her eyes were dancing with laughter as his hands waved wildly through the air. However, Danny began to wonder how ignorant Kono really was of the Cervantes classic when she asked her next question. "So, this Don ... whatever ... did he have a side-kick?"

"What? Why .. no." Leery of her question, Danny set his jaw stubbornly before shaking his head in denial. There was no way on earth he would mention Sancho Panza. "Nope. He worked alone."

Her lips twitched again before she bit her tongue to keep from laughing as he neatly changed the subject back to accept her first choices.

"Like I said before, yours are fine." Steve was all those things Kono counted off, and he especially needed to be resilient that very moment. Nearly four days would pass before the man would move again .. be allowed to move by doctors who knew better.

Recovery would be closely monitored and exceedingly slow as those same doctors teamed to ensure nothing happened. His face must have shown some of the old rising concern because Kono got up to give Danny a very spontaneous hug.

"He's going to be fine." She was as committed to that statement as the first time she uttered it but she sensed Danny needed to hear it again. "He will be, Danny. He's going to be back on his feet in no time."

He could only nod into her shoulder as he looked at Steve's much too passive face and followed the leads to the heart monitor. According to Ponch, his breath sounds were better too. So much so, that he had already removed the chest drains. It proved that things were improving, but so much more could still be wrong.

"Kono. He needs .. there's just so much." Suddenly sounding hoarse, he gestured emphatically towards the bed and then the heart monitor. "So much .. more. There could be long term damage to his heart muscle and then there's his lungs."

He knew that Steve would call him sensitive, even hyper-sensitive at that. That trait was his very nature because Danny simply did care too much.

"Therein lies my problem." Danny thought privately. He had gotten too close to his co-workers and especially Steve. In his desperation to find a family after a tragic divorce and a life-changing move, he had allowed himself to get much too close to the people he should have maintained a distant, professional relationship with. He stared at Steve, listened to the vent's static noise, and shook his head. What Ponch had described was a life threatening reality and Danny was honestly quite scared to lose another partner. This one, to his own dramatic form of negligence.

"If any of this is chronic, his career is over. He's done and Steve won't be able to live like that." Danny finally said what was most preying on his mind. He went to that dismal, ridiculously dark place and voiced his biggest fear.

It made him sick to think about it and it was obviously something that Kono hadn't considered. At least not in depth. Her mind hadn't gone that far down the path which Doctor Ramirez had tentatively started to sketch for them. But Danny had and now that he had found the courage to say it, he found the worry oppressive.

"He's too young and much too strong for that to be the case." She argued and her eyes flashed in anger at the thought. "Doc Ramirez is very pleased with how he's progressing."

"We're sitting here in ICU. Steve jumped out of a two-story window, Kono. Ramirez is happy but he's still cautious." Danny leveled her with an ominous stare.

"He intentionally jumped and fell .. he's practically destroyed his chest and he's on a ventilator. A machine to help him breathe, Kono, because of significant internal damage." He didn't mean to be so severe or to nearly parrot what Ramirez had told them and he instantly regretted it as Kono's eyes welled with tears.

"I'm sorry." Danny whispered as hung his head between his knees and covered his face with both hands. "We don't know enough yet and neither do the doctors, so forget what I said."

"Why didn't you stop .. five seconds .. and just think?" The angry question flashed across his mind as he dismally heard Kono take in a ragged breath. "I'm sorry. I don't know why I said all of that. We don't need to go there."

"Because it's true." Kono whispered tearfully. "But it's not going to happen like that. It wouldn't be fair to Steve and Doctor Ramirez says he's getting better."

He didn't yet entirely believe it as he nodded and Kono dragged her chair to sit next to him. Knee to knee, they sat there quietly. Danny abstractly smoothed down the tape on one knuckle bandage. Seconds later he was still staring at his hands as if they weren't his own while the name Super SEAL ran through his head.

"Stupid. Stupid man." But he said something else automatically.

"Selfless." At the expense of his own well-being, Steve was perfectly selfless and Kono closed her eyes as way of agreement. She felt Danny shift uncomfortably in his own seat and then heard the inhale before he offered another word.

"Tenacious." She snorted at that and tried to smile before rocking hard into Danny's shoulder to add another.

"Quixotic was better. This is a good one, but I still got something better. Trouble. Plain and simple." He forced a smile out while continuing to look at his hands.

"Yup, that's about right. Plain and simple." Danny lurched to his feet to lean over the bedrail. Steve's face was buried by the ventilator and the worst scratches were covered by small bandages. There was a small bruise by the tiny stitches in the lid of his eye. The whoosh of the machine was embedded in Danny's hearing and he had heard it echoing in his memory while in his empty apartment.

The sound wouldn't quite leave him as Steve's chest artificially rose up and then fell down. But now, they only had a few hours to go and Kono was right. It wouldn't be fair. Danny toyed with the edge of the blanket before sitting back down and seconding her comments.

"Trouble, Steven. You are one helluva trouble magnet. Plain and simple."

~ to be continued ~