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

Notes: uh yeah - saber toothed bunny got loose.

H5O* H5O* H5O* H5O* H5O

Chapter Thirteen

So what had turned into a long first day back to work, eventually settled into a roller coaster week of emotions. Combined with the stress of two major cases, the later Friday hours found Steve holding his aching head as yet another tedious afternoon seemed to drag on endlessly. Nearly dozing at his desk after dry-swallowing over-the-counter pain medication, Steve looked up with a start through his fingers when his door clicked open.

"Go home, Steven." The tie was now happily missing but the dress shirt looking very war-weary and rumpled as Danny leaned over to switch off Steve's desk lamp and close the lid to his PC. Though his eyes might say otherwise, his general expression and tone of voice were matter-of-fact. Evidently Danny had been watching him for the bulk of the day, and somewhere along the way had noticed that Steve wasn't feeling very well.

"I'm fine, Danny." He griped just to be disagreeable in his illness, but Danny persisted with much more determination.

"No. Go home and get some rest." Leaning tiredly back in his chair, Steve grumbled under his breath. Contrary to himself, there was a certain energy leaking out from Danny that said he was in fact, quite busy. Steve tested the theory by pushing in his own way.

"What are you going to do, now? It's Friday and I thought we'd all leave a bit early and go out for a drink." Steve's voice had lost its color not only due to his headache, but because he pretty much knew what the answer would be no matter what he might say. Chin's sobering words of wisdom and Danny's ongoing reserved mannerisms outside of the short sparring match during lunch, only made Steve more uncertain on how to proceed. He only knew that they were both incredibly unhappy.

"A drink is the last thing you need with a migraine." Steve still frowned at the advice because Danny was right. Then without missing a beat, Danny responded to the first half of Steve's tired comment but the excuse was fairly reasonable.

"I'm picking Grace up after her cheerleading practice and I'm taking her out for dinner and a movie. In the meantime, I'm pulling files on Michael Jameson and getting a handle on his work schedule which seems to constantly change; then I'm going to pull out the documents related to the dock murder from 16 months ago. I may have missed something and I've also got a good idea of the elder Jameson's living arrangements and general day-to-day activities."

With skillful dexterity, Danny had again orchestrated a distinct lack of time by blaming casework and Steve would undoubtedly find another highly professional update on his desk come the next business morning.

"Danny. How long do you think you can keep this up?" Again, it wasn't entirely what he had meant to say and Steve sighed as his hand flopped idly on his desk. He grimaced as his vision blurred and he palmed his forehead.

"Are we good at all here .. because I don't intend on going anywhere. We .. uh, as friends .. we need to talk this out."

"Yeah, we're good." Embarrassed about what he was trying to communicate, Steve narrowed his eyes as his partner paused and then shrugged a haphazard affirmative. The finality of his answer though focused on why he'd originally entered Steve's office. Through his splayed fingers that once again settled on his aching forehead, Steve blearily watched as Danny frowned more deeply about what evidently was a very pale and sweaty complexion.

"You're tired, don't feel well, and shouldn't push yourself on your first week back. Go home, leave a bit early like you said and seriously get some rest; I got things under control here."

Danny scowled when Steve grunted and fumbled for his truck keys before he closed his eyes and rubbed his temple repeatedly. He saw him swallow hard and then completely changed his mind about anything to do with the Jameson case. With a migraine and an abysmally bright Hawaiian afternoon, Steve would be beyond miserable in an attempt to drive in a straight line to any destination. The subtle tremble to Steve's finger was the final straw and his scowl tightened because he knew what it was like to do anything feeling so ill. Kono and Chin were due back after following up on other leads related to the Ito issue at Halawa, but Danny made his own decision after glancing at the clock.

"I have time." Danny announced as he crossed his arms authoritatively.

"For what?" Steve peered up curiously at him.

"Forget about driving and get your stuff together. I'm taking you home and then I'll go for Grace. The rest of this stuff can wait." Then Danny was gone before Steve could think to argue or question him further. Pulling himself to his feet, Steve watched as Danny virtually ran through his own office. It took him less than five minutes to save his work on his computer, shut down his equipment and dim the lights. Keys in hand, Danny was waiting for him and refusing to take no for an answer.

"I have plenty of time to pick Grace up from practice. We'll worry about your truck later." Each step was sending a sliver of pain through Steve's head as he dared to nod his thanks. By the time he hit the parking lot and the agonizing brightness, Steve was hiding behind dark sunglasses and barely able to see where he was going.

"In." He cracked his eyes open a bit more to see that Danny was already holding the Camaro's passenger door open for him. Sliding in, Steve tightly closed his eyes and then was slouched up against the window as soon as Danny closed the door. He felt the car start and then sighed as Danny cranked up the air conditioning and thoughtfully aimed the vents towards his sweaty face.

It was peacefully quiet in the car and Danny drove quickly but carefully to avoid the worst traffic. He also refused to simply allow Steve to hobble up to his front door half blind. The dark aura had finally begun to creep in around the edges of his vision, and with it came the nausea. He was growing more desperate by the second as the nausea doubled and he aimed himself directly for his downstairs bathroom.

Behind him, Danny stood silently in the living room as Steve disappeared before going up to the main bedroom where he instantly darkened the room and readied the bed. He passed Steve on the stairs and huffed a worried sound at the now ashen face, wet hair and damp water-stained t-shirt. Steve had obviously gotten sick and then had dunked his head under the water spigot to soothe the ache in his head and cool his face.

"Be back in a sec." Danny whispered as he went to the kitchen for ice water, followed by his own visit to the bathroom to ransack the cabinet for stronger pain medication, and then prepared a cold, wet wash cloth.

Hands now full of useful things, Danny took the stairs two at a time. Boots and clothes were strewn in a crazy minefield path towards the bed and Steve was already bedridden with his arm flung over his eyes and the ceiling fan on high. As quietly as possible, Danny put the medication and water in easy reach and then physically moved Steve's arm to lay the cold cloth over his eyes. The grunt of thanks made him smile sympathetically as Steve flopped his hand back down over the cloth.

"Better?" Danny was whispering, relieved to get a slight nod. Steve heaved in a shuddering breath, winced and then palmed the wet cloth between his eyes. For a moment, Danny watched his chest rise and fall before needing to make sure Steve was telling him everything.

"There's nothing wrong anywhere else ... right? You can breathe okay .. there's no pain anywhere .. else?" Steve peeled the cloth partially off his face and squinted up at him. For all the temper and odd behavior, Danny was truly worried. He was possibly even almost afraid and couldn't help with his over-the-top mother-henning. It relayed another message under the pretense of the migraine, and as minor as that headache really was in the context of things, at first Steve could only stare at him.

"M'fine, Danny. Thanks .. it's just the migraine."

"Okay." Danny relaxed slightly, though he continued to whisper. "I gotta run to get Grace. You've got water and meds on the night table here. Plus your phone, which is on silent ... call if you need something, but try to get some sleep. One of us will check in on you later."

Steve watched through half-opened eyes that were warring with any type of light as Danny straightened up his discarded boots and clothing. On his way out, he double-backed to lay a blanket at the foot of the bed and rechecked to make sure things were in easy reach. If his partner was so concerned over a headache, what had he done when Steve was hospitalized?

Almost loathe to leave the house, Danny was solicitous as he toyed with the glass of ice water and then even loosened the top on the bottle of pain medication. He looked up at Steve when he suddenly realized he was still being watched. "What else do you need?"

Steve shook his head once because he was fine. He was better than fine since he finally knew the answers to his unspoken musings. Steve had witnessed what Danny had done by being on the receiving end of the angry, upset fallout first hand.

"Sorry, Danno." Steve croaked out almost dramatically before flinching as a spike of pain settled behind his eyes.

"Yeah." Pausing to swipe the wet cloth out from under Steve's fingers, Danny refolded it to put it back in place once more. "Me too."

Steve huffed faintly under his hand as he tried to offer some small note of disagreement about Danny needing to be sorry. But then he almost had to chuckle even though it brought on another spike of migraine pain. Danny's whisper was soft as he started to leave the room for the second time and as sick as he was, Steve found himself weakly grinning.

"You are still a first class moron." There was no heat to the words. Just an exasperated, friendly sound that was all worried-Danny at his finest. "Go to sleep, Steven."

~ to be continued ~