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

Notes: I had no notes for this chapter until I watched Akeelah and the Bee - super movie! One of the very last words in the spelling contest was: Logorrhea. Defined as excessive and often incoherent talkativeness or wordiness. A tendency to extreme loquacity. "Logorrhea" was the word spelled by Nupur Lala to win the 1999 E. W. Scripps National Spelling Bee, the subject of the 2002 documentary Spellbound. It has also a rather serious psychological disorder definition which should not be taken lightly.

And now you have a trivia for the day to ponder!

Hmm. For the minor definition though, I did make an association obviously - though incoherent doesn't quite fit, excessive wordiness and loquacious certainly do.

H5O* H5O* H5O* H5O* H5O

Chapter Eighteen

In a fugue, Danny had in fact heard Steve shouting as more distantly muffled gunfire erupted nearby. His sole feeling was one of complete relief.

"Not Steve." The body wasn't Steve .. it was a suspect .. no, a victim named Michael. He heard Steve again but still couldn't respond; in fact, he didn't even think to respond. It was good enough to know that the body wasn't his partner's.

Whatever little air had been pushed from his lungs and as he regained his sense of being, he realized that his head hurt and he couldn't focus his eyes. His vision was blurred and wavering in and out at a startling rate. But he jolted as a series of loud pops sounded near him and puffs of grass flew up by his right shoulder and then arced in the grass down to his limp hand. More bullets traced a line towards the unconscious Michael Jameson. Instead of moving, Danny merely flinched away as he struggled to take in an unpolluted breath of air.

Not Steve because he had left again; dimly he considered it possibly divine luck because he, Danny, was incapacitated and out in the open with another victim. Wholly unable to help himself, a civilian, or his partner but wherever Steve had gone .. he evidently was mostly fine and still holding their position or he wouldn't be yelling so very loudly.

Steve cursed as the gunfire resumed - this time, aimed directly at his downed partner and the injured hostage. The trussed up man wasn't moving at all, but Steve at least saw Danny twitch ever so slightly when a round nailed the ground much too close to his hand. Dead or alive, Jameson was playing with them and taking pot shots.

Steve gauged the distance and timing from the safety of the upturned table to each man. Their victim was far away and nearer the now defunct koi pond. His legs stuck out but his upper body was at least partially protected by the old shallow rock wall. Danny was completely out in the open though and he absolutely needed to take the chance. Sticking low to the ground, Steve kept an anxious ear to the yard as he crawled to his partner. The stressful movement brought another bout of coughing to his seared lungs, but adrenalin took charge and he turned his rifle on their attackers before hastily using the time for himself. Tearing off his gloves, Steve remained on his belly as he gently turned dug his fingers into the side of Danny's neck. Bullets rained around them again, and Steve gasped as something sheered hotly through his left arm to leave his fingers nearly numb.

"Come on, pal. Danny!" With an effort, Danny opened his eyes when he heard the raspy similarly smoke-rattled voice still from afar when in actuality, Steve was now right above him and staring down with a frantic expression. He was trying to get him to move as more bullets peppered the lawn where they lay. He furrowed his brow in confusion and continued to stare even after Steve gasped and winced in pain.

"Come on. Danny, time to get up!" Arms lifted him into seated position while he bonelessly flopped forward. He gasped and saw spots as a pain shot through his neck and shoulders. There was another loud grunt from Steve as he paused for a mere second before clasping his hands together around Danny's chest. It was all very strange and Danny could do nothing to help as he felt himself being dragged backwards to eventually sit propped up against the top of the picnic table.

Danny sat there in a daze as Steve returned fire once again when yet another rapid spat of pops resulted in more flying tufts of dirt and grass. A few more, peppered the top of the table and Steve was forced to duck down next to him.

"Hey. You ... okay?" Voice barely above a whisper, Steve's face was lined with dirty, smoky lines made worse by rivulets of sweat and tearing eyes. It was obvious that Danny was far from fine. Neither was Steve as he fisted the numb fingers of his left hand over and over as if stung by a bee. It was an unconscious repetitive motion as he glanced at Danny and then over towards the tree-line. There was a moment of silence and Steve choked and coughed as a new solid wall of pain assailed him through his mid-back area. Two other bullets had pummeled heavily into the back of his vest just as he had begun to drag Danny to safety, and he was slowing down considerably.

"Where are you hurt?" Still stunned by the concussive explosion, Danny stared dumbly at him as his ears whined and strained to hear correctly. His expression was blank as Steve's right hand entered his line of sight and disappeared for a minute. When he saw it next, the fingers were blood-stained and Steve's worry had escalated.

"Danny? Say something ... anything." His head, neck and shoulders ached severely as his eyes slowly tracked from the blood-stained fingers to the blood running down Steve's bicep and then finally to his face. He moved his mouth but no sound came out and Steve's frown worsened.

Swallowing carefully around the dryness in this throat, Danny tried to form a question of his own and failed. "What?" The word came out as more of a harsh puff of stilted air. Danny looked at Steve's rifle and then his own empty, lax hands and came up with an unhappy scowl. Where had his weapon gone off to?

"Gun? My .. gun." Still woozy and feeling like he wasn't part of the scene, Danny managed a raspy whisper while he squinted at Steve and forced his uncooperative hand towards his holster. He felt Steve intercept and then hand him his weapon after making sure the safety was off and it was fully loaded. Jameson's gunfire had resumed to pelt their tiny hiding area to keep them low and at a disadvantage. He needed to get his act together.

Danny resolved himself to that but frowned again when he noticed that Steve's hand was still covering his own. He was completely covering the fingers that shakily held his own gun. Confused, Danny looked up at his partner again to rasp out a few words. "What? What's .. wrong?"

"Can you do this?" Steve asked worriedly. Danny was clearly out of it and badly addled by the force of the explosion. But Steve needed his help and he sighed in relief when heard a multitude of faintly sounding sirens over the din of the blaze behind them as their desperately needed assistance made it to their location. They were approaching from two different directions; the tertiary road where the Camaro had been parked, as well as from the highway. Jameson and his cohorts evidently heard the sirens too, based on the momentary lull in the shooting.

"Danno?" He squeezed the back of Danny's hand and got him to focus before repeating his question. "Can you do this?" For another long second, the buzzing in his ears made Danny sit there mutely before he nodded and rigid fingers tightened with determination around the nubby stock.

"Yeah .. I can. I'm .. good." Slowly releasing him, Steve studied Danny's face closely before shaking his head with worry and then eyed the distant treed area. He measured the angle and the distance to needed to swing around on the men. He focused solely on the landscape, terrain and potential distance between where he could take cover and ambush his enemy one by one. In the distance, the sirens were growing louder and one he was positive now, was on the main highway. Their arrival would put the criminals in the middle. Almost absently, Steve took Danny's arm and helped him to his knees behind the table where he wobbled unsteadily and bowed his head against the damaged wood to rest.

"Take it easy. Go slow, Danny." His whisper was low out of a pained necessity but Steve wouldn't have much time with his partner in such a state. He was sure his plan would work if Danny could provide cover fire just long enough for him to gain some ground. Blood was dripping down from the thick crease in his arm; it rolled haphazardly to his elbow and Steve hissed when he awkwardly tried to rub at it. Pure adrenalin was pushing him ahead as he sighted movement near the narrow opening to the short path. The small dangerous group had yet to leave and something more aggressive needed to be done.

He watched Danny with concern as he blinked his eyes and regained some of his balance. He coughed harshly and shook his head as he turned clumsily to ready himself. Danny tried to take in a deep settling breath, coughed when his lungs seized, but nodded anyway that he was fine. Seconds later, the pair opened fired simultaneously into the deep brush from where Jameson and his partners were hunkered down. Steve thought he heard another garbled shout of pain and then was certain that the return barrage was half what it had been. They had once again managed to hit a mark and odds were slightly improving.

He glanced once more to the bowed head to watch Danny determinedly reload his weapon. Steve even managed a faint grin as Danny began shooting once more into the distant trees. He had picked the perfect low spot near that dirt path this time and was gamely making any potential movement towards them impossible. He seemed more steady even though his eyes were still not tracking well and he was often blinking as if to clear a constantly blurred vision.

Pausing, Danny palmed his forehead but didn't dare rotate his neck for the pain that was spreading down to his shoulders. He was only barely on his feet yet managing to do well enough as he gained some composure and balance. But with that steadiness, came a startling thought that Steve was in fact poised to attack. There was a change in the air next to him and Danny stopped to look. Steve was planning to leave him in the proverbial dust and Danny knew that this time for certain, he was in no shape to even try and join his partner. He also strongly doubted Steve's sturdiness as the SEAL winced in pain through a deep-chested coughing spasm which left him pale even for the dirt on his face.

"No." His sudden look towards Steve's odd posture proved it, and Danny frantically reached for his arm.

"No. No." He connected first with the stock of Steve's gun and then with all his might, dug his fingers into his wrist. "Stay .. here." He ground out the order through clenched teeth and a throat that was burning from acrid fumes.

"Danny .. " Steve started to argue his case as he failed in shaking Danny's white-knuckled grip off his hand. But what would he really have to explain?

"Don't you dare .. dare.. do anything stupid." Preparing to move as Danny so feared, some of the tightness left Steve's body as he relaxed into the grass and dropped lower behind the picnic table. With Danny's hand clasped to his wrist, Steve saw his partner's soot-stained but very pale expression and he understood clearly that Danny was petrified of him leaving once more to go after their attackers. Not for himself, but for Steve's own safety.

"What were you thinking when you followed him?"

Chin's old question echoed through his head as Steve muttered to himself in frustration. He had no answer then and he didn't actually have an answer now. Head the enemy off? Take them down? What exactly would he do without physical backup? With help so close ..what did he think he needed to achieve? Steve realized that he would have done it again; one against maybe up to four at amazingly bad odds if he timed it wrong.

"If you're a liability to yourself, then you're a liability to me ..." Danny's emotionally wracked but honest vent at Kamekona's. He had taken it the wrong way and thought Danny wanted out of their partnership or even worse, out of Five-0. Which obviously wasn't the case at all. It never had been.

Steve refocused on his partner's face as he felt the stunned, tremble in Danny's fingers vibrating into his arm. As partners, they needed to agree and act together .. feasibly not all the time, but Steve realized he had never even considered the how, why or what Danny might feel when he sometimes acted alone. As Chin had reminded him, Danny cared too much from beginning to end and he needed to take pause and just think ... every so often.

And truth be told after Chin's most sensitive of reminders, Steve didn't want to be that third lost partner for his friend - or for Grace. Softening, he sighed through a few harsh coughs. "Danny."

He was about to agree but Danny interrupted him as a few bullets pinged their way and lodged much too closely to their heads in the old wood of the picnic table. Neither of them flinched for the few seconds of eternity their conversation was lasting.

"Just .. don't. Don't you do it." Danny was almost hurting his wrist now as he stared directly into Steve's face. No longer hidden, all the fear, worry and paralyzing emotions came directly to the surface. He had a cut on his cheek, one on the back of his head, and was panting in a hard, shallow whistle of pain while searching Steve's eyes.

It was an odd combination of plea and demand for him to listen because it could turn out very badly. Plus with the sirens increasing in volume and help so close, he didn't really have to do it. Steve faintly nodded and breathed out his answer. "Alright, Danny."

"Just listen for once .. one time, Steven."

With that memory and the clearly same unspoken plea, Steve gave Danny a lop-sided grin and nodded soothingly. His posture changed to resume a more standard, tactical stance behind the table as he dropped a spent clip to engage a fresh one. With a supportive hand under his partner's arm, he helped Danny to a better position.

"Yes. Okay." Almost in disbelief, Danny blinked at him in shock at the agreeable reply. His fingers loosened from their death grip on Steve's wrist and he sagged onto his heels. "You got it, Danno."

~ to be continued ~