A/N: Kudos to those who guessed the location correctly!

A/N: Disclaimer: I know concussions can be severe, etc, but having already gone with the 'drugged unconscious' route, I was looking for something different (not drugs) this time around. I've opted for the Hollywood version of the head blow: knocks you out but with minimal lasting damage. Before you give me grief for it, keep in mind this is fiction for a reason. The show takes some serious liberties with technology and science; I'm going to take a few liberties with the body and medicine.

A dark Humvee pulled to a stop on the side of the gravel road, its windshield wipers tossing the snow to the side as the heavy flakes collected on the glass. A door in the side opened and two men were pushed out into the cold. Neither seemed to feel the harsh, biting air or mind the heavy thump as their bodies were unceremoniously dropped to the ground. The door slammed, the engine revved, and the Humvee pulled away, spitting wads of snow from its tires. Neither man stirred.

…

The first thing Danny heard was the revving of an engine, following by thub thub thub of tires on snow. Then those sounds faded into silence. Danny raised his head groggily but couldn't see anything under the cloth hood. With his hands bound behind his back he couldn't do much, but he could at least tell he was lying prone in perhaps an inch of snow on a rough surface, possibly a gravel road. He rolled over. Cold damp leaked through his clothes, chilling his skin and fingers as he flexed and tried to free himself, but to no avail. Danny finally gave up and lay still, thinking.

After being told to 'take care of them,' Mr. Jian's henchmen had knocked both men out. Danny hadn't come to until much later, when they were on an airplane. There, while playing 'dead,' he had taken time to calm his frayed nerves and tried to convince his exhausted body and frightened mind that the worst was over. At least, the worst seemed to be over. But they certainly weren't out of the woods yet, not by a long shot.

Danny stretched against his bindings, testing them gently. His bruised wrists complained, but that was the least of his worries. He'd had some time during the flight for his clothes to dry, but he had no idea how long he'd been unconscious, nor how long the flight had actually been. His only clue was the residual dampness that pervaded his shirt and pants (only slightly wet), and his clumped and extremely uncomfortable underwear.

Steve, as far as he could tell, had yet to wake up. That, or he was following Danny's line of thought and playing unconscious until a good opportunity presented itself. He was unsure how much time had passed since they had been in the warehouse, but despite the hood over his head, one thing was clear: it was daylight.

Danny waited until he was absolutely certain that their captors had gone. "Steve?" he grunted after a moment.

No response.

"Steven!"

Nothing.

Danny rolled over, then again and again, toward the thump he'd heard earlier where he presumed his partner had been dumped out of the vehicle. A few moments later, he bumped into something relatively warm and soft. Sitting up, he scooted beside his partner's body until he found his face and tried to pull the hood off, but it snagged so that only Steve's mouth was exposed.

"Steve!" Danny called again, his voice muffled by the cloth over his own face. "Wake up, you big oaf!" and he slapped Steve's face as best as he could in his bindings. Holding his hand over Steve's mouth, he could feel the tiny puff of warm air as his partner exhaled every few seconds. "Steven!"

Steve groaned. Elated, Danny grasped his shoulder and shook him vigorously. "Come on, wakey, wakey."

When Steve produced no further sound or movement, Danny grew frustrated. Shifting around, he leaned back and positioned himself so that his mouth was as close as possible to his partner's ear. Then he cleared his throat and yelled in his most forceful voice: "McGarrett! You going to sleep all day? Rise and shine, sailor!"

His efforts were rewarded when Steve jerked upright, plowing into Danny's chin.

"Ow!" Danny rolled out of the way as his partner struggled upright. "What the crap, Steven? I said 'wake up' not 'jump up'!"

"Danny?" Steve's muffled voice came through the thick hood. Coupled with the hard thump to the head and the fact that Steve had been asleep or unconscious for much longer than Danny, his partner's confusion was to be expected. "Where are you?" Steve muttered groggily after a moment.

"Over here. Your left." Danny rolled toward him again and bumped into his leg. "My hands and feet are zip tied, though. Don't suppose they left a knife in one of those pockets?"

"Nope."

"Course not," Danny huffed. He tried to sit up, not at all enjoying the uncomfortable numbing as snow soaked through his shirt. "Maybe you can grab a rock and start sawing mine off, babe?"

No answer. Danny could feel Steve shift around next to him. Then his partner seemed to stand- or so Danny guessed, because Steve moved away from him, leaving him sitting in the snow. He heard Steve grunt a couple of times in coordination with some kind of thump, and then there was a light pop.

"Babe?"

"Got 'em."

A moment later, the bag was pulled from Danny's head and he found himself blinking up at the grinning face of his partner. "What? How? Or is that classified?"

"They're cheap zip ties, Danny, the kind you use for computer cables. Just apply the right pressure and the locking mechanism comes off." Crouching behind Danny, Steve took his partner's hands and positioned them properly. "Okay, stand up and bring your arms down like this," he said, demonstrating.

Danny tried to mimic him. "Ouch."

"Again. And yeah, it can hurt if you don't do it just right. Sorry."

Danny did it again. On the fourth try, he was rewarded with a light snap as the plastic fell to the ground. "Huh." He picked up the remains of the zip tie and pocketed it. "SEAL school?"

"Training, yeah." Taking a sharp rock, Steve quickly snapped through the zip ties around Danny's feet.

Danny didn't miss his partner giving him the once-over with a critical eye. "I'm fine, Steven." He avoided rubbing a hand over his jaw, which was sore from Steve's had head-butt, and defiantly held back a cough in his aching chest. Turning away, he walked back to the place where he had been initially dumped from the car and studied the tire tracks in the snow that ran down the road and disappeared into the grey distance. "I guess town is that way."

"Where are we?" Steve asked, looking around for the first time. The grey, barren landscape was covered in a couple of inches of cold, white powder while more heavy flakes drifted lazily down from an overcast sky.

"You tell me," Danny shrugged. "But we're not in Kansas anymore, Toto."

"What?"

"Wizard of Oz? Dorothy?"

"Uh…"

Danny would have laughed at the confused expression on his partner's face if the situation hadn't been so serious. "We aren't in Hawaii anymore. And you need to get out more. Or at least watch more of the classics."

Steve ignored his jibe, taking in the rocky, white hills with an analytical eye. The terrain fell steeply away from them on three sides, only rising behind them toward a vague, grey summit in the distance. There were no trees or visible plants of any sort: just snow-covered rocks and an overcast, foggy, grey sky that occluded any view of the valley below.

Steve turned in a complete circle. "Actually, Danny, I think this is Hawaii."

"What? Sorry, what? How hard did you hit your head? Because I could have sworn you just said we're in Hawaii."

"We are. I think."

"No. No, this," Danny threw his arms wide at the desolate snowscape, "thisis not Hawaii. Do you see any beaches? Palm trees? Sunshine? This is New Jersey, maybe. Or Michigan. Northern California. Idaho. In fact, I can think of 40 possible states where we could be right now, and Hawaii isn't one of them."

"Only 40?" Steve smirked.

"Florida and Louisiana don't count. Among others."

"Right." Steve turned around again before pointing away from the tire tracks. "North is that direction," he said.

"Brilliant deduction, Sherlock, but I fail to see how that helps us."

"There are 13 observatories at the summit, which is north of here. If we're lucky, one of them might be manned. Otherwise, we have a very long, very cold walk down the mountain."

"What mountain? Where are we?" The cold had settled into Danny's bones and he was beginning to feel rather annoyed.

Instead of replying, Steve bent down and brushed the snow off a lump until a very spiky but tired looking plant emerged. "See that? It's called silversword. It only grows on the mountains of Hawaii, in an alpine climate above the tree level. We're on Mauna Kea, on the Big Island. This is the road that leads to the summit, but it's probably closed due to the weather right now, which means we can't count on hitching a ride down. Our best bet is to try to make it to the observatories and hope someone is weathering out this storm there."

Danny looked around. "How far of a walk is it back to town?"

"6 hours. Maybe 7 or 8."

"Is it snowing there, too?"

"No. No, it's about the same climate as Kailua."

"Okay. Nice and beachy down there. So how far does this snow last? Maybe we walk a mile and it turns to rain."

Steve looked unsure. "I haven't actually been up here since I was a kid," he admitted. "And it was summer then. I know it can snow up here in the winter, but I don't know how far down the mountain it snows and," he paused to turn around again, "I don't know how close we are to the summit."

"So, in other words, we should pick a direction and get going?"

"Yeah." He stopped, concerned as Danny winced. "You sure you're good to be walking?"

"I'm standing, aren't I?"

"Yes, and you were tortured earlier and probably have a nasty bump on the back of your head. Let me see your pupils- it'll be a miracle if you don't have a concussion."

"Back off, Steve, I'm fine," Danny growled, swatting his partner's hand. He didn't miss the rapid blink as his partner took a step backwards. "What about you? I see that blinking. You've probably got a concussion, too."

"I'm fine," Steve muttered, turning away.

"Really? So you're not trying to fix some double vision thing and deal with a splitting headache over there?"

"I'm good. Let's go." Impatient and annoyed now that the attention was turned on him, Steve struck out along the road leading to the summit, leaving Danny behind.

Danny threw his hands. "Okay, I give up," he called out to Steve's retreating back. "Forgive me for trying to make sure my partner is fine. Apparently you can care about me, but I'm not allowed to worry about you. But if you keel over on the side of this god-forsaken road, I am not carrying you up to the top!"

As he hurried to catch up, he missed the frown that crossed his partner's face and the quietly muttered statement: "It's not me I'm worried about, Danno."

….

Meanwhile, on Maui:

Chin pulled another heaping pile of Kalua pork onto his plate as the birthday celebrations stretched into the fourth hour. "You know," he mused between indulgent forkfuls, "we haven't heard from Steve or Danny since Monday."

Across from him, Kono was working on her third helping of lilikoi-flavored pudding. "You know what they say, cuz: no news is good news. I'm sure they're fine."

Chin nodded. "I suppose so," he said, reaching for another bite. Still… he couldn't shake the feeling that something bad had happened.

…

"Hey Steve? What time do you think it is?"

"I dunno…" Steve stopped to look around and used that moment to also risk a glance at Danny, who trailed a few steps behind him. "About 0700, 0730, I'd guess. Light, but early morning." He didn't like Danny's weary stance- they had only been walking for a few minutes- nor was he pleased with the detective's increasingly labored breathing. Steve could hear the deep, hoarse breaths even from several yards away and knew that their increased altitude would compound any difficulties Danny had developed after having water in his lungs. "Need a breather?"

" 'M fine," Danny managed, waving a hand. "Just a bit light headed. Probably the elevation."

Steve grunted noncommittally and watched his partner trod slowly pass him, his feet dragging slightly to leave two shallow tracks that would soon be filled in if the snow continued.

The snowfall hadn't let up but changed periodically between fat, white flakes and fine, tiny pricks, offering them an occasional glimpse of the telescopes stationed ahead on the summit. Steve wasn't sure if Danny had noticed- probably not, given that the detective's eyes were focused on the ground- but it looked to be at least another mile before they reached help. There were many things that concerned Steve about their predicament, but hypothermia was rapidly jumping up the list. Neither of them were wearing appropriate attire for hiking in cold weather, and why should they? They were in Hawaii. But the thin clothes and damp snow combined with the increasing wind could soon create a situation far more dangerous than armed Chinese mobsters.

Ahead of him, Danny stopped and wrapped his arms around his chest as another bout of coughing shook him achingly back and forth.

Steve placed a comforting hand on his shoulder and watched, knowing there was little he could do to help. "You sure you're okay, Danno?" he asked as the fit gradually subsided.

"Yeah… Just gotta keep moving." He struggled forward a few steps and flashed a grin at Steve. "Don't want to freeze to death."

"We're not going to freeze to death."

"Yeah? Okay, so tell me this: how long until we die of frostbite?"

"Frostbite?" Deciding to humor him if only as a distraction to keep Danny moving, Steve continued, "You can't die of frostbite, Danny." He slowed his pace to match that of his partner's. "Besides, I thought you liked the cold. What happened to that tough Jersey exterior?" and he punched Danny playfully on the shoulder.

"You know what? Wipe that smug smile off your face. I am doing perfectly fine, thank you, despite the fact that it is probably twenty below up here."

"Twenty-six. Twenty-six above, not below. We'll be fine."

"Twenty-six? Really? How'd you come up with that number? Or is there some classified, secret SEAL method for telling temperature that I can't know about?"

Steve masked a grin. "I'm just guessing, Danny, but I can tell you this: we're not going to die. I've trained for these kinds of things."

"You've trained for these kinds of things? Well, I've lived in this kind of environment and let me tell you, frostbite is a very real thing."

"I know that."

"And anyway," Danny continued, ignoring him, "What do you mean by, 'I've trained for these kinds of things.'? You've trained for getting waterboarded, conked on the head, and dropped in snow on the side of the road at 18,000 feet?"

"We're only at 13,000 feet, Danny."

"13,000, 18,000… same difference." Then he stopped and doubled over with another coughing fit. "See… if you'd tell me… your training secrets… I wouldn't have this problem," he wheezed out.

"If you would just shut up and focus on walking instead of talking, you wouldn't have that problem, either" Steve muttered, irked at the clearly-ill man's insistence on speaking. "Can you breathe?"

"Yeah, just…" Danny paused, wheezing as he sucked in air hoarsely. "Just the altitude. Just gimme a minute."

Steve grimaced at this untruth. "I've got news for you, Danny- that's not the altitude." He squinted through the haze of snow toward the summit and was pleased to find that he could now make out some details on five of the thirteen observatories that had come into view. "We're almost there. Think you can go another half-mile?"

"Don't really have a… a choice, do I?" As the coughing subsided, Danny shrugged off Steve's hand and pushed stubbornly onward, reaching out to catch himself as he stumbled.

Steve looked after him and shook his head. "I'm not carrying you, Danny!" he called.

"Won't have to, Steven."

…

"Sir? We've found them. They're on Hawai'i, the Big Island."

"Damn Chinese. Where on the island?"

"Unknown. We found a midnight flight out of Kalaeloa that could be them. It touched down in Kona at 0200."

"And you don't know where they went after that?"

"It's called the 'Big Island' for a reason, sir. But we'll find them."

"You'd better."

...

A/N: So who are these guys? And what do they want with Steve and Danny? Also, don't forget there's some poor, lost unicorn out there!