Author's Notes-1: Hey :) I want to say a massive thank you for the response this Fic has received. I was stunned and amazed and oh so very grateful. Thank you to all of you that read and reviewed and thank you to all of you that stopped by to read. I value you all and I am glad you enjoyed. As for what happens in this chapter, just rememmber I am nowhere near a Doctor LOL As promised, here is the next instalment within the 2 week deadline :)
Thank you to my Mother for her help in reading through this. Any mistakes are my own.
Chapter 2. Waiting Game
"Oh that's right, that's exactly what this is."
The waiting room was quiet except for the one phone conversation that was being held over by the far wall. Danny could feel eyes on him, some of them curious, some of them belonging to people that just wanted him to shut up. No-one was here because they wanted to be … including Danny.
"Of course, I'm the asshole that ditched his daughter on Christmas morning to go and play hero."
Danny ignored the rest of the waiting room and stared out the massive windows before him, his gaze landing on the parking lot, the morning sun already beating down, creating a humid heat for anyone who was outside. He was standing there watching the outside world but his concentration was in a different place.
"Don't start with me, Rachel, okay. It is not like I wanted to dump her on your doorstep this morning okay. In fact the last thing I wanted to do was hand her over," Danny admitted, punctuating his words with angry hand movements. "But I didn't think you would appreciate her spending a good part of her Christmas Day in the waiting room of an emergency freaking ward. I was thinking of Grace."
Danny opened his mouth to say more but was cut off by the British tones of his ex-wife. His first Christmas on the island was not going to plan. His time with his daughter was cut short and his partner and friend – and when had that happened? - was lying in some emergency room looking like death had used him for football practice and now to top things off Rachel, the mother of his beloved daughter, decided the pain of giving up his daughter wasn't to come without a tongue lashing about what a terrible father he was.
But it wasn't Rachel's angry, tired words that struck a cord with him the most. A frown darkened his features as another voice accompanied hers in the background.
"Rachel, Rachel, sweetheart," Danny interrupted her, using an old term of endearment that was bound to ruffle her feathers. He never said he wasn't an antagonist. "Tell Step-Stan to mind his own damn business. This has nothing to do with him."
Danny ran a hand over his face, letting his hand rest against his chin. He felt like head-butting the glass. "No, it has nothing to do with him and everything to do with that fact that I. Couldn't. Help. This." He spelt it out for her. "I'm sure Steve went and got sick on purpose just to ruin Stan's beauty sleep."
There was a tap on his shoulder, causing Danny to look around. Hope surrounded him and he couldn't help but feel disappointed when Chin came into view. He appreciated his team-mates presence but he was kind of hoping to see the doctor by now. Accepting the styrofoam cup of coffee from his friend, Danny gave him a brief smile of thanks before the phone call dragged his attention back.
"I don't know what's wrong with him and if you had of stopped talking for two minutes, the reason we're having this pleasant conversation is because a good man is lying in the hospital."
The fight had left Rachel. Steve had gotten along well with his ex-wife the night they had needed to camp out in her house on a stake-out. It hadn't come as a surprise. Steve was a charmer. He didn't even have to try. Once upon a time Danny would have imagined spending the night in his ex-wife's house would be hell. But it hadn't been. They'd shared something that night, a common familiar ground, reminded each other what they used to be together. Rachel hadn't changed, she just couldn't handle the stress of being married to a cop. Danny wasn't sure whether that made it better or worse.
Not that any of that mattered now. They were back to normal. Him dropping Grace off early because of his job and Rachel telling him off for it over the phone. Only for the first time Rachel went quiet on the line. Like what he'd said had penetrated that hot headed brain of hers.
"Well if you had of shut up for two seconds you might have heard it the first time I told you what was wrong." Danny sighed. He didn't have the energy to keep the bite up on his end. "The doctors haven't told us anything. For all we know it could be something completely non-job related. Tell Gracie that I'm sorry again."
Danny eyed Chin and saw that the man had sat down in one of the hard plastic chairs and was looking into his coffee. Danny appreciated the attempt Chin was making at giving him privacy but at this point he was pretty sure any privacy he had went right out the window the moment he answered his phone in the middle of the hospital waiting room.
"I'll make it up to her. I promise. I'll let you know when I know more. Merry Christmas."
Danny let out a long drawn out sigh as soon as he ended the call. Somehow verbal battles with that woman just tired him out. It was a toss up between Rachel and working alongside McGarrett on which one gave him more of a headache.
"Never get married, Chin," Danny told the other man as he sat down next to him, wondering where the other member of their team was.
The smell of coffee wafted up from the hot cup in his hands and gained part of his attention. Out of the corner of his eye, though, Danny caught Chin's almost knowing smile. "Wait … you're not ..." he started, turning to the other man.
Chin raised his gaze and and his smile became almost sad. "Not any more."
"The job get in the way?" Danny asked, very aware that Chin's situation didn't come with the normal day to day problems of their chosen profession.
Rachel had left him because she couldn't handle the danger. Chin's friends and family had ditched him because they had all wrongfully believed that he had been a dirty cop. Obviously his wife had felt the same way as everyone else. Danny didn't get it. If they knew Chin, if they loved him. How could they believe that of him? Thinking that the man's wife had left him for the same reason just made it all that much worse.
Chin sighed and sat back a little, slouching in the hard plastic chair. "It was for the best, Brah, with everything that happened back then."
Danny shook his head. "That's Bul..."
"Detective Williams?"
Danny's speech on the rights and wrongs in Chin's personal life was cut short as his name was called out by the approaching doctor. Danny stood quickly. Chin stood beside him. The Doctor looked from Danny, to Chin and then back to Danny who stuck out his hand in greeting. "That's me."
"I'm Doctor Collins. I've been treating Lieutenant Commander McGarrett. I was told by the nurse who admitted him to speak to you directly about the Commander's condition." Doctor Collins explained. She glanced at Chin and then back at Danny. "Could we speak for a moment."
"Whatever you have to say you can say to both of us."
Chin extended his own hand to the doctor. "Chin Ho Kelly, I'm part of the commander's team."
"Doc, how's he doing?" Danny asked, cutting to the point.
"He's hanging in there for the moment, Detective, but …"
"But?" Danny asked, cutting off anything she had been about to say. He felt edgy.
"But … maybe we should continue this in my office. This way." Doctor Collins turned around and started walking off towards the admission desk. Danny looked at Chin. If the doctor wanted to talk to them in the privacy of her office then something was seriously wrong.
Without another word, Danny and Chin started off after the doctor in silence. Doctor Collins pushed the door to her office open and strode around her desk to sit behind it.
"Close the door please, gentleman."
Danny wordlessly closed the wooden door behind him and turned around. Chin sat down slowly on one of the two chairs in front of her desk, but Danny couldn't sit. He rocked on his feet, crossing his arms over his chest.
Doctor Collins waved her hands towards the empty seat. "You can take a seat, Detective."
"I'm good. What are we dealing with here, Doc?" Danny wanted answers. The sooner they knew something, the sooner they could do something about it.
"Okay," The doctor stated, opening the file in front of her on the desk. She glanced down at it before looking back up at the two members of the Five-O Task Force. "Commander McGarrett is a very sick man." Danny was just about to comment on the Doctor's ability for stating the obvious when she continued. "But this is no natural sickness."
"What does that mean?"
"To put it simply ..."
"Please do," Danny replied dryly and then winced at her dark expression. He gave her an apologetic smile. She wasn't his enemy.
"We found a foreign substance in the Commander's blood-work."
A foreign substance. When and where could that have happened? Danny's brain started working in overdrive, trying to pinpoint a time and a place where Steve could have gotten infected.
"What is it?" Chin asked, his face serious and stoic.
"I've sent a sample down to the lab for testing. It isn't anything that I recognise straight off the bat and I want to be sure of what it is before we settle on a concrete treatment."
"So you're not doing anything?" Danny asked, eyes widening. His arms dropped from his chest and he widened his stance.
"Don't get on your high horse, Detective, of course we're not doing nothing. We're treating the symptoms he is showing but until I know what is exactly in his system I don't want to give him any anything in case it reacts badly to the substance. As soon as we know what it is, we can treat it."
"Is this something that he could have ingested accidentally? Food poisoning?" Chin asked, glancing at Danny, throwing him a calming look. "Or maybe an infection?"
Doctor Collins shook her head. "This is a literal substance, a chemical, a drug. Although we cant be sure if it was ingested or injected directly, it is not something that could be found naturally in food that has gone bad or an infection."
"So you're saying ..." Danny began.
"That Commander McGarrett was deliberately poisoned?" The doctor asked, pushing a strand of dark hair back behind her ear. "That's what it looks like at the moment."
"Is he going to be okay?" Danny asked.
"Like I said before, he's hanging in there. He's been in and out of conciousness. He's young and strong and we're doing everything we can to combat his symptoms until we know how to treat him. We'll know more once those tests come back."
"I want to see him." Danny told her. He wouldn't be taking no for an answer.
"I didn't doubt that you would for a second, Detective. Commander McGarrett has been placed in a private room as per Governor Jameson's request. Melissa at the admissions desk can tell you what room he has been settled in."
Doctor Collins stood and extended her hand to Chin who stood and shook it. Danny repeated the action. "I'll let you know what our findings are as soon as I get the results."
"Thanks, Doc."
Stepping out of Doctor Collins' office Danny felt torn in many different directions. He wanted to go and see his partner right away but he also didn't want to waste precious time they had to what did this to him.
He hated this feeling. He hated it more than he had hated Steve when he'd first been made to work with him. It was ironic really. He's started out wanting to throttle this man and now here he was stressed and worried over his well being. If someone had told him back in the beginning that this would be the case he would have had them committed.
This wasn't right. This wasn't supposed to be happening. They had won. They were supposed to be celebrating Christmas. Danny clenched his teeth to stop himself from cursing up a storm in the middle of the hallway.
"What are you thinking?" Chin asked, watching Danny carefully as they began walking down the hall in unison.
Danny turned and looked at Chin. "I'm thinking that we need to get on top of this. We need to get a team, a specialist team, into Steve's house, go over everything. His bedroom, bathroom, kitchen ..." Danny jabbed his hand in the air for every place he listed like he was dot pointing their importance. "Everywhere."
Chin nodded "I've already sent Kono off to organise that. That's where she's been all morning. We should probably check out his office as well. Anywhere he's been the last couple of days."
"Go meet up with Kono at Steve's. I'll meet you there." Danny patted Chin on the shoulder and then started to backtrack.
"Where are you going?"
"I'm going up to check on Steve, let him know we're on the case. See if I can get two words out of him that might lead us in the right direction."
xXx
Steve's room was uncomfortable. That was the first thing that came to mind when Danny opened the door and slipped inside. Maybe it was silence from his partner or maybe it was that the silence made the noises from the monitoring equipment seem extra loud. Or maybe it was the simple fact that as much as Danny joked around that Steve thought he was invincible, sometimes he forgot that Steve really wasn't. Steve was a human being and it was made very apparent right in that moment as Danny approached the bed. Steve wasn't a small man, he was tall and built ... right now he looked small. It was more of a shock than Danny had thought it would be.
The nurse fiddling with Steve's IV looked up as Danny approached. "You must be Detective Williams. Doctor Collins told me you would be stopping by."
Danny nodded at her distractedly, placing his hand on the handrails. His partner looked like death warmed over. He was shivering, only enough that Danny could just notice, but his cheeks were flushed with fever. It was quite a contrast to his pale complexion. He looked nothing like the super hero they all knew.
The nurse walked past him and squeezed his arm. "He's hanging in there."
Danny glanced up then, just in time to see the nurse slip out of the door. Did he look that worried? Not that anyone could blame him. It had been a rough few days and as far as he was concerned he couldn't remember a time he had ever visited a hospital for a happy reason - well apart from the time Grace was born but that ... that was something else entirely and didn't really count in this instance. His mind was wandering.
Steve moved, shifted in the bed. His face was scrunched up in pain, misery, discomfort ... or annoyance. It was hard to tell with Steve. Danny remained quiet as Steve rolled his head to the side and shifted again. His eyes were moving under closed lids and Danny wondered what was going on in that hard head of his. It didn't look like anything pleasant but then he doubted Steve dreamed about fluffy white clouds on a good night.
"Steve?" Danny asked, his voice sounding louder than normal after the silence in the room. Danny winced and then leaned closer and whispered loudly "Steve?"
At first he got no reaction. Steve remained shivering and feverish and his eyes remained closed. He was in two minds on whether to wake the former seal, on whether he even could wake the man. The Doctor said he had been in and out of consciousness. He felt a little guilty for even trying but the fact that Steve wasn't just sick, he'd been made sick, pushed Danny on.
"Steve!" he repeated in a harsh whisper. Steve flinched and his frown deepened. "Come on, you stubborn ass," Danny encouraged. "You scared the crap out of us so the least you can do is wake up." He felt a smile tugging at his lips as Steve's eyes fluttered. He was becoming aware, slowly. "Come on, show me those baby blues."
The effort it seemed to take the man to actually open his eyes, made Danny regret waking him again but at the same time it made him want to demand that he keep them open to make sure that Steve didn't get any ideas about closing them permanently. Steve's eyes which were usually clear and alert were murky and clouded with confusion.
"About time," Danny sighed with an exasperated sigh.
"Dan ...nny?" Steve's voice almost sounded like a whine. It was weird. Steve was always strong. This sound coming from his friend was just foreign.
"The one and only, Buddy. How you doin'? Because I gotta say … you look like crap." Danny told him, trying to keep his tone light and ignore just how bad Steve looked.
Steve closed his eyes again and licked his dry lips, pulling a face like he had tasted something foul. Heavy eyelids fluttered open again, sitting at half-mast. "What happened?" Steve asked, his voice barely a whisper.
"You're in the hospital..."
"Kay?"
"You're going to be fine," Danny assured him straight away. None of them would believe anything else.
Steve shook his head, the movement small and regrettable if the pained expression on his face getting deeper was anything to go by. "Not ... me."
"Us?" Danny could have sworn that Steve had just rolled his eyes at him but he would ignore it considering the circumstances. "We're all fine, Superman." He leaned down closer. "Can you tell me the last thing you remember, Steve? After you left my place?"
Steve frowned again, his arm coming to shakily rest across his abdomen. "Noth...ing."
"You don't remember anything?" Danny asked.
"Nothing ... happened," Steve clarified, not being able to suppress a moan. He pressed his arm tighter against his stomach.
"So let me get this straight. You went home and went straight to bed? No pit-stops along the way? No midnight snacks? Nothing."
"Nothing." Steve repeated, sluggishly.
That didn't help. Danny reached over and squeezed Steve's forearm. His skin was hot to the touch. "You're gonna be fine," he told his fearless leader. "Listen, Steve, I have to go for now but i'll be back later, okay?"
"No." Steve reached out, his hot fingers clinging to Danny's wrist.
It would have been easy to break free. Steve had no strength in that grip. He could feel the tremors through Steve's hand. But Danny stopped. He looked back down at his friend, an eyebrow raised. "No? What do you mean no? Who the hell made you boss?" Danny asked in jest. He left Steve hanging onto his wrist. The sick man was fighting against his body to get across what he wanted. Control freak until the end was Steve McGarrett.
"Wha's goin' ...on?" Steve asked, tiredly, not even bothering to attempt their usual banter.
"Nothing you need to worry about, man. Just get some rest," Danny tried. He didn't want to worry the man. He knew Steve well enough now to know that he wouldn't rest if he was worried about them. He would want to be out there with them even if he knew he physically couldn't do that. But one look at the man's expression, Danny knew that it would be worse if he wasn't at least a little honest with him.
"Okay, okay … long story short, we found you unconscious in your kitchen, we brought you to the hospital, doctors found an uncommon substance in your blood and they are running tests. Now if you let me go, I'm going to go an play detective and figure out how you managed to ruin Christmas morning for all of us. Happy?"
Steve slumped back against the mattress, scowling. "No." A shudder ran through his body that Danny could have sworn he'd actually seen. Steve tightened his grip on Danny's hand and almost curled in on himself.
"Steve … you okay? You want me to call the nurse back?" Danny asked, eyes wide with concern. The hand that wasn't caught at the wrist by Steve's weak grip was wrapped around the bed rail once more.
Steve slowly shook his head. "No … No … jus' go. I'm good ..." Steve grunted in pain, his eyes fell closed again for a second before he snapped them open again. Whatever they were pumping into his system was hopefully doing it's job.
"Sure you are," Danny placated. "And you're gonna stay that way. You wanna let go of me so I can do my job?"
Danny wrapped his fingers around Steve's hand and pulled it away from his wrist. He gave it a friendly squeeze before setting the commander's arm back down on the white sheets. "Take it easy and don't give the nurses any trouble, Steven. We'll be in later."
"Later … Danno."
Steve's response was barely audible but Danny heard it. He smiled, patted Steve's arm again and then backed away from the bed. He turned and headed for the door with the full intent of getting the nurse to double check on his friend. If Steve McGarrett told him that he was good then it was nowhere near close to that.
Xxx
"Have you heard anything?"
Danny looked up from the computer table in the middle of Five-O Headquarters to see Kono walking up to him. He stood straight and ran a hand down his face. It was tiring searching for something when you weren't even sure what to look for. "Not yet. I called the hospital to check up on him and he's holding his own. They should get the results any moment now."
"And I suppose you made it clear to call you as soon as they came in?" Kono asked with a knowing smile.
"In no uncertain terms."Danny had made it very clear to all involved that he was to be the first to know after Doctor Collins when the results came in on Steve's blood work. He wasn't afraid to use Steve's Governor Jameson leverage when it called for it. And this definitely called for it.
"Good … good," Kono nodded, biting her bottom lip as she looked down. Her shoulders looked weighted.
"You okay?" Danny asked her, although he had a feeling he already knew what was going on with his young team member. They were all feeling the same thing.
Kono looked up in surprise as if he were mad to ask about her. "Of course, it's just ..."
"It's not your fault, Kono." Danny cut her off.
"But I should have noticed something last night. He was already starting to show the signs..."
"None of us noticed. If you're to blame then so am I."
"And so am I." Chin Ho Kelly announced as he walked down the hall and up to the table to stand in between Danny and Kono.
"Besides Steve was the one that was sick and he neglected to say anything. He is just as much to blame here." Danny was going to be having a serious talk with their boss when he was well enough. This hero bullshit didn't help anyone.
"He wouldn't want any of us blaming ourselves. The only thing we can do right now is find out who did this and bring them down. You ready to do some butt kicking, Cuz?" Chin nudged his shoulder against hers. It took a moment but the young woman broke into a small grin.
"Always," she replied. She looked up at Danny. She still looked like she had the world on her shoulders but Danny was pretty sure that only Steve would be the one to make her believe that it wasn't her fault. Their youngest team member took her perceived mistakes personally.
"Good," Chin answered.
"That's what we want to hear," Danny agreed. Team work … it was fantastic when you had a fantastic team.
"So Rookie, what should be our next move?" Chin asked his cousin.
Kono was keen and a fast learner. Danny had no problem letting Chin turn this into another on the job lesson, especially since he knew it would help to keep her focused. It wouldn't allow her the time to wallow in their failures. Danny could do that enough for all of them.
"Okay," Kono started slowly, looking at what Danny had up on their flat screen, which wasn't a lot. "We need to start backtracking, looking into what Steve's been doing the last couple of days, where he went, who he saw."
"Question is, how far back to we go?" Danny asked.
"Well ..."Chin crossed his arms over his chest, raising one hand to cup his jaw as he thought. He glanced at Danny, pointing his finger at him. "When did he start showing any signs that something was wrong? The Christmas party?"
"I didn't notice anything before then. He was stressed but he wasn't sick." As far as he knew Steve wasn't sick before then but he hadn't really noticed at the party either. Steve had kept that important piece of information all to his damn self. He was definitely having serious words with his partner when all of this was over. "Gracie said he threw up in the bathroom at my place."
"And it was that very next morning that you guys found him in his house. That's at least three to four hours from the time he first showed overt signs of sickness until he succumbed to it," Kono explained, walking around the table, her fingers tented against each other as she thought out loud.
"So it's not a slow poison."
"Meaning he was probably infected no more than twenty-four hours before you found him this morning, maybe less," Kono supplied. "Of course that's just a guess until the blood results come back."
"So we focus on the last twenty-four hours." Chin looked from Kono to Danny just as Danny's phone rang.
Danny pulled the ringing device out of his pocket and looked at his friends before sighing and pressing the call button and bringing the cell phone to his ear. "Detective Williams, this better be good."
"Detective, this is Doctor Collins."
"Doc," Danny greeted, alerting his friends to who was on the other side of the phone. "I'm putting you on speaker with the rest of my team. You got some news for us?"
"I do. I have the Commander's blood test results back ..."
"And?"
"I couldn't identify it before because it had been mixed with another toxin that had suppressed it's progress. There was a small amount of a toxin called Palytoxin in the Commanders blood."
"Palywhat?"
"It's a very dangerous toxin, it's produced naturally by several marine species," Kono explained and then shrugged when Danny and Chin looked at her. "I took a chemistry class in High School … it's naturally found in Hawaii."
" You're friend is correct. Very toxic and deadly to humans. This involves skeletal muscle breakdown and the leakage of intracellular contents into the blood plasma."
"Speak English, Doc."
"Other symptoms associated with palytoxin poisoning in humans are characterized by a bitter or metallic taste, abdominal cramps, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, mild to acute lethargy, paresthesia, bradycardia, renal failure, impairment of sensation, muscle spasms, tremor myalgia, cyanosis, and respiratory distress ..."
"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Danny interrupted, waving his hand in the air despite the fact the doctor couldn't see him. "… what exactly are you telling me here? Is he going to be okay? Is there a cure?" he asked.
Danny avoided the looks he was receiving from his team-mates. His head was spinning enough. Chin had his arm around Kono's shoulder as they listened to what the doctor had to say.
"There is ..."
"Why do I feel like you're about to give me a big BUT here?"
Danny could hear the doctor sigh through the line. "There is a cure but there is a very big chance that if the cure is administered it could react badly with the other chemical mixed with the Palytoxin."
"So what do we do?" Chin asked, looking as nervous as Danny felt.
"We wait."
"Wait, what?" Danny sputtered. "What the hell do you mean we wait? The Palywhateveritscalled will kill him, right? I'm not liking your ideas of options, Doc."
"Hold your horses, Detective and let me finish. I said that we wait because this other toxin is dissipating slowly. If administrated on its own it would have made him sick at a non-lethal dose and eventually left the body. It's leaving his system as we speak. Once his system is clear of it we can administer the cure for the Palytoxin and he should be fine."
"Should?" Kono asked, her voice small and child-like.
"There is the chance that the Palytoxin will cause irreparable damage before we have a chance to administer the cure."
"Fabulous!" Danny snapped. He knew it was no use to get angry at the people they needed. This wasn't the doctors fault. But he hated feeling helpless.
"We're doing the best we can to help the other toxin to flush from his system faster and we're trying to minimise his pain and discomfort in the meantime. He has a good chance, Detective."
Danny huffed. He had a good chance. Danny didn't want to hear that Steve had a good chance. He wanted to hear that he was going to be fine. That the doctors could do their damn jobs and fix their friend.
"There's something else."
Danny rubbed his eyes with one hand. He was so freaking tired. "What is it?"
"We found a small puncture wound on the side of his upper left leg. We've done tests and found that it was definitely site of administration."
"Thank you, Doctor Collins," Kono chimed in, catching the frowns Danny and Chin were giving each other. "Take care of him for us. Let him know we'll see him soon."
"I will. Let me know if there's anything else I can help you with. Talk to you soon, Detective." Doctor Collins ended the call. The room was silent.
TBC...
Author's Notes-2: Thank you so much if you have gotten this far. I still feel out of sorts in regards to the character or to be correct I am scared that I am going to screw up my portrayal of them. I love these characters and I hope I am doing them justice. Thanks so much for reading and if you have a moment stop by and let me know what you thought. You words are invaluable :) Thanks again for reading :)
Tara x0x