Apologies for the delay- I was hoping FF would fix their 'reviews dropping into a black hole and disappearing' issue quickly but it doesn't seem to be happening yet. Half the reviews might be AWOL but I did see them via email before they vanished and I appreciate them very much! I just can't reply to them as the reply URL isn't working either so I'm sorry for that. Joy. Anyway, I've run out of patience so I'll bash on with posting and just hope they reappear at some point :)

More apologies because this is long, but it either had to be one chapter or five chapters and, as I said, I never did have any patience, so you're getting it like this!

CHAPTER 3- COLOMBIA

DAY ONE

Catatonic stupor. Dissociative state. The terms had been bandied around and perhaps it had all lost something in translation, or perhaps he hadn't been listening as closely as he should, but either way they had failed to convey what Steve was actually faced with when he had eventually arrived at the tiny but well-equipped Hospital Arsenio Repizo Vanegas in the small town of St Agustin, Colombia.

Steve sat by the bed, close but not too close, trying to breathe. He couldn't look away from this man, this shadow of his former partner.

Danny was curled tight in a foetal position, eyes open but focused fearfully on nothing at all. His body was thin and wasted, his hair clipped short thanks to a recent outbreak of lice on the ward. Nobody knew exactly what had happened to him, but his many scars and the injuries he had been found with told a story that Steve couldn't quite bring himself to face. Not yet. His partner had been tortured and abused in the worst possible ways for a prolonged period of time. Months at the very least.

The physical damage was now all but healed. Danny was being maintained via the PEG feeding tube that had been surgically inserted in his gut because they couldn't get him to eat voluntarily. They could hardly get him to do anything in fact. Yes, physically they'd fixed him, but psychologically… they hadn't even scratched the surface. Psychologically, Steve was told, they had seen no change, no improvement, in spite of trying a range of drug regimens.

Danny simply wouldn't engage. He showed no sign of recognition or comprehension. But he wasn't unaware of his surroundings, not completely at least. He whispered under his breath almost constantly, counting, of all things, and whenever anyone approached him those whispers escalated, the words punching out ever faster, blatantly driven by panic. He was aware all right.

Steve had naïvely thought the sound of his voice would snap his friend out of it. That his tentative one-sided effort at their familiar banter would switch Danny back on, re-set his mind, break through his barriers. But his proximity caused as much distress as that of anyone else, no matter what he said or did.

He had brought a video, a message from Grace, on his cell. Her youthful excitement, the waver in her voice at the mere concept of her father being alive, made his heart ache when he played it for Danny. He had been sure that her heartfelt words would cut through the mire. But when the pretty face on the little screen delivered her pièce de resistance, when she declared her love for her Danno, the shell of a man on the bed merely shook with fear, lips moving faster.

Steve put his cell away and died a little more inside.

Transportation to return them both to Oahu had been organised by Joe White, who was still hovering around in the background, disappearing and reappearing without explanation, no doubt busy with whatever semi-lawful endeavour it was he had originally come here to do.

They had five days to kill, five days before they had to leave to RV with the military transport plane.

Steve bought a bottle of whiskey.

He was slumped in the chair near to Danny's bed. He cast his gaze up, taking his friend in for a moment. For as long as he could bear. His eyes traced a long, ragged scar on Danny's left cheek before he looked back down. "Buddy, I know you just want to be left alone. Message received. I'll leave you in peace because I don't know how to help you. I'll just sit here, okay? Watch your back like old times. I'm not gonna hurt you. I promise." He barely whispered the words. They were maybe more for himself than for Danny.

He pulled the whiskey bottle from his backpack, unscrewed the top and tipped it up, drinking deeply.

Danny was counting quietly again. Steve listened. One to fifteen, every time, rubbing those fifteen neat little scars on his thumb, every time. Steve felt a sudden illogical loathing for the number fifteen, for his partner's compulsive need for it. He berated himself. His anger should be directed at whoever had done this to Danny, whoever had hurt him until he had been driven back into the recesses of his own mind. Steve couldn't seem to muster the wherewithal to even think about justice, or revenge. For all he wasn't really helping Danny, he couldn't bring himself to leave his side. Not now.

It would be hard to catch them anyway, he reminded himself, reasoning away his otherwise inexplicable indifference. The hospital had next to no information. Danny had been brought to them but they had no record of who had brought him in. His notes just said he had been found lying naked at the side of a dirt road in the mountains some 75 miles north of the hospital. Whoever had held him, whoever had ill-treated him for so long, it seemed they had simply finished with him and left him to die alone in the cold.

The window for retrieving forensic traces from Danny's body was long gone, the evidence lost forever thanks to the disinterest of the local police.

Steve wondered when Danny had first started counting. He wondered when he had lost his mind, what the final straw had been. How much he had suffered before that had happened. But he was still suffering, that was the worst thing about it, and he didn't even need to be. He didn't even know he was safe.

Steve couldn't help but feel he had failed. The old Steve would have found a way to get through to Danny. The old Steve would have held him, hugged him, told him it was over and been believable. He had tried to do those things, but it felt insincere because he was not that man anymore. His paltry efforts had only served to alarm Danny, driven him to count faster, to pull weakly away from him. It seemed that Danny's whole world had deconstructed into presence/absence of risk and counting to fucking fifteen. Maybe the psychiatrists in Oahu could help. God, he hoped they could help.

Steve took another drink.

...

DAY TWO

"Steve?" Joe's low voice made him jump. He turned slowly in his chair, sliding his bottle away into his backpack smoothly.

Joe looked pointedly at the bag. He had blatantly seen what was inside. He didn't comment. He gestured for Steve to follow him out into the corridor.

Joe leaned heavily against the wall opposite the door. Steve settled stiffly beside him, ill-at-ease.

"Steve, my, er… colleagues and I have been asking some questions. We've found the man that brought Danny in."

Steve's jaw dropped. "Y-you've been working Danny's case?"

Joe frowned at him. "Of course. Jesus, Steve, what else would I be doing? Danny's a good man and the things they did to him… someone has to pay. To be honest I thought you'd be out bashing heads yourself by now. I guess you've other things on your mind." He turned his head, glancing pointedly towards the backpack.

Steve shook his head. "No. I-I… Danny needs me. Okay?"

Joe frowned harder, eyes flicking over to the still form in the bed. "He needs you," he said flatly. "Does he know you're here?"

Steve flared his nostrils, stuck his jaw out stubbornly. "I'm working on it, okay?" he said, tone defensive. "Just tell me what you've found out."

Joe let out a long breath. "I've found out the man who picked him up is scared. He's a poor family man, has a lot to lose if you know what I mean. He was very unwilling to talk. That means there's someone with some clout involved. We both know the obvious answer to who that might be."

"Reyes. His family? Or the cartel?" There had never really been any doubt there had to be a link, ever since Colombia was first mentioned. The very notion of becoming embroiled in something here again turned Steve's stomach.

Joe nodded. "It's a safe assumption there's a link given Danny's history. We know the cartel Reyes worked for is active fairly close to here so it would fit. The organisation is huge and, as we know, has CIA backing. Those things in mind, I'm trying to be discrete. It would be a non-starter to try to take down the whole cartel. I don't know about you, but I'll be happy if the specific people who've laid hands on him are neutralized."

Steve nodded dumbly, for all that scenario was horribly reminiscent of what had happened with Danny and Matt. That hadn't worked out so well.

"How's the enquiry going at the other end?" asked Joe. "Any leads on the mechanics of how they got him out, who was involved there? Who took him to begin with?"

Steve had given it no thought whatsoever. His focus had been getting here. Seeing Danny. That was it. The team knew that Danny had been found, of course, and where. They had never discussed it but, Steve realized, even with the limited new information they had, they would be digging anew. He could depend on that, on them, for all he had been pushing them away for months. That internal acknowledgement left a tight feeling in his chest. He huffed out a breath. "I need to check in, see where they're at. I'm overdue."

Joe stared at him for a long, drawn out moment, holding his gaze until Steve had to look away. "Steve, this man, he said when he found Danny he thought he was dead. He was covered in blood and barely breathing. He thinks he had only just been dumped. His brother had walked past the same bit of road just an hour earlier and saw nothing. If Danny hadn't been found so quickly, he would be dead and we would never have known what had happened to him. Whoever dumped him did not expect him to survive."

Steve didn't reply. A lump rose in his throat and he looked resolutely towards Danny, willing himself not to cry. He sensed Joe turning towards him then the man's big hand dropped onto his shoulder.

"Steve, I can see things haven't been right with you, I'm not blind. I wish I could have been around for you. I'm sorry. But whatever has been going on in your head these last two years, you need to draw a line under it. You have him back, maybe not as you would want him, but you still have him back. This man is what Danny Williams is now and he needs you firing on all cylinders, whether he comes round or not, whether he recognises your voice or not. Find your focus. Find your anger. You hear me? He needs you, not some… zombie sitting there wallowing in self-pity."

Steve didn't reply. He hung his head as Joe walked away.

A few beats later, he pushed himself off the wall and wandered back into Danny's room on legs that inexplicably felt like jelly. He sat down, shaking. He suddenly had no idea what he was even doing there. He was fuck all use to Danny, fuck all use to Joe. Find his focus? How was he meant to focus on anything when Danny was lying here like this and he couldn't even find anything to say or do that didn't seem to scare the shit out of him?

Screw Joe White. How dare he say those things?! The cold bastard could have no idea how he was feeling. He had no right to question how he was managing his issues. He reached down for his bottle and took another numbing swig of whiskey.

He listened to Danny, his whispered words barely audible but so intense, so forceful, almost as though they had a deep and hidden meaning beyond obsessive, repetitious self-comfort. Those simple words clearly meant everything to Danny now.

Without conscious thought, Steve's lips began to move in time with Danny's, hesitant at first, then certain and committed.

He started to count too.

...

DAY THREE

"Steve, hey. How is he? Any improvement?"

It was surprisingly good to hear Chin's voice, calm and measured as always. "Not really. You getting anything your end?"

"Yeah. We've been looking at potential transportation. We have a container ship as a possibility- one headed out bound for Tomaco in Colombia four hours after Danny disappeared. Kono's going through the manifest and Lou is trying to get a list of the crew out of the shipping company. We'll let you know what we find."

"Thanks, Chin. Listen, this is a reach. Danny keeps counting to 15, over and over, counting these freaking scars on his hand. They think it doesn't mean anything, it's just a self-comfort thing. But there's something about the way he says it. I'm wondering if it does mean something more to him. Or meant something to him at one time. Can you bear it in mind? I mean it could be anything, licence plate, address, freaking shoe size. Maybe a container number? And I don't know if the connection could be in Oahu, or Colombia, or somewhere in between. It's… I'm sorry, Chin. I just think maybe it might help Danny if I knew why it was so important to him, that's all."

"I'll do my best. Steve, what are the doctors saying? What's his prognosis?"

Steve paused, put a hand over his eyes. "They don't really know. He's really fucked up, Chin. I don't know… I don't know if he can come back from this."

There was a silence, because Danny wasn't only Steve's friend. Steve could still acknowledge that on some level.

"I'm sorry, Steve. But he's safe, right? No more pain."

"Yeah. No more pain." Steve hung up fast before his composure could crumble.

….

It became a habit, counting with Danny. For the best part of two days, Steve did little but sit with him and do just that.

Two more days to kill. All the transportation and patient transfer arrangements were in place thanks to Joe and the medical personnel. Danny's doctor had apparently been in contact with Tripler, had emailed Danny's records, his drugs schedule. Steve had contributed nothing. It felt like everything was happening around him and Danny, like they were in their own little universe where nothing mattered but counting to fifteen.

Steve counted until he needed a drink, then drank until he needed to count.

Then he began to play with the counting, just a little, because the monotony was punishing. He found he could con himself into thinking he was communicating with Danny in the most abstract of ways.

He did what Danny did, but pre-empted his partner's stress-related changes in speed, having the unfair advantage of being able to actually see other people coming. It felt like he was warning his partner on some level by accelerating his own counting, letting him know someone was approaching, something new was about to happen. Then he'd slow back down again in an effort to tell Danny there was nothing to be scared of.

It was ridiculous because Danny didn't even know he was there.

He kept counting when Danny slept. The man thrashed around weakly, gripped by nameless terrors in his fleeting moments of slumber. It didn't seem to happen, not quite as much anyway, when Steve counted for him.

That made Steve wonder.

Then there was Danny's scarred thumb. Steve had reached for it on impulse on the second day while his partner slept, thinking he should stroke it like Danny seemed to need to if he was to do the job properly. Danny had woken at his touch, his unseeing eyes fearful. He had launched into his mantra at top speed. Steve kept counting too but insistently slow and loud, louder than Danny. Eventually Danny had slowed too, had begun to relax. He hadn't pulled away. He had allowed Steve's hand to stay where it was.

That made Steve wonder more.

Steve counted quietly now, staring at Danny. Danny was resting, eyes open and distant, but he wasn't counting. It almost felt like he was listening to Steve, allowing him to carry the burden for a while. Steve liked that feeling. But then he hung his head because he was kidding himself and he felt so sad and he couldn't even begin to imagine how Grace and Charlie were going to cope with their father reduced to this.

Then Danny's finger twitched. He began to count too but his words accelerated rapidly, rushed out in an urgent whisper. Something was wrong.

Steve glanced up in concern, then froze. Danny was looking at him, his pale blue eyes widening with terror.

"Danny?" he said softly.

He could have kicked himself, because his partner's counting went into a panicked overdrive in a fraction of a second, the numbers falling from his lips like machine-gun fire. Steve tried to keep his head in the face of the enormity of that negative reaction, because he was pretty damn sure Danny could see him and Danny could hear him but Danny didn't know him.

He stared into Danny's panic-stricken eyes as the man tried, painfully weakly, to free his hand from Steve's. Then something solidified inside him. Steve started to count again, holding Danny's gaze. He spoke firmly and now held the scarred hand tight. He slowed his counting steadily, deliberately, slower and slower. The message he was trying to project; Safe. Trust.

Danny heaved in great lungfuls of air, stuttering uncertainly. His eyes dropped down to their joined hands. Slowly, slowly, his counting steadied, then fell into line with Steve's.

Steve scarcely dared to breathe, scared he would do the wrong thing, break the spell. But there could be no doubt. As Danny's tense, shaking hand slowly relaxed in his grip, Steve felt a wholly out-of-proportion burst of triumph. It had worked.

Danny had understood. Danny knew he was there and Danny trusted him.

….

DAY FOUR

The counting thing had started something. A connection of sorts, primarily between the two men, but a ghost of a connection between Danny and the real world was also forming. If Steve was there, if Steve was providing reassurance in the way Danny understood, he seemed to look at things, at his surroundings, like he was daring to explore reality for the very first time now he had someone by his side who he could trust, someone to hold his hand.

It wasn't just Steve that had noticed it, it wasn't just in his head. Danny's doctor had stood back and watched them discretely, and was astonished. He was encouraging Steve to try more.

Steve discovered he could talk to Danny now, he didn't have to stick to those fifteen fucking numbers any more. As long as he kept his voice low, his tone light, Danny seemed to listen without getting upset. Whether he understood or not was a whole other question, but Steve wasn't even letting himself think about that. If Danny became distressed, or started counting at all, Steve would revert to that safest of territories, counting along with him, rubbing his hand.

He wanted to try something new. He held up a tiny pot of plain yoghurt and a spoon, showed them to Danny. "You want to try to eat? That stomach tube thing looks like no fun at all."

There was no reaction. No reaction was not a bad reaction. He could work with that.

"Okay. We'll give it a go. I'll help you. You trust me, remember? I'm holding you to that."

He stirred the spoon around a couple of times before lifting it, scraping it on the edge of the pot to avoid drips. He was suddenly reminded of feeding Joanie, back when she was a baby. She and Mary were just two more people he'd squeezed out of his life when Danny had gone. He had hurt those around him to avoid being hurt further himself. It was unforgivable, really. A lump rose in his throat. He took a moment, glancing from the spoon up to his partner's face.

Danny, propped up on pillows, was watching silently, pale blue eyes flicking nervously from Steve's to the little pot. His lips trembled. He was thinking about counting, Steve could sense it coming.

Steve looked down at the pot, wondering about Danny's experiences in captivity. Better safe than sorry, he thought, then put the spoon into his own mouth. He ate the yoghurt, held up the empty spoon for Danny to see. "It's okay, buddy. Not the best but it's passable. Trust me."

He took another spoonful, this time raising it to Danny's mouth. He tapped it gently against his partner's lips then held his breath.

Slowly, hesitantly, never once taking his gaze from Steve's eyes, Danny opened his mouth.

Steve nearly broke down. The gesture of trust from the man who had been abused so badly for so long was almost more than he could take. He spooned in the yoghurt, breathing hard to control his emotions, then dipped the spoon back into the white gunk and stirred frantically. He was going to have to think about something else to keep it together. Jesus.

He watched as Danny successfully swallowed down the first solid food he'd taken willingly in God only knew how long, then began to talk quietly as he fed his friend one tiny spoonful at a time. Talking seemed like as good a thing to do as any.

"So you and me," he began, "we worked together for five years. Partners. Cops, you know? And we hung out too, we were friends. Close friends." He laughed quietly. "You liked to complain. A lot. Sand, pizza toppings, musical preferences, interrogation techniques. You name it, we could argue about it. But it was good. It was our thing. I liked to press your buttons, wind you up. You liked letting off steam. We had fun, buddy. We were one hell of a good team."

He glanced up from the spoon. Danny's eyes were on his, his gaze piercing. Right at that moment it was hard to believe he wasn't one moment away from cracking some sort of shitty joke at Steve's expense. Course, if Danny did ever really come back to them, he was gonna be pissed with Steve for a whole pile of things. He would be yelling at him, not joking. Steve would give anything to hear Danny yell at him again.

That thought released something in him and then the words were just falling out, like he was in some sort of fucking confessional. "So, I've been a dick to the rest of the team since we lost you. A dick in general in fact. I just…I didn't know how to cope I guess. I missed you. I blamed myself- still do. And we didn't know what had happened. I spent all my time wondering. Picturing the worst." He snorted. "I wasn't far off the mark with that."

He took a shaky breath, hesitating long enough to make sure he wasn't upsetting Danny with his unsolicited monologue. Danny still stared, not reacting. Steve nodded curtly, taking his acquiescence as licence to continue unburdening his soul. "So I've been hiding out, refusing to see people outside of work. Except your kids, man," he added with a weak smile.

He watched Danny's face carefully, still hoping for some flicker of recognition when he spoke about the two most important people in his partner's world. "Yeah, so I get to see your kids once a month. We have fun, talk about you a lot. Gracie, she's the best. So grown up now. And Charlie? You want to see that boy run! He's gonna be an athlete for sure. Your ex, Rachel, she's a force to be reckoned with though. I think in your absence she decided I was the next best target for her wrath. I know you always had a thing for her but I never realized you were an actual masochist, buddy. She's not the easiest woman."

Danny was still watching.

Steve crushed the disappointment that threatened to rise when none of that got a reaction, because that wasn't fair. It was too much to hope for. He huffed out a breath. "So the rest of the time I work, I push people away and I maybe drink too much too. Not every day. Okay, pretty much every day, if I'm honest. No way would you have let me get away with that." He paused, looked at Danny doubtfully.

"So I'm sorry. And I miss you. And I'm gonna do anything I can to make things okay for you. I guess you don't remember me, or any of us, right now. Maybe you never will. But it doesn't matter, I don't want that to worry you. You have a family in Hawaii who will love you no matter what. I've got your back no matter what. If you can't remember your old life, fine. We'll just have to make you a new one."

Danny was still listening. He still wasn't counting.

Steve smiled at him cautiously. He was sorely tempted to ask him to say something, anything, that wasn't a number between one and fucking fifteen.

He opened his mouth but then hesitated, seeing the trust in Danny's gaze. It suddenly struck him how far they had really come over the last few days. It all felt huge, overwhelming. He couldn't push. He couldn't betray that trust.

Steve gently wiped a drop of yoghurt from Danny's chin with his thumb. He huffed out a shaky breath. "Hey, you did good, partner. Finished the whole pot! You want to count now? Let's count."

He sat back, setting the empty pot down. He took Danny's hand and bowed his head as they began to count quietly together.

...

DAY FIVE

The bond was growing. It was less uncertain, more of a given. Danny was allowing things that had driven him into a flat out panic just three days earlier. The daily rituals of the bed-bath, the cursory shave, the checks, feeding him, maintaining his tube… he was tolerating them all and more as long as Steve was there to help him count. And the shutters weren't coming down as often. He would watch what was happening around him instead of retreating into himself.

Steve wondered. The level of trust was so great, he had to wonder if there was a shadow of memory behind it.

Steve was proud as hell of how far Danny had come… but he craved dialogue. There had to be a way. So he waited for a moment when Danny seemed relatively relaxed, then went for it. He was holding Danny's scarred hand and he gave the back of it a gentle rub with his thumb, got his attention. "Hey, buddy. I want to try something. I don't want you to worry about it, it's just an experiment, okay? I'm just wondering if you can maybe tell me something, somehow. I thought we could try the old 'one for yes, two for no' thing. We can try different ways to do it, see what works. Okay, Danny, can you blink for me? Just one time. One time means 'yes'.

There was no response. Danny stared at him blankly.

"Okay, that's okay. How about this. Can you squeeze my hand? Same thing, one time for 'yes'."

Nothing.

Fuck.

He had to think smaller.

"How about this. You're looking at me right now. If the answer is 'yes', you look down at your hand. I know you can do that, buddy. Please. Danny, do you understand me? Look at your hand for yes, okay?" There was a desperate, pleading note in his tone that he hadn't intended at all and he heard his own voice waver with emotion.

Danny didn't break eye contact. His face became tense and his lips began to move silently in his infernal never-ending mantra.

Fuck. "Sorry, Danno. Sorry, it's okay. That was too much. Okay, let's count. Six, seven, eight, nine…"

Steve kept up with Danny's counting, trying to ease back the speed. Fuck. Danny couldn't even comprehend the most basic of instructions. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. He looked up, saw Danny's shutters had come down, the gaze now distant and unfocused.

He kept counting, kept one hand on Danny's, but he reached under his chair for the whiskey because by fuck he needed a drink.

He unscrewed the top one-handed, then lifted the bottle to his lips. He broke count, just for a second, just long enough for a quick slug.

Danny squeezed his hand, hard, twice.

Steve lowered the bottle in astonishment, stared at his partner. Danny was switched on again, staring at the bottle, an unreadable expression in his face.

"Danny? W-was that two for 'no'? Buddy, are you telling me 'no'?"

Danny didn't react. He seemed frozen, staring at that bottle like a rabbit caught in headlights.

"Danny?" said Steve hesitantly. "Do you understand me?"

One squeeze. Yes. Then Danny's eyes widened with horror and he was breathing hard, curling in on himself, counting manically. He was panicking like he'd just crossed some unseen boundary without permission.

Steve was agape. But then he shook himself, placed the bottle on the floor and grabbed Danny's hand in both of his. His partner was crashing hard and fast. "Hey, hey, it's okay, it's okay," he said hurriedly, "you've done nothing wrong. It's okay, we can count." He jumped in, following Danny's lead with the numbers, but his mind was working at a million miles an hour.

Danny did understand. He was just fucking scared.

….

Blinding panic.

Danny (and he knew his name was Danny now, thanks to the ramblings of the tattooed man, some of which he understood, some of which he didn't) had gone too far, he knew he had and he didn't know how he could have been so stupid. The man who had him now, he had been good to him so far so why the hell had Danny tried to ask him not to drink? What the hell had he been thinking?

He knew his place and he knew how to survive, he had learned those things through a catalogue of horrific experiences. Keep fucking quiet. Keep fucking still. Pretend you're not there. Don't be there. Stay in your head. If you stay in your head it doesn't hurt as much. If you don't react they lose interest faster.

The tattooed man had changed things. Tricked him? No, he had counted with Danny. Soothed him when the fears built. Made him trust. Opened the door to his mind, just a fraction, which was more than anyone else had managed for as long as Danny could remember. And what had he done to thank his new master for that gentleness and understanding? Broken the rules, voiced an opinion, and he had no idea where the opinion had even fucking come from because why should he even care if the man drank all the time? It made no sense!

He would be punished. The tattooed man would cut him and beat him and burn him and rape him. He didn't want those things again, especially now when his body didn't even hurt that much anymore.

He curled up tight, counting hard, building up his barrier, ready to shut out the pain that would surely come.

But the pain didn't come. The echo started up again.

The tattooed man… Steve? He was counting with him! Danny had fucked up monumentally yet the man was simply counting with him again.

He listened in astonishment, still breathing hard, still counting hard, still anticipating pain. He listened as Steve gradually slowed his counting, persisting until Danny couldn't help but follow his lead as the panic started to recede and the adrenaline dispersed.

Danny dared to crack open his eyes.

Steve was there, watching him anxiously, counting steadily, soothingly, stroking his hand.

Steve reached up hesitantly. Danny flinched back, but Steve simply touched his cheek then stopped counting for long enough to whisper quietly to him. "I'm not going to hurt you, Danny, never. I promise. No one's going to hurt you."

And he looked so damn sincere Danny found himself daring to hope it might be true.

TBC

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