Apologies, running late thanks to kids' social activities. Blighters. Anyhoo...
Genuinely overwhelmed at the support this has received, you are all fantastic.
Thanks to sue2556 and KQ for making sure I didn't entirely forget about long-term problems associated with alcoholism. And re-iterated thanks to IC and ECT for their support and comments. Remember to read ECT's 'A Case of Mistaken Identity'. Same general concept as this but a million times more poetic!
Okay. This is it. The end (don't hit me- it was always going to end like this!).
CHAPTER 9- FIFTEEN
For what felt like the thousandth time in the twelve days since the partners had been reunited, Steve watched Danny as he slept, but this time was entirely different. This time gazing at that thin, scarred face didn't fill Steve with sick horror or trepidation or self-recrimination. This time his head was swimming with pride and astonishment and hope because Danny had begun to remember. Danny had remembered enough for to work out the significance of the number fifteen. Enough for him to remember he thought Steve was crazy, which was just so damn... Danny of him. That was it, nothing else... but it just meant so much. Danny's memories had not been entirely erased. At least some of them were still in there somewhere. More of him was in there somewhere.
The sense of sadness and loss that had continued to grip Steve despite having his partner back had virtually evaporated. It was premature, perhaps, but Steve simply couldn't stop the broad, goofy smile that kept creeping onto his face.
Steve ghosted his fingers along Danny's fifteen scars. One day, when all of this was as far behind them as it could possibly get, he would ask Danny all about them, find out how much he could remember. He wanted to know when it had first occurred to Danny to use the number as shorthand to remember Buchanan's name. He wanted to know where he'd been when he'd cut himself, how he'd done it.
Steve wanted to know every last detail because those scars and that number had now become as important to him as they ever were to Danny. Maybe more.
And the number fifteen just seemed to keep cropping up after that. Okay, it was a contrived idea in Steve's mind, really, and he recognized that without a shadow of a self-delusion, but he didn't care. He looked for it.
Fifteen hours
That was the first time Steve noticed it. Because it took 15 hours from the moment Steve phoned in the intel about James Buchanan for Chin, Kono, Lou and HPD to track down the man down, tear apart his whole miserable world and then finally book him for assaulting and abducting Danny.
Steve would have loved to be there, would have loved to see the man's face (and punch it repeatedly, more importantly), but clearly that was not possible. He wasn't well enough and he couldn't leave Danny. Plus he had another important task to carry out. Immediately after he called Chin with the information, he took a deep breath, stuck out his jaw and phoned the governor to explain that he needed an extended leave of absence to assist Danny and deal with his own alcoholism. The governor sounded… pleased. Steve started to wonder if he himself was the only person who hadn't suspected he had a problem.
Chin came in when the Buchanan thing was all done and dusted to tell them what had happened and what he had found out. He and Steve kept a careful eye on Danny as the story unfolded, as Danny learned of the events that had led up to his two years in Colombia. Danny just listened in silence, filed it all away.
Buchanan had broken in interview, spilled everything.
It had emerged that he had taken Danny from outside his house as he was heading out to the Camaro that dark night, two years earlier. Buchanan had hit him over the head from behind with a tire iron, knocked him clean out. Danny had never even seen him coming. Buchanan had loaded him in his car and driven away. He had employed a 'friend', smart and forensically aware (and shortly to follow Buchanan to Halawa), to move the Camaro and ensure the crime scene was left clean.
Danny had been secreted into a container that Buchanan had booked weeks earlier for an superficially legitimate purpose.
Buchanan admitted Danny had been conscious again by the time he had been thrown unceremoniously into the container. He had given Danny a message to pass on to the people who were to meet him at the other end of his voyage. That message; Danny was 'a gift from James Buchanan'. Buchanan had then slammed the doors shut and sent Danny on his journey in the darkness with minimal provisions, a sleeping bag and a bucket.
Steve shuddered at the thought of what that trip must have done to his claustrophobic partner. And he knew for a fact that Danny would have done anything to hold onto the memory of that name, the name of the man who had started all this. Steve got it.
And Buchanan's motivation? He had wanted to ingratiate himself to the cartel Marco Reyes had been a part of. He wanted to be their next big contact in Hawaii. But the 'gift' was completely unsolicited and had met with a lukewarm reception. The powers that be in the cartel weren't really interested in what had happened to Reyes. Things had moved on in their internal politics.
However, they had accepted the gift of an American cop for pure entertainment and rewarded Buchanan by not having the hapless man killed for his impertinence.
Danny Williams had been taken and broken for precisely nothing.
15 days
That was the next big one. Exactly fifteen days on, to the hour, from the moment Steve had first sat beside Danny in that tiny hospital in Colombia, Danny asked him in a less-than-certain voice if he could maybe meet his kids. He still didn't remember them, but he was starting to wish he did.
Steve agreed, suggesting Grace should come alone at first. Charlie was still only six. It would be difficult and unfair to try to school him in how to act to avoid potential upset on both sides. He would have to wait a little longer.
As with previous visitors, Steve coached Danny before the appointed time. He showed Danny photos, told him endless facts about the pretty teenager who was once the center of his world.
"She calls you Danno," Steve said with a smile as they waited for her together.
Danny frowned. "You call me Danno." His speech was coming on nicely, short, simple sentences flowing more easily.
Steve snorted at that. "Yeah. I kind of copied her. It's a term of endearment," he clarified.
Danny seemed to accept that. He was fast becoming accustomed to Steve's surreal brand of humor. "What did I call her?" he asked quietly.
Steve's lips formed the 'M' of 'Monkey', but then Grace was right there in the doorway of the room and Steve choked, emotion overwhelming him. He couldn't say it.
Grace glanced at Steve, her look telling him she has remembered everything he had asked her to do… but her need to rush to her father after so long was palpable. She looked over at him, taking in his lean face, his short hair, the long scar on his cheek.
"Danno," she said quietly, then trailed off, her resolve uncertain.
Steve held his breath.
She visibly steeled herself. "Danno, hi. I'm Grace." Her greeting was simple and perfect. Her lips trembled as she forced a pretty smile.
And Danny still didn't remember her, no matter how much he wanted to. However, although his memories had gone, much of what had made him Danny to begin with ran so much deeper than that. He saw a child in distress because she missed her father and his instincts kicked in. After a moment's hesitation, he held out his arms to her with a soft smile.
She ran at him, tears flowing, perched awkwardly on the bed and then wrapped her arms around him and buried her face against his chest.
Slowly, slowly, Danny put his arms around her, looking over at Steve with apprehension. But then he enveloped her in a fierce embrace. He held her tight, tucked her head in close to his, inhaling deeply against her hair.
"Monkey," he whispered.
15 weeks
Steve knew this one was coming because the day had been marked on his kitchen calendar for long enough to give him plenty of time to count back the weeks, then grin with smug satisfaction when the numbers worked out perfectly. And, okay, maybe fortuity had less to do with this one, because maybe he had chosen the exact day himself. So what if he had?
Exactly fifteen weeks after the partners' initial reunion, Steve finally felt ready, physically and mentally, to begin to go back to work part-time.
Perhaps co-incidentally (but probably not) it took the same fifteen weeks for Danny to reach a point where he felt strong enough, confident enough and able to cope sufficiently well with day-to-day tasks for Steve to be able to leave him on his own for a few hours without needing to arrange for what Danny had grumpily referred to as a 'another damn babysitter'. Not that Chin, or Kono, or Lou, or Danny's parents, or any of the people who had devoted their own time to helping the recovering partners out through the preceding weeks would have objected to 'babysitting'. But Danny didn't need it anymore- that was the big thing.
The first fifteen weeks had undoubtedly been the hardest for them both, but especially for Danny. Things had got worse before they got better.
Danny had been discharged after three weeks at Tripler, inevitably lodging with Steve in the interim while he still needed so much support. His memories of his life before he was taken had continued to emerge in an unpredictable, disjointed fashion, but for the most part they were akin to distant dreams- vague and intangible. He remembered much more of the detail of his traumatic captivity than of his previous life. That was the essence of the problem. As he became stronger and remembered more, he gained more perspective on what had happened to him and the horrors that he had accepted to an extent at the time seemed so much worse. He struggled to come to terms his ordeal and his PTSD worsened in many ways.
Nightmares and flashbacks plagued him, challenging his recovery just a little more than was fair. He woke Steve every night for weeks when he cried out in his sleep, he zoned in and out when he got stressed and his temper seemingly had a mind of its own.
Steve listened patiently when Danny wanted to talk about things that had happened to him He offered quiet comfort even as he mentally tore the (thankfully deceased) perpetrators of the crimes limb from limb over and over and over again. Sometimes Steve was a shoulder to cry on, sometimes he was someone for Danny to vent his frustrations towards. Steve was fine with all of that. He still remembered the Danny he had first seen in Colombia all too vividly. Crying Danny and yelling Danny were so, so much better than that.
Gradually, counselling, medication and Steve's unyielding support, coupled with the classic, stubborn, Jersey determination that ran through Danny like blood, saw Danny finding ways to cope.
His confidence grew slowly, along with his re-awakening Danny attitude.
The people he had known before- he maybe didn't remember them properly, but there was a familiarity, an easiness, which made starting a friendship anew the easiest thing in the world. Steve stayed by his side, he and Danny both rediscovering their links with the friends and family they had before it all went so wrong.
Danny also became curious about himself. What had made him tick before, the ways in which he had changed… the whole nature versus nurture thing. Steve noticed him dropping subtle questions into the conversations he had with other people. He waited for his turn. He agonized over telling Danny about those fundamental, life-altering moments he had confided in Steve about through the years, and about the moments they had suffered through together. Matt, Dave Collins, Meka, Grace Tilwell, Rick Peterson, Billy Selway. The list went on and on because life had never been fair to Danny Williams. He had been traumatized for as long as Steve had known him. He just used to have a lifetime of learned bluster to cover it up with.
Steve hated to tell him, really, but those weren't his secrets to keep. When Danny asked, Steve told.
And as for Steve… ? He hadn't touched alcohol since Colombia and he was determined he never would again. He still had his ups and downs. Low moods and lethargy relating to alcohol withdrawal still hit him when he least expected it weeks after he had stopped, but he recognized those lows for what they were and ruthlessly used Danny's needs to force himself to keep going, to pick himself back up.
Maybe the additional stress of having someone to take care of while he himself was trying to recover might have seemed hugely counter-productive to some, but not Steve. Danny's intense loyalty and unconditional love and support, coupled with his dependence on Steve for help, meant everything. To Steve it provided all the motivation he needed to stay sober.
He came clean to Danny about the whole alcohol thing one evening. Steve knew if he so much as suggested as sharing a couple of lite beers now, Danny would kick his ass.
As the weeks passed the two friends slowly healed. Danny filled out, muscled up and seemed more like… Danny. But when it all got too much Steve would still hold Danny's hand, rub his scars and they would count together. 'Meditation for dummies', Danny came to call it as he became self-conscious about the habit.
Steve would just smile at that, ignore him and keep on counting, head bowed. Counting those fifteen scars meant as much to Steve as it did to Danny. They weren't just the clue that had lead them to Buchanan- their very existence reflected Danny's presence of mind, his intelligence, his tenacity, his determination that justice should prevail in the very worst of circumstances. They were a reminder of who Danny had been and who he was gradually becoming again. Even after their meaning had been lost to Danny they had still provided his one source of comfort when he was in hell. They had kept him safe in a way… and then, when he really was safe, they had gifted Steve the means to draw Danny back. Steve had had no understanding whatsoever of what he was doing when he had started to count to fifteen with Danny, over and over and over again, but if that had never happened, if the number and the scars hadn't been there at all… Danny could have been lost to them forever.
Steve couldn't help but think that in many ways the number fifteen had saved Danny, and, in a roundabout fashion, it had saved him too.
15 months
Steve smiled proudly, glancing surreptitiously to his right.
Because it had taken 15 months, give or take, to reach this day, this marvelous morning when Danny started work full-time at Five-0 again. As it turned out it didn't matter so much that he had never regained all his memories. Danny had changed in many ways, but in many more he was still the same. His personality was still… Danny. He was still stubborn and loud and infuriating, loyal and intelligent and determined.
Steve could have just re-hired him, no questions asked, let him re-learn the facts he had lost on the job. Immunity and means had so many benefits. But Danny wouldn't have that. Danny didn't want the easy way. Danny wanted to stand on his own two feet again for real. He went back to the Police Academy and started from scratch.
Now Danny, newly re-trained and on his first day on the job for all intents and purposes, was standing with his hands on his hips, looking at Steve like he'd just grown a third head.
"What?" said Steve.
"What the hell are you doing?" Danny replied, gesticulating wildly.
"Watch and learn, rookie," Steve grunted with a grin, adjusting his grip on the suspect's ankles.
Danny glared at him like he was clinically insane. "Watch and learn?! What the hell is the matter with you, you-you Neanderthal! I might be a rookie but I'll bet I've read the official police procedure manual one hell of a lot more recently than you, if indeed you have EVER read it, and, let me assure you, my friend, hanging a man off a roof is not an approved interview technique!" He waved his hands in the air as he yelled, irate.
Steve's smile got impossibly wider. He wondered idly what would be happening to them in fifteen years' time.
THE END
Yeah, the end, but I had way too much fun writing this and I have a stash of recovery scenes that didn't quite fit in (although they still happened in my head!). I might add the more presentable ones after this as an 'outtakes' chapter if there's any interest.
Please let me know what you thought… and if you would like that little bit more.
Swifters