I may have lied... I found a good place to end this chapter and as such, I present you with Mua Hala, chapter 15 of 16 (16 of 17 if you included the prologue). Please enjoy and review.

Rose xx

Danny allowed Steve three days. Three days of sitting in his beach chair, talking to no one and moving only for bed and bathroom, eating only what Danny placed in front of him. Danny gave him three days to allow in self-pity, three days of the denial. But when the sun rose in the morning on the fourth day, Danny put his foot down. When Steve meandered downstairs (at 10 am, something the Steve of old would never have considered) Danny was waiting for him. Thrusting a towel and trunks at Steve, Danny held out his other hand."Give me the aids. Put these on and get your arse out for a swim. I expect you back in a half hour."
Steve glared at him. "Screw you, Danny." He tried to sidestep, making no move to take any of Danny's offerings. Danny moved quickly, blocking.
"Did I stutter Steven? Give me the fucking aids and get your self-pitying arse in the ocean." Perhaps it was the swearing, uncharacteristic of the father to a young girl, or the ice Danny knew was in his glare, but Steve slowly moved to unhook the tan clips from his ears, depositing them in Danny's waiting hands. Quickly stripping, he slid the trunks over his boxers and took the towel. He was out the door with a glare over his shoulder. Danny took it as a win.

Danny knew he would only have the half-hour he had instructed Steve to work. The man may be in a depressed slump, but his body clock was a well-oiled machine, precise almost to the second. Depositing the aids in a dish on the bench which was home already to keys, change and a bullet casing (Dany decided he wouldn't ask), Danny set about in the kitchen. Throwing spinach, cucumber, Greek yoghurt, chia seeds, half a banana and protein powder Steve stored in the cupboard inside an old bucket all together in the blender, Danny whizzed it all together, producing a green smoothie Steve had assured him in the past would get by as food. That done (with the sickly liquid in a shake bottle waiting on the bench next to the dish with the aids), Danny moved upstairs, gathering the clothes Steve would never have left on the floor in times gone by from where they were scattered around his bedroom and bathroom. The pile of laundry was quickly thrown in the washing machine along with the ex-SEALs bedclothes and towels. His stale room was aired, the bathroom tidy. Danny set out a razor, toothbrush and comb on the sink. If his day went according to plan, the items would find themselves in use rather soon. He checked his watch. 10:36. Steve would be in any second. He jogged back downstairs.

Sure enough, the minute his foot crossed the threshold into the kitchen, the sliding door opened to reveal a semi-dry SEAL. On first inspection, he looked no better than before. His scowl was fixed in place and he didn't respond to the noise as Danny tripped over a chair. But Danny knew Steve better than most. The tension that had held his posture for the last days was gone. He was still paler than usual but there was a healthy flush in his cheeks and his eyes weren't as clouded as they had been. Time for phase two. Clearing his throat loudly, Danny final gained Steve attention and handed him the aids. Ever meticulous, Danny watched as Steve moved the towel that was draped over his shoulders to his ears, carefully drying inside and out. Apparently satisfied, he then slipped the aids over his ears, flicking the miniscule switch to turn them on and grimacing for a second as he adjusted to the sudden clarity.
"Breakfast's there." He nodded at the shake on the bench.
Steve's face darkened but this time, he didn't argue. Another win. Dany picked up the paper from the bench; he'd left it there after the mailman had come that morning.
"Read it in the sun, enjoy your shake. Then upstairs. Shower, shave and shit, you know the drill."
Once more Steve looked like he wanted to protest but once more he obeyed with a glare. Win number three.

When Steve came back downstairs, clean-shaven with his aids firmly in place, Danny directed him to the chairs outside.
"Alright. Now you're not in a completely shit mood it's time we talked. I know this sucks. But you can't let one thing that sucks make the rest of your life suck."
"Danny you don't understand-"
"What? I don't understand something that sucks? I don't understand that one thing can make your whole life shit? I'll tell you something, I had it, Steve. the whole enchilada. My wife divorced me and moved interstate with another man and my daughter. It sucked. And I could have let it make my whole life suck. But instead, I made something of it. It became the best decision of my life to move with her. So no Steve, you're right I don't know what it's like to be an ex-navy SEAL without all of his hearing but I do know what it's like to be handed lemons and be expected to make lemonade without sugar or water."
For a second, Steve said nothing. Then he laughed. A full body, body shaking, starting-from-your toes kind of laugh. Danny at back, gaping.
"The hell? Do you know how long that speech took to come up with? And you're laughing?"
Steve wiped his eyes and had Danny not been so glad to see his friend happy, he would have been more annoyed at the laughter which was clearly happening in insult.
"Did you seriously just give me a 'when life gives you lemons' Danny?" Danny chuckled, then joined his friend in his laughter.
"I think I did."

The following days did not make life go back to normal, but Steve found himself able to fall into a routine that had a semblance of what he was used to. His days once more began with a swim, and experience strange in itself. Steve swam with all his senses and without his aids he found himself unable to hear the water rushing around his ears, getting only the vaguest hint of waves every few minutes. He'd found the clarity he'd had with his hearing in the hospital was temporary as the fluid within his ears had once again settled, something the doctors had warned him about and he had dismissed in his denial. Without his aids, he could hear only flashes, loud sounds coming through like a barely tuned radio. At his appointment a week after his discharge to assess his hearing and collect his new aids, the doctors had retested his hearing and measured him a level lower than the day he'd gotten his hearing back.

"Not uncommon." They'd said. "But not likely to improve." The loss hurt both more and less than he thought it would. More because he realised his career with the navy was over, less as he realised it had been since the phone-call with his father that ended with a gunshot. The new aids he'd gotten were state of the art; tiny, the size of the bud of one of 5-0's earpieces and the quality of sound he got was better than he'd had in years, his hearing no doubt damaged by years of bombs and warzones. But he missed the sounds of the ocean as he swum. He hoped one day the lack of water rushing in his ears wouldn't hurt.

Danny had more or less moved into Steve's house. The guest room had been his for years already and Mary's room had been steadily becoming Grace's as the duo spent more of their weekend's at 'Uncle Steve's'. Steve hadn't told his partner he was looking into options to sell the Jersey man's apartment. The small flat had never been a home. Steve found comfort in having the other man in the house; he was Steve's ears in the night when his aids sat charging at his bedside, he had breakfast ready after his swim. He made the house that had felt too big since Steve had come back from the Navy less lonely.

Two weeks after his discharge from the hospital, Steve was cleared for desk duty. His first day back, he walked in right on time to be greeted with friendly faces; not one person commented on the flesh coloured buds in his ears. He'd been sitting in his office for nearing an hour, attempting to sort through the paperwork that had accumulated in his absence (despite Chin and Danny's best efforts), when there was a knock on his door.
"Yeah," he answered, distracted by the report of an increase in drug activity around the local elementary school. The door opened, and Steve looked up. Immediately the pen that had been grasped loosely in his hand fell to his desk and he stood to attention, a habit he knew he'd never shake in the face of authority.
"Senator Bailey, I wasn't expecting you."

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Rose xx