Chapter 5

A/N: I want to thank all who have read and left comments, likes, follows, favorites—I am deeply humbled by this! I wasn't sure at all that this story would be read, so this has been a beautiful experience. And the story isn't over yet! While Danny and Steve are back on ohana status, we still have to get the others there, and that's not going to happen in 2 more chapters. We've got a ways to go yet, and I hope you will stick with this story and this journey! Thanks so much for all the kind reviews and comments! I love those! They provide insight into what you like and don't like, and in some cases give me ideas for chapter content! I try to respond personally to everyone who leaves a review or writes to me, and if I missed you, it was oversight and my weird mailbox.

Just remember, this story isn't finished!

I am deeply humbled by every like, follow, and favorite. Mahalo!

Chapter 5

Danny was not normally a heavy sleeper. In fact, he was an insomniac, verging on having a sleep disorder. His problem was that he had trouble frequently with relaxing enough to fall asleep. He had once been given a prescription for the lowest dose of a particular relaxant medication - essentially, a form of tranquilizer specifically to help one relax into sleep. But he never took it. He had tossed the little pills into the bin when HPD was having one of their yearly drives for the safe disposal of expired medications.

His reasons for never taking the pills were threefold: first, as a father, he never wanted to be less than fully alert if he got one of those middle-of-the-night calls every parent dreads. Second, as a member of Five-0, he had to be ready for the kind their task force handled, and as often as not they came in the wee hours and involved either driving, or being a passenger while Steve drove, which required more of a clear head than those times when Danny drove himself. Third, he did not like drugs, the feeling of being drugged. Once or twice a year, he might allow himself to have three beers, or three glasses of wine. He always regretted that fuzzy feeling afterwards, so his limit was normally only two, with a single alcoholic beverage being his preference. He had to set a good example for Grace, who was at the age when her peers would try to influence her judgment about drinking.

Danny had been aware for awhile of feeling like he weighed a ton but was never-the-less floating. He pitied the clouds holding him up. No, he decided with fuzzy thoughts, it was not clouds. Clouds would be soft, and whatever he was on was hard and unyielding. Floor? His brain puzzled over that until he decided the floor would be colder. It was not his couch, or Steve's couch, or his own bed, or the bed in Steve's spare room.

He was about to toss out the category of furniture altogether and move onto something else when he figured out where he was, and what was holding him up. He smelled pineapple and strawberries, mangoes and bananas, lots of flowers, heard the rustle of helium balloons gently bumping into one another. He was back in Steve's room, and the regulation-uncomfortable hospital bed was what was holding him up. Despite still feeling compromised in the working brain department, he was proud of his mental faculties. He knew he had made it through several hours post surgery, because he did not feel deeply sedated. In fact, he felt tired but rested, and that felt very nice.

Danny then took stock of the rest of him, and decided that maybe the nice part ended with the rested feeling. He realized his mouth was dry and furry, and held a medicinal taste he did not like. His throat was paper-dry. He wanted a glass of water, but not until he washed the after effects of the medicinal sock out of his mouth. Then other sensations started to work their way into his consciousness, the worst being a widespread area of pain in his torso, from one side all the way across to the other. Breathing hurt. He opened his eyes, saw something indistinct hovering over him, and squinted, reaching up with his right hand, intending to rub his eyes, only to poke himself in the eye with the clipped-on oxygen meter.

"Ow."

The hovering indistinctness said, in Steve's "best friend" voice, "Hey, careful there. Welcome back, Danny. The doc was by a few minutes ago, and he says you're fine."

"Then he is now off my Christmas card list, because he is a quack, even if he does good liver transplants. I am not fine."

Steve had a very distinctive laugh. "Put him back on it. He said you are going to be fine. No harm to your liver, and nothing worrisome about your kidney. But you may have some cracked ribs."

"I could not be more glad to have more cracked ribs, and he is back on the list. Steve, you look like a human-ish cloud blob. My eyes are not focusing right."

Steve said, "Don't flinch, and close your lids. I'm going to rub your eyes."

Danny was too startled by the request to refuse it. He closed his eyes, and Steve very very gently began massaged them. Danny suddenly wanted to cry, at the level of friendship and care just shown him. He burst into tears, embarrassed as hell.

"Danny! I-I'm so sorry, did I hurt you?" Steve sounded so worried that it made the tears come faster.

"N-no! Sorry for the waterworks, Steve. Just, nobody ever did s-something so caring like that for me before." His smile wobbled, but he felt happy and grateful. He had stopped crying, but his eyes were still filled with tears. "Now you look like waterfall Steve."

"Aw, Danny. Anytime." He was very gently enveloped in a hug. Steve did not hand those out lightly, so he hugged back. "Thanks. Uh. Sorry, it's just...that was the kindest thing anyone has e-ever done for me. I-I think I need a kleenex."

Steve instantly stuffed one into his hand, and put the box by him on the bed. As Danny dried his eyes and blew his nose, Steve chuckled. "Late one night, I was watching some show on the TV, I have no idea what it was. Almost seemed like a period piece for kids, or I dunno, very G-rated. Some guy referred to a handkerchief as a 'nose-wipe', and it cracked me up."

Danny laughed with Steve. "Nose-wipe? Well, accurate." He was feeling so much better, if he ignored his aching midsection. "You look like regular Steve now. Thanks, buddy."

Danny watched as Steve sat down on the side of his own bed, and rubbed his own eyes. "I did catch the doctor. He told me...what you did, not the cliff notes I'd been given before. I don't know why nobody told me Did Chin and Kono know? About the risks you took for me? Not the beach landing - that made the national news. But, you know, that the doc almost didn't let you donate because it was dangerous for you to do that."

Danny was not entirely surprised by the question. "Yeah. Yeah, they knew. They were told when Grace was told. I was already in surgery. Grace told me afterwards that she was scared, but they told her that I would want to help you. I mean, they were right. I had to do it. But even more, I needed to, I wanted to." His eyes roved over Steve's face and then body, finding all the places where there were healing bullet wounds, and the line of stitches where he had been opened up to receive half a liver Danny had been only too willing to donate. Danny focused again on his partner's deep blue eyes. "Steve, you were dying. I knew that on the plane. We were forty miles out at sea-what if it had been fifty, or sixty? Every second of every minute counted. That's why I landed on the beach."

He waved his right hand in a weak arc, and in his mind he was back in the plane. "The ATC - they told me to think about myself. They'd written you off, Steve. I kindof get that, like 'maximize numbers of survivors' and all that. I'd have a better chance of survival with a water landing. At least someone comes out alive, right? But how could I do that, Steve? I had not written you off. You even thought you were done for, but I didn't believe it. I'd feel your shoulder, and you weren't getting cold. I'd watch that pool of blood, and it wasn't getting bigger. You still had a chance. You were still alive, Steve. How could I land someplace I knew would kill you? On the beach, at least you had a chance. How could I take away that chance?"

Danny watched Steve lower his gaze for a brief time, then lock on his own eyes. "Danny, I owe you my life in more ways than one. You risked your life to save mine, so many times. You shared your liver, and ever since you did that, every day I live is because a part of you is now a part of me. I can never repay that level of friendship with anything other than to show you that I value you and our friendship more than any other person or friend in my life. I love you. -I want to hit you over the head sometimes, and I'm sure that won't change, but I love you, buddy."

Danny felt a huge weight lift from his heart, the hurt of a week's worry that Steve was somehow sorry it was his liver he had received. Even as the weight lifted, Danny recognized for the first time that this had been his fear, that his gift was being rejected by the man who had become his brother in ways that ran deeper than if he was a blood relation. He smiled, not a huge smile, but one of radiant happiness. "I would do it all again in a heartbeat. I love you too, Steve."