Chapter 19

A/N: Well, here it is, rather unexpectedly, the final chapter! Everything left undone in this story will carry over into the next one. It even fits better there, so, I hope this is okay.

You have all been so incredibly kind to me, and I appreciate every read, ever review, ever follow, and every Favorite astonishes me and makes me very humbly happy. I only hope this pleases you as much as your reading this story has pleased me.

CBS owns all rights to Hawaii Five-0. I only play harmlessly with their toys.

Chapter 19

Danny had not heard Steve and Chin until they entered the room, and that pretty much brought a halt to his discussion with Kono. He simply said, "Obi-wan," while she responded, "Kylo, brah!" Then they both greeted the rest of their ohana. But then Steve said, "Nope, you are both wrong. Darth Maul's double bladed lightsaber. Coolest by far. Right, Chin?"

"Sorry, Boss," replied Chin. "Mace Windu's purple saber. The only purple lightsaber."

Everyone laughed, because everyone had their own opinion, and it was fun that they weren't fighting. Danny felt pretty good about the world at the moment. He asked Steve how his physical therapy went, just as Steve asked why the privacy curtain was pulled. Kono pushed it back immediately as she answered, "We found it a challenge to not look in the box."

"Yes!" corroborated Danny. "If we could not see it, we could forget about it, which is what we did. So how was the therapy? You are not wet, so this wasn't the pool one, right?"

"Yeah," replied Steve, in a fittingly dry tone. "They have this thing called a towel, Danny, very fluffy and soft, and it soaks up water! Amazing invention! So I would not have returned wet even if this had been the pool one."

"Okay, okay, point taken. So since you are not answering my question, I can only surmise that the answer is -"

Chin answered for Steve, with a grin so wide, it had all of them grinning in response. "Totally, completely gassed. Seriously, they work you in PT, Danny. Soon enough it will be your turn."

Kono was already pouring Steve a blue cup of ice water. "Here. This should help you feel better."

"Thanks, Kono. This is exactly what I need!"

Danny was watching Steve, who was sending him sideways glances, acting like a proud papa. He knew Steve would ask him about the meeting with Kono, but in private. He was clearly very pleased, as was Chin, who had gone to stand by Kono after helping Steve into bed. They were staring at the box. So Danny stared at the box as well, silently, intently, matching his gaze to his colleagues' drilling stare. In fact, Danny was not that curious, because if it was stuff for the meeting his coughing fit had derailed, he was not sure he wanted to know.

Finally, Steve caught on to the pointed stares directed at the box. "Oh," he said. "Yeah, the box! Well, a lot of the stuff is now redundant, because we are all back to being the Five-0 Task Force, but we should ... there are some things in here that I had ready in case they were needed at the meeting."

"Like what?" asked Kono, and Chin put his arm around her shoulders, because she sounded suddenly hesitant.

"Nothing bad, Cuz," he said, lending support.

Danny watched closely as Steve fumbled with the catch on the box, then began pulling things out. The first thing they saw was a recorder, and Danny was sure what it was as soon as he saw it. It was from the plane. He felt his stomach do a flip, not with any excitement whatsoever. "Danny," said Steve, "remind me to play the tape for you, the one from Grace, when you slept through her visit." He also set aside the tape of how the meeting had actually gone, which unfortunately held the coughing fit and everything that happened afterwards. That would probably never be played.

Danny was very curious to know about the tape of Grace, but knew he would have to wait to see that. It was something he looked forward to seeing. He would have asked questions about it, but this was obviously not the time.

He watched Steve pull out a lot of files. "This was stuff I thought would give us all a clearer idea of some of what Danny has been through, like the bone marrow transplant. I had Chin copy some info off the internet about what it's like, and the follow-up on that. But I'm not sure we need that, unless Chin or Kono are interested?"

"Yes," they both said. Danny felt uncomfortable, since he had been teased a lot about the difficulties of the recovery. The annual Tough Mudder obstacle race for charity had come up when he was not healed, and it had been hard for him to give it his normal effort, because his hip had been still quite sore. That was one of the times both Lou and Kono had referred to Danny as the team's weakest link. To top it off, he had taken a fall which had resulted in his ankle being sprained, because another competitor decided he was a target to take out. The team had had to help him finish the race, which they had won despite his bad hip and sprained ankle. Teamwork had won out.

Danny was quiet while Kono and Steve read the printouts on how a bone marrow transplant was done, and the recovery. Chin pretended to read it, but he had already done so when he had the articles printed out in the first place.

"Wow, I didn't know this stuff," said Kono. "I'd heard giving bone marrow is no big deal. I had no idea it can actually be a very big deal." She looked at Danny with a whole new level of respect.

Steve added, "Pain varies from a one to a ten, depending on the individual. It can feel like being stabbed by a hot ice pick, though some individuals feel very little pain, and recover in days as opposed to up to a month." He looked at Danny. "So when you said your hip was bothering you, you weren't kidding."

Danny squirmed. This was not something he wanted to talk about. But for his ohana, he would. "I would do it again in a second, mind you, because it was to save my son. I would go through it again to save anyone, frankly. But, yes, it was for me very painful. The area near a nerve was damaged, and the nerve developed neuritis, and if you have ever had that -"

Three hands went up.

"Well, then you all know what that feels like. I had it bad for a month, and then it took a few more weeks to really go away. Again, I would still do it even if guaranteed that it would be that bad."

Kono brought up the Tough Mudder obstacle course race. "You did that two weeks after the bone marrow donation." She remembered the 'weakest link' comment. "You aren't the weakest link, Danny."

"Not by a long shot," said Steve.

Danny cleared his throat and said, "We won for strongest team, and that is what means the most to me."

Chin put his hand out, and it was instantly covered by Kono's, then Steve's, and last of all, by Danny's. "To the strongest team."

"Yeah!" chorused Kono and Steve. But Danny had stayed silent.

"Danny?"

"Team, yes," he said. He held onto the collection of hands. "Even more, to the strongest ohana, the best ohana."

Four happy voices chorused, "To the strongest and best ohana!"

THE END

A/N: This story could have gone on longer, but the purpose of it was to heal the ohana, and it did that. There are things mentioned in this story, such as the plane recording, the recording Danny will hear that Steve recorded for him with Grace, and I had planned on one more scene with Lou. But this was the best possible place to end this story, because all the scenes still unwritten actually fit really well into the next story, the one to follow this one. It takes place after this one, when they are all back to work.

I have to thank every reader for reading this, and every reviewer, every follower! I deeply deeply appreciate that this story has been accepted! You have all been so very kind!

I hope the next story pleases you as much! It will take a good couple weeks to get it started, since I'm still clearing up a bit of research. I will see you all soon, I hope!

Mahalo,

Jean