Disclaimer: I do not own Hawaii 5-0 or any of its characters.
Danny was a little more with it by the time they arrived at the hospital. He wasn't shivering as badly as he had been and he could feel the warmth of the blankets tucked around him but as yet it wasn't quite warming him up on the inside. As soon as the ambulance stopped at the hospital, the medics started to manoeuvre the gurney inside. A doctor, Dr. Thompson, immediately came to find out Danny's vitals and started to call for some nurses to come and assist. He was a relatively tall man, with greying hair. He had a kind expression on his face, but you could tell he would take no nonsense either.
Somehow in all the commotion, Steve's injury had been missed but he was not going to call attention to that fact for the moment. He managed to follow into the room, watching his partner like a hawk.
Having been poked and prodded and answering all the doctors' questions in a whisper, Danny was diagnosed with moderate hypothermia. It would be necessary to continue the re-warming by placing a warming blanket on him. The doctor also called for something "more substantial" than the usual hospital gowns, so a pair of flannel pyjamas materialised. All the time Steve remained almost out of sight, but not quite. Danny had spotted him skulking in the background. He knew that face that the ex-SEAL wore. It was the "this should never have happened and it's all my fault" face. Danny tried to convey to Steve that everything was fine but knew he wasn't getting through. Once settled properly and to the doctor's liking, Danny cleared his throat and rasped, "Has nobody noticed the 6' 1" injured guy loitering in the corner?"
Clearly for Dr. Thompson and his two nurses, it was, in fact, the first time they had noticed Steve.
"Damn it young man, why didn't you speak up sooner?" the doctor scolded.
"Well because I knew if you spotted me you'd try to send me out and I was not going to let that happen," Steve replied.
"Here, sit down. Let me take a look," the doctor said as he gently lead the commander to a chair positioned at the right of Danny's bed.
Removing the sling he examined the wrist. Steve winced at each little movement but then felt Danny place his hand on Steve's shoulder and he gained some comfort from that.
Shaking his head the doctor said "It's definitely broken but it appears to be a clean one so we may be able to reset it without too much hassle. Come along with me and we'll get you x-rayed and sorted in no time."
Whispering again Danny said "maybe check his head too, he cracked it off the wall as he fell backwards during the fight."
Steve whipped his head around to glare at his pal, but groaned as his head ache spiked.
"Ok commander, we all know how strong and brave you are. But honestly we need to get you sorted out. Detective, press the button if you need anything."
Steve looked at Danny, resigned to the fact that he would go along with the doctor…for now.
"Hey brah, you keep warm there, I'll be back as soon as I can. Kono and Chin may be here before I'm back. They were going to do a last sweep of the factory and follow along."
"Come along commander, the sooner we go the sooner you can come back here," Dr. Thompson coaxed.
Danny cuddled down to try and get some sleep. The blanket and pyjamas seemed to be doing the trick and he was finally starting to warm up. One of the nurses that had been with him since he had arrived in the hospital appeared at the door.
"We're going to put a second bed in here so that Mr. McGarrett can be observed for a few hours. Is that ok with you Detective?"
"Yeah sure, it's probably the only way you'll get him to stay here anyway," Danny whispered.
"I'm going to do a quick check on you vitals and then take of the cuff so you can get some proper sleep. How does that sound?" the nurse said to her bed bound patient.
"Heaven," he croaked with a smile.
A couple of minutes later the nurse finished making her notes on the chart, turned to Danny and said "All done; now you get some sleep. It's late."
Danny didn't have to be told twice and was asleep in minutes, pulling the blanket close in around him.
Sometime later, Danny didn't know exactly how long, he woke up to see his partner being rolled in on a bed to the space beside him. He seemed to be asleep, but you could never be sure with Steve McGarrett. Their doctor followed in behind.
"How's he doing doc? I kind of expected him to be awake when he came in," Danny asked.
"He's fine. We set his wrist and put it in a cast. We also checked him out for any head injury. Nothing showed up but he must have a whopper of a headache, so we gave him some pain meds and he conked out. He was exhausted from that fight earlier and the worry. He'll probably sleep for a few hours. It's the best thing for him," the doctor smiled.
"Thanks doc," whispered Danny.
"Right let's have a look at you," the doctor then said unwrapping the blood pressure cuff. The next few minutes were spent checking Danny's vitals.
"Well everything looks quite good, young man. Your temperature is coming up quite nicely. I'll get one of the nurses to go down to the hospital pharmacy to get you something for that throat. You were very lucky, besides the hypothermia, you had no injuries."
Nodding sadly in agreement at the doctor, Danny couldn't shake the feeling of guilt. He was the one who was abducted and yet Steve ended up with broken bones.
"Detective, don't worry about the Commander there, he'll be fine too," the doctor said encouragingly.
"Yeah I know," Danny smiled. "And call me Danny and he's Steve."
Danny settled back down into the pillows, glancing over at his friend every little while to see how he was doing. A nurse arrived along with some cough medicine about 15 minutes after Dr. Thompson had left the room. He took a measure, promptly making a face.
"Why does it taste so nasty," he spluttered.
"It's not meant to taste nice, now be a big boy and take some more and then maybe you'll have another nap."
Making another face, Danny swallowed off another mouthful of the vile concoction. He could feel himself starting to drift off to sleep but decided to use the bathroom beforehand. So gingerly he climbed out of the bed, shivering at the change in temperature after being under the warm blanket for so long. As he walked over to the bathroom, he nearly tripped over something on the floor. On examination he found Steve's Kevlar vest, his badge and gun in a neat little bundle on the floor. Danny picked them up and laid them on the chair at the end of Steve's bed by the bathroom door. He really needed to talk to the ex-SEAL about appropriate places to leave his gun.
He walked into the bathroom then and closed the door behind him.
While the injured pair were being examined and settled down; in another room of the hospital another injured man was also being tended to. HPD had not bothered with an ambulance for Michael Chi, instead they opted to unceremoniously throw him in the back of a police Cruiser and bring him to the hospital, without any first aid. His injury had not been too bad for a gunshot wound. He had been cuffed to the bed while there was a police shift change and would then be escorted back to the HPD building.
Nobody quite knew how he had managed to escape the hand cuffs and the police officers standing outside the door, but he had. They also didn't know what sort of head start he had on them. It had been half an hour since anyone had been in the room with him.
As soon as his absence was noticed HPD put out a BOLO and also road blocks on all routes away from the hospital. However, they did not think it necessary to either search the hospital or inform 5-0, thinking that a: there was no way Chi would hang around and b: they would have him re-captured before Lieutenant Commander McGarrett would find out he had escaped.
Michael Chi had no plan to escape though, well not before he finished what he started. He was going to sort out those two damn 5-0 cops before he got off this stupid island and away from that moron Tommy Benton. He didn't know how he had managed to get tangled up with Tommy but it had been a nice change of pace at first, not always having to be the physical part of a criminal gang. He had been a very violent youth and had trained in a variety of martial arts, not for the discipline but for the advantage it gave him in a fight.
He had enjoyed his time with Tommy for the most part, at least he wasn't constantly bruised and battered, but there had been times where he would gladly have given someone a beat down. He was always talked out of it. Tommy always said let the "hirer-help" do the physical stuff because they were expendable. He always agreed then and stood back, but earlier today for some reason he just snapped.
That stupid blonde cop with laryngitis just pissed him off and when he came back to give him a beating he found the tall guy trying to free him and he just saw red. All his training with weapons came flooding back. Nobody was getting near him and if he took a few of these guys out so be it. He had felt a power he hadn't felt in a long time as he had stood over the tall one leaning against the wall; that was until the shot had sounded and he felt the searing pain in his shoulder, dropping the pry bar to the ground.
Now dressed in scrubs he wandered around trying to blend in and glean some information as to where the 5-0 cops were. He knew they had been brought here too. He had managed to break the tall ones wrist, he was certain of that and the blonde one was definitely showing signs of hypothermia. He eventually was rewarded as two young nurses were discussing their latest two patients.
"I think the Commander is hot, I mean what woman could resist those tatts and those dark blue eyes?"
"Yeah, yeah he's classically handsome but come on the detective has that whole surfer dude thing going on and there's something kinda cute and sad about him too. Actually I better get back in there with this cough syrup or Dr. Thompson will kill me."
With that the second nurse walked down the corridor and disappeared into a room, only to reappear again very quickly. "He'll be asleep in no time," she said as she made a few marked on a chart and put it back into its cubby hole.
Chi passed by unnoticed and pushed the door in, expecting to find two sleeping men. Instead the blonde's bed was empty but he could hear sounds in the bathroom. He quickly moved around the bed to the tall guy, grabbing a pillow off the first bed as he went.
Making no delay he placed the pillow firmly over Steve's face and held it there, climbing up on the bed straddling his victim so that he could put more pressure on the pillow and therefore get done quicker.
Steve started to struggle but was impeded by his right wrist in the cast. He couldn't shake his attacker off. He didn't even know where he was, the last thing he could remember was being given the pain killers after the doctor had set his arm. He must have dropped off after that and now he was fighting for his life in a bed and it wasn't going very well. He bucked with all his might, throwing his whole body into removing whoever was on top of him. He was starting to see stars but kept trying.
Eventually he was rewarded with feeling the pressure move but at the same time he could feel himself tumbling off the right side of the bed and cracking his head on something on the way down.
In an instant the pillow was back over his face, but he had no more fight lift in him. He had all but lost consciousness and only vague heard the shot and then the pillow slip from his face and everything went black.
Danny had walked out of the bathroom, feeling slightly groggy from the effects of the cough syrup; he was looking forward to getting back into his bed and getting a few more hours sleep. Hopefully by the time he woke again, he would at least have some sort of voice back!
He was not expecting what greeted him as he walking out the door. There was Michael Chi, on top of Steve, trying to smother him with a pillow and Steve in turn was trashing around on the bed trying to get free. Danny stood rooted to the spot for what seemed an eternity, then remembering Steve's things, he grabbed the gun. As he turned back he saw that by now Steve was on the floor and Chi was once again pressing the pillow into his face.
Danny took aim and fired, killing Chi instantly. Danny ran and pulled Chi off Steve. "That's twice today I've had to save you from this guy," he rasped.
"Hey Steve, you ok? Steve? Steve!" Danny cried as he got no response from his too still partner lying on the floor.
XXXXX
I mean no disrespect to HPD by making out that they kinda messed up, it just sort of fit with the story.
I hope you are all still enjoying this story. It has kind of taken on a life of its own.
PS Once again you can thank Anne-Marie for this chapter going up so soon. It was that or possibly waking up in the morning with her hammering my door down!