I do not own Hawaii Five-0 or any characters. No copyright infringement intended.
Notes: continued thanks to you all. Feeling better... that had to be due to ALL the well wishes and 14 hours of straight sleep; my, but stress is a 'not so wonderful' thing. :-( Hugs and love to Komodo Queen, CinderH and TheDogo for awesome help!
Chapter Six
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As his struggle to draw in an adequate breath of air continued, his right arm was held firmly over his head. Other hands restrained his left arm along with his upper body while commands were called out in multiple voices. The feelings of being trapped did nothing for his mental state as true physical agony only seemed to escalate in kind. It was a blur of motion, pain and a dreadful need to simply breathe as Danny became what seemed like nothing more than a thing to be shuffled about amongst too many hands. Of course that was hardly the truth as first the emergency medical technicians fought to stabilize his condition, followed now by the experts in the emergency room. Conscious enough, he would remember the worst bits and pieces of pain when time seemed to stand still into one paroxysm of endless suffering. But now, he didn't care what the various test results proved; suspended in what seemed like a circle of agony, Danny was fighting to breathe and remain calm. His turmoil even prevented clear thought about his daughter or what might have happened to the young boy. In pain and feeling manhandled, Danny could only ride the course of the violent wave being inflicted upon him.
"Detective, we're going to localize the area along your ribcage. Once the anesthetic takes effect, you're going to feel the pressure increase." He must have mumbled something because there was a friendly squeeze to the wrist being held securely over his head. "The next bit is going to be a bit... rougher. You're going to feel what we're doing, but it's normal and I'll coach you as we go."
" 'kay." Raspy voiced, Danny wasn't sure he'd made a loud enough sound until the answering squeeze followed once more on his wrist. As the area was numbed, Danny felt the subsequent pressure but then he couldn't adequately ready himself for what was explained, no matter its delivery.
"Try to exhale for me, we're almost there but I need to go a bit deeper." Danny's mind stuttered as the pressure increased along with a heated pain which conflicted with his attempt to do as he was bade. "Ready, now. This bit is going to feel like a knife but it will be over soon. One more push... we're almost there."
"Stop." Danny gasped, whimpered and squeezed his eyes tightly shut as a hot brand literally fingered its way between skin and bone; he felt an added firm thrust and then... the sear of fire trilled alarmingly inside his chest. The hands encompassing his right arm, wrist and left side bore down as their patient reflexively heaved in reaction. His murmurs were plaintive, choked and sadly pleading as the chest tube was inserted between his ribs, into his chest cavity and then diligently padded, stitched and taped in place. His voice dipped, quavered only to disappear in a series of panted moans, barely audible to the medical team so focused on his care. "Please... stop. Just... stop. "
"We got it... it's done... we're done," the faceless voices promised and chanted over and over as Danny fought a nausea that ripped through him from stem to stern. Stained in sweat, Danny trembled as the hands slowly released their strangling grips, encouraging him to relax and find a semblance of center. But for a time, the pain remained much too slowly lessening in its crescendo. Eventually, he acclimated realizing that riding along with the lessening sharp ache was a marked ability to breathe.
"His oxygen levels are not great... but they are improving. Blood pressure... needs to stabilize." No longer being spoken to, Danny vaguely listened to numbers and vital statistics being spouted over the gurney. He was still being touched, poked and prodded yet could do nothing. Laying there in a fugue, Danny was completely unable to find the wherewithal to move or ask questions as the general state of urgency continued to swirl around him.
"Detective, the surgeon is here now. We're going to take you up... your family's been informed. They will be here when you get to recovery." The one soft voice finally drifted down specifically to him. It took his brain a few agonizingly slow seconds to catch up and to understand what he'd been told. Then it wasn't the surgery that kept his focus. It was the latter half of the words which lingered to cause both alarm and a sense of peace.
"My... daughter? She... she's Grace." He pushed past pain and fought to get her name out. Pleading someone to hear what was barely audible in his own head. There was a movement by his side, forcing him to open eyes blurred by pain. He sought the hand which found his much faster, not realizing it was the same nurse who had recently situated Steve and his daughter in the spare examination room.
"Your daughter is with your partner. They're both here and promised to be waiting when you get out of recovery." Blinking furiously against an emotional tide which pulled painfully inside his chest, Danny roughly muttered his thanks. Reluctant to lose the one person who had been with Grace, Danny's eyes closed but he weakly insisted that the nurse follow the gurney, refusing to loosen the hold on her hand as they progressed the short distance down the hallway. Then as the retinue paused for the patient elevators, she was gently untangling their fingers.
"Grace is fine, Detective, and in very good hands. So are you." Seconds later, the nurse was gone and Danny was being rushed to surgery without a modicum of fanfare.
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Trading hands after resting in the examination room for just a few short hours, Grace had first left Steve for her Aunt Kono. Tidied up in a woman's rest room, force fed a tasteless dinner in the cafeteria, Kono had then eased Grace to Chin before leaving for the beach to assist Charlie Fong's team if she could. Paying a visit to the crime scene and then going to the labs, Kono had kept the rest of the team up-to-date and they in turn, kept her informed of both Danny's and Mark Paquin's condition. But from that pivotal point and needing to swear that she was truly feeling better, Grace had finally succumbed to Chin's persistent guidance of sitting quietly in the waiting room. Remaining watchful though, Grace was pensive as Steve paced the hallways or softly questioned an available nurse for word on her father.
Now hours later as the sun dropped lower in the sky, Steve stood over Danny's bed in the ICU. In the waiting room, Grace was sprawled across Chin's lap in a deep sleep. Until they knew more, Steve had taken the responsibility of when to contact Rachel Edwards. With so many hours and travel requirements between Hawaii and the mainland, Steve didn't quite see the point in reaching out to the woman only to discuss a great deal of unknowns pending the most current of medical status. Therefore, taking advantage of time zones and pending more information, he waited.
"Danny." Steve's stage-whispered while resting his forearms on the bed's raised bars. After a fairly long and intricate surgery, his partner had finally been moved out of recovery and to the intensive care unit. Though Danny was severely injured, what the primary surgeon had told Steve was short of a miracle. Whether that had happened because of the boy falling or due to the fact that Danny had been positioned on a lower angle and just off center, no one could say for certain.
Mark Paquin's slippery fall had caused the rusted weapon to discharge. It was still a danger much like an old World War II bomb or incendiary device might pose a severe risk. The accident could have been a fatal one of monstrous proportions. With a concussion to boot, Danny was lucky despite his current state, as was the young boy on the other side of the rambling ICU. But Mark Paquin was only lucky because he was still breathing on this own. His fractured skull, whip-lashed neck, and badly bruised deep tissue damage in his back were marred by even more visible cuts and deep gashes requiring stitches and drains.
According to the surgeon, the bullet had entered high on Danny's right side but on a downward, transverse angle to his ribcage. On its course, it had deflected off and broken a rib to lodge low in the soft tissues of his lower back muscle. Those fragments of bone had nicked Danny's right lung which didn't sound very lucky to any one of his friends, yet still the physician was pleased. What was certain was that if the bullet had hit his partner center mass, at such close range, the severity of the wound would have been catastrophic. But it hadn't and thus, Danny had escaped the first worst scenario. His partner had also danced around other medical conditions had the bullet traveled differently which Steve had blandly digested and then discarded as irrelevant. The trauma was still significant, but not what the surgeon had anticipated finding. So for him, he at least was pleasantly surprised that his patient had been so amazingly lucky. While the supposed miracle impressed Doctor Webber, Steve was only learning to be glad of it.
"You look like shit, Danno." While he was certainly more at ease, what Steve saw now was not pleasing and he could not entirely relax. Regardless of Webber's professional sense of relief, the end result had left Danny in the intensive care unit and with a complicated looking chest tube which extended to a plastic canister positioned below the level of the bed. The supposition was that the natural mechanics of gravity would continue to vent accumulating air and blood from his partner's chest cavity to alleviate the severity of pressure on his lung. Suffering from a concussion and under an obtrusive oxygen mask, Danny was being pumped full of broad spectrum of antibiotics, anti-inflammatories, and pain medications. Adding insult, miscellaneous superficial abrasions and bruises dotted his legs and hands from his aggressive attempts to intercept Mark as he fell.
"Danny." Still resting his forearms on the bars, Steve sighed worriedly. Webber had allowed him in because Danny had stabilized and was due to awaken. Concerned about the nature of the circumstances surrounding the injury, the physician wanted his patient waking to a friendly face.
"Danny. Hey, buddy." Leaning forward, Steve skimmed his hand down Danny's arm ending just above the intravenous ports where a cocktail of strong antibiotics and pain medications were being dispensed.
Like Grace who had finally fallen asleep on Chin's lap, his partner was too quiet despite having roused in the recovery room to the medical staff's satisfaction. His current more prolonged lack of movement now though was something of which neither Danny nor Grace were known to be even remotely like. Now moved to a more permanent location in the ICU, the primary physician, Doctor Pierce Webber, the one whom had orchestrated the exploratory and corrective surgery, expected Danny to waken more alertly. In fact, a few minutes earlier, Doctor Webber had encouraged Steve to attempt some gentle coaching as time dragged on.
"Come on, enough of this. Grace needs to know you're awake and okay before I take her home." He didn't add that he did as well before placing his hand on Danny's right shoulder. Tight-lipped with stress, Steve raised his voice slightly and looked closely for any sign of waking. "Danny, wake up."
Eyes remained stubbornly closed though as occasional breaths fogged the oxygen mask in an off kilter counterbalance to the machine's mechanical soft hissing. Deeply worried by Danny's utter lack of response, Steve sagged against the raised bars of the bed. Unable to hide his black look, the frustrated sigh was audible as he was forced to wait even longer.
"Nnn… uhh." He jolted though when a gruff throaty noise emanated up through the oxygen mask to compete with the sterile sounds of the ICU. The subtle atmospheric change was palpable as Danny's fingers twitched and then his hand moved across the sheets.
"Danny… hey." Afraid yet to quite offer a smile, Steve leaned closer as he started to speak encouraging words all over again.
~ to be continued ~