Chapter 69 "Recuperation"
A/N: (13 August 2017) Thank you all who managed to get through Chapter 68. To all who left reviews, thank you. To those who didn't manage, it's okay, this story is not usually that whumpy. It was difficult to write, too. It took 17 straight hours including a sleep-free night to write, rewrite, tweak, tweak some more, delete extraneous stuff, make part A and part C's details match, fix the tension so it was tense rather than almost clinical, and on and on and on, all that the writer has to do to get something post-worthy.
This one isn't as bad, but it's not quite a picnic; just know that a lot of good is interspersed with details of getting Danny better. The overall tone is positive, even if some of the details are not. This took as long to write, but I didn't do it in one sitting. From here on out, things won't be so heavy. We have hit and moved past the crescendo. Good stuff lies ahead.
The reason for 68 was that we needed to know how Danny faced a trial that had nothing really to do with the box and stuff related to it. The fact that Stan's brother is the baddie is only incidental, since the tie-in is weak.
Please don't fear this chapter. It shows a lot of Danny's character. I hope you will leave a review if you feel so inclined. Thank you.
CBS owns Hawaii Five-0.
Chapter 69 "Recuperation"
(Friday, 10 February 2017, 4:30 a.m.)
It was exactly four weeks and two days since Bradley Edwards had snatched Danny off Steve's beach and almost killed him. Steve would never forget the moment the police chopper had caught up to the Liat Pacific, and he and another police officer had dropped down on cables to rescue the unconscious Danny before the Zodiac sank.
It was a tricky rescue since there was no time to stop the Liat before beginning. The inflatable had already taken on too much water and was threatening to sink, plus the bullet that had gone through the floor of the inflatable had also nicked the side and was letting air escape from one side of the raft. Danny was in real danger if a shark breached nearby. It would swamp and / or tip the Zodiac, and Danny was bleeding too much for a breach to not happen very soon.
The rescue plan was as simple as two men in harnesses dropping down on cables, cutting Danny free, getting the harness on him and clipping leads from it to each man, then pulling up the two men hanging onto Danny as fast as they could, bringing Danny with them. But keeping the chopper and the boat's speed matched was as tricky as everything else, since it required the chopper to fly perfectly so that the cables holding Steve and the other officer did not sway and make it harder to keep hold of Danny once his harness was snapped to each of theirs.
Already the sharks were excited, and the boat was so low in the water, Steve and the other officer had gotten Danny cut loose and in the harness in a virtual photo finish, raising up toward the hovering helicopter just as a large tiger shark launched out of the water, missing Danny's dangling feet by less than a meter, smashing down on the inflatable, taking a bite out of it and making it sink that much faster.
Steve still had nightmares. From his angle, he had thought the shark would reach Danny.
But Danny didn't know about the breaching shark because the few men who knew saw no reason to tell him.
As for the Liat, another Coast Guard Cutter had been sent from Kauai to intercept it. It had done so close to an hour later, and by then the Zodiac's tow rope had been bitten through. It had been found later that day, barely floating, damaged far beyond repair.
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Steve stood in the dark living room, behind a large plant that stood near the back door, and watched Danny sleeping peacefully on the couch. Angel was curled up in a ball, smiling and asleep, in the little cocoon made for her with his blanket and his arms, his wrists no longer even needing light bandages. His hair had grown out enough that he could style it somewhat in his usual style, although sleep had mussed it in a way he knew Becca loved because, with Danny staying at his house, he could not help but overhear some of the private conversation between the two soulmates. Becca loved to run her fingers through Danny's hair, and from the growls and love sounds Danny made when she did it, he loved it too. Of course, Becca's brown curls got the same attention, and Steve would steer the kids clear of the porch swing when those two were together there.
Steve's smile brightened his whole face when he thought of how much Danny and Becca loved one another. Becca was made for Danny. They were literally a perfect pairing.
He remembered with a more serious face how she had been waiting for the Medevac flight to land at Tripler, as had Hannah, arms around her worried twin sister. Becca had burst into tears of anguish at seeing the damage done to Danny – his very red sunburn from the photosensitive reaction to the medicines Stan's brother had forced him to take, bleeding head, left leg, both wrists and ankles lightly bandaged, multiple IV hydrating solutions (non-saline at this time), and a whole blood IV plus antibiotic. Of the six IV ports, four were in use.
In fact, when Dr. C analyzed the drugs Lou and Adam had quickly found in Bradley Edwards' hotel room, which was mercifully easy to track down, he had realized that, while the medications varied widely and were in all but one case over-the-counter and only dangerous in extreme overdose situations, they had two reactions in common: the ones given to him on Steve's beach mostly caused extreme photosensitivity, resulting in severe first degree sunburn bordering in places on second degree over Danny's entire body, in a short time, while one of the beach-given meds and everything in the water bottles was meant to cause the extreme nausea and vomiting that had resulted in Danny's rapid dehydration and severe misery by the time the doctor was able to treat him even in the helicopter, less than ninety minutes after Danny was taken from Steve's beach. Danny's entire body, even the parts covered by the thin material of board shorts, had been in the sun for an hour by the time he had been rescued from the Zodiac. He was protected by tarps or roofs from then on, but his skin was red and hot already.
However, Dr. Cornett had been ready to begin treatment immediately, and that had made a great deal of difference in his prognosis for full recovery. Even on the Medevac flight, before Danny had regained consciousness, water was pumped into his stomach, to mix with the salt that had precipitated out of what he had been forced to drink and had coated his stomach lining, and he was literally rolled as gently as possible from side to side, to mix the water and salt, which was then immediately sucked back out with the pump on reverse. This was done thrice until the pH of Danny's stomach contents no longer read alkaline.
Had Danny been awake and aware, he would have been beyond the scope of miserable, so it was a good thing he was unconscious during this whole process, which did not take long, less than twenty minutes. It would take another 30 minutes to reach Tripler. As soon as the stomach pump had done its work, Dr. Cornett gave Danny drugs to alleviate any lingering nausea. Anyone who knew Danny knew that he did not deal well with nausea. Some people could toss and be fine ten minutes later. Danny felt like he was dying at the first wave of queasiness, and anything beyond that was the equivalent of dying. That was why Steve and everyone else had been so appalled at Danny's repeated bouts of vomiting, and even the treatment he had had to undergo once Dr. Cornett made haste to rinse and pump his stomach had caused them distress. They didn't want him to regain consciousness while it was happening. After that, Danny, though in pain, had briefly regained consciousness, and the Kleenex box made the rounds because the formerly miserable patient was now happy, glad to be alive. Ten or fifteen minutes earlier, his reaction might have been very different.
Steve would never forget Danny's return to consciousness. From then on, Danny called Dr. Cornett "Dad," and Steve settled on Doc. Cornett called them both, often as not, "Son," and while Steve knew it pleased Danny, he was not sure why he had started referring to his own father with the very formal "Father" rather than the previously affectionate (or perhaps merely habitual) Pop or Dad. He would ask eventually, but right now, he was content just to see Danny happier than he had in a long time, and settling into his latest new lease on life. In fact, today Danny and Becca were taking their third look at the house they had decided to purchase in advance of their marriage. Steve personally thought it was a perfect house, and had his fingers crossed that they signed the papers and could begin preparations for moving. He would miss Danny terribly, and all the people he brought with him. But he also had to admit that he and Hannah wanted to start making plans for what to do with this house to make it theirs. Since the two houses were a mere ten minutes apart, it would probably end up feeling like each couple had two houses instead of one.
Danny really was doing much better. They got lucky because Danny had not gotten a concussion from the blow delivered by Bradley with the scuba tank. It had managed to hit him at an angle that only split the skin as well as leave a nasty bruise, but did not cause any damage to his brain. He had the gash and bruise, a whopper of a headache, but zero concussion.
The worst part of Danny's healing had been the painful sunburns, but Dr. Cornett had talked to Danny when he regained consciousness again only ten minutes from landing at Tripler. He had explained everything Danny was facing, everything they had to do to get him well, and that things would feel worse before they felt better. Such was the nature of burns.
Danny remembered the awful pain in his thumb, from his time in the box. Just his thumb had reduced him to miserable. He knew he was in for a much bigger fight this time. Dr. Cornett had warned him that the pain would worsen for 4 days, hit a peak, and finally begin to ease. Danny was at the time weak, not yet fully hydrated, feverish, pumped full of medications treating the fever, plus antibiotics and as much as they could give him for pain. He sighed, swallowed like one about to take on a foe he was determined to best but was not sure he could, said an internal prayer, and nodded that he understood, and that his doctor should proceed as necessary.
He had come through like a trooper, allowing multi-port IVs in each arm to administer the multiplicity of required medications. None of them would forget the quiet determination of Danny to endure the first days of the sunburn, when it grew worse despite any helpful treatment, sinking Danny into a silent hell that could not be relieved. During those days, he spoke only to his new therapist, his doctor, and the chaplain, while he dealt with the facts of what Bradley Edwards had done to him, as his ohana stayed by his side as much as they could, only able to touch the tips of his fingers, because everything else was too painful.
Steve, Becca, Hannah, and a nurse accompanied Danny on the three daily walks he had to make, to keep his swollen skin from stiffening, would sit with him before and after, read to him, watch TV with him, sit quietly when he needed to rest, and simply be with him except when he was being medicated with hydrating lotions, or bathed. He did allow them to feed him as his hands healed, but he didn't eat much. His hospital gown was special for burn patients, gossamer light and soft. It still hurt. The blanket under which he slept was laid over a frame placed over him, which did not allow it to touch him anywhere.
Even medicated, sleep was elusive. But he fought on, until the pain almost bested him on the fourth and fifth days. His skin looked scorched, large patches burst out into tiny blisters, including the soles of his feet, his hands. He did not eat, so a nutritional support IV was added to a port, as well as extra hydration. His skin was misted to keep it moist and to cool the heat the burn was still generating. He took no walks those days. He lay as still as possible. He didn't talk at all. Later, when things got better, he told Steve when they were alone that he hadn't dared speak or move, because if he had, he would have started screaming until his voice gave out.
But late on the fifth day, things began to improve, and Danny fell into a deep, exhausted sleep, and Steve and Becca and Hannah and Doc all either outright or surreptitiously burst into tears of relief. He had finally turned the corner. His relief was palpable. His discomfort lessened every day, and as he felt better, he was able to walk more, move more, anything that would build back his strength. He began eating like a hungry horse, and sleeping like his now-happy kitten, who had not been allowed to touch him since he was brought in on the Medevac flight. Now Angel could spend time with him, and she seemed to understand that she should not stand or walk on him yet. At night, he still used the barrier between him and the blanket, and Angel would sit or lay on it and gaze lovingly at Danny, purring.
On the eighth day, he was able to go home to Steve's house.
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Steve had trouble dealing with what Danny was going through, so he had begun speaking with the therapist, too, separately from Danny's sessions with Dr. Neolani Aki. She was perfect for Danny, for all of them, because she cared about her patient, his family, and included them all in her work with her patient. To put it the way Danny did, "She made it onto my Christmas card list!"
Neolani made it onto all their Christmas card lists.
Steve could not help but feel that Bradley had met a fitting end. The Coast Guard had found about a third of his remains. The sharks got the rest of him before they could retrieve what remained, which was essentially his chewed-up torso and most of his head. Considering what he had done to Danny, Steve was just sorry the sharks had not finished off even more of him. He had used numbing injections on Danny's hands and feet so he could not have a prayer of freeing himself, and put Danny through the added pain of those drugs wearing off beginning roughly three hours after Danny's rescue. He had even given Danny his last three chemotherapy pills, which had been a major factor in his nausea and sickness.
It had turned out Bradley Edwards had been diagnosed three months earlier with Stage 4 metastatic malignant melanoma, causing a rapidly growing glioblastoma brain tumor and a host of other internal organ tumors, which had resulted in personality and behavioral changes that had caused an already fractured marriage to crumble when he had tried to strangle his wife. She had not pressed charges, but had filed for divorce and fled. They had no children. The strangest part of the whole thing was that Bradley had taken his brother's crimes and death by unfortunate natural causes as the last straw, even though the brothers had hated each other since they were kids. He would make it up to his brother by killing Danny, which made no sense to anyone but Bradley. They had found a rambling, disoriented diary in his hotel room, along with bags of medicines.
He had intended to commit suicide and leave the Liat on course to the middle of nowhere, dragging Danny in the inflatable until the Liat ran out of gas. It was unclear if his going overboard when he did was suicide or accidental. And he couldn't tell anyone, although one especially strange passage in his diary had indicated he wanted to use the gun to kill himself. He had dropped it in the Zodiac after shooting Danny but before going overboard, so the coroner ruled his death an accidental suicide.
Steve tried to feel sorry for Bradley Edwards, but he never quite managed it. Danny and the others tried, too, and some had more success than others. Oddly, Danny took Bradley's plight hard. And, it made him angry. He had never blown all fuses over what Stan and Rachel between them had done to him, but he was furious with how Bradley had wasted the last part of his life, which he should have spent any other way than how he had chosen to spend it. Neolani had explained to all of them that anger was an emotion to be expected from Danny, sooner or later, a healthy and necessary stage in the working-through and letting-go of what had happened to him.
Danny's first glorious neck-vein raising rant after the sunburn pain had eased from untreatable with anything to responding to Tylenol, and he could be touched without wanting to scream, had been about Bradley Edwards' wasted life, and how he was sick to death (perhaps a bad choice of words, under the circumstances) of people who had no right to pick on him of thinking up and doing the worst possible things to him. "If I had been a shark, I would've refused even to take a bite out of that piece of ****, unless it was his goddamn balls and sausage, and even then I would have spit them out again!" Silence had fallen on the room while Danny's eyes sparked and almost glowed with blue rage, his breathing rapid, his complexion an angry (as opposed to scorched) red, his voice loud!
Steve, Dr. Cornett, Becca, Hannah, Angel, Lou and Adam and half of that wing of Tripler had all heard Danny's furious, carrying, perfectly enunciated wrath at Edwards. And those that knew Danny tried very hard not to congratulate him, but Steve had finally burst into expressing how heartily he agreed with Danny, as well as stating what a pleasure it was to have a genuine Danny Rant ringing in his ears!
Danny blushed, which was hard to do with a still-red sunburn, and grinned hesitantly, and soon the whole room was full of laughter. From that second onward, Danny's progress toward healing was much speedier than it had been. Neolani was very pleased with the progress they were making in their sessions, and the nightmares were noticeably less frequent.
One difficulty was that no one could tell Danny's kids why their former Uncle had done what he had done, or what had happened to Bradley beyond what the newspapers and television reports said, and this was downplayed because Hawaii was a tourist destination, and Bradley's fate was not one to be overly spread around. The news reports merely said he had died from a shark bite after falling overboard off a boat, causing massive blood loss before rescuers could reach him. While this was true, it was by no means the whole truth.
But Danny knew because he had asked what had become of Bradley, and been told the full truth.
Danny saw his therapist every day, and with Neolani's help, he made steady progress. He had been released from Tripler to return to Steve's house two days after his rant, which was on the afternoon of the sixth day; on the eighth day, he smiled at and thanked everyone who had helped him as he stepped out of the wheelchair, wearing his sunhat, sunglasses, and shirt, pants, and shoes especially for those with sun sensitivity. He had gone through the "NO PICTURES ALLOWED" peeling stage (yes, they had managed to sneak pictures, mostly when he was sleeping. He had to wear sunblock daily, in lotion and clothing form. He had to wear a hat to protect his face and neck outdoors, special sun glasses, and was supposed to limit severely his time in the sun between the hours of 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. Since his entire ohana joined him in these efforts, he didn't complain. He was too busy spending time with everyone, feeling blessed to be alive, and carrying on with his life.
Now Steve could watch Danny sleep in comfort. His skin would be tender for a while, but he was essentially healed. The house's main bath sported a large tube of sunscreen for adults, and another for those under the age of 18, and smaller ones in other rooms. Charlie and Grace, even Steve, Becca and Hannah were now religious users of sunscreen.
Despite everything, Danny had not complained. It did affect him, but he did not internalize it, shut others off from how he was feeling. Now and then he would forget to use the sunscreen, and then remember when he had to pick out what he was wearing that day. Which long-sleeved special-fabric shirt today? Which pants? Shorts were not even on the agenda for swimming, unless it was nightfall or deeply overcast and not in the daylight hours between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. And when he forgot, he would return to the nearest bottle and start slapping on sunscreen, angry at himself for forgetting, not because he had to make these changes to his life.
During his hospital recovery, he had lost another five pounds, bringing the total to eleven. But with returning health and happiness came appetite. He had gained the five back and if he was not careful he would go beyond the remaining six in the weeks to come. It was a pleasure to watch him enjoy his meals again, and he followed a schedule to keep himself hydrated, used lotions suggested by Dr. Cornett's dermatologist to keep his skin healthy.
Steve mused as he watched Danny sleep peacefully that he had come out of his ordeal with a few more phobias. He was deathly afraid of feeling sick to his stomach or vomiting. He felt he had done enough of that to last him the rest of his lifetime, so at the first hint of queasiness, he grabbed for the bottle of anti-nausea pills Dr. Cornett had prescribed him. They melted on his tongue. It was a placebo, and even though he knew it, Danny was still helped by it, especially since nobody teased him about it. It was a harmless crutch, which in time he would no longer need. If he truly felt sick, and it was real, he had another bottle of genuine medication he could take.
Becca, Grace and Hannah often shopped together, and they read labels on cosmetics, lotions, everything, changing much of what they had been using to avoid the same chemicals Danny now was. Even Steve was benefitting from healthier skin, which Danny never seemed to stop marveling at how soft it now was. It spread to Lou and his family, and even Adam, who were being more sun and skin healthy. Grace did a school presentation focusing on the higher number of people who died yearly from skin cancer in Hawaii than anywhere else in the United States, as well as the measures easily taken to prevent overexposure to the sun.
His anxiety was raised, but Neolani and Dr. Cornett had explained to him that his nerves were sensitized to stimulus now, and would remain so while he healed. It might be months or even possibly a year or two before he stopped feeling anxiety so easily. In the meantime, he had chamomile tea, tincture and essential oils of lavender and vanilla, and when he needed it, a mild dose of anti-anxiety medication that would not inhibit his sharpness or effectiveness as he did his job. He practiced stretching exercises to keep muscle tension at bay, did breathing exercises to help him relax, and he journaled to relieve stress. Everyone knew that the garnet red journal meant angry, and the blue journal was everything else. Danny did not spend a lot of time writing in the garnet journal, but when he did, he wrote fast. When he was writing in the blue journal, he tended to savor it and write much more slowly and for longer periods of time.
And every now and then he erupted into a spectacular rant, even by his standards, to release pent-up frustrations or aggravations over whatever set him off, not directed at a person (except a few unlucky people being questioned in the blue room at work), which usually ended as abruptly as it began. He began swimming regularly with Steve, Hannah, and Becca, and they all began lightsaber lessons where Dr. Cornett took his. Grace and Charlie also took these lessons, which were aimed at teaching discipline, respect, self-worth, and kindness towards others.
He was also unwilling to ride in an inflatable boat, unless it was in a closed off lake or shallow lagoon netted off from sharks. Plus, Charlie's plush shark collection was donated, at Charlie's suggestion, to a children's charity. Charlie and his Daddy both disliked sharks now.
But the biggest change of all was that Danny and his children, with Becca accompanying them, began attending Mass as close to daily as they could. The kids didn't have to go; they went because they wanted to. Becca already did, but now Danny wanted to go too, so they went together as the family unit they were becoming.
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Danny stirred just enough to awaken Angel, who yawned and blinked at Steve. Steve took his cue to return to his bed. He didn't want Danny to know that he was being watched over, even though he was. He slid the folding privacy screen with the thin fabric cover across the glass doorway, because he was not the only one who came to watch over Danny at night: Mrs. Benson came by regularly, and got on much better now with "Steve" and his brood. She was scheduled to be moved to a care facility in another month, but her sons had picked out a good one for her, and she would have more than two visitors on a frequent basis. Danny was very grateful to her for saving his life, and she was very grateful to "Steve" for not dying and leaving "John" alone. And Steve was very glad Danny was healthy again, getting stronger every day.
It had been a terrible ordeal, but the future lay ahead, and it looked bright indeed.
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A/N: Reviews are very appreciated. Thank you for reading.