Pushing away the table with the untouched tray of food, Steve turned and smiled as Chin entered the room. "Chin!" His smile momentarily disappeared as he saw Rachel follow Chin into the room. Casting a quick, covert, anxious glance across at his partner's back before looking back at Danny's ex-wife again, he forced a small smile as he looked back at Danny's ex-wife. "Rachel!" He saw Rachel hesitate as the shock and surprise that Danny was sharing an ICU room with him flicker across her face.
"Steve!" she smiled nervously as she took another hesitant step into the room.
"I thought that you and Stan were on the- "
"Mainland." Rachel nodded and finished for him.
"Danny's father contacted Rachel and told them about Danny's condition," Chin quickly jumped in, acutely aware that although Steve had never voiced anything aloud, that Steve felt the same way he did towards Rachel and the way she treated Danny. "And Rachel and Stan decided that he should remain behind in New York and Rachel should return to Hawaii to be with Grace and Charlie."
Rachel shift uncomfortably under Steve's intense, scrutinizing stare, aware that both Steve and Chin knew about everything that had happened between herself and Danny, and that both men were probably suspicious about her motives of being here. She swallowed hard and pushed away the tinge of guilt that had settled in the pit of her stomach as she nodded, silently agreeing with Chin's explanation of her sudden appearance and shrugged, "I…I just wanted to be here with Danny…in case anything…" She swallowed hard and looked across at the sleeping man in the bed whose back was turned away from them before she returned her attention back to Steve and admitted weakly. "I…I guess that I just want to…to tell him, just how sorry I am for everything I did to him. That I never meant to hurt him. I need him to know that I made a big mistake when I divorced him…That I still love…"
"Stop, Rachel. Just stop!" Steve ordered as he sat up in the bed. Rachel froze and stared at Steve in surprise. "Don't do this again. Not now!" Steve warned her heatedly.
"I beg your pardon?" Rachel gasped, shocked.
"Steve." Chin warned softly.
Steve turned and looked across at Danny, reassuring himself that Danny was still asleep and would not hear just what he had to say to Rachel before he turned back and glared at the dark-haired woman. His anger and frustration about seeing just how she had treated Danny over and over, during the past five years that he had known Danny erupted to the surface in a fiery eruption, that even Pele would have been envious of. "Don't you tell him that you made a mistake and that you're sorry and that you love him! I'm not going to let you do that to him again! You're not going to turn his world upside-down again, not now, not ever again. Not if I can stop you." Taking a deep breath, he cast another quick glance across at Danny, relieved that he still had not stirred, before he turned back to Rachel, attempting to cool the heat of the anger he felt at Rachel's treatment of Danny over the years, "I have seen you break his heart over and over again, Rachel, first while battling over custody of Grace and then making him believe that the two of you could get back together again after he was poisoned by the Sarin. That's when you fell pregnant with Charlie and you told him the baby was his and that you were going to leave Stan so you could be a family again. Hell Rachel, he was even willing to go back to the mainland with you and start again but when you realized that he still wouldn't do what you wanted and give up being a cop, you changed your mind. You even lied to him and told him the baby wasn't his but Stan's and that you wanted to try and save your marriage to him for the sake of Grace and the baby. And even though it tore him apart, he still loved you and forgave you.
And then when Charlie got sick." Steve paused and shook his head, unable to stop the disgust from leaking into his voice, "How could you do that to him? How could you lie and keep Charlie from him for the first four years of Charlie's life and then tell him that you're sorry, that you loved him and never meant to hurt him and then ask for him to forgive you?" Turning to stare at Danny, he sighed, "Do you even know how deeply you hurt him? Or did you even care?
I know that you are, and always will be, a big part of Danny's life, after all, no matter what happens between the two of you , you are Grace's and Charlie's mother and he is their father and that the both of you have to get along for their sake. But you can't keep doing this to him, Rachel. You can't keep stringing Danny along. You made your bed, Rachel and divorced him and married Stan. You can't keep both men dangling on a string while you decide which one you want to be with. It's not fair to Danny and it's not fair to Grace, Charlie or Stan." Looking back at Rachel, he dropped his voice and softened his tone, "And it's not fair to anyone else who wants to be in any sort of a relationship with Danny!"
Rachel stared at Steve, shocked as the memories of watching the two of them together began to flash through her mind of the last thing he said echoed over and over in her head. 'And it's not fair to anyone else who wants to be in any sort of a relationship with Danny!' The light, sometimes almost intimate, touching she had witnessed between them, the softly shared jokes, the quick, fond glances, the relaxed easiness they shared with each other that she had been so jealous of each time she had witnessed them. Now Steve's angry rant suddenly made so much sense. "Oh my God," she gasped in shock as she turned and looked at Danny before she turned back to look at him as she whispered, "You love him, don't you?" She stared at him for a minute longer before she nodded, "Yeah, that's it, you do!"
Looking across at Danny, Steve knew that if he wanted to show Danny that he really did love him, then as hard as it was to show his true emotions to anyone, he needed to start doing so. He nodded, "Yeah, I do."
Swallowing hard, she glanced at Chin who did not seem surprised or even shocked by Steve's admission. Returning her attention back to Steve, she forced herself to whisper through her tightening throat, "Does… does Danny … does… umm ... does he have the same feelings for you?" Lifting up her hand, she shook her head vigorously. "No, don't answer that!" Looking back at Danny, a heart broken sob slipped out as she realized she already knew the answer to her own question, "I don't want to know." she whispered as she turned and fled out of the room.