Fic-H50- Out of the Depths (1/3)
Title: Out of the Depths
Author: kristen999
Word Count: 26k
Rating: T
Genre: Gen, Drama, h/c
Warnings: This story contains language, some violent imagery, and( skip) dealings with acute stress disorder.
Summary: Steve's team vowed to bring him home, but escaping North Korea was just the first step in the journey. Coda to 2x10.
Written for esteefee for her generous donation to help with a sick kitty's vet bills.
Author's Notes Thank you to my awesome beta mischief5 for all your help throughout this process and for donating the beautiful cover art! You are an amazing friend and editor! And huge thanks to my first readers perspi and powrhugfor their encouragement and wonderful suggestions.
Special hugs to tridget for being a sounding board on the psychological aspects of this story.
Beautiful art work by mischief5.
***
Breathe. In and out. Focus. Just focus.
His head snapped back from another punch. And another. Steve rolled with the direction of the hits, decreasing their force of impact.
Don't panic.
He kept his chin down, took fists to the forehead instead of the nose or jaw. His neck was strong. He spent years building up the muscles, taught himself not to flinch when struck. It avoided broken bones and heavier damage, but the pain -
Pain is temporary.
The two guards took turns pounding on him. One of them had really bony knuckles. They stopped to take breaks in between sessions to smoke before starting over again. He hoped their hands hurt.
***
They left him hanging high enough to keep the strain on his arms and shoulders, but not enough to kill him. A few inches more and he'd slowly suffocate from the restriction to his lungs.
This was about pain, softening him up for whatever Wo Fat had in store for him.
Each breath sent an agonizing ripple effect down his entire body. His head throbbed. He'd lost count of the number of cheap shots he took to the skull on his march through the jungle.
In the silence, he didn't think about how or why he got into this mess. But an angry voice in the back of his mind gnawed away at his mental barriers. It was chastising and cruel, and Steve had to chase away all the self-doubt it conjured.
***
"So, you traded me for Josh?" he asked Jenna through busted lips.
"Yes."
Her answer twisted the knife in his back. Jenna sobbed in the corner and Steve wanted to ask her what the fuck did she expect would happen? But he hung there, tried shifting the weight off his abused wrists onto his toes, his mind swirling with emotions that had no place right now.
"I'm so sorry," Jenna cried softly in the background.
But Steve buried his emotions, slammed the door on all thought except on how to escape and evade.
Escape and evade.
***
The cattle prod repeatedly touched his skin, sent nine thousand volts of electricity through him. Steve screamed as his muscles locked up into a single spasm. The current seared his flesh and it took every ounce of self-control not to whimper when it was removed.
He denied everything about Shelbourne at the top of his lungs, wrapped his hands around the chains above his shackles to ease the pain in his shoulders. Wo Fat stood only inches away from him, close enough for Steve to snap his neck with his legs - if only he could move them.
Wo Fat laid the cattle prod on top of the metal drum and Steve knew what came next. The first few blows smashed Steve in the mouth then went lower. Steve blew out all the air from his lungs and flexed his abdominals as Wo Fat punched him mercilessly.
"What's so important about Shelbourne?" Steve breathed when Wo Fat stopped to observe him. "Why do you care?"
Anger seethed in Wo Fat's eyes and he assailed Steve with his fists. Steve kept his muscles tight, protected his vital organs the best he could, but Wo fat whaled on him like a slab of meat. Over and over and over again, until he couldn't breathe.
A vicious blow to the face left him seeing stars, but Steve had the last laugh and smiled with bloodstained teeth. "You don't have any idea where Shelbourne is, do you?"
The fury suddenly ended and he dangled from the ceiling, his toes brushing the floor when Wo Fat marched across the room with one of his goons.
Steve noticed movement out of the corner of his eye. Jenna took advantage of the distraction and reached inside her shirt pocket, tossing something at his feet.
"It wasn't for nothing," she said.
Shocked, Steve covered the piece of metal with his foot and locked eyes with Jenna as she spoke a million apologies in silence. He barely comprehended what happened before Wo Fat strolled right up to her-and put two bullets in Jenna's chest.
Steve flinched at the unexpected execution.
A white-hot fury burned away all his mental walls. "I'm going to kill you! You're a dead man! You're a dead man!" he screamed at Wo Fat's icy expression.
***
Adrenaline pumped through his veins and overrode all his nerve endings. He crunched his body in half and slipped the metal pin from his toes to his fingers. The movement should've hurt, but it was a muted, disconnected kind of pain. With a click of the tumblers, he freed his wrists from the manacles and dropped down to the floor, the sensation of pins and needles assailing his arms.
He crouched in front of Jenna and closed her eyes. Steve wanted to feel anger, guilt - something - but he didn't feel anything at all. She had no tags, so he grabbed her necklace and slipped it into his pocket.
He operated on pure adrenaline. Kill Wo Fat then escape. Nothing else mattered.
Instinct and training took over, guided him down the corridors. When he heard footsteps, Steve ducked behind the corner. He made quick work of one guard and subdued the second in a chokehold. Grabbing a discarded rifle, he clutched the weapon as he climbed up the stairs into daylight.
Taking three steps away from the bunker, he crumpled from a blow to the back of the head.
***
Steve woke to darkness and a rolling in his gut. His hands were tied in front of him and he swallowed blood from his bleeding lips. He gagged, almost threw up, his eyes drifting closed against their own accord. He floated above the blackness and forced his eyelids open, taking in his blurry surroundings.
The vehicle swayed back and forth, and for a moment, Steve wasn't sure if he was in Columbia or Afghanistan. It didn't smell like either. He lifted his head, only managed a few inches before he couldn't bear its weight any longer.
The guard yelled and kicked Steve in the leg. And when the language registered in his battered brain, the last forty-eight hours slammed into him.
Steve lacked the energy to yell back and strained raising his hands to protect his face if the guard lashed out further. The guard settled however and Steve looked on in a daze.
He should strategize his next move. Search for opportunities and exit points. Except nothing made sense and his head pounded and his body felt like rubber. Maybe he should lie in wait. Save what little energy he had left for one last shot at his enemy.
Steve would die soon, that much he was sure of. His only consolation - he'd take Wo Fat with him.
***
Things faded in and out, and Steve knew he'd lost time. An explosion rocked the vehicle and it braked to a sudden halt. His heart thumped louder in his ears while adrenaline coursed through his system. They were driving backward.
His head felt like a giant anchor and it was just too much effort to raise it again.
The guard moved toward the back-then everything erupted in chaos.
This was his cue to escape, but his brain was too wrapped in a layer of fog to react. There were more explosions and gunfire, and the eerie silence that followed added to the sensation of dreaming. The tarp lifted up and Steve couldn't believe his eyes when Danny appeared.
"I found Steve! He's alive! Steve's alive!" Danny shouted.
Steve blinked, gazed up in amazement, his brain telling him this wasn't real. Then Danny climbed inside the truck and Steve automatically lifted his battered wrists to be untied. "Danny. Where's Wo Fat?"
"Shuddup, would ya," Danny snapped.
The tarp moved aside again and Chin appeared, his face sagging in relief. Joe materialized beside him and smiled at Steve's astonished gaze as if to say, 'did you think we wouldn't come for you?'
Steve released a harsh, choked breath.
"We've got to get going," Danny said, removing the last of the rope around Steve's wrists, his expression both worried and angry. "Can you stand?"
Steve stared at Danny in grim determination because, damn it, dream or not, he could stand without help. Steve dug his fingers into Danny's shoulders, and to his dismay, had to be lifted to his feet. Once vertical, the world pitched sideways, forcing Danny to grab him.
Chin clambered into the truck, his gaze assessing, but calm. "How about we give you a hand?"
Steve arms wouldn't work and Danny and Chin draped them over their shoulders to take on his weight. "Easy, brah, we'll do all the heavy lifting," Chin told Steve.
Joe took point and his men fell in, flanking around them. Maybe he was dead because Joe and Steve's team appearing in the middle of North Korea was something out of the movies. But rocks and twigs dug into the soles of his feet and the danger around them was sharp and deadly as a knife.
Steve tried moving faster, but his legs refused to bend let alone run. Danny and Chin reeked of gun oil, fear, and sweat. And it wasn't until Steve stumbled that he realized how heavily he had to lean on them.
***
He couldn't believe an antique chopper hovered in the LZ. Chin and Danny tightened their hands around his arms while Steve kept waiting for a hail of bullets to rip everyone to pieces.
The chopper landed and Lori ran over, wrapped her arms around him in a hug, and his whole body stiffened. Wade yelled and Chin and Danny ushered him toward their ride. Hands were on him, steady and supportive. He couldn't climb inside on his own, but before he knew it, he was settled between Joe's knees.
A rifle appeared out of thin air and Steve grabbed it, pulled back the slide, and chambered a round. The magazine was full and that was good. Reassuring. The AK-47 was hard and solid, something to hold onto as the world bounced around him.
He didn't know how to react to all the eyes evaluating him. But he smiled. Curved his lips so they stretched and pulled at the skin around his mouth, blood painting lines down his cheeks. Joe patted and squeezed Steve's shoulders.
He expected a fist to the face. For all this to explode into pain and the damp smell of a bunker. Danny sagged in relief, something Steve couldn't mimic, so he gripped the AK-47 harder.
Danny joked about thanking him when they got home and Chin told him about getting married. Steve smiled even more because it sounded too surreal. He even grinned at all the ribbing and laughter that followed, all the voices a backdrop to the noisy rotor blades. His eyes roamed the small compartment, scanned and counted the various faces. When Steve's gaze landed on Danny's haunted expression, he looked up at in him question.
"We had to leave Jenna's body behind," Danny told him.
Steve didn't respond and turned his head to watch listlessly at the blurring trees, the chopper jolting hard to the right. He jerked with the motion and breathed heavily before checking the magazine of the AK-47 again.
They circled a tiny swatch of grass and landed with a bump and a whine.
"Why don't you hand the rifle over to Joe?" Danny asked.
Steve gave Danny a hard glare without surrendering his weapon.
Joe hopped out first. "Wade and his boys will secure the perimeter. We should probably go inside to regroup. Formulate our exit strategy."
Joe's words were a familiar comfort to all the fucked up chaos. Steve monitored Wade's men as they fanned out. Chin and Lori exited with their own weapons at the ready. They were knee deep in enemy territory and Steve did a visual sweep of the area while Danny fidgeted anxiously in front of him.
When Steve climbed out, Danny shouldered most of his weight and limped them toward a ramshackle shelter out of Apocalypse Now. Steve expected to be shot by a sniper's bullet and didn't know what to make of things when he wasn't.
Kono met them on the porch and he couldn't get past the fact she was actually there. That any of them were.
"Boss," Kono said, moving toward him with a burst of energy. As she closed the distance, her grin went from wide to flat, her eyes betraying a rare fury before she reached for the AK-47. "Let me grab that."
"We've got it," Chin told her, intercepting Kono's hands and squeezing them reassuringly. "Come on. I think we all need to go inside and sit down."
Kono brushed Steve's arm with the barest of touches. "I'm fine," he told her.
Kono frowned and led them all inside. The room stank of cigarette ash and barn animals. Steve hadn't realized he'd been deposited onto an old broken-down sofa until he sank against the musty cushions. He fell asleep for a second, but his eyes snapped back open at the weight of another person beside him.
Joe regarded Steve with melancholy sadness and a worn smile. He rifled through a large nylon military-issued medical kit and spread out supplies onto a clean cloth.
"Shouldn't we take him to a hospital?" Danny asked, hovering.
"Can't risk it," Joe dismissed. "We'll perform whatever triage is needed and evacuate."
Steve homed in on that familiar voice of authority and found himself sitting forward, ignoring the pain. "Do we know Wo Fat's location?"
"No," Joe answered, pulling out a suture kit. "But there's an exit plan in place and we have satellite imagery. We're not totally blind. With his defenses temporarily knocked out, he's bound to be on the run."
"We should leave now," Steve breathed. He looked down at himself, skipped over his chest and stomach, his gaze landing at the rifle lying on his lap. "Do we have Kaye's body?"
"No. I told you that in the helicopter," Danny said. "Don't you remember?"
Steve stared past Danny's anxious face, past those of Kono and Chin. He gritted his teeth against the sudden flashes of sights and smells, of burning flesh and sizzling skin.
The copper smell of blood. His and hers.
His stomach revolted and Steve threw up a meager amount of liquid. When the first jag ended, a second one began, and he dry-heaved for eternity.
"Goddamn it! I told you he needs to go to a fucking hospital!" Danny yelled.
"And I said we couldn't risk it," Joe snapped. "This is an acute stress reaction. It's not unexpected. Don't start losing it now!"
"Losing it? Hello? We just staged something out of the freaking A-Team! Except this doesn't end with a wisecrack and the credits."
"Danny." Chin's voice cut through the tension. "Come on, brah. Let's give them some room."
Steve had a death grip on the arm of the sofa. He dug his fingers into the upholstery, and his whole body trembled in a vain attempt to control his breathing. Joe was there like a solid force, his hand on Steve's shoulder, ensuring he didn't tip over. Nothing more, nothing less. Because, right now, Steve needed control - of his brain, his body. He knew Joe understood that.
Steve had to keep it together; pull himself up by his bootstraps.
"I'm good," he grunted from the pain he tried hard to ignore. Steve looked up at Joe and straightened his abused body, fighting the groan that escaped his lips. He couldn't afford to look at his team, allow their worry to influence him. "We need to move out."
"Okay, son. But do what I say. No arguing," Joe told him. "This will probably hurt."
"Just do it, sir," Steve said.
Pain wasn't a problem; he could focus on that. Use it. Control it.
***
Danny paced, body quaking with a mix of exhaustion and rage. He wanted to punch Joe for being allowed 'in'. Maybe even Steve for his bullish behavior. But deep down, Danny knew that wasn't true-if anyone deserved a Jersey-style beat-down, it was Wo Fat. But the mere thought of flesh smacking bone made him physically ill.
While Danny wore a path in the floorboards, Kono stood simmering. "Did you see his chest?" she hissed at Chin. "How...I mean what…?"
"Shhhhhsh," Chin whispered when Kono's voice trailed off. He wrapped an arm around her shoulder and pulled her close. "We're going to get through this."
Anger and grief were powerful emotions. They charged the air with negativity and tainted everything. Danny sucked in a breath, forced all those dangerous feelings out in the exhale. They were law enforcement officers; it was their job to restore order.
"Come on," he said walking toward Chin and Kono. "We can do this." He noticed Lori buzzing with anxiety by the outside door. "Over here, Weston."
With everyone in a circle, Danny had to be even-keeled. "Look. There's one more leg to this marathon. We've got to keep our wits about us. Believe me, I'd do anything to be locked up in a room with Wo Fat." Danny's face burned hot and he counted to ten to calm down. "...but that won't help Steve. We came here to bring him home."
"And after?" Kono asked, eyes drifting toward the sofa.
"Let's get to Hawaii first," Danny said, looking from face to face. "Then we're going to take care of our fearless leader, even if he doesn't want us to. I'll be damned if I'll let him go all tough guy on us."
Because training or not, no one walked away unscathed from this. It wouldn't be easy. Danny might have to perform an op over a Navy SEAL. And maybe, just maybe, if he could help Steve, it would ease some of Danny's own feelings of powerlessness. Give him a recourse other than the dark path of revenge brimming just beneath surface.
Danny watched while Joe listened to Steve's lungs with a stethoscope, then used a penlight to check pupil reaction. God, Danny wanted to do something. Be useful.
Danny looked over as Wade entered, his weapon at ease, and approached Danny's huddled group "Everything looks clear. Lt. Jacks will ride a klick ahead of us to the airstrip, make sure no one's waiting on us. Frank knows a back way there."
"Joe's getting Steve ready for the trip," Chin told him.
"Speaking of," Danny said stepping closer to Wade. "I understand the need to get the hell out of here, but unless that medical kit has a CAT scan and an x-ray machine, we're taking a pretty big risk loading Steve onto a cargo plane for over nine hours."
"Interrogations are not pretty. I've seen enough to recognize all the signs. They're mean to inflict pain, not kill. You can't get intel out of a dead man." Danny bit his lip to keep from telling Wade what he really thought of his answer, but the SEAL didn't give him a chance. "Commander McGarrett did his duty. He survived. It's my job was to get him back to friendly territory."
"Why couldn't we stop at an in ER in Seoul?" Kono asked, walking over as she geared for action.
"Stop in a hospital with the commander looking like that? We don't have time for questions and we certainly couldn't afford risking capture. From Wo Fat's dossier, he's got eyes and ears everywhere," Wade explained.
Chin sighed. "He's right. Besides, how would we pay for it?"
Kono looked dejected and Wade out of place. "As SEALs, we're highly trained medics. If push comes to shove, we can perform some basic battlefield surgery. Commander White would never allow us to ship out if Commander McGarrett were in that kind of danger." Wade cleared his throat. "Excuse me while I give Joe a hand."
Danny resisted the urge to follow, ignoring the hiss as Joe moved Steve's arms to remove his filthy shirt. Or when Wade returned with wet rags and antiseptic bottles.
"Shouldn't we help?" Kono asked.
"No, not with this," Chin told them. "Some pain you don't want your loved ones to witness."
Kono looked away when Steve made a strangled sound and Danny did the same, the two of them battling the same urge to assist.
"Maybe we can make the trip easier?" Lori suggested, stepping closer onto the porch. "I mean. It's going to be a bumpy ride."
Because getting hauled inside the cargo hold of a C-130 was already hell on Earth.
Danny spotted Frank ambling his way over and he waved at the pilot with his most charming smile. "Hey, buddy. Let me ask you something? Do you think we could dismantle your sofa?"
***
The ride to the airstrip surrounded by paranoid SEALs was nerve wracking. After half an hour, Danny saw bad guys in every treetop. By the time they arrived, his shirt was drenched in sweat. Chin and Kono had Steve propped up between them, and he looked even worse, if that was possible. His sickly grey pallor made his eyes seem huge and alert yet somehow confused, and he hadn't relinquished his death grip on the rifle.
"I just radioed the pilot," Joe told them from the front passenger seat. "The bird's gassed and ready to go."
"Let's load up and hightail it outta here," Wade ordered his men.
SEAL Team Nine climbed out and did a quick sweep and gave them an all clear. Kono and Lori exited first with their pillaged items from Frank's place and Chin helped Steve out of the back of the vehicle while Danny followed them up the ramp. A cargo plane lacked all passenger amenities and Kono and Lori arranged several sofa cushions on one of the uncomfortable jump-seats.
"Unless you want Steve to get an infection, I'd suggest covering-up those cushions," Joe said. "Come on. We dropped off most of the medical supplies, but I earmarked some for us."
Lori and Kono opened up a couple emergency blankets and draped them over the cushions while Steve hobbled inside and surveyed the cargo hold.
"I'll take that now," Danny said, pointing at the rifle. Steve stared at him as if he didn't understand the request. "Your rifle. Federal regulations prohibit them, remember?"
Steve gave a weak nod, relinquishing the AK-47 with a shaky hand, which Danny promptly gave to Wade.
"Come on," Danny clapped. "I have experience loading children into car seats." When the joke didn't even earn him an eye roll, Danny knew Steve had reached his limits. He carefully took Steve by the bicep and elbow. "I know how much this is gonna suck, so on the count of three, we're gonna lower you."
"I'm fine," Steve mumbled.
"Obviously we differ on the definition of fine", Danny snorted.
Steve either had cracked or bruised ribs and Danny knew from experience how much it hurt to move up and down. The jump seat had a cushion on top of it and a larger one to lean against. Steve groaned and grunted, but Danny finally got him situated.
The plane's engines started roaring and the pilot radioed that they had the final clearance.
Joe wandered over with his black med kit and squatted beside Steve. "All right. I made you a deal back at Frank's. No painkillers or fluids until we were on board."
"I didn't...I didn't want to slow you guys if we got ambushed," Steve explained.
"You did good, son," Joe told Steve with a hand to his shoulder. "Real good."
Steve's expression, his quiet acceptance, hurt Danny to his core. God, if John McGarrett were alive today, Danny might actually punch the guy in the face. Fuck good intentions at sending your children away. Your commanding officer shouldn't be a substitute father figure.
Joe unrolled a coil of IV tubing, handing a bag of saline to Danny. "There should be a hook you can use in the kit."
Danny located the hook and found a bolt to secure the bag. Chin sterilized a patch of skin at the crook of Steve's elbow with a wipe while Joe expertly slipped in the needle.
The scent of medical cream and sterile dressings hit Danny hard. Between the gauze and bandages for the burns, there were only hints of the black and purple bruises underneath. He dug his nails into his palms to keep his anger at bay.
Joe pulled out an oxygen mask; Danny panicked and Steve waved his hand. "I don't need that."
"Who said I was askin'?" Joe set the O2 tank on the floor next to Steve. "You're experiencing pain when you breathe and I'm not going to take any chances when we're about to go twenty thousand feet up."
"I don't have broken ribs."
"Did I say this was a discussion?" Joe asked. "Take the mask. I'm not risking a pneumothorax from a possible fracture."
Steve placed the mask over his face and seemed to breathe easier with it on.
"We'll be home before you know it," Joe said and gave Steve an ampoule of morphine in the thigh.
Chin settled next to Steve and buckled himself in. "We'll keep an eye on his vitals."
Joe gave Steve another pat and took his place twenty feet across from them. Danny sat in the red jump seat on Steve's right and secured his arms between the straps.
"Mark this on your calendar because I can't wait to get to Oahu," he told Steve with an exaggerated grin.
"Yeah," Steve breathed, closing his eyes, the pain lines around his face slowly fading.
Kono came over with a wool blanket from somewhere and draped it over Steve. Satisfied that Steve was comfortable, she adjusted the straps and secured them without yanking too tightly.
By the time they were airborne, Steve lolled his head onto Danny's shoulder.
***
Danny nodded off and startled awake several times during the flight. He checked on Steve, noticing that even asleep, his body was coiled and tense. Steve's eyes twitched wildly in REM sleep, and for a second, Danny feared that the morphine had him trapped in a nightmare.
With his shoulder serving as Steve's pillow, Danny felt every hitch of breath or mumbled curse. When the dreams got bad, Danny whispered nonsensical things until Steve calmed.
Chin glanced over at him in silence and Danny shrugged. "Hey, it works on Grace."
"And SEALs apparently," Chin said with a tired smile.
***
The flight back felt like a slow crawl and Danny would've given anything for an iPod or a laptop to keep him occupied. Everyone was bone tired and emotionally worn to the core. All except for the SEALs, who slept soundly through every bump of turbulence.
Unfortunately, the morphine wore off an hour before landing and Steve bolted awake, ripping off the blanket. Chin earned a fist to the face the moment he touched Steve. Danny waved Joe and everyone else away and went for the tried and true method of getting his partner's attention.
"Hey! Knock it off, McGarrett; some of us are trying to sleep!" Danny snapped his fingers and Steve froze his breathing heavy and ragged. "Hello? Over here."
Steve blinked fuzzily at Danny and Danny looked him directly in the eyes. "That's it, buddy. No need to cause a scene."
"Danny?"
"Yes, Steven?"
"Where…?"
"We're on cargo plane heading home. Got less than an hour before I can kiss the ground." It took several seconds for Steve to slowly put the pieces together and Danny schooled his concern behind sarcasm. "Do you remember your field trip to North Korea?"
Steve's impersonation of a plank of wood worried Danny, but Steve's eyes slowly focused and he leaned back against the cushion without a word.
***
Chin made a few discreet phone calls right before their descent, and when they finally touch downed, an ambulance waited on the tarmac. Steve was either too exhausted or too smart to argue about riding in it.
Seal Team Nine gave their best wishes and headed home in quiet acceptance of a job well done.
Danny hopped into the bus with Steve, and the rest of the team and Joe followed behind them in their vehicles.
***
Between their badges and Malia's interference, the ER resident didn't ask twenty questions on the how and why of Steve's condition. Danny was ushered out of the examination room just as one of the nurses cut away the rest of Steve's shirt, revealing his eggplant colored back.
Malia took Danny by the elbow into the hall. "Don't worry, I've paged Dr. Singh. He's an ex-corpsman and knows how to handle Navy guys."
Chin arrived a few minutes later, his expression bursting into joy at seeing his fiancée. The two embraced while Danny ignored a hot streak of jealousy. By the time Joe and Kono dragged themselves over, Malia insisted they go to the cafeteria to eat.
Salad, bowls of creamed corn, and several hamburgers later, Danny and company retired to cheap plastic chairs in the waiting area. He fell asleep with his head propped against his hand.
Kono roused him out of dreams of helicopter crashes in time to crowd around Dr. Singh. Steve's scans and x-rays were clear - no internal bleeding or severe head trauma. He had a laundry list of issues: concussion, two hairline rib fractures, swollen jaw, and bruised muscles in general. Not to mention electrical burns and various lacerations.
"Let me guess. He wants to check himself out?" Danny sighed.
"Maybe we can handcuff him to his bed?" Kono asked. And by the look of things, she was deadly serious.
Danny made a mental note to talk to her later; he didn't like the darkness stewing behind her eyes.
"I want him to stay overnight for observation, but he's very adamant about leaving," Singh finished. "Perhaps one of you can convince him otherwise?"
Despite the perfectly sane medical advice, no one argued about Steve wanting to go home. "It's all right. I'm already sleeping on his sofa since I'm in between apartments. I'll keep an eye on him," Danny said.
"I'm afraid you might need to do a bit more than keep an eye on him. The commander needs to be on complete bed rest and under careful observation," Singh argued. "Perhaps I can arrange for a service to -"
"No," Danny growled his blood pressure jumping. "You don't understand. I'm his partner. You get it? Of course you don't. How could you? But while you have no freaking clue, I can assure you that I am up to whatever task it entails to get him on the mend. Capiche?"
Ten minutes later, Danny was the proud owner of care instructions an inch thick and a handful of prescriptions. After another cup of bitter coffee, he hoped it'd be enough to get him through what should be an intense evening on top of the last horrendous seventy-two hours.
***
Danny drove carefully, took curves at ridiculously slow speeds, and even hissed when he hit a pothole. He couldn't tell if Steve's even noticed; his thousand-yard stare out the window might as well have been ten miles. Luckily, the pharmacy by Steve's house had a drive-through and they parked in front of the McGarrett home a few minutes later.
Danny killed the engine and unlocked the doors when a hand unexpectedly encircled his arm.
"Wait a second," Steve said his voice raw as gravel.
"For what?" Danny demanded, but Steve opened the glove box, fiddled with a lock-box and pulled out a Sig Sauer. "Whoa? What the hell?"
"I should do a sweep. Make sure it's clear."
"No, no, no," Danny said, hopping out of the driver's side and intercepting his partner. "We're home now."
Kono had the presence of mind to buy Steve an ugly Hawaiian shirt and sweats at the gift shop to go with his hospital issued slippers, so he only looked like a half-dead manic clutching a weapon and leaning on the car door.
"Who do you think is waiting on us? Wo Fat is thousands of miles away, Steven."
"His operatives -"
"Are not here." But it was like arguing with a deaf mule. "Look. We'll go inside and I'll clear the house myself."
Danny thought Steve just preferred being armed, the Sig offering the protection that his normal abilities couldn't. "Fine," Steve answered, although it was obvious he'd prefer to recon the whole property.
Joe had returned the team's weapons to them in the hospital parking lot and Danny readied his. "Stay behind me," he ordered, holding out his arm.
Even if Steve belonged in a hospital bed, there was no way he'd stand down until Danny completed this act of the play. Steve stayed close while Danny swept the house efficiently. He shouted 'clear' in all the appropriate corners and doors. And even went upstairs, swearing a streak of profanities for using up what little fumes he had left.
Danny returned to the living room, stored his weapon in a desk drawer, and gestured for Steve to do the same. Steve, the stubborn ox, set his Sig on the coffee table and literally collapsed onto the sofa with a loud groan.
"You have broken ribs, take things slowly."
"Hairline fracture."
"What?"
"Doc said hairline fracture. I told Joe they weren't broken."
"I am not debating this with you. Don't move," Danny told him on the way to the kitchen.
Opening the cupboards, he snagged a box of oyster crackers, a thing of organic yogurt, and two coconut waters out of the fridge and returned to the living room. "Here. Eat this. You have meds to take and I doubt you want to throw up any time soon."
Steve nibbled on a few crackers then took the spoon and quickly polished off half the quart.
"Guess it's been two days since you've eaten?"
Steve paused mid-swallow in thought. "Yeah."
Steve had a tiny row of sutures along his left eye that matched the ones to his bottom lip. He tapped the spoon against the yogurt, watched it bounce off the plastic, looking like he had something to say. Danny didn't push things. Instead, he played drug peddler, handed Steve his antibiotic, pain pill, and muscle relaxer. Steve swallowed all three at once with a chug of water.
"I'm gonna take a shower," Steve said, breaking the silence that followed.
Danny jumped to his feet in response. Yes, he was aware Steve was a freaking SEAL, but that didn't stop him from waiting to see if Steve's legs gave out.
"Maybe you should just hit the sack. Why push it?"
"I can take a shower, Danny."
"Did you get forget about those burns?"
Steve gritted his teeth and gave the front of his shirt a quick glance. "Hard to forget a cattle prod," he said, his voice flat.
God, Danny didn't need to hear that right now. He deduced most of what had happened to Steve, but the new image was a little too visceral. "You can't get the dressings wet."
"The docs covered the burns in sulfadiazine. It'll protect them against the water."
"Okay, but those meds are gonna hit you like a ton of bricks. I didn't travel eight thousand miles to rescue your ass just so you can drown in your bathtub."
Danny was prepared to wage this battle but relented when Steve just gave him this look. This raw, painful expression. "I've got to get rid of...I can still smell…"
"Yeah, I gotcha," Danny sighed, his defenses breached. "Just. Let me grab you a towel."
Steve studied the staircase like it was Mount Olympus and nodded down the hallway, using the wall to help him walk. "I'll be in the guest bathroom."
Danny went to the closet, grabbed a towel, and paced a few minutes, trying to decide his next move. When he didn't hear the sound of running water, he peeked inside the bathroom to find Steve sitting on the closed lid of the toilet with his shirt halfway buttoned.
"Change your mind?" Danny asked.
"I'm so fucking stiff...I can't..."
"Hey, hey. It's okay. I'll help. Let me do most of the work, okay?"
Danny made quick work of all the buttons and started peeling off the shirt. "Lift your left arm just a smidge." Steve's arm flopped in response and Danny rolled down the first sleeve. "Now lift your right arm."
Steve obeyed, helping remove the rest of the shirt, and Danny tossed it on the sink. But Steve sat hunched over, pale and forlorn, his jaw clenched tight.
"What else do you need, babe?"
Steve kept himself propped up with his arms despite the fine tremors running down them. "I don't think..." He took a sharp breath, his expression a mix of defeat and anger. "I don't think I can stand up long enough to take a shower."
"Okay. Everything's going to be fine. Just give me a sec. I'll be right back." Danny ran into the kitchen and returned with a chair. "Don't say a word. I'll buy you a new one." Steve glowered at the chair while Danny stuck it under the showerhead. "Now all you have to do it just sit there. You know...allow the hot water to run."
Resigned to his limitations, Steve contemplated the shower like a strategic target before using the toilet tank to help stand. "Thank you."
"Yeah, no problem."
Danny put the towel on the counter and walked away as the water turned on, his whole body puttering on fumes. But he didn't give in, didn't think about the last two heart-stopping days.
He couldn't.
He kept the bathroom door partway open and checked the guest bedroom across the hall to see if it had sheets and covers. He contemplated the TV, vetoed the option, and decided to keep moving around because if he stopped to sit, he'd never get up again. The shower ran for five minutes, then ten, edging at nearly fifteen before Danny's worry gave him heart palpitations.
By the time he made a decision to go check on Steve, the water stopped.
A few agonizing minutes later, Steve appeared out of the bathroom in a pair of gray sweatpants, shaky as hell, one hand a death grip on the frame. "Danny...do you think you could…?"
Danny ran over and shouldered Steve's weight, shuffling them forward. "Okay. We're all good here. Looks like the meds did the trick." He was surprised Steve lasted this long, but everyone had a threshold. "Come on, almost there."
They hobbled down the hall, step by step, and Danny unloaded Steve onto the bed where the man literally conked out. Lights out. Nobody home.
"Guess you ran your batteries out, huh?" Danny scrubbed a hand over his scratchy face and shook his head. "It's North Korea. What could go wrong?" He pulled the sheet up to his friend's waist. "I told you not to play Superman."
His eyes drifted to the blisters that need to be redressed. Burns that Danny's imagination had morbidly filled in the blanks for him thanks to Steve's disclosure regarding their source. So, he dragged his feet out of the guest bedroom and returned with supplies from the pharmacy, glad that Steve was out.
His eyes roamed over his friend and couldn't find a single inch of skin that wasn't marred by a bruise or cut. "Oh, babe."
Danny averted his gaze, took the sulfadiazine, and applied a liberal amount to his fingers. He focused on the task at hand, covered the burns, and breathed through his mouth to lessen the smell. Once done, he bandaged them with gauze and tape. Then he switched to an antibiotic cream and carefully tended to Steve's wrists.
By the time he was done, Danny wiped away the sweat stinging his eyes and stored the supplies in the bathroom.
Then his stomach revolted and he lost half his dinner three seconds later. Wiping his face with a rag, he stumbled back into the living room and turned on the TV. With the blissful sounds of white noise in the background, Danny laid on the sofa, pulled up the covers, and prayed for sleep to overtake him.
***
Sleep never came, not really. There were twenty and thirty minute stretches of dozing, which only made him feel worse. He couldn't turn his brain off or flip the switch on all the crazy thoughts and images in his head. At dawn, he brewed a fresh pot of coffee made from some kind of Hawaiian blend he couldn't pronounce.
After a cup, he took a long hot shower and emerged feeling somewhat human in a clean t-shirt and shorts. He made oatmeal and toast, drank a second cup of joe, and headed toward the guest room with a tray.
Steve's head shot up at the squeak of a floorboard and Danny froze. "It's um...me," he said, not wanting to have to defend himself with a tray full of breakfast. Steve had that bleary wild-eyed look about him but hadn't moved or made a sound. "You okay there, buddy?"
Danny set the tray down on the nightstand and cautiously moved toward the bed, hands out for Steve to see. "Now would be a good time to form words. I don't require full sentences since that's a lot to ask for at this ungodly time of morning. But you've got to give me something before I start to worry that your brains leaked out your ears dur-"
"Danno," Steve growled. "I'm fine. I'm just..."
"Lying around in pain being too stoic of a bastard to ask for help?"
"Don't start. I'm not in the mood."
"Oh, you're not in the mood? I'm sorry. Then perhaps you'd like to just get out of bed and come to the kitchen like a normal person when it's time to eat?" Danny waited a beat, knowing Steve couldn't get up without a lot of pain. The day after any physical trauma was the freaking worse. "You know my Aunt Ne-Ne got into a head-on collision once, damn airbag saved her life. She walked away from it without a single broken bone, but the next morning she could barely move."
Danny wandered toward the curtains and pulled them back, allowing the early sunshine to bleed into the room.
Steve threw a hand up to block the light, letting out a strangled noise from the motion. "Damn it! Please close that!"
Danny quickly drew the curtains and stood beside the bed. "Come on, tough guy; let me give you a hand?"
Steve mumbled okay and Danny helped him sit up, trying to tune out all the grunts of pain, using pillows to prop Steve comfortably against the headboard.
"I've got blueberry oats and multigrain toast with flax because even your bread had to be special," Danny said, pulling the tray closer.
"You brought me breakfast in bed?"
"Don't get used to it," Danny snorted, snagging three amber bottles from his pants pockets. "And these are your early morning dessert."
"That stuff made me feel like shit."
"No, getting pummeled made you feel like shit."
Steve didn't argue and gingerly adjusted himself into a sitting position before taking the spoon with a shaky hand. After a couple of bites, his whole arm trembled like a Parkinson's patient, spilling most of the oatmeal back into the bowl.
"Sonofabitch!" Steve cursed, looking all the world like he wanted to toss the tray away.
"Hey. Cut yourself some slack," Danny soothed. "You were suspended by your own body weight for God knows how long. It's gonna wreak havoc on your muscles."
Steve's modus operandi since the rescue had been long bouts of silence. It made gauging his thoughts and feelings even more difficult. Danny fidgeted before taking a step forward, but Steve stopped him cold with a glare. "You're not feeding me."
"It's called helping."
"I don't need help eating."
Steve balled up his hand into a fist, focused on it until the tremors ceased. But as soon as he reached out for the spoon again, the trembling renewed.
"I promise, it's not a problem," Danny started again.
"I'm not a child or a damn invalid!" Steve snapped, smacking the spoon on the bowl.
"Fine." Danny threw his hands up in frustration. "Perhaps I'll find you a bib so you don't end up sleeping with dried oatmeal all over yourself."
Danny stormed off because that's how he handled things when he had zero sleep in days and even less patience for injured, emotionally stunted SEALs. He paced back and forth, burned off steam, and noticed the tiny red light flash on his cell phone. Shit. He'd turned it on silent last night.
There were eight missed calls and three texts all from the team. Jeesh, it was only seven in the morning. He scrolled down to the most recent message, and his eyes nearly popped out of his skull.
From Chin:
Governor wants a meeting with us at eight sharp. I'll pick you up. Kono's coming over to help with Steve.
Damn it! It wasn't unexpected, and it wasn't like they were going to hide the rescue once they got back, but Danny had hoped he'd have more time. And sleep to deal with the bureaucratic shit storm.
Wiping a hand through his hair, he tried pulling himself together. Christ. Danny glanced at the hallway, cursing himself over how he'd handled Steve. He was supposed to be taking care of him, not throwing a fit on the first bump in the road.
Okay, think.
Kono would be over in less than...he checked the time and cursed again. Ten minutes given the ride time needed to go into the city. He'd already showered but still needed to shave, throw on some professional clothes, and oh - coach his youngest teammate on how to care for their boss, who'd just been tortured and psychologically traumatized even if he wouldn't admit it. No problem.
God help him.
***
Kono didn't go to bed after coming home from the hospital. The adrenaline rush that had fueled her throughout the mission was long gone. She felt scattered, the relief at rescuing Steve a faded memory to the fire raging inside her. She longed for payback. To make those responsible to feel every bruise, every laceration, every ugly burn that had been inflicted on Steve.
A death by a thousand cuts came to mind, but such thoughts ran roughshod through her head. She'd been raised by good people, a family that championed justice, filling the ranks with generations of cops. She believed in those values; they had guided her through thick and thin.
As a rookie, she’d been allowed to make a real difference with Five-O and treated as an equal. It was an unlikely opportunity given to her by an even more unlikely source. Steve was more than a boss, more than the force of nature that leaped off rooftops and took out bad guys with moves out of the Bourne Identity. To be allowed inside his inner circle was true honor and to see such trust so utterly and brutally violated...
No. She couldn’t think about it anymore. Giving into her anger gave those who caused it a victory. Buzzing with nervous energy, she went out toward the beach and into the one thing that always gave her serenity. She allowed the waves to take her away. Swimming at night, using the moon as a guide, had been a welcome distraction. Cleansing.
But her skin still felt gritty despite twenty minutes under the hot spray of the shower. When her cell phone had gone off at six in the morning, her pulse doubled, expecting to hear the worst. That some of Wo Fat's goons had sought retribution or that Steve's injuries were far worse than first thought. But none of her paranoia came to fruition and she gladly agreed to Chin's request without a second thought.
***
Standing outside the McGarrett home, she wondered at the amount of violence it'd witnessed. How much raw emotion it sheltered from the outside world within its walls.
She walked up the steps and Danny greeted her, looking frazzled.
"Hey, come in." He knotted his tie and ran his hands over his hair. "Did you sleep? I hope you slept because, believe me, you're gonna need a mountain of patience today, I'm just sayin'."
"How many cups of coffee have you had?" Kono asked.
"Three. No. Four," Danny said, collecting his wallet off the coffee table. "Why? You want some?"
"I'm good, brah." Kono's eyes drifted across the sofa at the blankets haphazardly folded in the corner. "Rough night?"
Danny rubbed at his puffy eyes. "You could say."
"How's Steve?"
"Being a pain in the ass."
Kono thought of admonishing him but didn't because under that tough Jersey attitude was a heart of marshmallow.
She followed him inside. "No one likes needing help. When you got poisoned a few months ago, how much did you hate all the attention?"
"I could still walk, thank you very much."
"Yeah. And you were still pissed and cranky. The boss, he's another whole another breed of tough guy. It's harder on him."
"Listen to you being all wise for your young years," Danny teased.
"When I blew out my knee, I got it from all sides. Family, peers, friends. I didn't want to depend on them or feel their sympathy." Kono shrugged, her voice turning cold. "I wasn't stabbed in the back by a friend and led to slaughter."
Danny's smile faded and Kono pointed at the white pharmacy bags before he could say anything. "Everything I need in there?"
"Yeah. He's already had his morning doses of everything. Antibiotic is once a day so we're good there. Pain pill four times, so again around noon. Same with the muscle relaxer. His dressings won't need changing until tonight." Danny's face flagged. "He can barely move. And his head's bothering him, I think." He bumped his fist against his chin. "I really hope he just stays snowed under, ya know?"
A car horn honked outside and Danny looked at the window. "If you need anything...if something happens or, I dunno, McGarrett decides to -"
"Don't worry," Kono said, laying a hand on his shoulder. "I've got this."
"Yeah, okay," he said, smoothing out his shirt. "Wish us luck."
Kono watched as Danny ran out the door and didn't relish her day ahead.
***
Part Two
Author: kristen999
Word Count: 26k
Rating: T
Genre: Gen, Drama, h/c
Warnings: This story contains language, some violent imagery, and( skip) dealings with acute stress disorder.
Summary: Steve's team vowed to bring him home, but escaping North Korea was just the first step in the journey. Coda to 2x10.
Written for esteefee for her generous donation to help with a sick kitty's vet bills.
Author's Notes Thank you to my awesome beta mischief5 for all your help throughout this process and for donating the beautiful cover art! You are an amazing friend and editor! And huge thanks to my first readers perspi and powrhugfor their encouragement and wonderful suggestions.
Special hugs to tridget for being a sounding board on the psychological aspects of this story.
Beautiful art work by mischief5.
***
Breathe. In and out. Focus. Just focus.
His head snapped back from another punch. And another. Steve rolled with the direction of the hits, decreasing their force of impact.
Don't panic.
He kept his chin down, took fists to the forehead instead of the nose or jaw. His neck was strong. He spent years building up the muscles, taught himself not to flinch when struck. It avoided broken bones and heavier damage, but the pain -
Pain is temporary.
The two guards took turns pounding on him. One of them had really bony knuckles. They stopped to take breaks in between sessions to smoke before starting over again. He hoped their hands hurt.
***
They left him hanging high enough to keep the strain on his arms and shoulders, but not enough to kill him. A few inches more and he'd slowly suffocate from the restriction to his lungs.
This was about pain, softening him up for whatever Wo Fat had in store for him.
Each breath sent an agonizing ripple effect down his entire body. His head throbbed. He'd lost count of the number of cheap shots he took to the skull on his march through the jungle.
In the silence, he didn't think about how or why he got into this mess. But an angry voice in the back of his mind gnawed away at his mental barriers. It was chastising and cruel, and Steve had to chase away all the self-doubt it conjured.
***
"So, you traded me for Josh?" he asked Jenna through busted lips.
"Yes."
Her answer twisted the knife in his back. Jenna sobbed in the corner and Steve wanted to ask her what the fuck did she expect would happen? But he hung there, tried shifting the weight off his abused wrists onto his toes, his mind swirling with emotions that had no place right now.
"I'm so sorry," Jenna cried softly in the background.
But Steve buried his emotions, slammed the door on all thought except on how to escape and evade.
Escape and evade.
***
The cattle prod repeatedly touched his skin, sent nine thousand volts of electricity through him. Steve screamed as his muscles locked up into a single spasm. The current seared his flesh and it took every ounce of self-control not to whimper when it was removed.
He denied everything about Shelbourne at the top of his lungs, wrapped his hands around the chains above his shackles to ease the pain in his shoulders. Wo Fat stood only inches away from him, close enough for Steve to snap his neck with his legs - if only he could move them.
Wo Fat laid the cattle prod on top of the metal drum and Steve knew what came next. The first few blows smashed Steve in the mouth then went lower. Steve blew out all the air from his lungs and flexed his abdominals as Wo Fat punched him mercilessly.
"What's so important about Shelbourne?" Steve breathed when Wo Fat stopped to observe him. "Why do you care?"
Anger seethed in Wo Fat's eyes and he assailed Steve with his fists. Steve kept his muscles tight, protected his vital organs the best he could, but Wo fat whaled on him like a slab of meat. Over and over and over again, until he couldn't breathe.
A vicious blow to the face left him seeing stars, but Steve had the last laugh and smiled with bloodstained teeth. "You don't have any idea where Shelbourne is, do you?"
The fury suddenly ended and he dangled from the ceiling, his toes brushing the floor when Wo Fat marched across the room with one of his goons.
Steve noticed movement out of the corner of his eye. Jenna took advantage of the distraction and reached inside her shirt pocket, tossing something at his feet.
"It wasn't for nothing," she said.
Shocked, Steve covered the piece of metal with his foot and locked eyes with Jenna as she spoke a million apologies in silence. He barely comprehended what happened before Wo Fat strolled right up to her-and put two bullets in Jenna's chest.
Steve flinched at the unexpected execution.
A white-hot fury burned away all his mental walls. "I'm going to kill you! You're a dead man! You're a dead man!" he screamed at Wo Fat's icy expression.
***
Adrenaline pumped through his veins and overrode all his nerve endings. He crunched his body in half and slipped the metal pin from his toes to his fingers. The movement should've hurt, but it was a muted, disconnected kind of pain. With a click of the tumblers, he freed his wrists from the manacles and dropped down to the floor, the sensation of pins and needles assailing his arms.
He crouched in front of Jenna and closed her eyes. Steve wanted to feel anger, guilt - something - but he didn't feel anything at all. She had no tags, so he grabbed her necklace and slipped it into his pocket.
He operated on pure adrenaline. Kill Wo Fat then escape. Nothing else mattered.
Instinct and training took over, guided him down the corridors. When he heard footsteps, Steve ducked behind the corner. He made quick work of one guard and subdued the second in a chokehold. Grabbing a discarded rifle, he clutched the weapon as he climbed up the stairs into daylight.
Taking three steps away from the bunker, he crumpled from a blow to the back of the head.
***
Steve woke to darkness and a rolling in his gut. His hands were tied in front of him and he swallowed blood from his bleeding lips. He gagged, almost threw up, his eyes drifting closed against their own accord. He floated above the blackness and forced his eyelids open, taking in his blurry surroundings.
The vehicle swayed back and forth, and for a moment, Steve wasn't sure if he was in Columbia or Afghanistan. It didn't smell like either. He lifted his head, only managed a few inches before he couldn't bear its weight any longer.
The guard yelled and kicked Steve in the leg. And when the language registered in his battered brain, the last forty-eight hours slammed into him.
Steve lacked the energy to yell back and strained raising his hands to protect his face if the guard lashed out further. The guard settled however and Steve looked on in a daze.
He should strategize his next move. Search for opportunities and exit points. Except nothing made sense and his head pounded and his body felt like rubber. Maybe he should lie in wait. Save what little energy he had left for one last shot at his enemy.
Steve would die soon, that much he was sure of. His only consolation - he'd take Wo Fat with him.
***
Things faded in and out, and Steve knew he'd lost time. An explosion rocked the vehicle and it braked to a sudden halt. His heart thumped louder in his ears while adrenaline coursed through his system. They were driving backward.
His head felt like a giant anchor and it was just too much effort to raise it again.
The guard moved toward the back-then everything erupted in chaos.
This was his cue to escape, but his brain was too wrapped in a layer of fog to react. There were more explosions and gunfire, and the eerie silence that followed added to the sensation of dreaming. The tarp lifted up and Steve couldn't believe his eyes when Danny appeared.
"I found Steve! He's alive! Steve's alive!" Danny shouted.
Steve blinked, gazed up in amazement, his brain telling him this wasn't real. Then Danny climbed inside the truck and Steve automatically lifted his battered wrists to be untied. "Danny. Where's Wo Fat?"
"Shuddup, would ya," Danny snapped.
The tarp moved aside again and Chin appeared, his face sagging in relief. Joe materialized beside him and smiled at Steve's astonished gaze as if to say, 'did you think we wouldn't come for you?'
Steve released a harsh, choked breath.
"We've got to get going," Danny said, removing the last of the rope around Steve's wrists, his expression both worried and angry. "Can you stand?"
Steve stared at Danny in grim determination because, damn it, dream or not, he could stand without help. Steve dug his fingers into Danny's shoulders, and to his dismay, had to be lifted to his feet. Once vertical, the world pitched sideways, forcing Danny to grab him.
Chin clambered into the truck, his gaze assessing, but calm. "How about we give you a hand?"
Steve arms wouldn't work and Danny and Chin draped them over their shoulders to take on his weight. "Easy, brah, we'll do all the heavy lifting," Chin told Steve.
Joe took point and his men fell in, flanking around them. Maybe he was dead because Joe and Steve's team appearing in the middle of North Korea was something out of the movies. But rocks and twigs dug into the soles of his feet and the danger around them was sharp and deadly as a knife.
Steve tried moving faster, but his legs refused to bend let alone run. Danny and Chin reeked of gun oil, fear, and sweat. And it wasn't until Steve stumbled that he realized how heavily he had to lean on them.
***
He couldn't believe an antique chopper hovered in the LZ. Chin and Danny tightened their hands around his arms while Steve kept waiting for a hail of bullets to rip everyone to pieces.
The chopper landed and Lori ran over, wrapped her arms around him in a hug, and his whole body stiffened. Wade yelled and Chin and Danny ushered him toward their ride. Hands were on him, steady and supportive. He couldn't climb inside on his own, but before he knew it, he was settled between Joe's knees.
A rifle appeared out of thin air and Steve grabbed it, pulled back the slide, and chambered a round. The magazine was full and that was good. Reassuring. The AK-47 was hard and solid, something to hold onto as the world bounced around him.
He didn't know how to react to all the eyes evaluating him. But he smiled. Curved his lips so they stretched and pulled at the skin around his mouth, blood painting lines down his cheeks. Joe patted and squeezed Steve's shoulders.
He expected a fist to the face. For all this to explode into pain and the damp smell of a bunker. Danny sagged in relief, something Steve couldn't mimic, so he gripped the AK-47 harder.
Danny joked about thanking him when they got home and Chin told him about getting married. Steve smiled even more because it sounded too surreal. He even grinned at all the ribbing and laughter that followed, all the voices a backdrop to the noisy rotor blades. His eyes roamed the small compartment, scanned and counted the various faces. When Steve's gaze landed on Danny's haunted expression, he looked up at in him question.
"We had to leave Jenna's body behind," Danny told him.
Steve didn't respond and turned his head to watch listlessly at the blurring trees, the chopper jolting hard to the right. He jerked with the motion and breathed heavily before checking the magazine of the AK-47 again.
They circled a tiny swatch of grass and landed with a bump and a whine.
"Why don't you hand the rifle over to Joe?" Danny asked.
Steve gave Danny a hard glare without surrendering his weapon.
Joe hopped out first. "Wade and his boys will secure the perimeter. We should probably go inside to regroup. Formulate our exit strategy."
Joe's words were a familiar comfort to all the fucked up chaos. Steve monitored Wade's men as they fanned out. Chin and Lori exited with their own weapons at the ready. They were knee deep in enemy territory and Steve did a visual sweep of the area while Danny fidgeted anxiously in front of him.
When Steve climbed out, Danny shouldered most of his weight and limped them toward a ramshackle shelter out of Apocalypse Now. Steve expected to be shot by a sniper's bullet and didn't know what to make of things when he wasn't.
Kono met them on the porch and he couldn't get past the fact she was actually there. That any of them were.
"Boss," Kono said, moving toward him with a burst of energy. As she closed the distance, her grin went from wide to flat, her eyes betraying a rare fury before she reached for the AK-47. "Let me grab that."
"We've got it," Chin told her, intercepting Kono's hands and squeezing them reassuringly. "Come on. I think we all need to go inside and sit down."
Kono brushed Steve's arm with the barest of touches. "I'm fine," he told her.
Kono frowned and led them all inside. The room stank of cigarette ash and barn animals. Steve hadn't realized he'd been deposited onto an old broken-down sofa until he sank against the musty cushions. He fell asleep for a second, but his eyes snapped back open at the weight of another person beside him.
Joe regarded Steve with melancholy sadness and a worn smile. He rifled through a large nylon military-issued medical kit and spread out supplies onto a clean cloth.
"Shouldn't we take him to a hospital?" Danny asked, hovering.
"Can't risk it," Joe dismissed. "We'll perform whatever triage is needed and evacuate."
Steve homed in on that familiar voice of authority and found himself sitting forward, ignoring the pain. "Do we know Wo Fat's location?"
"No," Joe answered, pulling out a suture kit. "But there's an exit plan in place and we have satellite imagery. We're not totally blind. With his defenses temporarily knocked out, he's bound to be on the run."
"We should leave now," Steve breathed. He looked down at himself, skipped over his chest and stomach, his gaze landing at the rifle lying on his lap. "Do we have Kaye's body?"
"No. I told you that in the helicopter," Danny said. "Don't you remember?"
Steve stared past Danny's anxious face, past those of Kono and Chin. He gritted his teeth against the sudden flashes of sights and smells, of burning flesh and sizzling skin.
The copper smell of blood. His and hers.
His stomach revolted and Steve threw up a meager amount of liquid. When the first jag ended, a second one began, and he dry-heaved for eternity.
"Goddamn it! I told you he needs to go to a fucking hospital!" Danny yelled.
"And I said we couldn't risk it," Joe snapped. "This is an acute stress reaction. It's not unexpected. Don't start losing it now!"
"Losing it? Hello? We just staged something out of the freaking A-Team! Except this doesn't end with a wisecrack and the credits."
"Danny." Chin's voice cut through the tension. "Come on, brah. Let's give them some room."
Steve had a death grip on the arm of the sofa. He dug his fingers into the upholstery, and his whole body trembled in a vain attempt to control his breathing. Joe was there like a solid force, his hand on Steve's shoulder, ensuring he didn't tip over. Nothing more, nothing less. Because, right now, Steve needed control - of his brain, his body. He knew Joe understood that.
Steve had to keep it together; pull himself up by his bootstraps.
"I'm good," he grunted from the pain he tried hard to ignore. Steve looked up at Joe and straightened his abused body, fighting the groan that escaped his lips. He couldn't afford to look at his team, allow their worry to influence him. "We need to move out."
"Okay, son. But do what I say. No arguing," Joe told him. "This will probably hurt."
"Just do it, sir," Steve said.
Pain wasn't a problem; he could focus on that. Use it. Control it.
***
Danny paced, body quaking with a mix of exhaustion and rage. He wanted to punch Joe for being allowed 'in'. Maybe even Steve for his bullish behavior. But deep down, Danny knew that wasn't true-if anyone deserved a Jersey-style beat-down, it was Wo Fat. But the mere thought of flesh smacking bone made him physically ill.
While Danny wore a path in the floorboards, Kono stood simmering. "Did you see his chest?" she hissed at Chin. "How...I mean what…?"
"Shhhhhsh," Chin whispered when Kono's voice trailed off. He wrapped an arm around her shoulder and pulled her close. "We're going to get through this."
Anger and grief were powerful emotions. They charged the air with negativity and tainted everything. Danny sucked in a breath, forced all those dangerous feelings out in the exhale. They were law enforcement officers; it was their job to restore order.
"Come on," he said walking toward Chin and Kono. "We can do this." He noticed Lori buzzing with anxiety by the outside door. "Over here, Weston."
With everyone in a circle, Danny had to be even-keeled. "Look. There's one more leg to this marathon. We've got to keep our wits about us. Believe me, I'd do anything to be locked up in a room with Wo Fat." Danny's face burned hot and he counted to ten to calm down. "...but that won't help Steve. We came here to bring him home."
"And after?" Kono asked, eyes drifting toward the sofa.
"Let's get to Hawaii first," Danny said, looking from face to face. "Then we're going to take care of our fearless leader, even if he doesn't want us to. I'll be damned if I'll let him go all tough guy on us."
Because training or not, no one walked away unscathed from this. It wouldn't be easy. Danny might have to perform an op over a Navy SEAL. And maybe, just maybe, if he could help Steve, it would ease some of Danny's own feelings of powerlessness. Give him a recourse other than the dark path of revenge brimming just beneath surface.
Danny watched while Joe listened to Steve's lungs with a stethoscope, then used a penlight to check pupil reaction. God, Danny wanted to do something. Be useful.
Danny looked over as Wade entered, his weapon at ease, and approached Danny's huddled group "Everything looks clear. Lt. Jacks will ride a klick ahead of us to the airstrip, make sure no one's waiting on us. Frank knows a back way there."
"Joe's getting Steve ready for the trip," Chin told him.
"Speaking of," Danny said stepping closer to Wade. "I understand the need to get the hell out of here, but unless that medical kit has a CAT scan and an x-ray machine, we're taking a pretty big risk loading Steve onto a cargo plane for over nine hours."
"Interrogations are not pretty. I've seen enough to recognize all the signs. They're mean to inflict pain, not kill. You can't get intel out of a dead man." Danny bit his lip to keep from telling Wade what he really thought of his answer, but the SEAL didn't give him a chance. "Commander McGarrett did his duty. He survived. It's my job was to get him back to friendly territory."
"Why couldn't we stop at an in ER in Seoul?" Kono asked, walking over as she geared for action.
"Stop in a hospital with the commander looking like that? We don't have time for questions and we certainly couldn't afford risking capture. From Wo Fat's dossier, he's got eyes and ears everywhere," Wade explained.
Chin sighed. "He's right. Besides, how would we pay for it?"
Kono looked dejected and Wade out of place. "As SEALs, we're highly trained medics. If push comes to shove, we can perform some basic battlefield surgery. Commander White would never allow us to ship out if Commander McGarrett were in that kind of danger." Wade cleared his throat. "Excuse me while I give Joe a hand."
Danny resisted the urge to follow, ignoring the hiss as Joe moved Steve's arms to remove his filthy shirt. Or when Wade returned with wet rags and antiseptic bottles.
"Shouldn't we help?" Kono asked.
"No, not with this," Chin told them. "Some pain you don't want your loved ones to witness."
Kono looked away when Steve made a strangled sound and Danny did the same, the two of them battling the same urge to assist.
"Maybe we can make the trip easier?" Lori suggested, stepping closer onto the porch. "I mean. It's going to be a bumpy ride."
Because getting hauled inside the cargo hold of a C-130 was already hell on Earth.
Danny spotted Frank ambling his way over and he waved at the pilot with his most charming smile. "Hey, buddy. Let me ask you something? Do you think we could dismantle your sofa?"
***
The ride to the airstrip surrounded by paranoid SEALs was nerve wracking. After half an hour, Danny saw bad guys in every treetop. By the time they arrived, his shirt was drenched in sweat. Chin and Kono had Steve propped up between them, and he looked even worse, if that was possible. His sickly grey pallor made his eyes seem huge and alert yet somehow confused, and he hadn't relinquished his death grip on the rifle.
"I just radioed the pilot," Joe told them from the front passenger seat. "The bird's gassed and ready to go."
"Let's load up and hightail it outta here," Wade ordered his men.
SEAL Team Nine climbed out and did a quick sweep and gave them an all clear. Kono and Lori exited first with their pillaged items from Frank's place and Chin helped Steve out of the back of the vehicle while Danny followed them up the ramp. A cargo plane lacked all passenger amenities and Kono and Lori arranged several sofa cushions on one of the uncomfortable jump-seats.
"Unless you want Steve to get an infection, I'd suggest covering-up those cushions," Joe said. "Come on. We dropped off most of the medical supplies, but I earmarked some for us."
Lori and Kono opened up a couple emergency blankets and draped them over the cushions while Steve hobbled inside and surveyed the cargo hold.
"I'll take that now," Danny said, pointing at the rifle. Steve stared at him as if he didn't understand the request. "Your rifle. Federal regulations prohibit them, remember?"
Steve gave a weak nod, relinquishing the AK-47 with a shaky hand, which Danny promptly gave to Wade.
"Come on," Danny clapped. "I have experience loading children into car seats." When the joke didn't even earn him an eye roll, Danny knew Steve had reached his limits. He carefully took Steve by the bicep and elbow. "I know how much this is gonna suck, so on the count of three, we're gonna lower you."
"I'm fine," Steve mumbled.
"Obviously we differ on the definition of fine", Danny snorted.
Steve either had cracked or bruised ribs and Danny knew from experience how much it hurt to move up and down. The jump seat had a cushion on top of it and a larger one to lean against. Steve groaned and grunted, but Danny finally got him situated.
The plane's engines started roaring and the pilot radioed that they had the final clearance.
Joe wandered over with his black med kit and squatted beside Steve. "All right. I made you a deal back at Frank's. No painkillers or fluids until we were on board."
"I didn't...I didn't want to slow you guys if we got ambushed," Steve explained.
"You did good, son," Joe told Steve with a hand to his shoulder. "Real good."
Steve's expression, his quiet acceptance, hurt Danny to his core. God, if John McGarrett were alive today, Danny might actually punch the guy in the face. Fuck good intentions at sending your children away. Your commanding officer shouldn't be a substitute father figure.
Joe unrolled a coil of IV tubing, handing a bag of saline to Danny. "There should be a hook you can use in the kit."
Danny located the hook and found a bolt to secure the bag. Chin sterilized a patch of skin at the crook of Steve's elbow with a wipe while Joe expertly slipped in the needle.
The scent of medical cream and sterile dressings hit Danny hard. Between the gauze and bandages for the burns, there were only hints of the black and purple bruises underneath. He dug his nails into his palms to keep his anger at bay.
Joe pulled out an oxygen mask; Danny panicked and Steve waved his hand. "I don't need that."
"Who said I was askin'?" Joe set the O2 tank on the floor next to Steve. "You're experiencing pain when you breathe and I'm not going to take any chances when we're about to go twenty thousand feet up."
"I don't have broken ribs."
"Did I say this was a discussion?" Joe asked. "Take the mask. I'm not risking a pneumothorax from a possible fracture."
Steve placed the mask over his face and seemed to breathe easier with it on.
"We'll be home before you know it," Joe said and gave Steve an ampoule of morphine in the thigh.
Chin settled next to Steve and buckled himself in. "We'll keep an eye on his vitals."
Joe gave Steve another pat and took his place twenty feet across from them. Danny sat in the red jump seat on Steve's right and secured his arms between the straps.
"Mark this on your calendar because I can't wait to get to Oahu," he told Steve with an exaggerated grin.
"Yeah," Steve breathed, closing his eyes, the pain lines around his face slowly fading.
Kono came over with a wool blanket from somewhere and draped it over Steve. Satisfied that Steve was comfortable, she adjusted the straps and secured them without yanking too tightly.
By the time they were airborne, Steve lolled his head onto Danny's shoulder.
***
Danny nodded off and startled awake several times during the flight. He checked on Steve, noticing that even asleep, his body was coiled and tense. Steve's eyes twitched wildly in REM sleep, and for a second, Danny feared that the morphine had him trapped in a nightmare.
With his shoulder serving as Steve's pillow, Danny felt every hitch of breath or mumbled curse. When the dreams got bad, Danny whispered nonsensical things until Steve calmed.
Chin glanced over at him in silence and Danny shrugged. "Hey, it works on Grace."
"And SEALs apparently," Chin said with a tired smile.
***
The flight back felt like a slow crawl and Danny would've given anything for an iPod or a laptop to keep him occupied. Everyone was bone tired and emotionally worn to the core. All except for the SEALs, who slept soundly through every bump of turbulence.
Unfortunately, the morphine wore off an hour before landing and Steve bolted awake, ripping off the blanket. Chin earned a fist to the face the moment he touched Steve. Danny waved Joe and everyone else away and went for the tried and true method of getting his partner's attention.
"Hey! Knock it off, McGarrett; some of us are trying to sleep!" Danny snapped his fingers and Steve froze his breathing heavy and ragged. "Hello? Over here."
Steve blinked fuzzily at Danny and Danny looked him directly in the eyes. "That's it, buddy. No need to cause a scene."
"Danny?"
"Yes, Steven?"
"Where…?"
"We're on cargo plane heading home. Got less than an hour before I can kiss the ground." It took several seconds for Steve to slowly put the pieces together and Danny schooled his concern behind sarcasm. "Do you remember your field trip to North Korea?"
Steve's impersonation of a plank of wood worried Danny, but Steve's eyes slowly focused and he leaned back against the cushion without a word.
***
Chin made a few discreet phone calls right before their descent, and when they finally touch downed, an ambulance waited on the tarmac. Steve was either too exhausted or too smart to argue about riding in it.
Seal Team Nine gave their best wishes and headed home in quiet acceptance of a job well done.
Danny hopped into the bus with Steve, and the rest of the team and Joe followed behind them in their vehicles.
***
Between their badges and Malia's interference, the ER resident didn't ask twenty questions on the how and why of Steve's condition. Danny was ushered out of the examination room just as one of the nurses cut away the rest of Steve's shirt, revealing his eggplant colored back.
Malia took Danny by the elbow into the hall. "Don't worry, I've paged Dr. Singh. He's an ex-corpsman and knows how to handle Navy guys."
Chin arrived a few minutes later, his expression bursting into joy at seeing his fiancée. The two embraced while Danny ignored a hot streak of jealousy. By the time Joe and Kono dragged themselves over, Malia insisted they go to the cafeteria to eat.
Salad, bowls of creamed corn, and several hamburgers later, Danny and company retired to cheap plastic chairs in the waiting area. He fell asleep with his head propped against his hand.
Kono roused him out of dreams of helicopter crashes in time to crowd around Dr. Singh. Steve's scans and x-rays were clear - no internal bleeding or severe head trauma. He had a laundry list of issues: concussion, two hairline rib fractures, swollen jaw, and bruised muscles in general. Not to mention electrical burns and various lacerations.
"Let me guess. He wants to check himself out?" Danny sighed.
"Maybe we can handcuff him to his bed?" Kono asked. And by the look of things, she was deadly serious.
Danny made a mental note to talk to her later; he didn't like the darkness stewing behind her eyes.
"I want him to stay overnight for observation, but he's very adamant about leaving," Singh finished. "Perhaps one of you can convince him otherwise?"
Despite the perfectly sane medical advice, no one argued about Steve wanting to go home. "It's all right. I'm already sleeping on his sofa since I'm in between apartments. I'll keep an eye on him," Danny said.
"I'm afraid you might need to do a bit more than keep an eye on him. The commander needs to be on complete bed rest and under careful observation," Singh argued. "Perhaps I can arrange for a service to -"
"No," Danny growled his blood pressure jumping. "You don't understand. I'm his partner. You get it? Of course you don't. How could you? But while you have no freaking clue, I can assure you that I am up to whatever task it entails to get him on the mend. Capiche?"
Ten minutes later, Danny was the proud owner of care instructions an inch thick and a handful of prescriptions. After another cup of bitter coffee, he hoped it'd be enough to get him through what should be an intense evening on top of the last horrendous seventy-two hours.
***
Danny drove carefully, took curves at ridiculously slow speeds, and even hissed when he hit a pothole. He couldn't tell if Steve's even noticed; his thousand-yard stare out the window might as well have been ten miles. Luckily, the pharmacy by Steve's house had a drive-through and they parked in front of the McGarrett home a few minutes later.
Danny killed the engine and unlocked the doors when a hand unexpectedly encircled his arm.
"Wait a second," Steve said his voice raw as gravel.
"For what?" Danny demanded, but Steve opened the glove box, fiddled with a lock-box and pulled out a Sig Sauer. "Whoa? What the hell?"
"I should do a sweep. Make sure it's clear."
"No, no, no," Danny said, hopping out of the driver's side and intercepting his partner. "We're home now."
Kono had the presence of mind to buy Steve an ugly Hawaiian shirt and sweats at the gift shop to go with his hospital issued slippers, so he only looked like a half-dead manic clutching a weapon and leaning on the car door.
"Who do you think is waiting on us? Wo Fat is thousands of miles away, Steven."
"His operatives -"
"Are not here." But it was like arguing with a deaf mule. "Look. We'll go inside and I'll clear the house myself."
Danny thought Steve just preferred being armed, the Sig offering the protection that his normal abilities couldn't. "Fine," Steve answered, although it was obvious he'd prefer to recon the whole property.
Joe had returned the team's weapons to them in the hospital parking lot and Danny readied his. "Stay behind me," he ordered, holding out his arm.
Even if Steve belonged in a hospital bed, there was no way he'd stand down until Danny completed this act of the play. Steve stayed close while Danny swept the house efficiently. He shouted 'clear' in all the appropriate corners and doors. And even went upstairs, swearing a streak of profanities for using up what little fumes he had left.
Danny returned to the living room, stored his weapon in a desk drawer, and gestured for Steve to do the same. Steve, the stubborn ox, set his Sig on the coffee table and literally collapsed onto the sofa with a loud groan.
"You have broken ribs, take things slowly."
"Hairline fracture."
"What?"
"Doc said hairline fracture. I told Joe they weren't broken."
"I am not debating this with you. Don't move," Danny told him on the way to the kitchen.
Opening the cupboards, he snagged a box of oyster crackers, a thing of organic yogurt, and two coconut waters out of the fridge and returned to the living room. "Here. Eat this. You have meds to take and I doubt you want to throw up any time soon."
Steve nibbled on a few crackers then took the spoon and quickly polished off half the quart.
"Guess it's been two days since you've eaten?"
Steve paused mid-swallow in thought. "Yeah."
Steve had a tiny row of sutures along his left eye that matched the ones to his bottom lip. He tapped the spoon against the yogurt, watched it bounce off the plastic, looking like he had something to say. Danny didn't push things. Instead, he played drug peddler, handed Steve his antibiotic, pain pill, and muscle relaxer. Steve swallowed all three at once with a chug of water.
"I'm gonna take a shower," Steve said, breaking the silence that followed.
Danny jumped to his feet in response. Yes, he was aware Steve was a freaking SEAL, but that didn't stop him from waiting to see if Steve's legs gave out.
"Maybe you should just hit the sack. Why push it?"
"I can take a shower, Danny."
"Did you get forget about those burns?"
Steve gritted his teeth and gave the front of his shirt a quick glance. "Hard to forget a cattle prod," he said, his voice flat.
God, Danny didn't need to hear that right now. He deduced most of what had happened to Steve, but the new image was a little too visceral. "You can't get the dressings wet."
"The docs covered the burns in sulfadiazine. It'll protect them against the water."
"Okay, but those meds are gonna hit you like a ton of bricks. I didn't travel eight thousand miles to rescue your ass just so you can drown in your bathtub."
Danny was prepared to wage this battle but relented when Steve just gave him this look. This raw, painful expression. "I've got to get rid of...I can still smell…"
"Yeah, I gotcha," Danny sighed, his defenses breached. "Just. Let me grab you a towel."
Steve studied the staircase like it was Mount Olympus and nodded down the hallway, using the wall to help him walk. "I'll be in the guest bathroom."
Danny went to the closet, grabbed a towel, and paced a few minutes, trying to decide his next move. When he didn't hear the sound of running water, he peeked inside the bathroom to find Steve sitting on the closed lid of the toilet with his shirt halfway buttoned.
"Change your mind?" Danny asked.
"I'm so fucking stiff...I can't..."
"Hey, hey. It's okay. I'll help. Let me do most of the work, okay?"
Danny made quick work of all the buttons and started peeling off the shirt. "Lift your left arm just a smidge." Steve's arm flopped in response and Danny rolled down the first sleeve. "Now lift your right arm."
Steve obeyed, helping remove the rest of the shirt, and Danny tossed it on the sink. But Steve sat hunched over, pale and forlorn, his jaw clenched tight.
"What else do you need, babe?"
Steve kept himself propped up with his arms despite the fine tremors running down them. "I don't think..." He took a sharp breath, his expression a mix of defeat and anger. "I don't think I can stand up long enough to take a shower."
"Okay. Everything's going to be fine. Just give me a sec. I'll be right back." Danny ran into the kitchen and returned with a chair. "Don't say a word. I'll buy you a new one." Steve glowered at the chair while Danny stuck it under the showerhead. "Now all you have to do it just sit there. You know...allow the hot water to run."
Resigned to his limitations, Steve contemplated the shower like a strategic target before using the toilet tank to help stand. "Thank you."
"Yeah, no problem."
Danny put the towel on the counter and walked away as the water turned on, his whole body puttering on fumes. But he didn't give in, didn't think about the last two heart-stopping days.
He couldn't.
He kept the bathroom door partway open and checked the guest bedroom across the hall to see if it had sheets and covers. He contemplated the TV, vetoed the option, and decided to keep moving around because if he stopped to sit, he'd never get up again. The shower ran for five minutes, then ten, edging at nearly fifteen before Danny's worry gave him heart palpitations.
By the time he made a decision to go check on Steve, the water stopped.
A few agonizing minutes later, Steve appeared out of the bathroom in a pair of gray sweatpants, shaky as hell, one hand a death grip on the frame. "Danny...do you think you could…?"
Danny ran over and shouldered Steve's weight, shuffling them forward. "Okay. We're all good here. Looks like the meds did the trick." He was surprised Steve lasted this long, but everyone had a threshold. "Come on, almost there."
They hobbled down the hall, step by step, and Danny unloaded Steve onto the bed where the man literally conked out. Lights out. Nobody home.
"Guess you ran your batteries out, huh?" Danny scrubbed a hand over his scratchy face and shook his head. "It's North Korea. What could go wrong?" He pulled the sheet up to his friend's waist. "I told you not to play Superman."
His eyes drifted to the blisters that need to be redressed. Burns that Danny's imagination had morbidly filled in the blanks for him thanks to Steve's disclosure regarding their source. So, he dragged his feet out of the guest bedroom and returned with supplies from the pharmacy, glad that Steve was out.
His eyes roamed over his friend and couldn't find a single inch of skin that wasn't marred by a bruise or cut. "Oh, babe."
Danny averted his gaze, took the sulfadiazine, and applied a liberal amount to his fingers. He focused on the task at hand, covered the burns, and breathed through his mouth to lessen the smell. Once done, he bandaged them with gauze and tape. Then he switched to an antibiotic cream and carefully tended to Steve's wrists.
By the time he was done, Danny wiped away the sweat stinging his eyes and stored the supplies in the bathroom.
Then his stomach revolted and he lost half his dinner three seconds later. Wiping his face with a rag, he stumbled back into the living room and turned on the TV. With the blissful sounds of white noise in the background, Danny laid on the sofa, pulled up the covers, and prayed for sleep to overtake him.
***
Sleep never came, not really. There were twenty and thirty minute stretches of dozing, which only made him feel worse. He couldn't turn his brain off or flip the switch on all the crazy thoughts and images in his head. At dawn, he brewed a fresh pot of coffee made from some kind of Hawaiian blend he couldn't pronounce.
After a cup, he took a long hot shower and emerged feeling somewhat human in a clean t-shirt and shorts. He made oatmeal and toast, drank a second cup of joe, and headed toward the guest room with a tray.
Steve's head shot up at the squeak of a floorboard and Danny froze. "It's um...me," he said, not wanting to have to defend himself with a tray full of breakfast. Steve had that bleary wild-eyed look about him but hadn't moved or made a sound. "You okay there, buddy?"
Danny set the tray down on the nightstand and cautiously moved toward the bed, hands out for Steve to see. "Now would be a good time to form words. I don't require full sentences since that's a lot to ask for at this ungodly time of morning. But you've got to give me something before I start to worry that your brains leaked out your ears dur-"
"Danno," Steve growled. "I'm fine. I'm just..."
"Lying around in pain being too stoic of a bastard to ask for help?"
"Don't start. I'm not in the mood."
"Oh, you're not in the mood? I'm sorry. Then perhaps you'd like to just get out of bed and come to the kitchen like a normal person when it's time to eat?" Danny waited a beat, knowing Steve couldn't get up without a lot of pain. The day after any physical trauma was the freaking worse. "You know my Aunt Ne-Ne got into a head-on collision once, damn airbag saved her life. She walked away from it without a single broken bone, but the next morning she could barely move."
Danny wandered toward the curtains and pulled them back, allowing the early sunshine to bleed into the room.
Steve threw a hand up to block the light, letting out a strangled noise from the motion. "Damn it! Please close that!"
Danny quickly drew the curtains and stood beside the bed. "Come on, tough guy; let me give you a hand?"
Steve mumbled okay and Danny helped him sit up, trying to tune out all the grunts of pain, using pillows to prop Steve comfortably against the headboard.
"I've got blueberry oats and multigrain toast with flax because even your bread had to be special," Danny said, pulling the tray closer.
"You brought me breakfast in bed?"
"Don't get used to it," Danny snorted, snagging three amber bottles from his pants pockets. "And these are your early morning dessert."
"That stuff made me feel like shit."
"No, getting pummeled made you feel like shit."
Steve didn't argue and gingerly adjusted himself into a sitting position before taking the spoon with a shaky hand. After a couple of bites, his whole arm trembled like a Parkinson's patient, spilling most of the oatmeal back into the bowl.
"Sonofabitch!" Steve cursed, looking all the world like he wanted to toss the tray away.
"Hey. Cut yourself some slack," Danny soothed. "You were suspended by your own body weight for God knows how long. It's gonna wreak havoc on your muscles."
Steve's modus operandi since the rescue had been long bouts of silence. It made gauging his thoughts and feelings even more difficult. Danny fidgeted before taking a step forward, but Steve stopped him cold with a glare. "You're not feeding me."
"It's called helping."
"I don't need help eating."
Steve balled up his hand into a fist, focused on it until the tremors ceased. But as soon as he reached out for the spoon again, the trembling renewed.
"I promise, it's not a problem," Danny started again.
"I'm not a child or a damn invalid!" Steve snapped, smacking the spoon on the bowl.
"Fine." Danny threw his hands up in frustration. "Perhaps I'll find you a bib so you don't end up sleeping with dried oatmeal all over yourself."
Danny stormed off because that's how he handled things when he had zero sleep in days and even less patience for injured, emotionally stunted SEALs. He paced back and forth, burned off steam, and noticed the tiny red light flash on his cell phone. Shit. He'd turned it on silent last night.
There were eight missed calls and three texts all from the team. Jeesh, it was only seven in the morning. He scrolled down to the most recent message, and his eyes nearly popped out of his skull.
From Chin:
Governor wants a meeting with us at eight sharp. I'll pick you up. Kono's coming over to help with Steve.
Damn it! It wasn't unexpected, and it wasn't like they were going to hide the rescue once they got back, but Danny had hoped he'd have more time. And sleep to deal with the bureaucratic shit storm.
Wiping a hand through his hair, he tried pulling himself together. Christ. Danny glanced at the hallway, cursing himself over how he'd handled Steve. He was supposed to be taking care of him, not throwing a fit on the first bump in the road.
Okay, think.
Kono would be over in less than...he checked the time and cursed again. Ten minutes given the ride time needed to go into the city. He'd already showered but still needed to shave, throw on some professional clothes, and oh - coach his youngest teammate on how to care for their boss, who'd just been tortured and psychologically traumatized even if he wouldn't admit it. No problem.
God help him.
***
Kono didn't go to bed after coming home from the hospital. The adrenaline rush that had fueled her throughout the mission was long gone. She felt scattered, the relief at rescuing Steve a faded memory to the fire raging inside her. She longed for payback. To make those responsible to feel every bruise, every laceration, every ugly burn that had been inflicted on Steve.
A death by a thousand cuts came to mind, but such thoughts ran roughshod through her head. She'd been raised by good people, a family that championed justice, filling the ranks with generations of cops. She believed in those values; they had guided her through thick and thin.
As a rookie, she’d been allowed to make a real difference with Five-O and treated as an equal. It was an unlikely opportunity given to her by an even more unlikely source. Steve was more than a boss, more than the force of nature that leaped off rooftops and took out bad guys with moves out of the Bourne Identity. To be allowed inside his inner circle was true honor and to see such trust so utterly and brutally violated...
No. She couldn’t think about it anymore. Giving into her anger gave those who caused it a victory. Buzzing with nervous energy, she went out toward the beach and into the one thing that always gave her serenity. She allowed the waves to take her away. Swimming at night, using the moon as a guide, had been a welcome distraction. Cleansing.
But her skin still felt gritty despite twenty minutes under the hot spray of the shower. When her cell phone had gone off at six in the morning, her pulse doubled, expecting to hear the worst. That some of Wo Fat's goons had sought retribution or that Steve's injuries were far worse than first thought. But none of her paranoia came to fruition and she gladly agreed to Chin's request without a second thought.
***
Standing outside the McGarrett home, she wondered at the amount of violence it'd witnessed. How much raw emotion it sheltered from the outside world within its walls.
She walked up the steps and Danny greeted her, looking frazzled.
"Hey, come in." He knotted his tie and ran his hands over his hair. "Did you sleep? I hope you slept because, believe me, you're gonna need a mountain of patience today, I'm just sayin'."
"How many cups of coffee have you had?" Kono asked.
"Three. No. Four," Danny said, collecting his wallet off the coffee table. "Why? You want some?"
"I'm good, brah." Kono's eyes drifted across the sofa at the blankets haphazardly folded in the corner. "Rough night?"
Danny rubbed at his puffy eyes. "You could say."
"How's Steve?"
"Being a pain in the ass."
Kono thought of admonishing him but didn't because under that tough Jersey attitude was a heart of marshmallow.
She followed him inside. "No one likes needing help. When you got poisoned a few months ago, how much did you hate all the attention?"
"I could still walk, thank you very much."
"Yeah. And you were still pissed and cranky. The boss, he's another whole another breed of tough guy. It's harder on him."
"Listen to you being all wise for your young years," Danny teased.
"When I blew out my knee, I got it from all sides. Family, peers, friends. I didn't want to depend on them or feel their sympathy." Kono shrugged, her voice turning cold. "I wasn't stabbed in the back by a friend and led to slaughter."
Danny's smile faded and Kono pointed at the white pharmacy bags before he could say anything. "Everything I need in there?"
"Yeah. He's already had his morning doses of everything. Antibiotic is once a day so we're good there. Pain pill four times, so again around noon. Same with the muscle relaxer. His dressings won't need changing until tonight." Danny's face flagged. "He can barely move. And his head's bothering him, I think." He bumped his fist against his chin. "I really hope he just stays snowed under, ya know?"
A car horn honked outside and Danny looked at the window. "If you need anything...if something happens or, I dunno, McGarrett decides to -"
"Don't worry," Kono said, laying a hand on his shoulder. "I've got this."
"Yeah, okay," he said, smoothing out his shirt. "Wish us luck."
Kono watched as Danny ran out the door and didn't relish her day ahead.
***
Part Two