Archive of Our Own

Steve paced back and forth by the gate, not really trusting that he'd get Danny back until he saw him in one piece. Or, with at least most of his pieces still somewhat hung together. He knew it was wishful thinking that Danny would come out of that experience unharmed. According to the account Steve finally got from the authorities there, Danny had been seen by a doctor at the jail, deemed fit to travel and boarded the plane under his own power.

Big deal. A Colombian jail doctor wasn't about to evaluate him as having serious injuries suffered while in their custody, and Danny would put on a brave front and make it onto that plane under his own power if he had a breath left in his body.

Eventually the plane landed, and Steve hovered near the area where the passengers were streaming back into the airport. He almost looked right past the hunched figure in the wheelchair being pushed in his direction by a young flight attendant. He was dressed in a t-shirt, jeans that obviously didn't fit well and were rolled up in cuffs, a gray cardigan sweater, and he was pushing his hair back to keep it from falling on his forehead. His face was badly bruised with cuts and scrapes in places, his lip split. 

"Danny," Steve said, the word coming out more like a whisper than a greeting. "Danny," Steve said more audibly as he knelt in front of the chair. 

"I'm fine. I can walk the rest of the way," he said, looking back up at the flight attendant. "Thanks for your help." The pretty blonde girl looked at Steve and arched an eyebrow as if to ask if Steve really believed Danny could walk through the airport unassisted. He showed her his ID.

"Can we borrow your wheelchair? I'll make sure it's returned."

"Absolutely," she said. "Just have someone drop it off at our counter when it's convenient." She crouched near the chair. "It was really nice visiting with you, Danny. Enjoy your time with your daughter," she added.

"Thanks for all your help, Jenny," he said. 

"Ready for a change of drivers?" Steve asked, trying to keep his tone light, though the condition Danny appeared to be in broke his heart.

"She has nicer legs than you do," Danny joked with a listless little smile that didn't light up his eyes like it normally did. 

"Sorry, Danny. I have to get back to work. Take good care of yourself and get better soon," she said, giving Steve a little smile and heading back toward the plane.

"My truck's out front," he said.

"I can walk, Steve. Just stop and get me get up."

"It's a long walk to the exit, buddy. Just relax and let me take you out there."

"I'm not gonna go see Gracie in a wheelchair. Or this ridiculous get-up. I need to change my clothes."

"We'll go to your place first, okay?"

"Yeah, okay," Danny conceded, slumping in the chair and still not looking Steve in the eyes. 

When Steve got to the truck, he had to move fast to even help Danny stand, since he was already pushing up and out of the chair with a wince. 

"It's really good to have you home, Danno," Steve said, and he moved to hug Danny and was surprised when he took a step back, almost falling back in the wheelchair. 

"Sorry...I've got some...bruises."

"I can see that," Steve said. 

"I just wanna go home," he muttered, and by the way he was holding himself, it was almost as if he was afraid Steve would make another move forward to touch him.

"Sure. Need a hand?" he asked, referring to getting into the truck.

"I got it," he said, and Steve fought to keep his hands at his sides as Danny visibly struggled with pulling himself up into the seat. He folded up the wheelchair and put it in the back of the truck. He could have returned it then, but he hated to leave Danny alone that long. He got in the driver's side and started the engine, driving them toward Danny's place so he could freshen up and put on some of his own clothes before seeing Grace.

"Where did you get the fashionable outfit?" Steve teased. Danny managed another small smile. 

"The jail provided the t-shirt and jeans. My clothes were...dirty and kind of trashed. I was having chills on the plane so this nice old guy across the aisle loaned me his sweater. He's vacationing here with his wife, so he gave me the name of the hotel where they're staying so I can return it when I'm done with it."

"Why were you having chills?"

"I don't know. Jenny got me a blanket but I was shaking really hard for a while so he gave me the sweater, and it helped."

"Fuck," Steve mumbled, rubbing his forehead. "We need to go to the ER."

"No, we don't. Don't even think about taking me there."

"You need to be examined by a reputable doctor, Danny. You could be seriously hurt. The chills are often a sign of shock."

"I said no. Now drop it." Danny leaned back in the seat and looked out the passenger window. "Just let it be, Steve. Please."

"If I get off your back about this now, will you please go to your own doctor and let him look you over?"

"Fine."

"Okay." Steve was quiet a few minutes until they pulled into Danny's driveway.

"Is Gracie coming home with me today or staying with Rachel?"

"What do you want her to do?"

"I just don't want her to be upset being around me at home." He paused. "I had nightmares on the plane. That's why Jenny noticed me and started kind of fussing over me. She brought me ibuprofen, coffee, and blankets and finally sat with me for a while."

"I think she liked you."

"She's a nice girl. She sat there and listened to me talk about Grace. I think it was so I didn't wake up screaming and scare the shit out of everyone again." He smiled a bit, but it remained faint and joyless.

"Take your time getting out. Nobody's watching so you don't have to impress anybody."

Danny eased himself out of the truck and Steve tried not to stare or hover despite how much he wanted to help Danny. And how much he just wanted to hold onto him and feel the reality of him being back home again. He unlocked the door with his key, and Danny went inside, pausing in his living room to just look around. 

"Never thought I'd see this place again," he muttered. "I'm gonna go get a shower and some fresh clothes. Burn this shit I'm wearing. Well, not the sweater. I have to return that."

"Are you still cold?"

"Not so much now. Just feel kind of rough. When I was a kid, I always wanted more blankets when I was under the weather." 

"You need any help?"

"No, I'll be fine. Can you call Rachel and ask her if she can keep Grace with her a couple nights? I just want to be sure she won't be here alone with me if I have nightmares. Don't tell Rachel that. She'll label me as having PTSD and sue me for custody."

"I'll call her. I can stay with you guys if that would help. Then you could bring her home and have her with you, and if anything happens at night, I'll be here to run interference."

"You sure?"

"It's no big deal, Danny. Be glad to."

"Thanks." He turned and made his way into the bedroom and closed the door. 

Steve occupied himself by going into the kitchen and checking to see if Danny had the basics there. He hadn't been gone that long, and he kept things well-stocked now that Grace was with him so much of the time, but it gave Steve something that felt useful to do while he listened to the shower running in the other room.

And running...and running... Danny was clean when Steve picked him up. While he hadn't had access to anything like cologne or whatever magic potion kept his hair where he wanted it, when Steve got close to him he smelled clean and he looked clean. There couldn't have been that much to scrub off. Worried Danny might not be feeling well or need help, Steve tapped on the bedroom door, then opened it and went to the doorway of the adjoining bathroom where the shower was still running. The shower had glass doors that obscured a clear view, but he could see the outline of Danny just standing there, his hands braced on the tiles, letting the water pour down on him. He was upright and obviously not losing consciousness or falling, so Steve knew he should go back out to the living room. As anxious and Danny was to see Grace, if he was lingering this long, though, it wasn't normal. Some people can fall asleep standing up, and Danny had a rough trip home, so maybe he'd just gone into a sort of stupor.

"Danny?" Steve called, approaching the shower. "Are you okay?"

"Be right out," he said, jerking into a straighter position and scrubbing at his hair now, as if he'd just remembered he needed to wash and rinse it. Steve hoped all the dark splotches on Danny's body were tricks of the pattern in the glass. What did they do to him?

The water stopped and Danny snaked an arm outside the shower door and retrieved a towel to wrap around himself before sliding the door all the way open and stepping out. Steve hadn't been invited to stay in the room, but then he and Danny had never really worried about propriety before. There was nothing either one of them had the other hadn't had reason to see at some point, and Steve was worried about Danny's labored gait and potential undiagnosed injuries. 

He wasn't really prepared for Danny's battered body to be right there in front of him in all its technicolor vividness. His upper arms, torso, and legs were all splotched and marred with purple and red signs of brutality and abuse. The bruising on his back and rib area were almost too much to look at. Steve endured all of it fairly well until Danny turned to get a towel and dry off his hair, and the bruise pattern on his upper back, between his shoulder blades, registered with Steve. 

He'd never felt his legs give out, but they did now and he was grateful his butt landed on the bed. Fainting dead away on Danny's bedroom floor wouldn't really be a reassuring sign of strength and moral support for his partner. And then Steve McGarrett who was regularly accused - usually by Danny - of not feeling things, couldn't stop the debilitating and embarrassing flood of tears that came, making him bury his face in his hands. And, behind his hands, he didn't have to confront that pattern of bruises and what it meant.

It shouldn't have surprised him that Danny's warmth was at his side, his hand on Steve's shoulder. 

"It's okay, babe. It's over," he said. "You did it again. Saved the day," he added with a little smile in his voice. 

"There's a boot print on your back," he forced out, the words literally sounding as if he were being strangled while he said them. There was no depth or volume to them, just choked breath. 

"Oh," Danny replied, moving his hand off Steve's shoulder, just sitting there next to him on the bed. "It looks worse than it is."

"Oh, bullshit. It doesn't look as bad as it probably feels. How many times did they hit you? Who was it? Prisoners?"

"Prisoners first, then the guards." He swallowed, feeling himself shaking at the memories that traveled back with the words. "Then the guards again. They let me make a phone call because they thought I was going to arrange a bribe for them to keep me safe. I didn't figure on living long in there, so I called Gracie. They weren't amused by that decision."

"Son of a bitch," Steve ground out, wiping at his eyes. 

"So once they were done making their point, they threw me back in their equivalent of general pop, and the welcome wagon was waiting."

"Danny...no..."

"I'm alive, Steve. If you hadn't figured out how to pull all this off, I probably wouldn't be by now."

"I had to leave Colombia without you."

"So you could come back here and finish what you started."

"Do you know why I came back here in person to blackmail Alexander?"

"I have an idea."

"Because if he tried to resist or refused, I knew I'd do what I had to to force compliance. I couldn't trust that if something went wrong, whoever was closing the deal here would stop short of doing whatever it took..."

"You did what you had to do. They weren't going to let me have visitors anyway." 

"While I was back here..." Steve swallowed and sat up straight. He reached over and carefully touched one of the worst dark splotches on Danny's side, then he pulled back his hand, remembering how Danny had flinched away from him. "What did they do to you, Danno?"

"I don't want to talk about the details right now. I'm just glad to be home." Danny looked at Steve, and their eyes met, and it was all Steve could do to keep looking into those haunted eyes. In that awful moment Steve knew exactly what happened to Danny. It shouldn't have been a surprise, but somehow, it still shook him more than he could have imagined.

"Are you sure you don't need to see a reputable doctor now?"

"I don’t think it’s major damage. I’m gonna need to get tested for...for HIV and other stuff." He looked away now, and it was like a knife in Steve's heart to see that he looked ashamed, like he couldn't look Steve in the eyes and talk about it. "One of the guards heard the commotion and I actually thought for a minute he was going to help me...well, not help me, but maybe try to restore some kind of order with the prisoners." He looked over his shoulder, though he couldn't really see his back that way. "Probably his boot print..."

"He held you down."

"I wanted one of them to just finish me but it didn't kill me, and I was disappointed," he whispered, a couple of silent tears rolling down his cheeks. There was a light blanket folded on the foot of the bed, and Steve grabbed it and wrapped it around Danny's shoulders and very carefully kept his arms around Danny. 

"Is this okay?" he asked carefully.

Danny nodded, and then he slumped there in Steve's arms, winding his arms around Steve. His sobs seemed like they hurt by the uneven and sometimes sharp, difficult breaths he took in to accommodate them. 

"I'm sorry, Danno. I'm so fucking sorry," he said softly, resting his head against Danny's and letting his own tears come. 

"Don't tell Grace," he said brokenly. "I don't want her to ever have to know."

"I wouldn't tell her behind your back, ever."

"Didn't really want you to know."

"Nothing you endured there was your fault, buddy. None of it."

"It kind of was."

"You did what you thought was right when you signed that form. You were protecting me and you didn't want Grace exposed to all the things she'd hear in a murder trial. You suffered through all that for us, and that’s beautiful but there's nothing that could happen to me that would make me think you going through that was worth it."

"It's not just that." Danny sat up straighter, and Steve reluctantly loosened his hold on him. Steve pulled out a handkerchief and started blotting the moisture on Danny's face. "You carry one of those?"

"Obviously I do."

"It's clean, isn't it?"

"Yes, it's clean," Steve retorted, momentarily annoyed and then almost unreasonably happy that Danny was sparring with him a little. 

"Your nose is running," Danny observed.

"I was trying to be nice by using it for you first."

"Why haven't we ever had this conversation before?" Danny asked as Steve blew his nose in a dry area of the cloth. "Oh, my God, that's disgusting. There's a box of tissues on the dresser."

"I'm not as freaked out by your snot as you are by mine, apparently."

"This reminds me of the blood brothers ritual, only with snot. Are we related now?"

"I'll carry our mingled DNA in my pocket forever."

"Can't wait to explain that one to Max someday, should the occasion arise."

"Unless he's doing an autopsy on me, it shouldn't come up, so let's hope not. Before you went off on me for my appalling hygiene habits, you were going to tell me something important, I think."

"It's kind of nice."

"What?"

"That you don't mind having my snot in your pocket."

"Don't get too emotional about that. I'm washing the handkerchief and the pants before either one gets used again."

"I suppose things get grosser in a war zone."

"Yes, they do."

"You know, Steven, I've been living with what I did and feeling a certain way about it ever since I did it and maybe some crazy part of me just didn't want to feel that way anymore. But that does not mean that I am not happy and grateful that I am here. So thank you, partner."

"You're the one who was ready to go to jail to keep me out of it. I should be thanking you."

"You did when you showed up at the court house and tried to undo everything I did to keep you out of it. Besides, that's what family does, right?"

"I learned that from you. That whole thing is a little new to me. Danny, you have to let me take you to a doctor. Please?"

"Not to the ER."

"Let me call your doctor's office and see if he'll work you in, okay? Would you please let me do that?"

"Okay. I wanna see Gracie."

"She's in school right now," Steve said. "Let's see if we can get you checked out and then we'll go see her after school. Is that okay?"

"Yeah, all right. Not sure I could hold it together with her right now anyway." 

"You need a hand getting dressed?"

"I think I'm okay."

"I'll call the doctor while you change. Call me if you feel shaky."

"Okay. Steve?"

"Yeah?" He paused in the doorway of the bedroom.

"Thanks for not...making a big deal about..." 

"It's a big deal, Danno. But getting you checked out and making sure you're okay is the most important thing right now."

"I guess." Danny stood and Steve moved back into the room. "What?" The he followed Steve's intent gaze to the bedspread. There was a small spot of blood where Danny had been sitting. "It's not much. I was bleeding earlier at the jail, but it stopped. The hot water probably got it going again."

"You sure you won't let me call for an ambulance?"

"I'm not bleeding that much considering."

"How much is on the towel? Can I look?"

"Yeah, here," Danny took off the towel and handed it to him. That wasn't what Steve expected. He was just going to look behind Danny while he was still wearing it. There was a small but saturated spot. Danny was probably right, given the tearing and damage that kind of assault would leave in its wake, this wasn't critical. "It's not running down my leg or anything, is it?" The fact Danny was so comfortable with him considering what he'd been through both touched Steve and made him feel relieved at the same time.

"No, so it's not heavy bleeding. Just stick a washcloth or something in your underwear."

"Grace probably has some pads in the other bathroom. I don't want a big spot of blood on my pants in the doctor's office."

"I'll check."

"Be sure to put them back exactly where you found them so she doesn't know you looked at them, because you and I have never seen sanitary napkins before because we're guys, and especially since I'm her father, I don’t know anything about girls having periods."

"I'll keep that in mind and try to control my shock at seeing them."

********

Danny was glad his doctor was willing to see him because he didn't feel like he could handle the ER, with a bunch of medical personnel poking and prodding him and making Steve wait outside. He was still trying to figure a delicate way to ask Steve to come with him and hold his hand while the doctor stuck something up his ass to look at the damage. He couldn't picture going through that without something to distract him. Reciting baseball stats just wasn't going to cover this one. 

"You want me to wait here or come with you? Whatever you want is okay, Danno," Steve whispered as he leaned toward Danny. Danny wondered how Steve read his mind, and how he could be so clueless sometimes and yet now, when it mattered most, he was so intuitive and so damn sensitive. The whole thought process created a lump in Danny's throat. 

"Come with me," he replied in a whisper. "I...I don't..."

"Relax and breathe, buddy. It's gonna be okay," Steve said softly, and then he took Danny's hand in his and held on. Danny stared a their joined hands for a moment, and then he squeezed back. Steve's hand was like a lifeline, and he felt safe and like he could face everything with that hand holding on to him. 

"Danny?" A medical assistant poked her head out the door to call him back to the exam room. She was a friendly-looking older lady who'd worked for the doctor ever since Danny had first come in when he got to Hawaii. He tried to stand without looking like he was in agony in about six different spots on his body, but he gave up and let Steve give him a gentle pull to help him up. "What did you get him into this time?" she asked cheerfully. "You're his partner, right?" she asked Steve.

"I guess I have a reputation here, huh?" Steve asked, smiling, and the joking did help ease the tension a little. 

"Well, when we see Danny off schedule, he usually has quite a story for us."

I got raped in a Colombian jail...that good enough? He knew she meant well. They'd joked about his line of work and his adrenaline junky partner more than once. Danny sat carefully on the exam table while she checked his blood pressure and ran through the routine questions. 

"How's the knee? Any problems recently?"

"It's a little sore now," Danny said. "Typically it's okay."

"That's good. Dr. Oh will be in to see you in just a few minutes. Please take everything off and change into the gown," she said, laying it next to Danny on the exam table.

"Okay, thanks." He watched her leave. Steve busied himself reading a flyer on some kind of disease to give Danny a bit of privacy to change into the gown. Danny didn't really care. He trusted Steve and in an odd way, it felt kind of good to have someone know what he'd been through and see the marks on him...and care as much as Steve did. "You can stop reading about gout now."

"It's pretty compelling stuff." Steve set it aside. Then he stood and moved over by Danny. "Anytime you're not comfortable, just say so, and it all stops, okay?"

"Yeah. Thanks. I just want it over."

"I know." Steve touched his shoulder gently. "You like this doctor?"

"He's good. It's easier than the ER. What did you tell the office staff when you called?"

"Nothing. I talked to the doctor and I told him the truth."

A few minutes later, the doctor came in and greeted them both. Steve stayed standing by Danny, and he was glad for the way that eased some of the stress of the impending examination.

"We're going to get you some x-rays before you go," he said. "I want to check the surgical repair from the knife wound and also check for rib or other fractures. I'll need you to stretch out on the table so I can check your abdomen for any hardness or unusual tenderness because there's always a risk of bleeding with injuries like these. 

"He's got some bad bruising on his back as well," Steve spoke up, and Danny just let him do the talking. He didn't want anyone's hands on him and the stress of it was almost making him sick. 

"Let's check that out first, then." He moved behind Danny and parted the gown. While he did his best to remain professional and calm, it was obvious the boot impression that had been left on Danny's body in shades of red and purple disturbed him. "Any difficulty with neck pain or turning your head?"

"Everything I got hurts, but not more than anything else," Danny said honestly. It hurts to fucking breathe, so what do you think it feels like to turn my head? 

"There are a lot of blows here. What was used?"

"Most of it was kicking," he said quietly. "A lot of them are from boots." He flinched at the pressure of the doctor’s hands as they checked his lower back. 

"We're going to draw some labs to check kidney and liver functions. If one of these blows did some damage, we'll catch it early."

"Okay," Danny responded. He took in a sharp breath when the doctor probed his side. 

"We'll get x-rays of this area, too. I feel confident you've got rib fractures. The pain is bad?"

"Really bad when you press there," Danny said, grateful that Steve took his hand again. 

"Squeeze my hand when you need to, buddy," he said gently. Danny nodded. He hadn't cried in his doctor's office since he was five, and he didn't want to do it now, but everything hurt so much and the examination hurt and the doctor wasn't even examining him there yet. 

"Take your time and lie down on the table," Dr. Oh said. Danny did his best to follow the instruction bravely, but a couple grunts of pain escaped and he squeezed Steve's hand. Hard. Tears were in his eyes and he was angry at himself for them, swiping his hand past his eyes. 

"You need a break, Danny?" Steve asked, touching his shoulder.

"I'm okay."

"This is going to be uncomfortable, Danny," the doctor said. "I'll be as careful as I can."

"Just do what you gotta do," he said.

"You wanna run some stats by me, partner?" Steve asked, and while Danny didn't think that would help, Steve's caring in thinking to suggest it meant a lot to him. He picked a starting line up and started reciting it, his voice rising and shaking here and there as the doctor probed, but keeping eye contact with Steve and feeling Steve's hand holding onto his made it bearable.

"I'm not finding any signs of internal bleeding at this point, but if you feel any change in your pain, or it becomes more intense than it is now, you need to call 9-1-1, okay?"

"We will, Doctor," Steve said, using his free hand to rub Danny's shoulder lightly. 

"Were there any blows to your genital area?"

"I guess I managed to curl up enough to protect myself. I'm okay there."

"Good. That's good news," the doctor said, smiling. "We're not gathering any evidence from the sexual assault?" he confirmed with Steve. 

"No. Given the circumstances we can’t really identify the assailants, and he's showered twice since the assault, so there’s no need to put him through all that."

“It was all flushed out in the infirmary there. I don’t know much Spanish, but I know the warden ordered it,” Danny said, so ashamed of that admission that he wasn’t sure he could ever look Steve in the eyes again. It was bad enough remembering all the pain and humiliation he’d been through, but lying there naked in a hospital gown and having to tell people about it was almost more than he could stand.

“What do you mean exactly?” the doctor asked. 

“That’s not clear enough? I was handcuffed to a gurney with a guard in there with a machine gun aimed at me while they shoved a tube in me and... What was I supposed to do about it?” 

“Exactly what you did, partner. Just live through it,” Steve said, and while he looked calm to someone who didn’t know him, Danny could see it was all he could do not to fly into some kind of rage at that revelation. It was in the twitch of his jaw and the look in his eyes.

"Okay. I'll need you to lie on your side. I'll be using a small lighted scope to examine the damage. I'll explain to you each thing I'm doing before I get started, okay?"

"Yeah," Danny said, glad Steve kept a hold on his hand and helped him shift into his side. It hurt and he was scared and he just wanted to cover his head and hide from all of it. Steve pulled a wheeling stool up to the head of the table and sat there, still holding Danny's hand. He used his free hand to stroke Danny's hair lightly. 

"Try to relax, Danno. It's gonna hurt less the more relaxed you are." Danny nodded because he couldn't trust his voice to be steady. "You wanna do fantasy football for this one?"

"You said that was stupid and for people who didn't play real football," Danny reminded him. 

"So I can be a dick sometimes. Come on, give me a lineup." 

Danny wanted so badly to be distracted and to play along because Steve was trying so hard, but he couldn't. 

"I can't," he whispered, feeling a tear leaking out of his eye. Steve brushed it away before Danny could move his own hand to do it. 

"It's okay, Danno. You don't have to, buddy. Just hang onto my hand. It's gonna be okay."

Danny didn't talk. He just did his best to keep breathing evenly as the doctor calmly explained each step of the process. It hurt and it was humiliating and he just wanted to disappear. 

"We should take Gracie on a little vacation, maybe just for the weekend. What do you think?" 

"Sounds good," he managed. Steve had found probably the only subject he would have struggled to focus on. 

"I was thinking we could just find a nice beachfront cottage, something more remote than my place. Gracie likes to swim and surf, and we can just spend some quiet downtime."

"The three of us?" Danny asked, but he liked the idea. 

"That okay?"

"Yeah. Really okay." Danny let out an involuntary groan and squeezed Steve's hand. 

"Okay?"

"Hurts," he mumbled, trying hard not to react more to it. 

"You're doing great, buddy."

"We're almost finished," the doctor said and, a moment or two later, it was over. 

"There's considerable bruising and swelling, but the tearing that is there is superficial and should heal on its own. Just take it easy for a couple weeks while your body heals, and you should be fine. I'm going to prescribe something for pain. Would you like something for sleep? I know that's a challenge for you sometimes."

"No sleeping pills. Can I get up?"

"We're all set. Go ahead."

"Nice and easy, buddy," Steve said, helping him sit up again. "How much bleeding is okay, Doc? He was bleeding pretty well earlier."

"There's a little minor bleeding, but I wouldn't put him through the ordeal of stitches for it. That's why you need to take it easy, Danny. No fudging on that or going back to work early. You'll heal with rest and limiting your physical exertion. We'll do an HIV test today, and again in three months. You'll need to take precautions if you have any sexual contact before the three-month test. If you're still clear then, you can assume you don't have the virus. If you develop a fever, your pain becomes noticeably worse or the bleeding is heavy, go to the ER right away. Do you have any idea what the object was they used? Based on the depth and severity of one of the tears, it looks like something else was used."

"It was...metal. I heard it clank when one of them tossed it aside when they were done. I think it was a piece of pipe or something. I don't know for sure."

"We'll do a tetanus shot just in case, then. I'll let my assistant know to take care of that and get your x-rays going," he added. "Any other questions?"

"No, not really," Danny replied. Steve looked almost more miserable than Danny was himself. He hadn’t planned on telling Steve the gory details, least of all about the pipe, but getting tetanus from hiding it probably wouldn’t be too smart. 

“You can get dressed from the waist down for the x-rays. I’ll send Lila back in to take you over to radiology in a few minutes.”

“You can do all that here?” Steve asked, and Danny figured he was seizing something mundane and trivial to focus on to keep calm. Steve had a great poker face until you looked into those big brooding eyes of his and then it was all there, everything he felt. “That’s convenient.”

“It’s a perk of having your practice in a building adjoining the hospital,” Dr. Oh said, making a couple notes on Danny’s chart, seeming almost as relieved to have something routine to talk about. “We can get all the labs and x-rays done here. Plus I’m putting this through as a traumatic injury case, so that will get you in today.”

After the doctor left the room, Steve didn't ask if Danny wanted help or not. He just offered a hand here and there for Danny to lean on while he got dressed, and crouched to put on Danny's shoes for him. When he had his pants, shoes and socks back in place under the gown, he hugged Steve and held on tight. 

"It's okay, buddy. The hard part's over." Steve held him gently, careful not to put pressure on him anywhere he was hurting. Which was pretty much everywhere. Danny expected him to say something about the infirmary, about the pipe, but he was grateful beyond words that Steve said nothing about either subject. He just stood there and held Danny as long as he needed it.

"Sorry," he said, pulling back.

"Hey, don't ever apologize for this, Danno. None of it is your fault and you're doing great," Steve said, holding Danny's shoulders.

"It doesn't feel like I'm doing great."

"We're doing great, how about that?"

"Okay, that I'll buy."

"Good, because we're in this together, partner."

********

The x-rays weren’t nearly as hard to get through as the exam, and Danny had blood drawn and his tetanus shot while they waited for the doctor to come back in and let them know the results. Steve felt himself almost sag with relief when the doctor said there were no signs of injury to Danny’s kidneys. The doctor had ordered an ultrasound for that. 

“I won’t have all the lab results back until tomorrow since it’s late in the day, but I’m comfortable sending you home. If you see any blood in your urine-”

“Call 9-1-1?” Danny asked.

“I was going to say get to the ER, but same difference,” he added, smiling. “Now your ribs are another story. You’ve got three fractures on your right side. There’s swelling on both sides, but your left doesn’t have any fractures.”

“They got me front and back on the right. I was lying on my left side when I got some of the worst blows on the right.” Steve felt sick inside and struggled not to flinch at the awful mental images his mind was supplying. It’s not like he’d never been present for that kind of violence, but he’d never allowed it to be carried out when he was in charge. There was the inflicting of pain or coercion for information purposes when the stakes were high enough, but senseless brutality carried out on helpless enemy prisoners either out of hate or for some sadistic form of entertainment had never been tolerated on his watch.

“You’re on the borderline for hospital admission, Danny, so don’t overdo it. I can’t stress that enough. The only reason I’m not admitting you is because I feel confident you’re in good hands.”

“He is. I’m staying with him and his daughter, Grace, is going to want to do nursing duty, too.”

“Your prescriptions have been sent to your pharmacy, so you’ll want to get those on the way home. Any questions for me?”

“No, everything’s pretty clear,” Danny said.

“Okay. I want to see you again in two weeks. No work or strenuous physical activity until then, understand?”

“Two weeks?” Danny echoed.

“We understand, Doc,” Steve answered, resting his hand on Danny’s shoulder.

“Your ribs will take longer than that to fully heal, so your activity level is going to be modified for a while. Considering what you’ve been through, your injuries could have been much more serious. I realize under the circumstances, that’s not a great comfort, but you’ll make a full physical recovery barring any unforseen complications.” He paused. “I’m not advising you one way or the other, but our policy here is to provide you with this information just so you have it in case you want to pursue it,” he said, handing Danny a flyer that had information on sexual assault counseling services. 

“Thanks, but I’ve had enough therapy for a while and the last thing I want to do is dwell on this.”

“Like I said, the choice is up to you. We just want to be sure you have information on the resources that are out there.”

“Thanks, Dr. Oh.” Steve shook hands with him. “I appreciate you working us in today.”

“If this place gave out miles, Danny could fly pretty much anywhere he wants by now. Take it easy on him for a while, okay?” the doctor added with a smile. “Don’t throw him out a window for at least another four to six weeks.”

“I never threw you out a window. What are you telling these people about me?” Steve asked, hoping it would revive Danny a little from his sullen, slump-shouldered posture and the motionlessness of his hands. That was bothering Steve more than anything else. Danny wasn’t gesturing, and if Danny wasn’t gesturing, something was dead inside him, and Steve needed to see it revived. 

“Nothing that isn’t true, babe. I didn’t say you threw me out the window, but it was your fault I got shot and thrown out one backwards.”

“That was four years ago.”

“And that makes it okay,” Danny said, looking at the doctor and gesturing toward Steve in exasperation. Steve smiled. “Now you see first hand what I live with on a daily basis. Explains the blood pressure, doesn’t it?”

“Largely, yes,” the doctor agreed, chuckling as he left the office. 

“What blood pressure? What’s that about?” Steve asked, frowning. 

“I take blood pressure medication.”

“What? Since when?”

“A couple years, why?”

“Danny...you didn’t think that would be a good idea for me to know? What if you were admitted to the hospital and I didn’t know that? How serious is this?”

“Not very. It’s a low dose and it’s controlled. My mom’s been on it for years and she’s fine. It runs in my family.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“If I was admitted to the hospital they could access my medical records online like everybody else. It doesn’t affect my ability to work or do anything else I usually do, so what was the point?”

“The point is that you’re on medication and I didn’t know it.”

“Well, now you do. Hopefully you can sleep nights now,” Danny snapped back. “God, get off my fucking back. Maybe it was none of your goddamned business. Besides, for all you know, I did tell you after you stopped listening to me.”

“What? What the hell does that mean?”

“You told the therapist that we get along because you don’t listen to me anymore. So how the hell would you know if I was on medication unless I had a seizure from it and died in your presence?”

“Is that a danger?”

“No, I’m making a point.”

“Then get to it. What is your point why you shouldn’t tell me that you’re on medication? That you have a health condition?”

“Because you’re so fucking perfect! You take off on foot chases with a bullet in your leg! You’re so healthy and tough and bad ass that you couldn’t begin to look at me as anything but sick and weak if you knew I had something wrong with me! It’s why I didn’t want you to know the truth about Colombia, because you’d always look at me like I was damaged and fragile and not the same as I was before and I can take getting the shit kicked out of me and having a metal pipe shoved up my ass, but I can’t take that!” he concluded, breathing hard, tears on his face, his hand shaking as he wiped at his eyes. 

“Danny...” Steve fought to hold back his own tears. He knew he should probably respect Danny’s boundaries and let him have his anger, but he couldn’t watch him and not move toward him. Before he knew it, he had Danny in his arms. 

“I’m sorry,” Danny mumbled against his shoulder. “I didn’t mean it,” he choked out.

“I know, Danno. It’s okay. I kind of lied in that therapy session.”

“We both did,” Danny said, sounding almost amused even though he was still struggling to get his composure back. A nurse opened the door and at Steve’s nod they were okay, she ducked back out again. “It’s what you do at mandatory therapy. Work the system so they don’t find a way to label you as crazy and put you on desk duty forever.”

“That’s about the size of it,” Steve responded, smiling. “Don’t you ever stop talking to me, Danno, because I never stopped listening to you. Okay?” He paused, swallowing. “I just wanted to hurt you when I said that.”

“Congratulations, you did.” 

Steve remembered Danny’s reaction, how he’d asked if they could just go back to the control issues topic, and while he was smiling when he said it, Steve knew he’d cut under the protective layer and drawn blood with that remark. At the moment it had felt good, and now it just made him feel sick. So he told Danny the truth.

“It really hurt when you said I wasn’t a human being and I didn’t have any feelings and I was a killing machine, so I wanted to say something that would hurt you back.”

“When did I say you weren’t a human being?” Danny sniffed and pulled away.

“You said you were a human being with feelings and not just some killing machine.” Danny stood there a moment and Steve handed him a couple tissues. “Your nose is running this time,” he said, and that made Danny smile faintly and wipe at it. 

“That sounds pretty bad out of context.”

“Didn’t sound real complimentary in context.” Steve knew he shouldn’t care about anything that was said in those stupid sessions. That therapist was creating problems where they didn’t exist. He loved Danny, Danny loved him, and the day they stopped sparring with each other would mean one of them was unable to for some tragic reason, or their relationship really was in its final stages.

“Ever since Reyes...I’ve struggled with that, Steve. A lot. And I know you can’t talk about things you’ve done and seen as a SEAL, but I’m willing to bet that’s not the worst of it, and you’re walking around normal. You sleep at night. You eat regularly - more than regularly.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? What is it with you and my eating habits?”

“Let’s not go there right now. Let’s just say Emily Post would have a stroke if she watched you devour dinner.”

“So now I’m a pig with no feelings? Well, since I’m not human I guess it’s good to know where I fall on the food chain.”

“Will you just listen to me and quit obsessing over that? Listen to me, Steve. I don’t talk just to hear the sound of my own voice. Sometimes I say something that fucking matters.”

“I just got done saying I listen to you.”

“Selectively. Now you’re all hung up on what I think of your eating habits and I’m trying to give you a fucking piece of my soul that I will never tell another living human being. Got it? Can you listen now?”

“Yeah,” Steve said quietly, wondering if he really did tune Danny out or fail to really hear him, even when he did listen. 

“I’ve been struggling with this thing inside me for a lot longer than Reyes, because it’s not the first time.”

“What? I don’t understand.”

“The piece of shit who killed my partner, Grace.” Danny took in as deep a breath as his ribs would stand. “He was down. His cleaver was stuck in his chest, he was no real threat. The last bullet I put in that son of a bitch, was for Grace’s murder. Not because I couldn’t get to safety without doing it. She was already dead, so she didn’t need my help or need me to finish him off to protect her. It was vengeance. And I never slept a peaceful night since. But I worked the whole mandatory therapy routine like a pro and barely missed active duty for more than the minimum required time after a shooting. Then I did the same thing with Reyes, so when it caught up with me, it was more than Reyes’ ghost following me around telling me I had a debt to pay.”

Steve was shocked by what he was hearing - not that Danny took out the man who killed his partner, but that he’d been tormented by it for fourteen years. Neither of the two scumbags Danny had ended that way were worth a missed night’s sleep, let alone fourteen years of them.

"That's why they call it 'heat of passion' or 'emotional duress', Danny. People are traumatized or the adrenaline's pumping or they're just plain beyond reason...and they act."

“Sometimes I’m jealous of you that you can do what you’ve had to do over the years and it doesn’t bother you. You do it and you go on. I’m a mess. So maybe if I convince myself that there’s something wrong with you, I don’t have to face that there’s something wrong with me.”

“If I’m an inhuman killing machine...”

“That means I’m okay, and you’re not.”

“Danny...” Steve struggled with how to explain himself. He’d had nightmares before, but he’d never confided that to Danny. The last time the nightmares about Freddie surfaced, he called Lou Grover and told him, not Danny who had revealed more to Steve about his innermost thoughts and fears than it was likely he’d ever confided in anyone else. Maybe because telling Grover was more like telling a therapist or a casual friend, where you tell them what’s going on but you still don’t really let yourself feel it and if your emotions bubble up, you don’t share them. It’s an emotionally empty, modified sharing. 

“I’m sorry if you really felt like that’s what I think of you, because I know it’s not true. You’ve got a good heart, Steven, even if you are a control freak. I stand by that one.”

“Well, Rome wasn’t built in a day,” Steve replied. “Things have bothered me plenty, Danny. You deserve to know that. You should have known it a long time ago but-”

“I know, the McGarrett men don’t express emotions a lot.”

“That’s true, but it’s not exactly that. If I tell you something, it’s all gonna come out. Not just that I had a nightmare or sometimes I feel like I have PTSD. You remember what I told you about the stage fright thing, with the guitar?” Steve watched, and Danny nodded. He wasn’t sure he’d ever seen a totally nonverbal response from him to anything, but Danny was silent now, hanging on his every word. No one in his life had ever listened to him like that or considered his feelings or his fears to be that important. “Telling you...you’d look right inside me and then I’d be exposed with it all hanging out there. I can’t keep a decent wall up with you and I don’t handle that exposed feeling too great.”

“It’s all a little too real sometimes? Kind of scary?” 

“So who’s the mess now?”

“Both of us.”

“You’re stronger than I am, Danny. You always have been. And maybe that’s what I was afraid of you figuring out. That I couldn’t handle losing you and then you’d leave, because that’s how it goes for me. A bunch of self-pitying whining, right?”

“No, babe, not at all. I hate to tell you, but I think in therapy, they call this a breakthrough.”

“Seriously? We don’t have to put this in the workbook, do we?”

“No,” Danny replied, shaking his head, laughing. “There’s so much shit I’d never put in that workbook that it would fill another one.” Danny moved forward and pulled Steve into his arms. “It’s all the shit I tell you because you’re my best friend and I don’t want you to leave me, either.”

“I won’t.” Steve took in a deep breath and held onto Danny. This was the time to start sharing a little more with him. “When I thought I probably lost you for good, it scared the shit out of me.”

“You’re never gonna lose me, babe. I don’t care about SEAL stuff or what rank you’ve got or how many bad guys you can take out without breaking a sweat - I see you in there under all the layers of crap life’s thrown at you, and that’s the guy I’m sticking around for. So you don’t have to hide him and be ashamed of him, okay?”

“I’ll work on it.”

“No more workbooks, though,” Danny said, stepping back.

“I think we’ve graduated to talking like grown ups.”

“We probably should let the doc have his exam room back,” Danny glanced a the clock on the wall. “Gracie’s out of school. Let’s get going.”

“I’ll bring the car up.”

“I’m not an invalid.”

“No, but you’re going to follow the doctor’s orders and I had to park in the lot across the street after I dropped you off at the door.”

“Okay.”

“Hey, this won’t be for long. Just let yourself heal, okay?”

“That’s almost funny coming from you,” Danny replied as he followed Steve out to the lobby.

********