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Steve stared at this computer screen listlessly as Five-0’s screensaver twirled lazily. He couldn’t get the image from last night out of his head, Danny dozing in his hospital bed with Rachel’s head pillowed against his chest, his arm wrapped around her protectively as Grace slept on the couch across from her parents. He could still picture Danny’s face as he’d walked into the room and stopped dead in his tracks, blue eyes fluttering open to look at him, his face going from confusion to mirth as he’d closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose as he’d laughed silently, his arms tightening around Rachel. He’d known, theoretically, that Danny and Rachel had gotten closer since the triathlon sting operation, but the tableau from last night had painted a picture of two people that were closer than friends; closer than ex-wife and husband. And the sight had left Steve feeling unhinged.
He knew it was stupid, that Danny had no obligation to tell him everything that was going on with his life, but for some reason, Steve couldn’t shake the feeling of betrayal that had come over him. And more importantly, what did it mean? He couldn’t really picture Danny as the type of guy to have an affair with a married woman, but this wasn’t any woman; it was Rachel. And when it came to her, Steve knew that Danny didn’t exactly fire on all cylinders. But, more importantly, what did it mean for Danny and his life in Hawaii? If he and Rachel got back together, what then? Would Danny and she go back to the mainland? Would Danny transfer back to New Jersey? Steve had thought that Danny had finally gotten used to Hawaii, but the postcard of New Jersey was still in the Camaro, and Danny still wore ties and slacks to the office, and he still complained about, well, everything having to do with Hawaii. But that didn’t have to mean anything, did it? It could just have been Danny being Danny, all harsh corners hiding his softened edges.
The sound of voices floating from the main room snapped Steve out of his thoughts and he grinned when he recognized Danny’s voice ranting on Chin and Kono. Back in the office for a second and already griping about something. He pushed himself out of his chair and watched from his window as Danny approached Kaye and spoke with her, face bashful and hands clapping together in a move Steve recognized as a nervous gesture. He stepped out of his office just in time to see the two of them hugging and cleared his throat.
“Hey,” he said, pulling Danny’s attention away from the analyst. “Sidebar.” He crossed his arms and waited until Danny was in front of him, not quite sure what he was going to say but hoping it wouldn’t come out desperate and needy. “You and Rachel. How long has that been going on?” Steve mentally smacked himself as soon as the words were out of his mouth.
Danny smirked. “Uh, a little while.”
“Were you ever gonna tell me?” And no, he did not, under any circumstances, sound pissy and desperate.
“Was I ever gonna–” Danny started and stopped, chuckling a little uncomfortably and looking away from Steve momentarily before turning back to him, hands gesturing between the two of them. “You know, uh, we have become very close.”
“Did you say gotten very clos… We’ve gotten very close?” Steve asked almost incredulously.
“Yeah. Yeah,” Danny confirmed, unsure where Steve’s hostility was coming from.
“One near death experience and you go all warm and cuddly on me?” Steve cut him off, desperate to lighten the crinkling atmosphere between them.
Danny smiled at that, opening his arms for Steve. “Come on.”
“You wanna to hug me now?” Steve asked, smiling and taking a deep breath to stop the wild beating of his heart.
“Come on,” Danny said again, arms already reaching towards Steve.
He couldn’t have said no even if he’d wanted to, Danny’s arms open and welcoming. He took the half-step between them to close the distance and wrapped his arms around Danny’s smaller frame, moving them further across Danny’s back and digging his fingers into Danny’s shoulders, holding him as tightly as he could. He could feel the solid weight of Danny’s hand on his back as he patted him and every expansion of Danny’s chest against his own, and the little corner in his mind that was still worried, still fearful that he had lost this man sighed in contentment and finally calmed down.
He distantly heard the sound of the doors opening, but Sang Ming’s voice as he called his name rang sharp in his ear and he felt Danny jump away from him at the same time as he reached for his gun. Out of the corner of his eyes, he noticed small tremors running up and down Danny’s hands but he pulled his attention away and focused instead on Sang Ming and the threat Wo Fat had issued. He glared at the convict as Chin approached him and pushed him down on his knees, cuffing his hands behind his back. Steve reholstered his weapon and stepped forward as Chin pulled him back on his feet, stopping as soon as he was face to face with the man.
“Let’s go,” he said, voice flat and deadly. “You and I have a lot to talk about.”
He grabbed on to Sang Ming’s other arm and started herding him along when Kono’s soft “Danny?” stopped him in his track. He glanced back to Danny and watched as his face drained of color and he broke out into a cold sweat. He could see the tremors he’d noticed increase in intensity as Danny’s chest started heaving, as if he couldn’t get enough air. Steve could feel his eyes widen as he watched Danny’s own lose focus and he knew, without a doubt, that Danny was about to pass out.
“Danno!” he shouted as he let go of Sang Ming and dashed toward his partner just in time to catch him as he crumpled to the ground.
“What’s wrong with him?” Sang Ming asked, prevented from taking a step forward as Chin tightened his hold on him.
“Get him out of here,” Steve yelled, turning to look at Chin. “Take him to the holding cell,” he ordered even as he re-arranged Danny’s prone form on the floor. He could feel the man stirring and watched as bleary, unfocused blue eyes opened sluggishly.
“Wha…” Danny started to ask as he raised his head up off the ground, the rest of his body automatically following.
“Stay down, Danno,” Steve said, his hand on Danny’s chest pushing the blond back down. He could feel Danny’s heart beating erratically in his chest and felt his own heart beating wildly in fear. “Kono,” he started, turning towards the youngest member of their team only to see her ending a phone call.
“The ambulance is three minutes out, boss,” she said in reply to his silent question. He smiled shakily at her even as he felt Danny trying to get up again.
“What?” the blond asked blearily, his blue eyes moving from him to Kono and roaming around the office. Steve smiled softly as he caught Danny’s hand waving limply from beside his body. “Someone care to tell me–”
And just like that fear shot through Steve again as he heard Danny’s breathing hitch and Danny’s eyes widen in fear even as Steve felt Danny’s chest spasm under his hand. And then Danny panicked, cold sweat breaking out and his hands flying up to grab at Steve’s shirt even as his breathing sped up.
“Woah! Woah!” Steve shouted as Danny pulled him forward. “Take it easy, Danno! I got you, I got you,” he continued, his hands closing over Danny’s and squeezing in what he hoped was a reassuring manner. But the gesture did nothing to clam the other man and Steve watched helplessly as he breathed in and out in a dizzying speed, clearly hyperventilating. “Danno, Danno!” Steve tried again, pulling the other man up in the hopes that would help him breathe and maneuvering around him so he could lean back against Steve’s chest.
Steve watched as Kono pushed open Danny’s collar and took his face in her hands, turning it towards her and shaking him slightly in a bid to get him to focus on her. “Danny,” she said, her voice like steel. “You need to slow down your breathing, Danny,” she ordered as she snapped a finger in front of his face to try and break him out of his attack.
Steve felt Danny’s head jerk back against his chest and automatically tightened his hold around him, pinning his arms to his side in the hopes to stop him from harming himself. Without thinking, he leaned down and whispered reassurances, urging Danny to breathe with him, to set his breathing to the rise and fall of Steve’s chest. He could feel Danny’s breath hitching in a vain attempt to follow Steve’s lead and he nearly wept for joy when he heard the rushed sound of the paramedics barging into the room. He watched silently as they crowded around him, one of them strapping an oxygen mask around Danny’s face while another injected something into Danny’s arm. He counted Danny’s heartbeat and let out a small, relieved sigh when as it slowed down and Danny lost consciousness.
“We need to take him to the hospital,” the paramedic said as he sealed the needle in a biohazard bag.
“He was just released,” Steve replied numbly as he stared at Danny’s unconscious form in his arms and felt how his chest hitched with every other breath.
“I wasn’t asking for permission, Commander McGarrett,” the paramedic said even as the other medics crowded around them and manipulated Danny onto the waiting stretcher, all of them rushing out of the room as soon as he was safely strapped in.
“You should go to him,” Kono said, putting a hand on his shoulder and squeezing tightly, snapping him out of his reverie. “He won’t want to wake up alone.”
The suggestion broke something in him and before he or Kono could stop him, he pulled out his cell phone and dialed Rachel’s number even as he stepped away from her and Jenna and back into his office, closing and locking the door with a resounding click. He waited as the phone rang twice before it was picked up.
“Commander McGarrett,” Rachel greeted him and Steve felt something in his chest tightened at the thought of Rachel having his phone number programmed into her cell phone so that his name came up when he rang her. “Is something wrong with Daniel?” she asked, her voice barely controlled.
“He…” Steve coughed once, clearing his throat. “He had a relapse at the office.” He paused at her gasp and squeezed his eyes shut as he heard Grace’s voice in the background asking her mother what was wrong. “The paramedics took him to the hospital.”
“Thank you,” she said, voice tight in a way Steve knew meant she was holding back tears. “Thank you for letting me know.”
“No problem,” Steve said, voice still rough despite his best efforts. He hung up before she could ask or say anything else.
****
Hours later found Steve in the same position he had been at the beginning of the day, sitting at his desk and staring listlessly at his screen saver. The same could be said about his feelings. He’d been ruminating the entire Danny-Rachel situation in his mind and he just couldn’t wrap his head around it. Danny and Rachel were together. Danny and Rachel were together. Again. For a while! It boggled his mind a little bit that he’d somehow missed this giant piece of Danny’s life. That Danny had gone back to his ex-wife; to his married ex-wife. And he hadn’t told him.
That was the part that burned. And it threw Steve for a loop because they were supposed to a team, the dynamic duo, and how could they be that if Danny hid these kinds of things from him? These kinds of life-changing, mind tripping events happening in his life. It begged the question: What else was Danny hiding? What else wasn’t he telling Steve? The shrill noise of his cell phone ringing jerked him out of his thought and he nearly toppled over backwards. He snagged his phone and flipped it open without looking at the phone number, too frazzled to think clearly.
“This is McGarrett,” he said as he took in a deep, steadying breath.
Which caught in his throat at Rachel’s soft sounding “Hello, Steve.”
“Rachel,” he managed to choke out. “I… What… How are you?” he stammered out.
“I’m sorry for calling so late,” she said, and Steve automatically glanced at the clock on his wall and frowned when he realized it was nearly one o’clock in the morning.
“Is something wrong with Danny?” Steve asked, fear slowly trickling down his body.
“I… No. Well, sort of. I just… Could we meet?” Rachel blurted out.
Steve had never been so glad to be alone in the office as he was right now. Between his open mouth and his deer in the headlights look, he’d have never heard to end of it. “I… What?”
“I’m at the hospital. Could you come here? Could we meet?” Rachel said again, and this time it was impossible to miss her desperate tone.
“Um…” Steve blinked stupidly. “Sure.”
“Great! Okay, brilliant,” Rachel sighed gratefully. “I’ll be waiting at the cafeteria,” and on that note, she hung up.
Steve stared befuddledly at his phone before closing his fist over it and banging his closed fists against his forehead repeatedly. This was going to be a fucking disaster. He grabbed his wallet and stalked out of the office and towards the Camaro still parked where he’d left it this morning so Danny could pick it up today. The sight only made the knot in his stomach twist harder.
It was sheer luck that allowed Steve to get to the hospital under his own power and not riding in the back of an ambulance. If asked, he couldn’t tell a soul how he got from the office to the hospital’s cafeteria, but somehow there he was, standing at the threshold and staring at the back of Rachel’s head as she stared down at the table. He took in a deep breath and let it out slowly, willing his heart to slow down and his nerves to calm down. It was just Rachel. Just Rachel, the woman with whom Danny was still in love, and the mother of Danny’s child, and the woman for whom Danny would jump if she ordered him to.
Steve walked the few steps to the table and sat down in front of her before he could chicken out. Rachel didn’t look up at him right away, and as the seconds ticked by, Steve noticed that her hands had turned white from holding a ceramic cup, that every once in a while she let out a little sniffle, and that despite her hair shading most of her face, there were mascara tear tracks running down her cheek. Steve wished, more than anything at that moment, that he had Danny’s interpersonal skills; he never knew what to do when faced with crying women. Steve shifted uncomfortably and cleared his throat, hoping that would snap Rachel out of wherever her mind had wandered off to so he could get this whole thing over and done with and go back to the office where he could hole up for a few more hours before he’d have to face Kono and Chin’s knowing and disapproving glances.
“Stan and I…” she began, her voice so low that for a second Steve thought he’d imagined it. “We’re getting divorced,” she said, her hands, if possible, gripping the cup even tighter.
Steve blinked twice and opened his mouth as if to say something only to close it again with a soft click. He coughed once to clear his throat and weaved his fingers together, resting his closed hands on the table. “Okay,” he finally said, not sure where Rachel was going with this.
“Things have been… strained,” she said slowly, feeling the word out as if to check that it described the status of her marriage in as politically correct fashion as possible, “between Stan and I for awhile now, and Daniel… Daniel has gone above and beyond everything to make it easier for me. He’s been my rock. Anytime I needed to talk, he was there, meeting me at all hours of the day and night and letting me stay at his place when I couldn’t go back to Stan’s.”
Steve nodded slowly, eyebrows furrowed as things that hadn’t made a lot of sense for the past month suddenly took on a new light. The bags under Danny’s eyes, the increased irritability, the sudden silence on all things Rachel, and the decreased instances of nightly visits where Danny barged into Steve’s house with a six pack like he owned the place so he could watch the latest game of whatever sport Steve had DVR’ed.
It also explained why he hadn’t know about Danny and Rachel until yesterday when he’d walked in on them in Danny’s hospital room. For someone who liked to talk, Danny was really good at not talking about himself, his personal life, or anything having to do with the people he loved. As far as red herrings went, Danny was a master, using barbs and non-stop chatter to disguise the relatively low knowledge you had of Danny, the person, as compared to Danny, the cop. And while Steve knew that intellectually, it was a whole different thing to be on the receiving end of one of Danny’s feints.
“Don’t make that face, Commander,” Rachel admonished him, the smile on her face softening the blow. “Daniel’s defenses are as prickly as a hedgehog.”
“Fair…” Steve reluctantly agreed. He was silent for a moment, watching as Rachel lower her head to look back at the cup in her hands. “Why are you telling me this?” he blurted out. He was tired and he felt raw, and he just wanted this to be over.
“I love him,” she said, not once looking away from the cup. “I never stopped loving him. But, I made a mistake four years ago, and now I’m paying the price for it.” She looked up at him then, brown eyes shining with unshed tears but full of determination. “Don’t make the same mistake I did. He’s worth it. He’s worth everything.”
“I don’t…” Steve started and stopped as his throat constricted.
Rachel shrugged. “It doesn’t take a genius to know who he was expecting to see when he woke up,” Rachel said, staring at him. “Go to him, Steven.”
“You sound just like Danny,” Steve replied swallowing around the lump in his throat.
“What can I say? Marriage does things to you that you can’t undo,” she teased. A second later, the smile slipped and she stared at him solemnly, one hand letting go of the cup to cover his hands. “Go to him,” she said again.
Steve nodded numbly and twisted his hands to squeeze the one resting on top of his briefly before getting up from the chair and walking towards the door. He paused at the threshold, his back to her, staring at the floor for a second and taking in the magnitude of the gesture Rachel had just extended to him, before forcing his feet forward and towards Danny’s room. Once he was standing outside of it, he paused and took in a fortifying breath. To say that the past hour had been a rollercoaster of emotions was an understatement, and he was about to walk into part deux of this crazy night. He could only hope that Rachel was right and wasn’t out to sabotage him.
He opened the door as quietly as he could and stepped into the room stealthily in case Danny was asleep. He poked his head around the corner and stared at Danny lying on the bed, head titled sideways and his chest rising and falling evenly in sleep. The blond was hooked up to a heart monitor and an oxygen pulse, but other than that there were no IV bags, and most importantly he wasn’t hooked up to any oxygen supplying equipment. Steve tiptoed into the room and stopped next to bed, staring down at Danny and taking him in. It’d only been a few hours since he’d collapsed at headquarters, but it felt like an eternity. He looked at the chair next to the bed and slowly sat down, leaning back to continue his silent vigil.
He’d just wait the sleeping man out…
“Sleepy head!”
Steve jerked awake at the voice, hand automatically reaching for his gun and pulling it out of his holster.
“Woah! What the hell, McGarrett! Put that thing away before you blow someone’s head off!”
Distantly, Steve could hear the wild shrill of a heart monitor but all he could focus on was Danny’s face and Danny’s hands as they reached out towards him, palms facing forward and fingers splayed as if he were trying to tame a wild animal. Steve stared at him uncomprehendingly for a moment before he snapped out of it, just in time for a gaggle of nurses to burst through the door. One of them screamed as soon as she saw his gun and another one made a mad dash to the door in a panic, yelling for security. Steve quickly reholstered his gun and got up off the chair, hands in the same gesture as Danny’s were a moment ago.
“Ah, fucker,” Danny grumbled even as he leaned back against the bed and pressed the heel of hands against his eyes.
A security guard burst through the door a second later, a taser gun in his hand, and Steve winced at the loud “Drop your weapons!”
“It’s okay officer, it was just a misunderstanding,” Steve said in a tone that he hoped conveyed confidence and reassurance and not sheer panic at his blind stupidity.
“I said, drop it!” the officer shouted again, his taser trained on Steve.
“My name is Lieutenant Commander Steve McGarrett and I’m with Five-0,” Steve replied, hands still up in a gesture of peace. “Everything’s fine. I was just startled awake,” he explained, and it sounds so incredibly stupid when said out loud that Steve has to check the urge to groan. Danny had no such qualms.
The officer stared at the two of them for a moment longer but held his taser at the ready. “Let me see your badge, sir.”
Steve balked. “Are you serious?”
“Deadly, sir,” the guard replied, his gaze never wavering.
“I guess not everyone knows you, babe,” Danny said and Steve could hear the satisfied smirk in his voice.
Steve humphed and snagged his badge from his belt and showed it to the guard who stared at it for a moment before he slowly lowered his taser and reholstered it. Steve let out a relieved sigh and brought his arm back down, turning around to look at Danny who was now surrounded by nurses checking his vitals.
“Detective Williams,” one of the nurses chided, and Steve instantly knew that was the head nurse. “We’ve had this conversation before.”
“I know,” Danny groaned behind his hands.
“You need to stop overexerting yourself,” she continued as if Danny hadn’t said anything.
“It’s a little difficult when your partner is this guy,” Danny said in his defense, and Steve let out an indignant “Hey!”
“In that case,” the nurse said, rounding on Steve and glaring daggers of death at him. “Do not. Under any circumstance. Agitate him,” she emphasized, and Steve could feel the phantom finger poking him in the chest.
“Yes ma’am,” he replied back automatically and had to check himself from saluting her as she walked out of the room followed by the other nurses.
Steve relaxed as soon as she was out of the room and chanced a glance back at Danny, who was staring at him with an unreadable expression on his face. Steve squirmed under the gaze and moved to the end of the bed where he could hold on to the end-board and lean towards Danny. They stayed like that, both silent, both staring the other one down, waiting to see who would cave in first. Steve had no delusions that it would be him. He wasn’t used to Danny being silent; Danny on the other hand…
“What?”
Danny shrugged. “Nothing.”
“Bullshit. What?” Steve demanded, staring at his partner and looking for signs that Rachel was right.
“It’s just… You… When I…” Danny groaned at his pathetic attempt to string a sentence together and pinched the bridge of his nose. “You weren’t here,” he finally blurted out, and Steve raiseed an eyebrow at that. “When I woke up, you weren’t here, and I… I was hoping…” Danny trailed off, staring at a spot at the end of the bed and to the right of Steve’s hand.
“Rachel was here,” Steve pointed out. “You looked like you liked it that she was here yesterday.”
“I did, but I… She wasn’t the one I wanted to see.”
Steve sighed softly as he stared at Danny fumbling over his words. Slowly he let his head hang down and stared at the floor, counting his breaths, trying to clear his mind, trying to decide what to do. Between one breath and the other, he knew what he had to do and he hated it. It could just as easily blow up in his face and give Rachel the chance Danny, if Steve were to take Rachel’s words at their value, had so thoroughly rejected. But Steve needed to know; it wouldn’t be fair to either of them any other way.
“Daniel,” he said still looking at the ground, the name sounding strange on his lips. “I can’t do this anymore,” he continued, finally lifting his head up to look at Danny’s pale face. “I thought we had something. I thought we were building towards something,” Steve said, gesturing between the two of them. “And I know you thought so too,” he said softly.
“Steve…” Danny tried to interject but stopped when Steve raised his hand up.
“I can’t… I can’t keep doing this…. This thing we do, this flirting and bantering, without knowing that there will be more. I want more, Daniel. I want more with you.” Steve took a deep breath and let it out slowly, stalling. “But until you figure out what it is you want, I can’t. You can’t have both of us, Danny. You need to choose.”
Steve looked at Danny as the other man held his gaze for a second before lowering it back down to stare at his hands playing with the sheets. He waited silently, watching as Danny’s brows furrowed and his lips thinned into twin, hard lines. Finally, Steve sighed and leaned down, stretching his arm and back as he put more weight on the bed’s end-board.
“It’s fine, Danno.”
“No, Steve. Wait,” Danny said, one hand reaching out towards Steve in a futile attempt to keep him where he was standing.
“Let me know once you’ve made up your mind,” Steve said as he reached out and squeezed Danny’s ankle, the only solace he allowed for himself to convince his brain that Danny was fine, that he was whole, and that he was safe.
And with one last squeeze, Steve pushed himself off the bed and walked out of the room even as Danny called him over and over again.