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Steve heard the door unlock and straightened up, shifting in his chair.

The leather straps were tight against his wrists, digging into his skin and drawing blood that he was unable to see.

He had been sitting for what felt like forever, being questioned for answers he’d tried his best not to give. Every single cell in his body hurt, and his many attempts to get through to whoever had taken him had remained unheard.

Who was he?

What was his endgame?

Memories were hazy at best. Snapshots of random moments flashed in his brain, but he couldn’t hold on to them long enough to create a timeline of events or find any kind of clue about his current location. He remembered the team gathered around the smart table, endless streams of video and data to analyze, and Chin’s excitement as he proudly announced that they’d caught a break.

How long ago was that?

Why hadn’t they come to his rescue?

Time had warped around him. Stretching, distorting, then collapsing on itself, rendering him unable to tell how many hours or days he had been held captive.

At least three, he assumed.

Or four?

How many questions had he asked?

His last clear recollection was getting a text from Danny as he’d gotten home, and canceling their dinner plans because Grace wasn’t feeling well. After that, only fragments of sounds and feelings that only added to the chaos swirling in his head.

A syringe plunged it into his thigh, cold metal beneath him, the revving of an engine and a shifting, nauseating motion.

He never made it inside his house that night, never witnessed being roughly grabbed by his underarms and carried into a basement, feet dragging against every step. He never felt being pulled upward, sat, and restrained to a chair, never saw the smile on his captor’s lips as the man took a step back and admired his work.

Was this how he was going to die?

In this chair, with a hood over his head like a helpless prisoner of war?

Occasionally, fear crept up.

Against his will, and the Navy’s intense drilling, it sneaked up on him when he felt most vulnerable, when the mask of defiance slipped and the weariness of the day settled around him. He would chastise himself, disgusted by his own weakness, only to experience it all over again after the next syringe of cold, burning liquid was administered.

It was too soon after Afghanistan, after the beating and the torture and more questions that he had refused to answer. Hassan’s words still rang in his ears, along with the taunting voice whispering that that was it, he was never going home, left to die in a foreign, unfriendly territory at the hand of a lunatic who kept belittling his country and everything he’d fought for.

Those memories merged with more beating, more torture, and another face out of his nightmares: Wo Fat. The disturbing thought that it could be him behind this had crossed Steve’s mind. Many times. Wo Fat had the resources and the manpower, and his dead set will to find answers was as strong as Steve’s own. But something didn’t add up, and he figured the man would have revealed himself by now.

Then he remembered.

No, this was completely different.

His jumbled brain started to connect the dots, wading through the murky, drug-numbed synapses to retrieve the information he needed.

Young men.

Taken from their homes and murdered in cold blood, their soulless eyes staring back at him from the crime scene photos.

‘They deserved it,’ the man had said. ‘And it felt good.’

Steve’s muscles tensed and he stilled as the door opened, ears straining to catch even the smallest sound.

Footsteps echoed hollowly around the room, getting closer and closer. Calloused fingers dug into his neck, undoubtedly leaving prints that would discolor his skin, and it took everything he had not to jump in surprise.

“Do you have a question for me today?” the disembodied, raspy voice said in a teasing tone somewhere to his right.

Steve breathed in, inhaling the musty scent of the sack covering his head.

“Are there… others?” he asked.

“Six. But you’ll never find them.”

There was a rustling noise behind him, the sound of… glass? — or was it metal? — against a hard surface. “Now,” the kidnapper continued, this time standing on Steve’s left. “Tell me, Commander, does HPD know about me?”

It took a few heartbeats for his scrambled brain to figure out what the man wanted.

The case.

This was about the case.

“No. They know… about the v-victims, but they don’t know about y-you.”

“Good. I figured as much.”

A moment later, something sharp pricked his shoulder.

Steve flinched.

Unable to see it coming, all he could do was sit there shivering as the liquid rushed through his veins, and wait for whatever he’d been injected with to take effect.

“‘M gonna… kill you…” he whispered hoarsely before darkness swallowed him whole.

He surfaced again a few hours later to a skull-splitting headache, a cottony mouth, and a growing sense of nausea in the pit of his stomach.

The ever-present darkness that, along with the room’s musty odor, had become as fixture of his days welcomed him as he opened his eyes, recognizing the side effects that the latest round of drugs had left in its wake. Whatever the man had given him was weighing him down like a heavy blanket, making his limbs sluggish and hindering any attempt to fight or even break free.

Gritting his teeth, Steve tried to fight the chemical-induced lethargy and the cobwebs swaddling his mind and listened for sounds.

His prison had to be a concrete box, probably a basement. From the way voices reverberated through it, he guessed it had to be about fifteen by ten feet. Windowless, he figured, as he couldn’t even see shadows, and likely sound-proof. Other than the noise of a generator, he couldn’t hear anything coming from outside.

Was he deep underground in some random, isolated place, or was it someone’s personal, homemade jail cell? If he was a betting man, his money would be on the second.

Steve had dealt with mass murderers, mercenaries, and all kinds of evil but the sheer, genuine pleasure this guy felt at hurting people put him at the top of the list of the craziest SOBs he had ever met.

The first time they’d talked, when he was still groggy and reeling from the realization of yet another loss of freedom, the man had welcomed him with a punch to the solar plexus, striking the sensitive nerves and causing his diaphragm to spasm, leaving him breathless for a few, agonizing seconds.

‘What do you want?’, Steve had asked in between gasps.

‘I want to play,’ had been the answer. ‘I read your jacket, Commander. You’re a remarkable man, and you seem like a worthy adversary. None of those other guys were.’

Then, in true twisted psychopath fashion, Gary Frederick Burns had proceeded to explain the ‘rules’ of his game.

He would ask a question every day, and Steve would be allowed to do the same. They could choose whatever question they wanted, personal or case-related, and be rewarded with the truth. That was, Burns added, until he got bored with it, killed Steve, and left the island to start again in another state.

McGarrett had no doubt that his team would rescue him, so he’d chosen questions that would help them find the missing bodies, learning details they would’ve never gotten otherwise. The guy’s name, the common thread between his victims, and two of the places where he had buried them.

As the days went by, and he found himself still strapped to the same chair, his certainties had started to waver.

He knew Danny would move heaven and earth to find him, and worried that the reason why he hadn’t was that he was physically unable to. That, in turn, sent a new, horrifying fear coursing through his veins.

Had Burns hurt his partner?

Was Danny sitting in another chair, in another cold room, wishing to be rescued?

Swallowing saliva that was barely even there, Steve licked his cracked, parched lips. If the muscle cramps and increased heartbeat were any indication, dehydration wasn’t far away. His throat was dry and sore, and every ragged breath he took through the rough sack covering his head seemed to dry it even more, robbing his body of what little water was left.

He desperately needed more.

Food would be nice too but he wasn’t counting on that.

The ordeal reminded him of a time past, well before Afghanistan, a too-close call back in Africa when he had been captured and held by a Nigerian militia group for almost a week. That time, his brothers in arms had found him in an underground cellar, miles away from the nearest village, and saved his ass moments before his neck had met the leader’s ax. They’d sent him home after that, back to Hawaii, for a mandatory leave and twice-a-week counseling. Still at odds with his father, Steve had spent most of those days locked in his old room or running himself to exhaustion.

The potato sack over his head, all those years ago, smelled of soil and rotten fruit. The one Hassan’s boys had put on him barely allowed him to breathe. This was smoother and less constricting, but equally uncomfortable.

He tried once again to free himself of his restraints and, once again, failed at it. The sturdy chair didn’t budge, and the straps rested firmly into place.

A scream of frustration tore its way out of his throat, echoing loudly throughout the room.
Steve immediately regretted it, praying that the man hadn’t heard him. His body needed rest before he came to ‘play’ again.

He bit his lip, stifling another cry.

What the hell was wrong with him that he couldn’t get control of his frayed, ragged emotions and pull himself together?

The military had taught him better, investing thousands of dollars on him to make sure he wouldn’t crack under pressure and here he was, disgracing it and losing himself in a haze of darkness, closer and closer to a breakdown that his former self would’ve never allowed.

Get a grip on it, McGarrett, he scolded himself. Fight through this.

Taking a few deep, controlled breaths, Steve managed to slow his heartbeat down to a healthier level, but he could do nothing for the unanswered questions spinning in his brain.

Did the team know who had taken him?

Was he even on the island?

The hood had never come off, not once during his captivity. Not even when the left restraint was unstrapped, twice a day, and he was allowed to pee. Burns had simply cut a hole through the cloth so Steve could drink or eat whatever he felt inclined to give him.

Engrossed in his thoughts, he didn’t hear his captor coming until the man grabbed a fistful of fabric and hair and jerked Steve’s head backwards.

“Where were you, Commander?” he asked smugly. “Already going soft on me? Navy SEAL like you should master situational awareness.”

Steve gritted his teeth as he angrily tightened his fists, wishing he could show him exactly what Navy SEALs were capable of.

“What the hell do you want?”

“Tell me, how many friends have you lost in combat? And how do you cope with it?”

That was how it went. No greetings, no preambles. Burns came into the room and started asking questions like they were two acquaintances making small talk.

Under the hood, Steve’s face contorted into a mask of anger. “Too many,” he replied curtly. “And you don’t.”

“Interesting,” Burns mused. “So, if you were to, say, lose someone else it would be painful, yes?”

The words felt like ice coursing through Steve’s veins. “What have you done?” he asked, his heart picking up a few, extra beats.

“Nothing, so far,” the other man shrugged.

Steve tensed, straining against the straps holding him in place. The sudden fear that this lunatic would go after his team while he wasn’t there to protect them was unbearable, and he shuddered at the thought of the possible repercussions.

“Leave my team out of this!” he screamed, pulling hard against the bindings, worry morphing into rage over his own helplessness. “You got me, alright? You don’t need them!”

“That’s for me to decide. You, on the other hand, are going to sit here and think about how this kind of loyalty is going to cost you your life.”

“No, wait! It’s my turn! I have to ask my question!”

“You just did,” Burns replied, his voice steady and chillingly calm.

Too late Steve realized his mistake, letting out a frustrated cry. “That wasn’t… That’s not what I wanted to ask!”

“Don’t worry, Commander. If you’re still alive tomorrow, you’ll get your chance.”

The veiled threat in Burns’ voice should have warned Steve of what was about to come, instead he was completely unprepared when a vicious kick slammed forcefully into the chair, toppling it over and momentarily robbing him of air. His head hit the pavement with a thud, the dull sound mixing with the clatter of metal against the hard ground and his surprised yelp.

Gasping out in pain, he could only concentrate on drawing breath after labored breath for what felt like forever.

Burns raised his foot once again, placing it on Steve’s chest and pushing him down against the floor, constricting his lungs. “The sooner it sinks in that I’m in charge here, the better, McGarrett,” he whispered darkly.

“I’m g-gonna… k-kill you,” Steve wheezed behind the hood the moment he got his breath back.

It was apparently the wrong thing to say.

A series of vicious kicks landed on his unprotected form, over and over, until his captor was satisfied that he’d gotten the punishment he deserved.

“L-leave them…alone,” Steve wheezed out, fighting against the thick gray haze looming around the edges of his vision. A moment later, his pain-wrecked body gave out and his head lolled sideways to the ground.

Danny pressed the ‘pause’ key on his laptop, effectively stopping the video playing on the screen. He rested his head in his hands and sighed, briefly closing his eyes. They stung and burned as if he had been swimming for hours, adding to the weariness he couldn’t seem to shake off.

He had been sitting in his office looking at surveillance footage for hours, driven by the need to find something, anything that could help them locate his missing partner. Steve had gone missing four days before, and every morning when he woke up from his troubled sleep, Danny shook away the visions of his friend’s battered body lying face down in a shallow grave and wondered if they’d finally find some clue as to his whereabouts.

The Silverado was still parked in the driveway; his phone, wallet, and keys sat on the table by the front door. There were no signs of a struggle, and no activity on his credit cards. It looked as though he’d gotten home and disappeared shortly thereafter without leaving any trace behind.

Ruling out another voluntary escape because Steve had left no note and learned from his previous tries not to ever do that again, the only thing that made sense was an ambush. Someone had caught him by surprise in the only place where he should’ve been safe. The case they’d been working on lately was certainly creepy enough to validate that thought and rise Danny's blood pressure up a notch.

‘The Twilight Slasher’, the press had dubbed it, because of his predilection for knives and other pointed objects and the time frame he disposed of them.

When the Governor had brought it to their attention, there were already three bodies stacked up at the morgue and no discernible pattern. Different age and ethnicity, diverse backgrounds. They seemed to have nothing in common with each other, so it had taken HPD a while to even connect them.

Steve, being Steve, had immediately taken a personal interest in it, promising Denning that he would do whatever was in his power to bring this killer to justice. That, predictably, had led to long hours at the office and sleepless nights, and Danny’s concern had mounted with each day that passed by as he looked at the darkening bags under his partner’s eyes and all the other telltale signs that he wasn’t taking care of himself as he should.

It was more than that, Danny knew. It had only been a few weeks since they’d come back from Afghanistan, since Steve’s timely rescue from the Taliban and his too-close encounter with death. Danny had had no idea of the magnitude of it until he’d been forwarded the video that the SEAL team had recovered from Hassan’s underground cave and stared in numb horror at the near decapitation, his gaze fixed on the uncharacteristic fear clouding his best friend’s eyes.

Steve hadn’t said a word about it. It wasn’t a surprise, really, considering who he was and his history of bottling up every feeling he didn’t immediately need. Danny, for his part, had never disclosed his secret. He had been his own supportive, occasionally annoying self, watching from a distance as Steve processed the events in his own, unhealthy way, locking his pain away to pretend nothing had happened.

And now this.

Another threat, another deranged criminal who hurt people for sport.

They had come close to catching him twice. Overcoming his natural wariness of being in the spotlight, Steve had issued statements and appeared on the news, keeping the awareness high and trying to reach as wide an audience as he could to warn young men to be cautious and alert. His eagerness had either spooked or angered the killer, prompting him to find his own solution to the problem.

Feeling drained and emotionally worn-out, Danny rolled his neck from side to side to loosen up the kinks, fighting the urge to get up. His body was exhausted yet his mind needed it to move, to burn the anxiety right out. This job he had chosen could be so tiring at times, demanding strength and will he wasn’t sure he had and turning everything that was good and bright into a dark, lousy mess.

A quick glance at the clock told him it was 7:36pm.

A moment later, Chin entered the office to inform him that CSU had found no prints or foreign DNA when they’d processed Steve’s house.

Figured.

The two friends shared a long, dejected sigh.

“That doesn’t rule out a home invasion,” Danny said resolutely, wiping a hand over his face. Screw the power of positive thinking he’d agreed to a few weeks before when he and Steve had been trapped under a collapsed building. Something wasn’t right. He could feel it in his bones, even if there was no proof of it. “You saw McGarrett’s house. Did anything seem off to you too?”

There was an empty beer bottle on the table by the door. Danny had noticed it as soon as he’d stepped inside. His anal-retentive partner who folded and organized t-shirts by color would’ve never left it there, even if he had come home in the middle of the night after a three-day Navy drill. Plus, the curtains were drawn, and the windows all closed, which was an odd thing in itself. The house was old and had no A/C, so Steve liked to always keep at least a couple of them open to let the breeze in.

Small details that meant nothing by themselves but together painted the scary picture of a stranger breaking into the house to harm him.

“I don’t know, man,” Chin replied, his tight grip on the door handle the only sign of distress. “But knowing Steve and his history I have the same concerns you have.”

There was no evidence their boss was dead either, and that gave them the strength to keep going.

“How about those other surveillance cams? Did anything come up?”

They had examined all the footage from satellites and traffic cameras near Steve’s house and discovered no leads, so Danny had speculated that the intruder had come and left from the beach and requested to widen the search. His belief was strengthened by the fact that the door to the lanai had been left open. Not wide enough to draw suspicion, just slightly ajar so that it would look like a casual oversight.

“Nothing so far.”

Danny’s shoulders slumped as his concern mounted.

Should he have seen it coming?

Judging from the number of bodies he’d dropped in just over a week, their killer was escalating fast. Whatever his pattern or motivation was, his time frame was getting shorter and shorter, and the level of overkill higher and higher.

The lack of meaningful progress and inability to stop him had been weighing heavily on everyone’s mind, Steve’s especially, and the single-minded effort to catch him could have certainly angered the man enough to seek retaliation.

Danny bit the inside of his lip in frustration.

He shouldn’t have canceled their plans that night. If he hadn’t, maybe the kidnapper would’ve changed his plans, or he could’ve tried to stop him.

“Stop blaming yourself,” Chin said softly as if he’d read his mind. “None of us saw this coming.”

“I’m his partner.”

“That doesn’t mean you’re clairvoyant. Come on, let’s go get something to eat and then we’ll tackle the rest of the evidence.”

Shaking his head in disgust, Danny closed the laptop and reluctantly sat up, following his teammate out the door and wondering if — wherever he was — Steve was allowed the same respite.

“Guys, we got something!”

Kono called from the smart table, derailing their plans.

Dinner became coffee and an energy bar stolen from Steve’s not-so-secret stash as they both fueled up for the rest of the night and reviewed what finally felt like a promising lead.

The lab had sent over the results of the last batch of evidence collected outside the McGarrett’s house, and their findings proved that Steve had been grabbed before he went in, on the way between his truck and the front door. That meant the killer had laid in wait and fixed the scene after the kidnapping to throw off the investigation.

A partial print had also been lifted from the bench next to the front door. It was a long shot, but they were running it through all the available databases, hoping for a match.

Three hours later, right when they’d agreed that it was time to head home, the three remaining members of Five-0 watched the words ‘MATCH FOUND’ appear on the monitor in bright, block letters, along with the picture of the man who had abducted their friend.

They stared at him in silent hatred, committing his features to memory, as if they could will him to reveal their friend’s location. Danny, after an enraged, pained ‘son of a bitch’ whispered at the screen, headed towards the gun cabinet, ready to burst through his door and shoot the answers out of him. It was Chin who stopped him, a placating hand on his shoulder, reminding him that they didn’t have an address yet, and that Gary Frederick Burns didn’t appear to be a resident of the state so it would take some time to locate him.

Dejected, Danny walked over to the window. Head slightly bent, hands on the sill, he stared numbly at the world outside, wondering for the umpteenth time how Steve was faring while they waited for the dots to connect.

Suddenly the hair on the back of his neck stood on end, and he got the strong feeling that he was being watched. Straightening up, he turned around to meet Chin and Kono’s worried gaze then looked out the window again, scanning the parking lot and the street as far as his eyes could see but spotting no one.

He tried to blame it on his already exhausted psyche, but the sensation was still there, gripping him like a vise. It lasted a long, full minute, then quickly disappeared.

A moment later his phone rang, disrupting the stillness, and Danny jumped.

Grace.

He swallowed, ran a shaky hand through his hair, and headed to his office, not looking forward to having to explain to his precious daughter why he hadn’t found her uncle Steve yet.

Steve woke up on the floor, right where he had fallen.

There was a heaviness in his body, he noticed, the weird kind of lethargy that lingers after coming out of a deep sleep. Then the pain came, piercing through the haze, and he groaned softly, peeling his eyes open. When nothing changed and the only thing he saw was darkness all around, he remembered the sack over his head.

The kidnapping.

The beating.

The scratchy fabric pressed against his face, partly cutting off his air supply. It was damp with sweat and smelled like despair.

He attempted to move, but with his hands tied tipping the chair back upright felt next to impossible. Still, he tried. Through the dizziness, the cramps, and the pain from his recently cracked ribs, he turned and twisted his body until he managed to succeed.

Just in time to hear the door open and familiar footsteps approach.

“Bravo, Commander,” Burns mocked. “I see captivity hasn’t tamed your spirit.”

Steve’s lips twitched under the hood. ‘It never will,’ he swore to himself. Even if his body hurt, even if his resolve weakened at times, he would never break. If he was going to die in there, he’d show the son of a bitch just what it meant to be a real man, a real fighter, standing tall until his very last breath.

“Now, tell me, are you afraid to die?” the gruff, unpleasant voice asked right above his left ear.

“J-just… kill me already.”

Rough, calloused fingers dug into Steve’s shoulder. “I am not done with you, yet. Now ask your question before I lose my patience.”

Steve growled in helpless anger.

He desperately needed to know if his friends had made any progress, if they were any closer to identifying Burns and locating him. At this point he felt like he had nothing to lose, so when his abductor’s arm snaked around his neck, grabbing it in a lethal grip as he asked if he’d rather wait another day, Steve voiced for the first time an inquiry that had nothing to do with the case.

“My team… do they k-know about you?”

“They do. I believe they’re working on an address as we speak.”

The news was as welcome as it was surprising, and for once he was glad for the sack covering his face that hid the relief spreading across his features.

Hope soared within him, confidence that if he held on a little longer they were going to find him and bring him home.

It only lasted a moment.

Then Burns plunged a knife into his thigh and whatever feeling he was holding on to was drowned by an agonizing scream.

“We need to talk.”

“No. No. I don’t wanna hear it.”

“Danny…”

“No. Nothing that starts with the words ‘we need to talk’ is ever good news and I’m having a shitty day as it is.”

“There’s another body.”

“What?”

“HPD found it in Kewalo Basin. Preliminary forensic puts time of death about four days ago.”

“The night Steve was taken.”

“Exactly. We ran the plates of all the vehicles caught on the traffic cameras around the TOD and cross-checked them with the ones near Steve’s house around the time he disappeared. We got a match. A 2012 gray Nissan Frontier rented by Gary Burns under an assumed name. Kono traced the truck’s recent movements and identified a potential address. Live satellite feed confirms a vehicle of the same make and model is parked outside a residential house in Manoa. We got him, Danny.”

“That’s… Next time lead with that, buddy, alright?”

“Wait…”

“Wait what?”

“Turns out there’s an outstanding warrant on him in Texas for two counts of murder in the first degree, with an additional eight counts under review by the San Antonio district attorney’s office. That’s why he’s here in Hawaii and flying under the radar.”

“So? We put a bullet in his head and do both states a favor.”

“I contacted the San Antonio PD. They’re sending a team here to execute the warrant. We might have to wait until the morning to—”

“What are you talking about, Chin? You think Steve would’ve waited if it was you out there? Or any of us?”

“No.”

“No. So we’re moving. Right now. God knows what this guy’s doing to him while we stand here talking. Let’s ask, uh… what’s the guy’s name, Grover? See if we can get SWAT to assist. I’m not wasting another minute. Let’s go!”

Time had lost its meaning in the basement, defeated by a mind-numbing pain, but Steve could’ve sworn it hadn’t been that long since Burns had last visited him.

Now here he was again, circling around him like a vulture.

‘Hold on,’ he kept repeating to himself. ‘Hold on. They will be here soon.’

Battered, torn, alone, he was clinging to that thought like a desperate man to a lifeline.

Blood trickled down, soaking his pant leg. His nostrils filled with the coppery smell of it, making his stomach lurch. He didn’t need to see the wound to know that it was bad. The sluggishness and elevated heart rate were clear enough signs he would be needing help soon.

He heard the man’s footsteps getting closer, followed by a few beats of silence, and then the hood abruptly came off.

It was as longed-for as it was unexpected, and Steve’s first reaction was to gulp in air as if he’d been underwater. Light flooded in, harsh and blinding, filling his vision. It raised his headache to a nauseating level and he swallowed hard, blinking compulsively at the same time to adjust his eyes to it.

A windowless, almost bare room came into focus.

A basement, just like he’d imagined.

A bulky shape stood at the center of it. Steve tilted his head slightly to the right as if sizing it up. It was for show, mostly, because everything around him was still blurry and Burns’ face was obscured by a ball cap, so all he could see was hazy features and dark overalls.

“Much better,” the man said in a jeering tone, nodding in approval as he moved closer.

After a few more blinks his traits gradually sharpened, allowing Steve to take the first real look at his captor.

Tufts of blond hair and a scraggly beard framed a chiseled, angular face, but it was his eyes —glistening like those of a predator gauging its prey— that really set him apart, revealing how dangerous he was.

Steve took a hitched breath and raised his head, showing no weakness.

“You’re a dead man,” he whispered darkly, eyes narrowed to thin, hate-filled slits. If he didn’t kill him himself, Danny was sure going to obliterate the man from existence for taking all those lives and kidnapping him. His partner was a force of nature when someone threatened the people he cared about.

Burns barked out a laugh, dark and sinister. “Actually, I don’t think so, Commander.”

There was something in his tone that sent chills down Steve’s spine, but nothing in his face betrayed it. His jaw stayed set, and as his sweaty palms curled around the chair’s arms a steel-like mask of detached defiance took over his features, erasing all traces of vulnerability.

“Where’s my team?”

The man smiled again, all ego and no empathy, as cold inside as a person could be. He took a sharp, threatening step in his direction and looked down at his captive.

Seconds ticked away in strained silence, fueling the ever-growing concern in the pit of Steve’s stomach. He bit his lip furiously, straining against the leather straps pinning his wrists down and adding even more bruises to his already damaged skin.

“Where the hell is my team?” he repeated, his voice low and threatening.

They had to be close now.

The thought that he’d been lied to had crossed his mind many, many times. Trusting a serial killer’s word was a mistake even a rookie knew not to make. But the man prided himself on his stupid truth game and, just this once, it was possible that what he’d said was true.

Exhausted and sore, Steve chose to believe him.

His wound wasn’t getting any better, and it was clear Burns had no intention of treating it.

He really needed the help.

Despite being the leader and their protector, he had come to rely on these people in ways he’d never thought possible before, both on and off the job. He had become a better person because of them, and this broken, unconventional family he had created made him prouder than all his service medals combined.

They would come for him, just like he’d do for them. The belief was unshakable, and rekindled the fire in his bleary, pain-glazed eyes.

Until he heard his enemy announce with a gleeful sneer that they were all dead.

“W-what?” his voice gave out and the strangled word was all he managed to murmur as he blinked dazedly at his abductor. Throat constricted in a vise of stifling, paralyzing fear, Steve felt the bottom of his world drop out. He swallowed, licked his painfully dry lips and tried again. “What’d you say?”

Burns stared at him in morbid fascination. It was the reason he had taken the hood off his prisoner: to see his reaction as he delivered the news. Satisfied that it was way better than anything his twisted self had imagined, he took a step forward and held out his phone. “Read it yourself, McGarrett.”

All traces of impassivity gone, Steve strained to focus his gaze on the words displayed on the small, brightly-lit screen in front of him. What looked like a news headline slowly came into view. It said: ‘Governor’s Task Force killed in a raid’.

He sucked in a breath, mind suddenly numb with absolute, soul-icing terror. His mouth opened as if to seek explanation, but no words came out. What he was reading didn’t make sense.

It couldn’t be real.

Shaking his head in feverish denial, he gulped in air with frantic, desperate heaves.

“You just… t-told me they were working on an address!” he cried out in desperate anger.

A disdainful smile twisted Burns’ lips. “That was yesterday. As you can see, it didn’t end well.”

The answer struck like a brutal, punishing blow, as painful as a bat striking bones, and Steve nearly doubled over from the viciousness of it. Blind panic whitened out everything around him, threatening to cut out his awareness.

It had to be a lie.

His leg wound couldn’t be that old if it was still leaking. It hadn’t been long enough.

“You’re lying…”

The alternative was just too sudden, too overwhelming to process.

“Do you want me to read the whole article? It’s a real tearjerker, you know. Especially the part about Detective Williams’ little daughter…”

Steve’s vision blurred with tears as he stared in stunned bewilderment at the picture of a burned-down building and a neat row of black body bags.

Grace…

How was he going to explain this to her?

“This is your fault, McGarrett. You and your stubbornness did this to them.”

The thought was like a sharp, serrated knife straight through his heart and he shuddered, gasping in pain that felt real enough to be physical. He didn’t register much after that. The only thing he was aware of was the burning, searing pain in his chest, and the feeling of the room closing in on him.

His whole team was dead.

Dead!

All his missions, the trauma he had experienced since he was a child, nothing had ever affected him like this. Not even the death of his father. Now, as his mouth opened again in shock and disbelief, he felt like his world was gone with them and he had nothing left.

Kono

Chin

Danny…

“I was j-just doing my job…” he whispered brokenly.

Despair wrapped around his heart, crushing it in a vicious, wrenching vise. It took him away, deep inside himself, where feelings didn’t hurt, machete-wielding Talibans weren’t frightening and friends didn’t die. A place he used to visit in the past, where the broken man went in to hide and the special operator came out to play.

His eyes grew dark, dangerous.

Muscles twitched and contracted, demanding release.

He tugged at the chair, pulling harder and harder, even as his wrists grew slick and sticky with blood. Needing to scream, rant and rave. To break things until he bled on the outside just as much as he did on the inside. Just a few minutes ago he was concerned for his life… funny, wasn’t it? The same life that didn’t matter anymore, the one that he would gladly lay down if it could bring even one of his friends back.

Unfazed, Burns reached for the hood that he had previously discarded. Now that the fun was over, he was ready to move on to the final part of his plan: kill McGarrett and leave the island as a free man.

Steve pinned him with an icy glare.

No way.

No way was the bastard ever touching him again.

A strange calm settled over him as his military training kicked in, obliterating pain and needs.

Bruises stopped aching.

Wounds ceased to hurt.

Joe’s words echoed in his ears. ‘Your body’s nothing but a tool. A weapon, tasked to do the work that is demanded of it. A means to an end.’

Laughter —hollow and unnatural, threatened to burst out.

His captor had wanted to break him, instead he was going to witness firsthand the lines a desperate man could cross. The mighty soldier McGarrett, intimidating on a good day, could become downright terrifying if pushed past his limits.

When Burns approached him, hands curled around the fabric that was going to blind him again, Steve briefly closed his eyes. He didn’t need his sight to end the man’s life, but he was damned if he was going to let him put it on again.

He sucked in a breath, getting ready for the assault. Then, in what felt almost like an out-of-body experience, he watched himself lurch forward with a howl of rage, launching himself at Burns, chair and all, and slamming him against the ground. He heard the man’s grunt, a yell of surprise, and bones cracking as his foot connected solidly with his abductor’s knee. The rest was drowned by the blood roaring in his ears.

His left wrist struck the floor hard, bending at an unnatural angle, but Steve didn’t feel it, only aware that the fall had loosened the strap and a few more tugs could set him free. He untied the second one, finally unshackling himself from the chair, and started plowing his fist into the man’s head and face, over and over, unleashing all his fury.

Joined in a tangle of limbs, the two rivals battled in a bloody, primitive fight. Burns tried to counter the blows, but even gravely wounded Steve was still stronger than the young men he usually overpowered, and soon enough he realized that the outcome he’d planned on would never be realized. Alarm bells sounded in his brain, along with the startling realization that he had underestimated the Commander. The thought never fully developed, as a moment later the fatal blow was delivered and both men sagged like broken dolls to the ground, for all intents and purposes, dead to the world.

The first thing that struck Danny as he led the team inside Burns’ rental house and down its basement was the sheer normalcy of it. There was food on the kitchen table, a low hum coming from a vintage radio, and plants that looked too healthy to have been neglected.

The thought that the son of a bitch had tended to those flowers in between torture sessions made him positively sick with disgust, and he prayed to whoever was listening that their intel was correct, and they had the right place.

Lou Grover had assembled a SWAT team in record time, meeting them a few blocks from the house that they were going to raid. An army of six people, led by Five-0, had silently surrounded it, moving under the cover of darkness. They had slipped inside, searched the entire floor and then swarmed down the stairs, stopping outside the bolted door of what looked like a hidden chamber at the far end of the basement.

Looking at Danny, they all waited for their cue to break in.

He swallowed hard, his stomach clenching in painful cramps at the thought of what lay inside. Four days was a long time to be held by a psychopath.

He felt Chin’s hand on his shoulder, reassuring him that he was right behind. It was too damn quiet, and Danny didn’t like it one bit, but nothing was going to stop him from going through that door. After being forced to watch from the sidelines while a SEAL team rescued Steve in Afghanistan, this time he vowed he’d be the first one to find him.

His hand curled on the handle, and he nodded slightly to his teammates to signal that he was ready to breach. Then he breathed through his nose and counted to three.

The door slid open, and Danny’s breath stuttered, then stopped altogether as all his fears became suddenly real.

When Steve came back to himself an indefinite time later, he was lying flat on his stomach, body trembling violently with the strain.

He parted his parched lips and gasped, trying to suck in a breath. There was a buzzing sound in his ears, and a very unpleasant cold seeping into his bones.

Consciousness wavered, threatening to slip.

He wanted so much to let it. Close his eyes and fall into oblivion. With his team dead, there was nothing left for him after all. Nothing but the accusing stares of the friends and family of the people he’d killed. Nothing but a solitude he wasn’t accustomed to anymore and a job that he could no longer stomach to even think about.

But he couldn’t.

As nice as it would be, he had never been the one to take the easy way.

His vision tunneled momentarily, darkness swirling around him at a maddening pace. Steve bit down on his lower lip, blinking stubbornly, and raised his head slightly.

There was a dark form on the ground next to him. After a few more blinks, it shaped into a body crumpled in a bloodied heap.

Burns.

Way to go, Commander.

He had defeated his enemy, but at what cost?

Sooner. He should’ve done it sooner. It would’ve probably spared his friends’ lives. Instead he’d sat on that damn chair, waiting and wallowing in his pain. They would be so ashamed of him if they knew…

He swallowed convulsively, forcing away the dark, unpleasant thoughts. Blood-slicked fingers dug into clammy, sweaty palms, drawing blood that served him as distraction.

His broken wrist screamed in protest when he tried to move it, sending a jolt of blinding pain through his body, so he placed his other palm flat on the floor and tried to push himself up to his knees. He failed, miserably, and ended up collapsing back down, this time on his back, breathless and numb with shock and the aftermath of his fury-fueled adrenaline.

Images flashed in his brain; reminders of a time past. Happy memories that pierced his heart with their intensity and allowed tears of regret to run down his cheeks.

Steve gritted his teeth, willing them away.

He failed at that too, and eventually let all his overwhelming guilt consume him. The tightly sealed compartments he’d locked his feelings into started to leak and, against his will, emotions poured out.

He lost time after that, reawakening to the same numbness that had enveloped him before. The sharp aches in his body had turned into dull throbs, and whatever it was that he was supposed to do got lost in a maze of confused, disconnected thoughts.

So he just lay there, empty gaze lost into nothingness. Breathing, not thinking, as still as he could.

Until he heard the door open.

Danny pushed the door open, his skin prickling as the unsettling feeling of foreboding he had been experiencing grew even stronger. Weapon trained to shoot at anything that moved, he stepped cautiously inside, his team trailing right behind.

He held his breath as he looked around, scanning the unfurnished basement until his gaze landed on the two bodies splayed on the ground.

The room was dark yet lit enough to reveal in gory technicolor the remains of a brutal, vicious fight, and the sheer amount of blood that had been spilled. It was filled with an ominous silence that only matched the numbness washing over him as he stared, unblinking, at the broken figure of his friend laying in the middle of it.

Heart in his throat, he gripped the now useless rifle even tighter and stilled, rooted to the spot, at the sight before him. Both men had their eyes closed, but while their suspect clearly showed no proof of life, Danny could see his partner’s chest heaving up and down like he was running a marathon. And that, along with Chin Ho’s reassuring voice, was what spurred him to action,

“Steve?” he called out, his voice strained almost to the point of breaking. He had expected his friend to put up a fight, to try and break free at the first chance he got. What he did not expect, and absolutely shattered him, was the string of broken ‘Please, no more…’ he heard him whimper as he moved closer.

The crunching sound of his loafers stepping on glass startled him, and he looked down at the shattered remains. It was a lightbulb, its bloody wire stretching along the pavement like a snake. How and why it had ended there were details he never wanted to learn.

“I’m gonna call an ambulance,” he heard Kono mutter in shock.

Danny wanted to tell her he wasn’t sure two paramedics were enough.

“Steve?” he tried again as he unhooked his weapon and blindly handed it to Chin. “Can you hear me? It’s me, buddy...” His hand felt heavy and foreign as he raised it, trembling fingers yearning to comfort.

Steve’s eyes slowly fluttered open, and he turned his head at the call of his name, casting a wary glance in Danny’s general direction. There was an emptiness in his eyes that had nothing to do with the obvious pain of his injuries, and Danny flinched as their eyes met, because it looked like Steve wasn’t seeing him at all.

Something wasn’t right.

“Guys, give us some room, please,” he said, voice tense but unnaturally calm despite the near-suffocating panic that was smothering him from the inside. “Now,” he added when his friends made no move to leave.

The blood pouring out of Steve’s thigh needed immediate attention if the dark pools around the room were any indication, and he could bet the swollen wrist resting on his friend’s stomach hurt like a son of a bitch. Not that McGarrett seemed to be paying all of that any attention. He continued to stare at them as if he had no idea who they were, heaving in harsh, ragged breaths.

Torn between the need to help and the fear of spooking him even more than he already was, Danny chose a slow, careful approach. Raising his arms in a gesture of submission he took a careful step forward, his eyes never leaving him.

Steve backed away slightly, looking —if possible— even more scared.

“I’m not… guilty… I h-have nothing to confess…” he breathed in a half slur. His face took on a faraway look, then screwed up as if he was in pain.

Danny drew in a shocked breath.

Steve was looking right at him, yet he didn’t seem to recognize him at all. His breathing was labored, his pupils dilated, and there was sweat running down his face. In his altered, feverish state, it looked like his friend was replaying memories in his mind.

He turned around, searching Chin’s gaze. The Hawaiian man wore the same startled expression and the same sad understanding as he led the rest of the team out of the room. They exchanged a long, worried look, then Chin nodded as if to silently encourage him that he could do it, that he could get through to him, and backed away.

“Buddy, it’s me… You’re safe…”

Flashes of Hassan’s video came to Danny’s mind. Steve was wearing the same fearful, haunted look, and it didn’t take much to realize that he thought he was back in Afghanistan, surrounded by enemies, in the room where he’d almost lost his life.

“I’ve done… n-nothing…” he continued, as if to prove it, in a distressed monotone that was unlike anything Danny had ever heard. “I don’t… d-deserve to die…”

It looked as if Steve’s brain was suffering a short circuit and struggling to compute.
Triggered by past and very recent traumas, emotionally compromised by years of untreated PTSD, he had retreated into the recesses of his own mind, shutting down completely.

“Steve…”

Danny’s voice choked up on the name, and when his partner jerked back as a result and pulled away from him, huddling up in a corner like an injured animal desperate for escape, he froze again, terrified that this time it would take a lot more than stitches and fluids to nurse him back to health.

They were here.

They had captured him again.

At the sound of the door opening Steve visibly flinched, certain that it was Hassan’s boys coming back for seconds. He had a vague recollection of soldiers showing up and a loud gunfight, but those bastards must’ve killed them all and were now ready to finish the job.

Fear sneaked in unannounced as dark, blurry silhouettes entered the room, fanning out around him, and he couldn’t help the plea that escaped his lips.

He was tired… so very tired…

Part of him wanted to pretend that he was dead. He certainly looked the part. Instead, he tensed up, only allowing himself a small moment of weakness before stubbornly pushing it down, determined to fight until his very last breath.

These men didn’t care, and they thrived on other people’s weakness.

It would surely piss them off, to see his defiance, so he stated again that he would never give in, that he had nothing to confess. They might get their wish and sacrifice him for their ‘holy’ war, but at least he had made it clear that he did not deserve it.

One of the blurry figures moved closer. Short, dark clothes. It was probably the one who had hit him under Hassan’s orders. Steve kept his head down, trying to recall his features. Big nose, white beard, older than the rest of them.

Or maybe it was the light turban guy who held him as they…

Disoriented, exhausted, and unnerved by the persistent buzzing in his ears, he didn’t hear any of the words that were being spoken.

Not that he cared.

It was probably the same trite propaganda about infidel Americans invading their land and the righteous retaliation against them. He had heard those delusions for years.

His weakened conditions didn’t allow him to move as much, so he turned on his side and waited, hoping to gain some time and a little bit of strength. There were too many of them to even think about salvation, and another wave of fear ran unchecked through his body at the thought that these could very well be the last moments of his life.

It was fitting, after all.

He was the only one left.

The guy with the pale brown turban inched forward, calling his name.

Steve found it weird, in a way.

He was just a prisoner to them, a nameless enemy to despise.

He shifted backward, raising his left arm in useless defense. His gaze landed on his bruised, swollen wrist, and he unconsciously cringed at how bad it looked.

Suddenly, much to his surprise, the men filed out of the room.

Everyone but the guy with the light turban.

Steve watched him turn around as if to make sure he was alone, and then take another step towards him. As his senses sharpened, he heard his name once again spoken in a low, broken whisper. It sounded like his best friend’s voice, only it couldn’t be because his team was dead.

They were just messing with his head.

He jerked back, scooting backwards.

It was simply not possible.

It couldn’t.

Danny couldn’t be here. Danny was…

They had killed them all.

A low, pained moan fought its way past his throat.

“Buddy, it’s me… You’re safe…”

The quivering voice cut through the steadily increasing roar in his ears.

Steve squeezed his eyes shut, shaking his head in denial. He wanted so badly to believe those words, to draw comfort from them, and yet he flinched as he heard them because he knew he couldn’t trust them.

His back hit the wall and he froze, breathing hard.

He was trapped, unable to move or retreat any farther.

They had called him a sinner. A perpetrator of atrocities against the righteous. Steve had done things he wasn’t proud of, trained by the Navy to carry out orders with just a nod of the head and a deferential ‘yes, Sir’. He had accepted his role and risen through the ranks, never questioning their fairness or validity. These accusations though, these sins they were blaming him for, they were completely unfair.

He did not deserve to die.

He tried to tell the man with the light turban, opening his hazel eyes again and focusing them on the dark, shadowy silhouette.

As the voice kept talking to him, soft but unrelenting, the Taliban’s rough shape started to morph into a clearer, much familiar one.

Loose-fitting dress and baggy trousers turned into black jeans and t-shirt.

The light brown turban became blond hair.

And his cold, dark eyes melted into gentle blue ones.

Steve blinked dazedly at the face in front of him until his pained gaze widened in surprise.

“Da…Danny?”

The nod he received as a reply was encouraging and disturbing at the same time. He bowed his head, fighting tears that slid too quickly down his cheeks.

“Steve… Look at me,” the Danny-shaped figure insisted, shifting closer to him. “Look at me…”

He swallowed hard and frowned, desperately trying to reconcile the words he had been told with what he was seeing.

Danny was dead.

Wasn’t he?

A soft touch on his arm made him jerk in surprise and Steve raised his head slightly. His best friend was looking at him, eyes soft and full of concern.

“D-Danny…?” he whispered again, his voice dry and broken, uncertain and suddenly terrified of even daring to hope. “I-I…” he stammered as he looked around fearfully, struggling to understand. Sweat was beading down his face, and he felt flushed and nauseous. “He said... he s-said you were dead.”

Danny smiled encouragingly at the spark of recognition. Heart beating wildly, he took a cautious step closer and slowly dropped to his knees beside him, holding his gaze.

“It was a lie. He lied to you, babe.”

He felt Steve’s muscles twitch beneath his fingers and his throat constricted painfully at the depth of pain he saw reflected in the other man’s eyes.

“He said you were all dead,” Steve repeated brokenly, unsure of what was real and what was not, eyes dark with both suspicion and disbelief.

Flashes of upsetting memories rose from the depth of his jumbled mind.

Body bags captured in a black and white shot.

A headline citing a taskforce killed in a raid.

He tensed, confusion marking his exhausted features.

Had it all been a lie?

Fingers curled around his wrist, their grip gentle but unyielding. He jerked again but didn’t pull away. The touch felt grounding, familiar, and so very real.

Danny tugged Steve’s hand toward him and laid it against his chest, right above the heart. “Feel that?” he asked, watching his partner stare at him in bewilderment until he felt the beat against his palm. “I’m here. I’m alive. We’re all alive.”

Steve furrowed his brow as recognition slowly set in. “Danny?” he managed past the dryness in his throat, needing one last confirmation to dispel the lie. “You’re...You’re here…”

He wasn’t even sure where ‘here’ was but there was the tiniest bit of hope in his voice, and a fierce need to believe and be reassured.

Danny nodded, shifting even closer to him. “You’re alright, you’re safe. It’s gonna be alright,” he whispered reassuringly, holding an unspoken promise in his voice that, come what may, he vowed to fulfill until his dying breath.

“Danny…” Steve repeated, his voice dry and broken, reaching out with a trembling hand. He grabbed the front of his partner’s shirt and held on tight. “I...” he rasped again, his gaze rising slowly. “I need…”

“I’m right here, buddy. Tell me what you need…”

Steve gave him a relieved, breathy smile before leaning his head against Danny’s shoulder and resting it there for a few moments. Then his eyes glazed over, and he sagged in his friend’s arms.

Danny stared down at his hands, twisting and knotting them as if it would help keep the turmoil raging inside of him in check. His gaze swiveled over the waiting room, coming to rest on the woman sitting in the far corner next to an overflowing garbage can. She was sobbing quietly, clutching at her purse, the sound of her distressed breathing filling the space around them.

He gave her a sad, sympathetic smile, all too aware of the worry and the heartache she was feeling.

It had been three hours since they’d whisked Steve to surgery, the doctor’s urgent commands emphasizing the seriousness of his friend’s conditions.

To Danny, it felt like an eternity.

He wasn’t new to this, to spending time in thin, beat-up hospital chairs that offered little to no comfort, but with nothing else to do all that was left was a dizzying loop of anxiety, rumination and fear that threatened to overwhelm him completely.

Chin and Kono had gone back to Burns’ house, supervising the crime scene while CSU processed the damn basement to gather as many details as they could about what had happened to Steve and the man that had taken him.

Not that the details mattered.

The damage was already done.

Even if they stopped the bleeding and the raging infection coursing through his bloodstream, his partner was looking at months of physical and psychological therapy to get back on his feet. The man he had seen cowering on that dirty floor, the soldier who had screamed for his life as they tried to execute him, was going to need time and a lot of patience to sort through the demons in his head.

Pinching the bridge of his nose, Danny heaved a sigh.

His legs were crossing and uncrossing of their own accord, moving every couple of minutes to try and find a more comfortable position. The air felt still despite the chilly flow of the air conditioner, and he was convinced the harsh, fluorescent lights above his head were exacerbating his migraine, other than his foul mood.

Looking up, he glanced at the TV playing quietly in the background. ‘Sparkle in Silver’ promised to spice up life with stunning designs and glimmering gems. As if jewelry could make up for lousy upbringing or general bad luck.

Scoffing in annoyance at the lack of distraction from his current predicament, he let his eyes roam restlessly past the screen and around the room again until they landed on the woman sitting in the corner. She had stopped crying and sat slumped in her seat, staring absently at the man selling floral-shaped earrings on the screen.

“My son,” she said when she realized she was being watched, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “He had a car accident on his way to work. They don’t know if he’s gonna make it.”

Danny shook his head. Something else he was awfully familiar with. “I’m really sorry to hear that, ma’am.” He rolled his shoulders and raised a tired arm to rub his eyes. “My partner’s in surgery too. He, uh… he got hurt on the job.”

The woman nodded, her brown eyes softening as she studied him. “I can tell you care about him very much.”

A sad smile curved his lips and he looked away, feeling like he’d just been caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

He did.

Three years and ten months since he had punched him in the face, Danny cared about Steve in more ways than he probably should. There was no distance he wouldn’t travel to bring him back, no line he wouldn’t cross to make sure his partner was safe and loved as he deserved.

“I hope your son makes it,” he told her before excusing himself to go get yet another cup of weak, lukewarm coffee. “I hope they both make it.”

As soon as Steve opened his eyes after a four-hour surgery to repair the damage in his leg, Danny realized that the road to recovery was even longer and harder than he had thought. Drowsy from the sedatives and the drugs still lingering in his system, flustered from the fever ravaging his body, he took one glassy look at his partner and mistook him for an enemy again.

It wasn’t clear who he was seeing, but it became painfully obvious he still believed that his team was dead. Old memories overlapped with new ones, turning the IV in his arm and the monitoring equipment into restraints, and for six excruciating minutes, the longest six minutes of Danny’s life, he thrashed in his bed and fought those constrictions with everything he had.

Eyes wide with fear, Danny did his best to reason with him as he cursed Gary Frederick Burns all over again along with everyone else who had ever hurt his friend. His hand rose a few times, wanting to give reassurance, but the startled, panicked look on Steve’s face always stopped him halfway through the movement.

He tried to soothe him, reassure him, but Steve kept fighting, telling him he wasn’t real
and that they were never going to get him, and no amount of words could convince him otherwise.

Monitors started to beep, alerting the staff, and suddenly the room was full of people, which agitated Steve even more. He wrenched his good arm free and grabbed the first limb he could reach, twisting it violently, then tried to push himself upright, pulling lines and wires in an uncoordinated attempt to get off the bed that only served to damage the leg wound that the surgeons had carefully repaired.

It took Danny, the doctor and two nurses to force him back down while a third one jabbed a sedative into his bicep.

Suddenly everything slowed down.

Steve stopped thrashing and sagged into their arms, breathing heavily. He latched onto Danny’s eyes, looking at him as if he finally realized who he was, then moaned in distress and clutched his chest.

And things sped up again.

The doctor cursed, mumbling something about stitches tearing up and having to fix them before he bled out, and the four care team members grabbed the bed and rushed Steve out of the room, leaving Danny alone amidst a deafening silence.

Shaken by his friend’s violent outburst, he ran a hand through his tousled hair and collapsed into the chair, preparing himself for another long, harrowing wait.

‘Where’s my team? Where the hell is my team?’

‘They’re gone, Commander. They’re all dead.’

‘What? What’d you say?’

‘They’re pink mist. Blown to bits.’

‘You’re lying to me.’

‘Deny it all you want, but that’s exactly what happened. And it’s all your fault. Read it yourself, McGarrett.’

‘Where am I? What do you want from me?’

‘Steve, you’re in the hospital, calm down.’

‘Get away from me! You’re never gonna get me! You killed everyone else but you’re not gonna get me…’

‘Steve, no one wants to kill you. You’re safe. It’s me, Danny. I’m not gonna let them hurt you.’

‘No…’

‘Steve…’

‘No! You’re not real!’

Steve woke up with a startled gasp, haunted by the same nightmare that had troubled his rest and hindered his healing since he’d been admitted to the hospital.

The heart monitor beeped loudly at his side.

The beats weren’t frequent enough to alert the staff, but insistent enough to demand he relaxed.

And to wake Danny, who was asleep in the chair next to the bed.

“Steve?” he called, immediately tensing, and sitting straight up.

“M’fine,” Steve answered through gritted teeth as he lowered his head back on the pillow and tried to refocus his thoughts. They were still jumbled, his head heavy and laden with concerns. The doctor had told him it was the drugs messing with his brain, reassuring him that he would feel better once they were out of his system.

He hadn’t really paid attention, muttering something about needing to sleep and tuning the other man’s voice out completely.

It wasn’t just that.

As wavering and elusive as his reasoning was, he recognized that there was more to it.

He hadn’t been himself since Afghanistan.

The ordeal had opened up wounds, old and new, that had been festering for weeks and unbeknownst to all, continued to bleed.

Gary Burns had just poured salt into them.

“Like hell you are,” Danny replied as he helped him settle back down and reached for the controls, raising the head of the bed so that his friend could breathe easier. He gave him a poignant look, as if he knew of the questions Steve needed answers to, or the emotions he couldn’t quite get a grip on. “It’s only been three days, Steve. You’re nowhere near ready to even graduate to solid food. Don’t be the tough guy. God knows how bad it was to find you bleeding on that damn floor...”

Steve heard his voice trail off, pain clearly seeping into it.

Three days…

He had no clear recollection of the events that had led to his rescue or the time following his surgeries but from Danny’s distressed, overprotective behavior it sounded like it had been as traumatic for his team as it had been for him.

He held his partner’s gaze, focusing on his steady, grounding presence.

It hadn’t fully sunk in yet that Danny was alive. Breathing, talking and alive.

Every time he woke up, or his friend walked into the room, Steve looked at him as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. His eyes widened, his breath quickened, and he had to remind himself all over again that what he’d been fed were lies.

Even now that they were next to each other, and he could feel Danny’s hand on his shoulder, he still needed the reassurance that it was all real. That they were safe.

He struggled with sleep for the same reasons.

Despite the pain, the tiredness, and strict doctor’s orders to rest as much as he could he always fought to stay awake, unable to take his eyes off his partner for fear that he would suddenly disappear.

It was irrational, he knew, and yet he couldn’t help it.

“Why’d he lie to me?” he asked softly, knowing full well it wasn’t really a question. The man was a sociopath who got off on fear and control, it was no surprise he had fabricated a story —down to a long, detailed news article— to get under his skin.

Danny scrunched his face into a pained expression and lowered himself back onto the chair. He knew Steve didn’t need an answer, just plain comfort and some peace of mind “Just… forget about him, alright? He’s gone. You just focus on getting better.”

Steve wished it was that easy.

An involuntary shudder passed through him as he lay there, weakened in strength and spirit. He couldn’t stop it. The memories of those terrifying moments were just so, so real.

“Hey. You with me?” Danny asked after a few beats, his reassuring tone laced with concern.

Steve met his gaze with tired, haunted eyes. “Yeah,” he rasped. “I’m sorry, Danny,” he murmured a moment later, looking away.

“For what?”

“Doubting you. You came to help me and I didn’t believe you.”

Danny could’ve sworn he heard his heart breaking at those words. “Steve… buddy, no, there’s— you have nothing to apologize for. You were hurt, and he, uh…he messed with your head. You just got a little confused, is all. If anything, I should be the one to apologize for not finding you sooner.”

Equally horrified at the thought that his partner was blaming himself for something he had no control over, Steve shook his head vehemently. It made the room spin quickly around him, but it was a small price to pay to get his point across. “That’s not your fault, Danny! Burns was smart, before coming to Hawaii he’d escaped justice for years.”

“Still,” Danny replied, his right hand emphasizing that the guilt was there anyway.

Saddened by the pain etched on his best friend’s face, Steve tried to reassure him again. “It’s alright.”

“No, it’s not.”

“I’m trained for this,” he added as further proof that he was glad it had been him locked in the man’s basement.

It was an old excuse; one he’d been repeating to the team ad nauseam in an attempt to justify what they referred to as his ‘self-sacrificing tendencies’. He repeated it to himself too, because cops might not understand the meaning behind it but soldiers did. They knew what they were taught, knew their lives didn’t matter much in the grand scheme of war things. It was all about missions to complete, brothers to protect, civilians to save.

No time to think.

No space for feelings.

Except those feelings were front and center in his mind now, and clearly Danny could see it as well.

Struggling with maintaining his cool after what he guessed were too many days of sleep deprivation and not enough food, his friend regarded him with a fond but exasperated look. “What the hell does that mean?”

Steve shrugged as if it was the most obvious of answers, yet found himself having a hard time finding the right words to explain it. “I’m not… I’m a soldier, Danny.”

“So?”

“So I can’t… I’m not supposed to…”

“What? Have feelings?”

There it was.

“Yeah,” he admitted in defeat.

Danny slid forward in his chair, reached over and wrapped his hand around Steve’s forearm. “Steve, as much as I tell you otherwise you’re not an animal, or a machine. You’re a human being. You’re allowed to be upset or—or scared. No one’s gonna judge you for that. I’m not gonna judge you for that.”

It was the truth.

In the four years they’d partnered together, Danny had voiced his dislikes countless times but never judged him. Ever. Steve knew he could trust him with his feelings like he did in the field with his life.

“I know.”

“So let me in! Talk to me, man. Don’t bottle it all up. I know you’ve been struggling since you came back from Afghanistan, with Catherine being gone and—and … everything that happened. I’m here. You can open up to me if you want.”

Steve bit his lower lip and gave him a slight nod, his bruised face vulnerable but openly trusting. It was all he could give at the moment, at least until he felt better.

Danny understood, reading between the lines of his thankful look.

“What do you say you get some sleep, huh? The doctor won’t be here for another two hours.”

“M’ not tired,” came the immediate reply.

Even as Steve said it, they both knew it was a lie. His lids were heavy, his chest was tight, and a bone-deep fatigue had settled into his body, weighing all limbs down. Mentally, he felt restless and unsure, as if there was a bright red neon sign in his brain flashing ‘not safe’ over and over again. The thought of falling asleep terrified him, and he blamed himself for allowing Burns’ cruel taunts to affect him like that. It was disconcerting how easily the sharp mind he’d always relied on had slipped and continued to trick him into not feeling secure.

Turning his head slowly to the side, away from his friend, he closed his eyes and focused on the steady flow of cool, clean air into his nose, trying to shut out the feelings and the images keeping him awake.

20 minutes later

“You know, I can always tell when you’re not sleeping.”

Steve was facing away from him, but Danny had known him long enough to recognize when he was faking. Grace did the same thing every time she found a book she liked. She’d pretend to be asleep, and then use the flashlight she had sneaked under the covers to start reading again once Danny had tucked her in.

Only Grace was a ten-year-old who still believed in fairytales, and his partner a full-grown adult trying to recover from something much, much bigger than him. Two attempts on his life in such a short time was no joke. Whatever he needed, be it extra time to process everything or space to try and tackle it on his own, Danny wasn’t going to deny it.

His gaze lingered on the bruised needle marks on Steve’s arm and neck, and he was reminded of the doctor’s advice to tread lightly as the last of the drugs cleared from his friend’s system. The blood work had revealed a high level of opioids and stimulants. Mixed, they’d kept Steve awake and somehow aware but unable to fight back or try to escape.

No wonder he had been so messed up and out of it.

“Hey,” Danny said softly when their eyes finally met.

“Hey,” Steve repeated with a tired, haunted gaze.

“You can talk to me, Steve.”

The heartfelt plea only magnified the guilt tightening Steve’s chest. “I…” he tried, but the words got stuck in his throat. He wanted to open up to Danny, share the burden he was carrying, but what was he going to say? He had no idea how to even start explaining how he felt, just that the pressure was too much to handle and he was about to break. “Nothing,” he eventually said, pushing everything down again and schooling his expression into steely, military blankness. “It’s nothing.”

Danny sighed, half expecting the reply. “It’s not nothing. It’s clearly something if it’s affecting you like this.”

Steve laid back against the pillow and let his gaze wander past his friend to the patch of sky outside his hospital room. Several minutes passed as he stared sightlessly at it, blowing out long, calming breaths while the magnitude of what could have been crashed down on him. It was a strong, powerful feeling, magnified by the memories that his brain was recovering now that he was more alert. The intensity of it scared him, as did the certainty that had Danny really died at Burns’ hand, he would’ve lost all purpose and direction, and maybe sought death as well.

“He said he’d killed you,” he whispered in a strained voice, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment before looking back at his friend. “You think I wanna talk about that? Remember what it felt like?”

Danny shook his head, not trusting himself to speak. Out of all the traumas Steve had endured, the thought of losing him was what had hurt him the most?

He scrubbed a hand over his face and stood up, walking over to the window.

It was a heavy burden to live with. Not because he didn’t feel the same, but because it came with the responsibility of having to live up to it, of accepting that another person’s well-being depended on him being his best self to function and keep going. Heavy, but also easy, because as much as he berated him and complained about him, Steve had changed his own life for the better, bringing out that light, carefree side he tended to keep hidden from view.

Danny was the best version of himself when Steve was around, and it was humbling and oh-so rewarding to be just as special for him too.

“I’m sorry, man,” he said softly, staring at the ocean in the distance. A rainbow stood over it, painting the sky with its bright, vibrant colors. Was it a promise of hope and a brighter future or just an optical illusion set out to deceive?

He went quiet after that, long enough to feel Steve’s eyes watching him, tracking his every move. His face was thoughtful, his eyes clouded with concern. Danny sensed that there was more to that look, something else his friend needed to let out, so he slowly walked back to the bed, hands thrust deep in his pockets, an encouraging smile on his face.

It gave Steve the push he needed to unload some more weight from his burden.

“I can’t… I don’t wanna lose you, Danny,” he admitted quietly, bowing his head as the truth slipped from his lips. “And I can’t fall asleep because I’m terrified this is all a lie and I’m still locked in a basement somewhere or a fucking cave in the desert…”

His heart pounded as he spoke, his whole body tense like it was readying to flee.

Had he said more than he should have?

It was certainly more than he was willing to admit, and he kept his gaze down as his breath caught up in his throat at the potential fallout of his moment of weakness.

Danny sat down on the bed and reached for his good hand, gently unfolding the fingers curled tightly around the sheet. “Then let me help. Let me sit right here and watch over you as you rest.”

Steve looked up, studying his friend’s face with an urgency that betrayed both his need and disbelief. No one in his life had ever chosen him. Not unless they needed something in return. Danny had a life, a daughter he could spend time with that was the center of his world, and yet was willing to stay there with him in his time of need.

Like he mattered.

Like he was the only option when he shouldn’t even be an option.

Be it North Korea, Afghanistan, or a dull room in a nondescript hospital, that truth still baffled him every time.

“Just sleep, alright?” Danny repeated, rubbing his thumb lightly over the bruised skin. “I’m not going anywhere.”

And Steve did.

He relaxed into the pillow and soothed by his friend’s touch, finally allowed his tired body to rest, knowing that beyond any doubt, Danny would be there to keep him safe.

“I wanna give a statement.”

“What?” Danny replied with the shocked tone of someone who had understood the words correctly but was refusing to believe them.

“Call the team for debriefing. I’m ready.”

The slight tremor in Steve’s voice betrayed him, but his eyes were clear and alert. They fixed on Danny, pinning him with a determined stare.

“No, you’re not! Steve, it’s too soon…”

“Danny—”

“We don’t need it, alright?” Danny insisted, hands waving madly around as he failed to keep his composure. “The guy’s dead. He was a psychopath. End of story.”

Steve sighed. After-action reviews had always been an obligation for him whether he liked it or not, ingrained in his history as a soldier and team leader. Only this wasn’t a mission, and no one was rushing him to tell his story. The Governor had made it clear that he could take all the time he needed, and his team was running interference with the Feds so that they’d leave him alone until he was ready.

Still, out of a sense of duty and the need to put the whole ordeal behind, he felt like it was time to face what had happened.

Head on.

Like the battle-hardened SEAL that he was.

Even if it hurt.

“These memories…” he tried to explain, “They’re getting in the way. I have to do this. Please…”

Danny wasn’t ready.

Not in the slightest.

He tried to tell himself that he was doing it for his friend, who had just woken up from a fitful sleep and didn’t need to relieve what he had just seen, but truth was he didn’t want to hear how badly Steve had been hurt, how much he’d had to suffer before taking matters into his own hands while they ran around chasing useless evidence. What little he had seen and heard was already seared into his brain like a gory tattoo that no artist could fix. There was no point in getting the whole picture.

No one was going to question their actions.

No one was going to miss the bastard.

But Steve needed to talk, so Danny rubbed his hand across his forehead, pinched the bridge of nose, and let him talk.

He learned about the surprise attack that had caught Steve unaware on his way to the front door, about the ‘game’ and the punishments delivered after every question he’d asked. About the moment that had changed everything, when Burns had showed him goddamned pictures of a blown up building and body bags lined up on the asphalt.

There were pauses, and frequent silences. Some words were whispered, others spat out with raw anger that bordered on hatred and disgust, but Danny never pushed, allowing Steve to set the pace and be in control.

Somewhere along the narrative the memories got hazy, and even more confused towards the end when Steve started to recount his final confrontation with the man. The timeline didn’t add up with Danny’s own memories of the events. Steve got agitated then, down to being threatened with sedation, until Danny realized that Burns must’ve bent it as he pleased, speeding it up and slowing it down to mess with his partner’s head.

It made him wish he had been the one to take him out, but he chose to redirect all that pent-up energy to the present, to making sure the most stubborn, frustrating, loyal, caring man he had ever met got the help that he deserved.

One week later

Steve lifted the crime scene tape and ducked under it, heading for the nondescript house on the outskirts of Manoa.

Hobbling on his crutches, he covered the short distance from the metal gate to the front door, occasionally glancing over his shoulder to make sure no one was around.

He couldn’t tell what had brought him there; why, of all places, he’d chosen the one that had caused him pain. An intense need for closure, maybe. Proving to himself that he was still whole and could handle whatever life threw at him. The Navy’s advice to recover from trauma was to face problems head on so there he was, on the porch of Burns’ rental, balancing unsteadily on his good leg.

Exposure therapy at its finest.

He had escaped Danny’s watchful eye by taking advantage of an unplanned grocery run. Despite his friend’s constant presence, the days had become long and unbearable at home. Stripped of the very thing that kept him sane, his job, stuck in a house full of ghosts and unwanted memories, Steve was too often alone with his thoughts, and while his physical wounds were healing nicely, he felt like he’d taken three steps back when it came to his mental health.

Grover had suggested the same support group he had started going to before Afghanistan, hoping that it would help him like it had with Freddie’s death, but he couldn’t find the energy to care or stand the vulnerability that such a confession would bring.

His injured limb throbbed, admonishing him for yet another poor choice. Steve pushed the feeling into the deepest corner of this mind, and with more effort than he would’ve liked, climbed the three steps to the front door.

An eerie stillness hung around him. The wind had died, noises had quieted down. Even the birds had stopped singing. Steve propped one of the crutches against the wall and reached for the holster at his side, feeling the reassuring weight of his SIG. Even if he couldn’t hold it because of the damn crutches, the mere idea that it was there put him at ease.

The phone vibrating in his pocket broke the spell of those frozen seconds. Steve jumped, heart thumping in a chest that felt already too tight. He knew it was Danny asking where the hell he was. His partner hated being left in the dark and was the best detective he had ever met. It wouldn’t take long until he tracked the device and showed up, arms waving, to rip him a new one.

Chewing the inside of his cheek, he took one last glance back at the sleepy neighborhood to make sure he wasn’t attracting unnecessary attention and slipped inside the house.

Warm afternoon rays streamed through the windows as he looked around, his eyes bouncing from one spot to another. It was as foreign as it could be. He had been unconscious when Burns had carried him inside, and too out of it when EMS had wheeled him out, so he had no memories of anything else besides the basement.

Holding the crutches firmly between his ribcage and arms he hopped forward, taking careful, short steps across the kitchen/living room area.

Nothing in the meticulously neat space indicated that its former tenant was a deranged serial killer or relayed the horror that he’d lived. It was just a normal residential house with hardwood flooring, solid wood cabinets and quartz countertops.

Steve’s stomach churned anyway, his breathing accelerating despite the effort to keep it steady. He was starting to regret the decision, but now it was too late to go back.

When he spotted the open door to the basement his skin started to prickle, and a wave of dizziness almost made him lose his balance.

He didn’t back down.

Lips pressed in a grimace, he tightened his grip on the crutch handles and moved forward until he reached the flight of wooden steps going downward.

This was it.

Memories stirred, drying his mouth and making his insides quiver, and he had to remind himself that he was safe, that despite the tingling in his limbs it had been his choice to be there.

Nonetheless, it took him a few minutes to gather the strength to go down. With his limited mobility it proved to be a challenge, his body quick to remind him that he wasn’t fully healed and should’ve probably avoided the strain.

He paused at the bottom of the stairs to let his eyed adjust, feeling antsy and fraught.

An open space encased by brick stone walls stretched before him, filled with mismatched furniture, utility shelves, old boxes and everything you’d expect to find in a basement.

Steve found the light switch and a row of oval caged lights flickered above his head, adding to the unsettling vibe. He took a long, calming breath in the semi darkness, nodding as if to grant himself silent permission to proceed. Adrenaline tightened his muscles and narrowed his field of vision to a tight circle in front of him. At the end of it, the entrance to his prison, cordoned off by more strips of yellow police tape.

His heart raced inside his battered chest, the hurried thud seeming to echo off the walls and reverberate around the confined space in all its twisted, stereophonic glory.

Hobbling on autopilot along the cracked cement floor, he stopped again on the cell’s threshold just as the flickering lights became steady beams, illuminating the room, and paled at the sight of the dark, crimson stain of his own blood in the middle of it.

Suddenly he was back in there, reliving the suffocating feeling of the sack over his head and the musty, rank smell that had filled his nostrils for days.

One of the crutches clattered to the floor, and afternoon turned into night.

Danny liked rules.

They set boundaries and made life easier.

In civilized societies, common-sense rules were at the base of human interactions and, in order to work properly, needed both parties to abide by them. Sharing vital information on one’s well-being, or lack thereof, was one of those unspoken principles, and he expected others to do as he would.

That was before he’d met Steve McGarrett, who seemed to follow his own set of questionable rules and thought he could bend the rest as he pleased. Two days out of the hospital, his gigantic putz of a partner had left the house while he was picking up groceries for dinner to end up, of all places, back where they’d found him.

It had taken Danny a while to realize that he was missing. When he had first called him from the store and got his answering machine, he’d wrongly assumed he was asleep. Only an hour later, standing in Steve’s bedroom with a glass of water and the latest round of medications in hand, he’d finally found out that he was gone. From there, it had been a blur of frantic calls and a reckless drive to Manoa to find him in Burns’ basement, standing on the threshold of his torture chamber with pasty-white features and a precarious balance.

With all due respect for everything Steve had been through and all the patience and understanding that entailed, Danny wanted to punch him in the face.

“How’d you get here?” he asked, trying —and failing—to get his emotions under control.

Steve’s head shot up at the sudden voice and he blinked if he had just noticed where he was. It was clear he hadn’t heard him coming down the stairs. Arms crossed, Danny watched his friend lean against the wall and rub his hands over his face to pull himself together.

“Cab.”

“Cab…” He shook his head, both marveled and annoyed at the other man’s resilience. “There was a tear, in your arterial wall, Steve. A tear that took three hours to fix. A tear that you already opened up once when you woke up in the hospital and tried to fight us. Do you want to walk again? Because that’s what you’re risking ignoring doctors’ orders!”

“You’re being dramatic…”

“I am not being dramatic!” Danny countered, raising his right hand up, palm open. “You’re not supposed to even stand on your feet, let alone walk on that leg!”

Steve was pale, drawn, his appearance showing every single one of his sleepless nights.

“I couldn’t stay in the house,” he whispered. “I needed to…”

“You needed to what?”

A fiery spark lit Steve’s eyes, showing a glimpse of the formidable warrior underneath the troubled man. “I don’t know, Danny, okay? I don’t know what I need!” He shouted, angry and frustrated. “I just wanted to get out of the house!” The outburst went as quickly as it had come, leaving him weak-kneed and out of breath. If it wasn’t for the crutches literally holding him up, he would’ve likely ended up on the floor.

“I’m sorry,” he added, heaving in a sigh. “I didn’t mean to raise my voice.”

Danny was on edge too, unable to stand still, but whatever anger he was holding on to was annihilated by the look of utter dejection on his best friend’s face. He waved his hand in a dismissive gesture, knowing that the anger was just a shield for pain, like a cornered soldier throwing out grenades, desperate and scared for his life.

“What do you say we get out of here?” he offered, eager to go back upstairs and out of the house.

If it was up to him, he’d burn the whole place to the ground.

Steve gave him a slight nod but made no attempt to move.

“You were right,” he mumbled after a few, tense moments.

“Hm?”

“You were right,” Steve repeated, a bit louder and with a distinct tremble that raised Danny’s concern up a notch. “I’m not okay. I’m… I’m a fucking mess.”

“Steve…”

“I haven’t been myself since…you know. And then this happens.”

Moving closer, Danny placed his hand on Steve’s shoulder.

“Listen to me. You survived, alright? You’re alive, and that’s what matters.”

“Burns didn’t break you,” he went on to add softly when he realized that his friend didn’t count living as a win.

Steve dropped his gaze. “He got pretty damn close… He’s been to my place, Danny. Inside my house. He drank beer and touched my stuff as if he owned it.”

Danny nodded, disgust clearly plastered on his face. The house had been violated before, and yet the thought of the son of a bitch walking around it, arranging things to mislead them while his friend was unconscious just outside the door, sickened him to the core. Steve had every right to be upset about it. “I know. I’m sorry.”

”We never found the other victims…”

”We will,” Danny said resolutely. “We won’t stop looking until we do.”

Desperate to make his friend feel better, he racked his brain for something to say.

“You, uh…remember when we were trapped in that building?”

Steve winced.

Of course he did. Another unfortunate event that had almost killed his friend.

“Remember what I did? Nothing. I just sat there and felt sorry for my life. The whole time. I was scared, I was hurting, but I didn’t do a damn thing to try and make things better.”

“Danny—”

“No. Let me finish. Now, remember what you did?”

Steve didn’t answer that either.

“Everything. You did everything you could to get us out of there. You were just as afraid and you weren’t doing so good yourself, but you took that fear and channeled it into action because that’s who you are, babe. You never give up. We’re gonna get you help, and you’re gonna get better because you’re the strongest man I know and you never back down from a fight.”

The doubtful look Danny received in reply was both disturbing and heartbreaking.

Steve placed value on any random stranger’s life before his own, convinced that it was worth nothing unless he was sacrificing it for others. He gave 110% to whatever task he had to complete, be it cooking breakfast in the morning or leading men into battle, and couldn’t fathom the idea of not having control.

It was the reason why his usual coping strategies had failed this time and he was struggling so much. Burns, and the Talibans first, had stripped that control from him, exposing his vulnerable side —which, in turn, had led to guilt and self-loathing.

That kind of ingrained conviction didn’t magically disappear, nor was it easy acknowledging that some things were just bigger than him and couldn’t be fixed. Steve was going to have to learn to live with it, balance it with his new reality, and accept his frailties as part of him being human.

Danny saw him rocking unsteadily in his place, clearly in pain and reeling from exhaustion.

“C’mere,” he said, opening his arms and wishing his friend would love himself as much as he did —fiercely, protectively, unconditionally.

A moment later, Steve was in Danny’s arms. Unable to hug back because of the crutches and his precarious balance, he just sagged into the embrace, resting his forehead on his friend’s shoulder.

Grabbing the nape of his neck, Danny pulled him in even further, splaying his fingers across Steve’s back. He held him without a word, allowing their mutual grief to fill the space between them.

“I’d really, really like to leave now…” he said after a while, partly to break the tension and partly because the place was creeping him out.

Steve couldn’t help the laugh that escaped his lips.“Yeah. Yeah, we can go now.”

He reluctantly pulled away from his partner’s arms, spared one last look at the room that had fueled his nightmares, and slowly limped towards the stairs.

“You need help, SuperSEAL?” Danny called as he took his phone out of his pocket and texted Chin with an update.

Found him.
On our way home.

“I can walk up a flight of stairs, Danny,” came the expected reply.

Shaking his head, Danny motioned for him to go ahead, debating whether he should make a quick detour to the hospital to have Steve’s leg checked for damage. He stood close behind, ready to catch him if he slipped, marveling once again at his friend’s resilience and that annoying stubbornness that was sure going to put him in an early grave.

As they ascended from darkness to light and out to safety, Danny found himself smiling.

He couldn’t stay mad at Steve even if he wanted to. The bond they shared was so deep it went beyond time, space, and any obstacle blocking their way.

A bond that would link them together, forever.

And if forever fell apart, the memory of it would be perpetuated by the same fate that had crossed one’s path with the other.