Chapter Text
Disclaimer: Don't own them. Don't make any money from this.
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Love They Say - Tegan and Sara
Love, they say, it heals all wounds,
Love removes the hurt in you,
Love, I know that this is true.
His eyes slowly began to adjust to the light. What little there was seemed to be coming in from above him, and like his current self it was weak . Swirling clouds of translucent dust danced in the sunlight around him. He coughed on reflex, and in doing so he felt a heavy weight against him. Danny was propped up against a hard wall with his legs stretched out in front of him, his bad knee was mildly protesting his position. He titled his head down to see the weight was Steve, laying half way sprawled on top of him. A fine layer of dust coated his dark hair and clothes. A flood of awareness hit Danny like a truck. He didn't remember much of what happened, but none of what he did was good.
"Steve. Steve, buddy. Wake up."
He was so still. Steve was never that still. Danny began to panic. It was the same feeling he would get whenever Steve would do something incredibly stupid like jump off a hotel balcony into a pool, or run off to a foreign country leaving behind only a cold and uninformative note. It was a feeling that made his heart drop and his bile rise. Whenever Danny thought there was a chance he could lose Steve, he would see flashing pops of light before the actual image of Steve would take over in his mind. It was Steve with his wide goofy grin, the one that showed off his gums and made his face look like it was made like it was made of rubber. The one where his eyes would shine down at Danny before he'd
toss his head back laughing. It was something that took Danny months and months to see after they first met. That Steve, Danny first met in the McGarrett garage, was an angry territorial dog barking orders down the barrel of a gun. When he first saw that smile, Danny saw something in Steve that existed long before the Navy and all his family scars. It became something he unconsciously longed for, something he denied how much he reveled in whenever he saw it. He would never admit how many times he thought
about what that smile would look like years from now, when Steve's hair hand gone completely silver and his laugh lines had become a bit deeper. It was moments like these Danny would sell his left kidney to find out.
Steve was dead weight against him. His breathing was shallow and that worried Danny. He assumed in a situation like this, Danny would have woken up with Steve already digging a tunnel half way out of the basement by now. Then Danny remembered something, but he prayed it wasn't real. Everything in his mind from the past day seemed disjointed and out of order. His hands took advantage of Steve's position. Steve's head resting on Danny's chest, his neck somewhat exposed. With a little maneuvering Danny found what he had hoped was just a mess up dream, but it wasn't. There was a needle mark on Steve's neck, right where he remembered the perp stuck Steve with the syringe. He was bent over trying to help Danny up after the first explosion. Naturally, there was more than one explosion involved, because this was Danny's life and that was just how things happened in Danny's life.
With a sigh, he rubbed his palm over the wound and it seemed to rouse Steve. He grunted in pain at Danny ministrations.
"Steve! Wake up! Say something."
Steve drug himself off of Danny like his body were made of lead. He slumped against he wall next to Danny, having much more difficulty getting his bearings then Danny did.
"What happened?"
"Oh, you know the usual."
Danny tried to stay calm, but his cracked voice and rapid breathing spoke other wise.
"My fault," Steve said, with a cough.
"Basically. I'm mean, I'm sure it is. I can't really remember, but this has you written all over it. I remember coming to get the bad guys. There being no time to wait for Chin or Kono. I got cracked with something in the head. You went to pick me up and someone hit you with a syringe. They said something, but I can't remember what….Then boom. We tried to get out and I remembered stairs then another explosion.
"I don't smell a fire."
"No, me neither. This place was abandoned for years, so no gas to worry about."
It was a struggle, but Danny managed to get his phone out his pocket while he was still sitting on the ground. He inwardly cursed himself for wearing such tight slacks. After all his efforts to free his phone, he wasn't surprised as to what he found his display screen.
"Naturally. No service. Why would I why be blessed with service. I will probably have to hike up another damn mountain just to get service."
He tossed his phone to the side for the time being. The chain reaction of muscle movements awakened a sharp pain in the back of his head. Danny let out a sharp hiss and sagged back against the wall.
"You're hurt."
Steve sounded panicked, his slow moving brain started piecing things together.
"I'm good. You I'm worried about."
Steve's eyes were huge and feral as he looked Danny over. The dust clung to the sweat of his exposed skin.
"I'll be fine,"Danny pressed. "but we need to get out of here. Near as I can tell we are in the basement, and if you look over here you will see half of the room gone because first floor is now sitting down on top of the stairs."
Steve jerked his head over at the carnage of plaster and wood. His face a new level of aneurism as he analyzed the situation like covert mission. Danny watched him for several seconds, stunned at his own ability to stay quiet for so long, but something was off. There was something different about Steve. He'd seen him go all Navy SEAL before, but this was different.
Jerking his wrist up to look at his watch, he barked, "The convoy is supposed to met us at the check point at twenty hundred. That doesn't buy us a lot of time to get out of the city."
"The fuck? Steve?"
Danny felt like someone had just dumped a bucked of ice cold water on him. Either he was losing it or Steve was, because he had no idea what Steve was talking about.
"What convoy? What city? We're in the middle of the damn jungle."
"Funny," Steve scowled. "Come on, Bubba we got get out of Baghdad."
"Bubba, Baghdad, what now?"
Steve tried to get himself up on his feet, but on managed to fall back down on his ass. Whatever they had given him still had a hold of him.
"Whoa there big guy. Take it slow!"
Steve looked at Danny like he had three head. Then he eyed Danny, almost studied him like he didn't recognized him. The panic was back. He didn't like what he saw in Danny and it made the color drain from his face.
"You don't sound right, Fred. They hit you harder than I thought?"
"Fred?"
Danny pinched the bridge of his nose and hoped that the suspect was pinned down in the rubble upstairs, only so he could kick them in the head for doing this to Steve. Taking a deep breath, Danny moved closer to Steve, making sure he kept eye contact with him.
"Steve, I don't know what they gave you, but this isn't Iraq and I'm not Freddie. We're in Hawaii and I'm Danny."
"What the hell?"
Steve's face screwed up in and eerily similar version of his own angry confused face.
"We don't have time for games, Hart, let's go. Bullfrog's still out there."
"Shit," Danny muttered under his breath. "No, he's not. No, Bubba, no Bullfrog, just Danny. Me. Daniel. Danno! You're in Hawaii remember. Look at me. Look at the hair. Feel it."
He grabbed Steve's hand and forced it through his mess of blond hair. It was an unruly mess, but a longer than an Navy SEAL regulated mess. Steve dug his fingers into the scalp slightly before jerking away like he had been scorched.
"Danno?"
"Yes, it's me."
"Where's Freddie? Danny, you can't be here! It's not safe! How the hell did you find me! You can't keep following me!"
His voice sounded broken, almost childlike. Danny had no idea what was going on, but this was a conversation he really didn't want to have right now, or ever.
"Freddie isn't here, babe. We aren't in Iraq." Danny said, gently squeezing Steve's shoulder. "Remember you met me after Freddie, passed. You met me after all that. So, if I'm here... Freddie's not. If I'm here, you're home not in Iraq or Afghanistan."
"Freddie, can't be. He was just…"
There was so much confusion in Steve's face. Things were getting out of sequence in Steve's head, even Danny knew that. A sudden sob escaped Steve with great force. The memory of Freddie's death hit him so hard, Danny could almost see it playing in Steve's eyes. It made him hurt, it made him sick to his stomach. He cupped Steve's face in his hands and called his name repeatedly until he looked at him. Steve leaned forward gripping Danny's shoulders like he was going to fall off the face of the Earth if he didn't hold on. Steve lost so many people in just a few months before and right after he and Danny met and Steve seemed to be reliving all of them in fast forward.
"It's over. It's over. You're having some sort of flashback. Whatever they gave you must have triggered it."
"Danno?"
"Yeah, Steve. It's Danno. Where are we? What year? Tell me."
"Hawaii….2013."
"Yes. You with me now?"
Steve dropped his head to Danny's collar bone, but Danny didn't drop his hands until Steve nodded slowly. It took several minutes, but Steve soon settled back against the wall with Danny by his side. Danny stayed close, practically glued to the other man's side.
"I saw…him sitting right there I swear it," Steve said, when he finally looked back to Danny.
Danny's heart broke for the guy. He knew how badly it hurt to watch his old partner Grace die right in front of him. She had been a dear and loyal friend to him, but he didn't think what he and Grace could touched what Steve had with Freddie. However, what Steve had with Freddie couldn't hold and candle to what Steve and Danny now had.
"I'm gonna kill those sons of bitches," Danny promised. "You hear me? If they didn't already blow themselves up! And I hope they didn't just for the fact I want to kill them myself. Slowly."
"It was so real. I've never…well…not like that."
"Do you have that…post traumatic…"
"No," Steve interrupted him sharply. "No."
A coughing fit hit Danny swiftly. All the dust in the air, he was surprised it hadn't started sooner. His lungs were still in good shape, but the sarin attack had left them with a few weaknesses. This time it was Steve who sat up, watching Danny like a hawk.
"We got to get out of here," Steve mumbled.
"Tell me about it," Danny wheezed. "It may take a while before Kono and Chin realize where we went. We were supposed to head to the courthouse after lunch. They could track the GPS once they get suspicious, that is unless our suspects haven't taken my car."
Stumbling up to his feet again, Steve started to look around the room. Danny assessed his own personal injures and joined him. He was stiff and sore, but that seemed to be the extent of it. Steve though took a hit to the head earlier too, plus whatever was in that syringe.
"We got to get out of here and get to Taylor. We can't leave him behind."
He moved dark and menacingly, as he searched the debris. A man on a mission and he was looking to arm himself. The terrifying part for Danny was, in Steve's mind he was a man on a mission.
He found broken pieces of cinder blocks and bounced them in his hand to determine their weight before he looked for a target.
"Steve! Taylor? Taylor who? Nick-ex-SEAL-stab-you-in-the-back- Taylor?"
"Yes," Steve snarled at him ridiculously. "Wait? What?"
His long lean body lined itself up. His chin titled up toward a small window high up on the wall. It was too small for either man to squeeze out of, although at least if it were open the fresh air would help Danny feel a little bit better about the situation. By the light outside, Danny estimated that it was still mid-afternoon. He couldn't ask Steve for the time since he was clearly on another planet.
Bang.
His revere was broken, but the glass wasn't. The block smashed against the very thick glass and came back at them. Steve didn't flinch, of course not, he merely reared back and pitched another one.
"Hey!" Danny roared. "Steve J. McGarrett! What the hell do you think you are doing? Have you lost you damn mind?"
Steve posture dropped instantly and the blocks feel to his feet. He went from solider to child in one second flat. His large green blue eyes were like saucers and his mouth slack opened into a perfect ‘O' shape.
"I'm sorry, sir," Steve whimpered. "but Mary…"
Danny held his hands up to stop him, "Steve, stop. Mary isn't home. She's not here."
Steve darted off for the corner of the room. An old metal cabinet still stood proud amongst the carnage and Steve managed to squeeze his body in between it and the far wall. Danny was beginning to worry about both of them. Steve was crazy on a good day, but Danny still trusted the man with his life. Now, this unstable SEAL, trained killer, could be a problem for both of them if Danny didn't figure out of to control him.
He slowly knelt down in front of Steve, who was had his knees drawn up and his massive arms clutched around them.
"Steven, look at me."
"I'm sorry, daddy."
There was a crack and squeak to his voice that Danny never wanted to hear from Steve. This was hitting below the below the belt for Danny. The suspects were going to wish they were dead when Danny was done with them.
"I didn't want to disappoint you."
"Steve, look at me."
Danny kept his voice soft, even as he saw large tears gather in Steve's eyes. He was so frail in a way that made Danny wanted to bundle him up in his arms and never let him go.
"How old are you now?"
"Ten," Steve said, with a shaky voice.
"Even at ten you wanted to make everyone proud of you," Danny said, with sad fondness. "Look at me Steven, really look at me. Who am I?"
In a painfully slow motion, Steve's head tilted up. His long dark lashes fluttered over his watery eyes, as he examined Danny's face.
"You're Danny. My Danno."
"Right. I'm your partner Danny."
Steve's large hands came up and scrubbed over his face. There was another sob that was muffled by his hands. Danny could feel a break in the air, as the Steve had come back to his right mind. He instantly reached for him, pulling his hands away from his face.
"What's happening to me, Danny?"
"I don't know. Whatever that stuff was it's making you have flashbacks, but recognizing me is bringing you out of them."
"You pretty unforgettable," Steve said, with a tired but frenzied laugh.
"Come on."
Danny tugged at him until he had Steve up and out from the corner. They both examined the room and saw there was no way the could get back out the way the came down. There was no way they were getting out the small window either. The only option was to wait it out and hope Chin and Kono weren't far behind.