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“Danny…”
Danny Williams was deep in sleep, yet still heard his partner say his name. Anxiety startled his body awake. “Steve?” Danny rotated his head to the right. Behind the chess game they’d abandoned on a rolling table between them, Steve lay on his back in his hospital bed. The only light in the room at 2am came from the various instruments and monitors. But despite the dimness, Danny could still make out his partner’s face. Steve’s eyes were closed. As Danny watched, Steve squirmed under his covers and made an accidentally-bit-into-a-lemon face.
“Danny… Danny, no…”
“Oh, no,” Danny muttered. “Not another nightmare.” He bike-pedaled his sheet and blanket off. His doctor had just started weaning him off the “good” pain killers that day, and the Tylenol barely took the edge off, so Danny couldn’t stifle a groan when he shuffled to the edge of the mattress.
“Not Danny - not Danny, no…”
“I’m coming, I’m coming,” Danny grunted at his sleep-talking best friend. He got on his bare feet, adjusted his hospital gown (and his hair) and shuffled over.
Steve rotated his head back and forth and frowned deeper. He said a few indecipherable phrases, then gripped his blanket like it was a ladder. “Don’t let him die, don’t let him die…” he mumbled.
“Ok, that’s new.” Danny hadn’t heard Steve say those words before. And he didn’t realize until he was sitting down on the edge of the bed that Steve wasn’t just moving and talking in his sleep. He was crying, too. Both cheeks were soaked. “That’s new, too,” said Danny to no one. “Huh.”
“Please, not him,” Steve begged. “Not Danny…”
“Steve.” Like he’d done so many times in recent nights, Danny gripped Steve’s arm (under the bandages protecting the bullet wound in his bicep) and squeezed. “Babe, wake up. We’re not on the plane anymore. You’re not on the plane. You’re all right.”
Steve leaned away from Danny’s touch. “Not him,” he whispered. More tears flowed and he said with a sob, “Please, not Danny! PLEASE!”
Danny stiffened, then froze - except for chewing on his bottom lip. “You’re not dreaming about the plane this time, are you?” Danny rubbed Steve’s arm, took his hand, then gave his whole upper body a shake. “Steve. Steve!”
Steve began to sweat. The tears wouldn’t stop. “Let me die!” Steve insisted. Then he outright shouted, “LET ME DIE!”
“STEVE!” Danny scooted a couple inches when Steve tried to push him away. “Ah, no. Don’t make me do it. Don’t make me do the thing.” Steve started sobbing so hard that his body shook the bed. Danny expected him to struggle to breathe and break his stitches any second. “It’s your fault,” Danny told his sleeping partner. “I’m going to hate myself for doing this, and that’s your fault, too.”
Steve trembled, whimpered. Danny sighed. Then he took a deep breath. “MCGARRETT!” Danny bellowed in his deepest, loudest voice. “ON YOUR FEET, SAILOR!”
Steve was sitting up before he was even awake. He tried to swing his legs off the bed but Danny turned and pushed down hard on his knees. The door behind him opened and two nurses jogged in. “It’s ok!” Danny assured them. “We’re all right. Thank you. Thanks.” The nurses looked at each other then, with only a nod, retreated from the room. Danny turned back to Steve.
Danny expected to find Steve sitting up straight (possibly saluting), red-faced, flaring his nostrils and glaring at him with dagger-eyes. What he found was Steve bent at the waist with his face in his hands, shaking.
“Steve? Babe!” Danny grabbed his partner by both wrists, but neither pulled nor pushed. “What’s wrong? You sick? You hurt? Hey! HEY!” Steve’s fingers slid down and he peeked over the tips of them. Danny’s face and voice immediately softened when he saw that the tears hadn’t stopped. “Hey,” he whispered. “What’s wrong?” Danny put his palm against the side of Steve’s head. “I really need you to use your words right now, babe. I’m about to freak out.”
Steve suddenly lunged forward. His incision collided with Danny’s identical one and both men yelped. But then Steve had his arms around Danny and his face against Danny’s shoulder and both of them forgot the pain instantly. Danny wrapped his arms around Steve - one around his head and the other under his arm, across his lower back.
“Aww, babe,” Danny whispered when a particularly loud sob from Steve shook them both. “Bad one, huh?”
“I…” Steve spoke with a narrow throat and a stuffed up nose. “They were, uh… They were taking out your h-heart. To give it to me - transplant it. And I kept just SCREAMING at them to stop. And you were looking right at me but you weren’t scared, Danny, you had this smile on your face like you were at peace and I was so ANGRY and TERRIFIED and I kept begging them to let me die instead…” Steve inhaled so deeply that when he exhaled hard, the air blew right through Danny’s gown.
Danny folded his lips into his mouth and pressed his face against Steve’s hair - a kiss, but also not. “Buddy, I’m right here. I’m right here alive in your arms. I’m ok. We’re ok.”
“D-Danno…” Steve’s arms suddenly fell. His hands landed on the mattress, palms up. And then the rest of his body went limp.
“Whoa, whoa! Easy, buddy.” Danny gently lowered Steve onto his back, returning his head to the pillow. “You do know I’m not supposed to do any heavy lifting yet, S—“ Danny froze - hands on either side of Steve’s shoulders. “Steve? W-Where’s your h-heart?”
Steve McGarrett’s rib cage lay open like parted double doors.
No organs sat inside it.
His eyes saw nothing but his lips smiled.
As invisible arms pulled Danny away, screaming, the lid to the rusty oil drum closed.
“Danny. Danny! DANNY!”
“LET ME DIE!” Danny screamed himself awake to find that the invisible arms touching him were Steve’s. The real Steve’s. And he was Danny. The real Danny. Who had nearly pissed his hospital bed and screamed himself hoarse having the nightmare of all nightmares.
“S-Steve?” Danny hiccuped. He gripped his partner’s gown collar and nearly ripped it. “I… You…”
“Hey, partner, shhhhhh,” Steve soothed, his face inches away. The sky was dark outside the window behind him. The clock on the monitor said 2:00. “You were dreaming, Danno. Just dreaming. I got you.”
Danny knew he was shaking - naked in a blizzard - but he couldn’t stop. He knew he was crying - a hungry baby - but he couldn’t stop. He knew he was squeezing Steve - drowning in quicksand - but he couldn’t stop.
Danny’s brain registered movement, but couldn’t keep up with it. Dizziness forced his eyes closed. Something soft mopped up the flood of tears on his cheeks and something else soft wiped away the sweat across his forehead. His limbs moved left and then right. He recognized the scent of the hospital blanket wrapping around him, and then the different but also familiar scent of something pressed against his cheek. When the movement finally stopped he counted to five and then peeked one eye open. He couldn’t hold in a chuckle when he discovered that Steve had wrapped him up like a burrito, then pulled half of his body into his lap, face against his chest. They barely fit in the bed.
“You’re not supposed to do any heavy lifting,” Danny croaked. He laughed his own personal joke.
Steve didn’t smile. His own hospital gown was twisted. The bags under his eyes and ghost skin had only slightly improved in the eight days since the surgery. He squeezed Danny tighter and quietly said, “You weren’t dreaming about the plane this time, were you?”
Danny closed his eyes and frowned. “I was dreaming that YOU were dreaming. Something about me giving you my heart instead of my liver.”
“Danny, that’s the dream that I had last night. Remember? You woke me up with your worst Joe White impression.”
“Yeah it was like I was reliving that - waking you up and hugging you - but this time your heart was miss—“ Danny, still frowning, looked at his partner. “Wait… And the night before last I dreamed about the plane crash…”
“Which was the night after I dreamed about it.” Steve smiled a tired smile. “Think we’re both awake now or is this Lou’s dream?”
“Come on. That’s not funny.”
“It’s a little funny.”
“All right. It’s a little funny.”
A pause. Then:
“Chess?” Steve suggested. “Or do you want to sleep here wrapped up like a swaddled baby?”
“Chess,” sighed Danny, “because I’m never sleeping again.”
The End