Chapter Text
Chapter 1
He must have passed out because the large hands that grabbed him under the armpits and dragged him upwards made him jump in shock. A soft groan escaped his dry throat, a half-hearted attempt to get rid of his attackers caused his arms to fly a little in the air, but the movement caused so much pain that he stopped all resistance with another groan.
The men spoke to each other in Spanish, laughed, and Danny didn't understand a word. They dragged him from the small office where they had kicked him, dragging his toes on the floor, turning his torso and extremities into a single source of pain.
He had heard one or two ribs crack as they kicked him in the back with their heavy boots. He was unsure about at least one of his shins, as well as his forearms, which he had used to protect his face. Not particularly successful, because one eye was almost swollen shut, his cheekbone was throbbing with every heartbeat and there was also a pressing pain in the back of his head. His kidneys were burning like fire and his stomach had also received some heavy kicks.
Through a half-open eye he saw the gray concrete floor pass beneath him. He expected that they would now take him back to the yard and throw him back to the prisoners after they hadn't gotten any money from him.
He wouldn't survive that. But at least he had been able to hear Grace's voice for one last time and tell her how much he loved her. His last thought would be of her. But he still had a moment, he was still being dragged down the corridor, his thoughts could still wander further and Steve's face appeared in his mind's eye, with his goofy grin and shining eyes.
‘Take care of Grace! Please take care of my monkey!' , he pleaded in his mind, barely noticing in his pain-addled delirium that the words were actually mumbled out of his burst lips.
They finally turned out of the hallway into another room and Danny lifted his head as best he could, trying to take in his surroundings, irritated that they weren't taking him back to the cell block or the yard to die. When he discovered the rusty bed frame in the corner with the dirty, darkly stained mattress next to the crammed shelves on two of the four walls, his survival instinct suddenly went into overdrive.
He tried to get his feet under him and then use his full body weight to push himself against the men who were holding him, and in the moment of surprise he actually pushed one of them to the side against a shelf. His grip loosened and Danny tried to free his upper arm from it, but the second man ended the fight before it even started by punching him hard in the stomach.
Danny's torso snapped forward like a switchblade and he would have slammed face first into the concrete floor if the strong hands under his arms hadn't reappeared and held him up.
Helpless, dazed with pain and panic, they dragged him prone onto the mattress, whose smell of urine and mold and who-knew-what-else immediately caused his stomach to cramp painfully. His hands were pulled upwards and before he realized what was happening, handcuffs attached to the bed frame snapped around his wrists.
The men were laughing again, talking over each other and Danny heard snippets of words that made his blood run cold. He didn't know any Spanish, but everyone probably knew a few (expletive) words and vulgar expressions and, combined with his current position, they made him lose all hope.
In a panic, he tried to free himself, tugging at the handcuffs, but he had no chance; a targeted blow to his broken ribs finally made him give up. With the agonized sound of a wounded animal in his throat, his resistance died away, his body and mind too overwhelmed to process the newly fueled pain in his chest.
Then a hand reached into the waistband and yanked.
Sobs wracked his burning chest as the material of his pants finally gave way, whimpering as he begged to be spared. He didn't care how pathetic he sounded, he didn't care if they made fun of him, and he didn't care if they beat him to death. He had finished getting out of here, had accepted that he would die here and that Grace would be safe under Steve's protection, but he couldn't bear this. That couldn't be allowed to happen. Despite everything, he didn't deserve that.
The jingle of a belt buckle snapped him out of his thoughts, sending a new wave of panic rushing through him as the men just laughed and seemed to cheer each other on.
He tried to somehow mentally prepare himself, to steel himself against what inevitably awaited him, but his mind wouldn't let him go there. He closed his eyes, bit his trembling lower lip, and prayed to a God he didn't believe in to at least let him pass out before it started.
***
“McGarrett.”
“Commander, you will be pleased to hear that the Colombians are doing everything in their power to right this minor miscarriage of justice. From what I understand, Detective Williams is already on his way to the airport.”
“Is he okay?”
“I don’t have any information that suggests otherwise and I don’t see why he wouldn’t be okay.”
“I hope for your sake that you are right!”
“I’ll send you the flight data straight away. That’s it. Farewell, Commander.”
*
Steve stood at the gate in front of the large window and waited tensely for the plane that, according to Agent Alexander, the Colombians had put Danny on to take him back home, while he replayed the phone call with the man over and over again in his mind. That slippery bastard.
The head of the task force used his badge to gain access to the security area in the terminal so that he could meet his partner directly at the gangway as soon as he left the plane.
It had torn his heart to be in Colombia and have to fly back without Danny. But they had finally managed, with the information on the USB stick, to force Alexander to get the blonde cop out of the Colombian prison and bring him back, watertight rehabilitation and all.
Still, it didn't feel like a success, not until he knew his friend was back on Hawaiian soil and unharmed. The SEAL had a sick feeling in his stomach as he watched the plane touch down on the runway, slow down, and taxi slowly toward the terminal.
Something wasn't right. The plane did not head for the gate, but rather an apron parking position. He turned to the airline employee standing at her counter, holding a phone to her ear, when he saw something flash in the corner of his eye and snapped his head back with a foreboding feeling.
And sure enough: two ambulances drove directly towards the plane with their lights flashing and Steve watched their arrival with rising panic while the mobile passenger stairs were now being brought into position.
“What’s going on?” he asked the woman in the dark blue uniform, although deep down he already knew the answer.
“There was a medical emergency among the passengers during the landing approach.”
Danny! Damn, it could only be Danny! Did Steve really think the cop would come back from a Colombian prison unharmed?!
“I have to get out there now!” he said emphatically, his eyes already looking for the shortest route to the apron.
“Sir, that’s not possible, you can’t…”
“I can! And I will!” He pulled his badge from his belt and held it under her nose. “THIS says I can! So get me out there right now!” The SEAL was breathing heavily and kept looking over his shoulder through the large window, at the plane in which his partner was sitting.
‘Medical emergency’, echoed in his head. That could mean anything from a minor circulatory collapse to cardiac arrest. Steve tried to block out the last thought, panic wasn't helping. First he had to be sure what had really happened.
The woman across from him seemed to have overcome her initial uncertainty and led him to a nearby door, opened it with her key card and released him into a stairwell that led down to the apron.
He ran across the open space, ignoring all the rules of conduct that applied to traffic on the apron, and finally jumped up the stairs two at a time.
The flight attendant at the top tried to stop him, but Steve simply used his whole body to push him back enough for him to step into the narrow aisle between the rows of seats. Quite far back he saw the rescue workers crouching, standing and even half crouching in the foot area of some seats. From the figure on the floor, that medical emergency , he could only see the shoes and the hem of a pair of trousers.
Steve hurried closer, snatching cell phones from at least five people along the way because they were trying to take photos, and finally stopped as close as possible, although with as much distance as necessary so as not to impede any of the paramedics.
"What's wrong? How is he?" Steve finally asked, trying to get a better look at Danny.
“Sir, please go back to your seat,” one of the paramedics grumbled, glancing over his shoulder at the SEAL, giving him a brief full view of the injured cop.
“Oh God, Danny!” Steve whispered in pure horror. Never in his life had he been so unhappy that his gut feeling had been right.
Danny was unconscious, his face bruised and lacerated behind the breathing mask, one eye swollen shut, and a thin line of fresh blood running from the corner of his mouth to his ear. The rescue workers had cut open his shirt and attached electrodes, and Steve had barely been able to see a square inch of skin that wasn't stained red, purple, or almost black.
‘Someone will pay for this!’ he swore to himself in anger at that very moment.
The beginnings of movement among the paramedics made Steve slowly back away to clear the narrow aisle, and seconds later he was standing next to the flight attendant again, who automatically backed away from him. “What happened during the flight?” the SEAL now addressed the man, still staring down the aisle.
The man cleared his throat nervously before he began to speak. “He... he wasn't in good shape when he got on the plane. But he was able to walk - so he had to hold on to every seat - but he took his seat independently and, after repeated inquiries, insisted that he was fine. The captain talked to him and finally declared him airworthy. His general condition deteriorated in the air, he coughed a lot, seemed to be in pain and was not consistently responsive, but had occasional pauses. On the landing approach he suddenly coughed up blood and collapsed unconscious. We immediately notified the tower and…”
“I want to speak to the captain!” Steve interrupted in his sharpest command tone and underlined his demand with a piercing look into the flight attendant’s eyes, which caused him to take another step back and finally disappear into the small corridor to the cockpit.
Steve didn't look after him, but watched with a grim expression as the paramedics tried to maneuver a stretcher under Danny's body as carefully as possible.
Seconds later, the flight captain appeared next to Steve, his brow furrowed. “I tried to convince him that he would be better off in a hospital, but he wanted to fly on his own responsibility and said that we would get him ‘just over his dead body’ off this plane.”
A growl escaped the SEAL's throat before he turned and looked directly at the man. Danny had certainly used those words, but repeating them, given his current state, felt like a slap in the face and only made him angrier. “Bullshit! It was your responsibility as the captain and Danny would have needed a doctor! He was not flyworthy with his chest injury and the air pressure on a plane, you know that!”
“Sir, with all due respect, on the one hand I did not know the extent of his injuries and on the other hand he convinced me very clearly that he would not get off the plane without a fight and that in turn would probably be even more damaging to his health than the flight itself. He was really desperate.” The pilot sighed briefly and his voice softened a little. "I don't know what happened to him there, but he would have preferred to die rather than have to stay there. That's what he told me and he begged me to take him with me. You want to blame me? Then blame me. But I still think I did the right thing."
It was as if the air had suddenly been taken out of Steve. He could literally see how Danny had fought to get a ride, how he had used all his strength to show off his ability to fly and all the arguments he had to convince the captain.
"You did," he finally admitted after a deep breath, realizing that the man wasn't responsible for Danny's condition and only the misdirected target of his own anger. He finally nodded at the captain, grateful that he had brought his partner home from hell. Then, without another word, he left him to step back into the corridor and check on his partner, who was being strapped to the stretcher.
His helplessness in the face of the situation suddenly overwhelmed him, he had to get out of there immediately, he needed fresh air. His entire chest contracted so violently that he could hardly breathe. He hurried down the stairs, stepping aside and bracing himself with his hands on his thighs as he tried to regain control of himself.
Behind him they finally carried his partner down the stairs towards the ambulance and Steve immediately gathered himself to rush after them. The paramedic, who had previously mistaken him for a passenger, gave him a brief critical look, but thanks to his badge, he finally let him get on and ride with them with a curt nod.
***