A/N: This is a continuation of A Little Piece of Jersey, if you want to start at the beginning. s/11666119/1/A-Little-Piece-of-Jersey

So many thanks to readers who left kind reviews and asked for more of Jax and Steve.

It wasn't unusual for either or both of them to wake up a bit disoriented. Too many missions, too many close calls . . . too many concussions, for that matter. Now, though, they didn't wake up alone, and it was usually easy to tell what kind of night it had been, even without specific memory.

If the night had been one of peaceful sleep, Steve usually had to wriggle his left arm a little, to get the circulation going, because Jax's head was nestled on his shoulder, his arm around her, holding her gently. On those mornings, it was usually Steve's alarm that woke them, and sometimes Jax would join him for part of his morning swim, and then be waiting for him with coffee when he was finished. Or the idea of a swim would be abandoned altogether, and the rest of the team would smirk knowingly at them as they arrived a few minutes late. It wouldn't be so damn obvious if Kono would quit fist-bumping Steve. Sometimes Chin really wondered if Kono should have spent more time with their female cousins growing up.

If Jax's sleep had been plagued with nightmares, she usually woke up curled tightly on her side, with Steve wrapped around her; his long, muscled limbs curved around her, making her feel safe. His face would still be tucked into her hair, from where he had drifted off while whispering soft phrases of comfort and assurance. He could imagine the horror of 9/11 in vivid, brutal detail, as her tortured mumblings about falling bodies and burning buildings were seared into his mind. Sometimes he could remind her that Danny was still alive and okay, and that she'd see him in a few hours, and she'd settle back into sleep. When she called for Billy or Jake, he could only hold her tight and whisper the words that he hadn't yet brought himself to say out loud in waking hours. But when he caught an elbow to the ribs, or a knee to the groin, he did his best to dodge the punches and wake her as quickly as possible, before her harsh cries turned to whimpered pleas, of no and stop and God, not again . . . because those broke his heart into a thousand pieces.

If Steve had been reliving any number of classified missions in his sleep, he would often wake up with a jolt, well before his alarm. Jax's hands would tighten around him, even in her sleep; one hand over his heart, the other usually tucked under his head, fingers tangled in his sleep-mussed hair. Her lips would brush against the back of his neck as she murmured to him; her voice and touch calming his racing heart and mind. She knew more about Afghanistan than she ever wanted to know; could imagine the sand, the heat. When he called out for his father, for Freddie, she wept for people she'd never met, and whispered promises she could never keep; promises to always be okay, to never leave him, to never be taken away. She knew there were people walking the earth that she would gladly kill with her bare hands if given the opportunity; although she would deny any knowledge of their very classified existence.

So when Steve woke up with a jolt, in the pitch dark, and there was no gentle pressure around his chest, no soothing fingers stroking absently through his hair, he automatically reached behind him. Nothing. No quiet, sleep-graveled voice mumbling in his ear, no soft brushes of air across the back of his neck. The next thing he missed was the familiar and comforting scent of honeysuckle and gunpowder which inevitably transferred from her pillow to his. Come to think of it, there was no pillow. His head was resting on the floor. He pulled his arm back in front of him to feel . . . not his floor. Cold, unyielding . . . smelling of antiseptic . . . and blood.

"Jax," he rasped, trying to use his other arm to push himself up and collapsing again, biting back a groan of pain.

There was a sharp sound, and dim light filled the room. Back-up generator, he registered somewhere in the back of his mind. And then . . . Danny.

Danny. The smell of blood was coming from Danny. Exsanguination, his brain helpfully supplied. Damn the word-a-day calendar, Danny.

A burst of adrenaline allowed Steve to completely ignore the shooting pain in his arm, and he launched himself toward Danny. His best friend and partner was bleeding profusely from a deep gash in his side, and another over his eye, slumped against the wall of a . . . cell. He noted the solid door. No sliding bars. A protective custody cell, then, designed to keep someone in and keep others out, at the same time.

Halawa Correctional Facility. Partial memories came flooding back to Steve in flashes. They'd come to transfer a high-priority prisoner; a federal prisoner in protective custody, maximum security. The entire team had been tasked by the governor to move Declan Novak from Halawa to Hickam Air Force Base for a secure flight back to the mainland, where he would testify - in exchange for a reduced sentence, naturally - against one of the most lucrative arms trafficking rings in Eastern Europe.

Steve had been chasing Novak when he'd been pulled off the case and sent to track down an even bigger player, Anton Hesse. The other team assigned to Novak had lost him somewhere in Uzbekistan, and it had been a complete fluke that he'd been nabbed by a customs agent in Honolulu, when an ivory-handled knife caught their attention.

As Steve desperately wrenched a pillowcase from the pillow on the cot next to Danny, and pressed it against the wound, he started to seriously doubt that Novak's detention by customs was a fluke. It was starting to feel like a set-up. He remembered arriving at the facility, checking in with the guards, and gearing up with the team. He remembered Novak's smug smile . . . and then nothing.

"Danny, Danny," Steve said, patting Danny's cheek. "Come on, buddy, you with me?"

Danny groaned and swatted at Steve's hand. Steve continued to put pressure on Danny's wound with one hand, while the other slid behind his head and cushioned it from the unforgiving cinderblock wall.

"Steve," Danny grunted. "Stop smacking me around, you Neanderthal."

Steve grinned in relief. "Danny, hold still, you're leaking pretty fast, here."

"Why do you say that? You and Grover both. That some sort of Army lingo?" Danny grumbled.

"Navy," Steve corrected automatically. "And I don't know, maybe it sounds less terrifying than you're bleeding way too much, Danny. Hold. Still." Steve wrenched away a second pillowcase, and then efficiently tore a sheet into strips. "Hang on," he warned, as he folded the second pillowcase, pressed it on top of the first, and then wrapped Danny's ribs as tightly as he dared.

Danny hissed in pain. "Shit, Steve."

"Sorry, Danny, I've got to get this bleeding stopped until we can get you fixed up," Steve apologized. "Danny, what happened?"

"You don't remember?" Danny asked, but he was nodding his head as if it made sense. "Just as we turned the corner to Novak's cell, all hell broke loose. Electricity went out, cell doors flew open, and you started yelling at Chin and Grover to get the girls the hell out. One guard clocked you over the head and you went down hard."

"On my shoulder," Steve guessed, based on the constant ache radiating from his shoulder.

"Yeah, you hit shoulder first and then your head made contact. Thunk, like the giant melon that it is," Danny said.

"Who got you?" Steve asked.

"Random prisoner, I have no idea," Danny said, wincing. "Wasn't a knife, I know that. It was a shiv. Then there was a flashlight slammed into my face and then . . . here we are."

Steve nodded and tore another strip of sheet to press against Danny's eye.

"Do you think the girls got out?" Danny asked quietly. "They'd kick my ass for calling them girls, I know. And they'll both be furious with you for trying to shove them back, trying to get Chin and Grover to get them out. But do you think it worked?"

They could hear muffled sounds of shouting and chaos. Steve carefully tested the door. Locked - no surprise. He quickly scanned the room for any possible exit, knowing it was fruitless. Maximum security. Protective custody.

"Damn it," he muttered.

"Steve . . ." Danny said again.

"I don't know, Danny," Steve said harshly. "I don't know if they got out." He stopped, leaned his aching head against the door. "Sorry, Danny. I hope they got out. But I just don't know."

"So, Novak?" Danny guessed.

"No doubt about it, Danny. The question is, did Novak set this up to get to me, or did someone else set this up to get to Novak?" Steve wondered aloud, rubbing the back of his head.

Danny looked up as they heard briskly approaching footsteps. They were about to find out.