"What are you doing here?" he spat.

"Relax, Danny" Joe mollified with a placating hand.

"Haven't you done enough damage for one lifetime?"

Joe brushed aside Danny's scorn and stole a peek at Steve over his shoulder. "How is he?"

"As if you didn't know?"

"Here." Joe handed Danny a small flask.

"Is that...?" Danny asked, eyeing the flask warily.

"The antidote. Tell them two CCs. You should see some improvement within the hour."

Danny placed the basis on the table and took the vial. "Why did you do it?"

Joe slowly walked up to the bed with Danny keeping a wary eye on him. "When you blew my cover back there, I panicked. Everything was crashing down. It was my last-ditch attempt at getting what I wanted. But I realized...it's not worth this," he confessed as he cast a dismal look at Steve with a hand on his forehead. "Despite what you may think, I care a great deal about him. I promised John I'd look after his boy. All these years I went out of my way to ensure his safety and... I wound up being the one to hurt him."

"For the life of me I cannot condone the hell you put him through. So if it's forgiveness you want..."

"I didn't come here to make amends, Danny. We both know we're beyond that."

"What are you going to do now?"

"I'll dig a hole and bury myself in it until the shelling outside dies down. I doubt you'll ever hear from me again."

"As long as you stay at the helm of the Yakuza, Steve will leave no stone unturned to find you."

"For his sake and yours, it's better if he doesn't; otherwise you might get caught in the crossfire and I might not be there to help you dodge the bullets. Steve knows the truth now, no need to pursue this thing any further. I'm just sorry it happened this way. This is not the outcome I was aiming for. I sure didn't want to rob him of his time with his mom."

"Are you really his father?"

Joe pulled out another tiny vial out of his shirt pocket and handed it over to Danny. "Here. This will prove it."

"What about Wo Fat?"

"We'll get him one way or the other, but I just can't involve you. You suffered plenty."

"Is there anyone besides Steve and me who knows about you?"

"Just a handful of associates and they're the ones you should be on the lookout for, but I'll do my best to keep them at bay." He stepped up to Danny and put a hand on his shoulder. "You stick close to him and watch each other's backs. With what you know, I can't guarantee you'll be safe. That's why you need to convince your hard-headed partner here not to run amok and stir up the mud."

"Easier said than done."

Joe started for the door when Danny called out to him.

"Hey Joe," he waited for the man to turn to him. "Thanks," he quavered. Despite his hatred of the man, he was grateful for this sudden change of heart.

"So long, kiddo."

Joe had barely stepped out of the room that Danny went in search of Dr. Kalua to give him the flask with instructions.

H50H50H50H50H50H50H50H50H50H 50H50H50

Morning came. Danny was sleeping with his forehead against his arm, his hand holding Steve's.

Steve slowly pried open his eyes and blinked repeatedly to clear the haze while scanning the room to establish the surroundings. His sight came to rest upon Danny's head propped up against his arm on the bed. A lopsided grin appeared. "Danny," he murmured, licking his dry lips and swallowing hard down his parched throat before cranking up the volume and squeezing his partner's hand, "Hey! Are you planning to sleep all day?"

A head shot up. "What?" Danny yelped before setting sight on two hazel eyes staring at him. "Hey, you awake!" he enthused, wiping the remnant of sleep off with his hand. "How do you feel?"

"Better, much better."

At that moment, Chin entered with a cup of coffee in hand. "Hey Chin! Look who's awake?"

Chin broke into a wide beam. "Steve, welcome back!"

"Thanks."

"Can you fetch the doctor and tell him sweetums' awake?"

"Sure thing. Be right back." Chin left the room.

"Sweetums?" Steve asked, quirking an eyebrow.

"A new pet name for you. The attending nurse took a shining to you and began calling you sweetums. I thought it was cute." Danny smirked. "Want some water?"

"Yeah please."

Danny poured a small amount of water into a glass and adjusted the bed into a sitting position. "Are you comfy?

"Yeah."

"There you go." He handed the glass to Steve who grabbed it with one shaky hand. "I got it." Danny assisted his partner in taking a few sips until Steve nodded he had enough.

"Thanks," he breathed out and laid his head back on the pillow. "What happened?"

"We gave you the antidote."

"How did you get it," Steve asked with a contemptuous look.

"Joe had a pang of conscience and brought me the vial."

Steve lifted his head off the pillow to stare Danny in the eyes. "He was here?"

"Yeah, he came by and...," Danny barely had time to explain that Steve was already trying to get out of bed. "Hey, whoa, whoa, wait...what the hell do you think you're doing?"

"I'm gonna get that son-of-a-bitch."

Danny quickly pressed both hands against Steve's shoulders to thwart his attempt at getting out of bed. "Relax there, Superman. At least wait until they remove all those tubes before you go all ninja on me."

Steve sank back into his pillow and heaved out a sigh of frustration. "We're wasting time."

"Patience. First thing's first."

"What about Wo Fat?"

"I checked. He's still neatly tucked away in his cell."

"Joe's gonna try to break him out," Steve feared as he again, tried to haul himself out of bed.

"Will you just cool it and lie still!" Danny snarled and pushed his partner down on the mattress.

"But I'm fine now," Steve bellyached.

"Now where am I heard that before?" Sarcasm dripped. "Oh yeah, just before you conked out and nearly checked out on us for good," Danny remarked snidely. He glanced up at the monitor. "Besides your temperature is still high at 101."

"Well that's nothing!"

"Cut your body some slack, pally. You were knocking at death's door barely five hours ago and would have gone through the pearly white gates hadn't been for Joe. You know I don't like the man but I'm grateful that he still had a shred of human decency and cared enough not to let you die. I'm sure his cohorts won't appreciate the fact that he saved your life."

Steve reluctantly conceded with a pout. "You're right. I'm sorry," he apologized meekly.

"What was that?" Danny teased, cupping a hand to his ear.

"I said I'M sorry," Steve peevishly raised an octave. In a sidelong glimpse, he spotted a tiny curl of the lip on his partner's face. "Were you smirking just then?"

"I don't know, was I?" Danny toiled to hide his amusement.

"Okay out with it! What has you gloating like an idiot?"

"Well I just realized that this the second time in a week that smart-aleck -know-it-all-never-wrong-super-indestructible-SEAL actually listened to me."

"Yeah, well, enjoy it while you can 'cause it won't happen often," Steve sulked. "This time the exception being that I was sick. So yes I might have let some weak moments slide by." Danny tittered. "I mean it! Wipe that stupid smug off your face!"

"Welcome back, babe." Danny grinned.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah...where's that doctor?"

H50H50H50H50H50H50H50H50H50H 50H50H50

Steve was given a clean bill of health less than forty-eight hours later. He was raring to jump back into the field, but got slapped when his doctor issued a stern warning. To enforce his instructions, Dr. Kalua released him into Danny's care pending any complication or relapse from his near-fatal episode. Steve wouldn't freely admit it to his partner but he enjoyed having him in his house. Mrs. Doubtfire, as he affectionately dubbed him, actually kept him from dwelling on the recent upheaval and going stir crazy, and went as far as shamelessly using Grace's love for the beach as an incentive to convince Danny to overlap his stay.

H50H50H50H50H50H50H50H50H50H 50H50H50

Having made remarkable progress, our two ladies obtained their discharged from the hospital.

Outside the hospital, Steve sat on a concrete ledge absent-mindedly watching passerbys as he waited for the gang to come out. Danny walked up to him.

"You okay?" he asked, taking a seat next to his dazed partner.

"Yeah, I will be. Are they coming out?"

"Yeah in a few minutes. I offered to wheel Kono out but Kamekona insisted. So here I am."

Steve stared out in the distance and with a heavy sigh, said, "I got the autopsy results."

"And," Danny asked cautiously.

Steve pursed his lips to suppress the rising emotions. "She was my mother."

Danny hung his head. "I'm sorry."

"At least now I can give her a proper burial."

"Are you going to tell Mary?"

Steve paused, then with a heavy heart, said, "I should, but how do I tell her? Guess what Mare? Found out our mom had been alive all these years but now she's dead...again. Poor kid. I don't know if I can put her through that. I'm the tough one and look what it did to me?"

"Almost forgot." Danny reached inside his shirt pocket and pulled out the vial containing Joe's blood sample.

Steve eyed the flask suspiciously. "What's this?"

"A sample of Joe's blood. That is if you want to solve that mystery. He gave it to me along with the antidote. I've kept it since that day, dithering whether I should give it to you. But since it's not my decision to make...here it is."

Steve took the flask and stared at it intently. Then he stood and walked over to a shrubbery. "No, I don't want to know," he huffed out, somewhat peeved by the very mention of that possibility. "John McGarrett's the one who raised me, loved me and cared for me. As far as I'm concerned, he was my father," he said as he pulled the rubber lid and poured the content into the soil, careful to cover every last droplet of blood with earth. He then filled the empty vial with sand and buried it deep into the soil.

Danny went to stand by his friend and gave his shoulder a friendly squeeze. "Sound decision."

"I hope so."

"By the way, I just got off the phone with Rachel. Funny thing. She said that Stan got a call from the Governor's office offering him a lucrative job. "

"Did he?"

"They won't have to move from Hawaii after all."

"Hey that's great!"

"Hum hum... you wouldn't know anything about that now would you?"

Steve shrugged and feigned innocence, "No, why would I?"

"No conversation with the governor to call on a particular favor?" Danny razzed, doing his best to coax the truth out of a certain Goodwill Ambassador.

Again Steve shrugged, breaking eye contact with Danny. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Okay then, when and if you find out who it was, could you give him a message from me?" Danny played along, knowing full well Steve was responsible for this sudden turn of event.

"Sure. What's the message?"

Out of the blue, Danny impulsively enlaced Steve in his arms and hugged him tight. "I owe him big."

"He owes you a lot more, believe me," Steve said with tears welling up in his eyes.

"Hey! What d'you say once the dust settles, you and I do something to get our minds off things for awhile?"

"That's a good idea."

"Ok, you choose."

"Well I could use some peace and quiet to purge my demons."

Danny thought for a moment. "Oh no...not there! You almost killed yourself!"

"Danny, it was an accident!" Steve defended.

"You're accident-prone, babe! How about we go to a nice ball game?" Steve shot his partner his trademark aneurysm face, prompting Danny to close his eyes in defeat, "Do we have to hike up there?"

"Of course. Wouldn't be fun if we didn't."

"Having to trudge up a steep hill in sweltering ninety degree weather is not my idea of fun," Danny griped.

"Oh and parking your lazy butt under the scorching hot sun for two hours is?" Steve retorted.

Danny pursed his lips. "You're not going to let me win this, are you?"

"Nop," Steve taunted.

Danny conceded. "Oh oh what I wouldn't do for you, babe...sorry... sweetums!"

Steve broke into a wide grin and gave Danny's shoulder a playful squeeze as he turned to the hospital main entrance to see Kamekona and Chin wheel out Kono and Malia. "There they are!"

"Ladies! Your carriages await!" Danny gallantly motioned to the two cars parked alongside the curve.

"Kamekona has invited us to a gourmet dinner this weekend," Chin informed.

"It's all on me!" Kamekona declared proudly.

"Wow! Big spender. Ah, we are going to a real restaurant, right?" Danny teased.

"Relax Jersey. I wouldn't take my fine ladies anywhere but to a five-star restaurant. The finest French cuisine in all Honolulu."

"No tofu shrimps?" Danny quipped.

"No but I can whip some for you if you like."

"Ah, no thanks."

As Danny helped her out of her wheelchair, Kono noticed a picture slipping out of his shirt pocket. "Hey careful, you're going to lose that," she warned, pointing to an old Polaroid picture.

Danny pulled out the picture from his pocket. "Thanks for telling me. I sure don't want to lose it."

"What is it?" Kono asked.

"That is a picture of our tall, dark and handsome here...with long hair."

"What?" Steve tried to snatch it out of Danny's grasp. "Give me that!"

Danny twitched it out of Steve's reach. "Ah, ah, ah!"

"Where d'you get that?"

"It was a gift from your mom. She thought I'd get a kick out of it and she was right," Danny teased.

"Let me see," Malia asked. Danny happily showed her and Kono the photo. "Ohhhhh you're so cute!" Malia cooed, making Steve blush much to Danny's delight.

"I remember that period. Your father was coming at you with scissors," Chin recalled amusedly.

"Gimme a break, I was fourteen! All boys my age were wearing long hair at the time. I wanted to fit in, you know," Steve defended.

"Yeah I know, the awkward age. Nevertheless this is a weapon and I'm keeping it."

"A weapon for what?" Steve asked, puzzled.

"For just about anything and everything disgustingly embarrassing you might plan to do to me."

"I'm hurt," Steve feigned taking umbrage. "I'm really hurt."

"Nah, you won't make me feel guilty. I'm keeping that picture."

In a bat of an eye, Steve dashed after Danny who anticipated his move and took to his own heels. Unfortunately for Danny, Steve caught up with him in three long strides and grabbed him into a chokehold. "Give me that picture!" he snarled, pretending to tighten his grasp on Danny's neck.

"No!" Danny yelped, holding his own.

"I can render you unconscious," Steve threatened playfully. "Easiest thing."

"Witnesses, babe! Witnesses!" he motioned to the foursome by the car, while keeping a tight grip on the picture with one hand and another on Steve's arm looped around his neck.

Not far away, Chin and Kono took in the amusing scene. They shook their heads in disbelief.

"Well, the kids are at it again," Chin said to Kono standing next to him.

"Yep. Everything's getting back to normal or whatever that is," Kono sighed.

THE END

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