A huge thank you for your responses to my very first fan fic. I was fun writing it and to avoid losing myself and drag the story on needlessly, I chose to end it here.

It was some hours later when Danny lazily blinked open his eyes to a world of confusion. His brain was still a bit muddled and required time to adjust to the new surroundings. His eyes gleaned over the room before they came to rest on his parents watching television in a corner of the room.

Danny uttered a mumbled 'Steve' to attract their attention.

"Daniel!" He heard his mother rejoiced as she and his dad approached the bed. She clasped his hand and ran her other hand over his forehead and down his cheek. "Daniel, can you hear me? Squeeze my hand if you can."

Both studied intently the hand cradled in hers and cheered when their son responded with a small tug.

"Steeeeeeeve?" Danny droned out with fear in his eyes. "Wheeeere?"

"He's here," she said. "Look to your left." Danny blinked puzzedly as he tried to process her words.

His father then gently tilted his head so that he could see his partner lying in the next bed. "He came out of surgery three hours ago. He's hanging on, son."

"Noooot deaaaaaaaad?"

"No he's not," his mother answered a bit bemused. "Why would you think that?"

"Saaaid goodbyyyyyyye."

She turned to her husband with a quizzical look before asking, "When?"

Before he could answer, sleep claimed him once again.

"Mister and Mrs. Williams, is there something wrong?" Tony asked as he entered the room, looking a bit disturbed to see the parents hovering over their son's bed.

"Daniel woke up briefly asking for Steve. He was afraid he was dead. Said that he told him goodbye."

"Must have been when he crashed on the operating table," Tony surmised.

"Or maybe he just heard us talking about it," her husband argued.

"Did you mention anything about a goodbye?" Both parents glanced at each other then back at Tony. "None of us could have known that." He jutted his head toward Danny. "He did."

"I'm sorry, I just..."

"My husband is an atheist," she finished for him.

"So am I, but I do keep an open mind about things in life that defy any tangible explanation. I'm cautious in my beliefs though, but when I witness an allegedly brain-dead man rising out of a coma with barely any impairment, I have to ask myself."

"So you believe that my Daniel and Steve..."

"I don't believe, I know. I've seen it before. It's creepy and no one really understands how it works, but it does and let's be grateful for it."

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Days went by with Danny making remarkable progress with his motor and sensory responses. His memory was partly affected, mostly about the incident that nearly ended his life, but the rest was fairly intact.

When momentarily left alone one late evening, he tried to reach out to his still unconscious partner in the next bed, which proved more taxing on his body than he originally expected. However Danny was determined to get his Neanderthal animal to respond one way or the other.

He garnered all of his strength to raise himself into a sitting position, after which he sluggishly drew the sheet aside and swung his legs on the edge of the bed. He stole a brief moment to breathe away the nausea before crawling over to the wheelchair next to the bed.

"Daniel, what are you doing?!" his mother chided upon entering the room with a lunch bag. She leapt at him before he lost his step and fell to the floor.

"I wanna... wanna to go to Steve," he heaved out.

"You can see him from your bed."

He shook his head. "Not same. He won't listen. Need to be nearer," he said with a pronounced shortness of breath and profuse sweating.

"All right. Stay still. I'll help you to your chair. Breathe deeply," she coached and waited for his breathing to settle before she looped her arm around his waist and assisted him off the bed and into the wheelchair. "Are you okay?" He gave a weak nod.

She wheeled him next to Steve's bed and put on the brakes. "I'll leave you with him for a few minutes. If you need assistance, press the button over there."

"Thanks mom."

She cast one last worried look at her son before leaving the room. Once alone with his partner, Danny reached for Steve's hand and squeezed it lightly. "See? This is what I want you to do. Squeeze my hand. Te...tell me you're in there, you big goof." A smile crept up on his lips as he rejoiced at the fact that he recalled that moniker.

"I got out of my bottomless pit. It's your turn now," he huffed and puffed, feeling a bit queasy with his head pounding. "Come on, Steve. Open your eyes. It's been far too long." Feeling his energy ebbing away and his brain ready to burst, Danny laid his head on the edge of the bed and rested up a bit.

It wasn't long before he felt a tug on his hand. He lazily brought his head up and looked at Steve's hand in his. The fingers were loosely furled around his hand. "Squeeze it again!" Danny egged on, swallowing convulsively at the anticipation building inside.

Again, Steve responded to Danny's command and gave his hand a light squeeze.

"Now, get those eyes open so...so we can have a serious talk you and me." Danny noticed the twitching eyelids and the moving lips, signs that the stubborn SEAL was emerging from the darkness he'd been plunged into for the last few of days.

"Come on!" Danny spurred on. "All this waiting is starting to drain me."

Finally, watery blue eyes opened at a crack and peered through the eyelids. A few blinks later, a confused look settled on Danny.

"Hey there, partner! Long time no see."

"Dannnnnnny?" Steve was confounded by what he was seeing. "You're..."

"I'm real, pal. Feel this?" Danny squeezed Steve's hand.

"Doct...doctor said...no hope."

"Yeah, well, doctors! What do they know, huh?" Danny remarked sarcastically. "I still got a...a few marbles missing, screws loose here and there, and...and some hinges that need oil, but the rest is peachy."

Steve's face began to scrunch up. "Hey, you okay?" Steve gave a weak nod. "You're not...not going to cry, are you? Don't or...or you'll get me started too."

Tears rushed to their eyes as their emotions spilled out. "I thou...thought I'd lo...lossssst you," Steve heaved out in a whisper.

"Same for me, pal," Danny sniffed. "You, yourself, nearly checked out on us."

"Sorry for what happened. My faulllllllt."

"Yeah they told me about your little guilt trip and...and how you've been on a...on a self-destructing path ever since the accident." Danny leaned forward and spoke earnestly, "I know you partner. You always have my six." Steve closed his eyes in remorse. "I may not have any recollection of...of what really happened, but," he frowned as a searing twinge singed his brain, "from what I heard you did everything by the book, save...save maybe for the grenades, which is...typical Neanderthal SEAL craziness."

A timid smile danced on Steve's lips. "I should have waited..."

"Don't. Not now. You get some rest and...and we'll talk about this nonsense later. I'll go back to my bed now bef...before I pass out."

"Okay."

Danny gave one last squeeze on Steve's hand and removed the breaks on his wheelchair before swirling it around. Steve watched his friend as he gruelingly wheeled himself back to his bed and toiled to crawl back under the covers.

"See! Nothing to it," Danny joked breathlessly. He wiggled into a comfortable position before turning to Steve. "Sweet dreams, buddy."

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Weeks later, the two friends were lounging around on beach chairs in Steve's backyard, watching Grace trying her hand at surfing in the soft waves.

"Careful Monkey!" Danny warned. "Don't go too far into the water."

"Want another beer?" Steve offered.

"Yep. Thanks."

Steve took a long swig off his bottle and sighed contentedly. "Oh yeah, I prefer that taste way better."

"Yeah they told me you switched brand there for awhile."

"I needed me some mind-numbing potion."

"Did it work?"

"Yeah, but it came with a side of hangovers."

"I just bet it did." Danny sniggered before turning his attention back to Grace in the ocean. "Gracie, baby, don't get up. Both hands on the board. Start sitting down."

While Danny kept his sight trained on his daughter, Steve gazed at him mournfully.

Feeling his partner's eyes on him, Danny turned to him with a puzzled look. "What's the matter?"

"I was just thinking about what your doctor said."

"About the brain-dead thing?"

"Yeah. I have half of mind to sue her for malpractice," Steve said as he took a swig off his beer.

"Don't be too hard on her, she didn't know. That is one of the baffling mysteries of life. Why is it that one ends up in a coma and wakes up with a disability, when the other doesn't or that some never wake up at all."

"She tried to convince your parents that there was no hope."

"Yeah and mom told me that you insisted that they wait awhile before making a hasty decision."

"Don't get me wrong, the last thing I wanted was for you to live your life as a vegetable, but somehow I knew you were still in there, somewhere."

"I was." Steve turned to him with a bemused look. "Can't explain it though, it's like I was in limbo. I couldn't move but I could hear almost everything that was going on around me. I was like floating disembodied, travelling boundless without the confines of my body. Got to tell you I wanted to stay there. It was alluring. Then I saw you getting shot."

"You actually saw that?"

"I rather felt it. I also sensed that you were giving up. You did say goodbye. So I guess that's what decided me to come back and knock some sense into you."

"So, that wasn't a dream."

"Eerie, isn't it?" Steve nodded. "You know I'm an atheist but this experience," he paused, "man, it shook my beliefs to the core and left me wondering."

"I know what you mean."

"Oh and while I was out floating around, my parents decided to adopt you."

"Did they?" Steve laughed.

"Yeah. Next time I go to New Jersey, they want me to bring you along. Guess they need you to sign some papers to make it legal."

"I wouldn't mind, really," Steve said wistfully.

"I wouldn't either. It's settled then. I'll tell mom and dad to get the papers ready."

"Hey, what's this about adoption? I thought I had first dibs on you two?" Tony ribbed as he put the medium-sized pizza on the table between the two men.

"No, you're our marriage counselor, remember?" Danny razzed back. "Ahhhh! That's what I've been waiting for. Tony Archer's famous Brooklyn pizza with NO pineapples on top."

"Pineapples? You don't ruin a pepperoni masterpiece with fruits."

"I love this man!" Danny turned to the beach and saw Grace put her surfboard down and walking toward them. "Dinner is ready, Monkey."

"Now eat hearty, gentlemen. There's plenty for everyone. And remember Steve, you fold it and slide it in." Tony picked up a slice and held it up. "To your health, boys!"

The End