Note: Thanks again for all the reviews and to Wenwalke.

Disclaimer: I do not own H50

Chapter Three.

An hour later Danny's temperature was high enough for Dawn to remove the heated blanket and swap it for a normal one. Danny was slowly regaining some colour as the transfusions continued.

Steve was the first to notice the small movement from the bed and rose to his feet placing his hand on his partners shoulder. "Danny, can you hear me? Open your eyes Danno. Come on buddy. You gonna wake up and talk to us?"

Slowly two hazy blue eyes opened and tried to focus on Steve. "There you go. That's better." Steve encouraged.

Danny looked around confused. He looked like he was trying to form a sentence then simply settled for, "Steve."

"I'm here buddy. You're in the hospital. Do you remember what happened?"

"Boy. Gun. He tripped." Danny tried to explain.

"That's right Danny. Don't worry. The doctors and nurses took good care of you. Fixed you up just like I said."

"The boy?" Danny asked.

"He's fine, probably grounded for life though."

"I think we may need to re think the age limit on the class." Danny joked now more awake.

"Yeah maybe. You ok?" Steve asked concerned as he had seen Danny wince.

"My leg hurts."

"I'll go see if you can have anything for the pain. Good to have you awake brah." Chin said exiting the room in search of Dawn.

Kono moved closer to Danny and placed a gently kiss on his forehead. "You scared us. Don't do that again."

"Sorry, I'll try not to." Danny said freeing his hand from under the blanket and taking Kono's.

Chin returned with Dawn following. "Hey Danny. Back in the land of the living?"

"Hey Dawn." Danny smiled.

"I hear you're in pain. Let's do something about that shall we." She said producing a syringe, cleaning the port on Danny's IV and plunging the contents into it. "That should kick in real soon. Other than the pain, how are you feeling?"

"Thanks. Er... I feel tired I guess."

"That's perfectly normal. You lost a lot of blood and we are gradually replacing it with transfusions." Moving down the bed she lifted the blankets back on themselves to reveal Danny's legs.

"Love the new look brah. Stockings are all the fashion now." Kono joked.

"What?" Danny asked confused.

"Kono is having a laugh at your expense Danny. You're wearing pressure stockings to reduce the chance of developing blood clots in your legs." Dawn explained.

"Hey. No making fun of the sick guy." Danny grumbled.

"Sorry Danny." Kono said giving his hand a squeeze.

"Ok. Danny I just need you to give your toes a wiggle for me." Dawn instructed.

Danny's eyes screwed tight with pain as he managed to flex his foot and wiggle his toes.

"That's good Danny." Dawn encouraged replacing the bedding. "You'll need some physio but the surgeons are confident you should make a full recovery."

"Great. Got to love those sessions with nurse Ratchet." Danny said stifling a yawn.

"Get some rest Danny." She instructed. "I'll need to take some more blood soon to monitor your kidney function. But I can take them from the line. I'll do my best not to disturb you." She said indicating to the central line in the side of Danny's neck that could now be seen since Danny had pushed the blankets down.

"What's the line for and why the blood?" Danny asked concerned by the mention of his kidneys.

"The line allows us to give you the fluids, blood, and drugs you need to help bring up your blood pressure. The fact that you lost so much blood, so quickly, means your kidneys are struggling. So we are monitoring your bloods and urine output closely. I don't want you to worry about those Danny. You just rest and let us take care of you." She explained.

Danny looked over at Steve. "It's all good Danny. Dawn and Dr. Iona have everything under control. You just rest and get your strength back."

"Ok." Danny said closing his eyes.

Dawn busied herself around Danny's room. She checked his vitals again before taking the blood from the line and leaving the team alone. Danny had slipped into a deep sleep, helped by the morphine Dawn had given him earlier.

The team made themselves comfy. Now feeling more reassured after Danny's brief wakening. Steve had settled into the chair by Danny's bed and kept glancing between the clock on the wall and the bag hanging below Danny's bed.

"You know, if he catches you staring at his bag of pee he is going to kill you brah."

Chin laughed.

"Sorry, it's just there isn't much there. What if his kidneys don't pick up? This is all my fault." Steve said putting his head in his hands.

"Whoa, what?" Kono said shocked.

"How is this your fault, Steve?" Chin asked.

"I dragged him to the session. It was supposed to be his day off. We were only there in the first place because I shot him."

"Steve. You have to let the guilt go. Danny has forgiven you. You need to forgive yourself too. And there is no way you are to blame for this. It was an accident." Chin comforted.

They were interrupted from their conversation by the ringing of a phone. Realising it was Danny's phone Steve started hunting through his many pockets to find where he had put it, after the nurse in the ER had given it to him. Pulling it out he saw the screen, a picture of Grace sat on the beach flashed across the screen.

"It's Grace." Steve stated to Chin and Kono. Seeing Danny begin to stir at the sound of the familiar ring tone he had assigned just for Grace he quickly answered it.

"Hey Gracie, it's Uncle Steve."

"Hey Uncle Steve, is Danno there?" She asked confused as to why her uncle would be answering her dad's phone.

"He's right beside me Grace, but he's asleep at the moment."

"Asleep!" She repeated concerned. "It's like 5 pm there isn't it? Why is he asleep? Is he ok?"

"Grace, Danno is going to be fine ok, but he got hurt helping me do the gun talk today." Steve explained trying to reassure his niece.

"Did you shoot him again? I can forgive you for it once Uncle Steve, but twice I may have to kick your butt."

Steve gave a little laugh. "I have no doubt you could Grace, so it's a good job that it wasn't me this time."

"This time? So he has been shot." Steve could hear the fear in her voice.

"Yes. In the leg sweetheart. He is fine, ok. Just sleeping." Steve reassured, down playing the seriousness of Danny's injury.

"Promise?" Grace begged.

"I promise Grace. Don't worry, I'm going to stay with your dad so he doesn't get into any more trouble."

"Ok. Uncle Steve. Will you tell Danno I love him and I called to say goodnight." She requested.

"I will. And remember Danno loves you too. He'll be sorry that he missed your call but I think it's best we let him sleep."

"Night Uncle Steve." Grace said before hanging up.

Steve put the phone down and looked over at Danny. "Don't you dare make me break that promise." He whispered.

Danny slept for most of the evening, occasionally waking and holding short conversations with the team. They had filled him in on how the young boy had got the gun and the damage to his leg. Dr. Iona had returned to review Danny and was happy that his kidney function was holding steady and while she still wanted to see it improve, it hadn't got any worse. The drugs that had been helping maintain his blood pressure were weaned off and the final blood transfusion was almost complete. Chin and Kono headed home and Steve settled down on the cot close to Danny.

Come morning Danny awoke as Dawn entered the room. "Morning Danny. I hear you had a good night. How are you feeling?"

"A lot better thanks. My leg is hurting a lot now though." He answered honestly.

"I can fix that." She said leaving the room and re-entering a few minutes later with a syringe.

"That should feel better soon." She reassured. Looking over at Steve asleep on the cot she asked, "should I wake sleeping beauty?"

"No, leave him. I'm sure he will be up soon." Danny replied.

"Ok. Well I just need to take some more blood and looking at your urine output I'm expecting them to be better." She said emptying the catheter.

"You know if you keep taking blood, you'll have to transfuse me again." He smiled.

"Hopefully if these have improved, we can dial back on the blood monitoring and remove that line. Then we can transfer you to a normal room by this evening."

"That sounds good, doesn't it Danno?" Steve said rising from the cot. "Morning, you're look better."

"It's practically afternoon for you isn't it?" Danny joked knowing his friend was usually up with the sun.

"Yeah, it's all this worrying about you, it's wearing me out."

Dawn left the room to send the blood to the labs and passed Chin and Kono returning to the hospital. "Make sure he doesn't eat too many off those." She called after them, the tell tale smell of Malasadas reaching her nose.

"Have I told you lately how much I love you?" Danny said taking the bag from Kono.

"Your welcome, brah." Kono replied kissing him on the forehead.

The four friends ate breakfast and were all relieved when Dr. Iona returned to do rounds mid morning and confirmed that Danny's kidneys were in deed recovering. As Dawn had predicted the line was removed and Danny was transferred out of surgical high dependency to a normal room. Dawn made the transfer with him back to her regular ward.

Danny now sat in the chair at the side of his bed. He had just got off the phone with Grace where he had spent the last fifteen minutes reassuring her that he was ok. As Danny put the phone on the table Steve was surprised to see him suddenly looking rather sad.

"Hey, what's wrong?" He asked.

"Nothing really. Just... I'm not going to be able to have Grace stay with me for a few weeks. If I can't drive, I can't get her to school. And as if that wasn't enough, I'm now stuck on desk duty again."

"Ok the desk duty sucks. I only just got my partner back." Steve commiserated. "But you can still have Grace. I'll drive her where ever she needs to go."

"I can't ask you to do that Steve."

"You didn't ask, I offered. Tell you what. We'll call it even for you helping me with the gun session instead of you getting to drive for a week." Steve suggested.

Danny shook his head. "You really will do anything just to drive my car."

"What can I say, it's a smooth ride." Steve said relaxing into the chair near Danny, grateful that his friend now had a pink glow to his face, and was free from the monitors and drips. If chauffeuring Danny and Grace around for a few weeks meant Danny would be happy after the rotten few months he had gone through? he'd be more than happy to do it. If it meant he got to drive the Camaro more? Well that was just the icing on the cake.

The End