Author's Note: Thank you Megth, for pointing out that this did not post right. This is was supposed to be a short one shot at the request of dolcifusa on Tumblr who wanted a fic where Katsumoto had to interact with a wounded Magnum. This was supposed to be like...1500 words. ::sigh:: Oh well. Medical is totally skewed in this, I am not a professional medical anything and all the medical knowledge I have is from being my own walking disaster.

Katsumoto jolted awake, sucking in a deep breath he instantly regretted. Everything hurt. His chest, his legs, and sweet Christmas his head.

Everything was blurry. Blurry and…upside down? Mostly upside down. Just lopsided?

He tried to remember what the hell happened, but thoughts were reluctant and disjointed. He fumbled for his head, more or less managing to smack himself in the face, but at least his hand moved. It shook and it twitched, but it moved.

The skin beneath his fingers felt warm, wet and tacky, and when he brought them up (down?) to his line of sight, they were bright red.

Head injury. Concussion. Shock.

He tasted blood in his mouth, and his head pounded in time with his heart. Probably from hanging upside down.

Upside down.

In the car.

Everything came flooding back with such force he felt himself jerk at the onslaught of information his brain suddenly decided to offer up.

The drug smuggling ring. The hideout in the Koolau mountains. The mudslide – rock slide? Did it matter? The entire side of the road gave out beneath the tires, sending them sliding, falling and rolling and then…

Nothing.

That could've been minutes ago.

Or hours.

He groped for his phone – he never left it on him when he drove, and he was cursing the habit now because it was nowhere to be found. Katsumoto reached for his seatbelt, yanking at the webbing when the release button didn't work.

Panic threatened to bubble up, but he stubbornly stomped it back down with a vengeance. This wasn't anything worse than he'd already gone through. At least no one was shooting at him. He could do this. He just had to cut himself free. And like any good Boy Scout – or HPD detective – he kept a knife in the glove box for just such an emergency.

He turned to his right and froze.

He'd completely forgotten he wasn't alone.

Thomas Magnum lay unconscious against the broken window beneath him, the glass spiderwebbing out from where his head hit against it in their roll. His right arm was pinned awkwardly underneath him, and it took longer than he would've liked to realize the awkward angle was because his elbow was going in the wrong direction. Bruises blossomed across his forehead, and he could see blood pooling beneath his head.

It wasn't until he saw Magnum's chest rise and fall that he was aware he'd been holding his breath, not sure if the man was dead or alive.

"Magnum?"

Unsurprisingly, it was met with zero response. Now that the cobwebs were clearing, he could fully appreciate the situation – the car wasn't upside down, they were on their side, Magnum's side on the ground. Wild guess was that when they rolled, the car hit a tree or something just as sturdy. He had no idea where his phone was, and Magnum was unconscious with who knew what kind of injuries besides the ones that Katsumoto could clearly see. They were alone, in some of the most remote terrain on the island, and the most likely people to find them were the ones utilizing the old bunker as a drug depot they were investigating.

"Magnum?" he tried again. He'd seen the guy shrug off some pretty serious injuries with a smile, and of the few SEAL's he knew, they had freakishly short recovery times. He figured he owed the guy at least one more attempt to rouse him before trying to dig through his pockets for his phone.

No. First things first. Hanging at the awkward angle was just making the blood rush to his head, which would just keep his head bleeding. Knife, then phone.

Katsumoto reached for the glove box which had surprisingly remained shut, and for a terrifying moment, he thought it was because it'd jammed. It took some working, but he finally managed to pop it open. Papers, registration cards, a flashlight and god only knew how many napkins from the coffee shop came tumbling out before he managed to grab the knife. The switchblade was technically a tactical knife, because yes, Katsumoto was that prepared – and with those hooligans in 5-0 running around causing epic levels of trouble all over the islands, he figured it was just a matter of time before he would actually need to bring a knife to a gunfight.

He sliced easily through his own belt, bracing himself from falling by shoving his feet against the console and his free hand against the crushed roof. It wasn't until he reached up that he realized just how lucky he was – the roof indented sharply, missing his head by scant inches. Maybe less. Magnum was only spared because of the way he'd practically folded in on himself, smashed up against the door. Either the seatbelt hadn't worked, or the mechanism the kept it secure broke when the car hit the tree.

Talk about nine lives. If it hadn't malfunctioned, Magnum would be dead.

As soon as he managed to get himself free of his seat – oh that was going to hurt later – he tried to figure out the best angle to try and reach the private detective. He wasn't about to try and pull the man loose – god only knew what else he could injure while trying to wrestle an unconscious person out of a vehicle. But he figured at the least he could cut the failed belt loose.

A low moan from the passenger seat was the best thing he'd heard all day.

"Magnum, don't move. You've been in an accident, and I don't know how badly you've been injured – " he warned, putting a steadying hand on the man's shoulder. Magnum flinched away from the touch, bringing his left arm up to smack Katsumoto's hand away. The motion knocked Magnum's phone from the chest pocket of his ridiculous Hawaiian shirt and onto the broken glass beneath him, and Katsumoto couldn't help the sigh of relief.

At least he wasn't going to have to dig through the PI's pockets for it.

"I hope your phone isn't locked, because I doubt you're in any condition to tell me a password." And honestly, if it was from facial recognition, he wasn't sure the limited technology of a smart phone would recognize Magnum's face as it was.

Now that he'd moved, he could see the damage to his face a lot clearer and winced in sympathy. Magnum's head must've been what broke the glass – his eye was swollen shut, starburst-like scrapes covered the right side of his face, centering from his cheek where it rested on the broken window, but at least his other eye was open, even though it was glazed and bright red from subconjunctival hemorrhage. The bruises were an already alarming shade of purple, and there was a moment of blind panic when Katsumoto wondered if he had to worry about intercranial bleeding.

It didn't matter, he realized. Wasn't exactly a lot he could do about it here and now.

Call for help, find a way to signal the medical chopper, wait for rescue.

He reached for Magnum's seatbelt.

In hindsight, Katsumoto would realize just how badly he'd set himself up. Somehow, he'd forgotten that despite his laid-back demeanor, Thomas Magnum was a combat veteran.

A combat veteran with a worse history than most.

He was leaning over a concussed, injured, and disoriented Navy SEAL, holding a knife as he reached for him.

The reaction was faster than he could've imagined.

Magnum caught sight of the blade coming towards his shoulder – where the broken seatbelt strap was, and practically exploded. Magnum was short, which most wouldn't consider a tactical advantage until they had to fight in close quarters. It meant that with little issue, Magnum could pull his legs up, freeing them of the dashboard console, turn and brace his back against the fractured window, and mule kick Katsumoto in the face in one fluid motion.

The blow rocketed Katsumoto's face back, and he heard a distinctive crunch as his nose broke, and even if he hadn't already been nursing a concussion it would've had him seeing stars. Blood filled his mouth as it came down the back of his sinuses, making him choke and cough and try and blink through the automatic tears that came to his eyes – nose injuries automatically made your eyes water, that's why women were instructed to try and break them in self-defense classes.

He reflexively dropped the knife, both hands coming to his face to stem the flow of blood but also just in case Magnum decided to kick him again.

Through tears, he could just make out Magnum scrabble for the dropped knife with his left hand, cut himself free, and put both feet against the windshield, slamming his feet against the glass until the entire frame gave way. Without pausing to even look back at Katsumoto, Magnum was out of the car, knife still clenched in his good hand.

It'd taken less than a minute.

Katsumoto had serious doubts about whether or not he wanted to follow him. Clearly, Thomas didn't recognize him.

Or maybe he did, and this was his revenge for mocking him when that car hit him and broke a couple ribs.

He'd like to think it was the former, not the latter.

Well, at least he was mobile enough to get out of the car. And soundly kick Katsumoto's ass. Or face. Still cupping a hand around his nose, even as he felt it swelling underneath his palm, he bent down to grab Magnum's phone. The rush of blood to his head made him stumble slightly and he groaned in pain.

Today could be chalked up as one of the most miserable ones on record he decided as he woke up Magnum's phone with a click. Fortunately, he didn't have a lock on it, and the screen hadn't suffered any in the crash. He'd have to ask where the hell Magnum got a case that could withstand a crash like that. There was a moment's debate of whether or not to call 9-1-1 or call Magnum's friends. Sensibility said 9-1-1. Experience had him flipping through contacts looking for Rick or TC. His finger hovered over Higgins before scrolling past. He liked her – but he didn't know much about her.

He hit the line for Rick, pressing the phone between his shoulder and his ear as he bent down to get out of the car through the same missing windshield that Thomas escaped out of.

"Yo, what's up bud? TC and I were just wondering-"

"This is Detective Katsumoto," he interrupted. "We were in a car accident off of an access road in the Koolau mountain range, I don't exactly remember where. The car went off the road, flipped – we're injured, but okay."

There was dead silence on the phone, long enough that Katsumoto thought he lost the signal, but when he pulled the phone away to look at it, it still had full bars and an active line.

"Mr. Wright?"

"Define 'we're injured'," Rick said. "Thomas is in the car with you?"

Katsumoto snorted and immediately regretted it, swearing violently when he felt the cartilage shift, and swearing again when he reflexively put his head down and just caused the bleeding to resume.

Fuck today.

"HEY!" Rick shouted over the phone. "Details, man. We need details if we're going to come get you."

"Your friend kicked me in the face and broke my nose," Katsumoto groaned. "Give me a second, would you?"

"What, like, just now?"

"No," he amended. He gingerly prodded his nose. God, that was going to leave a mark. "We were both knocked unconscious in the accident, I came to first. Magnum took the brunt of it, hit his head pretty hard. He didn't take too kindly to me waking him up trying to cut him out of the seatbelt. We're about…" Katsumoto turned to look up the side of the mountain they'd come crashing down through the underbrush. "I'd say a 20-minute drive time from the access road peak, and we're on the westward facing side. I'm going to take a wild stab you're going to be able to see us from the air when you get close enough. But I think I have flares in the back of the trunk, so when I hear you, I can send up a signal."

Katsumoto could already hear rotors in the background. Wright must've been with Calvin already, which was a stroke of luck.

"Where's Thomas?"

"Uh, good question," Katsumoto muttered. He looked around. "I have no idea. But he's injured, how far could he get?"

"Fifteen miles if you let him," TC shouted, chiming in. Rick must've put him on speaker. "And that's when he could barely see, barely walk, and without shoes in subarctic temperatures."

Katsumoto frowned. That didn't sound like a hypothetical scenario. That sounded like an actual thing he'd already done.

"In that case – " He didn't get any further. He heard the telltale click of a police issued Glock 22 chambering a round, and slowly turned around.

God, Magnum looked worse out of the car, which was saying something. The entire right side of his face was absolutely covered in blood, the original injury made that much worse by his acrobatics earlier. It cut a broad swathe down the side of his face, his neck, and soaked into his collar. His right arm hung uselessly at his side, the broken joint forcing it backward at a sickening angle. His right leg, which Katsumoto hadn't been able to see in the car was also bleeding freely – some part of the car, or maybe even the windshield when he'd kicked it in, caught his leg just below the knee, slicing through the khaki and down to almost his ankle. Somehow, the man still stood on it, though it looked like he wouldn't be for long.

All of that was secondary information.

Holding remarkably steady in his left head was Katsumoto's gun, aimed directly at him. He must've grabbed it when Katsumoto was still reeling from the kick to the face – it wouldn't have been that hard for the former SEAL to grab it from his belt holster.

"Good and bad news – he's alive, but I might be dead shortly," Katsumoto warned Rick.

"Neo nugu ni?" Magnum demanded. The words were slurred, spoken out of a badly bruised mouth. It took Katsumoto a second to realize it was more than just mumbled – it wasn't English.

Rick was yelling loud enough that he could be heard without being on speaker. "What the hell is going on?!"

"Your friend grabbed my gun, and I have no idea what he's saying, but I'm pretty sure he thinks I'm the enemy," Katsumoto said, trying to keep his voice even.

"What do you mean, 'you think'?"

"He's not speaking English."

There was a pause at the other end of the line, and if Katsumoto didn't know any better, he would describe the silence as 'dread'.

"Do you know what language?"

Katsumoto shrugged before he even realized what he was doing. "Not English."

"Real fucking helpful, smartass," Rick snarled. Yep. Dread. Non-English speaking was clearly a problem they knew – and it didn't sound like it was going to end well for Katsumoto. "This is important. What language is he speaking?"

"Eotteohge doen geoyeyo," Magnum snapped. "Ulileul eodi?" The gun remained steady, even as shock began to set in. The private detective's leg shook, the fingers of his right hand spasmed painfully and Katsumoto selfishly hoped the man would just pass out – hopefully without shooting him.

"I don't know!" Katsumoto hissed. "All I can tell is he's not happy with me."

"Repeat one of the things he said. Sound it out best you can."

"No new-goo-knee," he enunciated, knowing full well he was butchering the hell out of it, because Magnum frowned slightly at having his question thrown back at him.

"It's Korean," Rick said. "He thinks he's in Korea. He and Nuzo had a bad wreck in the jungle, never gave us the whole story. You need to convince him you're in Hawaii."

"Magnum, you're in Hawaii."

There was a beat of silence, and even concussed Magnum looked less than impressed.

"Wow, yeah, totally sold me on that one," Rick deadpanned. "You should take up acting."

Katsumoto fought the urge to throw the phone into the jungle and just take his chances on his own. "How exactly am I supposed to convince him we're not in Korea, and I'm not the enemy?"

"His brain is language oriented," Rick explained. "Memory for him is recalled through language – if he was speaking Dari or Farsi or Pashto, you know he'd be thinking he was stuck in Afghanistan again. Say something in Hawaiian."

Magnum wasn't looking too happy about the conversation going on, because his one good(ish) eye narrowed suspiciously. "Nugu hante malhagoissneun geoni?"

"You do know that Hawaiian is was banned until the 70's, right? And that less than one percent of the population speaks it? What do you want me to do, patch in Kumu for a conference call?" he snapped.

"Put me on speaker," Rick instructed.

Katsumoto did as he was told, holding the phone cautiously out towards Magnum. "Go."

"Thomas? Buddy? ʻO Rick kēia." The change in tone was staggering. Katsumoto admittedly had limited experience with Magnum's friends, other than the few times they'd had to team up to go and find him, but Rick always struck him as that fine line between 'wise ass' and 'bad ass'.

Right now though, he sounded like he was trying to talk a man off a ledge, or soothe a skittish animal.

"O mākou e hele mai kōkua," Rick continued in that same, slow, soothing tone. "ʻEhaʻoe. You're in Hawaii. Aiaʻoe i Hawaii. E hoʻomanaʻo?"

Magnum stared at the phone in rapt fascination, but at least he was listening. Katsumoto could see him physically struggle to make sense of what was probably incredibly limited sight, serious head injury, and what he could only guess was a pretty traumatic flashback.

"Thomas?" Rick repeated. "Ua palekanaʻoe."

"Rick?"

It was just one word. One word, that sounded so broken and lost and confused it made Katsumoto's heart ache.

"Yeah, bud. It's me. TC and I are coming to get you, okay? Just hang tight." The sound of relief in Rick's voice was palpable even over the phone, and seconds later, Katsumoto felt the same when he heard the sound of nearing helicopter blades.

It felt like it'd been hours since he called them, but in reality, it's been minutes – they were less than half an hour by car from Island Hoppers, and the chopper's air speed was at least 175. Katsumoto almost sagged against the wrecked car. Honolulu's air MEDIVAC was fast, but not that fast.

"'Moto?" Magnum said cautiously, testing the word on his tongue like he wasn't sure he had the name right. The private detective looked down at his hand still holding the gun as if surprised to see it. In one fluid movement, he'd flicked the safety on, letting the gun's own weight spin it forward on his finger as he let his arm drop to his side.

"Yeah, Magnum. Me."

Thomas nodded slightly, and Katsumoto could practically hear the internal monologue of 'that makes sense'. The detective looked skyward just as the Island Hopper helicopter soared over the newly made clearing, barely missing the tree tops as it made its pass.

Calling Magnum's friends had the extra bonus of the fact that the Little Bird helicopter had more than enough space to take off and land on the road above – no repelling or airlifting involved, and hopefully they'd be able to convince Queen's Medical Center to let them land on the hospital's landing pad.

A funny sort of smile crossed Magnum's face. Not quite amused, not quite happy, but…something that Katsumoto couldn't quite put his finger on, and when he looked back to Katsumoto, the smile was gone.

"I'm going to pass out now," Magnum said decisively, and that was all the warning he got before Magnum's eyes rolled and he pitched sideways. He barely managed to catch the private detective before he hit the ground, hitting the ground with his knees as he took the dead weight of the man.

Oh ow….somuch more hurt than he realized. Funny how being threatened with a gun distracted you from the aches and pains of being in a serious car accident. He rolled the younger man onto the ground before flopping down beside him, ignoring the stabbing pain in his head.

And knees.

And shoulders.

And back.

And everything.

He managed to stay away just long enough to see TC standing over him, smiling ridiculously bright at him.

"Told you, you'd learn to like us."

Katsumoto shook his head. "I hate you."

()()()()()()()

The next day, and Katsumoto got the greenlight to leave the hospital. Most of his injuries were soft tissue damage, which included the spectacular bruising across his waist and his chest from the seatbelt. He did have to spend the night for observation for his concussion, but scans came back negative for intercranial bleeding, brain damage, and a whole slew of other unpleasant things. He did, however, sport two black eyes, a bruise in the shape of sneaker treads, and a splint across his nose.

He made a point to stop in and see the man who gifted him an unwanted nose job, and while he told himself it was just to rag on Magnum, he knew it was because he couldn't just walk away without seeing how he'd faired.

He wasn't heartless.

He even brought coffee. The good stuff, too, not the cheap hospital crap that tasted more like tar than coffee.

Katsumoto knocked on the door, and not expecting an answer, let himself in.

He was hardly surprised Magnum wasn't alone. Rick and TC were both there – the latter in the uncomfortable plastic beside chair. Rick, on the other hand, was lying in the narrow bed next to Magnum. It wasn't like he didn't have plenty of room, despite the shared space. Magnum was once again curled over in on himself, as much as the bright pink of the cast that ran from his knuckles to halfway past his elbow allowed him, dead asleep. The bruising on his face was now a kaleidoscope of color, ranging from almost black to sickly green, translucent yellow and violent red.

"Nice bruises," Rick quipped, glancing up from the Clive Cussler novel in his free hand. His other arm was trapped underneath Magnum's head being used as a pillow. "The purple really brings out your eyes."

"I'll take that," TC said, snatching the coffee out of Katsumoto's hands before he could offer it. The big man snipped appreciatively at the aroma wafting from the cup. "Ooh, fancy."

"Thomas can't have caffeine for a while," Rick explained. "Which, as soon as he wakes up for more than 30 seconds, he's going to be pissed about, but for now, we'll do our part and destroy the evidence."

Katsumoto rolled his eyes but let them have their fun. Far be it from him to deny his rescuers decent coffee. "On that note, how is he?" He gestured with a quick jerk of his chin towards the sleeping man.

"Well, he's down another of his cat lives, so this puts him…" Rick exaggeratedly ticked off his fingers as he counted under his breath. "In the hole by about fifteen."

"Give or take," added TC. "But several fractures to zygomaticum, maxilla and mandibula, broken elbow, hairline fractures on three vertebrae, couple fractured ribs, and 89 stitches on his leg. Oh, and a grade 3 concussion."

Katsumoto couldn't help the low whistle. "All that and he still managed to kick my ass, break his way out of a wrecked vehicle, and still have the mind to steal my gun and my knife. Though now I feel a little bad that I walked away with bruises if he had all that."

Rick's expression darkened for a moment. "Yeah, well, he could trip down stairs and wind up with the same injuries. Prolonged vitamin D deficiency and lack of protein gave us the bone density of a barn swallow."

"Osteomalacia?" he said, raising an eyebrow. "In someone your age?" If that were true, he felt a pang of guilt for mocking Magnum's broken ribs after being hit by a car. He'd been lucky that three cracked ribs were the worst of the damage.

"Long story," Rick said, smiling thinly. "Anyway, did you come by just to say hi, or what?"

Katsumoto shrugged. "That, and to say thanks for coming to get us. I know coming for him," he again jerked his chin towards Magnum, "was a given, but I appreciate the help, too. But I was also wondering if you could explain a few things – like why the language thing."

TC and Rick exchanged looks, having an entire conversation without saying a word. After a moment, Rick gave an almost imperceptible nod, and TC answered for him.

"Thomas is a bit of a linguist. I think he's worked his way up to twelve different languages. In Afghanistan, when things got rough, he kept reverting back to Dari when he was…stressed." The emphasis on stress made Katsumoto wonder at how bad things actually were. "Anyway, now, whenever he gets a head injury that disorients him enough, he reverts to other languages." TC made a vague gesture towards Katsumoto. "Guess you look Korean to him when he's only got one eye."

That actually only served to raise more questions, but Katsumoto let it slide. "Speaking of languages, why do you know Hawaiian? I thought you were from Chicago?" he asked Rick, who gave a vague and dismissive hand gesture.

"I spent a lot of time here with my grandfather growing up. He's not exactly a native Hawaiian, but he made a point about learning it out of respect for them. When in Rome, and all that jazz."

"Don't let him fool you," TC piped in. "Rick speaks at least three languages himself."

Katsumoto was beginning to get the feeling he didn't know half of what these men were capable of. Or what they'd been through. It was easy to think of them as the average beach bum haole, considering their laid-back attitudes and demeanor.

The permanent crick in his nose would serve as a decent reminder not to underestimate them again.

Thomas abruptly shifted in the bed next to Rick, twisting as much as the back brace just barely visible beneath the hospital shirt would allow, flailing the casted arm towards his head.

"Oh no you don't," Rick chided, easily catching the broken limb and preventing Magnum from hitting himself in the face. "You got enough bruises."

Sharing the bed made a bit more sense now. Hospitals were pretty strict on the 'no restraints' clause, even in cases of patients being under arrest.

And Rick moved with a practiced ease that suggested this was far from the first time that he'd had to do this, and Katsumoto suddenly felt like he was invading something very personal.

"You know what, I need to go. Paperwork and all that. Besides, with Magnum out of commission, I have a hope of actually getting things done." He stepped towards the door, but just as he was about to disappear through it, TC stopped him.

"Jokes aside, man," he said quietly. "Thank you."

There was serious weight behind those two simple words.

Katsumoto gave a brief nod. "Any time."

And he meant it.

Author's Note: Hopefully that's better! Hopefully, dolcifusa, this is at least a *little* of what you were looking for! Hawaiian and Korean are ripped directly from Google translate, so all mistakes should totally be pinned on them. Also, in case any of you are repeat readers and follow the story "Wrong Side of Heaven", that one is slightly on hiatus until the 15th of February and they air the episode about Hannah (who I was totally right about when I guessed she was a CIA operative that sold out the guys and caused them to get captured by the Taliban) so I can include her in the story. In the mean time, feel free to come find me on Tumblr disappearinginq and send me some prompts! Let me know what you think!