Chapter Text
H5O* H5O* H5O* H5O* H5O
“I just …,” Danny paused as he sat on the couch in the flat they’d rented for the week in Versailles. There in the dark, with the only light coming in through the tall windows, Steve could just see the glitter of Danny’s eyes.
“Why are you sitting out here alone in the dark?” Steve whispered. “Grace is out for the count and we’ve got the Versailles Palace tour in the morning. You should try to sleep Danny. It’s going to be a lot of walking.”
The silhouette didn’t move though. Danny barely twitched a muscle. Steve wasn’t even sure Danny was breathing until he spoke again, his voice nothing more than a low monotone.
“I just was thinking ...,” Danny started again.
“And therein lies the problem,” Steve gently tried to joke with his partner but the mood was as murky as the dark room they were sitting in. He paused then too and heaved in a heavy, worried sigh. Whatever was bothering Danny had to come out now. Here and in the dark - not so oddly close to the exact day and time McCann had returned a year ago.
Steve absently ran his fingers over his abdomen, across the old scar where he’d been shot at close range within his own house. He knew where Danny was inside his head because really, he was there too. In fact, Danny hadn’t woken him up that night. If truth be told, Steve hadn't been able to sleep either. It was if they had some crazy internal alarm set to trigger. One that brought them together to revisit a particular, horror-filled event.
“Are you alright? Talk to me,” Steve pressed before admitting his own mental ramblings. “I think … I’m in the same place. I couldn’t sleep either.”
His more pointed demand or maybe what he’d just admitted, caused a fidget. Danny unraveled his legs, only to pull them back up to his chest a moment later.
Protective. Guarded. Silent. All bad signs.
“Talk to me,” Steve said again. “Please … we need to. Stiles would agree.”
Danny inhaled and the glitter of his eyes disappeared behind a slow blink before finally re-appearing. At least he was looking Steve’s way.
“Grace got me thinking back home. About staying a cop … being a detective,” Danny murmured. “I was just thinking if you still really wanted me around? To partner up and all that. And before you interrupt me … if you do want me, I need to know why. Because maybe I won’t be reliable in the clinch. Worse yet, people talk. Hell, they’re talking right now aren’t they? Whispering about what I did … if I liked it …”
“Jesus, Danny. If you liked it? What the fuck is that?” Steve fought to keep his voice low as he bristled angrily. “I can understand some of what you said … but that? No. No way. If I get hint of anyone even thinking it ... no one in their right mind … our ‘o’hana ...“ His voice waned because he’d seriously want to kill anyone. Their o’hana would, too.
Forcing himself to stop and just breathe again, Steve moved on out of desperation.
“Where is this coming from?”
“Inside,” Danny continued to whisper. “Here.” He tapped the side of his head before lightly slapping his hand to his chest. “It’s all still inside. What he did and …what I did. He is still inside … here. Maybe not all the time, but sometimes. And sometimes I wonder if it’s going to be worth coming back. Sometimes, I’m not so sure I can fight what’s inside anymore.”
The sadness of Danny’s gestures and what he’d just said cut Steve to the quick and his mouth gaped wide. Angry, upset he fell back to someone else they both trusted to pull on the man’s advice.
“Did you talk to Dr. Stiles about this?” Steve asked, frowning when Danny merely shrugged. If he had, Danny hadn’t gotten in too deeply with the doctor. “If you haven’t, then you need to. He’d agree with me, Danno. You’re too good a person and what happened, was not your fault.”
“Maybe this isn’t going to work,” Danny interrupted. He tightened his hold around his knees, looking forlorn and lost. “Maybe … I can’t do it anymore. I can’t risk being a liability.”
“Doubts are normal, Danno,” Steve said, furious at Danny’s choice of words. “But I have none about you being my partner or your abilities as the best fucking detective on the Island. Hell, anywhere for that matter! Liability my ass!”
“Language, Steven,” Danny murmured with a short faked laugh. One hand uncurled from a knee to wave through the air though. “It’s a valid question though … don’t you think?”
“What the hell is wrong with you? Doubts are normal, but those questions are just stupid!” Steve spat out, completely incapable of stopping himself now because he’s offended for both of them. Angered by the knowledge that Danny has moved into a place full of self doubt and self conscious fears, for the millionth time, Steve sends a silent curse towards the darkest hell he can conjure up his mind.
“I don’t think they are ...,” Danny tried to interject, only to be interrupted by Steve’s low hiss.
“No. It’s stupid, Daniel! You’re my partner. Period. End of story and that’s simply going to have to be good enough because it’s the truth. Do you remember what you told me when we first met?” The slow blink which obscured the glint of Danny’s eyes proved he didn’t remember. Steve was bound and determined to remind him now. “Well, I do,” Steve said as he tried to keep his voice low and his tone reasonable. “You said that being a cop defined you … and you were damned good at it. That will never change! Besides I picked you on day one and I’d pick you again now … and I still have immunity and means so … so you have no choice.”
“Oh my god. You’re going there?” Danny actually chuckled.
“Damn straight I am,” Steve said, sounding a bit smug about his reasoning. “No choice partner.”
“Okay,” Danny said as if to combat the hard look Steve was aiming at him. Across the room, Danny made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a watery laugh and Steve managed to grin.
“Okay,” Steve repeated with conviction to indicate that this particular discussion was tabled forever. “I need you at least ten more years even if you are too scrawny.”
“Ten more years ?” There was a subtle lull, the length of a heartbeat before Steve heard the sputtering begin. “Whoa! Wait a minute … who are you calling scrawny?”
“You have to admit Danno that you are a bit … scrawny ,” Steve chuckled through his nose as a pillow from the couch slapped him hard across the face.
H5O* H5O*
An hour later Steve stood alone in the flat's small kitchen. With no windows, the kitchen was darker yet but he didn't mind. Danny had gone back to bed and Steve needed the alone-time to gather his thoughts and catch his breath. Pent up anger had nowhere to go and neither did he in their cozy VRBO rental. Even the balcony was too small and a run around the streets of Versailles just didn't seem like a good idea at 4 am in a city which he didn't know all that well. Besides, his wrist was aching with a vengeance for absolutely no good reason at all. With his pain meds buried in his luggage and zero desire to make too much noise rummaging in the stillness of the flat, Steve lacked the wherewithal to do a damned thing about it.
"I didn't ask how you were."
Steve's brow knit, newly troubled as he turned away from where he'd been leaning against the counter.
"Thought you went back to bed," Steve murmured to his barefoot friend. "Are you alright?"
"Thought you did too," Danny whispered back, ignoring the latter half of Steve's questioning comment. "I should have asked you before though … how you were doing. Not too good I guess."
Steve considered lying and then thought better of it. This trip was all about coping and being honest with each other; getting beyond what had happened.
"No, not too good," Steve admitted. "How can I be with all the shit that's gone on?" Even in the dim light, Danny's face seemed to twitch, adopting a pained expression.
"If it's not my fault, then it's not yours either," Danny said. He walked closer to where Steve was standing, glancing over his shoulder towards the bedrooms. Worried about waking Grace, he lowered his voice even more before staring hard into Steve's face.
"What?" Steve asked. A knee-jerk reaction to Danny's rather unnerving study.
"You know, I don't remember a lot … I might have blocked certain … things… and then there were the drugs. Just so many drugs."
Steve heaved in a tight breath of air through his nose. "Yeah, so?" He asked because he had no idea where Danny might be going.
"He stole a lot, didn't he?" Danny murmured. "But maybe what he stole was a gift at least for me because I don't really remember a lot. You though? You were part of his game, weren't you? You became part of his lousy game and you saw things … you know things that you're never, ever going to tell me. So you think that you lost. What you think he stole from you - these things that you won't tell me - it's all turned into a curse which you're bound and determined to carry around. Am I right or … am I right?"
"God damnit, Danny," Steve breathed out softly. Danny was right. Steve dragged both hands down his face, ignoring the pain in his left wrist. He didn't want to go down this particular road but Danny had just put words to something he'd been incapable of understanding let alone saying.
One hand, backlit by the light coming from the living room, waved through the air. Then the other followed suit. Arms wide, Danny's smile was open and genuine.
"Let it go, Steve," he whispered. "I have and now, so do you. All this shit … let it go, babe. You didn't lose a damned thing to that bastard."
Danny's arms dropped to his side but he kept staring up at him. Watching. Waiting.
Steve blinked back a sudden ache behind his eyes. A tell-tale sting of tears which he wanted to always blame on being just a bit too tired. What Danny was saying was spot-on, and yet, Steve wasn't sure he could do for himself what he'd been preaching for so long.
"You burned it all," Danny whispered before he placed his hand on Steve's chest. "You told me that you destroyed all the stuff in the case files that might hurt me or you … that would hurt us as friends and even as partners. Things which didn't rank as valid, case evidence."
Fingers splayed wide, Danny gave him a gentle push. "Hey. Remember all the things you've told me. All of it. You've told me that it's okay to be myself. That I'm not really gone - that it's not wrong to feel the way that I do sometimes. That I'd be wrong to let it control me. Steve, you've told me time and again that it's perfectly alright just to take one deep breath and let go what I can't remember ... Now do it for yourself."
Danny's hand was warm on Steve's chest. He could feel each individual finger, splayed wide, holding him in place. There in the darkness of the kitchen, he found himself clinging to the support like a lifeline.
"Now … burn what's inside here, too. Burn it Steve … kill it … make it go away because you don't deserve to carry it around with you. Please, please let it go."
The first tear rolled hot down Steve's cheek. He couldn't prevent that one nor the next few that followed. He did know too much. He had seen far too much and the mental exhaustion borne of the belief that he had failed was overwhelming.
"Danny, I'm sorry," Steve's voice broke more as Danny merely smiled up at him, arms going wide once more, granting him a freedom which Steve wasn't sure he could accept.
"Stop," Danny sighed in understanding, his expression one of patient indulgence. "C'mere ... or else." But Steve couldn't move a single muscle. Instead, he shook his head in one more attempt at denial. But his anger was slowly dissipating to be replaced by a helpless sense of confusion.
"Danny ...please." His voice was unexpectedly hoarse as the tears continued now in earnest. He had no idea what he was asking Danny for by that point. Maybe it was to take back the mammoth out which Danny was giving him because he simply didn't deserve this kindness.
"Please what? Oh my god, it's true, isn't it?" Danny's soft laugh was warm as he pulled Steve forward into his arms. Steve wasn't given time to think about what was true let alone offer a reply as Danny wrapped his arms around his shoulders. "You weren't hugged nearly enough as a child, Steven. But us Williams? It's what we're good at babe. It's what we do best."
Epilogue
The trip was a good one, too. And as far as a touristy type of a gig, visiting the Versaille Palace and ending the day with a dinner cruise on the Seine was spectacular. Their boat was a long pleasant thing, clean and bright as it ported them down the river.
Steve was relaxed and all smiles as he glanced to his right where Grace was standing in rapt awe of the scenery. Seemingly oblivious to a few appreciative looks from a boy or two around her age, she looked as carefree and beautiful as that early evening in Paris.
His grin broadened in glee when Danny noticed the deckhand beginning to chat up his daughter. There was a subtle tightening of Danny’s mouth. But the squint of his eyes was more telling. So normal of a reaction, it was another relief in a long string of them. Danny had gotten over his night-time trauma and he looked good again. Calm, and at ease, their day had been nothing but fun and chock full of good times. Now though, his mood waffled just a bit when an impatient fatherly groan reached Steve’s ears.
“Boys,” Danny muttered in disgust and Steve had to chuckle as his partner tried to act all kinds of nonchalant. “Always up to no good … why now? Huh?”
Steve loved the normalcy of the entire situation, even relishing the peevish look on his partner’s face.
“She’s fine, Danny,” Steve said as Grace raised an impudent eyebrow their way, engaged and yet clearly not buying the boy’s line at all.
When she looked over the kid’s shoulder for a second time, just for her Danno’s sake, it was nearly impossible not to laugh out loud. The eye roll and errant wave of her hand are signals which Steve has grown to read like another private, secret language. She's annoyed but Grace Williams is her father’s daughter at the best of times, proven as she graciously accepts the flower likely stolen from a small table vase inside the boat’s main salon. She takes the simple daisy, tucks it behind an ear and then makes a show of walking back to her father’s side to put her arm in his. She's shut the French boy down even if she's kind enough to offer him a small wave good-bye and the kid looks utterly baffled.
“Take a picture of us Uncle Steve?” Grace asked as she held her hand out towards him, passing him her cell phone just as the riverboat takes them by the Cathedrale Notre-Dame de Paris.
“You bet," Steve replied. He's grinning like a fool and knows it. With one arm wrapped around his daughter, Danny is back to smiling, too. Grace is hugging her father close. Then she's on her tiptoes and whispering something in his ear before she kisses him on the cheek.
“It’s going to be alright, Dad.”
Steve clearly hears Grace’s whisper and maybe he's meant to hear it. He sees the way Danny’s eyes mist over and keeps right on grinning even as Danny reciprocates with a gentle kiss to the top of Grace’s head. Nevertheless, there's a brief flash of a fearful emotion across Danny’s face as he glances up to meet Steve's eyes and he knows what Danny's thinking. Steve knows because it's where he's gone at exactly the same moment.
It's a worry that Grace might have heard them talking last night. But Danny has already recovered from that moment of shock. It’s his reply which proves that point and Steve doesn't have to worry about how badly their world might remain haunted. There’s going to be too many good memories to displace the bad or even turn them to dust.
“It already is, Monkey. Everything’s perfect.”
END.