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“Sorry, Detective Williams. The agent who dropped the charges against you wasn’t authorized to do so. All charges have been reinstated, and you’re going to have to come with us.”
The two US Marshals stood there in his living room, one of them pulling out a pair of handcuffs.
“Turn around and put your hands behind your back.”
“The only way you’re gonna survive in here is if you pay,” the guard told him, and he couldn’t figure out how he’d gotten from his living room back to what he now thought of as just plain hell. The shouting, the stench, the heat...a zoo full of wild animals waiting to maul his already battered body.
“Apretado,” the man growled as Danny felt the pain shooting through him, so many hands holding him down...waiting their turn.
“Eso no va a durar mucho tiempo, eh?” another chimed in, and they all laughed. He hoped they couldn’t hear him when the pain was so much and Steve’s name escaped him in a hushed sob.
“I’m here, Danno, it’s okay, come on, buddy, look at me,” Steve’s soft voice was right near him now, and he knew he must be crazy. He couldn’t stand it anymore and he was conjuring Steve up. Fantasy Steve was holding him, his arm around Danny, his other hand pressing Danny’s head against his chest. Somehow he was making the pain go away, and Danny thought maybe he was dying, and this was an angel that looked and sounded like Steve, or it was just a dying hallucination.
“Please...no more...let me die...”
“Danny, it’s me, you’re home, it’s okay. I need you to open your eyes.”
“I can’t.” Danny kept his face hidden against the warmth of the hallucinated Steve.
“Hey, Danno, come on, you need to open your eyes.”
“Then you’ll be gone. Don’t leave me here.”
“Danny, come on, look at me,” Steve whispered to him.
“If I open my eyes, I’ll be there, and you’ll be gone.”
“You have to trust me, okay? Just open your eyes and look at me, please.”
Danny was more terrified of opening his eyes than he’d been of anything else he endured. If he did, and Steve was gone, and his attackers with their rough, dirty hands, sour breath, and sadistic leers were there, then he’d know all was lost and his rescue, being back with Grace and Steve, was all a cruel dream. He finally opened his eyes a little, took in a bit of a breath, and all he smelled was a little trace of Steve’s shampoo because his face was hidden against Steve’s neck.
“See? I’m not a dream, Danny. I’m right here and I’ve got you. You’re safe, buddy.”
“Don’t let them take me back there.”
“Aw, Danno, you’re not going anywhere, I promise. It’s okay, I’m right here.”
“There were guys here...did I dream that? They said the agent who dropped the charges didn’t have the authority and they were taking me back. Marshals.”
“That was part of your dream,” Steve said, still holding him. He hadn’t let go of Steve, either. “It’s what you’re afraid of, not what happened.”
“God, Steve, it was so fucking awful there,” he sobbed, letting the horror of the rape itself sweep over him. And then he was talking and it almost felt like someone else was telling the story for him, but the words tumbled out in halting, broken pieces. The taunting and the blows and the violation and the pain. The violation and the pain. Over and over in an awful cycle until it all blended together in one terrible blur of degradation and suffering.
When it was over, he had sagged in Steve’s arms, and he didn’t even remember Steve gathering the covers around him so he didn’t feel chilled. Everything hurt, but he was safe, in a soft, warm bed held close by someone who loved him. By Steve. And now he was a shattered wreck who had months' worth of HIV testing ahead of him to know if it was even safe for anyone to touch him. Not that he wanted anyone touching him that way.
For so long, sharing a bed with Steve and sharing his life with him was the one thing Danny wanted most. Now he had a cruel parody of that wish. Steve was right here, giving him so much good care, his feelings for Danny uncharacteristically hanging out for lack of a better term for it. But that was probably because almost losing Danny had given him a scare, not because he wanted to set up housekeeping with a sexually traumatized basket case who had been passed around a Colombian jail first.
"Think you could rest a while?" Steve asked. Danny realized then he'd just slumped there in silence against Steve while he let his mind go off in all sorts of directions.
"Sorry," he said, moving away a little.
"You don't have to apologize for anything." Steve kept his arms around Danny. "You're okay where you are, if you're comfortable." He settled back on the pillows and Danny settled with him. "Close your eyes, buddy. Try to relax and sleep a little more. You need the rest. Just hold onto me so you know I'm here, in case you start dreaming again."
"Steve?"
"Yeah?"
"Something's going on with us, isn't it?"
"I think so. How do you feel about that?"
"You sound like a therapist."
"Sorry."
"I feel good about it."
"Me, too."
"I'm pretty fucked up, Steven. With everything that happened. I'm not even...we don't know if...I've got something catching."
"Even if you tested positive - and I'm not saying I think you will - there are ways to be safe. People who are HIV positive have relationships, marriages...I'm not worried about that. I'm worried because I want you to be okay, but I'm not worried that it would change anything between us. Whatever happens between us," he added.
"I don't want you to be stuck with me when I don't know how I'm ever gonna feel about being with somebody."
"You're with me now. You feel okay about it?"
"You know what I mean."
"Let's not worry about it now."
"Eventually you're gonna want to worry about it when you've got a case of blue balls."
"In case you haven't noticed, I don't exactly have an active sex life, so it's not like I can't practice some self-control. You know what I'd really like to do?"
"What?"
"Kiss you. I've wanted to since I saw you at the airport. Well, kind of before that. For a few...years."
"Years?"
"Did you ever think about us?"
"Yeah, long time ago." Danny smiled now, lying there almost nose to nose with Steve. "Then on that stakeout, I wanted to say something, but I didn't."
"You got me a guitar, Danny. That said a lot."
"Maybe after you take Gracie to school, you could play me something."
"Okay. We've got a couple hours yet, so try to rest, Danno."
"You gonna kiss me or not?"
"Is it okay?"
"If you don't now I'm gonna be offended."
"Can't have that."
Steve didn't have to lean far to make contact with Danny. He closed the small distance between them and very gently pressed his lips against Danny's. Danny hesitated a little. And then he responded, feeling Steve's mouth open, opening his own mouth, the kiss getting deeper and more intense. Steve carefully pulled back and then gave him a very sweet, gentle, chaste little kiss on the lips.
"I love you, Danno. Go back to sleep for a while. I'll be here."
"I love you, too, babe." Danny let his eyes drift shut, finally feeling safe there in Steve's arms.
********
The next time Danny opened his eyes, his face was buried in pillows and he was covered up, tucked in and warm. There was a note on Steve's pillow.
Took Gracie out for breakfast and to school. Be back by 8. Call me if you need me. S
Danny yawned and looked at the clock. It was 7:45 already. He glanced at the bedroom door and hated that he strained to hear if anyone was on the other side of it. Being alone in the house ordinarily would just mean he had some extra time to sleep undisturbed. Instead, he became more and more obsessed with watching the door, listening for the sounds of anyone else in the house.
He finally sat up and took his gun out of the night stand drawer and checked to be sure it was loaded. There was no reason for it not to be, and it felt good to have it in his hands again. The bedroom door suddenly opened and he didn't even hesitate. He opened fire and whoever it was lurched back into the hall. For a moment of eerie silence, there was nothing. Just a little smoke from the gunfire and the door creaking an inch or so farther open. There was movement then, and a grunt like someone was getting up.
"Don't try it again, asshole," Danny ordered, ready to unload the rest of his ammo if the intruder made another move on him. He made up his mind he wasn't going back to that hell hole, even if it meant becoming a fugitive from federal authorities.
"Danny, it's me."
He froze at the sound of Steve's voice. Then he was out of the bed faster than his battered body could really carry him until he met Steve at the door.
"Did I hit you?" he asked, his eyes bulging when he saw blood on Steve's forehead.
"That's not from all the shooting. I hit my head on the table when I went down," Steve said, indicating the upended table in the hall that usually held a small lamp and a couple of framed pictures that were now scattered on the floor. "What the hell was that?"
"I thought you were...I didn't know you were back. Oh, fuck, Steve...I could've killed you." Danny put the safety back on the gun and threw it on the floor. "I'm losing my mind," he said. "I almost killed you."
"You didn't. Not even close. Your table gave it a good try, but you missed by a mile."
"This isn't a joke. I panicked and I just shot..."
"Danny, I know why you panicked." Steve hugged him, and Danny latched onto him then.
"I'm so sorry. I could have killed you," he repeated. "Oh, God, I could have shot Grace."
"You knew she was in school or you wouldn't have opened fire. You thought you were alone and I should have said something. I was trying to be quiet in case you were still sleeping. So I managed to sneak up on you and scare the shit out of you instead."
"I thought it was somebody coming for me," he admitted.
"I know that, buddy."
"I'm going crazy."
"No, you're not. It's not your fault. You didn't know it was me." Steve's hand was on the back of his head now and he felt safe, sheltered. "You've been home a little less than a day. It's gonna take some time."
"I could have killed you," Danny repeated, the horror of it continuously sweeping over him.
"To do that, you'd have to actually hit me with one of those shots. You were so damned scared you were just firing at the boogeyman. I know what kind of shot you are. If you'd been aiming at all, you'd have hit what you aimed at."
"I know you told me it won't happen."
"It won't, but if fear was logical, the horror movie industry would be out of business."
For some reason that made Danny laugh, albeit brokenly.
"If you were smart, you'd put me in a psych ward."
"That'd be a great treatment for someone who's afraid of being hauled off somewhere and locked up. Have you hauled off and locked up."
"I'm afraid all the time. As soon as I knew I was alone in the house, I started listening for sounds of someone else here, and then when you opened the door..."
"Nobody's coming to take you back there. I give you my word." Steve paused, still holding Danny close. "I know that doesn't make the fear go away, does it?"
"I know you're telling me the truth. I just don't...believe it."
"Maybe time just needs to go by. You've gone through a lot in 48 hours, Danny. A lot. Give yourself time."
"If I'd killed you, I'd have blown my brains out."
"You didn't, so don't go there. You can make it up to me by patching up my head."
"Yeah, sure, I'll get some first aid stuff." Danny pulled back. "Shit, it's swelling up."
"I'll be fine. Let's just take care of it before the blood runs into my eye," he said, smiling.
"Only you could find that funny."
Steve sat on the toilet lid while Danny gathered the supplies and cleaned the cut carefully.
"Damn it, Steve, I'm sorry."
"I've had a couple worse injuries in my life. I think I'll pull through."
"Not from your crazy partner trying to kill you."
"Hey," he said, taking a hold of Danny's wrists to still his efforts a moment. "I'm gonna be fine and it's not your fault, okay?"
"I'll get some ice."
"I can get that. You need to get back in bed and take it easy. You're still healing up and you need the rest."
"Yeah, okay. I'll go back to bed after I get you some ice," he countered, walking slowly out to the kitchen. Steve let him do it, figuring he wasn't walking around too far, and it was letting him stretch his legs a bit and do something useful. Steve sat on the empty side of the bed, and a moment later, Danny was back with an ice bag. Steve stretched out there and took the ice bag, holding it on his forehead.
“No more excuses. Get off your feet, Daniel,” Steve said, and Danny grinned faintly at that and got back into bed. “There’s no easy way to ask this...any bleeding this morning?”
“Not so far, but I’m not moving around a whole lot, either. Still hurts like hell,” he mumbled, busying himself with turning on the TV and pretending to care what channel it was on. “I feel like everybody can tell.”
“You mean...?”
“Yeah, that.”
“How would they know?”
“Maybe because stuff like that happening in prison is so common that it’s almost a given.”
“Nobody’s said anything to me. And if they did, I wouldn’t tell them unless you wanted me to.”
“Thanks. I don’t want anybody to ever know about it. Ever.”
“Okay. Then it’s between us. That’s where it stays.”
“I just wouldn’t want Grace to ever find out.”
“Why?”
“Why? Why would I not want to explain prison rape to my twelve-year-old daughter?”
“You think she’s never heard a reference to it on a crime show? That she doesn’t know what rape is? Girls her age, unfortunately, have to knowsomething about sexual assault just for their own safety.”
“So what exactly have you told her about it?”
“I would never talk to Grace about something like that in any kind of detail without you knowing about it or being there. I think you know that. The most I’ve done is show her some self-defense moves, and told her if some creep does something she doesn’t like, tell him off and step away, and if he tries it again, here are a few ways to kick his ass. And then tell us who he is so we can go reinforce the message.”
“I haven’t really shown her hand-to-hand combat, but I’ve tried to warn her about being safe, not taking chances...going places with friends or make sure her mother or I are taking her someplace rather than her having to walk home alone, or be in a risky situation.”
“That’s all good advice, Danny.”
“But?”
“But she’s growing up and you can’t shield her from the ugly reality of the world forever. She’s a pretty girl and there are creeps out there who don’t take no for an answer and she needs to be street smart enough to be safe. Besides all that, she loves you, Danny. This wouldn’t change that.”
“She thinks I can do anything. Guess she’s gonna learn eventually that isn’t true, so I s’pose she might as well find out now that I’m really not all she thought I was.”
“That’s how you think she’d feel about this?”
“You never would have let that happen to you.”
“How did you let any part of that happen?” Steve reached over and took the remote, turning off the TV. “Danny, answer me. How did you letanybody do anything?”
“If I’d fought harder...I was in pain and there were so many of them and I knew I couldn’t get out of it, so I finally just kind of gave up and tried to live through it. I should have just kept fighting. There was a point where I just kind of...let them.”
“You were outnumbered and you were already seriously injured even before the guards threw you back in that snake pit with the prisoners. Even if you kept trying to fight it off, all they would have done was beat you more, worse, until you didn’t. And in the end they would have done the same thing anyway. There was nothing in any of this that even remotely smacks of consent, Danny.”
“Not consent, just...giving up. I saw the footage those psychos took of you in Afghanistan.”
“So? What does that have to do with anything?”
“You never gave up. Even when you were hurt and outnumbered, you fought for your life with everything you had. I just...gave up and let them...” He swallowed and looked away from Steve. “You’d have gone down fighting.”
“Maybe it’s because I didn’t think I deserved to suffer like that. I know you were working through guilt feelings about Reyes’ death. That means you have a good soul, Danny. Me? I would have spent about as much time feeling guilty about putting that piece of shit down as I would stepping on a cockroach. Maybe that does make a me a killing machine. I had to get over second-guessing making a kill shot a long time ago. If ever anyone was a prime candidate for it, that asshole was. In strictly analytical terms, the threat he posed alive was far higher than acceptable for long term security. It was your fight to finish, Danny, but I’d have walked down those steps and put a bullet between that motherfucker’s eyes without bothering to explain it to him first. And then added a couple more just to be sure he didn’t get back up again. You didn’t deserve to suffer for that. On my team, you’d have gotten a fucking medal and a free night of drinking at the nearest watering hole for managing to blow his brains out without getting any on your shoes.”
Steve rarely made such a plain and direct reference to some of the things he’d done as a SEAL, but it was a little chilling. Danny mostly had the kind, sensitive, good guy side of Steve as his frame of reference. He’d seen the beast freed sometimes, but he suspected Steve had done and seen a lot more than he’d ever talk about. He rarely had a conversation with full-on Navy SEAL Steve, and it both intrigued and unsettled him at the same time. There was a coldness and hardness in Steve’s voice and his expression when he spoke, as if another personality had poked through temporarily before being stuffed back down inside him.
And he wondered how much Steve must love him, and Grace, to keep this Steve mostly hidden and show them so much of the soft, sweet, silly, caring Steve that was so central to their little family unit.
“I guess now I’ve convinced you that you were right about the killing machine thing. Maybe you are,” Steve said, sighing and setting the ice bag aside, sitting up against the headboard.
“No, I’m not. It was an asshole comment I should have never made.”
“Danny, I had it drilled into me for years to fight to the death. The whole die with honor thing. In the end, you’re still just fucking dead and what difference does it make? You weren’t gonna walk away from those guys because you struggled more. You’ve got a boot print in the middle of your back to prove that. They were gonna do whatever they were gonna do, and all fighting harder than you did would have achieved is getting you hurt worse and maybe getting even more of them in on the act or somebody getting mad enough to pull out a weapon. Somehow you lived through it, and you’re home, and that’s what matters. It matters to me and it matters to Grace. If you’d gotten your throat cut because you kept fighting or you did something to one of them, who would that have helped?”
“Sometimes it feels like it would have helped me because I wouldn’t have to live with this.” Danny didn’t even really mean to give voice to that, but that was the wound that was deep in his soul, something pain meds, ice packs, and ointments couldn’t fix. He knew Steve was staring at him, and he couldn’t meet his eyes. “I think about it all the time. I don’t want to, but I do. The only reason I’m not in the shower ten times a day is because I don’t want to start bleeding again and I know, in my head, that it won’t make me feel any better anyway.” Danny ran his hand over his face tiredly. “You don’t have to put me on a suicide watch. I wouldn’t do that to Grace, or to you, okay?”
“But you’d rather be dead than be here with us, and live with what happened?”
“When you put it that way, it makes me sound like an awful person.”
“I’m just trying to understand it, Danny.”
“If you figure it out, feel free to share.”
“Maybe you should talk to somebody.”
“I am. I’m talking to you. I just need to say it out loud...because it’s eating me up inside. I don’t want to be...mind-raped by a shrink.”
“I want to fix this for you somehow, Danny. Tell me what you need. Anything. I’ll do it.”
“I know you would,” Danny said, finally looking at Steve and feeling his heart break at the sincere, intense, troubled expression on Steve’s face. “Maybe I just need to feel better, y’know? When I’m back at work and I can work out again, and everything doesn’t hurt every time I breathe. I feel like an invalid...” Danny shrugged, gesturing with his hands. “I don’t know what I need. I guess just to say it out loud to somebody.”
Steve was quiet a few seconds, and Danny thought he'd blown it, said too much, made Steve think he was hopelessly nuts, or even worse, that what was going on between them, even being with his daughter, wasn't enough to make Danny glad to be alive. It was...but it wasn't. Maybe he should listen to Steve on this one and just give himself some time.
"I'm gonna rest a while. I'm really sleepy," Danny said. It was the truth. Steve was there, he felt safe, and the adrenaline rush and emotional stress of the shooting incident had left him worn out. "You know the TV won't bother me if you want to watch something." Please stay with me.
"I didn't get a lot of sleep last night, either. Mind if I take a nap with you?"
"Sure," he said smiling. Steve shifted onto his side and spooned himself around Danny.
"It's gonna be okay, Danny."
"You think so?" He tried to keep his tone light, but he needed so badly to believe those simple words.
"I was serious about us taking Grace on a little trip. When you wake up later, we'll decide on a spot. Change of scenery will be good for all of us."
"Sounds nice." Danny was quiet a minute. "It's not that I'm not glad to be here, or that I don't love you and Gracie..."
"It's just hard, huh?"
"Yeah, it's hard," Danny agreed, taking in a shaky breath. Steve kissed his shoulder.
"Go to sleep and don't worry about it, Danno. We'll get through all of it, I promise."
********
Steve was sound asleep when something disturbed him. It wasn’t Danny; he was finally deeply asleep also with a pretty good grip on Steve’s hand. He had his arm around Danny and his hand on his chest. He’d managed somehow to keep him close without putting pressure on his bruises. Steve blinked a couple times and listened, then with a wide yawn, he settled back on the pillow and started to doze again when someone pumped the doorbell, more aggressively this time.
He eased away from Danny, but there was little way to avoid disturbing him when he tried to pull his hand out of Danny’s grip.
“Go back to sleep. I’ll be right back,” he said, and Danny mumbled something and reluctantly let go of his hand. Steve was still dressed, so he ran his hand through his hair and answered the door. Joe stood on the other side of it. His expression was grim.
"I stopped by your place, and when you weren't there, I figured I'd stop by here." He paused. "What happened to you?” he asked, gesturing at the bandage on Steve’s forehead.
“I tripped on something and lost a fight with a table.”
“Figures. We make a dangerous mission to Colombia in one piece and you come home and crack your head open on a table. Mind if I come in?”
“Danny’s sleeping, and I don’t want to wake him.” Steve noticed Joe giving him a not-so-subtle once over, and realized he probably looked like he just crawled out of bed himself. Deciding not to address that one way or the other, he led Joe into the living room and they sat on opposite ends of the couch.
“How is he?”
“He had a lot of injuries, including fractured ribs on the right side. They really worked him over in there, more than once,” Steve said, pinching the bridge of his nose.
"He didn't seem that bad when I saw him. I know he was moving like he was sore, but I didn't get the impression he was in bad shape."
"He has rib fractures and he took multiple beatings. The doctor tested him for liver and kidney damage, but luckily he seems to have gotten through without that." He rested his hands on his hips. “We should have never left Colombia without him.”
“We didn’t have a choice, Steve. Alexander had to put the paperwork in motion to get him out, and you and I both know we didn’t have the manpower for an outright attack on the jail. The important thing is, you got him out of there at all.”
“Easy for us to say. We weren’t living through it while some bureaucrat did paperwork.”
“We did everything we could, and some stuff most people couldn’t. He’s lucky to be alive after signing that waiver.”
“He was trying to protect Grace and me.”
“That’s noble, but suicidal. That’s why we have lawyers and due process in this country, to save people from these situations.”
“It sounds like you blame him for what happened.”
“He signed off that he was guilty and didn’t fight extradition, and then we all had to mobilize this operation at a pretty high cost to go get him back from something he did voluntarily. He did decide to cooperate with the authorities and he had to know what was waiting for him there.”
“So it’s his fault?”
“Calm down, Steve. This isn’t about it being anyone’s fault. He didn’t deserve to be beaten up or mistreated there, but I think it would be absurd to expect that he wouldn’t be, and he had to know that going in. I’m not saying it isn’t good we got him back, but I am saying he didn’t make it easy to help him.”
“You had to have a reason for coming here besides criticizing Danny for what happened. I think you better get to it because I’ve heard enough.”
Joe shook his head with an exasperated expression but didn’t say anything else on that subject.
“I have some news, Steve. I thought I should deliver it in person.”
“What?”
“It’s about your mother.”
“What has she done now? Should I pack up Danny and Grace and get us to a safe house?”
“No, nothing like that.” Joe paused. “She’s dead, Steve.”
“Again? Don’t tell me, let me guess because I’ve done this before. Car accident, and the remains are unrecognizable so we have to have a closed casket.”
“No, the remains are perfectly recognizable and being shipped here from London.”
“London? What was she doing there? Oh, that’s probably classified, too.” Steve was intentionally ignoring any possibility that what Joe was saying could be real. “Come on, Joe, what’s the angle this time?”
“No angle, Steve. She’s dead. You’ll be able to see for yourself tomorrow, when the casket arrives. I’ve made tentative arrangements with a funeral home here to transport her when the plane arrives, but you can make your own arrangements if you prefer.” Joe laid a business card on the coffee table. “That’s the funeral director’s card. He’s waiting for your call regarding the rest of the arrangements.”
Steve stared at the card on the coffee table, then stared at Joe. He was speechless. He didn’t believe it entirely, but he also didn’t know why Joe would lie. And, if the casket was really on its way and she was inside it and could be identified, there’d be no denying it.
“She was shot on the sidewalk in front of her apartment building in London. There were no witnesses. It was shortly before dawn.”
“You think her death is connected to giving us intel on Reyes and the CIA?”
“I didn’t say that, but it’s not impossible.”
“How do you know this isn’t another hoax?” Steve asked. His mother was one of the great irritations of his adult life, but he was holding onto the hope it was a hoax. He’d always pictured some kind of reunion, someday, and maybe some kind of adult relationship with her that wasn’t riddled with lies and disappearances.
“Her handler sent me a photo. And before you say it could be a fake, which it could, remember that the body is on the way here, so you’ll be able to see her for yourself.” Joe handed Steve his cell phone. The woman in the photo was lying on a morgue table, just her head and neck visible in the shot, a large bluish purple swelling and hole in the middle of her forehead. Right where the bullet that killed Reyes was placed by Danny on his forehead.
“Reyes...”
“That thought crossed my mind, about the way she was shot. Steve, somebody had to pay for Reyes’ death. She protected you and, ultimately, she did what she could to help us rescue Danny, to give us leverage. We chose to destroy all that coke and blackmail Alexander, rather than deliver it. That left a very large score to settle.”
“I never thought they’d go back after her. I figured she was too well-connected to be a target.” He handed Joe back his phone. “What time is the plane arriving?”
“Tomorrow afternoon. All the information’s on the back of the card, there,” Joe said, gesturing at the business card he’d left on the coffee table. “Are you gonna be all right?” he asked. Steve knew he hadn’t reacted much, said much.
"Who's investigating this? The CIA?"
"An autopsy was done and all the forensic evidence collected. It's an Interpol investigation, and they're not going to just step aside and let you participate. You're her son, for one thing, even if they would allow an outside law enforcement official from the US to be involved - it wouldn't be you."
"So I'm supposed to just accept this and not ask any questions?"
"You can ask all you want, but this is a sensitive matter -"
"She's my mother! That's about as sensitive as it gets."
"Look, Steve, I know this is pointless, but my best advice to you is to let this lie. You have Danny back in one piece, give or take a little, and whoever did this to your mother probably considers they've evened the score and collected on the debt. If you mess with that balance, you're going to be back to square one. I don't know all the details and frankly I don't need to, but I'd say you've settled pretty comfortably here as a family with Danny and his daughter, and you'll be putting them right back in the cross hairs if you pursue this."
"Is that just your best advice, or do you know something?" Steve pressed.
"I think you know better than to ask me that. If you want to keep the life you have now, and keep the people you love safe, let it go."
"You sound a hell of a lot like Marco Reyes."
"I'm not threatening you. Look, Steve, I know you don't need someone looking out for you at this point in your life, but I told your father a long time ago I'd do that, and it's not a promise I take lightly or abandon because you're an adult. Let this go," he repeated.
“I, uh, should call Mary.”
“I’ll let you get to that, then,” Joe said, standing. Steve stood also, and Joe clapped him on the shoulder. “Call if you need anything. And give some serious thought to what I said.”
“I will, thanks,” he said, walking Joe to the door and closing it behind him. Suddenly, the coldness of his youth crept over him like a chill up his spine. He’d become so accustomed to Danny’s warmth and his concern and his readiness to give Steve whatever it was he needed - whether it was a hug or just his presence... The men in Steve’s life when he was young were not big on that and he grieved his mother’s death the first time feeling mostly alone and like he was expected to “take it like a man” and be strong for Mary and not spend all his time blubbering.
He walked back into the bedroom, feeling like a zombie. Danny eased himself up on one elbow as soon as Steve walked in the room.
“Everything okay?” he asked, yawning. Steve just stood there. He knew if he said anything he’d lose it. Danny needed to rest, but he needed Danny.
He climbed back on the bed and stretched out there behind Danny and spooned around him again.
“My mom’s dead,” he said, and he didn’t fight his emotions anymore. Danny struggled a little with turning over, but he lay on his back and Steve rested his head on Danny's chest. Steve held onto him, trying to remember not to hurt him anywhere, and gave in to the clumsy, choking, not-manly process of just letting the tears come as they wanted without stopping them.
“I’m so sorry, babe. I’m so sorry,” Danny said gently, one hand rubbing Steve’s back, the other stroking his hair.
Danny was smart; he was probably putting two and two together that her death could have been connected to his rescue, and the intel she provided, but Steve couldn’t handle all that right then, and if Danny was having those thoughts, he kept them to himself and just held Steve, mumbling little words of comfort to him. Steve knew he was pouring out to Danny all the grief that was inside him from losing his mother twice. From all the years she wasn’t around, that he thought she was dead, and then all the betrayals and the complications of trying to have a relationship with her when she was back in his life. He wanted to be angry at her and hold a grudge and not feel anything for her, but she was his mother and he loved her and he knew she’d taken advantage of that, and even that didn’t matter in the end. She was his mom and she was dead, and he wanted her back like he had when he was kid.
“They’re shipping the casket here. The plane gets in tomorrow.”
“I know it hurts,” Danny said quietly, kissing Steve’s forehead and keeping a tight hold on him. “I’ll be with you for all of it, Steve. You’re not gonna be alone for any of this, okay?”
“Counting on it,” he mumbled, sniffling and trying to pull himself together. “I know she really wasn’t around much...”
“She was your mom and you loved her. Enough said, babe. You don’t have to justify why you feel bad. You’re part of the emotionally supportive and generally pretty loud and expressive Williams family now, remember?”
Steve chuckled at that.
“Gracie and I love you and around here, if you feel bad, you get hugged until you feel better. Think you can live with that?”
“Not sure I could get by without it now.”
“No reason to,” Danny said. “We’ll all go meet the plane together tomorrow.”
“Are you sure you want Grace involved in that?”
“She’ll want to be there to support you. It’s what family does. You feel up to calling Mary?”
“I have to. I need to tell her myself.”
“Okay. You want me to be around while you do?”
“You don’t mind?” Steve asked.
“No, babe, I don’t mind,” Danny said, and it almost sounded like he was smiling when he said it. “I love you, Steven. It’s gonna be okay. Do you want to talk about it? What happened? Who was at the door?”
“Joe came by to tell me. Someone shot her on the street in front of her apartment building. She was living in London.”
“London? I always pictured her in some exotic, remote place in the far east or something.”
“Yeah, so did I,” Steve replied, smiling. “I just wish she had ever trusted me, you know? It’s not like I don’t get how the spy and intelligence business works. She never trusted me.”
“Maybe she was used to protecting you. Look, I don’t like how she walked in and out of your life and I know that hurt you, so I really didn’t like it, but maybe she did what she felt she had to do to keep you safe.”
“Is that what you really think?” Steve asked. He wanted that to be true. He would rather grieve his mother as being noble and protective than to see her as shifty and deceitful and not all that concerned about him.
“I think we’re never gonna know the absolute truth about your mom for sure, and you loved her, and in her weird, secret agent, double life, spend-years-in-hiding kind of way, she loved you, too, so why not give her the benefit of the doubt?” Danny was quiet a few moments. “She risked her life to help you get me back from Colombia, and she didn’t even like me, so we know that was just because she knew it mattered to you.”
“She liked you.”
“You don’t have to defend her. I knew how much she hurt you and maybe I didn’t do as good a job forgiving her for that as you did. If we’d spent more time together, we’d have gotten used to each other...because we had you in common.”
“I don’t want to care about this, Danny.”
“I know. Honestly, I didn’t want to care so much what happened to Matty, either. But I loved him and I couldn’t help it. He was my little brother and I would have done anything to save him, right to the end. There’s not one part of what happened to him that he didn’t bring on himself. I know that. Still...in the end, you love who you love and there’s not much you can do about it.”
“I guess not.” Steve knew he had to call Mary, that he should contact the funeral home and check on the arrangements and confirm them and change anything he felt should be changed. He shuddered involuntarily when he thought how close he came to attending Danny’s funeral. Steve doubted he’d have been allowed to plan it, because he probably would have been shipped off to New Jersey and Steve wasn’t officially family...
“What is it?” Danny asked, angling his head so he could look Steve in the eyes.
“Nothing.”
“It wasn’t ‘nothing.’ Out with it.”
“I should go to the funeral home, go over the arrangements. Mary has to fly here, and that’s even assuming she’ll come. She checks in on Aunt Deb and Leonard pretty much every day, and with Joanie...”
“How’s Aunt Deb doing? You haven’t mentioned her in a while.”
“Not so hot. I guess we knew that. Mary was talking about maybe moving in with them for a while so she could help out more regularly.”
“We can go over to the funeral home today, before Grace gets out of school. If you feel up to it, we could get dinner someplace. Gracie has cheerleading practice after school, so we won’t be getting her until about five.”
“If I feel up to it? You’re the one recuperating, Danno.”
“I’ll be fine. It’s not like I have to do anything strenuous. But that still isn’t what’s bothering you, is it? It’s because the intel you got to do what you did to get me out of jail came from your mother, and now she’s dead.”
“We don’t know the two things are even related, Danny. She had so many enemies and was involved in so many things over the years, even now, we couldn’t definitively say it had anything to do with that.”
“We can’t definitively say it didn’t.” Danny sighed. “Steve, if I made that happen doing what I did...I don’t even know what to say. You should have just let me take the consequences of my decision and let it go.”
“Are you fucking insane?” Steve said, sitting up.
“Depending on who you ask, probably.”
“Do you think I’d leave you there, in that hell hole, and let you rot there for the rest of your life–assuming they didn’t kill you in the first 48 hours you were there? If we couldn’t make this work, I would have broken you out of there.”
“That would have been a suicide mission, and you know it.”
“So? What the fuck do I have to stick around for if I don’t have you?” Steve blurted, not really intending to say it, and yet, it was the truth. Danny blinked a time or two.
“Grace, because if I couldn’t be here to raise her, I’d want you to be around for her.”
“Rachel and Stan--”
“If I was out of the picture, it would be kind of a relief for them. They could have Grace and live their lives where and how they wanted. You’d miss me, and she’d need someone to lean on who missed me, too.”
Steve sat there, his eyes filling up again. “I was thinking how close I came to having to pick out a nice suit for you and go make arrangements, and then I realized that you’d probably...that your family would do all that...”
“Well, fortunately for you and Grace, and possibly unfortunately for Rachel and Stan, I’m not going anywhere and I’m banged up but far from dead. And I’m sorry if shit I said earlier...about not wanting to keep going through this...it was selfish and I didn’t mean I don’t want to be here with you guys, because I do.”
“I’m real glad nobody can see us right now,” Steve said, reaching across Danny to grab the box of tissues, holding it out for him to take one before Steve took one out himself and wiped his eyes and blew his nose.
“Well, it wouldn’t exactly have the criminal element of Hawaii shaking in their boots.”
“Nobody wears boots in Hawaii, Danno.”
“Fine, shaking in their sandals, is that better?” he asked, blowing his nose.
“Much.”
“We should do something legally, so if something happened to me, you’d have some visitation rights with Grace. I know you couldn’t outdo Rachel for custody since she’s her biological mother and they’re fit parents and everything, but maybe it would at least make it official so you could stay in her life.”
“I guess I never really thought about it, that they could take Grace wherever they wanted. I mean, I’d travel to go see her, that’s not a big deal.”
“It’s not the same as being in the same town, or having the right to visit her or take her places.”
“No, I suppose not.”
“We should change and head over to the funeral home so we have time to take care of everything before we pick Grace up. I’ll be okay if you want to run home and change. It’ll take me a while to do everything since I’m not moving too fast.”
“Are you sure?”
“I promise I won’t shoot at you when you come back to pick me up.”
“I’ll holler from the door this time.”
“Fair enough,” Danny replied, smiling. Then he became serious again. “Steve, I mean it, if I caused this--”
“You didn’t ask me to come after you, and you didn’t ask me to destroy the drugs, or blackmail Alexander into releasing you. You didn’t ask for anything, Danny. I made those decisions, and some of them probably weren’t perfect, but you’re here...I can’t argue with that outcome. Joe contacted my mother, and she made a decision to help us. It was a massive chain of events she set in motion thirty or forty years ago when she decided to do what she did for a living.”
Steve dreaded calling Mary, so he approached that like he approached anything he dreaded - he faced it head on and called her. Danny sat by his side while he talked to Mary, just quietly taking his hand when the call got difficult, when he could tell Steve was struggling with his emotions. When Steve hung up, he sat there a moment staring at his phone.
"She's not coming," he said. Danny just quietly rubbed Steve's back and kissed his shoulder.
"It's okay. You're not alone, babe."
"Aunt Deb's getting worse," he said, and that hurt worse than the revelation Mary wasn't coming. It wouldn't be long and they'd be going to Aunt Deb's funeral...so soon after they'd been at her wedding. "I was kind of hoping she could come...Aunt Deb, I mean."
"She's been like another mom to you, hasn't she?"
"Yeah. It's just hard," Steve admitted, hating that tears were coming again. "Sorry."
"It's okay, nobody expects you to not feel anything." Danny put his arm around Steve and just sat there with his head against Steve's shoulder. Steve turned and took Danny in his arms, holding onto him, working hard at pulling back his emotions. "Stop it, Steve. Instead of torturing yourself, just let it go. All of it. I love you and I can handle it." He was letting out old and new grief, mourning the loss he'd suffered when he was a teenager, the loss of his mother again, and the fact his sister wasn't going to be there while he buried their mother. His father wasn't there, either. He hoped he wasn't hurting Danny, but he was clinging to him, needing so much to feel him there.
"I love you, too, Danny. I don't say it much to you, but I do," he said, realizing how many times Danny casually told him he loved him, though there was nothing casual about the feelings. Danny just wasn't too hung up to express them. If Danny hadn't made it out of Colombia alive, Steve couldn't remember the last time he'd said those words to Danny. He remembered Danny saying them over Indian takeout. And a few weeks before that for some other simple reason. "I love you and I never tell you."
"Sure you do. All the time. It doesn't always have to be words. I know you do."
"I should go...get dressed and get going," he said, moving away, standing up. "Thanks for coming with me."
"There's no way you're going alone. You're not alone anymore, remember?"
"Yeah, I sure do," Steve said, smiling.
********