A/N: This should be a multi-chapter fic written over the course of... well however long it takes. I wanted to take those little scene-lets we saw in the Montage in the season Finale and flesh them out. This first chapter isn't from the montage, but I think it sets up the fic pretty well. :D Enjoy, and by all means, please feel free to leave comments and reviews. I really love them, and suggestions are always taken into consideration. (and btw, i've gotten some smut prompts that i'll get to eventually as well, probably post as one shots)
He should have felt guilty, not telling her right away, but damn it, she'd smiled at him in a way he hadn't seen in so long, and his resolve had just crumbled, the words still trapped in his throat. He needed her to smile that way all the time, a sunbeam to chase away the fear and uncertainty that sometimes settled over him. He needed her.
So no, guilt wasn't what he felt cuddled up as friends, watching her favorite movie, her head on his shoulder where he just knew it belonged. He was grateful that she's steamrolled him with her enthusiasm for lazing the day away, reciting that ridiculous list of almost comically boring things he enjoyed so much. She had desired his company, and it had left him speechless. He was being handed what he wanted on a silver platter, and all it took was a little lying and manipulation.
So maybe he did feel a bit guilty, and maybe that guilt ate at him just a little, a pernicious anxiety churning away in his stomach, manifesting itself in a strong and probably well-deserved dose of self-loathing. How had he gotten this way? How could he be so emotionally stunted that he could only tell her what he felt through letters? When had cowardice engulfed him to the point where he had to pretend to be someone else just to tell her he loved her?
In his defense, it had never been his intention to deceive her, at least not to the point where she'd be left crying in the unusually cold spring air at the top of the Empire State Building, gazing out over the city's twinkling lights, wondering why she'd been rejected… again.
She shifted against him, mumbling something incoherent in her sleep, an unmistakable frown pinching the corners of her mouth. He lifted his arm up, careful not to wake her, and curled it around her shoulders, pulling her into his chest a little. A tiny sigh escaped her parted lips as she rested her head on his chest. He could see the tracks on her cheeks where tears had dried, tears shed for an imaginary knight in shining armor. The self-loathing began to stir again. How could he have done this to her?
His palms had been sweaty, a tremulous uncertainty in his chest, when he'd called the newspaper to place the missed connection ad. He'd known he was venturing into a moral gray area, instigating a deception that had the potential to be very hurtful, but he hadn't been able to stop himself. He just needed to know. Did she see herself being with Charlie for good? Had he completely lost her?
He almost threw the paper away, knowing she would never randomly pick up one on her own. How many times had she proudly told Danny that she had a New York Times subscription on her tablet? That newspapers got her fingers dirty, and she was not about to spend fifty dollars at the dry cleaners just to read about politics and war. It was his last chance to stop before things got truly out of hand. He could have put the brakes on before it all careened out of control. He hadn't, he couldn't. Instead he'd carefully arranged it on the break room table, flipped open to the missed connections, lying innocently next to the coffee cake. And he'd waited, a hard lump of fear in his throat.
He'd played it amazingly cool, not stuttering or sweating or speaking at an unnecessarily loud volume. He'd practiced his reaction to her finding the article over and over again. Ironing out the wrinkles in his expression, the twitches, the breaks in his voice. It was a testament to his desperation, to his inability to behave sanely. It was pathetic.
To ease his troubled conscience he'd even discouraged her from contacting Andy, thinking that if he set the odds against it then he would really know how she felt. He had to know.
That was the mantra that had run through his head. He told himself this as he checked his dummy inbox over and over again. Closing the window only to open it again five minutes later, feeling his stomach drop in disappointment each time. He just needed to know. If she emailed him, that would be it. The mysterious Andy would never respond, and Danny wouldn't feel guilty about trying to win her back.
Of course, he'd underestimated the temptation writing her letters had for him. He'd missed her, terribly, and it was so much easier to tell her things in letters. It was as though his fingers were possessed. "I can't believe I found you." It was true, in so many senses. He'd finally found her, finally found someone he wanted to be around all the time, someone who made him want to be a better person, a happier person. And then immediately lost her. He cursed himself on a daily basis for being such an ass, for going about things all wrong, and yet here he was, screwing up again.
For the second time, he'd told himself to stop this nonsense, to quit before she got sucked into the character he created, but he was like an addict, and having her talk to him unreservedly again was like a drug he'd been denied for months. He found himself straying away from the character he'd created, telling her about his day, minus the things that would have given him away. Then she'd done it, she'd said things with Charlie weren't serious and she'd agreed to meet him. For the briefest of moments, an overwhelming giddiness had coursed through his limbs and he found himself smiling at the prospect of her being his again, no matter how unrealistic it was.
He hadn't been looking forward to the inevitable screaming match that would follow his confession, or the possibility that he'd messed up so badly that she wouldn't forgive him. But he'd had hope, this faint yet persistent glimmer in his heart that she might forgive him, engendered by her own optimism and all those romantically idealistic movies she'd made him watch. He couldn't shake the hope that she might see him at the top of the Empire State Building, dressed up, waiting for her, his heart in his hands, and that she might forgive him, see it as some kind of grand gesture. That she'd jump at the chance to quote one of her favorite movies and say, "I wanted it to be you."
But, that tiny glimmer had been completely snuffed out, and he should have seen it coming, really. When was life ever like the movies? When did anything good ever come of deceiving someone you loved? When had hope gotten him anywhere anyway? She was over him, and happier for it. And, as if the universe were playing some cruel joke on him, it was his own words that had tightened the noose. When exactly he became an authority on relationships and what men want, he'd never know. And he'd also never know when she started listening to the pessimistic things he spouted either.
He hadn't expected her to be so heartbroken, to wait all night. He'd completely underestimated her attachment to this fictional character, to the idea of finding true love. When she hadn't shown up at work, his heart had cleaved in two, his throat closing up, tears pricking at the back of his eyes in the brief moment before Tamra and Morgan had confronted him.
He knew she was at home, calling in sick because Jeremy didn't allow heartbreak days. Danny never thought he'd be the cause of her heartbreak a second time.
That's how he came to be lying here, a fuzzy warmth in his chest as he watched Meg Ryan sob into her pillow the morning after that son of a bitch Billy Crystal ran away. Disgust crashed over him again. What kind of man ran in the opposite direction when offered everything he ever wanted? Ever needed? Cowards.
Her breath puffed out softly against his chest as she snored, one hand tucked underneath her chin, resting squarely against his heart. It would be ok with him if they spent the rest of their lives like this, suspended in one moment in time, in an illusion of togetherness before everything unraveled. She stirred, looking up at him briefly, a little surprised before she turned her attention back to the movie. "Oh, I missed my favorite part."
"Which part is that?"
She smiled, her eyes sparkling. "Well, besides the ending obviously, it's when she's upset and he comes over to console her. In that moment, he's the only person that knows exactly what to say, exactly what to do. It's too bad he has to ruin it all, even if it's temporary." Her voice gets quiet, and she says the last four words slowly, suddenly feeling self-conscious.
Shit. Danny is reminded once again how he came to be here. The foolish mistakes he'd made along the way. He'd come here, soup in hand, ready to confess and apologize and beg her to forgive him. He'd given up hope that she could possibly want him back after this, and he was truly afraid that he'd done things that would push her away forever. Telling would have been the right thing to do. Even if she never wanted to speak to him again, it would have been the right thing to do.
But sometimes doing the right thing was hard. Especially when doing the right might break open the earth in a chasm wider than the Grand Canyon, leaving you and the person you love on opposite sides. So, in what seemed to be a destructively cyclical pattern, Danny did the wrong thing, hoping it would turn out right... eventually.