Safe Haven by InSilva
Summary: set post-O13. A place of sanctuary for Tess and Danny.
A/N: With apologies to Robert Browning. And possibly Victoria Wood. And "Heat". The film not the magazine. And actually, just general apologies and an angst warning. Yeah.
The sun was setting and there was crimson and orange light streaming through one window while the other showed austere night, blue and velvet and faint first stars. The sunset fell across the bed where Danny sat, propped up against the headboard, staring out at the beach through the floor to ceiling windows. His hand rested on Tess's hair and he gently stroked it as she rested.
"Tide's coming in," he murmured and he continued the rhythmic caress which always soothed. "Wind's picking up. Looks like it's going to be a wild one."
Tess slept on and he smiled down at her, peaceful in the face of Nature's wrath.
"It's why we bought this place, isn't it? View of the sea. View of the world. Our little window on it all."
"A retreat" Tess had called it and Danny had liked the sound of that. A piece of privacy to escape to that belonged to them, that was special to them. And there could be walks on the beach and swims in the moonlight and love and memories and their world. It was all that. All that and more. And anytime he wanted to step away from the ordinary and the mundane and not have a conversation with Rusty which would lead to the dazzling and the intense, he found he could bring Tess here and they could find their own, quieter alternative.
He'd tried to explain it to Rusty who had smiled and understood everything Danny couldn't express and who still lived in bright lights and big cities, even all these years later, even now when they were older and slower in body at least if not in mind. Rusty fed off the vibe and the buzz and when his soul needed healing, he just went and found Danny. Rusty didn't care about the milieu.
The beach house was important to Tess, though, probably even more than to Danny. She would head out here on her own just to enjoy the solitude.
"It's a place to be alone but not lonely," Danny whispered down at her. "And I'm sorry that I spoiled that. But I needed to talk to you, I needed to see you. Your phone was switched off."
He'd tried for an afternoon. Solidly. And when he couldn't raise her, he'd phoned their neighbours, Bill and Sue, who had seen her leave that morning, headed for the beach.
It had taken him sixteen hours to fly back and find her and Rusty had not complained about cutting the trip to Europe short because there were always jewels to be stolen and paintings to be acquired and there would only ever be one Tess. Thank you had been in Danny's eyes as he'd left him at the airport and jumped in the hire car and Rusty had just rolled his. Because as he was fond of telling him, it was OK: it was always OK.
The drive from the airport to the beach house had been tiring and Danny couldn't actually remember when he'd slept last. Certainly he'd been too wound up on the plane. Because Tess was always at the other end of a phone and he found he needed to see her, needed to check that she was alright.
Surprising her at the beach house would be a good thing in so many ways, starting with the look of delight on her face as she saw him and possibly involving a barbecue and definitely involving time spent in bed together. Danny had all this in mind as he drove up the back roads to the seclusion of the house, all this and more because he felt he never told Tess enough what she meant to him. Rusty, he never had to say a word to. Rusty knew. Completely and unreservedly and Rusty never had to say a word back to him. Because he knew. The answer would be always and forever and the question would never be asked.
But Tess had come into his life later than Rusty. And Tess was everything that ought to be alien to him: honest and conformist as only someone who had never broken the law in their life could be. It was new waters for both of them and especially now, especially after time wasted and the urgency of new beginnings, there was a need to say, to make sure the other knew.
"I love you so much," she would say to him and her fingers would wrap round his. "You have to know this."
"I do. I do," he'd nod and he'd wait until the earnest had been replaced by the beginnings of indignation and then he'd sweep her off her feet with a laugh and a kiss and tell her that he loved her too. So much.
The sun was now barely a smudge of red on the horizon and Danny's fingers nestled in the back of Tess's neck, twining themselves through her hair, taking comfort from the feeling.
"In the morning," he said in a low voice so as not to disturb her, "I'd thought we might go up to the little café in the cove. The one with the blue and white china on the walls and the ginger cat that never moves. I'd thought we might have breakfast there."
He would order eggs and bacon and Tess would have toast and tea and there would be smiles for the elderly waitress who gamely took their orders and proceeded to lose them before she made it back to the kitchen. Danny figured the chef must be used to her by now and so were any regulars.
"If it's a nice day, I'd thought we might carry on up the coast and see if we can beg a trip out on a boat from the harbour. Mind you, the way this wind's getting up, I guess that might be off."
He shifted his weight infinitesimally because he'd been sitting in the one position for some time. Tess did not stir and he carried on.
"When we got back here, I'd thought it'd be nice if I cooked us a meal."
And he could hear the derisive noise from Tess even though she didn't make a sound.
"I can cook," he whispered defensively. "You just listen to Rusty too much. My cooking is not the reason he eats all those takeaways."
Yes, he'd thought he would cook. Italian. Probably. Pick up a nice wine while they were out. And dessert. Something with fruit. Something that would find favour with Tess rather than with Rusty. Rusty always preferred chocolate.
"And then, Mrs Ocean, I'd thought we might come back to this bed. And I can show you just how much I've missed you. Does that sound like a plan? It does, doesn't it? I am great at plans."
He started stroking her hair again and stared out at the dark waters and the blue-blackness of the sky.
There was sudden light, harshly blazing through the room and he blinked. Rusty stood there with an expression that Danny didn't, couldn't, wouldn't decipher. It was no mystery to Danny that Rusty was there. Rusty's appearances in his life were often random and unannounced just as his in Rusty's were. But the light wasn't necessary.
Tess.
And Rusty looked down at Tess, dead to the world, for a long moment and then hit the light switch and plunged them back into darkness. After a second or so, Danny felt Rusty slide on to the bed next to him, carefully avoiding disturbing Tess. And that was nice. Nice to have Rusty there beside him. Always nice. Always and forever.
Rusty's hand reached out in the darkness and covered Danny's as it moved over Tess's hair and Danny stopped.
"I couldn't reach you," Rusty said quietly by way of explanation and Danny remembered that he'd dropped the phone.
"I tried but there wasn't any answer."
He'd dropped the phone when he'd found the car.
"I needed to come and find you."
He'd found the car and he'd found Tess.
"I needed to."
He'd found Tess and he'd brought her up to the house and sat with her and he'd held her and that had been some time ago now.
He peered in the half-light at Rusty beside him, Rusty with always and forever written all over him.
"She's sleeping," he said and Rusty nodded and his arm went round Danny's shoulders and Danny found himself leaning in and resting his head against Rusty.
They stayed like that till morning.
A/N: Um. "Porphyria's Lover" by Browning was in my head as an image. Victoria Wood has a sketch about an elderly waitress. And there is a De Niro line about being alone but not lonely in "Heat".