A FATHER'S FEARS
Written by Ann Rivers ann.rivers@virgin.net
Completed 11 July 2001
Summary: Two fathers share the same concerns over their sons
Spoilers: Discards
Disclaimer: Diagnosis Murder and its characters belong to CBS and Viacom.
No profit has been made from their use here
All comments welcome !!
"You know, Mark, I really can't thank you enough for putting us all up like this…"
From where he stood making the coffee, Mark Sloan turned to his houseguest and smiled.
"Believe me, Dane, it's really no trouble at all…" he replied, waving away all future argument.
"For one thing, by the time Steve got back with Garrison, it was… well, technically morning…
much too late for any of you to get back to your own homes without falling asleep first…"
Dane Travis grinned back, conceding the point with a good natured tilt of his coffee mug.
"Besides…" Mark went on, nodding towards his dawn lit living room with an openly fond grin.
"I think Jesse was rather taken with his idea of a spontaneous slumber party…"
"That's my boy…" Dane agreed, following Mark's gaze with the same air of fatherly patience.
"Once he gets an idea in his head, nothing on heaven or earth can shift it…"
As Mark laughed and nodded in wry agreement, Dane looked back at him and raised a sly eyebrow.
"Of course, he gets that from his mother…"
Remaining tactfully silent, Mark took his own refilled mug and followed Dane into the living room,
where another, more familiar houseguest lay curled snugly asleep on the sofa.
Still clad in black from the past night's dramatic excursion, he looked every inch a would be spy… except for one thing…
"You know, for a budding commando, he looks awful cute when he's asleep…" Mark chuckled,
fondly studying his young friend while tucking another blanket around Jesse's shoulders.
"He looks even cuter when he's waking up… at least he did when he was little…" Dane retorted dryly, sharing Mark's amusement as he sat beside his son and brushed that unruly fringe back from his face.
When he spoke again, though, his voice was markedly quieter – tinged by years of past regrets.
"On those all too rare occasions when I was home to put him to bed, I'd stay with him for hours…
making the most of every moment I had to spend with him, sometimes right until he woke up…
just watching him sleep, wondering what mischief he was planning for the following day…"
"Rather like he's doing now…" Mark observed, watching Jesse wriggle and stretch through a dream.
The drowsy sigh and grin that followed suggested that Mark would soon be proved right –
causing an exchange of amused if slightly worried glances as Jesse settled back to sleep.
"You know, he was one hell of a handful even then…" Dane admitted with a fatherly proud smile.
"When he was five we had this real hard winter… real heavy snow for months, Jess simply loved it…
when it melted, and he couldn't use his sled outside any more… well, he just used it inside instead…
tried to toboggan down our stairs, found out he couldn't stop and crashed right through the porch…"
Seeing Mark cringe in kindred sympathy, Dane grinned ruefully back at him and shook his head. "Which left him with a concussion, a broken arm and two scared witless parents…"
Mark winced again, finding it impossible not to laugh though as he studied that still cherubic face.
Somehow that revelation of the young Jesse Travis hurtling down his stairs didn't surprise him.
As though sensing this, Dane looked across at him with a shrewdly commiserating grin.
"Still, I'd guess with the time you've known him that he's caused you a few sleepless nights too…"
"Let's just say I have a few more grey hairs than I used to…" Mark replied with a rueful shrug.
"Though to be fair to Jesse, most of those came from my own handful of a son rather than yours…
when Steve was ten, he tried a whole new way to test Newton's theory for his science class…
rather than just drop an apple from a tree like the other kids, he went for a more hands on approach… climbed up the tree in our backyard, called me out to watch, then flapped his arms and jumped…"
A sigh, before the inevitable comparison of injuries. "Broken leg, dislocated shoulder, two lost teeth, and a father who aged ten years in ten seconds…"
"Ouch…" Dane winced in amused sympathy, enjoying this trade of their respective sons' antics.
"Oh, that was nothing…" Mark grinned, shaking his head at another memory of fatherly woe.
"You should have seen what happened when he tried to find a way to do his paper round a bit faster… took out the motor from my lawnmower and strapped it to his bike…"
"Now that's what I call initiative… I guess the same goes for my tobogganing son…" Dane chuckled.
Then he fell silent and sighed, reflecting on the event that had effectively ruined his marriage.
"I'd just been assigned another mission when Jesse got hurt…" he went on, his voice suddenly quieter. "I was allowed to visit him for ten minutes before Cinnamon and I had to leave for the airport…
by the time I got back… well, any last hopes I had for saving my marriage were pretty much gone…
of course, I still had visiting rights to see Jess after the divorce, such as they were, but…"
Pausing once more, Dane met suddenly dismayed blue eyes with lingering bitterness in his own.
"All those lost years, Mark…" he softly continued, glancing down once more at his sleeping son.
"All those years I missed watching him grow up… helping him with his schoolwork…
seeing him graduate from high school… advising him on how to date his first girlfriend…
seeing him qualify as the doctor he's wanted to be since he was eight years old… all lost…"
Serious now, Mark placed a hand on his shoulder, in a gesture of commiserating support.
"Dane, I won't insult your feelings by saying I know how you feel, because I don't…" he said softly.
"But what I do know is how thrilled Jesse is to have you back in his life again, for good this time…
and while you've lost so many years in sharing his life, you both still have a hell of a lot to enjoy…"
Dane considered this gentle pep talk for some moments before, finally, he sighed and shook his head.
"I know, Mark, but… hell, even those were so nearly lost…" he said at last, his voice tellingly quiet.
"The assassin that came after me at DelFlorio's tricked Jesse into telling him where we were…
to know that he could still have killed my son, Mark, that… damn it, that scares the hell out of me…"
Falling silent, he then looked up – belatedly realising that, this time, Mark knew exactly how he felt.
"But you must live with that fear all the time… right, Mark…?" he added, his voice even quieter.
Mark nodded, silent for several moments while he stared towards the stairs that led to Steve's room.
"Every time he goes out that door…" he said at last, smiling gently back at his still awkward guest.
"But he's doing the job he loves… both of us know that… and he's the best there is at what he does… and knowing that… well, it helps keep that fear under my control, and not the other way around…"
Dane nodded, the strain thankfully leaving his eyes as he looked up at Mark in grateful appreciation.
"I can see why Jess thinks so much of you… why he wanted to contact you so badly…" he said at last.
"Lord knows, with what he saw in that restaurant he needed someone he knew and trusted around him, to reassure him that I was only trying to protect him… and, I'm sorry to say, I wasn't it…"
"Well, you are now… you only have to see how Jess looks at you to know that…" Mark replied softly, sharing amused glances with Dane as Jesse stirred once more and smiled in subconscious agreement.
"He's waking up…" Dane nodded, watching his son's nose twitch before he sighed and added dryly,
"Must be close to breakfast time…"
"Apparently so…" Mark agreed, fondly shaking his head before he glanced back at Dane and grinned. "I suggest you get there first before our little commando here carries out another raid on the fridge…"
"No thanks, Mark, I'm fine… I'll take my chances and grab something later…" Dane assured him, studying his half empty mug for a moment before, glancing at Mark, he lifted it in a light hearted toast.
"To our sons, Mark, who make our lives worth living…"
"And to the fathers they send spare in the process…" Mark sighed, lifting his own in wry agreement.
Roused by the clinking mugs, Jesse rolled onto his back, stretching again as he continued to wake up.
Finally his eyes opened, blinking up at them in such sleepy confusion that both started to laugh.
"Hey, what's so funny…?" he yawned at last, frowning still more as the laughter continued.
"I'll let you explain…" Mark chuckled, pretending not to see Dane's wry glare as he rose to his feet. Making a strategic exit into the kitchen, he paused to enjoy the inevitable protests he'd left behind.
"Aw, no, dad, you didn't really tell Mark that, did you…? You did…? Oh, jeez…"
Laughing now, Mark filled his mug with fresh coffee – Steve's arrival prompting him to pour another.
"Thanks, dad… I'll just have this and beat Jess to the fridge then get back to finish off at the station…" Sensing his father's reflective mood, Steve looked up at him with a puzzled smile. "You okay, dad…?"
"Just fine, son… I guess the coffee hasn't quite kicked in yet…" Mark assured him, patting his shoulder. The smile then widened, grew more settled. "Yes, everything's fine here… all under control…"