Can't Change the Past, a pearl harbor fanfic

You Can't Change the Past

--August 15, 1953--

"Daniel Walker McCawley!"

"Uh oh…" Danny whispered under his breath, ducking down into the cockpit of the red crop-dusting plane far older than he was.

Evelyn stopped next to the plane, hands on hips, almost amused but refusing to show it.

"Daniel Walker McCawley," she repeated "If you don't get out of that plane right now you'll be grounded into next year! What did I tell you about that plane?" She demanded as the eleven-year-old dejectedly climbed out.

"That I'm never to go in it alone and that Daddy was a fool for ever bringing me up in it 'cause it scares the living daylights out of you." The small brown-eyes, brown-haired boy solemnly told his mother.

Inside the house, Rafe McCawley had just returned home from work with his friend Red Winkle (or Red Strange, as he was called) and looked out the kitchen window just in time to see Danny climbing out of the old plane. He looked so much like his father…

~ * ~ * ~

"I see 'em!" Danny called back above the imaginary roar of their plane's engine and the buzz Rafe was making with his lips as he jerked the broken broomstick that controlled the movements he was making through the sky in his mind.

"Get 'em Danny!"

"I got 'em Rafe!" And his tongue tickled his teeth, unleashing a thrashing pulse of machine-gun fire.

~ * ~ * ~

"Hey! Tower to Rafe, come in Rafe…" Red called waving a hand in front of his friend's face, snapping him out of his reverie.

"Yeah, sorry Red." Rafe said distractedly, looking back out the window. Red followed his gaze.

"God, the kid looks just like his daddy, huh?" he commented, as if reading Rafe's thoughts. Red was one of the few people who knew that Danny was not Rafe's son, but in fact was Danny Walker's, who had died eleven years earlier in the Doolittle Raids.

"Exactly like him. Acts just like him too." He sighed and turned away from the window. "It's pure torture for me Red. Danny should be here with his girl and his son. And instead I am. Sometimes I wish that I had died when you all thought I had. Then Evelyn woulda' told Danny she was pregnant and he wouldn't of gone…and he'd still be here…"

Red bit his lip, not knowing what to say to that. The pain in Rafe's eyes as he remembered his best friend made Red feel so helpless. All he could do was pull Rafe into a hug and whisper,

"Danny wouldn't want that…you can't change the past Rafe."

* * *

Danny and his mother both walked into the kitchen just as Rafe and Red were releasing eachother from their embrace.

"Hey Red!" Danny grinned as Red ruffled his shaggy hair.

"Hey flyboy, how goes it?" Red replied grinning back down at the boy.

Danny sighed dramatically, letting his deep-set chocolate eyes cast themselves downward and his thin shoulders slump. 'Yep,' Red thought 'Definitely his father's son.'

"Mama won't let me in the plane anymore. She says flying is dangerous and I should go into somethin' sensible like farming or banking instead of getting me head stuck in the clouds…literally." The small boy sulked.

"Aw, that's not fair Lyn." Red and Rafe protested at the same time causing Danny to giggle and Evelyn to roll her eyes.

"I mean, your mother's right of course." Rafe corrected himself, clearing his throat. "You shouldn't play in that old plane Danny."

"Why do you have to take her side? You fly, it's not dangerous!" Danny scowled up at his 'father.' "You know what? I wish someone else was my daddy!" he yelled before storming off in a fit. Evelyn saw the hurt on Rafe's face and rushed to him.

"He didn't mean it Rafe. He's a little boy, he got mad."

Rafe was quiet, staring at his hands. "But someone else is his daddy…" he whispered "And I wish more than anything he were here…"

* * *

The thing about wishes that neither Rafe nor little Danny realized was that when you least expect it someone is listening…and if you're not careful they'll grant it.

* * *

--December 13, 1941--

"Lieutenant Daniel Walker?" a voice came. Danny turned, hearing his name. He raised his eyebrows in question. "I have orders for you, from Colonel Doolittle. You're going stateside. We fly out in two hours." The Major owning the voice handed him an envelope, and walking away.

Evelyn looked up at Danny, grasping his fingers with one hand and unconsciously placing the other on her stomach.

She looked up at him with eyes that pleaded 'Don't go.' And he returned the gaze with eyes that said 'I won't.'

* * *

What's going on?

Rafe neither really spoke nor thought the question, more willed it into existence, but it seemed to echo and reverberate off of the walls that weren't there. Walls that surrounded a deep abyss of the truest blue Rafe had ever seen, yet was not seeing. A voice that was not there flashed through his consciousness for an instant then was gone.

"Wish granted."

* * *

--April 18, 1942--

"Something wrong Danny?" Evelyn asked, sitting next to him on the sand over-looking the water. The two were still stationed in Pearl Harbor and had gotten married the week before, mainly-Danny feared-because of the life inside of Evelyn. Danny was staring out at the sunset, grabbing handfuls of sand and letting the grains sift through his fingers.

"Just thinking…about Red and them…maybe I should have gone." He told her, never breaking his magnetic gaze from the vast sapphire ocean and the orange and red dying rays of the Hawaiian sun.

"Oh…"

Danny, just realizing what he said, quickly looked at Evelyn, taking one of her hands in his and using his other one to cup her cheek.

"No Evelyn, all I meant was that I feel bad for not being there to look out for them. You know I'd never leave you and the baby by choice."

Evelyn nodded, biting her bottom lip and avoiding Danny's eyes…eyes so different from Rafe's. Rafe who had chosen to leave her…

Danny had no idea that he was being compared to Rafe. He merely thought that Evelyn was still upset at him. He pulled her into a gentle hug.

"You know I love you Evelyn. I love you more than the suns dying rays love the ocean they warm." He murmured into her ear, letting his poetic way with words take over, for once not self-conscious.

Evelyn just nodded into his chest, feeling guilty that she preferred one love to another.

But she never returned the "I love you."

* * *

Why is she just brushing Danny off? Rafe demanded, communicating in the way he could not understand but had learned worked.

He waited for the flash of an answer, what you could almost call an epitome. He didn't wait long.

"Watch."

* * *

--July 21, 1942--

"Alright Evelyn, push!" Barbara shouted. She had 'coincidentally' been switched to this shift at the hospital when Evelyn had started screaming bloody murder over contractions and was now helping the doctor with the delivery. Meanwhile, Danny was standing off to the side, mouth slightly open and eyes a look of panic. His quiet, almost shy voice could be heard every once in a while, barely audible it over the screams.

"Is it supposed to hurt like that?" "Is she okay?" "What can I do?" "Oh my God, why is she bleeding??"

"Danny! Shut up!" Evelyn screamed at him, red faced from labor. "This is your fault and you're not helping!"

The cocoa-colour eyed young man bit his lip, his expression turned to one of a kicked puppy as he shrank back a little. Barbara patted his shoulder as she passed by with medical supplies.

"It's just the pain." She whispered "When this is over she'll love you again."

Danny smiled at her, not his movie star grin, but a smile all the same.

Then he heard a baby cry and the screaming stopped, replaced by heavy breathing.

"Congratulations, you have a beautiful baby boy." The doctor grinned before handing the infant to Barbara to clean.

"Let me see him. Oh God Danny, he's so beautiful." Evelyn smiled as she took the baby into her arms. Danny looked at the two. Even though Evelyn's hair was slick with sweat, her face red and blood was on her hands, as she looked into the face her her-their-new baby, Danny couldn't help but think she'd never been more beautiful.

'And she's mine.' Danny thought "Her and the baby…they're mine.' Then a shadow seemed to pass over his face and his very soul. 'I wish Rafe could see.'

* * *

--August 7, 1942--

Evelyn had finally agreed to let Danny take their son to work with him.

"Heeeeeeeey!" Red greeted Danny with a slap on the back. "See ya convinced Lyn to let you take Rafe to work. Hey kiddo," he cooed, tickling the baby's tummy with his index finger. The three-week-old gurgled and attempted to grab Red's finger. Red laughed.

"You've got an adorable kid there Danny. Obviously doesn't take after his old man."

Danny just glared at Red good-naturedly and looked down at his infant son "That there's Red. He's a bad influence. You shouldn't go near him."

Rafe laughed and the two walked towards the hangars.

"Any word on where we're gonna be assigned?" Danny asked. 'The Terrors of the Skies' and 'The Pride of the Pacific' hadn't been sent over to Europe yet, given time to recuperate after the attack on Pearl and the Doolittle Raids.

"Yeah. England, in two w-weeks." Red answered; a slight stutter the only sign that he was a little nervous about going into the war.

'Two weeks.' Danny thought 'Two weeks with Rafe…two weeks with Evelyn.'

* * *

--August 10, 1942--

Danny lay awake, riddled with guilt, his bed cold. He longed for Evelyn to be here to provide some sort of comfort, but even though the two were married she still stayed with the nurses and he still stayed in the barracks. Orders were orders. It made him almost wonder why he'd bothered to marry her while everyone else was on the Doolittle Raids.

While everyone else was on the Raids. Those were the words that echoed through Danny's brain every day and night. He should have gone, but he'd played the coward. Other men who had gone had girls, other men had children. Other men. He had stayed…he was still a boy.

Slipping out of his bunk he escaped to the bathroom.

Voices in his head-not crazy voices, stressed out, too many bad decisions voices- yelled this and that at him, their words ricocheting off the walls of his scull.

He reached into his shave bag and pulled out his razor.

All the voices were telling him how stupid he was…how worthless.

He stared into the mirror wide-eyed as he was bowled over by a sudden memory.

~ * ~ * ~

"Danny! What are you doing?!" Rafe yelled in a mix of horror, shock and fear as he looked down at his best friend. Danny looked back up at him like a panicked animal caught in a trap.

"I was just…I…" Danny, who had always been good with words, found none to get himself out of this situation, to try an explain himself. Rafe snatched the razor-his own father's razor-from Danny's hand and grabbed the towel hanging over the edge of the tub, pressing it down on the angry red lines that traced themselves up his closest friend's legs, fresh warm blood trickling from them…

"It's fine Rafe, I don't cut deep." Danny mumbled, pushing Rafe's hands away.

"You act like you do this a lot!" fifteen-year-old Rafe yelled. He looked Danny in the eyes. "Tell me you don't do this a lot."

Danny averted his gaze. "It helps Rafe. Maybe I'm messed up in the head, but pain…it's kind of a comfort, you know? It's what I grew up with…"

If Danny's father hadn't died the year before Rafe swore he'd have killed him. He pulled Danny to his feet and made his friend look at him. Danny was taken back to see tears glistening in Rafe's eyes.

"I thought we told eachother everything Danny…when did that stop? When did I stop knowing everything about you" he was answered by silence. He took a shaky breath. "Promise me Danny…promise me you won't do it anymore."

"I promise Rafe." Danny swore as his friend-his brother, his entire family- hugged him.

~ * ~ * ~

Danny moved his stare to the metal of the razor, his this time, in his hand. Turned it slowly as another memory overtook him.

~ * ~ * ~

"Just promise me one thing Rafe." Danny whispered as he heard Rafe climb into the bunk below him the night before he was to leave for England.

"Anything." Rafe's voice emerged from the dark.

"Promise you'll come back."

"I promise Danny."

~ *~ * ~

"Well Rafe," Danny addressed his deceased friend out loud "Guess neither of us are very good at keeping our promises."

With that he drew the cold metal across warm skin.

* * *

Danny!

Rafe felt the word, but still hadn't figured out how to speak in this strange abyss he's been thrown into. So his heart cried out for him.

Why? He demanded of the unseen voice. Why is he so unhappy? Why is he doing this?

He waited for his answer.

It never came.

* * *

--September 9, 1943--

Barbara listened woefully as Evelyn cried herself to sleep yet again. Little Rafe was sleeping in the next room and Danny was still over in England, right in the middle of the war. Barbara knew he sent letters every week, like clockwork, but she never read them. They were Evelyn's…but sometimes the curiosity was almost too much to bear.

This was definitely one of those times.

Knowing there would be an open letter lying next to Evelyn's tear-stained face and not being able to stand the thirst for knowledge any longer, Barbara crept over to read.

She quietly picked up the letter, eyes darting over the sloppy script.

'It is cold here. So cold, it goes deep into your bones.'

'There is one place I can go to find warmth, and that is to think of you.'

Her scanning eyes then rested on the signature, the sight causing her to drop the piece of paper.

'Love, Rafe'

Were these the letters Evelyn cried over every night? Letters from a man she had been involved with only four weeks? What about the man she had been married to for nearly two years? Did he matter to her?

Deciding that if caught she'd already be in trouble, so why not be in more, Barbara crept to Evelyn's chest of drawers and proceeded to snoop through them.

In the top left drawer she found what she was looking for. Bundles and bundles of letters from Danny all tied neat groups of twelve, arranged by date. The first dozen were opened, but after that Evelyn hadn't opened a single one. Lying beside the bundles was an unfinished letter in Evelyn's handwriting, dating all the way back nearly three months.

'Dear Danny,

I miss you too. And so does little Rafe, though he hardly remembers you. When are you going to come home? Every day I wish you were here—

No. I shouldn't lie to you. But I can't tell you the truth…'

And that was where it ended. Barbara frowned at the sleeping form of the young brunette. What was going on in that head of hers? Or the better question…what was going on in that heart of hers?

* * *

I don't get it! Rafe yelled without yelling. I don't understand! Why isn't she even opening his letters? Why isn't she writing back? She told me she loved him… He tried to think about if Evelyn had ever cried over Danny's letters to her. He searched his memories, memories that didn't exist anymore except in his own mind. Realization dawned on him. She had done what he did to her letters when he'd told Danny to be with her.

She had burned them.

* * *

--May 8, 1942-- --V-E Day--

'Dearest Evelyn,

The war in Europe is over! We won over here…but there are still the Japs who won't surrender. They're enlisting troops for a mission that should end the war with them…

This time I'm going.

Red doesn't think it's a good idea, but I do. I'm not going to chicken out again. I refuse to.

The Japs don't scare me anymore. War doesn't scare me anymore. Bullets whizzing by my head and my friends dying around me and screams of the wounded or worse…none of it scares me anymore.

All that scares me is that you might not care. You haven't written me back in months, and months before that letter…I keep expecting a Dear John letter to come in the mail. A guy who bunks with my squadron got one of those from his wife the other day, and I couldn't sleep that whole night scared I'd get one next.

Please tell me I'm being foolish. Tell me I'm imagining things, that war is making me paranoid.

Just tell me I'm wrong.

But anyway, give my love to little Rafe and a kiss and a hug, and tell him Daddy'll be home real soon.

I love you Evelyn. Remember? More than the sun's dying rays love the ocean they warm.

--Danny'

Evelyn never opened that letter, and she never wrote back. Danny flew off to Japan still living in the fear that she might not love him.

He didn't send anymore letters.

* * *

--September 13, 1945--

Danny sat up, awake. The war was over, he was home. Home at Rafe's house, where he had lived since he was fourteen. Rafe's parents had both died not too long ago, in a car crash. Danny's mother had died when he was four, his father when he was fourteen. Then Rafe died when he was twenty-two. At that time, that had been everyone he had ever cared about. Then he fell for Evelyn, and then little Rafe was born. They were all he had now.

But Evelyn cried herself to sleep and woke up yelling Rafe's name, and Danny's son didn't even remember him.

He needed to get his mind off that or he'd drive himself crazy. He grabbed a handful of paper from the desk drawer and a fountain pen from on top of it and quietly exited the room and then the house where his family was sleeping. He gazed across his home, across the fields where he and Rafe used to play and had once upon a time flown over. He put the pen to the paper, remembering a time he had looked over this very landscape with his best friend by his side, and the word he had used to describe it in his head. 'Heaven.'

'Maybe it's not Heaven; it's just Tennessee.' He wrote. 'But for as long as there's been an America, men have fought and died for this place-as volunteers.'

He looked back up at the stars and the fields and trees and rolling hills, just his home in general and he hook his head.

"I'm wrong." He told the night sky, "It is Heaven."

* * *

--October 5, 1945--

Danny was sitting outside, leaning against the barn door when Rafe came running over. The little boy stood in front of his father the stranger, his hands deep in the pockets of his miniature overalls and his head tilted down so his light brown hair fell into his eyes.

"Hey Rafe." Danny smiled at the boy hopefully.

"Hi." Rafe whispered. "Mama sayed that you pwayed here when you was my age."

"Yeah, I did. I played here all the time." Danny nodded.

"Did you, did you pway ina' a'pane?" Rafe asked, still staring at the dirt.

"Yeah, you wanna see the plane I played in?"

Rafe nodded. Danny got up and picked the small boy up, but Rafe struggled to be let down. "I walk." He whined. Heartbroken, Danny let Rafe down and walked beside him instead, shortening his steps so the three-year-old could keep up. In the month that he had been back from war his son had not once let him hold him, not once hugged him, and not once called him Daddy. Evelyn kept telling him that Rafe was just really shy-completely the opposite of his namesake-and that it'd just take a little while, but it still hurt Danny none-the-less.

"Woooooow…" Rafe breathed as he saw the plane. Danny smiled.

"You like it?" he asked. The little boy nodded open-mouthed, eyes wide in awe. "You can play in it if you like." Danny told him. Rafe looked at him.

"I can?"

"Hel-um, heck yeah. Lemme help you up." He volunteered, picking the little boy up and setting him on the nail keg turned cockpit seat and tying the worn rope that the original Rafe had added for a seatbelt around the second Rafe's waist. It was the first time Danny had picked up the little boy and he hadn't struggled to get down. The 3-year-old looked down at his father.

"You too?" he implored.

"You want me to come up too?" Danny asked.

"Yeah." Rafe confirmed, grinning at Danny with pearly white baby teeth. Danny laughed.

"Um…well, I'll try…" Danny glanced at the nail keg which had been plenty big for two skinny ten-year-olds, but would probably be a challenge for a three-year-old and a twenty-six-year-old man. "You might have to sit on my lap though, is that okay?"

"Okay." Rafe agreed after a few moments of thought.

"Okay." Danny laughed.

Evelyn looked on as her husband and son sat together flying an imaginary plane. Guiltily, she couldn't help but wish it were a different man.

* * *

Is this how it'll always be? Rafe demanded. Danny loving her with all his heart and her just blowing him off? His son not even knowing him? Is this how he's going to go through life?

Rafe didn't expect an answer.

He didn't get one.

Just show me if it gets better. Show me when it all gets better for Danny.

* * *

--November 25, 1948--

Evelyn and six-year-old Rafe were out grocery shopping one afternoon and Danny was alone in their house. He decided to go through his old papers in the desk, try to sort them out.

He grabbed a handful and one fell down. Picking it up he realized it wasn't his, it was written in Evelyn's hand.

'Dear Danny,

What truth; what was she talking about?

It all came together for Danny. He'd hoped it wasn't true, but there was no denying it. Evelyn was still in love with Rafe. She'd never loved Danny.

"How could I be so stupid?" he yelled to lifeless walls. "How could I think she'd want me? She was even trying to put me down gently the day after we…God!" he threw down the papers, clutching his head to try and keep the voices away.

~ * ~ * ~

"Evelyn! I was just coming to find you!"

"Danny, I-"

"Evelyn! Last night was so beautiful! I hope you feel that way too."

"I do, Danny, I just…"

~ * ~ * ~

"Don't ever want to see you again." Danny told himself bitterly. 'And then she stayed with me because of the baby.' He told himself in his head.

"I'm so stupid!"

Needing release, Danny ran upstairs to find the only one he knew of. The one drilled into his psyche since youth.

* * *

"Danny! We're home!" Evelyn called opening the door, arms laden with grocery bags. "Danny?" she put the bags down in the kitchen. Telling Rafe to go play outside she climbed the stairs, thinking her husband had fallen asleep. "Danny?" He wasn't in the room.

"Danny?" not Rafe's room either.

"Dan- oh my God…" covering her mouth with her hands to keep from screaming, Evelyn backed out of the bathroom.

The bathroom covered in blood with Danny in the middle, cuts all up his legs and arms.

* * *

No! I said make it better! No! Danny wouldn't do that!

Rafe wanted to kick something, to throw something or hit something. Make something else hurt to take away the pain Danny had felt, so maybe he'd of lived.

No! He was supposed to be happy! Rafe's heart cried out. This time, he got an answer.

"It wasn't on purpose Rafe. He just cut too deep…accidental suicide."

But he was only twenty-nine. He was supposed to live a long time and be happy and loved…

"Evelyn was driven over the edge. Her husband committing suicide, the love of her life dying six years before, Pearl Harbor and finally the fact she was to raise a six-year-old alone, all before she even turned thirty. She was insane and her parents committed her to a mental hospital a few weeks later. Rafe was put into an orphanage when he lived until he was eighteen then he went to work in a factory and died at age twenty-three in a war."

What war? Was all Rafe's flooded mind could think of to ask.

"It hasn't happened yet in your state of mind. Telling you would be hazardous. All you need to know is that Danny's son dies."

God, things were supposed to be better… Rafe tried to think. What if…what if I die on the Raids and Danny lives?

"It will all come to the same result."

What if I never met Evelyn?

"Danny will still die and neither of you will know the joy of having a son"

Will the baby die if it all stays the way it was?

"No."

God! Is there anyway to make it better? Is there any way to change it so Danny can live but everyone's happy?!

For this there was only one answer, an answer Rafe hated but was the honest-to-God truth.

"You can't change the past."

* * *

--August 15, 1953--

Rafe was quiet, staring at his hands. "But someone else is his daddy…" he whispered "And I wish more than anything he were here…" His eyes widened. 'I'm back.' He thought. 'And Danny's still dead…' he looked up at Evelyn. 'But he died loved…at least he died loved.'

A thought occurred to Rafe. If he were to ever look at Evelyn the same again, he had to know that she wasn't heartless.

"Lyn?" he asked.

"Yes Rafe?"

"Did you…did you keep any of the letters that Danny wrote you? Anything he gave you?" Rafe looked at her with wide eyes. Eyes Evelyn one looked at and wondered how so much heart could pour out of them. She nodded.

"Yeah…yeah one." She wandered over to the drawer, the one Danny had rummaged through in his last moments alive. 'But that didn't happen now.' Rafe reminded himself as Evelyn pulled out an old and folded piece of paper and handed it to Rafe. Red had followed Danny upstairs and Rafe could hear the distant sound of them talking and playing with Danny's toy planes and cars.

'I rode above the oceans

But I never tasted its salty breeze

I stared into the face of Heaven

But it never showed itself to me'

'I explored the shores of paradise

But it was all in ugly disguise

I feared I'd never know its beauty

And then I gazed into your eyes'

'I sat outside the door of love's Euphoria

But I couldn't find the key

So I built a wall around my heart

And then you set it free'

'I soared above the songbirds

And never heard them sing

I lived my life in winter

And then you brought the spring.'

Rafe nodded with a sad smile on his face. "That's Danny for you. He was always the one good with words…" he took a deep breath and looked at Evelyn with pleading eyes. "Tell me you loved him Evelyn. At least a little bit."

"I loved Danny Rafe, I truly did…but my heart always belonged to you." She told Rafe softly, reaching out and taking his hand.

"But at least you loved him. He died love…and I guess that's the best I can do for him." Rafe squeezed Evelyn's fingers. "After all, you can't change the past."

A/N: Hey. Well, there it is, my first Pearl Harbor fic. I hope you all liked it. Now comes the disclaimer part. Okay, I don't own the characters, no, Danny does not live in my closet, and no I do not have a room in the basement where I torture Evelyn for being so mean to those two poor boys. These characters sadly belong to Randall Wallace. Some of the flashbacks also belong to him, as they're from the book and the last stanza in Danny's poem is his too. The other stanzas are mine, sorry if they suck. Rafe's letters also belong to Mr. Wallace. The Tennessee thing that Danny wrote? Yeah, that's Randall's too. Maybe I should make him co-author…

But anyway, yeah. I hope you all liked it, I'm playing around with the idea of writing another story (separate from this one). If I get enough reviews I'll be encouraged. *hint hint*

Well, enough of my babbling. Thanks for reading. Oh yeah, PS: My comp hates me so sorry if spacing and such messes up about halfway through. --Nova~*~