I refuse to admit defeat. Here, have a new story!
Un-beta'ed, so quibble away.
- o – o -
Getting to Know You
Miles looked down at his nephew, trying to find the sickly baby boy he'd known. It was hard to reconcile the baby who'd needed an oxygen tank for the first year of his life with the young man currently lying in the only real bed in Rebel HQ. Danny wasn't that weak, sickly baby anymore—he looked like he'd get up and start running a marathon at any second.
Only the slow, steady beep-beep-beeping of the heart monitor Danny was connected to disabused him of that notion. Miles smoothed a few errant strands of blond hair away from the boy—no, after that stunt with the rocket launcher, he was more of a man—from the younger man's face. There was a delicate pink flush spreading across Danny's face, which was smooth and untroubled in his current drugged sleep. Miles gave his nephew a lopsided smile and sat down in one of the more comfortable chairs he'd ever had at a sickbed visitation.
Danny shifted, a sleepy grumble breaking the silence. He blinked slowly, clear blue eyes still fogged with sleep. Given the number of sedatives coursing through him after the emergency field surgery to get the four bullets out as quickly as possible, he shouldn't have been waking up.
But that was the Matheson family for you, Miles thought. They never did what they were supposed to.
"Take a picture…" Danny slurred, eyes closing again.
Miles' lips twitched in amusement.
He sobered as Danny settled back down in sleep. If the first shot had been even an inch lower, he wouldn't hear his nephew make the jokes. If the other three had been higher—the last one had taken a sizeable chunk out of the younger man's hip on it's trajectory towards the ground—he'd be helping to bury his nephew, so soon after they'd rescued him. It made him kind of sick to think about. If Danny hadn't been running to check on him, twisted half away from the second helicopter…
If, if, if!
It made Miles sick to think about. If even one thing had been changed, he'd only have a picture of a sickly baby Danny, blue eyes wide and happy at the sight of a birthday cake, to remember his nephew by. The former Marine pulled the picture out of his jacket anyways, and smoothed a few crinkles out of it. He'd kept the picture with him for years—ever since he, Bass, and Jeremy had ransacked the house in Chicago, looking for some clue. He could have taken any other picture of his nephew—like the one from the boy's second birthday, where he'd started chewing on a plush, fish-shaped toy Bass had given him—but… He'd taken the one where Danny was still sickly, in need of protection and love and someone to hold him up.
That was why he'd made the Republic. Because, back then, the people had reminded him of the one-year-old, sickly little Danny. They'd needed someone to protect them. Bass had gone along because it was him, Miles, who'd proposed it. Jeremy had come because he'd had nowhere else to go—all of his relatives were in foreign countries, or so far away they might as well be. But Danny—not Charlie, his vivacious, bouncy, adorable little five-year-old-niece—had been his motivation to build the republic. Miles wondered if Danny would be pleased or horrified if he knew the story behind the existence of the Monroe Republic.
Miles sat there until Danny woke up, grimacing in pain as the sedatives and painkillers began to wear off.
He left, unable or unwilling to explain why he was crying.
- o – o -
So, what did you think? Good? Bad? Think this sets up for why Danny's not in canon anymore? Drop a line and let me know!