Author's Note: This is just a short thing I wrote during school to pass
some time. If the reviews are nice, I'll add more to it. It's a small
romance fic for Daniel Witwer before he was involved with Pre-Crime.
It wasn't unusual for Danny Witwer and I to get into arguments all the time, considering we were total opposites. We still are in a way. As teenagers, we'd fight about whom did the algebra problem right, who explained a thesis better in an English paper and, my personal favorite, which lunch of ours was worse. As usual, I was the winner by threatening to punch out the poor boy's brains if he decided to keep debating with me about it.
All of it seemed rather childish, especially since Danny was older than me by two months. I was sixteen at the time and Danny had just turned seventeen. Maybe that's why I always liked to harass him. He used to silence me by telling me I was younger and that I'd never beat him at anything. Then the little battles at school would start every day, leaving my brother and his girlfriend to just sigh, shake their heads and leave us to our business. Like I said, we were rather childish. As much as neither of us wanted to admit it, we had a lot of fun teasing each other about anything that could get on each other's nerves. At one point, we got into a small fistfight and Danny, being stronger and bigger than I was, easily pinned me down, much to my dismay.
See, none of this was unusual and over time, we got closer because of it. I learned that Danny wasn't the quiet, intellectual, school focused boy I thought he was. Danny also discovered I had more on my mind than theater games and being as loud as I possibly could be. Still, we were complete opposites who hardly ever got along. Call me crazy but I really have to believe in that cliché saying that 'opposites attract'. That's for magnets, not people, right? Well... I believe in it anyway because eventually, Danny got the nerve to ask me out.
Now, it wasn't one of those silly things where the boy says, "Will you go out with me?" and the girl says, "Oh yeah!" and suddenly you're boyfriend and girlfriend. Danny asked me out on a date and it was rather romantic if I do say so myself. Normally, I can do without the candlelight dinners and seeing a movie since it's far too, well, cheesy. He knew how I felt about this, somehow, and instead, we went dancing. It was like the scene out of Titanic when Jack takes Rose down to the third class and they all dance around to the upbeat folk music. All I remember is being so thrilled and caught up in the moment of Danny spinning me in circles.
Since that time that we went out together, Danny and I had been a well- known couple up until the end of our senior year. We were voted as the "Most Likely To Get Married" couple in our class, too. Everything was going great until we were at the Senior All Night Graduation Party when he decided to spill the news to me.
"I... uh... I got my acceptance letter to St. Andrews Presbyterian College the other day," Danny said while music played in the background.
Raising my head from its resting spot against his chest, I knew what was probably coming next. "That's the one in Washington D.C., right? The one clear across the country?"
Danny nodded, his eyes cast downward in guilt.
"Well, what are we supposed to do now? You said you and I were going to stay close to each other so that we wouldn't have to deal with the long distance relationship. What changed your mind?" It wasn't exactly what I wanted to say to him. In fact, I was wishing I could just pull away and walk out of the ballroom so I wouldn't have to hear his excuse.
"It's a good college, you know... A place where my father probably would have wanted me to go if he were still alive."
Danny's father was a touchy subject for him. He had been shot and killed on the steps of his church in Dublin, Ireland when Danny was thirteen. It was only two years later that Danny moved to New York to find a better life with his mother. Usually, we only talked about it if he brought up the subject but I doubt Danny wanted to continue expressing his feelings about what his father would have wanted.
While we danced together still, I tried to think of something to say. I wanted to say anything that would make him stay with me so that I wouldn't have to fear him leaving ever. But who was I to tell him anything different? This was Danny's life, not mine.
"If you really want to go, Danny, then you should go."
Danny raised his eyebrows, looking rather shocked. "W-What?"
"Hey, I happen to know you very well and I don't want to hold you back from anything that you want to do. All through the high school time that we've known each other, you've talked about being in law enforcement or a doctor. You've taken all the classes here to prepare you for it so just go."
"Shae... I don't think you realize what is going to happen if I leave."
I rolled my eyes at this. We had just graduated and I was in the top one hundred of my class. Somehow, he thought I didn't know much. Of course I knew what all of this meant if the first love of my life left across the country. "It means we'll have to break up."
"Not necessarily."
"Oh? Then how do you expect to maintain a firm relationship when you're constantly hard at work with whatever you're planning to do?"
There wasn't an easy answer for that. As hard as he searched, Danny couldn't find an answer to my question.
At that point, I knew this was our last dance.
It wasn't unusual for Danny Witwer and I to get into arguments all the time, considering we were total opposites. We still are in a way. As teenagers, we'd fight about whom did the algebra problem right, who explained a thesis better in an English paper and, my personal favorite, which lunch of ours was worse. As usual, I was the winner by threatening to punch out the poor boy's brains if he decided to keep debating with me about it.
All of it seemed rather childish, especially since Danny was older than me by two months. I was sixteen at the time and Danny had just turned seventeen. Maybe that's why I always liked to harass him. He used to silence me by telling me I was younger and that I'd never beat him at anything. Then the little battles at school would start every day, leaving my brother and his girlfriend to just sigh, shake their heads and leave us to our business. Like I said, we were rather childish. As much as neither of us wanted to admit it, we had a lot of fun teasing each other about anything that could get on each other's nerves. At one point, we got into a small fistfight and Danny, being stronger and bigger than I was, easily pinned me down, much to my dismay.
See, none of this was unusual and over time, we got closer because of it. I learned that Danny wasn't the quiet, intellectual, school focused boy I thought he was. Danny also discovered I had more on my mind than theater games and being as loud as I possibly could be. Still, we were complete opposites who hardly ever got along. Call me crazy but I really have to believe in that cliché saying that 'opposites attract'. That's for magnets, not people, right? Well... I believe in it anyway because eventually, Danny got the nerve to ask me out.
Now, it wasn't one of those silly things where the boy says, "Will you go out with me?" and the girl says, "Oh yeah!" and suddenly you're boyfriend and girlfriend. Danny asked me out on a date and it was rather romantic if I do say so myself. Normally, I can do without the candlelight dinners and seeing a movie since it's far too, well, cheesy. He knew how I felt about this, somehow, and instead, we went dancing. It was like the scene out of Titanic when Jack takes Rose down to the third class and they all dance around to the upbeat folk music. All I remember is being so thrilled and caught up in the moment of Danny spinning me in circles.
Since that time that we went out together, Danny and I had been a well- known couple up until the end of our senior year. We were voted as the "Most Likely To Get Married" couple in our class, too. Everything was going great until we were at the Senior All Night Graduation Party when he decided to spill the news to me.
"I... uh... I got my acceptance letter to St. Andrews Presbyterian College the other day," Danny said while music played in the background.
Raising my head from its resting spot against his chest, I knew what was probably coming next. "That's the one in Washington D.C., right? The one clear across the country?"
Danny nodded, his eyes cast downward in guilt.
"Well, what are we supposed to do now? You said you and I were going to stay close to each other so that we wouldn't have to deal with the long distance relationship. What changed your mind?" It wasn't exactly what I wanted to say to him. In fact, I was wishing I could just pull away and walk out of the ballroom so I wouldn't have to hear his excuse.
"It's a good college, you know... A place where my father probably would have wanted me to go if he were still alive."
Danny's father was a touchy subject for him. He had been shot and killed on the steps of his church in Dublin, Ireland when Danny was thirteen. It was only two years later that Danny moved to New York to find a better life with his mother. Usually, we only talked about it if he brought up the subject but I doubt Danny wanted to continue expressing his feelings about what his father would have wanted.
While we danced together still, I tried to think of something to say. I wanted to say anything that would make him stay with me so that I wouldn't have to fear him leaving ever. But who was I to tell him anything different? This was Danny's life, not mine.
"If you really want to go, Danny, then you should go."
Danny raised his eyebrows, looking rather shocked. "W-What?"
"Hey, I happen to know you very well and I don't want to hold you back from anything that you want to do. All through the high school time that we've known each other, you've talked about being in law enforcement or a doctor. You've taken all the classes here to prepare you for it so just go."
"Shae... I don't think you realize what is going to happen if I leave."
I rolled my eyes at this. We had just graduated and I was in the top one hundred of my class. Somehow, he thought I didn't know much. Of course I knew what all of this meant if the first love of my life left across the country. "It means we'll have to break up."
"Not necessarily."
"Oh? Then how do you expect to maintain a firm relationship when you're constantly hard at work with whatever you're planning to do?"
There wasn't an easy answer for that. As hard as he searched, Danny couldn't find an answer to my question.
At that point, I knew this was our last dance.