Title: Comfort and Reassurance

Author: Kameka

Rating: G

Disclaimer: Not mine; don't sue.

Notes: unebat'd, but I did spellcheck and read through it a few times. Hopefully I caught all the errors. If I didn't: sorry to the readers.

Spoilers: "Roses Are Red, Violets Are Busiek" – any episode from season one is fair game, spoiler wise.

Summary: Just a small Dan/Hannah scene set during the night that Dan spent in the Busiek household. (Dan POV) Spoilers for "Roses Are Red, Violets Are Busiek" and any episode in season one.

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Dan Lennox sighed and turned over onto his back, not an easy feat considering he was currently sprawled across the too-short sofa in the Busiek living room where he was spending the night because his partner was in jail. Sighing again, he looked at what part of the room he could see and up to the ceiling, all of it thrown into shadow by the light that spilled in from outside through the windows. It was close to three A.M. and he was dead tired. Investigating Zoe's problem and then unexpectedly ending up playing housefather to her three children had really taken it out of him. His entire body ached, not helped by the sofa, and there was nothing he wanted more than to spend a solid eight hours of sleep – though he would settle for the three and a half he would get if he fell asleep right this moment. So then what was keeping him awake, staring at a white ceiling searching for answers when he didn't even know the questions?

"Mister Lennox?"

He sat up at the quietly spoken name, the sheet falling to his lap. "Hannah?" He recognized the voice, though he'd never heard it sound quite so heart-broken, but was unsure why the young girl was awake at this time of night. She should have definitely been asleep and Dan remembered stumbling through the bedtime ritual that his partner normally did, complete with story and a kiss goodnight. It was unlikely he'd forget it anytime soon as it had left him feeling decidedly shaken. He blinked, focusing on where the voice had come from, and saw her standing at the base of the staircase. "What happened to Dan?" he teased slightly as he shifted on the sofa, a silent invitation for her to join him. It was one she eagerly took, crossing the short distance to the sofa and climbing on, settling her small, warm body against his in a way that spoke of complete trust and brought a lump to his throat, a lump he quickly swallowed away.

"Dan," she agreed.

They sat quietly for a few long minutes, the silence only broken by the normal nighttime sounds of the household, and Dan would have been sure that Hannah had fallen asleep next to him if not for the unnatural tenseness in her body. He looked down at her and saw that she was clutching a brown rabbit, a stuffed animal that had been her constant companion the year before but which she had gradually begun to leave at home, not needing the continuous support and reminder that it provided. An unexpected wave of feelings that were decidedly paternal – though his bachelor frame of mind made him shy away from the word love – swept through him, leaving him shaken as he realized that he would do anything to keep this little girl safe, and he cleared his throat. "What are you doing up?"

"I couldn't sleep long," was the answer spoken as quietly as the question was asked.

"Oh?" He glanced to the stairs, relieved to see that the other two were still asleep – or at least upstairs. He wasn't getting quite the rest that he had hoped from the hectic home life that Zoe dealt with on a regular basis, but at least he wasn't having to deal with all three of the kids at the moment. The house settled again, the hush both expectant and comforting to him.

"Is Aunt Zoe going to be taken away forever?"

The remains of Dan's standoffish demeanor shattered as Hannah began trembling as soon as the question had been uttered. Thankful that he'd erred on the side of caution and brought along a t-shirt and pair of sweatpants to sleep in, he shifted to make himself more comfortable before reaching out and putting his hands on the girl. It was something he hadn't done till now, not normally being physically demonstrative with anyone except women he dated or flirted with and especially not with children. Right now, the only thing that seemed important to him was that he eased Hannah's fears. Pulling her closer to him, he settled her easily on his lap and wrapped his arms around her, thankful that she leaned into him instead of stiffening and beginning to yell, which would bring the older kids down and possibly stir vile accusations of child molesters that made him shudder in horror. He automatically began to rock slightly, the rhythm dictated by memories of his own mother calming him after childhood nightmares, and one large hand began to stroke through whisper-soft straight hair. "She won't be," he answered finally.

"How do you know?"

Smiling sadly at the quaver in the young voice, he chuckled ruefully as he continued rocking. "Do you think anyone could make Aunt Zoe do anything she doesn't want to?" The very thought was a foreign concept to him. Zoe Busiek was a spitfire in the truest sense of the word and she allowed nobody to push her around, whether they were criminals, detectives, or bosses that had control of paychecks and whether or not she continued working at the company.

"No."

"Then she's not going anywhere, is she?" he asked gently. His answer was a shrug that he felt against his chest. "Hannah, no one can make anyone do something that they don't want to." It was something he'd spent much of his adult life learning, and there was something extremely gratifying to be able to pass that piece of wisdom on to a younger generation, to someone who might not make the same mistakes that he had.

"Yes, they can," was the immediate answer. "Mommy didn't want to leave, but she had to anyway."

Before Dan could begin to formulate an answer, some way to explain that death and the mess that Zoe had found herself in were completely different, Hannah continued, her voice even softer than before, barely a whisper in the dark room.

"And now the police can take Aunt Zoe away even though she doesn't want to go."

Dan shook his head, hating that he couldn't reassure the girl as he wanted to, couldn't say 'of course the police can't take Aunt Zoe away' and leave it at that, miraculously fixing everything that haunted Hannah. It was a simple fact that, if found guilty, Zoe could be sent to prison, taken away from the three children that depended on her, from the house that was a home to him because of her presence, from the sunshine that seemed a very part of her nature. For a moment, the image of his beautiful partner in a prison uniform, trapped behind the same bars that had trapped him for three interminable years, flashed through his mind and his stomach clenched. The very idea of it almost had him in physical pain. "Yes, they can," he finally told the waiting girl, grimacing when she slumped in defeat, "but they won't."

"How do you know that?"

Dan smiled at the trust she showed in him, vowing to himself never to make her regret it. "Because I know Aunt Zoe. I know that she'd never hurt anyone if she could help it, even if they hurt her first, and I know that she wouldn't do something illegal."

"But the police came for her!"

Dan sighed and resumed his stroking of her hair in an effort to calm her. "They follow clues and leads, Hannah. Something at the crime scene made them think it was your aunt who did it, so they took her in to talk to her. But I know she didn't do anything wrong and you," he tickled her side slightly, chuckling when she squirmed against him and giggled, "know she didn't do anything wrong, so they'll find out she didn't do anything wrong." He hoped it was enough to reassure her, deliberately steering clear of the subject of people being innocent of crimes but still sent to prison. This unexpected middle-of-the-night rendezvous was for comfort, not to give new nightmares to an already scared child. The giggles died down quickly and Dan shook his head at the thought that she'd already had to grow up so much.

"Do you promise?"

"Yeah, kiddo, I promise," he answered with a smirk that died when a pinky was waved under his nose. He was lost for a moment before dusty memories of similar actions came to the fore, and he very solemnly linked his own pinky with her smaller one, giving her hand a shake. "Pinky swear."

"Pinky swear," was repeated on a sigh.

Dan shook his head again when the sigh was completed with a jaw-cracking yawn. "Don't you think it's time you went up to bed now?"

"No, I don't want to go up there!" After a pause, she continued: "I had a bad dream and went to Aunt Zoe's room and she wasn't there."

Dan made a small noise of understanding as he nodded. "The Boogeyman?" He wiped the smile off his face quickly as Hannah turned in his arms to peer at him through the darkness.

"There's no such thing as the Boogeyman," she told him with all the superiority an eight-year-old could muster.

"Oh? Then what could you have dreamt about that was so scary? I always found the Boogeyman one of the scariest things," he confided in a whisper. "I was convinced that he came walked through all the houses and was going to pull me through my closet into his world and I'd be trapped, unable to do anything I wanted – and that all my toys were going to be left in my room with no one to play with them." The exaggerated account of his childhood horror brought Hannah's giggles back, as he'd intended, but they didn't stay for long. Before the silence could be drawn out too much, before Hannah could dwell on the dreams that'd left her unable to sleep, Dan asked her what she'd dreamt. She was silent for another minute before answering.

"I dreamt that Mommy didn't die, but she left anyway because she didn't want any of us to be her family anymore. And Aunt Zoe came from Vegas, just like she really did, but she couldn't find a job and then David showed up and took us all away from her. I had to call him 'Daddy' but he isn't my Daddy."

Dan winced at both the indignant tone and dream, knowing that if things had gone differently, it was a scenario that could have happened in real life. Social services wouldn't have left three children in the hands of someone who couldn't care for them. David showing up in Hannah's dream, something that had actually happened in real life, made him wonder just how much the young girl was aware of in her life. Zoe had shielded the children from his presence until knowing for sure that he wouldn't hurt them – measures that had seemed extreme at the time but turned out to be right, as he'd taken off without a single word. Had Hannah known in some way that her biological father was in town; that something was threatening the security she depended on? The use of the man's first name – and the loneliness not hidden in the statement that she 'didn't have a daddy' – made him feel a wave of sympathy for the little girl who'd grown up only with a name, some pictures, and whatever stories her siblings or mother would tell her.

"It was a stupid dream. Only a dummy would be upset by it."

"You're not a dummy, Hannah."

"But David doesn't want children, doesn't want any of us!"

Dan shrugged slightly, thinking that many men – including him – would probably like to have a family to come home to, to talk to, and he felt a surge of anger for the man who had callously tossed away three wonderful children and never given them another thought. "Then he's the dummy," he answered firmly.

"You aren't supposed to call people 'dummy,'" she chided him.

Her tone was so similar to her aunt's that for a moment he froze before shaking his head. "I know - it's rude." He felt her nod of agreement; it was slow in coming. "But sometimes you just have to be honest about it." They fell into comfortable silence again, Dan actually dozing off for a minute before waking himself. "Ready to go upstairs?"

"No," was the sleepy answer, slurred by sleep. "Wanna stay down here with you."

"Hannah, you can't stay down here with me," he told her.

"Why not?"

"Because…" he trailed off, not really knowing the answer, or an answer that she'd accept. Every cell in his body was telling him to let her stay, that he could offer the comfort she needed and that, just maybe, she could offer him something in return. What, he wasn't sure, but he knew that it was vitally important.

"Wanna stay with you," was repeated.

Easily recognizing the stubborn tone in her voice, a younger but just as implacable version of Zoe's, he sighed, relenting. "Okay, but we've gotta move first," he told her. She immediately moved away from him to the far end of the sofa and the loss of her warmth was almost as startling as the bereaved feeling that filled him. It felt like he had lost something vital, something he needed to survive. Shaking it off, he got up and moved the coffee table, and went to pull quilts and comforters from the linen closet. Laying them on the floor as a cushion, he laid down, aware of her sleepy eyes watching his every move. Shifting until he was comfortable, once again looking up at the ceiling, he held a hand out to her and allowed her to lie down next to him, her body once again pressed against his own, her face pressed over his chest. He drew the sheet over them as she rested her head against his skin, listening to the thud-thud of his heartbeat. "Good night, Hannah."

"Good night, Dan."

He blinked as she abruptly pulled away to look down at his face. He didn't move as wise young eyes probed his own. As if satisfied with the answers she found, Hannah pressed a gentle kiss to his cheek before settling back down.

"You'd make a good Daddy," was the last thing she said.

Dan touched Hannah's hair as her body turned boneless, sleep at last claiming her. Smiling in the dark, he drifted off to his own dreamland as what she'd said echoed in his mind; a benediction he hadn't known he needed.

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End

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