She's small, so ridiculously small but she holds such a presence when she enters a room, when she strides across the casino flood, when she walks past him.

Danny wonders if she knows he likes having her around.

He finds her a little loud, a little proud for a such a tiny person but whenever she is around she smells like fierceness and boldness, and he is sure he could watch her all day long.

He does not know how to describe Sam's face. How to describe the pieces of her that makes him click, that makes him smile and feel warm all inside.

Sometimes he looks at her and really sees her, the whole of her, when she thinks that nobody is watching her, that nobody is seeing her. She looks like the prettiest mystery in the world, like the brightest star that nobody could reach. Sam became his favourite person so fast and she doesn't even know that.

He knows she is one of those things that don't stay, that go away, the things that leave. She's ephemeral, she's brutal but he thinks if he tells her that he enjoys her presence, her essence, she would stay and become eternal.

He really does like having her around. So he tells her so.

"I like having you around."

She frowns because this is so random and awkward and she's not certain to understand the nonsense he's babbling.

Sam thinks Danny is way soft, too nice, too perfect. She could eat him alive and then she would step on his heart and burn all the ugly pieces that may scratch her skin and leave marks on her forever. "Excuse me?"

"I like having you around," he repeats, the smile on his face is even bigger.

There's a twinkle in his eyes but his expression is genuine. Sam doesn't handle kindness very well. She was never taught to.

"You're almost sweet," she says instead. Because she can spit truth the same way knives can hurt. "You're mostly weird though."

But Danny isn't offended. His smile grows into a laugh, the wrinkles at the corner of his eyes making the colour of his eyes seem lighter, brighter.

"Gee, thanks, Sam."

And she can help but let her lips curve up a little bit.

Maybe it is all of her strangeness, her coldness, her always feeling like an outsider, but suddenly she is raising on her toes to brush a kiss, light and éphémère at the corner of his mouth.

"Hm, I—does that mean you like having me around too?" Danny asks tentatively and the smirk on her face says everything.

Then she steps back, turns around and she leaves him there, face all flushed and mouth half open.

She never answered the question.