Title: Keep Chugging Along
Summary: Hearing the song, "Keep Chugging Along." By Luke Bryan, reminds him of some fond memories. Bad and good.
A/N: Got this idea, walking home from school. Hope you enjoy!
Disclammier: Don't own Blue Bloods, (belongs to CBS) and don't own "Keep Chugging Along." It's Luke Bryan's song.
*** Blue Bloods ***
The first time Danny Reagan heard the song, "Keep Chugging Along." He wanted to laugh. By the sixth time the song came on the radio. He smiles as he was driving to work and sings along to the song, with the windows to his car up.
"Some days you got it all together
You swear you have it figured out
Other days you're stumbling and a wondering
What the hell it's all about."
It was Danny's first day on the job.
He remembers the words his father and grandpa gave him the night before, and the haunting words of his mother. "I don't want to get a call one day, telling me my oldest is dead. Be safe." It's words he'd never forget, even though he begged God to let him.
He stepped into the 12th prescient. And he was ready for anything the city of New York wanted to throw at him.
Boy…was he wrong.
He remembers the same night he was at his the kitchen table with his two younger brothers. Jamie was the first to ask, "How was your first day, Danny?"
He turned to Jamie, "Not as amazing as I thought it was going to be, Jamie." He told the truth, there wasn't any use to lie.
"What happened?" Joe asked.
"Something I hope you two never have to see. I saw an adult man put a knife to his son's throat." He saw that Joe tensed up but Jamie, looked worried.
"Is he okay?" Joe's voice softened.
"Yeah." Danny said, wishing a drink would pop up in front of him. He couldn't get the image of the father moving his hand across his son's throat, cutting him. He would always remember the blood dripping down the son's neck, as gun shots went off beside his eardrum. "The son's in the hospital."
"Are you okay?" It was Jamie this time asking the question.
Danny didn't really know how to answer the question. But he looked at Jamie, and answered the best way you could, "I thought I knew what I was getting into, and sometimes you don't. Its days like this where I look up to the sky and ask, what the hell is going on."
Jamie looked at his brother but said nothing.
It was the end of the that.
"Life's kind of funny like that
Sometimes you're the dog sometimes you're the cat
All you can do is just keep going
And thank God for what you have."
The first time, Danny felt angry at the world is when he got the call about a shooting at Jamie's high school.
He got to the hospital, and waited away from the family. He couldn't face them right now, he was too angry, and he knew he couldn't clam himself down.
He couldn't loose Jamie.
Jamie drove him crazy with the random facts the kid said when he was nervous, but it was the person Danny talked to when he needed an ear.
He slammed his hand against the brick wall of hospital hallways, and clutched it when the pain hit him quick. "Don't do that, Danny. You'll break your hand." He looked to the voice, surprised to see who it was.
"Grandpa." He said breathless.
"I won't ask you if you're okay, because you can see it written across your face, that you're not." Henry Reagan said to his oldest grandson. "You've got to keep it together, for Jamie. When he comes out of surgery, he's going to need his big brother."
"I can't lose him…" Danny heard the injures on the radio as he raced over to Angel Mercy, and none of them sound good.
"Just be thankful for the time God have you with him." Henry said, to broken hearted Danny. His tuff persona was gone, right now Danny was hurting and it was showing. "He's a Reagan, Danny. He'll survive."
Erin came running through the door, with her new husband right behind her. "Jamie's out of surgery!" She screamed at her family.
"Keep chuggin' along
Keep singing your song
Put the plow in the ground till the daylights gone
When you look back over your shoulder
At everything you've done
Put the good in your pocket
Let the bad ones make you strong
Keep chuggin' along."
Danny was happy.
He was married, to a wonderful woman who understood him and didn't dare to change him. She got along with the family great; even called his parents mom and dad.
He loved her.
He loved everything about her.
She made him smile, and that was rare.
Nine months ago, she came to him and said that she was pregnant.
Pregnant.
And now he was at home, holding three day old baby boy in his hand.
Yeah, he was happy.
Though he knew money was tight right now, and now it was going to get tighter because of the baby. But he didn't care.
He was father, he had a little boy named Jack.
Jack Reagan.
He knew about the bumps coming along, but he knows he'll keep going.
"Sometimes you get a bill in the mail
You don't know how you're gonna pay
Then your baby wraps her arms around you
And makes it all go away
Life's kinda funny like that
Sometimes you're the train sometimes you're the track
And when that sun goes down
And there ain't no goin' back"
Second baby came along, and he was trying to make detective as he taught Joe the ropes of becoming a "Reagan" type of cop. He had dinner with the family every Sunday night, lunch with dad Tuesday's, dinner with his baby sister Thursday's nights, and playing ball with Jamie every Saturday.
Hell, Danny was always busing, but he made time for everyone.
Because he was a family man, and nothing was going to change that.
Another bill came in the mail…
He didn't even bother reading what the bill was for, but he just threw it across the table with the other bills.
He walked into the living room, with a beer in his hand and took a seat next to his wife. He gulped a drink down before, she reached over by him, and put her hand on his beer. He looked at her, with a smirk on his face, and asked, "May I help you?"
She laughed as she took the beer out of his hand. She put it on the ground before she looked back to him. She wrapped her arms around him, and asked, "You know everything's going to be okay, right?"
He smiled, with the heat from her arms; it reminded him why this was worth it. "Yeah."
"Keep chuggin' along
Yea keep chuggin' along."
Danny pulled into his driveway, smiling as he listened to the last line of the song. He smiled again, walking into his house. He looked around, and saw his sons at the kitchen table doing homework, smelt dinner in the air, and saw his wife with her feet up on the couch in one of his sweatshirts, watching the local news.
He walked over to her, greeted her with a kiss. She smiled back at him. "I missed you today."