A/N: All publicly recognisable characters and settings belong to Someone In America. Anything verifiable belongs to Whoever, Whatever, or Wherever verifies them. Everything else belongs to me.
"Mummy, what's a haggis?" four year-old Danny Reagan enquired, coming to the kitchen of the Regan family home.
"Hmmm?" Mary Reagan was trying to feed two-year-old Erin at the same time as she was trying to ensure there would be a hot meal waiting for her husband when he came home from work. Frank was an extremely understanding man and would not quibble about having to make his own dinner, or entertain his son until Mary was able to do so. But Mary knew how exhausted he got doing a tour as a beat cop, and was always loath to make him wait. Hence, her absentmindedness.
"Mummy, what's a haggis?" Danny repeated impatiently.
"Ask your father," Mary answered vaguely.
"He's not home!" Danny reminded her, getting a little exasperated.
"Who's not home?" came a deep voice behind him. Just in time, he thought. Think I might have headed off a full-scale tantrum there.
"Daddy!" squealed Danny. "What's a haggis?"
Frank kissed his wife and daughter before picking his son up for a hug. Who had his son been talking to now? "Tell you what. Let's go and get you ready for bed. Then, after dinner, I'll tell you a story all about the haggis. Deal?" The grin never left his face, even though he winced inwardly at the sticky fingers grasping the neckline of his freshly laundered shirt.
"Deal!" Danny yelled in his ear. He planted a sloppy kiss on his father's cheek before wriggling down. "C'mon, Daddy! I wanna know about the haggis!" He pulled a laughing Frank after him, the two of them chatting their day
That finally left Mary in peace to throw together what was becoming an all too regular meal of mince and potatoes, a combination she was sure her outspoken son would complain about.
He didn't. He didn't dare do anything to endanger finding out about the haggis, so he didn't even argue when he was coerced into helping Frank with the dishes.
Finally he was tucked up beside Frank, who was sitting with one foot on the floor, precariously balanced on the edge of his son's single bed.
Danny wriggled excitedly. "C'mon, Daddy! I wanna know about the haggis!" he repeated his entreaty from earlier.
Frank's arm tightened around the enthusiastic child, as much to stop them from tumbling to the floor as to acknowledge Danny's enthusiasm. He thought about their earlier conversation and tailored his tale to suit. "The haggis is an animal found in the big, green hills of Scotland," he began, motioning with his hands.
"Where's that?" Danny interrupted.
Frank sighed. This was going to be a long night. He got up, walked over to the bookshelf and pulled out an atlas. Settling himself back on the bed, he pointed to where they lived and where Scotland is.
"That's a long way away," Danny commented. "Can I go there some day?"
"Of course you can," Frank agreed. "You can go anywhere you want, when you grow up and get your own money like Mummy and Daddy do."
"What's it look like?" Danny probed.
Frank thought quickly, trying to remember the legend he had heard as a child of the mythical haggis animal. "It has really long hair that drags on the ground wherever it goes, so it has a long tongue so it can lick itself clean."
"Yeecccchhh!" Danny pretended to vomit. "Gross!"
Frank continued through his chuckles. "It has a pointy nose like a mouse, a round tummy like a rabbit, and claws like a raccoon."
Danny's nose wrinkled as he considered his father's words. "Sounds weird," he remarked.
Well, this is going to blow your mind, Frank thought. "It also has longer legs on one side, so that it can run up and down the hills of Scotland without falling over."
Danny deliberated a second. "No, they'd have to run around the hill. If they tried to run up or down it, they fall over sideways," he explained.
Frank briefly thought about defending himself, but decided against it. He wanted to see his wife sometime this side of midnight.
"How'd it get to America?" Danny got straight to the crux of the matter. It wasn't important to the boy what happened in another part of the world, only in his own.
"With a small boy, just like you," Frank said. "His name was Paddy. He came to America with his family on a boat about two hundred years ago."
"Wow! That was a long time ago! It was even before you were born," a wide-eyed Danny observed. "I know that because you're . . ."
Frank poked Danny's ribs with his elbow. "Do you want me to tell you this story or not?" he chided.
"Sorry," Danny apologised. He linked arms with his Daddy, and bounced a little on his bottom. "Tell me about Paddy, Daddy. Hey, that rhymes! Why didn't they come by plane? I know why they didn't come by car," he said importantly. "Cars can't drive on water, and there's lots of water between America and Scotland," he indicated, tracing the Atlantic Ocean on the map.
Thank goodness for police training, Frank reflected as he righted himself before he fell flat on the floor, not helped by trying to make sense of Danny's latest ramblings. "Clever boy!"
Danny beamed a gap-toothed smile as Frank continued. "Well, back then there were no cars or planes, so they could only come here by boat. Paddy's Daddy owned the boat and he decided to take Paddy and his Mommy to America for a holiday. They liked America so much they stayed here."
"That's because America's pretty," Danny stated.
Frank nodded in agreement. "Anyway, because they were going to be away for such a long time, Paddy had to take his pet haggis, Mikey, with him."
"Like Mikey down the street?" Danny asked.
"Yeah," Frank agreed. "One night Paddy was taking Mikey for a walk around the deck of the boat, when they heard the sound of the bagpipes in the moonlight. The bagpipes are like lots of recorders with a bag on the end that you press to make music," he explained hurriedly, hoping to forestall more questions from his inquisitive child. "So, they followed the sound and found a man playing the bagpipes to his own lady haggis. Mikey got really excited and for the rest of the voyage, the two haggises played together. When Paddy got to America he knew Mikey would be sad without his friend, so he let Mikey go with the other man and his friend."
"But wasn't he sad?" Danny pouted.
"Sometimes. Sometimes he even cried because he missed Mikey so much. But he was happy that Mikey had his own family of little haggises here in America. Knowing Mikey was happy made him happy."
Ever since that day, bagpipe music made Danny think of Paddy and Mikey.
That's why bagpipes made Danny Reagan cry.
A/N: This story is based on a comment made by Danny Reagan in S4E21.
I broke my own rule, and wrote about a mythical animal. Funnily enough, I am still alive!