:: 1x24 :: Take Me With You ::

Don't let anyone try and convince you otherwise, even in a sleeping bag, the ground is a shitty place to sleep. Or attempt to sleep. There are rocks digging into his hipbone and, no matter how even it looked when they picked this spot, the earth under him is pitched and lumpy. Their bags are zipped together and Christina is sleeping peacefully next to him, her body radiating heat that he can't seem to absorb; he's been inexplicably cold all night.

Danny shifts slowly onto his back, the rocks still jabbing him in the sciatic. He glances in the dark over at Christina, the obscured lines of her face serine, and is amazed all over again how content she seems out here. It's so different from the shy, artistic girl he met in a crummy little pizza joint with the sheet of honey-colored hair she would use to hide behind.

He squeezes his eyes shut and tries to push down the nagging feeling of dread that's been festering in his stomach since - shit. He's been making an effort. He has. He's lying prostrate in the fucking forest for her, isn't he? Danny should have let that be enough. Why did he ask her to move in? And why the hell did she say yes?

Danny tugs at the hair on his forearm and notices the way the pre-dawn light is changing the tent from a black void into a shapeless midnight-blue. She rolls over with a hum and doesn't wake when he gets up to put on his jacket and shoes. The air is chilly and damp and has a not unpleasant quality that is nothing like the city. Danny can smell the soot of the long-extinguished campfire and wishes he knew how the hell they were supposed to make coffee.

There's a short path near their site that leads to a few benches and picnic tables and a view of the lake, and he walks it for the lack of anything better to do. He'd sell a major organ for a cigarette right now.

"Hey."

Danny startles at the sound of her voice breaking through the quiet. Mindy's sitting on one of the benches a few feet away, an over-sized flannel shirt wrapped around her, those preposterously large glasses making her eyes even bigger when she looks at him.

"Hey. What are you doing up this early?"

She shrugs and pushes the glasses up her nose with the palm of her hand. "Same as you, I guess."

"Tent living not as great as you thought it would be, huh?" He smirks as he sits down next to her. Danny's just giving her a hard time - and, well, maybe he's unable to keep from pointing out how, on a list of all the stupid, impulsive things she's done this one is near the top. Except a look flashes, only for a second, across her face that makes him think he hit a nerve. "Are you having second thoughts about -"

"What?! No. The tent - psh! The tent is amazing. Don't even know why I've been bothering with a mortgage so long. I'm up to - -" Mindy waves a hand in front of her, like he's supposed to fill in the rest, before stammering, "to - - to see the sunrise. The miracle of, you know - nature." She cuts her eyes at him. "Why are you up?"

"The sunrise, yeah. Same as you." She nods thoughtfully, like they're not both so full of shit.

They sit in silence, staring out over the water, and Danny's eyelids feel heavy. His jaw pops when he yawns, tears coating his eyelashes as his eyes squeeze tight. Mindy shoves on his shoulder, and he blearily sees the back of her hand trying to stifle her own yawn when he glances at her.

"Okay, I admit it - this is the worst," he says. "Why do people do this? Voluntarily! I've slept better propped against a wall when I was doing my residency."

"I think I'm sleeping better right now."

"Ha!" he grins at her. "I knew you'd never get up to see the sunrise unless you were forced."

"Fine." Mindy groans and rubs a hand across her brow, shielding her face. "The last time I was this exhausted at dawn I'd partied the whole night before. And let me tell you, this sunrise would be way better with a Bloody Mary."

He looks at her closely for the first time since he sat down, somewhat expecting her to look haggard after a sleepless night on the hard ground. She doesn't. Maybe a little tired, but nice, her hair straight and draped over her shoulder, no make-up, and the plaid shirt looking surprisingly natural on her. For the first time he can actually picture her in Haiti. "Are you going to be okay there? Seriously."

"What? In Haiti?"

"Yeah."

"Yeah, of course I am. It'll be different there; I'm sure it will. I'll be so busy, ya know, helping people and changing lives forever - like an angel bringing healing to the masses. I won't have time to worry about anything else. Casey will handle all that other stuff."

It sounds like she's telling the truth, like she really is okay with moving to Haiti. This is happening. She's leaving for a year and he and Christina are moving in together. He wishes he could have some of Mindy's blind faith. And maybe he can. If she can move to a third-world nation with a man she's only known three months then he can honor the vow he made when he and Christina stood before the priest all those years ago - even if it feels wrong.

"Are you okay?" she asks, her voice soft. And, seriously, is it that obvious?

"I'm - perfect. I -" Danny takes a second, trying to form the words correctly, siphoning off optimism from the woman sitting next to him. "I asked Christina to move in with me."

"Oh."

"Oh? What's that mean? Oh."

"Nothing. It's -" she shakes her head, "it's none of my business."

Danny can't help but chuckle at that. "Not really, no. That's never stopped you before."

Her mouth falls open, aghast, and can't maintain it. "Okay, fine. That's valid. So - you asked Christina to move in with you. What did she say?"

"She said yes."

"Why?"

"Thanks for that, Min. You sure know how to -"

"No, no. Not why did she say yes, but - why did you ask her?"

"Oh. Um," he shrugs. Crap. Why did he ask her? "I just thought - well. I guess - it seemed like a -"

"Oh, my god. You don't know why you asked your ex-wife who you've only been on speaking terms with for a few months to move in with you?!"

"It was a show of good faith. Alright? I didn't think she'd say yes."

"Danny," she slips her fingers around his forearm, and admitting it, what his offer really was, combined with the way the warmth of her hand is seeping through the fabric of his shirt, is surprisingly calming. "What are you going to do?"

"I'm not going to do anything. Christina's going to move in. It'll be fine."

"You can't let her do that. It's not fair to her if you're having doubts."

"I'm not having doubts. It's just - it would happen eventually anyway. We're together; it's how it's supposed to be. It doesn't matter if it's too soon."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"Okay. Then, I'm happy for you."

"Thank you."

They sit for a moment in the quiet, the sky light and the first orangey-yellow rays starting to peek out over the trees. Mindy doesn't move her hand from his arm and he has such a strange desire to take it in his hand instead.

"Danny, can I ask you something?" Her voice has a nervous tremor about it and it makes his heart beat faster. He wants to turn and look at her, but he doesn't.

"Yeah. Anything."

"Will you check my head for ticks? I just know they're on me."

He smiles at her, her face scrunched in fear that he totally gets. "Come here." Mindy scoots closer, her back to him, and he lifts a wave of her hair and starts working the pads of his fingers over her scalp.

"Thank you. I feel like I've lost a lot of blood already. How soon can you detect the onset of Lyme disease?"

"You're fine. You don't have Lyme disease."

"Okay."

"Let me know if you get a weird rash, though."

"Danny!"

There are a bunch of unnecessarily large photos of him naked all over his apartment, hung just in time for everyone at the party to see. There's cutesy distressed furniture and potted plants and - sure, Danny may be crunching half a bottle of antacids a day and have the equivalent of an entire pack of cigarettes hidden throughout his apartment, but - everything is okay.

Until, in typical party-train-wreck style, Mindy turns down Casey's proposal and changes her mind about going to Haiti.

It eats away at him, all through the delivery, even after Mindy runs off to God knows where. She couldn't go through with it. It felt wrong and she was brave enough to look like a coward and make a complete fool of herself in front of a room full of people and lose Casey in the process. Because ultimately she didn't make the decision she thought she should, she made the decision that felt right.

Danny does it over the phone, waking Christina up, which he knows is an asshole thing to do, but he's a chickenshit and if he waits until he's done at the hospital in the morning he'll lose his nerve. He doesn't say he's breaking up with her, but he's pretty sure she knows him well enough that 'slowing things down' means it's all but over. Christina is oddly quiet and he can't tell if it's because she's angry or if it's more than that. They agree to meet and talk about it more tomorrow.

It doesn't feel like he thought it would. There is a huge sense of relief. Then there's also a feeling of failure that is sucking all the oxygen out of his lungs. The first time their relationship failed he could blame it all on her and her infidelity, even if that wasn't entirely true. Now it's all on him. It's crushing.

Mindy walks into the lounge and her hair is the most ridiculous thing he has ever seen and he hates it, truly, but she looks so happy and there is a deep breath in his lungs again. She laughs when he points out they have the same haircut now, and it's still so fresh, but he wants to talk to her about it.

"I told Christina that - I wanna slow things down, so . . . I think that's -"

Danny looks up at her and Mindy is nodding her head, her mouth pressed together, and she looks different than he's ever seen her. Not only the hair, something has changed in her countenance, and it makes him forget what it was he was saying. There's a smear of something on the lens of her glasses and he doesn't think about it before reaching, taking them off her face. "You got something there."

Honestly, it's only after he has his fingertips in her hair for the second time in as many weeks that he realizes the position he has put them in. He tries to explain, "There. There was just - a little schmutz." Only that doesn't sound like anything, and he should sit back. He doesn't and her gaze flicks down to his mouth and he involuntarily mimics that action. Oh shit. He wants to kiss her.

"Casey and I got back together."

"You did?"

"Yeah. So I'm going to Haiti."

There it is - the air gone again and his chest constricting. He has to quit smoking, even on the sly. Clearly it is diminishing his lung capacity. The way she's looking at him he knows he should say something, something nice and supportive like a friend does. All the normal phrases like, 'that's great news', or, 'I'm happy for you' are lies and he won't do that. So Danny settles on what he hopes this will be for her, "Good for you."

Danny and Christina place an offer on a house in New Jersey with a nice backyard and detached one-car garage two weeks after he receives his first letter from Haiti.