We Have a Situation
Word Count: 2,691
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Nico/Dani (eventually)
Spoilers: up to 1x06, goes AU in the middle of it.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything. I just break things.
Summary: She thinks he thinks everything is a situation. Trouble is, he's right. She just doesn't know it yet.
Author's Note: I admit, the wrong impression was part of the reason for writing this story...

A Wrong Impression

"My phone has been ringing off the hook. Some of these people haven't spoken to me in years, so why are they calling now?" Dani demanded setting down her phone, shaking her head in disbelief. She pulled her robe close around her, running a hand through her hair. Where was the coffee? Why were these people harassing her? She did not need this. She had been up all night with TK, and she hadn't been able to sleep because of the nonstop ringing.

Jeanette looked at her. Dani barely remembered letting her in. Maybe one of the kids had. She didn't know anymore. Jeanette should be off with Gerald, right? Why was she here? "You really can't guess? Everyone wants to know who the stud was that kicked Ray's ass over you."

"Stud? That kicked Ray's ass? Over me? What, Nico? That was not—" Dani stopped, trying to figure out the best way to handle this. She had not forgotten what happened last night. It wasn't something that went away, but it was definitely not what they thought it was. "That was about work. Yes, Nico did strong arm him a little. That's what Nico does for a living, from what I understand. He either intimidates people or he pays them off, and he makes the team's problems go away."

"Really?" Jeanette was intrigued. She had that predatory tone in her voice again. She was looking forward to hearing more. She found it all sexy, didn't she? "Is he a hit man?"

"Closest thing to it," Dani muttered, shaking her head. She was not awake enough for this. She needed something stronger than coffee. This had to be more of the same nightmare, right? "People really think me and Nico...?"

Jeanette nodded. She turned her laptop toward her, showing her a picture, taken without Dani's knowledge, of her right after she'd bumped into him. With her mouth open in shock like that, her eyes wide, she didn't look like she was upset to see him. She almost looked like her heart had skipped a beat seeing him.

"Explain, Missy."

"I bumped into him." Even to Dani, that sounded lame. The pictures were going to give everyone the wrong idea. They should be banned or destroyed or something. Had Jeanette already posted these somewhere? Would deleting them be enough?

Jeanette clicked the mouse and another picture came up, this time when Nico had grabbed her arm. Dani should have looked pissed then, too, but the hesitation she'd had then, picturing the satisfaction of elbowing him, left her with a small smile that made her seem all too pleased with the situation.

"I was thinking of elbowing him."

"Uh huh," Jeanette agreed. She pushed the button again. That was Nico about to break Ray's arm. Dani just shook her head. She had already explained this. Nico was a strong arm, an intimidator. That was nothing unusual for him. "I thought the steamiest part of the evening would be you and Ray on the dance floor—well, Gerald and me in the bathroom, before I knew that he was a woman—but you managed to beat that."

"That is me hauling Nico off after he totally overreacted and almost broke Ray's arm," Dani objected, pointing to the picture. "What is so steamy about—"

"I am not the only one who got the impression you were taking him away, not to yell at him, but to have hot, angry near violent sex, okay?"

"I do not believe this," Dani muttered. This was the last thing she needed right now. "Everyone is deliberately misinterpreting what they saw, and if you help them perpetuate this myth and—What was that about Gerald being a woman?"

Jeanette nodded. "He is. Or she is. Whatever. It was disappointing to learn that what I thought would be a romance would be—you know, it was strangely flattering, being his inspiration, but it wasn't what I hoped for."

"I'm sorry," Dani said, touching her friend's arm. Jeanette was taking this better than Dani would have thought. She was impressed—and still in a bit of shock. Gerald was a woman. That she had not seen coming. Then again, Jeanette's interest in Gerald had been a bit of a shock, too. "I really am."

"It turned out okay, and I had plenty of entertainment."

Dani's sympathy quickly faded as she glared at her long-time friend. She didn't find this misinterpretation at all amusing. She was not having a good day, and all she wanted was some sleep. At this rate, she might end up strangling someone. "Entertainment?"

"I have another picture."

Dani was not about to look. She stopped Jeanette's hand before she could click again. She opened her mouth to say something when she heard a crash in the other room. She rolled her eyes as Jeanette clicked the button, giving her a smug smile. Dani chose to ignore it, since it was just another picture of her and Nico. She rose, walking toward the door.

"Yo, Doctor D!" TK called, and she winced, drawing the robe tighter around her. She had to be in some kind of nightmare between the pictures and the misinterpretation and the rumors that were going to follow it and now TK.

"TK, what are you doing here?" she demanded as she reached the door.

"Well, they let my boy Devin here go from the hospital," TK began, and she frowned a little as she heard that. She knew that it was an old speech pattern of TK's, the use of 'my boy.' She'd heard him call Ray Jay that before. Ray Jay understood, but that little boy might not. He might think that TK really was his father—and that had not yet been proven one way or another.

"And you came here, to my house?" Dani asked, frowning. He should not be here. He should not have that child with him. This was not good. "TK, do I have to go over boundaries again?"

He looked at her, an extra special, extra pathetic one. "Come on, Doctor D. I need help. I don't know nothing about taking care of kids. They're small and fun and stuff, but I don't know. You're a mom. Help me out here. Please?"

Dani looked at him and resigned herself to another long day.

Hours later, dressed as professionally as she could manage without putting on a dress suit, feeling like she was drowning again, still running on little more than coffee and fumes, Dani stood in her backyard watching Devin, TK, and Ray Jay play catch. She should have stopped this. She shouldn't have let any of it go on, but the lines had gotten blurred a long time ago, and she wasn't sure that she could ever put them in the right place again.

She was aware that her clothes were an attempt to control some part of the circumstances she found herself in, to have some air of authority that she felt was lacking. Of course it was. Her patient was playing with her son and a boy that might be his son in her yard. Her best friend had gotten out a video camera and was filming the whole thing. It was cute, admittedly, but Dani couldn't help the sense of failure, couldn't stop worrying.

Some might say that was all she did. It wasn't true. She knew how to do more than worry, but she had to be concerned. This broke so many rules, crossed so many boundaries. This was her home. This was her family. TK was her patient. That poor boy out there was caught in the middle of something that he had no way of understanding. Right now, he thought it was great that he could hang out with a professional football player, that he could play catch with one, even as awkward as it was with a broken arm. He didn't have any idea about the complicated situation he was in, didn't know that he should not be here. For so many reasons.

How had TK even been able to leave the hospital with that boy? He had no legal papers, and the hospital should have been better about enforcing that rule. Hell, she should have called social services or something herself. That boy might not be TK's son. Cherise had some family, didn't she? Nico had mentioned someone, Dani thought. She'd have to get that information from him, get Devin back to his family or some responsible agency. It was great to see TK interacting with the boy. Really, it was. It just couldn't last.

Damn Laura and wanting to delay that test. They needed those results. They needed them fast. They needed some kind of solution to this mess. It couldn't go on like this. People were bound to get hurt. Hearts would be broken. So much pain...

"You're squinting again."

She almost jumped out of her skin at the voice right next to her ear. "Nico! What the hell?"

He looked at her, and she thought she saw some amusement in his eyes. "I heard voices out back and walked up to you. You did seem lost in thought. Must not have heard me."

"Like I didn't hear you last night at the hospital? You walked right up to me and left me coffee—more than once—and I didn't hear you. Not once," she said, shaking her head in disbelief. "Don't do that to me again."

"I cannot be held responsible if you fail to hear me because you're lost in thought."

She made a face. He looked strangely unaffected by all of this, but she knew he'd been at the hospital at least as late as she had been. She was a mess, and he looked like he always did. "Do you ever sleep?"

"Did you?"

"Not really. TK is at my house, and my phone has been—Never mind," she said, cutting herself off before she could start babbling and tell him all about the wrong impression everyone at the reunion had of the two of them. "What about Cherise? Do we know anything more about her condition? What about her mother? Is she coming? Is she going to take care of Devin?"

"Cherise is still critical. She is being kept in a medically induced coma to minimize the damage and expedite the healing, or so they tell me. As for her mother, she has been unreachable."

Dani folded her arms over her chest. "Are you the one who arranged for TK to take care of Devin?"

Nico shook his head. "My advice to him was not to start something he couldn't finish."

She didn't like this one bit. Nico had better not be lying about this. If he arranged to get that boy out of the hospital for TK... "So, what, the hospital took pity on him? They know better than that. It had to take a lot of money to—"

"Money that TK has," Nico interrupted. Dani let out a breath. That was true enough. TK had a certain sort of charm, fame, and money. He had enough influence to do it on his own. She had resisted the idea of leaving TK alone, but then she had reluctantly let his chauffeur drive him home to get some rest. She should have known that he would have gone back. She wanted to blame that on lack of sleep. She just should have known better.

"What about the other results?"

"The paternity lab has not confirmed or denied anything."

She cursed. Nico put his hands in his pockets. She looked over at him. "The longer this goes on, the more attached TK will become to that boy. The issue is already confused because of the claim of paternity. If that proves to be false, the fallout could be devastating. The psychological issues here are complex and—few people are prepared for parenthood even when they plan for a child. TK is in no state to assume that responsibility."

"Ordinarily, this would be the moment where you would expect to be told to start preparing him for it," Nico began, and Dani shot him a look. "I didn't actually say it. I know that can't be done. Being a parent is something you learn over time. It's a slow process. Everyone has their own way of doing it, and their own pace for learning. While he's not ready for it, TK is capable of learning."

"The Hawks don't want that. TK is not supposed to be a father figure. They want him focused on the game, not on a kid," she said, a bit of disgust creeping into her voice. She hadn't expected Nico to voice an opinion like that. Most people would think of TK more like a lost cause. No, she didn't feel that TK was ready for a child, but she could see that there was a part of him that wanted Devin to be his son. He wanted to spend time with that child. He was a big kid himself.

"It is not my realm of expertise, but I would say that—if it were possible—it would be best if TK dealt with those underlying issues first, before he added on the responsibility of parenthood. This boy does not deserve to have that father figure ripped away from him shortly after he gets it," Nico said, and she looked over at him, surprised to hear him say anything like that. Then again, why should she really be surprised? Nico was a man who hid more than he would ever show anyone. "This situation is a time bomb waiting to explode."

There he went again, calling it a situation. Not that it wasn't, but she thought she might have to copy the section from the thesaurus for the word and give it to him, attempt to expand his vocabulary. He could use it, and it might even make him smile a little. He had a nice smile.

She pushed that thought out of her head and focused back on topic. TK, the accident, the boy. That was the situation that needed to be handled right now, not Nico's lack of vocabulary variety. A man of few words. She grimaced at the bad pun and cleared her throat.

"What about the press? Is there a lot of it? What spin did Laura put on the accident? Did she bury it?" Dani asked. She hadn't looked yet herself, but she had a feeling that when TK saw the coverage, things would only get worse.

"For now, the details haven't made it to the press, but that won't last. She is attempting to put a 'spin' as you call it on the angle about the boy, some sort of charity thing that TK would have been telling everyone about at a later time," Nico explained. "If it turns out that the boy is not his son, I assume she'll let it be buried."

"And then what? He goes back home with a single mother who is in debt and desperate, who resorted to extremes to get her son a father? That's it? Forgotten, just like that?" Dani demanded, shaking her head. She reached over and touched Nico's arm. "There has to be more than that. Not just for the boy but for TK's sake, too."

Nico looked uncomfortable. "The Hawks are covering Cherise's medical expenses and those of her son. She will not have to worry about that. There is a generous settlement available for her as well."

"Making her disappear?"

Nico's gaze turned on Dani. "Are you aware that your friend has been filming us since shortly after I arrived?"

Dani's eyes widened as she looked over at Jeanette. "What? No. She's not. Is she? Damn it. I am going to kill her."