Woke up this morning the house was cold, checked the furnace she wasn't burnin'. Went out and hopped in my old Ford, hit the engine but she ain't turnin'. We've been giving each other some hard lessons lately but we ain't learning. We're the same sad story that's a fact. One step up and two steps back.—Bruce Springsteen, One Step Up

"Dada? Dada up? Pees Dada?" Makayla's questioning voice floated through the monitor and broke the early morning silence in the master bedroom. Steve rolled over onto his side, cracked one eye open and groaned.

"6:03 on a Sunday morning? Really? Haven't you taught her how to sleep in?" He muttered to his partner only to find the other side of the bed cold and empty.

Steve sat up a little straighter in bed, shaking away the fog of sleep as he tried to figure out where his husband was. After their fight last night, Danny had stormed off out the back door and he still wasn't back by the time he had put Makayla down for the night and hobbled off to bed but Steve had sworn he felt him slide in next to him at some point. Looking over at the made up side of the bed now, he couldn't help but wonder if maybe it had been another one of his dreams.

"Dada?" Makayla called out again for his attention.

"I'm coming Mak." Steve called back to her. He heard her hum happily in response and he chuckled to himself as he worked himself up and out of the bed. Grabbing his cane, he shuffled slowly down the hall to the nursery. Makayla was sitting up in her crib, playing with his old stuffed Winnie the Pooh doll. When she saw her father enter the room she dropped the bear and immediately pulled herself up onto her feet using the bars on the crib.

"Dada!" She squealed.

"Good morning Mak." He greeted as he carefully balanced himself so that he could safely pluck her from her bed. "Hasn't Danno taught you yet that we can sleep in on the weekends?"

"No seep." Makayla frowned. "Dada up."

"Yeah, I'm up." He replied with a laugh. They slowly made their way through the morning routine of changing her diaper and outfit before heading downstairs for breakfast. Steve secured his daughter in her high chair before he started to work on her bottle. As he went to place the bottle in its warmer, he noticed the half full coffee pot sitting beside it. "So Danny was here after all." He muttered to himself as he poured a cup.

Breakfast was a quiet affair. Makayla snacked on cereal along with her bottle while Steve sipped his coffee and read the paper that had been left on the table. Obviously Danny was still pissed at him about last night if he had snuck out of the house before anyone else woke up. Part of Steve understood why his partner was upset but the other part of him wished that his partner would have stuck around so they could finish things. He was tired of this seemingly endless tension between them and how every time things seem to be okay with them again something new popped up and set back any progress they'd made. The more thoughts of last night swam around in his head, the more he found himself getting irritated all over again. He wanted to resolve things now, not two weeks from now when they both felt guilty. So Steve quickly cleaned up his and Makayla's breakfast and then secured her in her playpen for a nap before grabbing the phone. Danny didn't answer so he left a quick, terse message.

"We're not done talking Daniel. Call me."

Danny was being a coward and he knew it.

After the fight the night before, he had stormed off out of the house. He had ended up at a bar where he sat and stared at his beer for a few hours before slinking back home after he knew Steve and the baby would be asleep. He was just so tired of every conversation turning into an argument. Though he had known that bringing up his mother would cause a problem, there was a small foolish part of Danny that had hoped that maybe Steve would give him permission to go.

It was selfish but Danny didn't want to go meet Melinda just to have answers to Steve's questions but he wanted some answers of his own. He thought that maybe if he could understand how Melinda could make the choice to walk away then maybe he could understand and accept why Matt did it too. His brother's disappearance was something that he and Steve hadn't talked much about. They had had a conversation or two about it right after it happened but it had been more like a case debriefing than a true talk about what it all meant. It had been too much at the time and their relationship was just starting so Danny just acted as if he had moved on.

It was a lie.

Matt's absence had weighed heavily on him. He felt like a failure. What kind of cop was he if he couldn't even help his own brother with his problems? What kind of cop was he that he completely missed the fact that Matt was in trouble with the wrong people? And what kind of cop was he that he stood by and let a criminal get away? Grace occasionally would ask about her Uncle and Danny wouldn't look her in the eye as he made up some lie about his whereabouts. His mother still pined over her baby boy. Matt had always been her favorite child and there was a part of him that wondered if Maggie didn't take her pain over losing him out on Casey. "I know she wishes it had been me instead." His sister had admitted to him one night over the phone after a fight with Maggie.

His family had been slowly falling apart for years which was why it had set him off when Steve acted as if he was the only one whose family had issues. Danny knew all too well what it meant to lose, not just Matt but Steve as well. The memories of that day at Kaneohe Bay still haunted his nightmares and he needed the other man to be reminded of that fact.

He had been sitting at his desk since dawn trying to decide what to do. He could go back to the house, tail between his legs and apologize for leaving or he could go and get some answers in the hopes of ending things once and for all. Sighing, Danny grabbed his phone and keys off the desk and headed out of the office, muttering to himself as he went

"Here goes nothing."

a/n: What choice did Danny make?