Well... I'm finally back. See? Told I would keep it going... it's just going very slowly. ;)

Oh and in terms of timeline I going by the original airdate of Run silent, Run deep.

April 24th, 2010 3:00 P.M.

Danny walked up from the Chambers St. subway station for the 1 train and then headed towards Greenwich Ave. He pulled at his collar loosening his tie a little.

'God I hate wearing a suit everyday' He thought. Still being the head of the crime lab did have it's perks. Like being able to leave early to go pick up his son from school. Danny sat down on the edge of a planter in front of the school, checking his watch as he did so. It was 3:10, which meant he had another five minutes. As if on cue his phone rang.

"Hey Mac."

"Hey babe. You at the school yet?"

"yes dear."

"Good. Look behind you."

Danny turned around . He smiled as he saw Mac round the corner. Mac had aged some in the past five years. His hair was starting to gray slightly, but Danny actually liked it. His eyes had started showing some wrinkles around them, mostly when Mac smiled. Mac was also a little skinnier, he was still anything but frail, despite the cane in his left hand. Focusing on the cane caused Danny's smile to falter.

'Don't think about it' Danny reminded himself.

"Hey handsome." Danny said, hugging Mac and kissing him on the cheek. As Danny pulled away the bell rang signaling the end of the day. About thirty seconds later a swarm of small children came bounding out the doors. In the middle of it Mac and Danny saw a very familiar head of short dirty blond hair bobbing up and down. When Mikey caught sight of them his face lit up.

"Daddy, Pop, you both came to pick me up!"

"Ya bet we did!" Danny said, scooping the boy up in a hug and giving him a kiss on the cheek. As he did so his lips felt a slight imperfection on his son's cheek. As Danny pulled back he looked at the long thin line that ran down Mikey's left cheek. It was a razor thin scar. It start just under the outside corner of his left eye and ran all the way down to the corner of his mouth.

'My scared little angel' Danny thought fondly. It was a fitting description. The boy had a rather angelic looking face that belied the fact that he was a total imp. Mikey was still rather small for his age, but the boy was lean and wiry. His eyes still seem to glow like amber every time he smiled, and he smiled quite a lot. His hair had gotten steadily lighter over the past five years. Danny marveled at the boy's hair sometimes. They knew from baby pictures they had found at his "uncle's" that Mikey had been born with a full head of curly Black hair, by the time they had met him at five, his hair had been straight and brown, and no it was blond. Danny didn't know if it was still straight or not, as Mikey never let it get long enough for him to tell. ]

As Danny looked at his son and lover, smiling at each other as Mac leaned in to kiss Mikey's forehead, Danny was remined of how precious they were to him. As he looked at Mac's cane and Mikey's scar he was reminded, how close he had come to losing everything. Just like how when they gave Mikey his pills every morning he was reminded how fragile what they had was.

April 24th, 2005 8:43 A.M.

"He's what?" Don asked, gaping in disbelief.

"He's… HIV positive." Ruby said heavily. Tears running down her cheeks.

"Which is why I'm here." Nurse Amy said sadly as she walked into the room. "Michael, we need to draw some more blood, so you and I are going to go just down the hall and take care of that and then we'll come right back." MIkey's only response was to look nervously between Mac and Danny.

"It's ok buddy, we'll be here. I promise." Danny said.

"Ok." Michael said, crawling out of Mac's lap. After he and Amy were gone, Mac turned back to Ruby.

"What does this mean in the long run?" He asked.

"Well, all I can tell you right now is that we have a lot more tests to run."

"What are the chances of a false positive?" Don asked.

"Well, about 15 in every thousand positives turns out to be a false positive." Ruby said

"An' if it comes back positive again we're talking a one in two hundred fifty thousand chance that it's still a false positive." Danny added sounding exhausted. "Western blot is what your doing next right?"

"Yeah." Ruby sighed.

"Basically Flack if the next one comes back positive as well, it's for real."

"We're going to do the western blot and pray it comes back negative, and we'll also do a complete blood count, get his T-cell count and all that good stuff. While we wait for the test results, we'll have a HAART specialist come in and start talking treatment with you." Ruby said.

"What's HIV got to do with his heart?" Flack asked.

"Sorry," Ruby said smiling slightly, "H, A, A, R, T, or Highly Active Anti Retroviral Treatment. It's all about interrupting the virus' replication process. As yet there's no method to completely eradicate the virus from the body. What we can do is stop it's replication process. The weakens the virus and we can suppress the symptoms so to speak."

"So he'll be able to have a normal life?" Stella asked.

"Well… yes and no. It's possible for him to have a relatively normal life, but it will take a ton of work and almost as much luck. Again, we're going to start him on HAART. What that means is we're going to spend the next one to six months trying to find the best Med combination for him. Then we hope that combo remains effective. We also hope he doesn't get any colds or other simple infections, since there can be a higher risk of complications."

"So basically it's possible but not likely." Stella said.

"We'll just have to do everything we can." Mac said. "This does make one thing much easier though."

"Yeah, just what would that be?" Danny asked miserably.

"The adoption agency will be practically throwing him at us now." Mac said with a sad smirk.

Despite himself Danny chuckled a little. "What, ya don't think they would wanna try an' place a kid who's pos?"

"I think they feel like lucky sons of bitches. They'll probably also think we're the two biggest dumbfucks on the planet."

"Aren't we?"

"Probably…" Mac sighed. "Oh the things we do for lo-"

He was cut off by Ruby squeezing the air out of his lungs in an enormous hug.

"You two are the most amazing men I have ever met. Most people would have run away screaming if they found out the kid they were about to adopt was positive. But you guys just go and start asking about treatment options without even batting an eye." She hugged Danny just as affectionately.

"Of course we did. I wouldn't be able to live with myself if we ran out on the kid like that." Danny said.

Don, who had been sitting quietly for a while just taking it all in, suddenly spoke up. "I gotta say guys, I think this is the craziest thing either of you has ever done… but I've never been so proud to know you guys." He finished, smiling.

"Same here." Stella said.

"Thanks you two." Danny said. "Now, I just got one question left… How the HELL, do we explain HIV to a five year old?" He asked exasperatedly.

He was met with silence.

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There you have it. I will try to update within the month...

No seriously, that's probably when you can realistically expect the next chapter... Sorry.

PLEASE REVIEW (I can be bribed into working quicker with reviews [note plural... reviewssssss{meaning more than one or two}])