We Have a Situation
Word Count: 2,501
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Nico/Dani (eventually)
Spoilers: up to 1x07, goes AU in the middle of 1x06, though.
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: So I'm on my third watching of tonight's episode, adoring the Dani/Nico interaction, and that made it hard to finish the scene I was working on. I think I even have more ideas now. Mercifully that would be for a separate fic. :P
Distance
"Oh, honey, what is this?" Jeanette asked the minute the door was open. Dani hadn't realized she looked that bad, but she was apparently wrong. Jeanette looked perfect. Hair styled, not a strand out of place, clothes fresh and almost pressed, the woman looked good. Dani was in rumpled pajamas and she seemed to have spilled something on her robe. She didn't even remember doing it.
Her friend pushed her way inside and hugged her tightly. Dani forced a smile. She hadn't gotten very much sleep last night, and she was tired and worn out. She didn't know what she was doing anymore. The fight—everything—with Nico was proof of that. They had been so close to something, more than once, and then that tension twisted in on itself and become snide, almost hurtful comments on both of their parts.
Jeanette stepped back, studying Dani carefully. "What happened?"
"I already told you when I called you—Ray's idiot friend was the one that attacked Nico, and then TK showed up here drunk, and then Nico and I had a fight and then I couldn't sleep, and here I am," Dani answered, sighing. She turned, going toward her kitchen. She'd already started coffee, and she needed it badly right now. No, her mind had been trained to think she needed it, and she should work on that, but she didn't have it in her right now. She knew she had things to fix, but right now, she couldn't think about them.
Jeanette nodded. "Well, here's the thing, Dani. You brought the drunk TK on yourself. As for the rest of it... We've always known that Ray was an idiot and that Rudy was, too. I mean, I married Rudy. If anyone knows he's an idiot, it would be me. I am so glad that one only lasted a couple of months before I got my head on straight. And I have you to thank for that, so don't even start guilt tripping on me now."
Dani couldn't help but grimace. Jeanette was right. They'd gotten TK drunk, and they did have themselves to blame for that. She'd wanted to stop the announcement, and she'd almost made it worse. Why couldn't she seem to make a proper decision in any of this? She was supposed to be a therapist. An objective bystander who could give advice and help the others see their options and help them pick the right decision. She wasn't supposed to make the decisions. It had to be the boy. Trying to protect him was pulling her into the middle of it. She was pulling herself into the middle of it.
"I screwed up, Jeanette. I really did. I shouldn't be interfering like this in TK's life," Dani said, letting out a curse that made her friend's eyes widen with surprise. Dani sighed. She didn't want to lose control like this. At least it was only Jeanette hearing it and not the kids, Devin, or TK. "It's just... Nico was right. I am too involved in my patient's lives. And I am so pissed at him for being right even though I know that he's in Chicago like he should not be and I just want to scream because on top of all of this... I want him. I don't understand. Nico is not—he—I cannot deal with this now."
Dani threw up her hands and shook her head, frustrated. She tried to calm herself down, but it really wasn't working right now. She pinched the bridge of her nose. TK might have been the one drinking heavily, but she swore she had his hangover.
"Okay, first of all, if Nico's in Chicago, then he's the least of your problems right now. You can't do anything about him, so you need to take a step back and breathe," Jeanette began. She waited, and Dani rolled her eyes but took the breath. "Then we need to get you through talking to TK. What is it you do? Role-playing? Not the kinky kind, but the one where the therapist stands in for whoever the patient needs to speak to? This time it's me. I get to be TK. You are you."
"Have you been in my psychology books, too? Ray Jay has been reading them, and it's been driving me crazy," Dani said, and Jeanette shot her a dirty look. "Okay, okay, I'm sorry. I'm going to take a sip of my coffee and then I'll start over."
"Good," Jeanette said, and Dani figured she knew why none of her patients ever wanted to use the role-playing exercise as a part of their therapy. Jeanette was no TK, and it was hard to picture her as him for even a minute.
Dani took the sip of coffee, shook out her hands a little, and loosened her shoulders. She could do this. Really. It would be easier, and once she'd spoken to Jeanette, she could repeat it to TK without a problem. That was the point of the exercise.
She cleared her throat again. "TK, now that it is morning and we all have clearer heads, I would like to talk to you. First of all, I'd like to apologize for interfering. It is your choice to make whether you want Devin in your life or not. I have been very concerned for his sake, and that has led me to some bad decisions. There are a few things that I would like to say to you, and I want you to let me say them before you respond. Before you do this, if this is what you really want, then you need to understand that being a parent is a full-time responsibility. It is not always fun and games and playing in the park. It is bedtimes and curfews and rules. It is explaining why you can't take the other boy's toy and how boys and girls are different. It's the question of why over and over again. Maybe when they get older they have a bigger vocabulary, but they're still gonna ask you why. They expect you to have the answers. Honestly, you won't always have them. You have to be able to be the person who has the answers and admit when you don't. It's not easy, but when you lie to your child and they find out, they're heartbroken. Or they get angry. Those aren't things that you want.
"For me, as your therapist, I need you to understand what you're taking on. If I believe that you do, then I can stop telling you this. But until I do, I'm going to keep saying it. I'm going to keep nagging until I believe that you know what you need to know because as much as I love my children, there are a lot of things I wish someone had told me first."
"Nice speech, Doctor D. You think I could get some coffee and an aspirin before the lecture?" TK asked from behind her, and she turned around to face him.
"How much of that did you hear?"
"Plenty. Where's the good stuff? Let me have some of them painkillers, and then we'll talk," TK said, helping himself to the cupboard and taking out the largest mug she had. He went to the coffee pot next, and Dani watched him fill it up.
She looked down at her pajamas and robe and nodded. Great. The morning was off to a good start. Really good. "I'm going to go change first. Enjoy the coffee."
"Is it arranged?"
"Yes, Mr. Careles," the doctor agreed, walking along with Nico through the hallways. He truly was sick of these places. The walls with the stark white relieved only by paintings picked to be soothing and fire alarms or doors that all looked the same. Cookie cutters. All the same. One place was almost exactly like the others, no matter what city or state or even decade. The more expensive ones pretended to be resorts. They catered to those who were used to being pampered, but coddling very rarely resulted in a permanent change. As soon as they left, they were back to the same bad habits.
Once again, he found himself questioning his choice of career. He could not remember why he did this. It happened every time that one of these situations arose. He would have blamed it on the constant questions of Dani Santino—the first one to challenge his methods openly in a long time. Others might have had opinions on what he did, but they never came directly to him. She was the only one who dared. She made him think.
It was not that he didn't think about it—Nico's mind was always working. Observers did that. They stood in the background, in the shadows, and they watched. They assessed. His mind was always working, processing what he saw or heard or read and deciding how best to handle it. He could predict most outcomes. Sometimes that was a curse, always knowing and preparing for the worst. He had read enough books in Santino's field to know what they would say about him. What he did, the way he tried to control things, prevent things, or fix them... That spoke to his own sense of helplessness and inability to control his own life. He was aware of what the books said and what Santino likely thought of him.
He had no desire to change what he was or even what he did. His position was an interesting one, one that suited his skill set and gave him an almost honest way to use them. The alternatives were far worse, paths that he did not want to go down.
"We have your information in case we need to contact you," the doctor said, and Nico glanced over at him again. He was trying to project a reassuring air, dressed in a sweater and tie, benign and mostly likely non-prescription glasses in a thin frame. He kept his manner pleasant, and his hands were almost always folded together. The gray in his hair was almost suspect. The image was so carefully cultivated that it was irritatingly fake. "You can be assured that she is in good hands."
Nico only looked at him. The doctor stood there for a while, then shifted uncomfortably. That accomplished, Nico turned his eyes back to the door they'd left a few minutes before. The problem was sleeping now, but sooner or later, it would wake again. "Regardless of the reputation of your institution, the hands that she needs to be in are her own. This is a stop gap measure, nothing more."
"Our program works."
Nico almost laughed. The man should not have been so naïve, not in his chosen vocation. He was a doctor who worked in a rehab clinic. He had seen the worst of people, repeatedly. He should know better. Almost everyone did. Then again, for a medical doctor, he didn't even seem to pick up on the slight way that Nico found himself favoring his side or the supposedly obvious fatigue. Neither of those things gave the establishment any credit. If the head doctor could miss them, he probably missed a lot more than that.
Looking away from the door, Nico shook his head. "I have heard that before. In my experience, it fails ninety percent of the time. A hundred percent in cases like hers. I put her here. She did not choose this. Without that... She'll go right back to it."
"Are you—"
"An addict? No. I have known several, and some of them are still alive," Nico answered, putting his hands in his pockets. His mind went to a couple of those addicts in particular, one dead and one was likely to end up that way. It was time to talk to Juliette. Pittman had told Nico not to speak to her. He'd cut her off. If Nico went against that, not only would he lose his job, she would miss the point.
Still, that would have to wait until the situation with TK was settled. That, and the one with Santino. Nico addressed the doctor again. "Most of them are not. Do you need anything else from me?"
"You've made all the arrangements. Everything is under control."
"Truthfully, nothing is," Nico muttered, walking away from the doctor and to the front door. He took his phone out of his pocket, hesitating before he pushed the speed dial. He would keep this simple and direct. Nothing more than a delivery of facts. It might have been better if he'd done this in an impersonal message. He could have informed several people at the same time. He did not have to call her. He didn't like the answer that he came up with when he asked himself why he had.
"Nico," Santino began, her voice tight with what was most likely anger. They had ended their last conversation on a bad note. This was, once again, awkward. This situation needed to be dealt with so that they could work together again. "Now is not—"
He would make this as quick as possible. "Cherise's mother will be unavailable to assist with her grandson."
"What, you couldn't convince her?" Dani asked, a bit of scorn creeping into her voice. Bitterness from last night? She didn't seem to cope well with rejection. Then again, the same could probably be said about him. "Couldn't buy her off?"
"I put her in rehab this morning," Nico answered coldly. He was not interested in another conversation about his job choices, not right now. He did not want to fight with her, but they were already there. A side effect of the unresolved issues between them. "The hospital says that Cherise may need an operation to relieve the pressure on her brain."
Santino was quiet for a moment. "Wait. Don't they need someone to approve that now?"
"We have good lawyers," Nico reminded her. He'd spoken to them not long ago, also confirming that the adoption was still tied up in red tape. "As soon as I corroborated that her mother was no more capable of rendering a medical decision than she is, they were able to appoint a proxy through the courts. She has an advocate who is being informed of all the changes in her condition."
"And is that advocate you?"
He was not surprised that she had jumped to that particular conclusion. "I think this conversation is finished."
"Not exactly."
Nico frowned. He did not want to go into that subject further. "What does that mean? Did something go wrong with TK after he woke up? Or is it something else?"
"Actually, I think we may have caught a break for a change."