Chapter 11: Reminiscing.
Disclaimer: I do not own the Fosters. Any original characters and their back stories that resemble real people are pure coincidence.
AN: The second brand new chapter for the rewrite. In this chapter, it's October of 2016. Hope you guys enjoy, and PLEASE LEAVE LOTS OF REVIEWS!
Danny's POV:
It's been a month since Harry came into the fold, and already I cannot imagine our group without him. I think Jude and Connor are worried about me though. They're worried that I'm gonna fall for Harry because of the fact he looks just like Gideon. They are worried that I am falling for a ghost. Truthfully, their worries are unfounded, and completely ridiculous.
I mean... don't get me wrong, I AM falling for Harry. But it's not because he looks like Gideon. At least it isn't anymore. He may look like him, but as we've learned, underneath he's a completely different person.
He's sarcastic, and condescending when he wants to be. He had the Cryptkeeper in a different hour than we did, and apparently she decided that since Harry grew up in Georgia, he had little to no intelligence, as is stereotypical of a redneck. He proceeded to cuss her out in Gaelic, and then insulted her using insults that were twelve words long. He got a week's detention, but it was quickly revoked when he went to Monte and Lena and demanded that the old crone be fired for her attitude towards the students, and for discrimination based on regional stereotypes. The next day, the Cryptkeeper was no longer a teacher at Anchor Beach. Harry became legend. He had so many people approaching him to offer their thanks, that eventually he got sick of it.
Of the four of us, he is by far and away the most impatient. The four of us went to a restaurant about a week ago, and we saw this for the first time. The waiter told us the food would be out in fifteen minutes. When sixteen minutes elapsed and no food was presented to our table, it was all we could do to stop Harry from marching into the kitchen and bitching out the staff.
"It's not worth it, Harry." Connor had said, "They're remaking your food properly, you don't need to get so upset."
"I'm not upset, I'm furious." Harry deadpanned, "There is a huge difference."
He is more than willing to throw a punch at somebody when they say the wrong thing in front of him, for instance when he knocked one of our classmates on their ass because they said the word 'Queer'. It was kind of embarrassing for Harry because the kid explained he was referring to himself as being Queer in the context it's used in the acronym LGBTQ, meaning that he didn't identify himself as gay, straight, bisexual or transgender. Harry was extremely remorseful about it, and had helped the boy to his feet and set about apologizing at a thousand miles an hour. The kid understood the misunderstanding and assured him there were no hard feelings. Harry still felt bad about it though, and bought a really high quality chocolate bar and put it in the kids locker with a note of apology.
He can lie through his teeth better than anybody I have ever met. He can look people in the eye, and tell the a lie, and the person would never know it wasn't true. The guy has no tell. At all. Suffice it to say that a game of poker with him would be... most stimulating. He's already told Connor, Jude and I, however, that he found it impossible to lie to us.
Did I already mention he has a dirty, and slightly dark sense of humor? I think I did. He is the king of inappropriate jokes, and some of them are just terrible.
"I don't know if I should say this one. It might piss Jude off." Harry had said.
"Just say it." Jude had deadpanned, "But I reserve the right to punch you."
"Fair enough. What do you call a burning cop car?" Harry had asked us.
"What?" Jude has asked in return.
"A barbeque grill." Was the punch line. Literally, because Jude punched him. In the face.
"Told you." Harry had said after rolling his jaw as Jude glared at him evilly.
Jude got his revenge later that day by putting wasabi into Harry's sushi.
Another example is when Connor accidentally spilled his drink on me during lunch a week later.
"Fuck! Connor!" I shouted in exasperation.
"That's probably the first time anybody but Jude has shouted that..." Harry leered suggestively.
It took a second for us to get the underlying meaning of the comment, but when we did I started laughing, Jude turned a interesting maroon color, and Connor tackled Harry and wrestled with him in the grass until Harry begged for mercy.
He is extremely competitive as well, as we found out. We were playing online multiplayer Black Ops II today, and I have never heard a person swear so much in my entire life. It was also how we all discovered he could speak in different accents.
"DIE YOU BLASTED SACK OF RUBBISH!" Harry screamed as he mashed the fire button on his controller while we watched with amusement.
He glowered at the screen.
"This guy is driving me crazy." Harry said... In a Scottish accent.
My reaction to this was, of course, nearly falling off my seat for obvious reasons. Jude and Connor caught me and stopped me from falling any further.
He exited out of the game and turned to me, suddenly looking concerned.
"Are you okay, dude?" He asked, worry in his eyes.
I glanced at Jude and Connor to discover the same look of worry in his eyes.
"Um. Yeah, it's just... you sounded almost exactly like Gideon when you did that." I revealed, "The accent thing, I mean. It just startled me. I also noticed that you've pretty much dropped the southern accent you had when we met you. I mean, I've lived here longer, and my own Scottish accent is less pronounced now, but it hasn't disappeared like yours has."
"Yeah. Sorry about startling you." He apologized, "It's something weird I can do. One second I can be speaking like you guys, and then ze next I vill slip into a German accent and sount like ze stereotypical German mad scientist."
"Hey, it'll be useful if you ever become an actor." Jude pointed out.
"OH. Speaking of... you know. I brought a couple of the letters with me." Harry said, reaching for his backpack, "You did say you wanted to see them."
"I believe I promised some stories as well." I added, "Yeah, if Jude and Connor don't mind."
"No go ahead." Connor said, "We want to hear some stories too."
"All right, give me a second to think of one that won't reduce me to a quivering wreck." I said, and began wracking my brains, "Um... Oh yeah, there was this one time in fifth grade that I convinced him to help me prank our teacher."
"What did you guys do?" Harry asked.
"We rigged a balloon filled with paint to pop when she opened her desk." I said, smiling softly, "Everything in it got ruined. Giddy felt so bad afterwards, he slipped some cookies into her bag the next day as an anonymous apology."
Harry laughed.
"I wouldn't have bothered with an apology." He said, chortling, "Especially not with my teachers back in Georgia. I probably would have got caught because I probably wouldn't have been able to keep a straight face."
"Yeah." I said, "You said you brought some of the letters?"
"Yeah. There's one I want you to read first." Harry said, and after a second he pulled out a small envelope.
He held it in his hands delicately, before reaching out to hand it to me. I took it, my hands trembling as I accepted the letter.
"This is the last letter he ever sent to me." Harry said quietly, "Do you want to read it?"
I shook my head in the negative as I exhaled a shaky breath.
"I don't think I can handle reading it." I confessed.
In fact, I know I couldn't. I know for a fact that having to read it myself would most likely end in tears and bruised knuckles. As if sensing this, Connor jumped in.
"I'll read it if you want me to." Connor offered.
"Will that be okay?" Harry asked.
I nodded, and Harry handed the letter to Connor.
Connor looked at me for a second, before taking a deep breath.
"You sure you want to hear it, Danny?" He asked me.
"Do it. Before I lose my nerve." I commanded softly.
"Dear Harry, June 5th, 2014," Connor began to read, "I will try to explain as much as I can. I will not be able to write to you again for quite some time. I am sending this letter from a hospital bed in Edinburgh, Scotland, and I am very sick. So sick that don't know if I'll survive to see New Years or not. The doctors are trying everything they can to make me better. My other half is about a jiffy away from having a complete breakdown."
'Boy was that the truth.' I thought to myself.
"He doesn't think I can see it, but I always know how he's feeling." Connor continued reading, "I don't know what he's gonna do if or when I'm gone... I don't know. I'm not too scared, to be honest. As long as he's at my side, I'll be fine. I know he'll be by my side until the very last second. He's already made that promise, along with a couple others I don't know if he'll be able to keep."
'Half of them I failed to keep.' I thought distraughtly to myself.
"He promised we'd make out for the first time when I went into remission." Connor continued reading, "I thought he was joking, but it turns out he's serious. I apologize in advance for not being able to meet you in person, just in case the worst comes to pass. Love always, your twin brother, Gideon."
A single tear trailed down my cheek. I took a shuddering breath.
"Even when faced with the reaper, he wasn't afraid." I said quietly, "He always did say he wasn't afraid to die. He said he was afraid of the aftermath, and what would happen to the people he left behind."
"I'm sorry Danny." Jude said shakily, "I still can't believe you went through this. It's horrible."
"I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy." I agreed, "It's not something I'll ever be able to fully recover from. It haunts my dreams. One second it'll be normal and then the next, I'm back in that room, clinging to his dead body, screaming at the top of my lungs."
"I wish there was something more we could do." Jude said sadly.
"You three do the best thing you can do." I consoled, "You're always there to pick me up when I fall down. If it wasn't for you guys, I would be even more of a broken mess than I already seem to be."
"You're not a broken mess." Harry cut in sternly, "You are a wonderful person, who something terrible has happened to. That's what all of us are. All four of us."
"What do you mean?" I asked, confused at his wording.
"I'm the kid who was rejected, abused and later abandoned by his adopted parents for his sexuality." Harry said.
"I'm the abused former foster kid who lost his real mom at the age of six." Jude said.
"I'm the kid who's mom who wants nothing more than to see me burn in hell." Connor deadpanned.
"You're the kid who lost his childhood best friend turned boyfriend to leukemia, and somehow still manages to keep going without wrapping a rope around his neck." Jude described.
It was a short, but frighteningly accurate description of me.
"All four of us, we need each other." Harry continued, "You guys are the closest thing to family that I have left."
A thought struck me.
"What if I could fix that?" I asked him.
"Huh?" Harry asked.
"I still have contact with Gideon's parents." I continued, "Your birth parents. I could out you in contact with them if you want."
Harry stared at me, his eyes wide.
"You'd do that for me?" He whispered.
"Everybody deserves family." I said, "It would be my pleasure."
Harry wrapped me in a tight hug, and after a moment, I could feel him start to cry.
Holding Harry on my arms, I felt at peace as I comforted him.
Sitting here with my brothers and the boy I was falling in love with, I swear I could feel the final crack left behind by Gideon's death seal itself shut.
I was healed, and I finally felt complete again.
AN#2: Hope you guys liked the new chapter. PLEASE LEAVE REVIEWS!