Wishing You Were Here Again

D was sitting at the window in the small room of Sandy's apartment when Jill entered his room Wednesday morning, hugging Dana to his chest. The girl was asleep, but her face was contorted and she moved uneasily. Jill smiled at him carefully. "Hey," she said and the young kami turned his head to her and smiled back. "You want to have breakfast?" she continued.

D shook his head. "No, thank you," he replied, hugging Dana tighter. "I would rather stay here…"

She sat down on the bed and he made room for her. "You can't stay in here all day," she urged. "It won't help Leon if you lock yourself up in your room all day until he comes out of surgery and you can go to him again. We could drive to Chris. Mary said we could go to the beach. It would probably be good for Chris and Dana, too, to be distracted…"

D smiled weakly. "Not to mention, it would be good for me, wasn't that what you wanted to say?" he voiced and looked down on his child. "Very well. Is Miss Sandra still here?"

"She went to work twenty minutes ago. She lighted a candle for Leon."

D smiled unhappily and rocked the wakening child. "Good morning, Dana," he said softly. "Did you sleep well?"

The blue-golden eyes snapped open. "Where's Daddy?" the girl asked sleepily and struggled to sit up. D smiled at her. "He is still at the hospital, Dana, you know that."

"I want to see Daddy!" she claimed and pouted. "Why can't I go visit like you?"

"Would you like to go to the beach today, darling?" The kami ignored his child's words and she sulked even more.

"Why can't I go visit Daddy? I wanna see him!" she complained. Jill and D exchanged a glance. "Why is he at the hospital still? You said he's gonna come home soon."

D's voice nearly cracked. "He is going to come home soon, Dana. But not today, and not tomorrow either. You have to have patience. And while we wait for Leon to get well again, we will go to the beach."

Her gaze was intent, too clever for her age, and it made Jill shudder in spite of herself. Yes, she could understand Mary's point about the girl being weird. But she had an advantage – she'd seen D and Leon deal with their extraordinary child, and witnessed her development since she'd arrived in America. Her real worry was that the child would not be able to deal with the events she was confronted with. Clever enough to grasp them, but too young to be able to deal with them properly. Jill suspected that D was worried about the exact same thing.

"I want to play with Philippe," Dana said, still pouting. "When we come to the beach, I want to play with Philippe."

Jill stood and silently left while D explained to his daughter that Philippe lived back at the pet shop and thus couldn't come to this beach to play with her. She got James ready and told the two pets where they would be going. The totetsu took off towards the guest room, usually Sandy's study, into which she'd put a futon for D.

Then they set out for the Johnson's house again and were lucky not to meet Arthur. Mary opened the door for them, told them that the children already had left for school and offered them another breakfast. For lack of better ideas, they consented while Dana was content to paint some pictures.

Jill caught herself looking at the clock every five minutes. Now they would be preparing Leon for the surgery – now they would be sedating him – now Doctor McCoy would make sure that his patient was ready to be operated –

"Dammit, I can't stand it anymore!"

The kami startled when she cried out and looked at her, a pained look in his eyes. "We cannot do anything but hope, Jill," he said quietly, casting a glance at Dana, who'd just jumped up to show Mary one of her pictures. The woman was looking over to them, too, brow wrinkled.

Jill sat down again, threading a hand through her hair. "I hate having to sit here, not being able to do something," she gritted through her teeth. "If only I could do something about that damn asshole that shot him – but no, I've got no jurisdiction in NY. If I'd come here for training in the first place… Dammit!"

She slumped down onto the sofa again and they resumed waiting, breathing a collective sigh of relief when Sam and Chris came home from school and instantly set out for the beach. Jill could see the change in D's face once he saw the water. He closed his eyes and breathed in deeply, squeezing Dana's hand tight. The tension eased from him.

Dana wrestled her hand loose from her father's grasp and set out to run along the rim of the water. "Catch me, Bàbà!" she called happily. D wavered for a moment, but then he followed her, running along the beach gracefully. Pon-chan and T-chan started to chase Chris around while Sam and Jill followed at a slower pace with Jamie. Jill turned her face into the dim sunlight and breathed in, too.

"I wish Leon could be here," she said quietly.

"He's gonna make it." Sam sounded very convinced. "Josie says he's a fighter. All of our family are. Well, perhaps with the exception of Dad. But everyone else is, she says."

Jill didn't answer.

Mary was already waiting for them when they came home again, the children laughing and playing with the animals. D was carrying Jamie and talking to Sam. He looked better. Not good, but better.

However, his face darkened when he saw Mary at the door. But the woman spoke before he could start to freak out. "He's out of surgery. He's alive. Critical, but alive. Doctor McCoy says you should come as soon as possible."

Chris' gaze wavered between the adults. His eyes filled with tears. "Why should you come? Is Brother going to die?" he asked with a trembling voice.

For a moment everyone stared at him. He'd spoken the words they'd forbidden themselves to even think of.

Then Dana started screaming. "I don't want Daddy to die! I want to see Daddy! I don't want Daddy to die!"

D knelt down in a rush and drew her against him. "Dana, Leon is not going to die," he tried to be heard over her shrieks. "Dana, please! Be calm! He won't die!"

"We should drive now if we want to be there in time," Mary said over the girl's screams.

Jill nodded and passed Jamie to her. "I'll go with him," she said. "We'll take my car. C'mon, Count, let's hurry!"

He looked up at her, mismatched eyes praying. "Dana, be quiet, I beg you! Your father is not going to die. Go play with Samantha and Chris, will you? I have to go to Leon now, he needs me."

"Here, just give her to me," Sam volunteered and managed to get a hold on the wriggling and fighting child. Chris clung to Tetsu, every bit as frightened as Dana was. But he was managing, somehow. Jill silently praised him for this while she ran out and fetched her car, hearing the girl's screams behind her.

"Nooooo!" Dana wailed and pushed her cousin away. Samantha, not prepared for her supernatural strength, fell backwards and squawked in surprise while the girl bolted over to her father. He bent and took her into his arms. "I wanna see Daddy!" Dana shrieked, crying loudly. D whispered soothing phrases, but the child would not let him go. "I wanna see Daddy! I don't want him to die!"

"Dana, please!" D prayed, his own face ghostly white. "Don't make this any more difficult than it is. You cannot come with me, not this time. Please stay here."

"I WANT DADDY!" Dana screamed, body wrecking with sobs. The young kami bit his lip. He had to go to Leon, had to be there when he would wake. If he would wake. He could not take Dana with him, could not let her see Leon dying. But he could not leave her here in this state either. So he forced her to look into his mismatched eyes.

"Dana, stay here," he ordered quietly and felt bile rise in his throat at bewitching his own child. "Stay here and go to sleep once I am gone. Do not worry and do not dream. Just sleep."

She was yet too young to know that he was using a spell on her, and not able to fight it either. The sobs stopped and Tetsu scrambled forward quickly to steady the child. Chris followed shortly after, looking spooked and even a bit terrified. D tried to smile at him. "I have not hurt her, Chris," he said reassuringly.

The boy nodded. "I know," he answered and cast a glance at his mother and sister. Both were staring at the kami with wide eyes.

D ignored them, embraced his daughter and then carefully placed her in Chris's arms. "Please take care of her for me, Chris, will you?" he asked.

"She can sleep in my bed till you're back. I'll watch over her," he promised earnestly and D smiled at him shakily.

"You are a good boy, Chris. Thank you," he whispered and turned before he could maybe start to cry, hurried out to Jill and sat down in the passenger seat. She looked as anxious as he was.

"Do you think she knows what's going to happen?" she asked in a whisper while starting the car.

D swallowed dryly. "I pray not, Jill. I pray not."

It was almost laughable, what happened after this dramatic evening. Because it was exactly nothing. Leon didn't get worse, he didn't get better, if one didn't take into account that his wounds were healing to Doctor McCoy's satisfaction.

But there was no sign whatsoever that he was ever going to wake up again. D still spent every day at the hospital, from morning to night, taking Dana along again after a few days had passed and the fresh scars didn't look so terrible anymore. The Johnsons (with the exception of Arthur), Jill and Sandy took turns accompanying him to the hospital and taking care of Dana every now and then. The nurses started to take a liking to her too.

And the days went, and Leon slept.

Because D wouldn't cause another fight in the family, Jill stayed at the Johnson's house, something Arthur was okay with, more or less. His only objection was that Jill liked D, but he wasn't home that much anyway, and Mary was happy to have some help and to look after Jamie.

When they met in the ICU one afternoon, Jill started to analyse the Johnson family while Sandy listened, bemused, and D watched Dana play with some toy of Chris's.

"He's not bad, you know. He's in fact quite friendly most of the time. You just can't talk to him about you, D. There's no way in hell he's going to accept you in his family." She sighed. "I really don't understand him," she said depressed. "I mean, I know that Mary isn't too fond of you either, but that's – Leon's her real nephew, she's worried about him of course…"

"Mr. Johnson was not too pleased about my shop and Chris living there. And I'm afraid I am not quite someone anyone wants their beloved ones to spend time with," D reminded her.

"And what about your family?" Sandy asked. "I mean, do you even have any?"

The young kami hesitated, then he slowly nodded. "I have a grandfather."

"Yeah, Leon mentioned him. I've never seen him, where does he live? Or is he always around buying new pets for the shop?" Jill asked and rocked Jamie, who was waking up and wanted to eat.

"I do not know where he lives. He stops by the shop every now and then, but he prefers not to meet Leon."

Sandy and Jill exchanged a glance. "You're really hit the jackpot, haven't you?" Sandy asked and bent down to Dana. "With your respective families, I mean."

D smiled sadly and turned back to Leon.

He slept on and on, undisturbed by all those whose thoughts revolved around him.

A/N: This is getting worse and worse... wonder what possessed me to write it like this.

Anyway, as always, feedback is welcome, whatever feedback it might be. On this note, thank you, Atenea, Anna and Dark Inu :) You made my day.