The Cardboard Box…
Charlie rang the doorbell of his house with a large cardboard box in his hands. The object inside kept shifting from side to side, unbalancing it, moving about and whining. "Shhh" he told the box quietly "you'll ruin the surprise".
Ninety seconds later when she still hadn't answered Charlie balanced the box precariously against his knee and rang the buzzer again.
"Okay, okay, keep your pants on I'm coming" he heard Dani talking to the doorbell, making him smile. She talked to herself too he thought. He wondered suddenly if she also talked to the TV like he did too?
Dani reached the door and opened it to find Charlie Crews standing at his own front door with the large box, hiding his eyes behind his sienna shades and grinning.
"Crews" she said exasperated "why would you ring the doorbell of your own house, one in which you never lock the door anyway?" She sighed at him.
"I have a surprise for you" his grin got impossibly big, causing her to smile uncontrollably in response. There was something irresistible about Charlie's megawatt smiles that made her heart feel bubbly and her insides fizz.
She cocked her head to the side and said wryly "you got me a box, how thoughtful"
"You gonna invite me in?" he asked.
"To your own house? Yeah, sure. Crews come in" she invited her crazy partner in.
"So what's in the box?" she inquired.
"I told you it's a surprise. Not so much an 'it' as a 'him', but…" he stopped as she looked at him with obvious interest.
"You didn't kill Tidwell did you?" she teased. "Cut him up in little pieces and put him in that box?" They joked about it now, but Charlie had come close to murdering the Captain of detectives just a week prior.
"Noooo" he drew out and jostled the box getting it through the door. The occupant protested with a slight whine. "Shhhh" he repeated softly to the box.
"Charlie? What's in the box?" Dani whirled at the noise emanating from the box.
"See for yourself" he tempted her and lowered it so she could access the folded cardboard top. She pulled on the corners folded into each other and the top opened like a flower to reveal a tiny orange occupant.
"It's a dog." She said excitedly.
"No, Reese. It's a puppy." Charlie bubbled. "It's your puppy." He smiled watching her with interest. He'd never bought Reese a gift before, except at Christmas and certainly not a living, breathing gift - he wasn't entirely sure how'd she react.
Reese peered into the box and a quiet, reddish gold, puppy with big brown eyes looked up at her. The pup raised up on it's back legs and tried to climb to her.
"Go on, honey" Charlie coaxed "he likes you."
Reese reached into the box and lifted the puppy up, cradling it to her chest. The pup licked her face immediately, sticking his cold wet nose under the chin and chewing on her hair. "Charlie" she said in a voice that sounded happy.
"No, you can't call him Charlie. That would be too confusing" Crews joked with her.
She looked up at him while the pup licked her neck and face, smiling wryly. "Very funny, Crews".
"Do you like him?" Charlie asked plainly.
"Yes, yes I do" she said her eyes suddenly brimming with tears.
"Hey" he said softly "what is it sweetheart?" concern filling his voice.
"You bought me a dog" she sniffed "I've always wanted a dog Crews. How'd you know?"
"Something your dad said the other night, honey. Shhhh" he told her gathering her and the pup in his embrace and kissing her lightly on the head.
"It's not a dog Reese, it's a puppy." He seemed intent on making the distinction.
"But I have no place for a dog….a puppy" she corrected.
"Yes, you do, sweetheart. You have here." Charlie promised.
Dani looked up at him finally understanding what he was asking. Make a home with me, be part of my life, invest in our future, it's only a dog but it's a start – all spoken with his eyes as Charlie stood uncharacteristically mute.
He held her eyes until the tears brimming in them blinked past her lashes and rolled silently down her cheek and she nodded "yes" to him. Then he kissed her. It was a gentle, sweet and slow kiss, like that first time in the hospital.
The puppy unaccustomed to being ignored licked at their joined faces, causing them both to laugh. Charlie pulled back and kissed the puppy square on the snout surprising it. Dani laughed out loud and it sounded to him like the peal of church bells, a light, joyous noise. "I love you" he told her.
"Me or the dog?" she teased knowing what he meant, but still too self conscious to allow it to be serious yet.
"What say we build her a house out in the backyard?" Charlie addressed his comments to the pup who simply stared at him with a cocked head and returned to Dani's throat.
"Guess we can see who his favorite's going to be" Charlie quipped and then leaned close to them both and whispered "it's okay, she's my favorite too, but she's already spoken for pup" he finished with a grin.
Charlie didn't think he'd ever seen Dani smile so much. She was so very beautiful he thought. She noticed his stare, but did not look away as she might have in the past, Dani pulled him to her and kissed him with equal amounts of passion and playfulness.
"I think I promised you we'd finish something when you were ready, sweetheart" he toyed "let's put the puppy back in the box and go upstairs" he invited and took the pup from Dani, placing him gently back in the box.
He took Dani's hand and led her to the stairwell leading to his bedroom.
The box toppled over with a loud slap as its side hit the marble floor, halting their assent. The puppy tumbled out and ran the best it could on gangly legs to Dani's feet where it whined insistently for her attention. She reached down and picked him up and cradled him once again.
"I don't think he wants to be left alone Charlie" she said sadly.
"Alright pup, you can come too. But the only one putting their tongue on this woman tonight will be me" he said rubbing the pup's stomach.
"We can't keep calling him pup" Dani said thoughtfully.
"I thought we might call him…." Charlie started.
"Chester" they said together. Dani smiled as Charlie put his arm around her waist and they walked together up the curving stairs into their future.
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Jack Reese's cell phone rang while he was tinkering in the garage. He glanced at the number and sighed heavily.
"What?" he answered.
"Hello Jack" the voice said with mirth trickling through the phone. "You should be pleased" the man hinted.
"Oh yeah? Why's that?" Jack questioned snidely. "You get arrested?"
"Your daughter, Jack" the man spoke "weren't you worried about Dani, Jack?"
"What's this about? Has something happened?" Jack questioned sharply – suddenly concerned trouble had befallen his young daughter.
"We met, we decided she could still prove useful Jack" the man's obvious pleasure with himself, making Jack's skin crawl.
"I'm listening" Jack said tersely.
"We know she won't help us. We know you can't control her, but we found another use for her" the man laid it out for Jack – the danger, the minefield, his daughter was walking blindly in.
"Crews obviously cares deeply for her, far more it appears than we'd ever anticipated, even hoped for. He would do anything for your daughter. That makes her useful to us. So…for now, you can stop worrying, as long as she remains Crews' predominant concern, she's safe. We can use that."
Jack said nothing – stunned into silence by life's twists and turns yet again.
"Just thought you'd want to know" the man laughed and ended the call.
The thing Jack feared most, his daughter's link to Crews, their connection - now both imperiled her and kept her safe. He would need to rely on Charlie Crews – now more than ever. He found himself suddenly appreciative of the young red haired man's capacity for violence and viciousness and the hair trigger of transition time for Crews to react to threats to Dani. While Charlie Crews was implacable in most things, when something threatened Dani Reese, the rage and fury that simmered under the surface of the young man's Zen exterior, boiled over. He had an exceedingly low flashpoint when it came to Dani.
Rage was an emotion Jack knew well. He'd heard about the episode between Kevin Tidwell and Charlie Crews over his daughter in the parking garage. Jack had even seen the grainy black and white closed circuit camera footage of the incident, when Crews' fury could not be contained and only Dani kept him from killing their Captain, courtesy of an old partner in the Tech Division. When Jack watched Tidwell put his hands on Dani and shove her into that car, he'd wanted to kill the man himself, but the alacrity and economy of Crews' actions spoke volumes about his ability and willingness to put himself between Dani and anything that might hurt her.
Jack Reese would never like the idea of his daughter being with Charlie Crews, but he had to admit that now, the closer she was to the hard, dark man he knew lurked under the pale skin and light haired detective, the safer she would be.
"They" were right. Crews would do anything for his daughter, kill for her, even die for her, Jack just hoped Charlie Crews was as willing to live for her, as he was to die for her, because Jack knew that losing Crews would break Dani in ways that even time could not fix.
Author's Note: I'm going to leave it here for now. Calling this one finished. Tune in to another story for continuance of this timeline and story arc. Sadly since it seems we won't get a S3 of Life, I've decided to write a future for Charlie and Dani (and Chester). So think of this as not so much an end...as a beginning.
In future installments, we'll explore more of the conspiracy's dark actors, find out if Tidwell is really one of the bad guys and see if Jack and Charlie can keep Dani out of trouble and I promise bring back Ted.
My profound thanks to all the readers and reviewers along the way, you've kept me sane. I read each and every review and if you have questions you want answered in the continuing saga, just drop me an email and I'll see what I can do with it.