A/N I do not own Hawaii Five-0 or any of the characters.
A/N A tip of the hat in this one.
A/N Votes were tallied and another Mindy chapter was the winner. So, here's the rest of her visit.
A/N Still day 16
H50 H50 H50
The dinner with Mindy continued pleasantly with Danny continually raving about how incredibly delicious the food was and how grateful he was for Mindy preparing it for him. "So, I know you like the Carbonara," Mindy said. "What do you think of the non-alcoholic wine?"
"The garlic bread is amazing. I can't believe you made it yourself." Danny grinned. Purposely avoiding her question. "The salad is really good, too. I don't even feel like a rabbit."
Mindy laughed, blushing a bit at the compliments he was so freely bestowing on her efforts. "Thank you, again, for the compliments but you're ignoring my question. It's rude to ignore a question, you know," she teased.
"It's also rude to insult something that a friend brought for you with all good intentions," Danny replied with a smirk as he eyed their still almost full glasses of non-alcoholic wine with disdain.
Mindy finally gave in and laughed. "It's pretty awful, isn't it? Never again."
Danny laughed too. "I think we'd need to check our blood sugar levels after just a glass of that stuff. Water?" He pushed back from the table and moved to rise until a flash of pain through his back stilled his movements.
"Don't mind if I do," Mindy said, rising from her seat. She put a concerned hand on top of Danny's until he nodded stiffly and then she proceeded to the cabinets, not wanting to make a big deal out of his pain. She knew he wouldn't want that, preferring to ride it out in some degree of privacy and dignity. She eyed the cabinets and tried to figure out where the drinking glasses would be. Making a choice she opened one up. "Door number one, just like I thought." She took two glasses out.
"There's a pitcher of cold water in the fridge," Danny said, looking up. "How'd you guess where the glasses were?" Melissa always insisted that the glasses were in the wrong place and that he should reorganize the kitchen.
"Most logical place," was her simple reply.
Conversation moved from how the kitchen was organized to how much Danny and Mindy each enjoyed cooking, to how pineapple never, ever belonged on a pizza and to several other topics. Danny thanked Mindy several times as conversation flowed freely; there was never a lack of subject matter.
Now Danny was sharing a story about a mom and her son at a birthday party that he had attended with Charlie the month before. "So, the mom says to the kid, 'Do you want another slice of pizza or are you good?' Seriously? Seriously? How's the kid supposed to answer that, huh? I mean what kind of message is she sending her kid here? That having a second slice of pizza equates to being bad?" He shook his head. "I'm telling you Mindy, I just don't get it."
"I know exactly what you mean."
"You do?" Rachel had thought he was being stupid and trifling and had told him so. Melissa had just giggled without saying anything. Steve, well, he hadn't even bothered telling him the story.
"Yes. Yes I do. The choice his mother presented to him was having another slice of pizza or being good. If the kid is hungry and wants another slice of pizza that automatically makes him 'not good?' It's an awful message to communicate to your child. I know it's just an expression, 'I'm good,' but it really isn't very good at all."
When dinner was finished Danny feebly attempted to help Mindy clean up the dirty dishes. Not wanting to witness him keeling over in exhaustion, Mindy managed to convince him to show her the photo albums now and they would wash the dishes later.
As they moved to the living room, Mindy observed Danny's sling on the table. "Aren't you supposed to be wearing that?"
"It was getting in the way when I tried to turn the pages," he defended.
"There's a reason you're supposed to use it, you know."
"I'm not moving around much. I won't make the wound bleed."
"You don't know that Danny, but that's only part of the reason. Let me see your hand."
Danny couldn't raise his hand to show it to her but he turned slightly to indicate that he was okay with her checking his hand out. "It's fine, Doc." He emphasized the last word.
"It's swollen and cold." Mindy huffed. "Come on, sit down. Maybe I need to talk to that partner of yours to keep a better eye on you."
Danny simply grunted as he eased himself down onto the sofa.
"Sorry, not your partner. Your Neanderthal friend, is that better?" There was a hint of sarcasm in her voice as she began to massage his hand to get the blood moving out of it.
Danny chuckled. Seems like she appreciated his sense of humor. "Yeah. So my hand really got swollen that quickly?"
"How long has it been out of the sling?"
Danny started to shrug but it hurt so he stopped. "Not long." He then looked at the clock. "Maybe a couple hours."
"That's too long, Danny. You have very poor circulation in your hand right now. If you leave it down it will fill with blood and swell."
"Okay, okay, I get it. I didn't think it was that big a deal."
"Let's get the sling back on," Mindy said as she picked it up and began to do that. Her gaze wandered to his chest again, lingered there. She noticed the stitched up wound, a good two inches in length.
"There a problem with the stitches?" Danny asked, noticing her scrutiny.
Mindy took full advantage of the question and she moved the edge of the shirt to the side. She was tempted to brush her fingers against his chest, accidentally of course, but she resisted. It suddenly felt very hot in there again. His chest was magnificent. She glanced at the wound. "Stitches look fine. It's healing well." She tugged the shirt back into place and proceeded with the process of getting his arm back into the sling.
Not long after, they were seated side by side on the sofa, the photo album in Mindy's lap. Danny would reach over her to point at the people and places in the pictures as he spoke about them.
"It looks like your family is really close," Mindy observed as she looked at the picture of his family in front of the new house. "Everyone is so happy. The dog is gorgeous. What's his name?"
"Spot."
Mindy laughed outright at that. "There's not a spot on him."
"I know." Danny laughed, too.
"That's perfect. I love it." She appreciated the irony. Rachel never had. She told him it was a stupid name and called him Benson instead. Confused the poor thing.
"He's yours?"
"Was." Danny sighed. "Lost him to Rachel in the divorce. Can you believe that? Lost my own dog. Stinking judge gave her everything, including custody of Grace. Then she brought him here and he died in the quarantine process."
"How awful. I had a dog when I was a kid and I cried like crazy when she died. Now that I'm settled back in here I think I want to get another one."
She's a dog person, Danny thought happily. "Do you know what kind you want?"
"Big and active. One I can run and play with. Lap dogs are cute, but they're not my thing."
"Totally agree. I used to play Frisbee with Spot. I'd loft it in the air and he'd chase it down. Snatch it out of mid air every time. When I came home after a hard day at work, he'd be waiting for me at the door. It was this little two-bedroom house in Weehawkin with a white picket fence – very cliché, I know – and a garage door that kept getting stuck. Drove Rachel crazy but it was ours. It had a tiny lawn that I mowed once a week in the summer and raked every fall. Two car driveway that I had to shovel when it snowed." He was getting lost in the reminiscing and Mindy let him. It was interesting to see where his thoughts went. "Many times I'd be late getting home in the bad weather and Rachel would be all upset because I hadn't shoveled yet."
"Why didn't she shovel?"
Danny laughed. "You don't know Rachel. Anyway, the yard was small but there was this beautiful park down the street. I'd bring Grace there in one of those carrier things on my chest or in her stroller when she got bigger and let Spot run. He loved it. We'd play with the Frisbee or a football. He could even stand in front of me and jump up into my arms on command. Man I loved that dog."
"Sounds like you really knew how to train him, too. Will you help me when I get mine?"
"Sure."
"You have a picture of that little house you mentioned? White picket fence and all?"
"Yeah, I had already passed it. It's near the front of the album."
"We should just start at the beginning," Mindy said as she turned the pages back.
There were several pictures with groups of kids. With his blond hair and blue eyes and often sporting a baseball uniform, Danny stood out in all of them, despite his short stature. He named the kids in the pictures - his sisters, his brother, some cousins, some neighbors, some friends. Mindy noticed that one boy was in all of them; usually he and Danny had their arms draped over each other's shoulders and they had huge smiles on their faces. And then, suddenly, he wasn't in the pictures anymore. "Where's Billy?" Mindy missed him, missed Danny's smile when he was there.
Danny sighed. "He died when we were kids." He then proceeded to tell her the story of how Billy had tried to help him in the riptide but drowned in front of Danny in the process. "He was my best friend. Been thinking about him a lot lately." He scrubbed his hand over his face. "I guess you can call him my Susan Landon."
Mindy was surprised that Danny remembered the name of her deceased friend from college who Mindy had told him about more than a year before. It was Danny's care and concern that day that had opened the door to their current friendship. But Danny had been so very young when he lost his friend, and he had watched it happen, too. How utterly, unbearably heartbreaking. "I'm so sorry."
"For years I didn't talk about it," Danny confessed. "Had to talk about it way too much when it happened – the lifeguards, my parents, Billy's parents, the police. The kids at school were awful. It was like I was some stinking celebrity because I watched my best friend die. Girls who never spoke to me before would come up to me and talk. They liked to ask if I cried. The guys, some wanted to know what it was like to drown - was it slow, did he thrash around, did he scream? Seriously, how sick is that? Some wanted to know what it's like to watch someone die. Others whispered behind my back that I was a good swimmer so they wondered why I didn't save him – as if I didn't try."
As with the story of the small house he owned with Rachel, Mindy remained quiet and let Danny speak at his own pace. Her heart broke at the ache she could hear in his voice. So many years later and the pain remained raw and deep.
"So I just stopped talking about it."
Mindy understood what he was talking about. She had experienced some of that when Susan was murdered. But again, her situation was far different – she was an adult and she hadn't watched it happen.
"I told Steve a few years ago," Danny added quietly. "We talked about him more last week. It felt good to talk about Billy with him."
She was glad Danny now had someone to share the burden. Actually now he had her, too. "He's a good friend."
"Steve? He's the best," Danny replied honestly. He wasn't ashamed to admit it, to her anyway. "Don't tell him I said that. Beside from Grace, he made this pineapple infested lava rock bearable, when he wasn't getting me shot at."
As she contemplated just how horrible Billy's death must have been for Danny a sudden thought occurred to her. "Is that why you don't like the ocean?"
Danny was shocked. It was like she could see right through him. "Yeah," he answered softly, honestly. "I used to love the ocean. Now…? Another glitch like the claustrophobia, I guess."
"Hey, it's perfectly understandable. You went through quite a trauma at a very young age. But you're surfing now so you're obviously fighting your way through it. That takes a lot of courage."
This made Danny consider Melissa and her traumas and resultant battles. Would she ever be able to get past them? Did she have the courage to move past them? Could he give her that courage?
Danny was becoming melancholy and that was not what Mindy wanted. She wanted to try and cheer him so she turned her attention back to the album. But, so many of the pictures seemed to feature people who Danny had lost in one way or another. There was Rachel who had walked out on him and their marriage taking Grace and Spot with her. There was his partner Grace who had been killed in the line of duty. Mindy could tell there was even more of a story there but she didn't push it.
There was a man named Dave Collins and Meka, his partner in Hawaii before Five-0. Both men were dead now. Then there were his parents and sisters and so many aunts and uncles and cousins who he had to leave behind in New Jersey. Young Eric had followed him here but the others were so very far away now and so seldom seen.
Danny's eyes filled with tears as his hand stopped tenderly on a picture. Danny was all dressed up in a suit and he was standing proudly next to his younger, but much taller, brother who was wearing a cap and gown. A number of honor cords hung around his neck. "Matty graduated summa cum laude from Seton Hall," Danny said, voice filled with pride. He grinned as he glanced at Mindy. "He was crazy smart like you Johns Hopkins people, but crazy stupid too."
"Was?"
"Max didn't tell you?" Danny asked.
"Max's human to human communication skills are a bit lacking," Mindy replied with a small grin.
Danny nodded in understanding. "Matty was murdered last year. Had gotten himself into some big trouble with a Colombian drug lord."
"How had he managed that?"
"Like I said, crazy smart and crazy stupid."
"And you, my dear friend, blame yourself," Mindy observed tenderly.
Danny was silent. How did she know him so well?
"I don't know what really happened," Mindy added softly, "but Matt was a grown man who could make his own choices. You can't blame yourself for not being able to get him out of whatever trouble he got himself into."
"It's not that simple."
"Life is never simple."
Danny stopped himself from saying 'damn right'. He never cursed in front of Mindy. It just didn't seem right. "That's for sure." He paused a moment, his hand still on the picture of him and Matty. "I'm told that when I was in the hospital, fighting the infection and reacting to the pain meds, that I had some very vivid dreams. Hallucinations really. I don't remember them but I can still feel them. It's like Matty and Billy - all of them really – it feels like they just died yesterday. It's just right here." He touched his chest indicating his heart. He didn't mention Melissa walking out on him. Didn't feel right sharing that with Mindy, even though that too had broken his heart.
"I'm so sorry. How awful." She had tears in her eyes and a hitch in her voice over his pain.
Danny nodded, tears in his eyes as well. "Geez, I'm sorry for laying all this on you."
"No, it's okay. But I'm doing a terrible job of cheering you up." She wiped her tears away.
He cleared his throat, pushing the raw emotions down. "Is that why you're here? I thought you came to feed me."
Mindy laughed. "The cheering up is a bonus."
"You were better at the feeding part." Danny smiled, his eyes sparkling, despite the pain and anguish.
Mindy laughed again. She knew that Danny was just teasing. Joking seemed to be the self-defense mechanism of this very sensitive man. "Well, my mom used to say that the way to a man's heart was through his stomach so maybe I'll have to cook for you more to help cheer you up."
Danny liked the sound of that. Not only was Mindy a very good cook, if the Spaghetti Carbonara was any indication, but she had most definitely helped to ease his troubles by her endearing presence. He smiled. "Babe, you can cook for me anytime."
Mindy tried not to read more into that than Danny had intended. She loved spending time with him but she knew that he had a girlfriend and she knew that the very last thing that Danny needed in his life was another complication. So, she swore to herself that she simply would give Danny all the friendship, support and encouragement that she could give. "Anytime, huh? I guess I better talk to Lou and see how many times I can get my name on that list of his."
"Not good enough," Danny countered with a crooked grin and twinkling eyes that made Mindy's knees quake. If she had been standing she would have fallen to the floor.
"Making you more dinners isn't good enough?"
"Nope. You have to agree to stay and eat with me too, give me that bonus you mentioned."
Be still her heart. She couldn't ask for more. "You're incorrigible." She didn't know what else to say.
"So, I've heard."