a/N: So, here I am again. I hope you enjoyed the first chapter, and now I am officially here to leave you the second one, and annopuncing you this would be a 3 chapter story, so, one more to go.

Thanks to the people who favourite and followed this story, that means a lot!

Plus, I am writing my first long in this fandom, but it is not published, yet, but it will soon, and so will chapter 3 of this one.

Enjoy your reading and let me know what do you think!

Jamie didn't know for how long they had stayed on his bed.

They didn't exchange any words; in facts, the only ones were that "Kid, I'm sorry" whispered by Danny as he had opened the door.

They didn't need words.

There were no words.

The just lost their brother.

It hurt.

It. Fucking. Hurt.

Joe was special to each of them; not that Jamie would feel any different if it were Danny, or anyone else of the family, but Joe was the one who seemed to keep all the brothers connected specially he and Danny.

The eldest and the youngest couldn't be more different.

They were opposite sides of the Reagan coin, and it was Joe who balanced them both. Jaime looked at Danny, smiled when found him asleep.

Jamie took his phone, his finger going on autopilot on Joe's contact. He stopped just in time, changing for Erin, instead.

He wondered for a while if he should call her or just send a text, but eventually he decided for the latest; he wasn't in the mood for talking to anyone. His tears had stopped, but he felt somehow on the edge of something, and he feared that would come out if he only opened his mouth.

He pressed on the text icon.

"Danny is here. I know. He fell asleep. Will be home ASAP"

It was a telegram more than a message, but honestly he didn't have the strength to write nothing different, so he gave the basic information his family needed. Just to be sure he sent a copy also to his father.

Jamie let his arm resting on the mattress, the phone still in his hand, but the grip on it relaxed.

He knew phone calls would arrive sooner than later; condolences and questions; friends, relatives, media, people he barely knew but who will call anyway because they just felt they had to.

Why they couldn't just think he just wanted to be left alone, with his family, realizing what had happened and just trying to figure out how to go through and keep living in a world without Joe?

Once at home, it wouldn't be so much different, also considering his father was NYPD commissioner and his whole family involved somehow in police department.

For a second, his finger went on the on/off button, but, again, he stopped the movement. He and Danny were upset and more than two hundred miles away from home, distance they had to cover by car.

He didn't want the rest of the family worried because he couldn't handle some phone calls.

He let his gaze going through his desk, where he kept photos of his whole life, mostly with his three brothers.

How many times had Joe been the filter between their troubles and mom and dad's anger?

A sad smile broke from his lips, as tears wetted his cheeks, while memories went through his mind, sweets, funny, and sad at the same time.

A soft whine escaped his lips as his eyes stopped on the photo they took last christmas. There were the four of them, with Nicky's face photo-bombing them from the bottom of the photo with a silly face.

He remembered how rapid she had been, intruding the camera in the exact moment Linda was taking the photo.

Later, they had a second one, without the girl, but Jamie printed that one because he loved how all of them were laughing from the joke. Four laughs differents but still somehow similar.

There would be no more Christmas for Joe.

Joe loved Christmas.

Before he could fully acknowledge it, Danny's arms were around him and he was sobbing again in his arms.

()()()()()()

Danny was asleep, but it was a light sleep; as the first, quiet whine came from Jamie, he woke up, taking him immediately into his arms.

Jamie didn't speak, just cried, and Danny was okay with it.

Even if they could be different as day and night, they were also similar in certain ways, and not being chatty about their feelings was one of those. He understood how Jamie was feeling right now, and if he didn't want to talk, Danny would not force him to.
He perfectly knew that, once at home, everyone would ask him how he was, how he was copying, how he missed Joe, and that they would not accept the silence as an answer.

Danny loved his family, he couldn't ask for more in his life then them, but he recognized that sometimes they were a little bit overwhelming. They did it out of love of course, but he and Jamie sometimes just needed a hug and silence.

Danny took a mental note to send Erin a message about this.

"I- I'm sorry, Danny" Jamie said once he was able to calm down enough to speak, slightly releasing himself from his arms, enough to look him in the eyes, but not as much to be completely free. Danny complied, keeping physical contact with Jamie as long as he wanted to.

"No, it's okay, kid"

"It's just… I was looking at those photos" Jamie pointed at his desk "and… I realized… there will no more Christ-mas for…"Jamie's voice broke as Danny's eyes filled with tears. He hadn't thought about that.

He hadn't thought about anything at all, actually. He was just...surviving.

He knew Joe was dead, of course, but at the same time his mind refused to think about what that really meant, not only for Joe, but for him too. It was just too unreal, too painful. Too much.

Jamie's words had somehow generated ha brick in the wall his mind had built, and now everything was just pushing to tear the wall into pieces, and he just couldn't and wouldn't afford that. Not now. Not yet.

"Sorry if I fell asleep" he said eventually, when he couldn't find anything else to say without breaking down.

"You drove all night just to be here for me… It's okay. I sent a message to Erin. Did you even tell them where you were going?"

"Erin told me to bring you home. I think they guessed"

Jamie shook his head, with a small smile on his lips.

"Thank you" he whispered.

"I had to be here. I'm your big brother, and… you and Joe… I mean… I thought…"

Danny didn't know how to finish the sentence without accusing Jamie and Joe to be bad brothers toward he and Erin, because that simply wasn't true.

"Yeah… me and Joe" Jamie sighed "He was going to come here the next weekend, you know?"

"He didn't tell me" Danny's tone was more curious than anything else.

"He decided last night, when we talked before his shift. I had some… thoughts in my mind, and he decided to come here so that we could talk. Guess it doesn't matter anymore"

"We will find a way, kid. I promise"

Danny would not force Jamie to speak about these "thoughts" he mentioned, because he knew better than presume he could just take Joe's place. Jamie was a sweet kid, he had always been, but, just like him, he hidden his true himself behind a shield. Danny's was the anger and aggressivity, while Jamie's was made of kindness and smiles.

They didn't trust easily people, even their family.

There were things about Danny only Linda knew, like how much and how bad he cried during all his mother's cancer battle and death, how scared he was, and how he suffered behind his neverending anger of that period.

So, Danny knew better than impose himself. Plus, Joe had his own way to connect with people, and that was simply amazing. No one never got angry with him, not even the people he arrested.

After their mom died, Jamie had closed himself to the rest of the world, and only Joe had been able to reach for him and take him back to life, to university and, in general, into life.

Danny just hoped this time he and Erin, or maybe the little Nicky, could be able to do the same, now that Joe… Danny couldn't even think the end of the sentence. It was just too hard, too fresh to admit it had really happened.

"Maybe, after… you know...everything, we could… you know...talk, maybe?"

()()()()()()

Jamie didn't know where that came from.

When he thought about confiding in someone, it was definitely not Danny. He loved him, he truly did, but they just didn't have that kind of relationship, but this time, it just felt… right?

Maybe it was because Danny had taken a car just to be with him the moment he knew about Joe, or just because he was just here right now, without asking, without forcing him to speak; he was just the friendly presence he needed to not go crazy or have a complete breakdown.

"You mean… me… and you?"

Danny sounded as surprised as him, and his face was quite funny, as if he was asking himself if he was going nut or what.

"Y...Es?" Jamie almost laughed as answered. "I mean… we...are still...brothers… you know?"

"As long as you don't set free people I put in jail...yes, I suppose we are".

Jamie laughed, hitting Danny's shoulder with a slight punch, at the old joke between them, trying not to say that that was basically the whole point.

"Oh, come on!"

"Come on? I thought you stopped causing me trouble once you grew up...and then… you became a lawyer. Damn little brat!"

And Jamie just laughed, laughed like he didn't even think he could possibly do in such a situation, and he was surprised to just feel some kind of strange release.

()()()()()

Jamie's laugh had never sounded so beautiful.

Maybe it wasn't the right time for such a thing, but Danny started breathing again. When their mom was announced to be in the last stadium of her cancer, it was impossible to make him smile, let alone laugh.

Jamie seamed some kind of self living puppet. He went to university, came home, went to the hospital, sort of ate (but no one of them really ate), had shower and did the all the human being starter pack, but nothing else. He spoke only for practical uses, or when it was appropriate. He even tried to act perfectly normal when their dad or grandpa where at home, in a vane try of not worrying them. He failed, of course, because Frank was Frank, but Joe had reassured him he would take care of the youngest, and Frank knew he would be fine, somehow.

Not even Joe managed to drag him out of his status, not, at least, until Mary died and they all tried to go back to their lives. Joe had travelled almost every weekend he could, or every free day he had, to Harvard, just to not leave Jamie alone. Being far away from home in that period didn't help the youngest, but he couldn't afford to leave university behind, considering the costs of a university like Harvard.

So, Danny didn't care if it may not be the right moment for a good laugh, he was just glad Jamie did it.

He laughed too.

"We gotta go, I think" Jamie went serious.

"We do, kid"

The youngest nodded, already starting to put some of his clothes into a small bag, maybe more than it was necessary, Danny thought, considering Jamie had more than a few clothes at home in NY; still, he let him do.

His detective instinct (or big brother's one, he couldn't decide which was yet) told him it was not so sure he would come back to Harvard after Joe's funerals, or, if not that, that whichever was in Jamie's mind was related to his future.

Danny had always secretly thought, and so did Joe (he knew that because they talked about that once), that Jamie didn't want to become a lawyer. He and Joe had been the only ones who didn't push Jamie in a specific direction, even if he had to admit that he didn't mostly because he didn't really appreciate lawyers, and everyone would have killed him if he dared to say Jamie would be a damn good cop.

Everyone thought Jamie was too smart for that life.

Not that he and Joe were considered stupid, but Jamie had always had marks even better than Erin, who had aced whichever school she attended. But she didn't managed to get Harvard as Jamie did.

Danny and Joe always said he could be whatever he wanted to, as long as he was happy and proud of himself.

Jamie's desire to speak to him, made him think that maybe, the two things were connected, somehow.

Danny took his phone.

"Be right back, kid. Gonna tell Erin we are alive and we will be home for dinner, okay?"

"Can we make it later? Please?" Jamie almost whined, and Danny couldn't blame him. He didn't look forward to family dinner tonight too.

"I'll tell her we will do our best, then we will see, okay?"

"Thanks"

"I'll be right here if you need me"

"Thank you"

Danny smiled and left the room, closing the door behind. He made just a few steps, just to be sure he could talk without Jamie hearing in case Erin made any questions.

Erin answered almost immediately

"How is Jamie? And you?"

"Ehy, sis… ehy. How are you guys?"

No, Danny hadn't forgotten about the rest of his family. He had just counted on the Reagans' capability to be united and together to hang on in these though hours.

"Jamie?" she insisted.

"Upset"

"And?"

"And what?"

"You know what, Danny" Danny understood what she meant.

"No, no. Not like that. We will leave in a couple of hours, maybe later. I fell asleep, and you know...it was not easy"

"I Know. How are you, Danny? Jamie is not the only one who lost a brother"

"I could say the same about you, you know?"

"Daniel…"

"Erin… I have to bring the kid home, okay?"

He heard her sigh through the phone. He knew what she was thinking: he was being the usual Danny, forgetting himself to get the job done. He couldn't exactly tell she wasn't right, but, it was not quite like when he had a case.

His attitude was, for once, mostly to protect himself. Of course, Jamie needed him right now as much as he needed Jamie. Danny couldn't deny that. He was relying on Jamie even if the kid didn't know, he didn't need to know that. For Danny, it was enough his brother's presence.

"Daniel?"

Danny smiled hearing his father's voice. Of course, Erin had Frank close.

"Dad, ehy"

"Daniel, please. Be safe. Just… take all the time you need, I don't care. Just… get home safe. Both of you… please"

Danny looked at Jamie, who had joined him as he heard the word Dad. He knew his expression was just the same as his brother's. They saw Frank angry, happy, commanding, even crying when mary and his mother died, but they never, never heard him implore.

"We will, dad. I promise" Jamie managed to say after more than few seconds of silence "We will take care of each other, and we will stay in contact. You… take care of Erin, Linda, Grandpa and the kids, okay?"

He felt Danny's hand running through his hair and stopping on his nap in solidarity as he spoke. He looked at him and found pride and love into his gaze. He managed a smile.

"I will"

"And...dad?"

"Yes, Danny?"

"Take care of yourself, too. We… we need you dad. We all do"

This time, it was Jamie's turn to be proud of his big brother.

"Drive safe, kids"

"We will, pop"

Danny hung up and just looked at Jamie.

"Let's go home, Danny".

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