Part 10
"I've been speaking with Colonel Simmons," Hammond says, a slight twist of his mouth giving away his opinion of the Colonel.
"My condolences," I reply. "Did he fill you in on his plan to 'persuade' the kid to remember the high tech aliens?"
Hammond raises an eyebrow. "Yes, actually. How did you know about it?"
Daniel and I exchange a look. When Hammond called us into his office this morning, I think we both assumed it was about Daniel's not so subtle tendency to sleep at my house, but now it's looking like Simmons didn't mention it. Which leaves the question of whether we should fill the general in.
"He paid us a visit while we were on leave," Daniel says vaguely. "He wanted to talk to Danny, ask him questions. He also seemed intent on scaring the boy as much as possible. He told him point-blank that he was a clone, and that his knowledge was needed to fight aliens who wanted to hurt us."
The general's eyes go all flinty. It's the only word for it. "I see," he says in tones that suggest Simmons is going to get his ass chewed.
"We asked him to leave," Daniel adds.
I nod, sharing a quick smile with Daniel. "Yes. I'm afraid we may have been slightly impolite about it."
Hammond says nothing, but I can see the corners of his eyes crinkling slightly. "Well, gentlemen, it appears you won't be needing to worry about Colonel Simmons, anyway."
"We won't?"
"I made it very clear to him that Doctor Jackson will be retaining full custody of the child, and because the birth certificate we created for him lists his place of birth as Colorado, he's automatically a citizen, with all the rights and protections included in that status."
Daniel beams, but I lean back in my chair, tapping my fingertips together. "Quick work getting him a citizenship," I say. "But you think Simmons will really give up that easily?"
Hammond shrugs, but he sees where I'm going with this. "It appears that he has."
"Yeah." I raise my eyebrows and nod. "It does appear that way, doesn't it. What worries me is that if Simmons can't get what he wants legally, he'll try other methods. He sure doesn't have any problem breaking the rules when it suits his agenda."
"So what do you suggest?" Hammond asks.
"We can't lock him in a room all his life just to keep him safe," Daniel says. "If we let Simmons change the way we treat the boy, then we're letting him win. It's possible to be cautious without smothering him."
The general smiles, tipping Daniel a short nod. "Couldn't have put it better myself, son. So, we carry on as if the NID are not a concern, except for certain sensible precautions."
"Yes." Daniel claps his hands together once and takes a quick breath. "To that end, sir, I'd like to enroll Danny in school. Of course, I can't do that until I have full guardianship. How is that coming?"
"Surprisingly well. It used to be hard for me to generate the paperwork necessary to create a person out of thin air, but after all the times I've dealt with you returning from the dead, I'm becoming quite the old hand."
Daniel gets a look on his face like he's just sucked a lemon. I snort into my palm and then blink at him innocently, my lips twitching. Hammond looks very pleased with himself.
"That's good, sir," Daniel says dryly. "I'm glad I could be so helpful."
The general's eyes draw up at the edges, betraying his smile, but his voice is steady. "It's almost done. We're waiting on a few things to be notarized, and there has been some difficulty coming up with an appropriate vaccination record for him. Apparently, his blood work shows the presence of antibodies as if he had received all the standard vaccinations for an American child his age, so now we have to falsify medical reports showing a history of those shots from birth. Doctor Fraiser is pushing that through, though, so you should have the necessary documentation to put him in school within a matter of days."
"I guess we have to go shopping again," I mutter. "School clothes."
"And paper," Daniel adds. "Oh, and pencils, and notebooks... mmm... divider tabs and three ring binders and do you know how a box of new pencils smells?"
I haven't seen Daniel get like this since the last time I surprised him with a box of chocolate covered coffee beans. Who knew he could get high on school supplies?
"You seem to have the school situation well in hand," Hammond says, manfully struggling not to laugh at Daniel's blissed out expression. "If you haven't chosen a school yet, I'd recommend the Cheyenne Mountain Charter Academy. It's a private school, closed campus, very secure. Small classes, high standards, consistently rated as excellent by the independent reviews. Tessa and Kayla go there."
I can't help the bemused look that I can feel on my face. This is all falling into place remarkably fast. "Sounds good, sir," I tell him. "I suppose a school like that has a waiting list, though?"
He smiles. "I may be able to help you out there."
"Isn't that favoritism?" Daniel inquires, raising an eyebrow.
"I believe the term is nepotism, son," Hammond says gently, and Daniel is so floored by the implication that he's family that he forgets to protest.
I glance at my watch before Daniel can start to stammer out some awkward thanks. "Ah, sir, unless there was something else, I'm due for a meeting with Supply. Something about the amazing number of MALPs that SG-1 seems to go through."
"No, go ahead," Hammond says, waving us off. Daniel is still blinking somewhat dazedly, and I steer him toward the door, my hand on his shoulder in what I hope looks like a strictly platonic friendly gesture. "One other thing, Jack," he calls before we can leave. "I've taken the liberty of drawing up some additional documentation for you."
I pause and half turn, giving him a sideways look. "Oh?"
"A secondary guardianship for the boy. It's a position similar to godfather, in that if anything happened to Doctor Jackson, custody of the child would go to you."
Daniel and I stare at each other uncertainly for a long moment. "Um..." Daniel begins hesitantly. "Why?"
Hammond favors us with a wise smile. "Perhaps it would be better for you to not ask that question, son."
Daniel, who could no more stop being curious than I could stop being sarcastic, opens his mouth to ask anyway. I jump in before he can force the issue. "Right, sir. I appreciate the... foresight. Let me know what I should sign and I'm there."
"Yes," Daniel adds quickly. "Thank you. That's, um... thank you."
The general just smiles and turns his attention to the files on his desk, leaving us to accept the implied dismissal. I tug Daniel out the door before we end up on even thinner ice.
"Wow," he says in the hall. "That was... nice of him."
"It's about as close as we can legally get to having joint custody," I answer in a low voice, walking close by his side. "It's perfectly innocent, too—lots of people name their friends as emergency guardians in case anything happens. Simmons can't read anything into it." Then, because Daniel still looks overwhelmed by everything that just happened in there, I fall into an extremely bad Godfather impression and croak out something about never going against the family.
Daniel laughs, one hand automatically coming up to cover his mouth. I catch it before it can get there and pull it away, giving him a stern look.
"Jack?"
"Knees," I say pointedly. "Remember? Sound waves?"
He blinks and then shakes his head. "But that was just—"
"Ah!" I hold up a finger and wave it at him admonishingly. "Don't want to hear it, Daniel. No covering up when you laugh. It's a rule."
He rolls his eyes, but nods. "Yes, Jack," he says, and I hear 'I'm only doing this to humor you.'
Good enough for me.
~~~
"Kayel! Jack!" The kid comes running to greet us at the entrance to the mountain's childcare facility. Daniel sweeps him up and hugs him, but I didn't miss the slight wince when the kid called him Kayel. Danny knows that isn't real, but he's not letting go of it, and Daniel isn't exactly doing anything to dissuade him.
"Colonel O'Neill, Doctor Jackson." Hildie Carruthers, the woman who runs this place, steps up to greet us. I edge away from Daniel enough to look less like a parent picking up his kid and more like a friend hanging out with somebody else's kid.
"How was he?" Daniel asks.
She smiles thinly. "Could I have a word with you?"
The kid is glaring at her and his hold around Daniel's shoulders tightens. "Told you," he mutters. "I told you."
"Uh, Danny, can you stay with Jack for a while so I can talk to Ms. Carruthers?"
"No!" The boy suddenly lapses into Daniel-speak, low and earnest, his hands clutching at Daniel's shirt.
"I see," Daniel says when the kid stops talking for a moment. "Well, why don't you let me talk to Ms. Carruthers, and we'll see what she says, and then we'll figure it out from there?"
"Don't listen to her," Danny insists. "She's lying!"
"Danny..."
"No! I told her! I told her I didn't have to do what she said and that my Kayel was going to come and get me and make her stop telling me what to do. You're going to do that, right?"
Daniel looks uncomfortable, as well he should. I knew playing into the kid's fantasy would be a bad idea. Daniel can be his best friend and protector, this Kayel person, or he can be a parent, an authority figure. He can't be both.
"Sorry," Daniel says to Hildie. "He's, ah... he's had a rough time lately. He's still adjusting to being here."
"Yes, as you explained when you dropped him off this morning. And I did try to give him extra latitude and patience, but there are limits," she replies.
"It's not fair," Danny grumbles, still glaring at her. "You're not fair."
"I'll listen to your side of things, I promise," Daniel tells him. "But right now I need you to wait with Jack so I can talk to—"
"No!" Danny interrupts sharply. "No no nonono..."
Jesus, he's winding up for a real fit. Charlie stopped doing that when he was about four. Daniel shoots me a helpless look, wincing as the kid's shouting begins rising in pitch.
"How about this," I suggest, raising my voice over Danny's noise. "You take him to the car and try to calm him down, and I'll get the report from her," I jerk a thumb over my shoulder at Hildie. "Does that work?"
Daniel nods and makes his escape, his cheeks reddened, obviously embarrassed at the screaming, struggling kid in his arms. I rub at my ears as I turn back to Hildie. "Damn," I mutter. "Kid's got some strong lungs."
"Yes, we discovered that today," Hildie says dryly. "He also seems to speak a number of languages. His first defense when I asked him to do something he didn't want to do was to lapse into some other language and act like he couldn't understand me."
"Ah, yeah..." I rub at the back of my neck and offer a weak smile. "We kind of figured he'd have some problems."
"Because of his parents dying?"
"He told you that?"
She nods. "It's a pretty common childish ploy, actually. 'My mom and dad are dead so you have to be nice to me and give me what I want.' When that didn't work, he became uncooperative and difficult."
"Meaning...?"
"Let me give you an example." She takes a deep breath and stares up at the ceiling for a moment, her hands linked behind her back. "This afternoon, we had art time. Danny was quite pleased with the paint and easel we gave him, and spent the entire hour drawing Egyptian looking things. But when art time was over, he didn't want to stop. I tried to explain that we had to clean up and put the paints away now, and spend some time outside, but he refused to hand over the brushes. Instead, he curled himself in a ball on the floor and clutched the brushes to his chest, refusing to move. He didn't lash out, but short of dragging him out the door, there was no way to make him go outside with the rest of the group."
"Great," I mutter. "And this was only his first day."
Hildie laughs quietly. "The first day is often the hardest, but I won't lie to you, Colonel. He's a very troubled child. I understand that Doctor Jackson will be adopting him?"
"Yeah, the paperwork is almost final now."
"Then you should tell Doctor Jackson this boy needs a lot of love and attention. We here at the center will continue to do our best for him, but what he really needs will have to start at home."
"I think Doctor Jackson knows that," I tell her. "But I'll be sure to relay the message. He's looking into enrolling Danny in school anyway, so you shouldn't have him much longer."
"That's good," she says. "Not that we don't want him—he's a very sweet boy when he isn't being difficult—but school would be a better environment for him. He seems very bright, and I think the lack of a mental challenge here was making him bored, and therefore leading to the misbehavior. A structured classroom with peers to interact with really would be an improvement."
"Okay. Thanks."
She nods and waves at me, already turning back into her office. "Tell Danny I'm sorry he had a bad day and that we look forward to seeing him tomorrow."
"Will do," I call over my shoulder. Then I head out to the car, where I find Daniel huddled in the passenger seat, the boy on his lap, heaving those long, shuddery sighs that come after crying.
"Sorry," he mumbles. "Sorry, sorry, I'm sorry, I don't mean to be bad..."
"It's okay," Daniel tells him, rocking them a little. "You're going to be all right now."
When the kid sees me coming, he lifts his head and eyes me anxiously. "Jack? Did you tell Miss Hildie I was sorry? Is she mad?"
"She's not mad. She says that you can come back tomorrow and start over."
He nods and sighs heavily, wiping his face on Daniel's shirt. "Okay. I'll be good. I promise I'll be good."
Daniel and I exchange a long look over his head. I don't doubt the kid's intentions, but we aren't going to fix his problems in a day.
~~~
Danny falls asleep on the couch after dinner, his face pillowed on my leg hard enough to leave fabric lines on his cheek. I am once again elected to cart his heavy ass upstairs to his room. I think Daniel knows that I like putting a sleepy child to bed, but I grumble anyway, just in case I still have him fooled.
"Hey," Daniel says quietly when I get back downstairs. "Come here."
So I settle beside him on the couch, our shoulders leaning together companionably and his head resting against mine. "Hell of a day," I comment, staring vaguely at the wall. I think I'd forgotten how draining a kid could be.
"Yeah. What happened at the childcare center?"
So I tell him what Hildie told me, and Daniel nods, not exactly surprised. "I did warn you," he says.
"That you did," I reply. "But he can only get better, right?"
Daniel laughs shortly. "It could take a while. I was a pain in the ass for a long time."
"Yeah, let me know when you grow out of that, okay? I want to be there."
He punches me on the shoulder, but he's smiling. "It'll be different for him," Daniel says. "He has us."
"Oh, joy," I mutter. "That makes me all warm and fuzzy inside."
"Smartass."
"Like you're not worried about this," I nudge him. "You're the one who told me it was going to be hard."
"It will be," he says simply. "But don't you always tell me that I'm a pain in the ass, but well worth it?"
"I may have said something to that effect."
Daniel shrugs and grins at me. "He's worth it."
~~~
End Book One
April 13 – 29, 2004
"I've been speaking with Colonel Simmons," Hammond says, a slight twist of his mouth giving away his opinion of the Colonel.
"My condolences," I reply. "Did he fill you in on his plan to 'persuade' the kid to remember the high tech aliens?"
Hammond raises an eyebrow. "Yes, actually. How did you know about it?"
Daniel and I exchange a look. When Hammond called us into his office this morning, I think we both assumed it was about Daniel's not so subtle tendency to sleep at my house, but now it's looking like Simmons didn't mention it. Which leaves the question of whether we should fill the general in.
"He paid us a visit while we were on leave," Daniel says vaguely. "He wanted to talk to Danny, ask him questions. He also seemed intent on scaring the boy as much as possible. He told him point-blank that he was a clone, and that his knowledge was needed to fight aliens who wanted to hurt us."
The general's eyes go all flinty. It's the only word for it. "I see," he says in tones that suggest Simmons is going to get his ass chewed.
"We asked him to leave," Daniel adds.
I nod, sharing a quick smile with Daniel. "Yes. I'm afraid we may have been slightly impolite about it."
Hammond says nothing, but I can see the corners of his eyes crinkling slightly. "Well, gentlemen, it appears you won't be needing to worry about Colonel Simmons, anyway."
"We won't?"
"I made it very clear to him that Doctor Jackson will be retaining full custody of the child, and because the birth certificate we created for him lists his place of birth as Colorado, he's automatically a citizen, with all the rights and protections included in that status."
Daniel beams, but I lean back in my chair, tapping my fingertips together. "Quick work getting him a citizenship," I say. "But you think Simmons will really give up that easily?"
Hammond shrugs, but he sees where I'm going with this. "It appears that he has."
"Yeah." I raise my eyebrows and nod. "It does appear that way, doesn't it. What worries me is that if Simmons can't get what he wants legally, he'll try other methods. He sure doesn't have any problem breaking the rules when it suits his agenda."
"So what do you suggest?" Hammond asks.
"We can't lock him in a room all his life just to keep him safe," Daniel says. "If we let Simmons change the way we treat the boy, then we're letting him win. It's possible to be cautious without smothering him."
The general smiles, tipping Daniel a short nod. "Couldn't have put it better myself, son. So, we carry on as if the NID are not a concern, except for certain sensible precautions."
"Yes." Daniel claps his hands together once and takes a quick breath. "To that end, sir, I'd like to enroll Danny in school. Of course, I can't do that until I have full guardianship. How is that coming?"
"Surprisingly well. It used to be hard for me to generate the paperwork necessary to create a person out of thin air, but after all the times I've dealt with you returning from the dead, I'm becoming quite the old hand."
Daniel gets a look on his face like he's just sucked a lemon. I snort into my palm and then blink at him innocently, my lips twitching. Hammond looks very pleased with himself.
"That's good, sir," Daniel says dryly. "I'm glad I could be so helpful."
The general's eyes draw up at the edges, betraying his smile, but his voice is steady. "It's almost done. We're waiting on a few things to be notarized, and there has been some difficulty coming up with an appropriate vaccination record for him. Apparently, his blood work shows the presence of antibodies as if he had received all the standard vaccinations for an American child his age, so now we have to falsify medical reports showing a history of those shots from birth. Doctor Fraiser is pushing that through, though, so you should have the necessary documentation to put him in school within a matter of days."
"I guess we have to go shopping again," I mutter. "School clothes."
"And paper," Daniel adds. "Oh, and pencils, and notebooks... mmm... divider tabs and three ring binders and do you know how a box of new pencils smells?"
I haven't seen Daniel get like this since the last time I surprised him with a box of chocolate covered coffee beans. Who knew he could get high on school supplies?
"You seem to have the school situation well in hand," Hammond says, manfully struggling not to laugh at Daniel's blissed out expression. "If you haven't chosen a school yet, I'd recommend the Cheyenne Mountain Charter Academy. It's a private school, closed campus, very secure. Small classes, high standards, consistently rated as excellent by the independent reviews. Tessa and Kayla go there."
I can't help the bemused look that I can feel on my face. This is all falling into place remarkably fast. "Sounds good, sir," I tell him. "I suppose a school like that has a waiting list, though?"
He smiles. "I may be able to help you out there."
"Isn't that favoritism?" Daniel inquires, raising an eyebrow.
"I believe the term is nepotism, son," Hammond says gently, and Daniel is so floored by the implication that he's family that he forgets to protest.
I glance at my watch before Daniel can start to stammer out some awkward thanks. "Ah, sir, unless there was something else, I'm due for a meeting with Supply. Something about the amazing number of MALPs that SG-1 seems to go through."
"No, go ahead," Hammond says, waving us off. Daniel is still blinking somewhat dazedly, and I steer him toward the door, my hand on his shoulder in what I hope looks like a strictly platonic friendly gesture. "One other thing, Jack," he calls before we can leave. "I've taken the liberty of drawing up some additional documentation for you."
I pause and half turn, giving him a sideways look. "Oh?"
"A secondary guardianship for the boy. It's a position similar to godfather, in that if anything happened to Doctor Jackson, custody of the child would go to you."
Daniel and I stare at each other uncertainly for a long moment. "Um..." Daniel begins hesitantly. "Why?"
Hammond favors us with a wise smile. "Perhaps it would be better for you to not ask that question, son."
Daniel, who could no more stop being curious than I could stop being sarcastic, opens his mouth to ask anyway. I jump in before he can force the issue. "Right, sir. I appreciate the... foresight. Let me know what I should sign and I'm there."
"Yes," Daniel adds quickly. "Thank you. That's, um... thank you."
The general just smiles and turns his attention to the files on his desk, leaving us to accept the implied dismissal. I tug Daniel out the door before we end up on even thinner ice.
"Wow," he says in the hall. "That was... nice of him."
"It's about as close as we can legally get to having joint custody," I answer in a low voice, walking close by his side. "It's perfectly innocent, too—lots of people name their friends as emergency guardians in case anything happens. Simmons can't read anything into it." Then, because Daniel still looks overwhelmed by everything that just happened in there, I fall into an extremely bad Godfather impression and croak out something about never going against the family.
Daniel laughs, one hand automatically coming up to cover his mouth. I catch it before it can get there and pull it away, giving him a stern look.
"Jack?"
"Knees," I say pointedly. "Remember? Sound waves?"
He blinks and then shakes his head. "But that was just—"
"Ah!" I hold up a finger and wave it at him admonishingly. "Don't want to hear it, Daniel. No covering up when you laugh. It's a rule."
He rolls his eyes, but nods. "Yes, Jack," he says, and I hear 'I'm only doing this to humor you.'
Good enough for me.
~~~
"Kayel! Jack!" The kid comes running to greet us at the entrance to the mountain's childcare facility. Daniel sweeps him up and hugs him, but I didn't miss the slight wince when the kid called him Kayel. Danny knows that isn't real, but he's not letting go of it, and Daniel isn't exactly doing anything to dissuade him.
"Colonel O'Neill, Doctor Jackson." Hildie Carruthers, the woman who runs this place, steps up to greet us. I edge away from Daniel enough to look less like a parent picking up his kid and more like a friend hanging out with somebody else's kid.
"How was he?" Daniel asks.
She smiles thinly. "Could I have a word with you?"
The kid is glaring at her and his hold around Daniel's shoulders tightens. "Told you," he mutters. "I told you."
"Uh, Danny, can you stay with Jack for a while so I can talk to Ms. Carruthers?"
"No!" The boy suddenly lapses into Daniel-speak, low and earnest, his hands clutching at Daniel's shirt.
"I see," Daniel says when the kid stops talking for a moment. "Well, why don't you let me talk to Ms. Carruthers, and we'll see what she says, and then we'll figure it out from there?"
"Don't listen to her," Danny insists. "She's lying!"
"Danny..."
"No! I told her! I told her I didn't have to do what she said and that my Kayel was going to come and get me and make her stop telling me what to do. You're going to do that, right?"
Daniel looks uncomfortable, as well he should. I knew playing into the kid's fantasy would be a bad idea. Daniel can be his best friend and protector, this Kayel person, or he can be a parent, an authority figure. He can't be both.
"Sorry," Daniel says to Hildie. "He's, ah... he's had a rough time lately. He's still adjusting to being here."
"Yes, as you explained when you dropped him off this morning. And I did try to give him extra latitude and patience, but there are limits," she replies.
"It's not fair," Danny grumbles, still glaring at her. "You're not fair."
"I'll listen to your side of things, I promise," Daniel tells him. "But right now I need you to wait with Jack so I can talk to—"
"No!" Danny interrupts sharply. "No no nonono..."
Jesus, he's winding up for a real fit. Charlie stopped doing that when he was about four. Daniel shoots me a helpless look, wincing as the kid's shouting begins rising in pitch.
"How about this," I suggest, raising my voice over Danny's noise. "You take him to the car and try to calm him down, and I'll get the report from her," I jerk a thumb over my shoulder at Hildie. "Does that work?"
Daniel nods and makes his escape, his cheeks reddened, obviously embarrassed at the screaming, struggling kid in his arms. I rub at my ears as I turn back to Hildie. "Damn," I mutter. "Kid's got some strong lungs."
"Yes, we discovered that today," Hildie says dryly. "He also seems to speak a number of languages. His first defense when I asked him to do something he didn't want to do was to lapse into some other language and act like he couldn't understand me."
"Ah, yeah..." I rub at the back of my neck and offer a weak smile. "We kind of figured he'd have some problems."
"Because of his parents dying?"
"He told you that?"
She nods. "It's a pretty common childish ploy, actually. 'My mom and dad are dead so you have to be nice to me and give me what I want.' When that didn't work, he became uncooperative and difficult."
"Meaning...?"
"Let me give you an example." She takes a deep breath and stares up at the ceiling for a moment, her hands linked behind her back. "This afternoon, we had art time. Danny was quite pleased with the paint and easel we gave him, and spent the entire hour drawing Egyptian looking things. But when art time was over, he didn't want to stop. I tried to explain that we had to clean up and put the paints away now, and spend some time outside, but he refused to hand over the brushes. Instead, he curled himself in a ball on the floor and clutched the brushes to his chest, refusing to move. He didn't lash out, but short of dragging him out the door, there was no way to make him go outside with the rest of the group."
"Great," I mutter. "And this was only his first day."
Hildie laughs quietly. "The first day is often the hardest, but I won't lie to you, Colonel. He's a very troubled child. I understand that Doctor Jackson will be adopting him?"
"Yeah, the paperwork is almost final now."
"Then you should tell Doctor Jackson this boy needs a lot of love and attention. We here at the center will continue to do our best for him, but what he really needs will have to start at home."
"I think Doctor Jackson knows that," I tell her. "But I'll be sure to relay the message. He's looking into enrolling Danny in school anyway, so you shouldn't have him much longer."
"That's good," she says. "Not that we don't want him—he's a very sweet boy when he isn't being difficult—but school would be a better environment for him. He seems very bright, and I think the lack of a mental challenge here was making him bored, and therefore leading to the misbehavior. A structured classroom with peers to interact with really would be an improvement."
"Okay. Thanks."
She nods and waves at me, already turning back into her office. "Tell Danny I'm sorry he had a bad day and that we look forward to seeing him tomorrow."
"Will do," I call over my shoulder. Then I head out to the car, where I find Daniel huddled in the passenger seat, the boy on his lap, heaving those long, shuddery sighs that come after crying.
"Sorry," he mumbles. "Sorry, sorry, I'm sorry, I don't mean to be bad..."
"It's okay," Daniel tells him, rocking them a little. "You're going to be all right now."
When the kid sees me coming, he lifts his head and eyes me anxiously. "Jack? Did you tell Miss Hildie I was sorry? Is she mad?"
"She's not mad. She says that you can come back tomorrow and start over."
He nods and sighs heavily, wiping his face on Daniel's shirt. "Okay. I'll be good. I promise I'll be good."
Daniel and I exchange a long look over his head. I don't doubt the kid's intentions, but we aren't going to fix his problems in a day.
~~~
Danny falls asleep on the couch after dinner, his face pillowed on my leg hard enough to leave fabric lines on his cheek. I am once again elected to cart his heavy ass upstairs to his room. I think Daniel knows that I like putting a sleepy child to bed, but I grumble anyway, just in case I still have him fooled.
"Hey," Daniel says quietly when I get back downstairs. "Come here."
So I settle beside him on the couch, our shoulders leaning together companionably and his head resting against mine. "Hell of a day," I comment, staring vaguely at the wall. I think I'd forgotten how draining a kid could be.
"Yeah. What happened at the childcare center?"
So I tell him what Hildie told me, and Daniel nods, not exactly surprised. "I did warn you," he says.
"That you did," I reply. "But he can only get better, right?"
Daniel laughs shortly. "It could take a while. I was a pain in the ass for a long time."
"Yeah, let me know when you grow out of that, okay? I want to be there."
He punches me on the shoulder, but he's smiling. "It'll be different for him," Daniel says. "He has us."
"Oh, joy," I mutter. "That makes me all warm and fuzzy inside."
"Smartass."
"Like you're not worried about this," I nudge him. "You're the one who told me it was going to be hard."
"It will be," he says simply. "But don't you always tell me that I'm a pain in the ass, but well worth it?"
"I may have said something to that effect."
Daniel shrugs and grins at me. "He's worth it."
~~~
End Book One
April 13 – 29, 2004