Disclaimer: the rights to Without a Trace belong to Hank Steinberg (I think) or, as I like to call him, God. Alas, I am not him.
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1pm
Jack pulled Danny's employee file out of his filing cabinet. He was trying, and failing, not to think about the fact that they might not find Danny alive and well. It was a fact that he had grudgingly accepted a long time ago: you can't save everybody. Usually, it was something he considered throughout the cases he worked on, if only to shield himself from getting too invested in them.
He sat at his desk and looked through the file. Every so often he glanced into the main office, hoping that Danny would run in late with some excuse about his car breaking down or something. Each time, he was disappointed.
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Samantha was looking through Danny's desk. She had been for half an hour and had so far found nothing that could help them find him.
But that may have been because she wasn't 100 focused. She was too busy thinking about last night. Danny was supposed to come over to her place at 8o'clock for dinner but he never got there. At the time, she wasn't worried. He'd done it before. Made plans with her and then got a call from a girl he was dating and forgotten about Sam. That was why she insisted he came to her apartment, so she didn't end up sitting alone in a restaurant. She didn't mind. She wanted Danny to find a nice girlfriend and be happy. But she was feeling guilty that she hadn't called to check that he was okay.
She jumped when she felt a hand on her shoulder.
"Samantha," Martin said. "You want me to take over?"
"No, I'm okay," she said. "I was just…I should have called him."
Martin crouched beside her.
"You said yourself that he'd done it before. You had no reason to think that anything was wrong."
Sam smiled sadly and went back to her search. Martin stood and went back to his own desk. He picked up his phone and dialled the next number on his list. He had taken the job of calling the hospitals and morgues.
He had made it through all the hospitals with no Danny Taylors or John Does and was about to start on the morgues. He prayed that his luck would hold out and Danny wouldn't be in any of them either.
Twenty minutes later, Martin breathed a sigh of relief. He had reached the end of his list and his prayer had been heard.
But they were still no closer to finding him.
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Viv walked into Jack's office.
"Hey," she said. "How's it going?"
"Terrific," Jack said, sarcastically. "No next of kin listed in his file and I'm down as his emergency contact. As far as we know, he has no life outside of this building."
Jack ran his hands through his hair. He was frustrated. He remembered what he had said to Martin on his first day with the team.
Once we find out who she is, odds are we'll find out where she is.
That philosophy had helped them many a time before. Now, when it was somebody they already knew, it wasn't getting them anywhere.
"No next of kin?" Viv asked, confused.
"That's what it says."
"Doesn't he have a brother?"
"I don't know."
Jack turned to his computer and searched for Danny's information in the database.
"Yeah, one brother," said Jack. "Rafael Alvarez. In prison for grand theft auto."
"Any other family?"
"No." Jack paused. "What's today's date?"
"April 7th. Why?"
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Sam and Martin were at the conference table when Jack and Viv came over.
"Sam," Jack said. "Did you find anything in Danny's desk?"
"Nothing useful," Sam said.
"What about you, Martin? Anything at the hospitals or morgues?"
"No Danny Taylors or John Does in the last 48 hours."
"Okay. I may have found something. It could be just a coincidence or it could be the key to his disappearance, I'm not sure."
"What is it?" asked Sam.
"Today is the anniversary of his parents death."
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9am
Danny sat down on the ground, barely even noticing that it was muddy. He stared at the names on the head stones. His parent's names.
"Hi, Mom. Hi, Dad."
He hardly ever came down here, either because he didn't have the time or because he didn't have the strength.
When they had first died, everybody told him that it would get easier, that someday soon, it wouldn't hurt as much. He was still waiting for that day.
He sat there for an hour, rambling about anything he could think of to say. He talked about the Mets, the book he was reading, music, his favourite television programmes and whatever else popped into his head before eventually making it onto the subject of his life. He talked about work and the rest of the team. About how Jack was like a father figure and Viv had sort of become a surrogate mother. About how he thought of Sam like the sister he never had. How sometimes he was jealous when Martin complained about his dad and thought how lucky he was that his dad had lived long enough to annoy him.
How he still felt guilty about causing the crash that killed them.
He didn't notice he'd said it until it came out, didn't even know he felt that way. He was silent for a moment.
Twenty years worth of grief, anger, and guilt that he hadn't known was there, started fighting to get out.
The tears started to fall. He didn't know how long he was there, crying, but by the time he was finished, he would have sworn that there were no tears left in his body.
He honestly couldn't tell if he felt better or worse. The only feeling he could truly distinguish from the rest was nausea. He knew that if he didn't leave now, he would end up staying where he was forever.
He shakily lifted himself up, told his parents that he loved them, and went to see one of the only people in the world he felt he could talk to about how he was feeling.
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A/N Just thought I'd let you know, I'm trying to go for the flashbackyness that they have on the show, so the parts in the story are not in chronological order, they're in logical order. If that makes sense.
