A different interview lands Danny the ESPN gig he tried for in "Knock Yourself Out." Back then they used local talent so he's not away lots more, but he is some, impacting a few things. 1st, will Jesse move out?

A/N: This won't be extra long, compared to some on here. But, I have a few ideas. It's not quite Book Universe, but it'll get closer to it as time goes on, yet some things will be rather different. Danny's parents are divorced in canon, by the way, and at least one book has his mom back in Connecticut, so it's logical that his biological dad could have been there.

One just like the BU is Steph getting along with Kimmy. Notice she does in TV episode 3 - "Fuller House" shows they got along decently, too, before Pam died, in that they had that hand clapping rhyming thing Kimmy taught her. Yet by late season 1 she hates Kimmy. Why? In the BU, D.J. knows to be more on top of things and heads off a poorly thought out joke Kimmy pulls. Here, she just catches it in time.

While Jesse moved out because he couldn't get time alone, even he didn't do such big things that spur of the moment. It would have been growing in him, especially during times we don't see, and here it would be growing in him even more.

Worldwide Leader? - Danny Gets National Sports Gig

Chapter 1 - Big Gigs - Including D.J. Cooking

"Okay, now keep stirring slowly, that's good. You're doin' great, Deej," long-haired Uncle Jesse said proudly as he observed his niece, ten-year-old D.J. Tanner. "You're going to be a master chef someday, just like your dad's a master sports host."

"Come on, Uncle Jesse. I know why you're doing this." D.J. smiled as she glanced toward him.

"Why I'm doing what?" Jesse asked with feigned innocence.

D.J. turned back to her cooking. "I messed up the turkey last Thanksgiving, the first one after Mom died, and you're making sure I know I can do a good job. I like that. But, you don't have to keep pouring on the charm. I want to be the best; just like Mom always did. And-" She suddenly remembered something. "Oh, noddles."

"They're right here, Deej. Want me to pour them in for you?" Stephanie, almost six, asked.

"I can manage," D.J. said. Still Uncle Jesse had jumped up to help, and Stephanie was actually getting it done rather well with his help.

"How long till dinner's ready?" Stephanie asked.

D.J. smirked. "Dinner will be ready in 15 minutes if you help… and 10 if you don't."

"Okay- hey, wait a minute…"

"Come on, Deej, your dad's spending time with Michelle, we can take that extra five minutes and let your sister help," Jesse said.

"Okay," D.J. said in a drawn out manner. She remembered how her mom used to encourage her to do little things like this to help the younger 2 girls. She was so glad that Uncle Jesse tried at times like this to be a little like Pam had been.

Suddenly, Kimmy Gibbler came barging in the back door; she was D.J. best friend since a year earlier when she'd moved next door, and had been friends with D.J. since Kindergarten. "Ho, ho, ho."

"Merry Christmas, Kimmy. Or are you taking up gardening?" Stephaine asked. It was only a couple days away. She had heard the joke from Danny's best friend Joey Gladstone, a professional comedian who, along with Jessie, lived there to help take care of the girls.

Kimmy held up a bag. "What do you think is in here?"

Jesse took a peek. "Gardening tools and… what's this for?"

"D.J. held up a hand. "Wait. Uncle Jesse, I'm needed here." Jesse shrugged, a little relieved he didn't have to figure Kimmy out, and went over to the stove where Stephanie helped him. D.J. looked in the bag, then led Kimmy away and whispered: "Kimmy, what are you doing?"

"I just thought it'd be funny to give your sister coal for Christmas," she said lowly.

"Well, it's not!" D.J. sighed. Had she not been there, or not been on top of this, she knew Kimmy's joke could have been taken very badly. "Kimmy, look, Stephanie prides herself on good behavior; maybe a little too much yet. But the way she's been, I will not have you doing this."

Kimmy looked over at Stephanie, who was now bugging Jesse to let her help; and he was. She was a little taken aback, but she recognized D.J.'s tone, too. "Is it something to do with your mom?" D. slowly. "I'm sorry, Deej. What is it?"

"Kimmy… I think sometimes she tries to act extra perfect so Mom would be proud. A joke like that would devastate her; she's maybe a bit jealous of you spending time with he, but we manage that okay, and let her join in when we can. But after something like that, she might even hate you for it."

"Okay." Kimmy walked over toward the stove and said, "Hey, Stephane. I'm sorry for what I was going to do, and I'm not going to do it now. Okay?"

Stephanie looked skeptically at her, but finally said: "Mmmm, okay." She shook Kimmy's extended hand. "What were you going to do?"

"Uh…" Kimmy was at a loss; she realized Stephanie might be hurt by just hearing it. "Deej, what was I going to do?"

"Stoke our wood burning fireplace with coal. It could cause a lot more smoke and pollution."

"Oh. Of course. Thanks, Deej." She picked up her bag and said: "I'm off to work in the garden." Kimmy left.

Stephanie looked at the door in an odd way as Joey came in from the living room along with Danny; Joey had just finished a comedy gig. Danny was carrying Michelle, who was thirteen months old. "Your friend is weird," Stephanie said.

"She is; but, she has a good heart. She just doesn't like to think. That's why I help her."

"And, you do a great job, Deej. I just heard, ESPN wants to have me down in spring training for a month so I can be on loan to them for other teams, too," Danny said.

Jesse was impressed. "Wow, you just got that sports gig what, a couple months ago?"

"Yeah, and you talk so much they figure you may as well talk about all the other teams, too," Joey kidded him.

"Will we have to move to Connecticut?" Stephanie asked. "We don't know anyone there. I can only spell it because Joey taught me it's connect, I, and cut." She stopped to think for a moment. She had been reading for eighteen months. Still, she thought, "I think I remember how to spell connect. It's on that one game."

"Right, Steph; if I ever do a comedy show there I'll have to change my famous line to 'Connecticut it out,'" Joey said, making a motion like with scissors for the state name, pointing with "itr," and then jerking his thumb backward for "out."

"Well, thankfully, a move to Connecticut is out. Although my mom's first husband is a successful attorney there; he gave us the money to help with... well, you've never met him though, so I guess you're right.," Danny said as he sat Michelle in her high chair and prepared to start feeding her.

"And are they ever lucky they don't have to hear that pun," Jesse deadpanned.

"I'd have gone for a week or so with the station anyway, it's just now I can do more. But, I'm just going because someone else can't make it, and it's more of a tryout. They're hoping to land a big TV deal after 1989 when the contracts are up in two years, so they want to increase their exposure and have me cover Cactus League teams. Mostly, though, I'll just be their Bay Area reporter. They use regional talent so they don't have to hire people to move to Connecticut when they'd have to travel anyway," Danny explained. He'd been over that with them before, but he knew children often needed encouragement and repetition to understand things.

D.J. was getting a little more of a handle on things. "So, we'll just be using Grandma and Grandpa Katsopolis more, plus Uncle Jesse and Joey will have to find a way for one of them to stay home more," she said.

"Sure; and, that's why I'm giving you more cooking lessons and stuff," Jesse said.

D.J. grinned, reminiscing for a moment once again. She enjoyed remembering little things like how she had made her mom so proud after church one day. Pam took them or they would ride the bus by themselves, which the girls still sporadically did. D.J. had learned it was a sin to take God's name in vain, and she knew that Jesse and Pam's dad had a lot of upset stomach issues as part of his anger. So she used the name of a medicine he took and said she was going to start saying "oh mylanta."

The most important thing, of course,had been God's free gift of salvation of course. She loved thoughts of the unconditional love Jesus showed when he died on the cross for her sins and rose from the dead. She had called on Jesus to save her, though she struggled especially since they only sometimes went on the church bus now that Pam was gone. That unconditional love was just like the love in her family. But it was fun to remember all those other little things too.

"I'd rather be learning more guitar from you, but this is good, too."

Danny agreed. "I'm really glad to see how you've poured yourself into them since Pam died, Jess." Pam had been Jesse's older sister by about five years.

Jesse would have begun to feel pressure closer to the time anyway; and would have just moved out without a word soon after Danny got back in March. As it was, though, thoughts of Danny being gone a month made him nervous even now, a couple months before it happened. He had a long list of possible girlfriends after all. "You sure it has to be a whole month?"

"Don't worry, they know I'm a widower with three kids. If it has to be cut short a bit, it will. It'll be at least two weeks, though, probably more like three."

"That's good," Jesse mumbled, unsure of what else to say.

Over a month later, Stephanie - who had turned six by now - asked Danny, "Would you have had to go cover the Super Bowl?" while they were in the living room.

"I did back in January of '85 for the local station," Danny reminded her. "Remember, I got some bonus money then."

D.J. recalled. "You were thinking about putting an office in that bedroom MIchelle has now, but you never did. How come?"

Danny shrugged as Jesse and Joey entered while arguing, having come from the kitchen . "It was a tough call; I guess we just decided to have a vacation instead. Hey, guys."

Jesse wasn't listening to Danny. "That is the dumbest idea I've ever heard, Joey."

"Come on, Jess, translation problems happen all the time. A 'yes' becomes 'si' in Spanish, 'si' can be a totally different word in another language, suddenly you can go from 'You Ain't Nothing but a Hound Dog,' to 'You're A Big, Fat Cat,'" Joey was arguing.

"That's ridiculous; look, even if one day one of those big computers can translate things into a bunch of different languages and back to English, no Elvis song is going to get that messed up. And, I'm certainly not going to join you in the Smash Club singing just so you can make funny lyrics," Jesse insisted.

"Jess, this could be a great way to work together," Joey begged him. "I think we'll be a great duo."

"The answer is 'no' - I'm gonna go up and see if Michelle's awake, if not I'm gonna lie down a bit. I had a late night last night," Jesse said, shaking his head as he went upstairs.

Danny smiled sadly. "He's felt some stress lately; probably because I'll be gone for a month."

"I know, that's why I tried to give him some ideas for how we could work together beforehand." Joey plopped down in a chair and looked at Danny and the older 2 girls on the couch. "We'll make it, Danny. Remember how well we did when you were in L.A. for a week?"

"Yeah, you even gave Michelle cough medicine. I think it helps you're in the basement garage and not in the alcove; there's a little more space." Danny paused to think for a moment.

"What is it, Danny?"

'Are you thinking about Mommy?" Stephanie guessed.

"Probably a little."

Jesse poked his head over the railing. "Hey, you got MIchelle to take her medicine the other day. NOw you girls want to practice diaper duties?"

"Coming right up," D.J. said as she and Stephanie raced upstairs.

Joey said he recalled seeing this before. "Jesse still loves it, but he's getting the girls more involved in things like this. I think it's great."

"You don't think he's backing off on purpose? I've asked him and he hasn't confirmed it, but…" Danny sighed. "If there's one person I can see impacted by this the most, it's Jesse. The girls are fine, they have plenty of sitters and I was gone more anyway before Pam died. You're nothing but a big kid yourself."

"Sure, they love my stand-up routine. I get inspired by their cartoons and all the other little things they love," Joey said.

"I know. But, Jesse's been on tour, and when he moved in here in the beginning it was easy for him to find time to play with the band. Lately he's asked me if I ever thought of turning his room into an office," Danny explained.

"Well, the attic is there; you know, there's that second attic above it we can use, so while it's only what, 1,300 square feet?" Danny nodded, and Joey continued. "Could Jesse use that as his room?"

Danny wasn't sure. "Maybe. It's a little too much to consider right now, with D.J.'s eleventh birthday coming soon, and then me leaving a bit after that. The remodel on your room in the basement garage took more time, but there's stuff to clean out up there, too…"

Joey knew Danny's look. Danny hated change, and would probably find it hard to know what to part with.

He distracted Danny with this. "Maybe this is a good thing. Jesse knows it's coming, so he can't just block it out. So, he's lightening his load. He might not have otherwise."

Danny was stunned. He teased Joey: "Where did you get that? It sounded wise."

"Remember that Daffy Duck cartoon where he keeps getting redrawn and all that crazy stuff happens, and at the end he demands to know who's responsible? He's pretty upset before we see Bugs Bunny at the end was the one at the drawing board. But, at least he lets out a little frustration from time to time during it. Whereas some characters don't get that chance, and their brains get so filled with stuff their heads explode," Joey shared.

"That's one thing you're great at; you can turn any cartoon into a real life analogy," Danny said with a chuckle.

Jesse poked his head over the railing again as D. Stephanie came downstairs with Michelle; D.J. was encouraging her as she walked."It's just like during the pioneer days when older kids always took care of the younger ones. I'll be working on some music and maybe catching some rest. I can't stay out till three in the morning like I used to and then function on just four hours' sleep."

Danny smiled with satisfaction. Mabye Joey was right. When Danny left, just after D.J.'s birthday - and a visit from his nephew Steve, from his mom's first husband, a few days later - they'd manage to make it through. Just like they always did.

Several days after Danny left, Jesse bade goodbye to the girls as they went to school as normal. He then dropped Michelle off at his mom's house.

Jesse brought the groceries home, looked at all of the chores on his list to do around the house, and sighed. He put the groceries away and knew Joey would be home soon.

"Hey, girls," Joey said happily as he greeted them coming home from school. "I just got Michelle from Jesse's mom's, she had just gotten up from her nap."

They said hello to Michelle in her playpen and then ran upstairs to tell Uncle Jesse about the fun things in school that day.

They discovered that everything was gone. DJ tried to make it sound normal to avoid alarming Stephanie. "I guess he just went on vacation or something."

"If he went on vacation, why did he take everything with him?" As Stephanie was looking around and asking that, she saw a piece of paper on his bed. "Look, here's a note." She sat on the bed and gave it to DJ who sat beside her.

Let's see, it says, "'Dear family. I need to get away for a while. I don't know when I'll be back. D.J.,'" she read, blinking back a tear. "'I know you'll do a great job. You're so much like your mother.'"

"How can he not know when he'll be back?"

"I think this means Uncle Jesse ran away from home," D.J. remarked lowly.