He was sitting in an old chair next to a desk that Mary didn't think had ever been used for anything other than sitting on or for dumping school books on when they used to come in here after school. He was leant forwards, elbows on his knees, head in his hands.
She felt the lump in her throat that she had been trying to swallow down ever since she had heard the news. It wouldn't leave her, instead forcing tears into her eyes that she hadn't wanted to cry because if she was falling apart she was no good to Danny.
Her hand came to her mouth, stifling a sob that was threatening to erupt at any moment now. Her eyes were glued to him, on him, and for a split second she remembered how she felt when Mike had called her and she thought something had happened to him.
But even in the darkness she could see him, the rise and fall of his chest that signified he was physically okay, and that was good, even if he looked like someone completely different in this moment. Through all of her life, he had always been the one to take care of her and protect her, but now… Now it was all different, it was the other way around.
She put one foot in front of the other, tiny steps taking her to him, and he had to know she was here. How could he not? Another step, and another… No sudden movements because she didn't want to scare him like a deer caught in headlights because if he was already in shock, the last thing he needed was a scare like that.
Her long legs took her to him in seconds, although part of her was begging more time. More time, please… because she was flying blind here without one single notion of how to deal with this. Then she was there, standing before him with his head bowed down, and it reminded her of a school play they had performed in when they were in grade school.
She had been chosen to play a queen – which Danny thought was hilarious because he said she already got her own way all the time anyway. But when it came to going on stage, she remembered shaking with nerves. When he had seen how terrified she was, he had taken her hand and told her it would be easy, that she could tell people what to do with her eyes closed, and he knew that because she did so well with him. He was joking, of course, and the smile on his face let her know that. He hadn't had any dialogue in the entire play, but when he'd knelt in front of her as the script had called for, he'd looked up at her once, grinned, and then pulled his tongue out at her. The nerves were gone after that.
He didn't look up now.
He didn't do anything. He just sat in that same position, his head in his hands, no sound coming from him other than the mismatched and rhythmic breathing. Why did it have to be so silent? Silence scared her, she hated it, ever since… And Danny's silence? No, that was how she knew that something was very, very wrong, not that she needed the silence to tell her that in this particular instance.
If he smiled, she knew what to do. If he took her hand and kissed her, she knew what to do. If he was pissed, lashing out, she knew what to do. When he was silent…she didn't have a clue.
She gently crouched down to him, kneeling as quietly as she could, her legs folding beneath her as she reached out a hand to touch him. She had to pull it back, though, before it got too close to him to stifle another sob. She brushed away more tears, took another deep breath and lifted her hand again, seeing herself shaking in the moonlight filtering in to land in a streak across them both.
She told herself to stop, to be strong, because he needed her to be there for him now, but apparently herself was stubborn and was refusing to listen. She closed her eyes for just a second, just to catch her breath again, and her hand continued on. It was close to him now, so close she could feel the heat radiating from his skin into hers, until finally it was there.
Her hand rested on his cheek, feeling the rough stubble on his face and fighting memories of how it felt when he kissed her. That wasn't why she was here. That was selfish, to think of something trivial when something so devastating had happened. He didn't even flinch with her touch, not then, and not when her thumb stroked the smooth skin of his cheek.
"Danny?" she whispered. Had she whispered or was it just that she wanted to? All that seemed to happen was a release of breath because of the lump still in her throat.
"Danny?" she said again, and this time there was sound, uneven and breaking, but sound all the same.
He moved then, his hands coming down to his sides, arms falling like they were dead weight as he lifted his head to look at her.
If anyone ever asked Mary Connell when her heart broke, she would answer that it was right now, this exact moment.
She had been hurt before, so badly that she had wanted to crawl into a hole and disappear forever, like when their engagement had been broken off. It had always been Danny who hurt her, most of the time without him even knowing it, and she swore he had broken her heart a million times over the years. But this…
Have you ever witnessed something that literally made your chest hurt so much that you think you might die? Something that you know, with absolute certainty, that the memory of such a moment will haunt you every time you close your eyes for the rest of your life?
"Oh, God…" she heard herself say before she even realised she was speaking. Great attempt at strong, she told herself, using her free hand to wipe away more tears that threatened her eyes.
The first thing she noticed was the eyes – well, that was the first thing she always noticed about him. Deep brown, like doe eyes, that bore into her so hard that sometimes made her think that he could read her mind. They were strong, perfect, and usually held her gaze in such a way that it made her want to live and die, all at the same time. But now? Now she was torn between wanting to look away and wanting to make sure she was really seeing him like this. All it took was one look at him usually and she would know exactly what mood he was in, because it was all there. But he was just… He was empty. He was broken. She usually saw this strong, vibrant, happy man who she knew would protect her with his life, and now he looked like he was someone else entirely.
"Mary?" he asked, quiet and unsure, and she felt herself nod. He wasn't crying in the general sense of the word, but the tears were there, held and locked in his eyes so tightly that she could see herself reflected there. Grief was never a pretty thing, because how could it be? It was consuming and overwhelming and devastating, and Mary was looking right at it.
She took his hands in hers. Cold, was all she thought. He was so cold, even when just a second she had been able to feel his body heat. Had she been imagining that? Was that just another thing that happened when they together? He was still wearing exactly the same clothes she remembered seeing him in when she left the casino, looking smart and sexy and smiling in a way that was meant just for her, no matter who else was around.
She figured the cold came from the shock, and she tried rubbing her hands over his just to get the blood circulating the way it should be again. It didn't even feel like him either, she realised. Whenever she used to touch him, just to brush a piece of lint from his collar, or to give him a playful tap after a bad joke, she felt something. That something used to travel from her fingertips, up her arm and spread through her body to make her tingle and dizzy all over. That something used to make her smile for hours after whenever she thought of it.
Now all that she felt was pain, and fear, and frustration, and confusion, and she had to close her eyes to hold back the wave of nausea it brought.
He was holding her hand differently, too. Usually, his fingers intertwined with hers, so tightly that sometimes she'd have to ask him to loosen his grip a little, just enough so the restricted blood flow came back. Sometimes when he held her hand, when they were talking about something, he would use the pad of his thumb to stroke the skin on her palm, and she would never feel as safe as she did then. Now his hands were just hanging there, and she was the one squeezing his hand tight enough for it to make her fingers cramp.
She reached back to grab the blanket that was folded at the end of the bed, no more than a foot or so away from where they were right now, and pulled it off, a handful of the comforter coming with it. It was soft, and when she clenched it she remembered getting caught in a storm one afternoon when she was walking home from cheerleading practice. She remembered Danny meeting her halfway down the drive and hurrying her in and up the stairs to his bedroom. He had wrapped this blanket around her, telling her that it was one of the only things he had left of his mother, the same thing he told her whenever they wrapped themselves up in it at night, or when he gave it to her to take care of when he went into the Marines. It wasn't something he told her to get sympathy, and it seemed more for his own benefit than anything else, especially when he got that faraway look in his eyes and she'd give him a hug because he missed her so much. She loved that she was the only one he had ever told that to because it made her feel like she knew him better than anything or anyone else, which, of course, was true.
As she wrapped the blanket around his shoulders, she wondered if he thought of those times, too, before realising just how incredibly awful that sounded.
His eyes were still on her, blinking but not quite there, and her hand moved to the curve of his cheek. She was still shaking, but that was hardly like to go away anytime soon, and she was sure Danny wouldn't mind, if he noticed at all.
He had barely moved in the whole time she had been here, but when her hand touched him, this time there was a response. He closed his eyes, just briefly, just long enough for Mary to feel the tiniest bit of relief.
She lowered her hands to his again, and still they were limp in hers. She felt herself silently urging him to show some kind of sign that he was still there, still in this shell in front of her.
And then - and she thanked the Gods a hundred times for it – he finally gripped her hand back. Slowly, at first, his fingertips curling up ever so slightly to graze her skin and she held him a little tighter to let him know it was okay. His fingers moved, stretching in between hers so they were palm-to-palm, her hot, sticky nervous one against his cold, shocked, hesitant one.
And then they tightened around her hands, and Mary could almost hear a bone break but she couldn't feel it, because now she knew this was definitely Danny in front of her, albeit a different one, and there was just a little bit of hope that maybe she could help him because of that.
Her eyes had been focussed on their hands, on their entwined fingers and contrasting skin melding into each other, and when she looked up at him, he smiled. Not a real smile like she knew and loved, but something sad and defeated and altogether not right for his face.
"My…" he began, but he couldn't seem to finish.
Mary felt his hands tighten around hers again, and when she looked back down at their hands she could see his knuckles were white. She gripped him right back, as hard as she could, and nodded sadly.
He looked her in the eye again, and she saw his jaw set and tense, perfect and square, and if this was an entirely different situation she would be very tempted to kiss him.
"My father died," he told her, his face turning to something like disbelief, like it couldn't be true until he said it, and now he couldn't take it back and deny it any longer. It was like he was saying the words to taste them, to get used to saying them, because that was all he could ever say about his father now.
She didn't even see him crying, her arms were around him quicker than that, pulling him to her tightly before his face crumpled. She felt his arms embrace her, tightening around her waist and bringing her closer, making her unsteady on her knees as she tried to shuffle forward so her weight wasn't pressed into his. His head was buried in her shoulder dampening her shirt there with his tears, muffling any sound that seemed to be escaping him, her own silent sobbing making their bodies shake with pain and grief.
When his shoulders seemed to stop shuddering so violently, and when his grip seemed to ease, she dared to pull back. Their bodies disengaged, slowly but surely, and she ignored the pain sailing through her knees that had been numb for a good while now. Her hands, still shaking and unsteady, moved to the sides of his face, gently positioning him so she could look into his eyes.
God, this is so hard, she thought to herself. She was physically hurting for him right now, seeing him in such pain that she couldn't take away for him. His eyes were swollen, red, puffy and bloodshot, and she couldn't stop herself from moving her face closer to his to kiss him, briefly and tenderly. That was all it was supposed to be – a show of support from a friend, but they both knew it was more, it was always more, even if they weren't acknowledging it right now. She tasted salt on his lips – or was it on hers? – before she caught another tear that fell from his eyes that almost made her break down again.
"I…" she began, swallowing her tears. "I don't know what to say to you, Danny. I don't know what to do," she confessed.
"Tell me everything's gonna be okay?" he asked her.
She was caught off-guard by the statement and she felt herself freeze at his request. She felt her mouth open, then close, then repeat the motion when no words came to her.
"Danny," she finally said, "I—"
"Please?" he said, cutting her off like he knew she couldn't make that promise. "Please?" he asked again. "Please, just…just tell me that it'll get better, that I'm not going to feel like this forever." He quietened, his hands sliding up her arms to her biceps and closing around the skin there. "Please?" he said again, quietly and desperately, his eyes begging for this.
She gulped back that ever-present lump in her throat, felt herself nodding to him in the darkness of the room as her hand travelled over his face. She realised that he was asking her to lie to him, and he knew she would be lying because she didn't know the answer. He had always known when she was lying, and now wouldn't be any different. This was what he wanted, what he needed. Mary had never been able to deny him anything.
"Everything's going to be okay, Danny," she told him, as steadily and firmly as her voice would allow. "I promise you," she told him. "It's going to be okay."
And that was the first and only time Mary Connell had ever lied to Danny McCoy in her entire life.