DISCLAMER: These characters belong to Warner Bros Television and so forth. A few are my own creation.

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Title: On The Road With Danny Concannon '04-'05 Half Moon Bay, CA

Aka H.M.B Concannon (Season Six)

Chapter One: Break.

Companion Piece: T.H.F. Thurmont

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On the Road with Danny Concannon: Half Moon Bay, CA

"I've still got sand in my shoes
And I can't shake the thought of you
I should get on, forget you
Why, why would I want to"

--Sand-Dido

Break

He looked over the water. The sun was half way set over the horizon and the glare off the water made his eyes squint. The bay was surrounded by a gray-blue hue; a color that just about matched Danny's mood. Something inside of Danny had gone melancholy; turning a color of blue he wasn't quite used to. He had always been a happy-go-lucky kind of guy, but as he ran through his forties like a freight train, that dreariness seemed to appear with increasing frequency. It was a color he was getting more and more familiar with as it slowly crept in, like a turtle, over the last seven years.

He had tried to forget her with other women, alcohol, work, more work, and now, of course, distance, but with no avail. Yet he found himself in the most prolific time of his life. Garnering two Pulitzers, it had been his most creative period and still, somehow, the most murky. Many said, in print and to his face, that the Bartlet Administration was the best thing that ever happened to him. But Danny knew better.

Danny could feel the grains of wet sand beneath his feet, as he stood at the water's edge with his hands in his pockets, his pant legs rolled up to just below his knees. He walked a little, deep in thought, searching his mind for something, anything, to take him away from her even for a moment. But in this moment of solitude he had nothing; nothing that could anchor him to himself.

Something in Danny had snapped a few days after Memorial Day. About to embark on a plane from Seattle back to DC, Danny had stopped. He stopped cold and without rhythm or reason, he walked away. Perhaps it was sleep deprivation, or the fact that his body had been running on empty for just about a year now. He needed a break emotionally and physically.

"Sir?" He had heard the flight attendant's voice echo in his ear before finding himself back in the moment; at the terminal. "Sir? Are you boarding?"

Adjusting his bag's strap on his shoulder, Danny broke from his daze. "No." Even he was surprised by his answer. "Ah....no...no...never mind." Danny turned, shaking his head as he walked, dumping his boarding pass into an innocuous looking garbage can as he passed.

Back in present: The water broke on the shore, hitting Danny's legs and ankles, making his feet cold. He picked up a piece of sea glass from the ground and skipped it along the water. A group of children ran past, almost knocking Danny over, much as the waves would have done, had he been a bit farther out.

"Sorry." said the voice of a sweet woman as she passed, obviously the children's parent.

"That's alright." Danny said sweetly. He really didn't mind. He turned as he followed the woman with his head, taking notice of the boys who had now run into a large group of seagulls, sending the birds soaring, like a cloud over the bay.

Danny made his way over to a large piece of driftwood and sat himself down with a grunt. He looked out over the amazing vista and laughed for a moment about a speech the President once gave. He found his hand playing with a smoothed-over piece of seashell, twisting it between his fingers and feeling the glide of it against his skin. He looked down at the sand below and saw remnants of someone's initials written in the sand. He found a stick next to a piece of seaweed, and for fun he wrote his own initials in the sand: DC.

Leaving his mark on the sand, Danny looked out at the ocean to see the sun was about to set for good and he lifted himself up with another grunt. Standing now, Danny continued to make his way further and further down the shore. The water hit the sand behind him, running over his initials until the water erased the letters DC from the shore.