In the morning Danny wakes up to a sleeping Rachel sprawled possessively across his chest. He fantasizes about their family, with Charlie, early in the morning, running into his mother's room and climbing into bed with his parents to wake them. Grace would come an hour later and snuggle with Danno like old times. Then the four would make breakfast together and eat in their pajamas watching Charlie's cartoons. He even envisions a pregnant Rachel, happy and content. The fantasy brings him unspeakable joy, but also crushing sadness because that's all it is, a fantasy. He strokes Rachel's hair as she breathes into his neck. Even in their sleep, they cling together, limbs as intertwined as their hearts. How did everything go so wrong?
Danny realizes his phone is downstairs and he isn't about to disturb Rachel's sleep. When she wakes up an hour later, they make love like their lives depend on it. Entering her is the best feeling, and he's missed it so much. As he thrusts into her, they make eye contact, and the atmosphere is so intense, you can forgive them both for crying. He tells her he loves her and that he has since the moment she crashed into his car eighteen years ago. It's always been her, and it will never stop being her. Danny moves to pull out before he comes, but Rachel hooks her foot onto his back to keep him inside her.
"Give me another baby, Danny. Please." She screams before she's over the edge too. This orgasm isn't an earth-shattering one, she isn't seeing stars, but all the bottled-up love and emotion has risen to the surface. They cuddle and make love once more. With Danny and Rachel, the hard and fast of rough sex, pure primal fucking, never appealed to them; leave that to the Neanderthals, Danny thinks. Their love is displayed in soft whispers, caresses, and languid kisses. Blame the Casanova in him for knowing how to romance the love of his life.
Danny rubs Rachel's belly affectionately. While they're in this little euphoric bubble, he prays that they did make a baby. He knows once this bubble's burst, he'll be worried sick for weeks about whether she's pregnant. He knows she hates the pill and they had forgone a condom. This was some Eric Williams level stupidity. Danny felt like he needed a slap on the head.
"Danny, I've got to run to the loo. I don't want a UTI lol." Rachel says as she caresses his hair. He begrudgingly moves over allowing her to scoot from under him and roll off the bed. Danny uses this opportunity to venture downstairs to find his phone. He's walking in his boxers, and he's scared shitless when he comes across Catherine lying on Rachel's couch.
"Woah, babe! Announce your presence next time! Especially after ducking my calls." He says pretending to scold her, but Catherine's in no mood for shooting the shit with Danny. She's actually surprised and slightly disgusted that he's here, in his boxers.
"Why are you here Danny? She knew I was coming. Oh, God." The realization of what she walked into hits and she's up ready to give them privacy.
"Woah Woah, Catherine it's fine, let me make you a cup of coffee. Then I'll try to find some pants, just don't look. But I am in fact inside of the house of the woman I was married to for almost 13 years, and I have two children with. Nothing she hasn't seen before."
"I'm sure she saw a lot of it last night, huh." Cath loves Danny's flippant personality. When you removed Steve and his complications out of the equation, Catherine could see herself becoming great friends with Danny.
"Actually, it was this morning." He gives her a shit-eating grin as they migrate to the kitchen. She sits at the island bar as he makes her coffee and cracks open the fridge to make omelets.
"Gross."
"What's gross?" Rachel asks breathily. She appears in Danny's too big button up shirt and hugs him from behind while shaking off Catherine's questioning look.
Catherine and Danny are saved from answering as the front door opens. Fuck. Neither Rachel or Danny have time to compose themselves before they're greeted by Grace, Charlie, and a taken aback Steve. Grace takes one look at her parents who haven't even moved, one look at Catherine, and stalks to her room. Rachel attempts to go after her but is stalled by Charlie who's running to the both of them wanting to be picked up by his father and kissed by his mother.
Steve's mind cannot even compute what's happening. He knew the instant he pulled up to Rachel's that Danny and Catherine were there. Both of their cars were parked outside. At first, he debated coming inside the house, he had planned on dropping the kids off and going to Catherine's to see her and try to talk, but fate had other plans. Entering the house, he was shocked to see Danny in boxers, with Rachel wearing his shirt, hugging. More shocked that Catherine was quite okay watching the two divorcees cuddle when she knew both of their significant others. If circumstances were different, he would ask her about it, but they weren't. She hadn't even looked in his direction even though he knew she could feel the holes his eyes were boring into the back of her head.
"Well Catherine, I shall be ready in a minute. We are going to change, and then really, I'll be ready. I'm looking forward to continuing my kid-free weekend." She says smilingly at Danny. It is his weekend after all. She wonders why the kids are at her house at all, but probably since Danny had been here all night, they wanted to come to their mother's.
The Williams family moves toward the stairs before Danny turns around and says, "play nice!" Steve flips him the bird and Catherine doesn't acknowledge anything has happened, she doesn't even look up.
"Cath…"
"Steve, don't. Please, I can't do this right now." She's already in tears.
"Catherine, please let me explain, please don't shut me out. I need to talk to you. Baby please." He never calls her baby, except when he's fucked up so bad, he's scared he'll lose her. The last time had been Afghanistan. He comes behind her and puts his face in her neck.
"Did you know?" The question comes out in a near whisper.
"No Cath, I didn't. She only told me when you left. Cath, I swear." That doesn't ease the pain she feels in her heart. She wants to run, quit her job and go back to the CIA, but therapy has taught her to at least attempt to detail with her problems head-on at first.
"Cath, how can I fix this? I'll do anything. I need you, I messed up. Tell me how to fix this, please." Steve's crying too. She gets up, and they walk to Rachel's backdoor. She needs air. Each time he tries to get close to her in the backyard, she waves him away. She needs time to process her next move. When she feels calm enough to talk, she approaches him in the grass with red, weary eyes. It breaks his heart.
"Cath, I'm so stupid. We didn't use a condom one time! Just once. I didn't…I just…" He doesn't even continue as he watches the pain in her face. She looks tired. "She's going to the doctor to get confirmation that she is, the tests gave back mixed results." Adding the details of his predicament does not help Catherine, but he wants her to know what he's up against. She takes a sharp breath and bows her head as she pushes out her next words.
"Steve, I can't be around watching you have a baby with someone else; especially her. We have never talked about kids, but I always assumed your babies would be our babies. I can't be with you watching on the side as you experience the birth of your first child when that child isn't mine." She's sobbing now. She knows she needs to say her piece before she loses her nerve.
"I am happy for you, but I can't be 40 years old and not a mother, watching your ex, and you become parents. I love you more than anything in this world, but this is something I can't watch. I wish the best for you two, or I guess three. Maybe we aren't meant to be, every time we find each other, something happens. Let's not do this to each other. I think we need a clean break so you can focus on your child and its mother. A child doesn't deserve to deal with its parent's messy shit." She rambles on as she watches the agony in his face as her words sink in. He reaches out for her, and she flies to him. He's hugging for dear life.
"Aloha, Steve." The last month has aged her more than the Navy, and the CIA combined.
"No! No! No!" Steve screams as she moves away from him to walk back into the house. He's not letting her go. It's selfish, but it will kill him. "Cath, I can't lose you again. I don't know how long I have left. I don't want the next time we see each other it's my funeral."
She turns around, not understanding the implications of his words. "Catherine, they've found evidence of cancerous cells, I got the call today. I've been battling acute radiation poisoning syndrome for the last year." She wants to punch him in the face, fuck him for pulling her right back in. She wants to rip out those cancerous cells with her bare hands. How much more could Steve take in this lifetime?
"Oh my God. Steve! What?!" And just like that, she knows she's not going anywhere. She'll be with him every step of the way. Steve's suffered more injuries than anyone ever should, and she's not about to let the love of her life wither away by himself. He tells her how the radiation and the transplant have affected him, the sickness, the fear of losing his life, the fear of never reconciling with her and them running out of time to figure out things before he goes to an early grave. After what he feels like has been an eternity, but probably has been twenty minutes, he's back to having her in his arms. She's looking out into the distance, and he's looking at her.
"I'm sorry to drop that bomb on you, Cath. I've been meaning to tell you. I guess this was an inconvenient time."
"Ya think, sailor?" She says entertained. Her smile radiates like nothing he's ever seen, it's infectious. He smiles too.
"It was actually a car bomb that gave me radiation poisoning. I'm scared sure, but nothing like how afraid I am to lose you, Lieutenant." He scoops her in his arms and plops himself right into the grass.
"You're so full of it, Commander." She teases. She's worried, but she can tell this isn't the place or the time to get into more detail about his sickness. It's too much to think about all at once.
"Full of love for you, Catherine Rollins." He says with an ear to ear grin.
"Oh gosh." She says before she kisses him passionately. She says right on his lips, "we have so much to tell to Dr. Lee on Tuesday. 14:00, don't be late. I'll see you then." Then she kisses him again before she's up and walking towards the house. She gives him one last look over the shoulder and a little salute. He surprised, he forgot all about therapy, and he didn't expect her to walk away so soon after he'd bared his heart to her.
"Babe come on, I'll make you an omelet, I know you haven't eaten." He hears Danny's voice ring from the back door. He heads inside and ponders at the incredulity of the situation. He's sitting in Rachel's kitchen waiting for Danny as he cooks, with Rachel and Catherine off, doing God knows what.
"Are you and Melissa, uh, through?" He asks. "We are not talking about that right now, Steven," Danny says back instantly.
"Well shit, Danny. You're fucked."
"Thank you, Steven, for pointing out the obvious. You don't know how much I love when you do that, I love it more than anything else." He takes a deep breath before calling for Grace and Charlie to come down for breakfast. Charlie comes barreling in, ready to eat, but Grace is a no-show. He looks at his charging phone to text her and sees she's already left him (and Rachel) a text. "I hate you two. I don't want to live with either of you." Fuck. He heads up to her bedroom and hears her on the phone with his mother, Clara. She ignores his knocks.
As he enters her room, he feels his heartbreak. Shit.
