Just a short one… more a filler than a real episode, but I couldn't go on to the next chapter just like that – especially because it hopefully will be funny.

They tried to live on normally with Danny home again, but it wasn't as easy as they had hoped. Especially Joe had his problems – not with the fact that he wasn't the oldest anymore but with the seriousness Danny had woven around himself like some kind of armor. He didn't speak about the eighteen months, at least not with his siblings.
Which meant that in the first weeks they didn't talk that much at all.

"Will this never end?" Erin sighed as Danny once again left the dinner table for a reason nobody understood. Jamie looked at her angrily. "Let him be!"
"But how long?" Joe murmured thoughtfully, then looked at his father. Frank sighed. "I'll talk to him."
"I'll talk to him!"
For a moment the mood at the table lightened as Mary, Linda and Henry spoke at the same time, and with the same determination. After a short moment of eye-dueling, though, Henry gave in to the women. He knew that his way of talking to a soldier wasn't exactly what his daughter-in-law would call nice and psychologically good. He was a soldier himself, what did she expect from him? "He'll be ready when he's ready, and before you'll get nothing of him" he said – again, as he was doing ever since his oldest grandson had come back. And as ever since he said that, Erin rolled her eyes and Linda smiled at her encouragingly, while Frank sighed deeply.

Mary watched the routine of sorrow. She had tried to leave Danny alone, had tried to treat him like an adult and not like the little boy she still saw in him. She knew him well enough to know that he wanted to be the same person he had left as, he wanted to be the old Danny for his siblings, and for Linda. And she knew, knew it from her own youth, that it was impossible. Frank had changed. Her brother had changed. The challenge was to show Danny that this change didn't make him less loveable.
"Betty, could you help Erin with the dessert?" She ignored her daughter's fuming as she left the table. Betty grinned. "Of course. Come on, Missy, let's work a little bit!"
"Grandma!" Another roll of her eyes – a movement Erin had learnt to love. And with Jack, it always worked.
Not so, of course, with her grandmother.

"Danny?" Mary knocked softly before she opened the door to her eldest's room. "Can I come in?"
Danny shrugged. He didn't look at his mother as she sat down next to him on the bed. His fingers dug deep into his pillow.
"Honey…"
"I'm sorry, mom." His voice was cut shortly just as were his words, even now, more than five weeks after he had come back.
"You don't have to, Danny." Mary's voice was still calm and soft. She knew the edge of fear in her son's voice, the sense of alert that still hadn't fully accepted he was home.
"Yes, I have to! I should be normal now."
"Normal? Danny, what is normal?"

Danny threw his head back in frustration. "Come on, mom! You know what I mean! Don't get to me like Jamie!"

Mary couldn't help smiling. "You talked to Jamie about being normal?"
"No, Jamie talked to me about being normal!" Danny stated, his voice a mixture of tiredness and the admiration he would always have for his baby brother. "He said he hadn't found a definition for normality yet, so whatever I felt as normal would highly probably be right." He snorted.
"Seems like a good thought."
"He's eight years old, mom! He shouldn't think like that!" Another thing that had changed with Danny. He was getting loud in a heartbeat. "What kind of eight-year-old looks out for excuses for his big brother?"
Mary was unimpressed. "Your little brother" she answered calmly, "and he does it because he loves you. Like we all do."

Danny shrugged. "I'm not the same as before."
"And I'm glad you are not."

Now she had his full attention. Though she felt more like crying at the sight of pain in Danny's eyes, Mary managed to smile. "Nobody of us knows what you've been through, Danny. We can't know. And trust me, there's been times enough when I wished I could spare you this."
"Mom, I…"
"I know." She held up her hand to stop his protest, "and I am so glad you're here again, and healthy. I know you need your time, Danny, time to find your way again. It's okay. Life is looking for the right way, that's all it is about. The journey is the reward, and you are so brave and strong walking on it." Gently she put her arms around Danny's shoulders, and for the first time in five weeks he didn't shake her off.
"I don't even know why I left right now" he admitted, "it was just… too much. Too crowded. I feel like…" he stopped for a moment, pondering if he really should open up to his mother.
"I feel like you're all watching me" he whispered eventually, "as if every move I make is checked… I want to be okay for them. Dad and grandpa, they've already been there, I can't disappoint them. And I don't want to frighten Joe or Jamie, they… they look up to me, mom! And I don't want Erin to lose her faith in me. And Linda… and…" he looked away again, tears filling his eyes.

Mary didn't move as her son broke down and cried, not for the first time since he had returned, but for the last in a long time. She forced herself to give him space, to just sit there and wait till he was ready to look at her again. She had seen a child walking out of this room almost two years ago, and now there was a man sitting next to her. A man she couldn't protect by holding him and shielding him from the world, but by letting him walk alone. It hurt more than she had expected. How should she survive this with three other children as well?

"We have watched you" she admitted, "but not to test you, Danny. We were afraid to lose you. Now I know that we won't. You are strong, Danny. You've always been a wonderful son, and now you're a wonderful man. And you've always been and always will be a wonderful brother." She smiled. "And what you will be for Linda – that's your decision alone!"

Danny stared at her. "What?"
Mary stood up, laughing. "I'm still your mother, Daniel. We will stop following your every movement but you should think about the next step. I know you're ready for it."