Chapter 7.
Disclaimer: I do not own the Fosters. I do own the character of Daniel Evans.
Jude's POV.
I sat on the couch in my living room, waiting for Danny and Connor to get there.
It has been a whole year since Connor and I first crossed paths with Danny Evans, and within days of knowing him, he had become our best friend. He acted like an overly affectionate, and extremely protective, and loyal older brother (even though he was younger than both me and Connor). Our time at Anchor Beach has already gotten more tolerable, given that Danny's temper frightened off most of our problems (namely the baseball team).
He stayed over at my house with Connor and me the night after we met him, and we learned that he's probably the coolest guy we'd ever meet.
He knows how to sword fight. He knows how to speak French and Scottish Gaelic. He knows how to write sheet music. He can sing. He knows how to play regular and bass guitars, and even offered to teach Connor how to play bass, and me how to play guitar.
Connor accepted, while I declined because I preferred my drums.
Plus, he is probably the most affectionate guy I had ever met. Always hugging Connor and me.
I was startled from my musing as Connor and Danny thundered through the front door.
I laughed when I notice the Connor was on Danny's back.
"What the hell are you two doing?" I asked exasperatedly.
"I bet him 5 bucks that he couldn't run here with me on his back. I lost." Connor said as he dropped to the ground. Danny stumbled to the couch and fell onto it face first, breathing heavily.
"You alright Danny?"
"Give me a minute." He choked, gasping for breath, "Your boyfriend weighs a ton."
"That's just muscle." Connor shot back.
"Yet I can still beat you in a wrestling match." Danny returned.
"Oh god," I said, "Don't start bickering again. I don't want a headache."
Connor laughed and plopped down next to me on the couch, narrowly avoiding sitting on Danny's feet. He kissed me on the cheek as Danny sat up into a sitting position.
"You two are sickening in your sweetness," He deadpanned, "I swear, one day soon, I will get myself somebody, and THEN you will suffer like I am."
"Callie said the same thing last week." Connor started.
"She walked in on us snuggling." I continued.
"Said she'd need to see a dentist to get the cavities we were causing filled." Connor finished.
Danny glared at us, sending us into a fit of giggles.
"And then there's that! The finishing each other's bloody sentences." Danny said with a playful scowl.
"How about this?" I say jokingly, "You don't complain about our cuteness, and when you get a boyfriend, we won't complain about yours. Because we all know that you will be the same way."
"I know I will be," Danny said, "I was with..."
He stopped talking in the middle of his sentence. His eyes gained a sort of faraway look in them that veiled a thick sadness. He shook his head, presumably to regain control of his thoughts.
"Never mind." He said shakily, before standing and rubbing his head, "If you'll excuse me for a moment."
He hurried from the room, Connor and I staring after him.
That was the fifth time we had seen him do that. Every time Danny almost let something slip about his old life in Scotland, he would sputter to a halt and leave the room for twenty minutes, before returning with bruised knuckles, and red eyes. We knew it was connected to the fact that after a year of knowing him, we had never met his family. He said it was for personal reasons.
After waiting for ten minutes, Connor and I rose quietly and followed him up the stairs to Jude's bedroom.
We found him sitting cross legged on the floor, staring at something in his hands. We crept closer, not wanting to startle him. As we got closer, we noticed that his shoulders were shaking with silent sobs.
"Danny?" Connor called gently.
Danny jumped and spun where he sat. There were tears streaming down his face.
"What's wrong, Danny?" I asked him, "That's the fifth time you've done that. Do you want to talk?"
Danny returned to staring at the objects in his hands. He put them in the inside pocket of his long coat and sighed a deep, suffering sigh...
... And then he shattered.
He broke down into sobs. Loud, wracking sobs. Connor looked at me in realization, and I nodded that I understood.
This was the same way I had cried when Connor caught me cutting myself. When I finally broke down after Jesus died... which meant Danny had lost somebody, and was mourning. We kneeled next to him and wrapped him in a two way hug as he went to pieces. We stayed in that position for at least an hour, as he continued to sob as hard as he could.
When he finally started to calm down, I noticed out of the corner of my eye that Stef, Lena, Callie and Brandon were standing there watching. I jerked my head towards the stairs, giving them an unspoken plea for privacy, which they honored.
Danny finally stopped sobbing, and we moved away to give him some space.
"You wanna talk Danny?" I ask him gently, "You know we're here if you need it."
"I know," Danny chokes, his voice rough from the severity of his sobbing.
He reaches out and wraps his arms around Connor and my shoulders and pulls us closer. He places a kiss on the sides of both of our heads, before leaning his head on Connor's shoulder.
"I don't know what I did to deserve the two of you," He choked, his Scottish brogue thick, "I love you two like you were me own brothers."
"You are our brother," I state firmly, "In everything but blood, not that it matters."
"Which means you can talk to us," Connor told him, "We can tell you've lost somebody. The only time I've ever heard sobs like that was when Jude lost his older brother Jesus a couple of years ago. I'll tell you what I told him then. You don't have to go through it alone."
He stared ahead for a minute before reaching back into his pocket and producing two photographs. He handed them to me and stood, walking only a couple of steps and staring off out the window into the distance. Connor scooted closer to me as we stared at the photos.
"I lost him..." He said. I was shocked at how haunted his voice sounded.
It took me a second to realize which boy was Danny in the first picture, purely because I had never seen him where anything that wasn't black. He was dressed in a pair of ripped blue jeans that had dirt stains on them, and was wearing a ridiculously tight shirt with graffiti style writing on it, with a hooded sweatshirt covering it. He wasn't wearing any shoes. His hair was still long, its curls gone absolutely wild. He was grinning goofily at the camera, his smile innocent and carefree, something I had only ever seen shadows of in his current self.
My breath caught in my throat when I looked at the other boy.
His arm was draped across the shoulder of a skinny kid who shared his grin, albeit with a tooth missing. He was shorter than Danny, he had long wavy blonde hair that curled at the ends, and he had the purest blue eyes. He was wearing a button up collared shirt, jean shorts, and Adidas running shoes.
The second picture showed the two of them, closer to Danny's current age, cuddled up on an old couch, covered up by a large multi color quilt. The boy was asleep, and Danny's lips were pressed to the top of his head, which was now bald. He was giving the sleeping boy a look of deep affection and care, completely unaware of the photograph being taken. There was also an undertone of sadness in his gaze, couple with worry and paralyzing fear. I noticed that the other boy looked extremely frail and sickly, and was very pale.
"His name was Gideon." Danny mumbled, his voice thick with sadness, "I called him Giddy. I was the only one allowed to call him that, too."
He sniffled, and wiped his eyes furiously.
"These are two of only ten photos of me and him together that I have." He said sadly, "Giddy hated having his picture taken."
"Who was he?" I asked.
"My childhood best friend." Danny said, "My first boyfriend. My only boyfriend."
Connor and I shared a quick look.
"He was my everything," He continued shakily, "His mom and mine were old friends, and she and her husband were our neighbors. Giddy and I were born within hours of each other. Our parents always told us that the first thing we did when me met, at only a week old, was smile at each other."
He turned back toward us, a single tear falling down his cheek.
"We were inseparable from the start," He said shakily, still crying softly, "Even as toddlers, we were rarely seen without the other. We were raised as brothers. We realized when we were twelve that it was more than that. Both of our families saw it coming. We were so happy together. We thought we had all the time in the world."
He looked down at the ground.
"Then when we were thirteen and half," He ground out, his voice thick with grief, "He got really sick. We thought it would pass, but it didn't. So we took him to the hospital. The doctors ran the tests, and we found it w-was l-l-leukemia."
I gasped, and grabbed Connor's hand.
"Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia. Thas' what they called it." Danny said, his eyes cloudy, the tears falling heavier the more he spoke, "The most common form found in children. They did everything they could. Chemotherapy. Stem cell and bone marrow transplants. I was a match, so I was his donor. Nothing worked. They gave him a month. He fought for a year, because I begged him not to give up. I begged him not to leave me. I told him that when he went into remission, I would give 'im our first proper kiss. I made him that promise."
I started crying, and a quick glance at Connor confirmed that he had as well. We both were finally starting to understand the depths of Danny's grief. To lose a brother was one thing, but to lose a significant other, who you have known since the days of the cradle, and had never gone two days without contact with, was something else entirely. I couldn't imagine losing Connor to the claws of the reaper. I don't think I could survive that.
"A week before that photo of us on the couch was taken," Danny said shakily, barely suppressing a sob, "They released him from the hospital. They had told us that there was nothing more they could do, and that we should bring him home and make him comfortable. A week after it was taken..."
He was unable to suppress a sob, but he quickly regained as much composure as he could, which wasn't much.
"We were lying down in his bed," Danny sobbed softly, stuttering his words, "We had the covers over us. He told me to hold him, so I did. He started crying. I said; what's wrong, love? He said he didn't want to fight anymore. I asked him what he meant. He said he was tired. He said he was ready for the pain to stop. He said the only reason he had clung to life for so long was because he didn't want to leave me. I told him I didn't want to live without him. He told me to promise him that I would keep going on, even if I had to do it without him, even If I had to learn how to live again. I promised him."
He was slowly losing his composure by the second. Every second he spoke, the worse he shook.
"He told me he loved me for the first time. I didn't hesitate to say it back. He asked me to kiss him, at least once before he was gone. So I did. I held him, and I kissed him..."
His sobs got harder.
"It lasted for five minutes. Five short, cruel minutes. It was our first proper kiss with another person, and our first and last proper kiss with each other. I knew that the moment was only moments away. I knew I was about to lose him."
Connor and I rose and walked to stand on either side of him. We handed him the pictures, and he stared at the one of them smiling together. His whole body was shaking, so we put our hands on his shoulder and squeezed, trying to give him some form of comfort.
"I felt him let out a deep breath against my lips as I felt him stop kissing me back," He sobbed, struggling to get his words out through his sobs "I p-pulled away, and I looked into his eyes. I-I s-s-saw n-n-n-nothing. He stared straight ahead, unseeing. I felt his hand, and it was so cold. He was so pale. He-he w-was g-g-gone. The breath I had felt him let out against my lips was his last."
Neither Connor nor I could stop our own sobs now.
"The only p-person I c-could e-ever t-t-truly l-l-love," He said, sobbing his words out, "D-d-died in my arms, d-during our f-first kiss. I starting s-screaming un-uncontrollably, cli-clinging to his bo-body. His p-parents and m-mine rushed in and pulled me off of him. I sobbed uncontrollably for weeks. A month later we moved here, and I still had no I idea how I was going to live without him."
It suddenly hit Connor and me how recently this had all happened, and how raw the pain still was. Danny turned around and placed a hand on each of our shoulders, giving us a watery smile.
"Then I started at Anchor Beach," Danny said, still sobbing almost uncontrollably, "And I met you two. You were the first two people outside of my family to show me kindness instead of pity. You offered friendship to somebody you had never met. I knew as soon as you both asked if I wanted to sit with you, that you two were special. I knew within ten minutes of meeting the both of you, that I needed you two as friends. Then I went agro on those baseball idiots. Then that night, when I came over for dinner, or the first time since Giddy died, I felt happy. I felt hopeful. When I stayed the night the day after that, I knew that I wouldn't be able to live without you two either. You both went out of your collective way to make me feel welcome, and accepted. I knew then that our bond of friendship, our bond of brotherhood was one that would never be broken."
He gathered us both in a hug.
"I never knew I could love two different people as much as I loved him," Danny stuttered, "Even if not romantically, I do, truly, love the both of you so much. You're like the twin brothers I never had. You showed me that it was possible to enjoy life again. And I promised myself, I vowed to protect the both of you, no matter the cost. And I will. I will not lose you two. That's why I'm so protective of you two when we're out in public. If I lost either of you, or god forbid, both of you... I would truly have nothing left to live for. You two give me something to live for."
We hugged him back and we all broke down into uncontrollable sobs.
"We love you too, brother." Connor gasped out.
"We always will." I said to him through my own sobs, "I promise, you'll never have to be alone again."
We all collectively went to pieces. We curled up together on my bed, holding each other, sobbing, sharing the pain that so desperately needed to be release. We cried ourselves to sleep in each other's arms, and we stayed that way until the Moms woke us up the next day.
We were leaving the house to go to the beach for the day when Danny pulled us to the side.
"Wait here."
He pulled out his phone and dialed it. He took a couple of steps away and talked for only about ten seconds.
"My parents are going to take us to the beach." Danny said.
Connor and I were shocked, but at the same time relieved that Danny was letting us in even further than he had last night.
"You know my past now," He said, smiling at us, "It's time."
Ten minutes later, a black Chevy Suburban pulls up and a tall, skinny, short haired man, and a short, rail thin woman in a blue dress step out and approach us.
"Danny, darling, are you alright?" Mrs. Evans asked concerned, "It sounded urgent on the phone."
"Everything alright son?" Mr. Evans asked, equally concerned.
"Everything's fine." Danny said with a wide smile. He turned around and walked to stand in between Connor and me.
He put his arms around us, and pulled us close.
"I wanted you two to meet my new brothers. Jude, and Connor." He said, nodding his head towards us in turn.
Danny's parents looked at us with confusion.
"Jude, Connor, this is my dad Richard, and my mom Judith."
They looked at Danny questioningly.
"Why did it take so long to introduce us to your friends?" Richard asked.
"I know you guys have been worried lately, that I never dealt with..." He started to say, but started to choke on his words. He cleared his throat and continued, "...With what happened to Giddy."
His parents gasped.
"I hadn't even said his name aloud since his funeral." He continued, "But last night, I told Connor and Jude. And they held me as I fell to pieces. And then they fell to pieces with me. They shared my pain."
He smiled at both of us before he turned back and addressed his parents.
"I finally have something in my life again, that's worth living for."
Judith and Richard moved forward and wrapped us all in an embrace.
When I was adopted, I gained a new family.
With this embrace, I knew that I had gained another.
AN: And Jude and Connor finally learn the sad and painful truth about Danny's past. I found this chapter very hard to write, and never thought I could get so emotional with my characters. I literally sobbed while writing this chapter. I cried at least as hard as Danny does in the story. Please leave a review, with any ideas or prompts. Any kind of review is welcome. Even if they are anonymous.