Moving In-Emotional Overload

Lacey and Jo had worked for two days cleaning out the spare storage room to make a bedroom for Danny.

"It isn't as nice as he's used to. I'm sure." Lacey fluffed a pillow as she nervously glanced around the small room.

"Danny spent five years in juvie, Lacey. He also slept in an abandoned church once. This will be fine." Jo placed her hands on her hips. "I think it is a nice bedroom."

Lacey bit her lip as she stared at Jo. "Can I ask you a personal question that I've never asked but really need to know?"

Jo sat down on the twin bed. "Sure." She patted the place beside her. "Ask away."

"How did you get over Danny?" Lacey blinked a few times. "I've tried but he's ...he's always there like this haunting memory I can't quit thinking about."

"For starters, I never had a kid by him. I never had sex with him either. To be honest, we never kissed. The most Danny and I shared was a hug and a quick hand squeeze. He thought he wanted me but when the thing with Charlie happened, Danny realized how much he loved you and I was only the girl he thought of as a friend. Danny talked to me and said he kept thinking about you when the gunshot went off. You're the one he had embraced trying to protect when it all was said and done. I knew right then and there that it had always been you and always would be. " Jo admitted. "Charlie got the help he needed. Danny and I drifted apart because he wanted to get to know his brother. Well our brother. I didn't. I mean the guy held a knife to my neck. Brother or not, I didn't want him around me or anything to do with him. Mom even kept getting to know Charlie a thing I didn't need to know."

"Thanks." Lacey chuckled. "You were no help at all but thanks."

That evening, Danny moved in. Samuel and Lacey went out for dinner to give Danny time to move in without them being there. Thomas went with them. Phoebe had work to do with Tyler on an independent film so she was away in New York City. Jo was there to let Danny in and show him to his room and around the house. Danny showed up after a long day of business meetings.

Danny breathed in and out. Then he just finally gave up to exhaustion as his body finally allowed sleep in his new bedroom.

"Hi, Mister."

Danny popped his eyes open. "Hi. Who are you?"

"Marie." The little girl smiled. "Marie Lacinda Masterson Penasco . Who are you?"

Danny sat up on his bed. He turned to stare at the little girl. "Are Jo and Rico your parents?"

"Yes." The little girl pretended to pour a cup of tea from her plastic teapot. She handed it to Danny. "Name please. Because I'm not allowed to talk to strangers."

"Danny." Danny jutted up his eyebrow as the little girl pulled a small chair up to the table placed in front of the bed. Did this little girl turn his bedroom into a playhouse? Or what?

"I had a hamster named Danny." The little girl pretended to sip her tea. "But a stray cat ate it."

"Oh. Sorry." Danny rubbed the back of his neck. Didn't Jo or Rico check on their own kid?

"Not me." The girl smiled. "I got to keep the cat. I named it Snowball. But dad kept calling it Sisio for some reason."

"Socio?" Danny laughed.

"Yeah. That's what I said. Sisio." The girl bounced over to sit on Danny's knee. "Sisio would let you pet him one minute then attack you the next. So daddy named him that."

"Ummm." Danny felt strange just having a kid climb on him.

He wasn't exactly an emotional person as of yet. Years of emotions suppressed due to Lacey being out of his life perhaps even making him unlovable.

"I think I love you." Marie scooted closer.

"Really?" Danny laughed at the chubby four year old. She may have looked like Rico but she was definitely like her mother.

"Yes. Because you remind me of Tommy." The girl grinned. "I'm going to marry Tommy someday."

"You are?" Danny laughed as he tucked a stray hair behind the little girl's ear.

"Yep." She crossed her arms.

"I'm Tommy's daddy." Danny didn't know if he should tell the little girl that. But he wanted to make someone realize it. Even if it was a girl no older than three or four. She seemed older. Just didn't look it.

"You look like him." Marie giggled. "He's pretty too."

"Marie Penasco." Jo came stomping up the stairs. "I told you to stay in the living room with Tommy."

"Tommy's over there. He wanted to come up here. So I brought him." Marie pointed her chubby finger to the corner that Thomas seemed to be hiding in.

"Danny." Jo bounded over. She almost knocked her kid off his lap with a huge hug. Jo figured that it was better to not be nervous and act like the strange meeting never happened the other day.

"Good to see you too, Jo." Danny patted Jo's back.

"He's Tommy's daddy." Jo explained to Marie.

"Duh." Marie climbed off Danny's knee. She didn't like being squished between the two adults.

Jo took the opportunity to smack the back of Danny's head. "Jerk."

"Hey." Danny rubbed his head.

"Yeah, right. It didn't hurt." Jo shook her head and rolled her eyes. "But you hurt Lacey. She cried half the night before the meeting with the lawyers."

"I didn't want her to cry." Danny admitted. "But…" He sighed. "It's a lot. I've missed a lot. It was all bottled up. All of it. She kept Thomas from me." He whispered remembering Thomas was hidden in the corner. "I didn't want to scare her into thinking I was taking him from her. I just wanted my rights to see him."

"You could have spoke to her and not made this big show of things." Jo stated as she watched her daughter pretend to pour more tea.

Danny blinked. "I was angry. I was so angry that the one person I could trust the most. Had kept something so big from me. I have a son. A son that is frightened of me. So afraid, he hides in a corner."

"Lacey thought it was best." Jo rubbed Danny's shoulder.

"I know. I do. Just like I know she was lied to and hurt by what Rachel told her." Danny leaned back. "Just because Lacey thought it was best. Am I not supposed to resent it? Do I just have to say all is okay? Even when it hurts like h#ll."

"I guess not. But Lacey hurts too. So does Thomas." Jo explained. "They need you, Danny. No matter what Lacey may say. They both need you."

"I know that." Danny cleared his throat. "I need her too."

"What?" Jo asked confused. Did Danny just say he needed Lacey?

"Marie, could you take Tommy in the other room?" Danny asked sweetly.

"Yes." Marie took Thomas's hand. They walked away.

"Okay, they're gone. Spill." Jo rubbed down Danny's back.

"I was always pushing back all the emotions I had for Lacey. Never having her in my life wasn't even at all thinkable. It was easier to shut off my emotions and throw myself into business. I felt so disconnected. The only emotion I kept was the love for Lacey. I was afforded that luxury. That one emotion was all that I allowed myself. The one emotion that no matter how much I tried to remove from my life. It remained." Danny sighed. "It was so intense seeing her again .When I saw Lacey for the first time in four years, I felt my heart was going to leap from my chest. Then Trevor was with her. I was so jealous I wanted to pop his head off at the neck. I kept myself in check." Danny laughed. "He's a big guy. He'd probably taken me down."

"Danny, she cares for you." Jo started to explain. "It won't change no matter who she is seeing because she has a child by you."

Jo wasn't sure about Trevor and Lacey as of yet. He seemed to be around a lot. Perhaps, Trevor was more than a blind date now.

" I admit I am being irrational." Danny clinched his fists together. "But what am I supposed to do with all this hate and anger that I have with what Lacey did to me? And the love I still can't stop feeling for her?"

"Wow. I never thought that you were still harboring feelings for Lacey. Emotional overload. Huh?" Jo scooted back against the wall.

"You have no idea." Danny opened one eye to look at Jo. "Finding out I have a kid is really putting me into an emotional mess."

"Why don't you just let it out? Cry on my shoulder if you want." Jo shrugged. "Like when we were teens and Lacey broke up with you because you were a jerk."

"I don't cry any more." Danny stated matter of fact.