Though Daniel William's fourteen years of life had seen their fair share of drama and incident, he had never before woken up in the certain knowledge that he would remember this day for as long as he lived.
It was the morning of Danny's third day in New York, and although he was still horrendously jet-lagged, he found himself unable to sleep. He lay in bed with the covers drawn up to his waist and his hands resting behind his head, his bright blue eyes scanning over the tiny cracks and imperfections in the hotel room ceiling. He could hear Katie's soft, deep breathing in the bed on the other side of the room but paid it no attention. What was going to happen today?
He knew whatever happened, good or bad, he wouldn't be the same person he was when he went to bed last night. This time tomorrow he could be part of a whole new family. He could have brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles. A mum and a dad, a whole new life. Or he could have nothing. And that terrified him more than anything.
Because for all of his talk, for all of Katie's reassurances, he really had no idea what would happen today. He hoped with all his heart the Bings would accept him and believe his claims, or at least be willing to take a DNA test. He could understand if they wouldn't though, despite how sure he felt that he was their son, he still had no proof apart from a timeline that made sense and a handful of jumbled memories.
What if they didn't believe him? What if they just sent him away? Danny couldn't bear the thought. He didn't know what he would do if that happened. He had now convinced himself so completely that he was Matthew Bing he knew he wouldn't be able to handle a flat out rejection from the Bings. It hurt to even think about .
If he wasn't Matthew Bing, who was he? Who had he been before he was Daniel Williams? If it turned out he wasn't Matthew Bing he knew he would feel so lost, and so unsure. All of his instincts were telling him he was Matthew.
But at the same time, what if he was Matthew? Then what? After what was sure to be a joyous reunion what would happen? Where would he live? His whole life was in London. He went to school there, his friends were there, his mum was there.
His mum.
What about her? Danny had been so caught up in the whole idea of finding his birth parents he had barely spared a thought for his mum. Would she feel Danny was trying to replace her? Guilt flooded through him. He could never replace her. As imperfect and annoying as she was she would always be his mum. But what about Chandler and Monica? Would he look to them as parents? Would they see him as their son? Or would it be an awkward, forced kind of relationship.
Danny suddenly felt claustrophobic. He wriggled out the sheets and quietly padded over to the balcony, shutting the sliding glass door behind him. The sound of cars below him soothed him. If he closed his eyes he could pretend he was home. He could pretend none of this was happening. Part of him, a small part admittedly, wished he never found that profile. His life would be so much easier if he didn't. But he knew if he didn't find out about Matthew Bing he would spend the rest of his life wondering about his past.
Danny took a deep breath of the warm summer air. He had to go see the Bings, if not for himself for Matthew's family. He owed that. Everyday that passed was another day without their son, and although Danny was years away from having any children of his own, he knew the pain of losing a child, especially in those circumstances would be immense.
He stretched and ran a hand through his hair, suddenly feeling exhausted. There was no point in worrying, he mused as he walked back inside and locked the balcony door. He couldn't change anything. He had to go. He would regret it for the rest of his life if he didn't.
And with that Danny crawled into bed, falling into a restless sleep.
"Mum please"
"No Daniel I've already told you-"
"But mum"
"Daniel" Her voice took on a tone that made it clear to Danny the argument was over. He sighed in defeat and shot Katie a hopeless look, who just shrugged in a 'what can you do?' sort of way. Penelope gave one final warning look toward her son but was stopped from saying any more by the approach of a smartly dressed man. He smiled kindly as he approached the small group and stuck out a plump hand for Danny's mother to shake.
"Penelope Williams, welcome to NYU, such an honour to have you here." The man had a wheezy voice and white hair that reminded Danny of an aged dandelion clock.
"I'm honoured to be here professor Pearson" Penelope smiled before pointing to the two teenagers hanging back slightly. "This is my son Daniel and his friend Katie" She introduced, pointing to them in turn. The pair greeted him politely and shook his hand before they were led out of the building toward the lecture theatres.
"What are we gonna do?" Katie hissed as they followed the adults onto the crowded pavement. Danny shrugged weakly, his mother had said outright that they were not to leave the lecture hall at all today, which had made it decidedly more difficult for Danny to visit the Bings.
"We're just gonna have to sneak out" he whispered, trying not to draw his mother's attention. It was probably pointless, the street was so busy that she wouldn't have been able to hear their conversation even if she was trying to listen in.
"How? It's a lecture, the lights'll be on, your mum will be able to see the whole audience."
Danny swore under his breath. Today was his only chance to get away from his mum for any length of time. If they didn't go today Danny knew the whole trip would be a complete waste of time.
"Just sit as far back as we can"
"At the back! Dan-"
"Look mum got invited here by the university" He interrupted her quickly "That means she's quite a high profile guest right?"
"Yeah?" Katie replied, shooting a look at the adults ahead.
Danny lowered his voice as they walked out of the crowds and into another university building. "She's an important guest for the uni, so they'll give her a big lecture theatre to use right?"
"I guess? But what does this have to do with-"
"Kate big lecture theatres always have doors at the back, basic health and safety. So we just sit next to the door furthest away from mum."
"Yeah but Dan she'll still-" A sharp jab in the ribs interrupted her. Danny sent her a pointed look before she do anything more than look offended.
"Here's the lecture hall" The academic stopped in front of a set of large double doors. Danny peered around his mother and through the small window in the door, there had to be almost six hundred seats in there. Perfect. "The students will arrive here at nine thirty for their lecture, I'll introduce you and then you may begin. Please be prepared for many questions from the students, they are of course honoured to have a lecturer of such reputation as yourself."
Danny watched in disgust as his mother let out a laugh and placed her hand on the academic's arm.
"No problem Dr Pearson" She replied. The man turned slightly red and Danny could've sworn he giggled.
"Please, call me Arthur." At that Danny couldn't help but share a wide eyed look of horror with Katie, who bit her lip to stop from laughing.
The look of disgust didn't leave Danny's face as Dr Pearson led the group into the lecture hall and started helping Penelope set up her presentation. Katie and Danny began wandering up and down the hall, scoping out the best possible exit. The hall had two aisles going from the stage to the back wall, and a wide horizontal one halfway up. There were doors either side of the horizontal aisles at the front and middle, and another at the back.
"Where should we sit?" Katie asked quietly, very aware that her voice could carry across the room.
Danny looked around quickly.
"The doors in the middle are our best bet"
"Not the back?"
"Not if the lights are on, because we'd have to walk up the main aisle and then to the middle. If we sit near the middle door we can slip out a bit easier."
Katie nodded. "Go near the door on the left"
The pair wandered in that direction. "Why the left?" Danny asked
"Well think about it" At Danny's blank stare she rolled her eyes. "We came in on the left side and had to go through a bunch of corridors right?"
"Yeah?" Danny answered, not quite sure where she was going with this.
"Its a building full of lecture halls, I'm willing to bet the layout is the same on this floor as it is on the one below so-"
"So we can get out quicker" Danny finished for her.
Katie nodded and sent a quick look down to the two adults. Confident they weren't paying the pair of teenagers any attention she added. "And also it's a corridor, not really where people tend to congregate, especially not while lectures are going on, so it will be quiet when we open the door and won't attract your mum's attention." Danny grinned as he shuffled into the seat directly behind the door and dumped his bag on the desk. The desk was long and stretched the length of the aisle. Underneath it were two horizontal poles for students to rest their bags on.
"Dan are you mad? Why are you sitting against the wall, we'd have to get past a whole row of people. That's not subtle!"
Danny rolled his eyes "Katie look under the desk, you can fit through there right?"
Katie looked doubtful but the approach of Danny's mother stopped her voicing any of those concerns.
"Are you two settled in?" She asked them. The pair nodded as Danny started pulling out random pieces of homework his mother had forced him to bring.
"Yep, we thought we'd start with" he took a quick glance down to see what he had pulled out. "with french, right Kate?" Katie nodded and accepted a pad of paper.
Penelope looked at the pair oddly, as if she knew they were hiding something. She gave one suspicious look before shaking her head slightly.
"Ok then" she said as she pulled out some bills from her pocket. "This is for lunch, Dr Pearson has invited me to join him and some of the other professors for a meal, so I won't be joining you. The cafeteria is just down the stairs and to the right."
"Ms Williams?" Katie said quickly, "Um.. would it be alright if Dan and I stayed in the cafeteria after lunch to finish our homework? Danny promised he'd explain some maths that I just can't get my head round. And we can't talk here so…" Danny nodded beside her, going along with the lie.
Penelope studied the pair for a second then let out a breath.
"Ok" She gave half the bills to Katie, but pulled it slightly out of Danny's outstretched hand and looked him in the eyes. "Daniel stay out of trouble" She warned "I mean it, any funny business and you'll be grounded for months. Do you understand?"
Danny nodded and accepted the money with a timid 'thank you'. Guilt flooded through him and he looked at Katie out of the corner of his eye, who was suddenly very interested in her shoes. They both knew perfectly well going all the way to Westchester to tell a family you're their long lost son would probably not count as staying out of trouble.
"I'll call you when I finish at 4, then we can go out for dinner or something, sound good?"
The pair nodded and waved as she made her way to the front of the room.
It was only once she was distracted by the arrival of groups of students that Danny let himself grin.
"Brilliant, she's not expecting us back 'till four! We might actually be able to do this without her noticing."
Katie smiled and looked at the students filing in through the door in front of them. "Well if we don't get caught leaving then yeah"
"Oh don't be such a pessimist, it'll be fine" he assured her. The last few university students were trickling in at this point and the room started to go quiet as Dr Pearson introduced Penelope. Danny rummaged around in his bag for a pen and flipped to the back of his French book.
Give it half an hour before we start to move
He scribbled down in is messy scrawl then passed the note to his right. Katie nodded, checking the time on her phone then grabbed the pen and wrote down in her much neater writing
Who's going first?
Danny started writing and Katie looked down at the stage. Penelope was now introducing herself and talking about her work. Danny pushed the note under her nose and she grabbed the pen off him.
You go first, once you're out text me if the coast is clear. I'll text you if she notices, if she does come back and we can just pretend you went to the toilet or something.
Katie nodded and checked the time on her phone, showing it to Danny a second later. He nodded and shuffled in his seat slightly, moving his foot up and down between the floor and the first metal pole experimentally to test out the size of the gap. Katie was definitely small enough to wriggle through the gap, but he wasn't too sure about himself. Katie sent him a reassuring look and wrote quickly on the French book
It'll be fine, I'll take the bag so you don't have to worry about it.
He smiled at her and slowly, quietly started to put his books and pens into the backpack. Danny shot a quick look at his mother, who was busy explaining some sort of chart he couldn't even begin to decipher to the students. Katie started to move and he knew it was go time. Before she could shuffle out of her seat however, Danny put his hand on her shoulder.
"Put the bag down first" He whispered. She nodded and bent down in her seat, sliding the bag in the small gap between the floor and the metal pole. Danny almost laughed to himself as he wondered why something so simple as moving a bag could make him feel so anxious. He watched as his mother flipped to a new slide, his hand poised to nudge Katie if Penelope so much as looked in their direction. She then straightened up, and gave the bag one last nudge with her foot to get it onto the horizontal aisle. The metal zip from the front pocket hit the metal pole with a soft 'clang' that sounded impossibly loud as it echoed round the hall. The pair froze as a couple students looked toward the noise, but Penelope didn't look up. Almost simultaneously Danny and Katie let out sighs of relief, sharing a look before Katie started to shuffle down in her seat. She moved to the left until she was almost completely on Danny's seat, then waited as her chair flipped up, giving her more room to wiggle out. Katie moved into the new gap and sat on the floor, straightening her legs out and moving them under the horizontal pole. She shuffled under the gap and lay down once her hips passed the pole, sliding the rest of the way there. A triumphant grin broke out on her face once she was lying on the horizontal aisle and she sat up quickly, picking up the backpack and shrugging it on. The soft 'thud' of something moving in the bag made them both wince, but apart from the few students who had been watching Katie's escape with curious eyes, nobody paid it any attention.
She shuffled to the door and only stood up once she was barely a foot away, then opened the door quietly and slipped outside. Danny grinned as the door closed softly behind her and looked down at his mother. She remained oblivious to the missing teenager. The only people who seemed to notice Katie's departure were the students further down in the row, who were shooting the odd bemused look but otherwise seemed focused on the lecture.
Danny pulled his phone out of his pocket and once checking it was on silent, sent Katie a text confirming her exit had gone unnoticed. The five minutes he sat waiting for Katie to reply felt more like five hours. Every one of his mother's movements put him on more phone finally lit up softly, but Danny's smile changed into a frown as he read it.
There's a huge group of people just outside left door, use right or she'll notice.
Danny bit his lip as he ran a hand through his hair. He would have to cross the two aisles to get to the door on the right hand side. He knew that if he crawled right behind the last row of seats in front of the horizontal aisle he wouldn't be seen by his mother unless she caught him crossing the gap between the columns of seats. He just prayed that the inevitable stares of the people sitting on the upper section of the lecture hall wouldn't draw her attention. Danny started to slide out his seat and onto the floor while he pondered what to do. He could try crawl along the horizontal aisles and pray he wasn't caught by his mother. Or he could just walk out. He knew walking out would be obvious and he would be seen, but it's not like his mother could just stop a lecture to ask him where he was going. He knew that this lecture would end at half twelve, when she would then go for lunch with the Professors here. He could just send her a text to say he was going to the cafeteria or something.
Danny slowly slid underneath the bar, and for once in his life was thankful he was small and skinny. He crawled to the seats in front of him where he knew he was out of view and then moved to the first aisle. He poked his head around and waited until she turned to face the screen before he shuffled across. The waited for any indication that she had noticed. A falter in her speech, or a pause. Nothing. With a sigh of relief he quick crawled to the next aisle and waited. With every minute that passed Danny felt more and more tense. He was waiting for his mother to start explaining a graph, or turn on a video. He could feel the eyes of the students sitting in the back section of the theatre on him, but paid them no attention. He just hoped that his other wouldn't either.
Danny had been sitting there for almost ten minutes when he finally heard his mother heels clicking against the wooden stage. He knew this meant she was going to her computer and would pay the crowd no attention. Before he could overthink what he was about to do he jumped up and almost ran to the door, slipping through it and closing it as softly and quickly as he could. He didn't look back to see if his mother had noticed his exit but ran around the corner and to Katie, who was leaning against the wall.
"Did she notice you left?" Katie asked, as she quickly handed him his backpack.
"Don't know, let's get out of here though." The pair walked, almost ran down the corridor and around a corner, then straight into something. It was only when the object let out an exclamation of surprise that Danny realised they had walked straight into a person. The man's briefcase flew out of his hand and landed on the floor with a mighty crash. It burst open and papers flew everywhere, skidding across the mercifully empty corridor.
"Sorry sir!" The pair exclaimed simultaneously as they quickly picked up the scattered papers.
"Are you alright sir?" Katie asked as she handed the man a pile of paper. "I'm sorry, Are you ok?"
The man looked up from his hunched position on the floor and at Katie. He had dark brown hair, with flecks of grey here and there. Round, wire glasses covered his large brown eyes
"It's fine" The man said with a kind smile and started brushing off his clothes as he accepted the papers.
Danny approached from behind Katie with his own pile of papers. "Are you sure you're ok sir?"
"Yes, don't worry I'm-" The man froze when he laid eyes on the younger boy, his smile faltering slightly. He was staring with a shocked expression at Danny, who was starting to feel uncomfortable under his gaze. If he noticed Danny's discomfort he didn't do anything, but continued to look searchingly.
Katie cleared her throat and the man snapped out of his trance, a touch of red on his cheeks. He missed the grateful look Danny sent Katie as he accepted the pile of papers from Danny's outstretched arms.
"I'm fine, are you guys ok?" He asked quickly, his eyes going back to Danny with a curious expression on his face. Danny looked at the man with his eyebrows scrunched up a little, he couldn't help but feel he looked familiar, a bit like when he recognised an actor on TV, but couldn't place what he'd seen them in before. He had no idea why he felt that way about the man though.
"We're fine" Katie answered for the two of them, handing over the last of the paper. There was an awkward pause and the man scratched the back of his head. He looked like he wanted to say something. But didn't know what. He pointed to the left " Well I should-"
Danny and Katie nodded and moved out his way. "Sorry again for running into you" Katie added as he closed his briefcase and walked past them. "Oh and sir?" He turned around, his eyes going to Danny even though it was Katie who was talking. "Umm do you mind telling us how we can get to Washington Square Park?"
He nodded and gave them some quick directions before getting one last look at Danny. Their eyes met for the briefest of moments and something clicked in Danny's mind. He knew this man. He didn't know how, or where from. But he was certain he knew the man. The man broke the eye contact first. He looked confused, but Danny could see a flicker of pain in his eyes.
He then walked round the corner and out of sight. Katie waited until her and Danny had made their way out the building before she said anything.
"That was weird, the man was looking at you like he'd seen a ghost!"
Danny just nodded, not quite sure what to think of their run in with the man. Something about him was familiar, he just didn't know what. "Yeah" He agreed quietly.
Katie looked at him oddly. "You don't know him do you?"
"I…I don't know" The confused look was still there from when he first looked at the man. "He looked… familiar." Danny was absorbed in his own thoughts but didn't fail to notice the looks Katie was sending him. He knew if he looked at her she would start to question him, so he kept his eyes firmly on the ground. He wandered into a nearby Starbucks without even thinking about it. He could still feel Katie's eyes on him, but as they got in line she seemed to realise he wasn't going to talk. After a bit of confusion from Katie, ("All the money looks exactly the same, how am I supposed to know which bill is which?") they bought a drink each and wandered into the park.
"Ok we have six hours before we need to meet mum back here" Danny stated, pulling up a map on his phone. "Two hours to get there and two hours to get back."
"Two hours?" Katie asked incredulously as they found a spot in the shade and sat down. "It won't take that long will it?"
"Probably not, but neither of us know where we really are, and it gives us time to get lost."
Katie nodded. "So that gives us- well you- two hours to convince the Bings"
Danny took a deep breath and ran a hand through his hair. "Yep"
Katie looked at her best friend. He was swirling the ice in the bottom of his drink around, looking the people around him go about their business.
"What are you gonna say to them?" She asked. Danny let out a breath and shook his head.
"I still don't know, how do you tell someone you're their lost long son? I can't exactly go up to them and go hi, sorry to bother you, but I think I'm Matthew Bing."
There was a loud gasp behind them, making their heads whip back towards the noise. The man they had run into earlier was standing behind them, half behind a tree.
"Matthew?" He breathed just loud enough for them to hear. He walked towards the pair, looking completely shocked. "Is it you?"
I'm so sorry it's taken me this long to update! I re-wrote this entire chapter because I wasn't happy with where it was going. I'm still not too happy but I want to just get it out the way so I can move onto a more interesting part.
Either way I hope you enjoy, and thank you to everyone who reviewed, followed or favourited. It's unbelievably encouraging and just makes me want to write more.
ChocoholiclikeLupin x