In the midst of chaos, stars are born.

As soon as the holidays start, Dani packs her bags, Lindsay and herself of to Spain, where they arrive just in time to witness the birth of Analia, a healthy baby girl who weighs just over 7 pounds and looks the spitting image of her mother. Jeanette and Augusto are exhausted as much as overjoyed and overwhelmed, but they still find time to make Dani and Lindsay feel at home.

Dani instantly likes Barcelona, its busy street life, its lively inhabitants. She visits some of the main tourist attractions with Lindsay, but most of the time she stays home with Jeanette and the baby. Lindsay's out befriending all the kids in the neighborhood and pretty soon becomes thick as thieves with a young Spanish boy named Fernando. One night Dani sees them kissing on the porch and she tells her daughter, "I you elope too, I will kill you!", but she's smiling, happy that Lindsay is having a good time and stopped being angry at her for Ray Jay leaving.

"Gah, mom, it's just a summer romance, nothing to worry about," Lindsay quips in a mock teenage huff, before kissing her mother goodnight and going to bed.

In between outings and baby care Jeanette forces Dani to tell her everything - everything, Santino! - that's happened. And so Dani talks. About Matt and getting back together. About her promise to have his baby and it still not feeling right. She tells Jeanette this while Analia is stretched out blissfully on her lap, indulging in sleeping beautifully the way only babies can. "I mean, I look at her, and she's gorgeous, Jeanette. She's gorgeous and lovely. But I don't want a baby anymore. Or at least I didn't want a baby with Matt."

"So does that mean you're not upset he's starting a family with Noelle now?"

"I'm not sure," Dani answers truthfully. "It feels like I should be heartbroken about it, but I'm not. I'm sad, about the way everything turned out, yes. I feel empty. That's shock, of course. But the strange thing is: since I've been here, I've barely thought of Matt at all. I don't know what that means."

"Maybe that means he really just was your rebound guy after all. You wanted to be in love with him more than you actually were..", Jeanette says, handing her a glass of red after putting Analia in a nearby crib.

Dani needs several more glasses to broach the subject of Nico and even then she can barely make sense of it to Jeanette. She remembers the conversation they had in the Hawks' hallway all of a sudden, after the kiss and her avoiding him for weeks. "Should we talk?," he'd asked, sensing her confusion, her inner turmoil, raising his eyebrow the way he did. "No," she'd said. "Not until I figure out what is is I want to say." Months later she still doesn't know what she wants to say. Right now she only knows that not being friends with him anymore the way they used to be, jars. And that she does think of him. That she misses their easy banter. Though what she really misses is a significant other in her life, someone she can buy Christmas presents for and kiss good morning, someone who listens to her for a change, as a counterweight to her always listening to everyone else. The truth is that she has no idea if Nico does any of these things, or if they're all far too common for him. If, once he gets over the novelty of her, she won't be too common for him.

T.K. calls about a dozen times while Dani's in Barcelona. He never says in so many words, but Dani knows T.K. misses her, that, even though he's doing much better after his rehab, part of him clings to her out of fear that he might relapse. "So Dr D," T.K. says over the phone, "have you heard? Matt has now moved in with this reporter. Half the team wants to kill him for dumping you over that chick."

Dani sighs. "T.K. please! Just tell everyone to calm down, okay? I'm fine. We're fine. In the end it just wasn't meant to be, I guess."

"Wow, Dr D, you're being a bigger, eh, man about it than I would be. So you been gettin' it on with some cute Spanish dude or what? Bit of revenge sex?"

"Jeezes, T.K., I'm here with my friend, who's just had a baby, and my daughter's here too. I'm not gonna go about dating some random guys!"

"Come on, Dr D. You're way too feisty and too young to be sitting on the fence. Oh, and by the way, guess who's asked about you?"

"Who?"

"Nico!"

"Oh… He's still there then?"

"Sure, he's still here, where else would he be?"

"Alright."

"So? You don't want to know?"

"Fine, T.K., tell me."

"Well, he was in my car after practice, all stealth and shit, Nico-style, you know? And I'm thinking, damn, something bad's up, but he just asked if I'd been in touch with you. And then he wanted to know how you were, you know."

"Oh. And what did you say?"

"Not much. That we talked on the phone and that you're fine, enjoying the sun and Spain and all that. You know, Dr D?"

"What?"

"I think Nico likes you."

"…"

"Cat got your tongue, Dr D? It's not like you to be lost for words. Could it be? Are you?" T.K. bursts out laughing. "You like him too?! Oh, that is good. Hahaha. That's just ace! Dr D and Nico, sitting in a tree, K I S S.."

"T.K. I swear to God, I am hanging up on you NOW!"

"Alright, Dr D, talk to you soon! Byeee! "

§

A week before they're scheduled to fly home, Dani sits on the porch of Gusto's and Jeanette's house one morning when she receives a phone call from none other than Juliette Pittman.

"Dr Santino?", Juliette says, a tremor in her voice. "Please, this is silly. Talk to Ray Jay."

Dani can hear the phone being passed over and then hears her son's voice, after a month of non-communication.

"Mom," Ray Jay says, sounding muffled like he's about to cry. "Mom, please don't put the phone down. I wanted to talk to you. I've been meaning to call so many times before, but then I though you might still be angry and I didn't."

"How are you, Ray Jay? Is everything alright?"

"Paris, mom! It's amazing! The bureau's amazing too. Fantastique! See, I already speak some French. I'm learning so much, mom. Please, don't be mad at me anymore."

Dani sighs. "I'm just worried, Ray Jay. What about college? What about your education?"

"I'll do it, mom, I promise. Next year. But this is the best work experience I could hope for. Please, mom, you have to believe me. Why don't you? Maybe you should come and see for yourself?"

It takes some extra pleading from both Juliette and Lindsay, but in the end Dani agrees to switch plane tickets and leave Barcelona a day early for Paris and afterwards she's glad for it. The fashion bureau Juliette has set up is booming, and the once so fickle, addiction-prone girl seems to finally have found her calling. Juliette looks better and less thin when she collects Lindsay and Dani from the Charles de Gaulle airport, explaining how they're in the midst of preparing their first fashion show so Ray Jay needed to stay at the bureau, and Ray Jay… Dani's mouth practically falls open when she sees her son running about like he owns the place, giving directions to designers, models and assistants like he's done it all his life and half in French to boot.

Then Ray Jay sees them and there's hugging and some tears and some whispered apologies, and by the time Juliette has taken them all out to dinner that evening and they're strolling along the Seine afterwards, Dani thinks she may be able to reconcile herself with this sabbatical her son decided to take. There's a moment, when out of the corner of her eye Dani thinks she sees Nico standing on one of the bridges nearby, looking in their direction, but when she turns to take a better look, he's gone, leaving Dani to wonder is she's now becoming so obsessed with him that she starts seeing him even when he's not there.

§

"So, the holiday was nice and Paris was nice too, and Ray Jay's doing fine," Dr Gunner says on their first meeting after Dani's return from Europe. "The real question is: how are you feeling, Danielle?"

"Fine," Dani says, not folding her arms over her chest.

"Yeah?," Dr Gunner lifts an eyebrow at her.

"Weird, I know, after everything that's happened. But I feel better, about the whole Ray Jay thing, now that I've seen him, now that I'm sure Juliette's not just dragging him from one drug party to the next."

"And Matt?"

"Matt is… Matt."

"Danielle…"

"Aargh, what do you want me to say? I doubt he's happy. But he'll be a dad soon enough and that will make him happy."

"But how about you? Are you happy?"

Dani shrugs. "It's just me and Linds in the house now. Things are very quiet. So much so that I can't actually wait for the season to start again. Maybe I'm just feeling a little…"

"Go on."

"I don't know, lonely? T.K. and Linds are wonderful, but they're just kids. I miss Jeanette. Matt too, in a way, I guess. I miss adult conversation."

"What happened to your other friend? Your colleague, the one of the dalliance, what's his name… Nico?"

This time, Dani does cross her arms instinctively over her chest, eyes fixed on a spot somewhere above Dr Gunner's head.

"That bad, huh?"

"Not bad. You know, he stayed in New York. The trial went away without so much as a splash, though I'm sure Gabrielle Pittman has more surprises up her sleeve. He… I don't think he likes that she thwarted his plans to go to Dallas, but I've barely seen him, let alone talked to him about that."

"And that irks you?"

"It's just different now. All those things he used to do… Texting me, or showing up in the middle of the night. Sneaking up on me. That used to irritate me, but I guess I kinda liked it too, this understanding, this friendship that we had."

"And now you miss it?"

Dani doesn't know what to say, and the worst part is feeling her tears well up and over, and something that sticks like broken glass in her throat.

"Right," Dr Gunner says, handing her a box of tissues. "How about I make some dinner and we watch a few episodes of Downton Abbey together?"