Summary: 2002. Brosnan 007 (Sam Carmichael in my 'verse) in the days following Die Another Day, when he finally has the chance to deal with the trauma of his captivity in the North Korean prison where he'd been tortured for fourteen months. Kid Q (twelve years old in this story) helps his uncle recover. Family fluff, h/c. Bright Star 'verse. Reading some (not all) of the other stories in this series is definitely recommended.

Bright Star 'verse explanation if you haven't read the other stories in my series: Sam Carmichael is the name I gave the 007 played by Pierce Brosnan who was the 007 before Daniel Craig's James Bond. Sam became 007 after the previous 007 played by Timothy Dalton, Damien Drake, retired to raise his son, who grows up to be Whishaw!Q. Sam is a kind of uncle to Q, whose real name is Danny Drake. In this story, kid Q is twelve years old and a super-genius. He's also really, really good at dealing with traumatized double-ohs.

Also kind of relevant: Sam Carmichael is called that because he's the same Sam Carmichael from Mamma Mia and its sequel. Yes, the ABBA musical. Sam in that storyline (I'm going with the movie version, rather than the stage), was an architect. In my 'verse, after the flashback events of MM2, Sam married his fiancée and then got divorced and then ditched his architecture career in a fit of rebellion, joined the RAF and MI6 and then eventually became Agent 007.

Story notes: In Die Another Day, 007 bounced back from fourteen months of torture like he was Superman or something. I'm going to put it down to his work ethic and years of training to ignore minor discomforts like...torture. You know. Stuff that would take normal heroes down, but not legendary movie characters. So in my story, 007 (that's Sam Carmichael in this 'verse) had a breakdown of sorts after the movie ended.

Warning: Descriptions of PTSD by a layperson and not a medical professional. Mentions of substance abuse and unprotected sex. Also: ANGST, but tempered by my trademark family fluff.

Live Another Day

. . . . .

Chapter 1

April 2002

He'd lost track of where he was, of night and day, between all the drinking and fighting and women and pills. He couldn't lose himself, or find himself, whichever of the two he was trying to do in the first place.

He was in a bar, the sleazy kind of place with gritty, gummy floors and sticky tables, where watered-down drinks were served in smudged glasses with chips on the rims. He sighed and glanced at the dust-covered television screen in the corner. It was muted, but he could tell from the script running along the bottom of the news story that he must be somewhere in Vietnam.

Well. That was a long way from South Korea, which was the last place he clearly remembered actively going. He'd been with Jinx then, and they'd spent a couple of days (and nights) together before the American agent had reluctantly gone back to base to deliver the diamonds they'd rescued to her Langley handlers.

The rest of it was a fog, as he'd let go and unraveled from his long months of torture. The world was filled with flashes of incoherent memories. He'd sloshed from shithole to shithole, copious amounts of alcohol lubricating his way into countless women's beds, all faceless, nameless, meaningless…

The split skin on his knuckles and the bruises on his sore, aching body told him that there had been fights, too. He was not entirely sure if he had been in the right for any of them, but at least he hadn't killed. He'd been in enough control of himself not to do that, at least, but that was as far as it had gone.

He'd been unable to sleep, the long months of maddening sleep deprivation doing its part to keep him from falling back into a healthy rhythm. Along with the nightmares (god, the nightmares), he had been able to rest only when he passed out with the help of external aids (booze, drugs, or a well-placed blow to the head).

"Hey mister."

Sam turned his bleary attention to the bartender.

"Telephone," the man said in his accented English, holding the sticky-looking receiver out to him.

"No thanks," Sam slurred, and stood, swaying a little as he did so. He put enough cash down to pay for his drinks with some left over for a substantial tip, then stumbled out the door.

The humid tropical air was heavy on his sticky skin. He took a deep breath of the wet air and shuffled and swerved his way along the crowded streets of the city.

A shrill ringing pierced through the chatter of dozens of voices as he rounded a busy street corner. He paid it no heed. He had been stubbornly ignoring the ringing of various phones that followed him everywhere he went for the past couple of weeks.

Well, everywhere with a working video surveillance system connected to the internet (not many here), that is, or when satellites were in range. His virtual stalker was clever, and made inferences about where he had likely gone if there was no video available, but there was only so much that even he could do with what was available.

Another public pay phone rang as he passed by it, and he growled, finally whirling on his heel - nearly knocking himself over in his drunkenness - and snatched up the receiver.

"What?" he snarled down the line.

"Finally! Sam, why were you avoiding my calls? Are you okay?"

The voice on the other end was young, impatient, and worried, and he hadn't heard it in over a year.

Sam pinched the bridge of his nose and grimaced.

"Danny," he sighed, the anger leaving him as suddenly as it had come. "I'm alright. I just needed a break."

The boy on the other end sounded unconvinced as he explained sullenly, "I tried to make the North Koreans give you back but M told me to stop. Well, actually, she called Dad and told him to make me stop causing international incidents. I wasn't trying to cause international incidents, for goodness' sakes."

Sam could very well imagine the havoc that the child genius could wreak from his computer alone.

"Danny," he groaned. There was a lot that went on behind the scenes in espionage, especially when it came to trading prisoners, and a third party getting involved would only muddy the waters.

Danny interpreted his tone correctly and headed him off. "I know, I know, I know. Dad already talked to me about consequences," he said sullenly, emphasizing the last word.

Sam leaned against the wall and rubbed his throbbing eyes. God, he was tired. "Good. But thank you for your efforts, anyway, kiddo," he said, finally relaxing a little as the familiar voice filtered through the plastic earpiece.

Danny's voice perked up. Young as he was, he was still sensitive to approval from the people he loved and looked up to, and Sam, for some reason, was one of them. "Any time, Sam," he said, and Sam could almost see the wide grin on the young face. A sudden ache filled his chest. "When are you coming home?"

The rough texture of the wall scraped at the side of his face as he closed his eyes and pressed the phone receiver closer to his ear. He exhaled. "Do me a favor, Danny?"

"What do you need?" Danny asked, suddenly serious. He must have realized long ago how incredibly off Sam sounded, and was very, very worried.

"A ride home."

"I'll book you a flight," Danny said promptly, already tapping away at his keyboard. "Shall I send the details to your...accommodations?" Which was a nice word for the hovel Sam was currently staying in, drinking the days away when he was not with a woman. "And I can send you a cab?"

"That would be great. Thanks, kiddo. I'll see you soon."

. . . . .

Some time later, Sam found himself on the other side of the globe on the Drakes' doorstep. He had made at least a cursory attempt at straightening himself out by showering, shaving, and donning a new set of clothes, but he was well aware that he still looked as rough as he felt. His fellow passengers on the long flight had given him a wide berth while shooting him alarmed and disgusted looks. Luckily, Danny had booked him a row to himself and the airlines had apparently been blocked from filling the empty seats, courtesy of his nephew.

His jaw ached where they'd pulled out a couple of teeth - he hadn't yet bothered to see a dentist after his release. In fact, he hurt all over, now that he was finally allowing himself to let go and feel it.

He had no time to change his mind about being there, however, as the door was opened by his predecessor to the 007 designation, Damien Drake. Damien raked an assessing glance over him that turned disapproving. Disapproving and concerned.

Sam sagged and began to turn away. "I shouldn't have come. I shouldn't have come," he repeated, stumbling over his words, "I'm still wired. And drunk."

The older man was wary, but gentle, as he opened his door wider and stepped aside to let him through. "It's alright," he said quietly, "Come in, Sam. Can I get you a drink?"

"I could use something strong," Sam grimaced, stepping into the foyer. The Drakes' old dog, Puck, came out to greet him, sniffing at his shoes and wagging his tail enthusiastically.

Damien raised an eyebrow at Sam. "As you said, you're drunk. I'll make you some coffee." He clicked his tongue at the dog and nudged him off towards the stairs. "Go get Danny, Puck."

Sam shifted uneasily and shook his head, the instinct to run sending tense shocks down his spine and ordering his muscles to stiffen in readiness. "I- I should go. I shouldn't have come." He realized with detached embarrassment that his Irish brogue had come through as thick as ever.

The sound of bare feet thundering down the stairs drew his attention, causing him to whip his head around in its direction, eyes and body alert to react.

"Sam! You're home!"

Damien was quick to reach out and swing the skinny boy who had bounded down the stairs behind the bulk of his own body, shielding him from Sam's view.

"Careful, Danny," he said in warning, thrumming with tension, "he's not himself."

The dog, who had only been halfway up the stairs when his master had run down them, grumbled and made his way back down rather arthritically.

Danny poked his head out from behind Damien's back, pouting indignantly under his tousled mop of curls. "I wasn't going to pounce on him, for goodness' sakes. I'm not an immature child anymore, Dad, nor am I ignorant of the effects of PTSD."

Sam took a few breaths to calm his racing heart. "It's 'Dad' now, is it? Wasn't it still 'Daddy' when I left?" he asked, pointedly ignoring both the part about PTSD and the assessing look the ex-agent was still casting at him.

"The days of 'Daddy' are long gone, I'm afraid. The teenage years are nigh," Damien said, as if announcing a time of impending doom.

"He's twelve now, isn't he?" Sam asked, cursing the time that had passed, and the milestones he must have missed in his nephew's life. "Christ. You've gotten tall. I've missed so much."

"It doesn't matter," Danny said, and Sam noticed for the first time that the boy's childish voice had taken on a slightly deeper pitch than before. "You're home now."

"Yeah. I'm home," he echoed hollowly, finally believing it for the first time. "I'm home. I'm home."

Danny fidgeted. "I would like to hug you now, Sam. I'd appreciate it if you could try not to go ballistic and kill me."

San hesitated; he would never forgive himself if he hurt a hair on the boy - not that he'd even have time to, since Damien would have him incapacitated in half a second if he made a wrong move.

"Sam?"

He found himself shaking his head. The world spun dizzyingly, and he reached out to steady himself against the wall. "No. I don't- I don't think it's safe. I'm not safe."

"Oh." Danny sounded disappointed.

God, he hated disappointing his nephew, always had. In fact, he'd always endeavored to keep from letting him down in any way, and knowing that he was the cause of that sad look this time made his heart sink even lower.

"I- " he started, and threw an uncertain glance at Damien, hoping he'd understand what Sam didn't even know himself.

"Tea," the ex-agent said calmly, keeping his steady gaze on Sam. "Danny, go put the kettle on."

"What happened to the coffee?" Sam tried to joke, but it came out creaky and weak.

Damien arched a brow. "Do you really think a big dose of caffeine is what you need right now?"

Sam twitched and had to agree.

"Danny, kettle. I think some sandwiches wouldn't go amiss, either. And please try to refrain from burning the kitchen down again."

The preteen finally stomped off to the kitchen, huffing all the way. Puck followed him faithfully, giving Sam a lingering look of canine concern over his scruffy shoulder. God, even the dog was worried about him.

With Danny safely out of the way, Damien relaxed a little and nodded towards the sitting room.

Sam tried a smile and only managed a jerky grimace. Feeling off-kilter, he shuffled into the homey little room and felt his way to the comfortable sofa. He slid down onto it with a sigh, slumping painfully in his seat.

Damien sat in a nearby armchair. "It's good to see you, Sam," he said quietly. "We were all worried. Danny's not the only one who wanted to stage a rescue."

Sam stared at his scarred hands and didn't answer.

Damien sat in silence, too, and Sam could feel the guilt radiating off of him.

"But politics," Sam croaked, and snorted sardonically. "They warn you off?"

Damien gave a curt nod, his lips pursed in an angry line. "Politicians," he ground out. "Bureaucrats. M-" (Not his M,' his tone made it clear) "-said there were plans in place - negotiations - and we weren't to ruin them." He huffed, frustrated. "But we had a mind to go and get you anyway."

Sam shook his head. "Not you. You have Danny to think of."

Damien sighed. "That's what the others said. Still, we were building a plan of attack when M called again and told us off. She told us to wait."

Sam nodded. That sounded like her. Didn't like to have her plans ruined. "Or else?"

The other man was silent.

"Danny," Sam realized. "She used Danny?" He closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead. "Bitch. Of course she did."

He suddenly felt the carefully-damped flame of anger in his chest flare up at the thought of her. "Bitch," he snarled, surging to his feet.

Damien remained sitting, though he assumed a more cautious posture. "Sam," he warned softly.

There was a sound like a wounded animal. Sam realized with a start that it had come from him. Feeling useless, he began pacing the room, gripping his hair for lack of anything else to hold on to, and relishing the slight twinge in his scalp that it caused because it distracted him from the roiling pain inside.

There was a clink of china and he caught a flicker of movement in the doorway. He whirled, ready to- ready to…

It was just Danny standing there with a tea tray in his hands and pursing his lips uncertainly. He had paused, likely at a sign from his father, who eyed Sam warily from his seat.

Then Danny, irreverent almost-teenager that he was, shrugged and walked towards the coffee table and set the tray down. He began busying himself with rearranging the sandwiches and serving the tea, pouring it out carefully while both men looked on with hyper-vigilance.

Having finished pouring and mixing in the cream and sugar to his precise satisfaction, like some sort of chemistry experiment, he picked up a mug and placed it on the edge of the table closest to where Sam had frozen in place, then served his father and himself.

He didn't sit, however. Instead, he stood there, his spindly hands hanging uselessly off of his bony-wristed arms with his head cocked and a worried frown on his face as he gazed mournfully at Sam.

Then he walked slowly forward, ignoring his father's hiss of warning, and soon, Sam found himself nearly face-to-face with the boy, who had grown much taller than when Sam had left.

As he was processing that, Danny raised his arms slowly.

Sam stood stock-still, letting the skinny pre-teen put his arms gently around his stiff body with careful movements.

Damien stood warily by just in case Sam lost control. One never knew how someone might react after over a year of torture, but it was usually badly. PTSD really was no joke.

Danny slowly lay his head down against Sam's tense and hammering chest. "I missed you," he sighed. "Christmas isn't the same without you."

"I'm sorry I missed it." Sam's voice was rough, but he managed to grind the shaky words out.

"You owe me two birthdays, too."

Sam couldn't see Danny's face, but he knew that he was pouting, despite the serious situation. Danny wasn't stupid, nor was he too naive to understand that Sam was on the verse of breaking apart to pieces at a single wrong move.

"Fourteen months." The words were squeezed out of him like drops from a leaky faucet. "I lost count after the first three. They told me after that I- it was fourteen months." His voice shook. "When they said the world's changed, I didn't think it would've been this much."

There has been some sort of large-scale terrorist attack in America while he'd been gone, putting the entire world on the verge of war.

"Yeah," Danny sighed at his shoulder. Sam felt his hammering heart begin to slow to match the boy's even, relaxed breathing. "I wish I could have done something. I didn't know what to do. I couldn't just leave you there."

Sam felt the exhaustion of the past year and two months (and twenty-three days) weighing down on him like an anvil, and he brought his arms up to grab hold of the back of Danny's oversized sweatshirt for support, fisting his hands in the soft fabric. "It wasn't your fault," he said into the mess of curls at his shoulder, and cursed the tremor in his voice, "It wasn't your job. It's part of my job. I knew what I signed up for."

Danny's held on just as tightly. "It shouldn't have been so long. Someone wasn't doing their job and you suffered for it." His voice was full of righteous anger, demanding justice. It reminded Sam of just how young his nephew was. It was sometimes hard to remember, since he was so mature for his age, but he was, after all, only twelve. He hadn't lived long in this cold, unfair world, and his life so far had been a sheltered one, besides.

"Leave it, Danny. Just leave it," Sam said softly. "There's nothing you can do now to turn back the clock. The job's done. Besides, it was probably politics anyway. Politics and money and greed. It always is."

Miranda Frost, the traitor who was now dead, had betrayed him to the North Koreans, but the reasons they'd been able to keep him for so long were probably along the lines of bureaucrats playing chess with human lives, as it usually was.

A bitter laugh tore the air, and again, he realized belatedly that it had come from him.

Danny had stepped back a little by now, scrutinizing him, though Sam was still gripping onto his hooded sweatshirt like a lifeline. He raised a hand to Sam's cheek, slowly, so that Sam could see it coming and stop it if he had a mind to. "You're crying, Sam," he said quietly, wiping away the tears from the careworn cheeks with gentle fingers.

Sam blinked blankly at him, uncomprehending.

Danny hugged him again, this time squeezing him harder and pressing a light kiss to his cheek, just like he used to. "It's okay, Sam. You're home now. You're home." He smelled like laundry soap and Earl Grey and home.

Sam suddenly went weak at the knees and felt himself falling with a ragged cry, dragging Danny down along with him. A strong hand gripped his arm and pulled him back up, supporting him with an arm around his back.

"It's alright, Sam. Come and sit down," Damien murmured by his ear, half-guiding and half-pulling him to sit on the sofa.

Sam felt the tears dripping down his cheeks and off his jaw, and looking down, saw them creating dark spots on Danny's purple sweatshirt, which he still held gripped fast in his clenched hands.

Danny curled up next to him on the sofa, tugging a fluffy blanket down from the back of the seat. He fussed with it, spreading it and smoothing it over Sam, who gradually became aware that he was trembling, shivering and shaking like a leaf in the wind.

Danny settled into him comfortably, his curly head on Sam's shoulder and his bony knees tucked up on Sam's lap. His legs were longer than they used to be, the bulk of his skinny body larger, but they'd sat like this before, many times, and this felt like home. He was home.

Sam held the precious boy in his arms and leaked silent tears into his hair and the ridiculous purple sweatshirt until the tremors slowly faded away.

"I missed two birthdays and a Christmas?" he managed to croak out eons later.

"Yeah."

It had seemed like both more and less, as though time had slowed in the dark, wet prison, where the only evidence of the passage of time was the recurrence and changing of his tormentors' techniques. When he had come out, the world had seemed so different and yet the same all at once.

"I won't miss any more. I swear it."

"I know you might have to. That's how the job is. I understand that. I'm not that much of a child." Danny had always been mature for his age, and he was calm now, calm and infuriatingly understanding.

Sam shook his head vehemently, needing to get his meaning across. "I won't miss any more. I- I think I'm done. I'm done. I'm out."

Danny pulled away and gave him one of his Looks, the sort that always made him feel rather transparent, like a good, hard stare would, except that Sam had never met someone who blinked half as much as Danny did. Sam immediately missed the warmth of the curly head against his chest.

"No," the boy said softly, but firmly. "No, you're not."

Beside him, Damien raised an eyebrow as though questioning what his son was doing, but said nothing.

"You're not ending it like this. You're not done," Danny insisted, as though it were plain to him why the hell not.

"I'm past the age of retirement, Danny." MI6 policy was that they'd start muttering about retirement after the official maximum age of forty-five, but seasoned old dogs were in such short supply that no one enforced the rule as long as the agent could still pass the rigorous tests. Sam had turned forty-seven during his captivity, and was nowhere near good condition after his ordeal.

"Yeah," Danny scoffed. "I bet my dad could take any of those double-oh newbies they've got these days, and he's old."

"Thank you, son. I think," Damien drawled with a wry look.

Danny rolled his eyes. "My point being, age has very little to do with it, to a certain point. It's all in the attitude, and you're- You're droopy, for goodness's sakes! You'll regret leaving if you do it now like this."

"Daniel. That's enough." Damien's voice was calm, in deference to Sam's nerves, but his meaning was abundantly clear. "Go to your room."

After a brief and silent battle of wills between father and son, Danny reluctantly stomped off out of the room in a huff. However, the two men could tell that he didn't fully obey his father's order by the sound of his footsteps (nearly silent, but not quite) and by the way the dog (detectable by his jingling collar) didn't ascend the stairs as he would have if Danny had gone.

Sam saw Damien purse his lips in disapproval at the way his son was disobeying him, but the other man evidently decided to let it lie in favor of focusing on Sam.

"I'm sorry, Sam," he apologized instead. "He doesn't understand."

Sam shook his head. "It's alright. He's…he's right."

Despite the harsh words, Danny had been right on all points. Sam was feeling very sorry for himself and he definitely would regret leaving this way later on, once he got his head screwed back on correctly, if he ever did.

"Sam," Damien sighed. "You've every right to quit after everything you've been through. There's no need to try to go back and get yourself killed in the process. There's no shame in it."

Sam closed his eyes, feeling his strength drain out of him with Danny's absence. The boy was just so alive. He felt heavy – his head, his arms, legs, chest – and he was so tired that he had to remind himself to breathe. He'd developed a rattle in his lungs during his imprisonment, but this deep fatigue had nothing to do with that. It was inside him, weighing his mind down like an anvil.

"But what else is there?" he asked quietly, almost to himself, feeling and sounding terribly small and lost.

Damien was silent for a long moment.

"You can't go back like this, Sam. It's time to stop. Your first instinct was that you wanted out, wasn't it? Listen to your instincts and stop."

"And then what? I don't know anything else." Sam hated the way he sounded, almost pleading, nearly hysterical. "What would I do? What should do?"

"You'll find something," Damien soothed gently. "There's always something. You'll learn to like peace and quiet. You'll learn how to live without always looking over your shoulder and taking orders. But you have to be alive to do it, Sam."

"Running," someone murmured hoarsely in Sam's voice. "It's like I'm running, always running. I knew where to go before. But now…Now I'm going in circles and there's no more road. There's no more road. I'm lost."

He could feel himself spiraling down, could feel the powerful waves of darkness pushing him down, and he lost his breath as he curled into a half fetal position…

"Daniel," he heard Damien hiss. "Leave this room immediately. I told you to go upstairs."

Sam emerged from the murky depths of suffocating drowning to see father and son once again facing off against each other, identical stubborn expressions on their faces that would have had him laughing at any other time. Danny was trying to wriggle his shoulder out of Damien's grasp, squirming and doing all he could to keep from being escorted bodily out of the room.

"No," the boy argued, jutting his chin out, "I want to talk to Sam."

"Sam has other things on his mind," Damien growled tersely, his attention divided between his rebellious boy and his unstable friend. "Go to your room, Daniel, and stay there."

Danny dug his heels in, literally and figuratively. "No," he repeated firmly, and Sam suddenly saw in him the shadow of the man he'd become someday. "I'm not leaving Sam. Not when he's like this."

Damien must have seen something in Danny's expression too, or maybe Sam's, because he made a choice then.

He had two options: force his rebellious son to go, or allow him to stay. For some reason, he chose the latter.

But first, he spoke quietly to his son. "Danny. He's been through hell. Give the man a break. You don't have any idea what it's like. You have no right to criticize him. If that's what you're about to do, then turn right around."

"I'm not criticizing him. I don't know what it's like to- to be captured and tortured and all that. But I do know that for fourteen months, he didn't break." He turned to Sam, and his passionate voice rang out in the stifling room. "You were strong and you didn't break. So don't you dare break now, Sam Carmichael! You're not allowed to give up."

His lip quivered and the baggy sleeves of his bright purple sweatshirt slid down over his earnestly-fisted hands. "You can't give up."

And then he waited. Damien, too, stood still, waiting.

And Sam. Sam looked into his boy's eyes – the only person in the world who mattered – and he waited. He waited for his roiling soul to settle, searching for his anchor in those guileless green eyes…and breathed.

"You know, Danny. The reason I didn't break. I–" He broke off, shaking his aching head. "It's…maybe stupid. But here it is. I knew I couldn't disappoint you. You would be if- if I couldn't be as strong as you believed I was. You thought I was like…like Superman, and I wanted to be that for you."

"I wouldn't have been disappointed," Danny said, and cautiously crawled back onto the sofa next to Sam. "From what I've heard, torture is rather horrible. Not exactly a five star vacation," he said, trying for a joke and cringing as it fell flat.

"That's not-" Sam tried to explain what he meant, though he wasn't quite sure himself what the tangle of thoughts in his head was trying to get at. "If I'd broken," he said unsteadily, scrunching a handful of blanket in his fist, "If I'd broken, I would have lost the will to live. And I knew I couldn't do that. I couldn't do that to you. I didn't want to imagine you hacking in and rummaging in my records to see why I was taking so damn long to come home. I didn't want you to read that I just gave up and died. I knew there'd be pictures. They'd document all of it, and you'd find it, all there for you to read. I couldn't do that to you."

Surprise warred with something else on Danny's expressive face. "So you kept going and you came home. To me?" he asked softly.

Sam swallowed hard, and nodded. "Yeah. Yeah. I think that was it. Queen and country are abstract entities. But a ten-year-old, eleven- twelve-year-old waiting for me to come home is real."

Danny's warm weight against his shoulder was familiar and comforting. It was home.

Sam breathed.

"And here I was thinking that you came through it because you're a damned stubborn asshole."

"Language, Danny." Damien was no longer exuding warning signals as he sat back down next to Sam, evidently able to relax a little instead of standing on edge, ready to pull his son away.

"I'm quite certain that the situation warrants it, Dad," Danny snarked. "Besides, it's not like I said f-"

"Daniel."

Sam choked out a rusty laugh, feeling the tight knot of tension slowly uncoiling in his chest with the warmth of the everydayness of the Drakes, especially Danny. "Try again in a few years, kiddo," he said in a stage whisper.

"Not while you're living under my roof, thank you," Damien said, fixing them both with a severe Drake-style Look.

"On that topic, god, I can't wait until September!" Danny exclaimed with a happy little wriggle and an incandescent grin.

"What's happening in September?" Sam asked.

"I'm starting at Cambridge next term!" the boy announced, practically bouncing in his seat. "I'm moving into my dorm at the end of September." He pronounced the word 'dorm' with special relish. "I'm going to live there on my own!"

Damn. Sam really had missed a lot.

"Already?" he asked, surprised.

"Dad wouldn't let me sit for my A-Levels until I turned thirteen," Danny huffed indignantly ('Would you believe it?!' said his expression), "so I signed up for them on my own and took them last year." He sat back with a satisfied air at having circumvented the tyrannical rules of his iron-fisted father. "After all, there was absolutely no reason to wait any longer. I've been ready for years."

Sam snuck a glance at Damien, who had a look that was a mixture of helplessness and exasperation on his face. He well understood the sentiment.

"Which ones?" he asked, curious about how his nephew had done. Of course, they all thought that Danny was a genius, but their fondness of him probably had an element of bias to it. He was smart, no question about it, but had he really done so well at that age…?

"Most of them. Thirty-three in total. A*s for everything, of course."

Sam had to stare. "Overkill, isn't it?" he asked weakly. In his day, three or four A-levels were considered quite enough to get one into Oxbridge, if one did well enough, and five was the gold standard. To get a few As was supposed to be an admirable feat, but thirty-three A*s? Bloody hell.

"I wanted to, so I did," Danny said plainly. It was as simple as that for him, apparently. He could, so he did.

Sam looked at Damien, who shrugged. 'What can I do with an incorrigible chaos child like mine?' said his expression, which didn't hide his pride in the least.

"Anyway," Danny said, "Everyone the world over wanted me," he boasted, puffing up his scrawny chest and tilting his chin up with pride. "Dad even thought that some of them might be desperate enough to try to kidnap me."

Goodness, was it the Era of Dramatic Italics already?

Danny's tone reflected what he thought of that: utterly silly and paranoid, and also a little flattered and very excited. "He wanted to send me to stay with Uncle Stuart on his boat since it would have been harder for them to find me if I didn't have a permanent address."

Sam glanced at Damien, asking silently if it really was that bad. The other man ran a hand through his hair and gave him an inscrutable look.

"You managed to talk him out of it, though?"

"It was fun pitting them against each other," and Sam was again reminded of how young and inexperienced Danny really was. "I already picked my school years ago. Cambridge, because it's the best. Well, Cambridge and Oxford, of course. MIT and Stanford are up there, but they're American. They're very good, but I wouldn't want to go to school there. My mother taught at Cambridge, so that's where I chose to go. And of course, Alan Turing was a Cambridge man."

Ah, yes. Saint Alan, one of Danny's favorite mathematicians.

"And you're studying…?"

"Engineering, obviously. And chemistry, and maths. Applied mathematics. I would have added computer science, too, but they advised against taking on too heavy a load in my first year." Danny punctuated this by rolling his eyes. "As though I won't be bored out of my mind in those beginner-level classes."

"Danny," Damien said at last, "Remember our talk about ego?"

Danny rolled his eyes at his dad. By Sam's count, that was the eighth time he'd rolled his eyes since Sam's arrival. The teenage years truly were nigh.

"But it's true." He caught his father's look and huffed out a disgruntled sigh. "I suppose I could learn something from them. But it's highly unlikely."

Damien shook his head in resignation. "I give up. Your turn, Sam."

Sam grinned, and for the first time in a long time, it didn't feel like he was cracking his face in half when he did it. "Don't look at me. I'm on his side. Give 'em hell, tiger."

Danny laughed, giggling even harder at the expression on his father's face. "I really, really missed, you, Sam."

"I really, really missed you, too, Danny-boy."

Sam was home. He was finally home.

. . . . .

Notes:

A-levels Disclaimer: I'm American. We don't have A-levels, so I did some googling and patched together something incredibly, ridiculously impressive-sounding. Please let me know if I got anything glaringly wrong! Also, can I note that compared to the rest of the world, the American grading system is soooo unfair! An A is 90-100% here! 60% is an F (which starts at 68%) and not a passing grade. Some places even consider a D to be not passing and you have to retake the class to move on. Thankfully, I never had to do that, but jeesh! But then again, we have ridiculous levels of extra credit, so I suppose that makes up for it.

PTSD Disclaimer: Again, I googled things, and have no experience with actual PTSD. Please let me know if I got anything wrong or triggering and how to fix it!