Chapter 5 - Confessions

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Kara stared at Danny, her mouth opening and closing, unable to find a single word.

"I never stopped loving you, Kara. Never. I don't think I ever could."

"What..." She stopped, feeling blindsided. Her mind was in turmoil, jumping from one thought to the next, leaving her unable to focus on anything - except for one blinding fact. "You bought Laura a ring."

Danny sighed, rubbing at the back of his neck in a nervous gesture that was both endearingly familiar and unbelievably aggravating. He walked to the window, looking out. "I probably need to explain that."

No shit. Kara decided that was probably not the best response, although it was the most accurate. Taking a moment to collect herself, she crossed the room to the fully stocked fridge. She held up a bottle with an unfamiliar label. "Beer?"

Danny glanced over his shoulder. "Thanks."

Grabbing a bottle of juice for herself, Kara walked to the window. She passed Danny the beer, not speaking, instead silently staring out into the night sky. Standing side-by-side, the way they had done a hundred times before.

xxxxx

They stood at the rail, surrounded by darkness. Both lost in thoughts of home, of family. The news from Captain Chandler leaving them reeling.

"Did you reach your family?" Kara asked, little more than a whisper. Danny's hand brushed hers and she could feel the pinprick of tears in her eyes.

"No." He paused. "Your mom?"

"No answer."

Her breath caught. A tiny sound that he somehow heard over the thump of the waves hitting the hull, his hand moving to cover hers. The simple gesture enough to break through her defenses, and tears began rolling down her face. His thumb stroked across the top of her hand, over and over again, as she cried. Not offering pointless platitudes. Not telling her to toughen up. Giving her the time, the space, that she so desperately needed.

When the tears finally stopped, Kara took a shuddering breath. "For years I've been expecting that call. One where I find out that she passed out and got run over or, god forbid, killed someone while she was drunk. I thought that I was prepared. But this..." She shook her head. "Nothing prepared me for this."

"I know." It was Danny's turn to pause. "Please be careful."

"What?" That wasn't what she was expecting him to say, and Kara turned to peek at him through damp lashes. But Danny was still staring into the unending night.

"I never worried about them. Never thought that..." His voice was flat, detached, and she instinctively understood how close he was to the edge. How many times had Kara used that tone when talking about Debbie? Trying to get through what she needed to say without breaking down. "My mom's a doctor. She would have been on the front lines. The chances...the chances aren't good."

Now it was Kara's turn to rub her hand over his, to stay silent as he grappled with all that had happened, struggling to accept the unacceptable. To comprehend how the world could have so completely changed overnight.

"I don't think that I could lose you too, Kara."

The words were so quiet that she barely heard them. "I'm not going anywhere, Danny. I'll be right here with you."

His hand tightened on hers. "And you'll be careful?"

It was a ridiculous request given who they were, what they did, where they were. But, at that moment, reality didn't matter. "I promise."

xxxxx

Danny finally broke the silence. "I told everyone that I met Laura through mutual friends but the truth is that I met her at The Joint."

He glanced sideways, looking to gauge her reaction, and Kara was tempted to roll her eyes. "I've been in the Navy for thirteen years, Green. I'm aware that strip clubs are popular."

He took a sip of his beer. "Yeah, well, Laura was an employee."

Now that was a surprise. "Isn't she a teacher?"

"Now she is. But back then..." He hesitated. "What I'm telling you could really screw up her life."

"I've been known to keep a secret or two in my time," Kara replied mildly. She wanted to be annoyed at the lack of trust but, at the same time, she understood. After all, hadn't she gone above and beyond to salvage Danny's disastrous trip to Columbia? Which, now that she thought about it, was the only reason that they were here, together, in Rio de Janeiro having this conversation. Some sort of bad cosmic joke.

"Touché." Danny tipped his beer at her. "Anyway, I don't actually remember meeting Laura so much as waking up next to her the next morning. That was a bit awkward."

"Hardly your first one night stand," Kara replied, her voice dry. Danny might not have been much of a player, but he also wasn't a choir boy. Carlton generally didn't say much - part of his whole I am Switzerland routine when it came to Danny and Kara's complicated non-relationship - but Kara was pretty adept at reading between the lines.

"This one was a bit different."

He sounded so uncomfortable, as though he was hoping that she would understand what he was saying without actually saying it. Her mouth dropped open. "Did she ask you for money?"

Not that it was unusual. Plenty of the guys did it, even pre-pandemic. And with how the world shook out, well, a lot of things were different now. But the idea of Danny paying for sex? That still shocked her.

His voice was gruff. "Turns out that Laura didn't remember anything either so we settled on breakfast. We got to talking and realized that we knew some of the same people. From before."

Kara nodded. That happened more often than she would have expected. The whole six-degrees of separation taking on new meaning in a post-apocalyptic world filed with people desperate to connect. "So you saw her again."

"Yeah." Danny was twirling his beer. "It was casual. I could call in the middle of the night, or not call for a month. She didn't seem to care. She didn't need anything from me. She didn't want anything."

That stung a little, and Kara found herself crossing her arms over her chest. "I suppose that's the benefit of paying someone. No baggage."

"That's not...I mean it wasn't like that...There was no money..."

Annoyed at Danny's fumbling, Kara turned towards him, her toe tapping. "Do you have a point?"

Danny sighed, tipping up his beer. "I'm not explaining this well."

"Maybe we shouldn't do this. There is no reason for you to be telling me..." Kara began, but he cut her off.

"Yes, there is." He set down his beer, turning to face her. "Five years ago, I was too messed up myself to be there for you, so I walked away. But I always thought..." He paused, eyes becoming unfocused, as though he were somewhere else. "I took you for granted, Kara, thinking that you would be there waiting when I was ready. When I had myself together. And when you weren't, well... I'm not making that mistake again."

She was honestly shocked. "I broke up with you, Danny."

He reached out, hesitating for just a second before he tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "I've had a lot of time to think over the last couple of years. Traveling with the team means a lot of downtime, you know. Not that different from being on ship."

His hand had moved to her cheek, and Kara felt her eyes closing, almost hypnotized by the heat radiating off him, the sound of his voice.

"I was so mad at you for what happened in St. Louis," he continued. "For giving up on me. On us."

Her eyes popped open. "Danny, I..."

He shifted his hand to press a finger to her lips, and Kara felt a tear slip down her cheek. "But then I realized that you can't leave someone who is already gone. I shut you off in Gitmo. I let you deal with the fallout from everyone finding out about us alone. Even in St. Louis, I signed up to ship out on the Nathan James without even talking to you. Carlton cornered me at one point, told me to get my shit together."

"He did?" Kara whispered. "I didn't know that. He always tells me that he's Switzerland."

"Yeah, maybe for you. I get more of a Cold War Russia vibe." Danny brushed away a tear, his gaze on her steady, and Kara could barely breath. "But he was right. I was so wrapped up in my own shit that I never even thought about how things must have been for you. After ... after we lost the baby, all I could think about was how unfair it was. That I had to deal with another hit, on top of everything else. But you were going through the same thing. More, really, because I had you to lean on and you had nobody. When I thought about it, the only surprise about you breaking things off was that you didn't do it earlier."

The mention of the baby broke through Kara's fog. Reality intruding with a thud. She looked down, biting hard on her lip. "You did nothing wrong, Danny. Nothing."

It was as if he didn't hear her. "And then, after the James got back from Asia, I fell back into the same damn pattern. Too angry to make things right. Too focused on saving the world to realize that I was giving up the only reason that I wanted to save it."

xxxxx

"We can't keep doing this, Danny."

The words were whispered through the door, but Kara knew that he heard. Could feel the door creak as he slid to the floor of the porch. Unable to walk away, she did the same. Both sitting, backs against opposite sides of the door. She had sworn to herself that she would not do this. She would not talk to him. She would not let him inside. She definitely would not...

"Five minutes. Please."

But just like every time this had happened since the Nathan James returned from Japan, she found herself opening the door. Unable to resist when it came to this man. She stared up at him, taking in his condition. Tired, exhausted more accurately, with thick black rings under his eyes, but there was no smell of alcohol. She wasn't sure if that made it better or worse. It would be easier, somehow, to send him away if he was drinking, seeing his appearance as nothing more than a drunken bootie call. But when he was like this...it was different, harder, knowing that he was feeling the weight of the world on his shoulders.

"When was the last time that you ate?" she asked, turning and walking down the hallway to pull out a take-out flier. "Chinese or pizza?"

"Chinese." The response was automatic. He rooted around in her fridge for a bottle of ice tea, the action habitual. As thought they were more than...well, whatever they were these days. It was better not to think about it too much, a decision that Kara made after she slipped and mentioned Danny spending the night to Alisha, earning herself such a look of disappointment that Kara ended up swearing that it was never happening again.

A resolution that she managed to keep for four days.

Kara finished the call, not bothering to ask what he wanted to order, and hopped up on the counter. Keeping as much space between them as possible in the small kitchen. "So what did you want to talk about?"

"I'm joining Navy intelligence."

Her eyes shot to his face. She shouldn't be surprised, but she was. She knew that Danny wasn't ready to settle down, to commit, no matter what he might have said on the Nathan James, back when the idea of a normal life seemed possible. And yet, despite knowing better, Kara had begun to hope. To think that maybe, just maybe, they could have a second chance.

She pulled herself together. "Cooper's team?"

"Yeah." He fiddled with the bottle, before standing to pace. "There's a war going on out there, Kara, and I'm not part of it. We're still getting dozens of requests for the cure every day, plus this red rust fiasco in Europe is starting to heat up and half of South America is in complete chaos. I should be out there helping. Not stuck here escorting Oliver to fundraisers and kissing politicians' asses."

Unbidden, the memory of the Henan exploding flooded her mind. The utter despair that overwhelmed her at the realization that he was gone, followed by the urge to kill anyone - everyone - responsible. The idea of Danny being back out there, courting injury, even death, with every mission, sent a jolt of terror through her. She wanted to scream at him, shake him, demand to know how he could do this to her. But she wouldn't. Danny had always accepted her for who she was.

She couldn't do any less.

"Then you should go."

xxxxx

"I think I was in Greece for about three minutes before I knew that I completely fucked up by leaving again, but I didn't know how to fix it," Danny continued, as though she hadn't spoken at all. "You had your life together and I..."

Kara gave a stunned laugh, her jerking up to make sure he was being serious. "My life together? Are you kidding?"

"Promoted to lieutenant commander? Dating that Jamie guy?"

Kara blinked at him. "Jamie Maynard? We never dated. He's gay."

This time Danny was the one who blinked. "He is?"

"Yeah. He and Gator had a thing," Kara began, then stopped. "Why I am telling you this again?"

"You're right, it doesn't matter." Danny shook his head. "When I met Laura, we connected because she had so much baggage. Neither one of us wanted more than a warm body. Laura's immune. She watched her husband die, her family die. She was teaching second grade at the time and later she found out that only one of her students survived."

A tale of devastation that was all too common. "Survivor's guilt."

"Yeah." Now Danny was staring out the window. "We were both in love with other people. Both mourning. It was easy to talk to her because there were no consequences. Hell, half the time I don't think she was even listening to me. I remember the guys talking, back before the Red Flu, about how seeing a therapist was cathartic because you could say anything. And I didn't get it. Because the only time I saw a therapist was when I was being assessed or promoted. There was always an agenda. But with Laura, I finally understood. I could tell her anything because there was no emotional involvement. I wasn't worried about messing things up. It was like talking to a wall, but felt slightly less crazy."

Kara found herself being drawn in, curious despite the fact that Danny was talking about his relationship with another woman. "And it helped?"

"Yeah, it did." He took another drink, and Kara remembered the glass in her hand, setting it down on the windowsill. "I encouraged her to quit working at The Joint and look into teaching again. She went to a few fundraisers with me to fend off the tag chasers. Over time we became friends."

"So what changed?"

"Honestly, nothing." He seemed to be struggling for the words. "The best way I can describe it is like when you get assigned a bunkmate and you have nothing in common. But then you get used to their weird habits. And then one day you're in the mess hall and you end up sitting together. And then you're stuck with the CO for your Secret Santa pick so you talk about ideas. And after six months you get to port and end up going for drinks because the idea of not seeing the person daily is weird."

And, Kara got it, sort of. How that forced connection could result in a real connection. Still, there were limits. "Marriage, though?"

He sighed. "I screwed things up before, Kara. I didn't want to do that again. Her friends were asking her when I would pop the question. They guys seemed to think that was where we were headed. We talked a little. Figured that we could make a go of it."

"Every woman's dream." But even as she said the words, Kara could think of a dozen people who had done that very thing. Given up on Prince Charming in favor of the guy who was there. The future feeling too uncertain to wait, knowing that tomorrow might never come.

"Laura was the one to realize that it would never work. Told me that I was an idiot if I married her when I still had a chance of fixing things with you. Said that if Anwar - her husband - had suddenly walked through the door, she wouldn't have cared about anything else. That she would have done whatever it took to make it work."

Kara blinked away tears. She had always known that Laura was a good person. But this...such an act of unselfishness. "She sounds like a really good person."

"She is." Danny was looking at her now, hand raised to her upper arm, thumb brushing back and forth. "Laura was there when I needed her and I'll never forget that. But that doesn't change the fact that she was right. We're both here, Kara, alive. And I know we can make this work. I want to give us another chance."

"I don't know if I can do this, Danny," she whispered, her mind spinning. Part of her wanted to grab on to what he was offering with both hands. But even as hope swelled, she couldn't forget the past that lay between them.

A sandy haired boy.

A brown-eyed girl.

A dream that died before it began.

"Just think about it," Danny replied. "I..."

And then, without warning, Kara was on the floor, her ears ringing as though a bomb had gone off, Danny's weight sprawled across her back, crushing her.

"What the fuck." Rolling, his instincts clearly more honed than hers, he made it to the wall and flicked off the light. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, Kara could see the shattered window above her. Quickly checking herself, she could see no cuts. Danny must have taken the brunt of the falling glass. He gestured towards the connecting door to his room, presumably where his gear was stored. Scooting as best she could in her gown, Kara moved towards the bed, grabbing her gun and boots before following him along the wall. Moving silently, they made their way to Danny's room, cautiously standing as he grabbed his pack, pulling out the radio.

"This is Frog. I'm with Chicken Little. What the fuck just happened?"

"Chicken Little. Seriously?" Kara asked, although she kept her voice a whisper, lacing up her boots. She swore that she saw Danny grin.

The radio cackled. "Tweedle dee and tweedle dum here. Friendlies down in the ballroom. Hostiles unclear."

"This is Cowboy. I'm on the grassy knoll. Looks like our friend may have paid us a visit."

Kara and Danny exchanged glances. Vargas was here? That was not good. Danny spoke again. "Mother Hen or the Cave?"

"The Cave." Sasha was the one to respond, and Kara understood the implication of her choice. Cooper was worried that the goal of tonight was not to disrupt the festivities, but rather to drive them out of the hotel and intercept them on their way to the Nathan James.

Kara grabbed the radio. "Tell Mother Hen to get clear now."

"Roger."

Danny stuffed the radio into a pocket. He looked at Kara. "Ready to run?"

Kara stood, damn glad that she wasn't doing this in heels. "Let's go."

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A/N - so yeah, I got the whole "Frog Hog" thing from Tea-Induced Scribbles' story Tag Chaser. Man I loved that story. Until next week. xoxo - tmtcltb