A/N – this scene is set between Minefield and Dog Day in season 3. As always, I'm using the name Teylor Cruz.
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Brotherhood
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Danny sat, elbows pressing into his knees, running his thumb across the thin strips of metal he held in his palm, feeling the familiar bumps and dents. One of these days he wouldn't be the one who pulled the chain over his head. Instead it would be Chandler or Slattery or Garnett who removed the tags, probably running their thumbs across the identification the same way that Danny was doing right now, squeezing them for a minute before placing them in an envelope to ship home to Kara and Frankie along with a letter detailing his courageous service.
But today wasn't that day, thankfully, due, at least in part, to the man lying on the bunk before Danny, his chest rising and falling rhythmically. It hadn't been hard to get the truth out of Wolf. Danny simply waited until Doc Rios cleared and released the Aussie and then cornered the man. His question was simple.
"Did you and Teylor ask Captain Chandler to pull me off the rhib?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
A faint smile crossed Wolf's face. "I didn't want to be the one to tell your son he would never meet his pa."
No hesitation, no uneasiness or doubt – Wolf had been one hundred percent certain that he and Teylor were doing the right thing. Danny wondered how that was possible, how the man managed to avoid the second-guessing and over-thinking that plagued Danny, leading to his presence here, in sick bay, in the middle of the night.
If Danny had been on that rhib with Teylor and Wolf would things have been different? Would they have been able to move faster, take out more mines, escape the field faster? Was Cruz here because Danny hadn't been there? Or was it the opposite, and his extra weight, his presence, would have slowed them down, resulting in all of them being killed?
Feeling a sense of déjà vu, Danny found his mind wandering back a year, to Cuba, to a moment on a beach when Danny was certain that he would be packing away Teylor's dog tags the same way he had done for Frankie only days prior. Funny how much had changed in a year – and how much hadn't.
Finding the cure didn't seem to have stopped all of the fighting.
Some days, like today, it was all he could do not to throw in the towel, to pack up his team and head home, leaving the rest of the world to their petty squabbles and infighting. But he knew he wouldn't, not tonight or tomorrow or any other day. Because for every Peng or Takehaya, there was also a Bertrise, a Debbie, a Maria, parents taking their little girl home so they could die together. So he would stay until every one of them had access to the cure. It was what he expected of himself and, even more importantly, it was what Kara expected of him. A faint smile crossed Danny's face as he imagined Kara standing in front of him, hands on hips as she told him to buck up and get his head back in the game. And he would.
In the morning.
A rustling sound from the bunk roused Danny from his morose thoughts. Teylor's eyelids fluttered open and brown eyes met blue across the small space. Teylor half-pushed to a sitting position before thinking better of it – that concussion had to have left a hell of a headache.
"Another pillow?" Danny inquired.
"Thanks." Teylor stuffed the cushion Danny lifted from the crew lounge behind his back. "We really should stop meeting like this, sir."
But Danny didn't take the bait. "Thank you. For what you did."
Teylor's lip twisted. "Wolf told you?"
Danny actually snorted. "It wasn't hard to guess. Why'd you do it?"
Teylor shifted. "All those orphans in St. Louis, they got to me. I kept thinking about how close Manny and Christopher came to joining them. I didn't want that to happen to Frankie. He's kind of like all of our kid, you know? We just want the best for him. Which is why I sure hope he takes after his mom in the looks department."
"You're an ass," Danny resisted the urge to throw something at the other man. Rios would have his ass if he caught Danny harassing his patient.
"So what's a man got to do around here for some entertainment?" Teylor asked.
Danny rose, knowing that Carlton and Wolf would still be up, probably Alisha too. "I might be able to rummage up a pack of cards and some players if you're up for it."
"Sounds good." Teylor waited until the door was open before he spoke again. "Oh, and Green, make sure to get your wallet. You still owe me twenty bucks from last time."