Sunshine After Rain
Title: Sunshine After Rain
Summary: Steve and Gracie have to spend the night alone in his house when Danny gets stranded at the office during a tropical storm.
Characters: Steve, Grace, with a side-order of Danny
Rating: G
Wordcount: 5,151
Disclaimer: Nothing is mine, no ownership implied. Sue if you want to, but all you'll get out of that is a bunch of IKEA furniture, an old laptop and three overly-clingy cats.
Warnings: Um, this is kind of schmoopy.
Neurotic Author's Note #1: This is a fic for casspeach, who won it a MILLION YEARS AGO in fandom_flood_ap. I feel like apologizing for how late this is is laughable at this point. I am embarrassingly late, but I did get it written!
Neurotic Author's Note #2: Dear casspeach, I have no idea if this is even remotely close to what you wanted. I know we discussed it a little bit and you wanted Steve coaching someone through administering first aid in the field, but this is only sort of like your prompt. Um. *shifty* It's schmoopier than I intended, and instead of being Danny & Steve or Danny/Steve it ended up being Gracie & Steve with Danny as a bonus. IDK.
Neurotic Author's Note #3: And now part of me really, really wants the show to devote a whole episode to nothing but Steve and Gracie. /o\
"Was that Danno, Uncle Steve?" Grace asks as he hangs up his cell phone and tucks it back into its holster on his belt. "Is he coming soon?"
She's been doing pretty well, all told, alone in the house with him during what's looking like it's going to be a hell of a tropical rainstorm out there. That she's anxious without her father there is normal, Steve knows. She's been following him around from room to room as he's been locking down the house. Not that he can blame her: she's not used to the weather on the island yet, and it's not like there are many tropical storms in Jersey. She was already worried when she saw Steve coming by himself to pick her up from school -the last time he did that, Danny was in the hospital after nearly dying from exposure to a neurotoxin- and if Steve is honest with himself he'll feel better when Danny's home with them as well. He rationalizes it by telling himself that Danny's not used to the weather either, and that it's dangerous for him to be out in the downpour, but in reality he just likes having all his family -extended or otherwise- close at hand where he can keep an eye on them.
"That was him," he confirms, "and he's fine, just wrapping up a few things at the office." He glances out the window at the rain, which is already beginning to fall harder, and wonders if he shouldn't have told Danny to stay where he is until this whole thing blows over. Steve doesn't mind driving out in bad weather, but it can be dangerous for someone who hasn't been trained to deal with it. "He's going to call again when he's on his way, and he said to give you a kiss, so I guess I'd better get on that. You know how your Dad gets when I don't follow his instructions. Butterfly or Eskimo?" he asks, and she giggles.
"Eskimo," she decides, and giggles more when he scoops her into his arms, settles her easily on his hip, and rubs his nose against hers. "Does he still have lots to do? How long is he gonna be?"
"I'm not sure, but not very much longer. He knows he shouldn't be out when it's raining too hard, so he promised to come back as soon as he's finished up what he's doing."
Outside lightning flashes, and Grace flinches He carries her into the kitchen and sets her on a stool. "How about we have a special tropical storm treat? I have ice cream in the freezer, and if we lose power for a little while it might all melt. So I think it would be the responsible thing to do to make sure it doesn't all go to waste. Sound good?"
She grins and nods. "Yeah."
"All right, then."
Ice cream is a great distraction from tropical storms and anxiety about missing parents. Ever since Danny and Grace started hanging out at his place more often, Steve has made a point of stocking the kind of things that make Danny's face turn funny colours while he rants about preservatives and artificial colouring and how it cannot ever be normal for an ice cream cone to be pink. Aside from the amusement factor, it gives him a pleasant tingly feeling to watch Grace's face light up with a smile when he produces rainbow sprinkles for her ice cream, or cookies shaped like animals. If he could keep that look on her face all day long, he would.
They're halfway through their ice cream when his phone rings again, Danny's unmistakable ring tone -You Give Love a Bad Name, for which Danny gave Steve hell for weeks, apparently unaware of the irony in that- loud in the otherwise silent kitchen. Grace looks up immediately, ice cream forgotten, eyes wide in her face as Steve answers.
"Hey Danno, you about done?"
There's something that sounds like static on the other end of the line, which it takes Steve only an extra few seconds to identify as the sound of pouring rain. "Yeah, about that. I'm done, but I've run into a problem. For one, 'cats and dogs' doesn't cover the weather out there. Actually, we had a lightning strike right next to the building. No one's hurt, but it took out a lamp post which then took out a bunch of cars. The street's a mess, babe. There aren't any casualties, thank God, but there's no way I'm getting the car through all of that until it gets cleared away..."
"And that won't be for a while," Steve finishes the thought for him. "Look, there's no point in your trying to make your way out here until the storm blows over, even if they do get the street cleared. It's going to be dark soon and it'll be way too dangerous for you to drive." He hears Danny swear under his breath, glances over at Grace in time to watch her expression grow stricken. "Here, why don't you talk to Grace for a minute? Grace, your Dad wants to talk to you," he says unnecessarily, handing over the phone.
She grabs the phone with both hands, holds it to her ear. "Hi Danno. Aren't you coming back?" Her expression grows sadder, then resigned as she listens. Steve moves a little further away so she can have some space to talk to her father privately if she wants, without anyone listening in. He doesn't know if she's old enough to want that much privacy, but he figures better safe than sorry. The only thing he catches is a quiet "Okay, Danno, I love you too. Bye," when she comes over to give the phone back.
"He'll be fine," Steve tries to reassure her. "I know it's not as much fun without him here, but as soon as it stops raining and they clear away the accident in the street he's going to come straight home."
"Uh-huh." She doesn't sound convinced. "But where is he going to sleep?"
"There are cots for when we have to work for really long stretches of time. They're pretty comfy, if I do say so myself. I've slept on them before, so they've been personally tested out. You done with your ice cream?" he looks over to where it's melting slowly on the counter, and she nods.
"I'm not hungry anymore."
"All right, then." He scrapes the remnants into the garbage, and decides he may as well pull out the big guns right away.
It's nearly six o'clock, which means that he just served Gracie ice cream for dinner -yet another thing for which Danny is going to yell at him and maybe shake his fist for good measure- but one time isn't going to kill anyone. Right now he has to figure out how to distract a really anxious eight-year-old from the fact that she's going to have to spend the whole night in someone else's house when neither of them have ever spent any time alone with each other. Danny has always been around to smooth out whatever rough edges Steve still has around kids. Okay, Steve tells himself, he's survived Afghanistan, so spending a few hours unsupervised with his partner's little girl should be a piece of cake.
"You know what my sister Mary and me used to do when there were big storms outside?"
Grace shakes her head. "What?"
He grins. "When Mary was really little -much younger than you- she thought the storms were scary. So my Mom and Dad used to let me build a big blanket fort out here with the couch and a whole lot of chairs and pillows, and we used to camp out in the living room. We would bring flashlights and I would smuggle in sweet and sour candy because it was her favourite, and then I'd frighten her with ghost stories until she went shrieking to our parents. I was a really mean older brother," he confides, and Grace giggles but shakes her head.
"That is really mean, Uncle Steve. She was already scared!"
"It was fun, though," he grins. "Come on. Want to make a fort? I promise, no ghost stories unless you want them."
He didn't think she would refuse, and he's right. They spend the better part of the next hour or so carefully rearranging all the available pillows and cushions in the house on the floor, then draping as many blankets and sheets as Steve can spare over the sofa and a few kitchen chairs, anchoring them securely in place. It's a lot more elaborate than any of the blanket forts he built as a kid -he has military training now, after all, it would be stupid not to take advantage of it- and Grace is delighted, burrowing inside and letting him hand her a flashlight and one of her favourite books to read.
"I'll be right back. I'm just going to finish locking up the house, all right?"
He took the precaution of boarding up the windows earlier but there are still small things left to take care of, including switching off all the lights that don't absolutely need to be lit -which in this case means all of them. Right now there's enough ambient light to see by, and he has lanterns for when it gets dark. He's pretty sure that they're in for at least a night's worth of this, maybe a little more depending on just how bad the storm gets. By the time he gets back to the living room, Grace has put her book aside and is sitting with the flashlight in her lap, chin propped in her hands, listening to the rain outside beating against the boarded-up windows. He lowers himself to sit next to her, cross-legged on the floor with the blanket brushing the top of his head, ruffles her hair.
"You know you don't have to worry, right? Danno's safe at the office, and this house has withstood much worse than a little rain." Murder and armed assault spring to mind, but even Steve knows it's not a good idea to bring that up right now. "When your Dad gets home tomorrow, if it's stopped raining, we can go out for pancakes."
She nods, but she doesn't seem convinced. "Okay."
He pulls her into a hug, snugly against his side. "Why don't you get into your pajamas and I'll make us a snack before bed. Sound good?"
Steve doesn't remember owning a pair of pajamas himself since he was about twelve, but he changes into an undershirt and sweatpants, because the idea of going to bed stark naked the way he usually does is not really an option with an inquisitive eight-year-old around. He makes up a snack of tomato sandwiches cut into squares with a glass of milk, thinking with amusement that they've done dinner backward today, and Grace manages about half of hers before declaring she's not hungry anymore.
"Okay," Steve takes the remnants away. One night of being hungry won't kill her, he tells himself. She's not going to starve before morning and therefore prompt Danny to throttle him. "You ready for bed?"
"I have to brush my teeth first."
It's a good thing Grace is a really well-behaved child, Steve tells himself as she gets herself ready for bed all on her own and comes back to the living room to slip into the sleeping bag he's set up for her. She doesn't insist on a story or on staying up, although Steve does note that she doesn't fall asleep for a very long time, hugging her stuffed rabbit and staring up at the roof of the blanket fort long after he's switched out the lights, amid the sound of the rain pattering loudly outside, drowning out everything else for miles.
He's awoken abruptly by a loud crashing sound coming from his father's old study, followed by the tell-tale tinkling of broken glass. Grace is sitting up, hair mussed, eyes wide, and he reaches over to squeeze the back of her neck comfortingly.
"It's okay. I'll just go see what that was, all right? I'll be right back."
He shoves his feet into his shoes, heads into the study only to be buffeted by a faceful of wind and rain. Instinctively he raises an arm to shield his face from the worst of it as lightning flashes outside. It's not bad, objectively speaking. The wind has ripped one of the boards free and blown open the window, which has smashed against the wall. It'll have to be replaced, he thinks as he carefully skirts the broken glass on the floor, but he was lucky: there's only a hole about the size of a baseball in the broken pane, which means all he has to do is make sure it's securely fastened again until morning and rig something up to keep out the worst of the rain. Then he'll go back to bed on the not-very-comfortable floor of his living room and reassure Grace that everything's fine. Piece of cake. That's when things go wrong.
He's busily wrestling the window back into place when there's a soft scuffling sound from behind him.
"Uncle Steve?"
He turns back, loosening his hold on the window for a fraction of a second. Lightning flashes and Grace emits a small shriek in spite of herself, immediately clapping both hands over her mouth, but that's all it takes to distract him from what he's doing long enough for disaster to strike. Another gust of wind wrenches the window out of his hands, and when he lunges to catch it again his fingers get caught between the wall and the wooden frame. Sharp pain lances along his arm, and while he can't quite bite back a short cry, he does manage not to swear in front of Danny's kid, which he thinks isn't bad at all.
"Stay by the door, Gracie," he tells her sharply, cradling his hand against his chest. "There's broken glass on the floor, you'll cut your feet."
"Are you okay?" Her voice wobbles.
"I'm fine, I just caught my hand."
It hurts like a son of a bitch, though. From the feel of it, he's broken a finger, which is just really annoying in terms of the timing. It doesn't feel like all that long ago that he got out of the cast from when he broke his arm. He sighs, figures he'll take a look at it in the kitchen. Grace is shuffling into the room, and another flash of lightning that makes them both jump a little at least shows him that she had the good sense to put on her own shoes.
"Did you cut yourself?"
"No, it's fine. I'll just take a quick look at it in the light in the kitchen," he says, hoping that the lights are still working.
Grace follows him into the kitchen, ignoring his admonishment to go back to bed. She's obviously freaked out and trying to be brave, and even in her pink nightie, clutching a stuffed animal, the determined look on her face reminds him so much of Danny that it makes something in Steve's chest clench a little. His little finger is already beginning to purple and swell, and she scrunches up her nose at it.
"That looks bad."
"It's okay," he tries to reassure her, but she makes a face that's so very like her father's that he almost laughs.
"No, it's not. I'm eight years old, Uncle Steve, I'm not a baby. You don't have to lie to protect me. We should call Danno, he always knows what to do in an emergency."
It's absurdly sweet, and he has to resist the impulse to hug her for it. "We'll call him in the morning, okay? Right now he won't be able to come over, and it'll just worry him. I'll be fine, I've had much worse things happen."
"If Danno were here he would tell you you should go to the hospital," she says sternly, and he bites the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling and maybe hurting her feelings. He wonders if she's always been this precocious, or whether it's her parents' divorce and her forced move to Hawaii that made her grow up so fast.
"In the morning, I will. It's too dangerous to drive out there right now."
"Is it broken?"
He grimaces a little. "Yes, I think so."
"You can't spend all night with a broken finger."
Steve glances at the clock on the wall. It's nearly three o'clock, which means there are still several hours until there's any hope of daylight. The best thing to do at this point is splint the finger and ice it until he can get it x-rayed and maybe casted at the ER. Thunder crashes outside, and he sees Grace flinch, her eyes widening a little as she glances toward the boarded-up windows. Time for something to distract her, he thinks.
"Hey, Gracie, you think maybe you could help me out with this until your Dad gets back? He can drive me to the hospital tomorrow, but right now we're going to have to do some first aid. You think you can do that for me?"
She looks away from the window, swallows and nods. Good girl, he thinks, just like her father, always willing to put other people's well-being first. "What do I do?"
"There's a first aid kit in the bathroom under the sink. Can you fetch it for me?"
She nods. "Okay!"
She turns and trots out of the kitchen, her braid bouncing against her back, and Steve pulls open the freezer with his good hand and carefully pulls out the trays of ice cubes he has in there. He shuts the freezer, pulls open the drawer in which he keeps his plastic baggies, fumbling one-handed with the box and cursing under his breath. His broken finger is already starting to throb. If he were in the field adrenaline would have kicked in by now and he'd barely feel this, there would be plenty of time to get to the hospital, get it looked at and get some good painkillers to go with it. Right now, though, it's nothing but him and a little girl and this big, empty house. He has nothing to focus on except how much broken bones hurt, even if it's just a finger.
He's putting ice into a baggie when Grace comes back with the first aid kit tucked under one skinny arm and a small white bottle in her other hand. "I brought Advil, too. Danno takes it when his knee is hurting."
Steve feels oddly touched. "Thank you, Gracie, that was very thoughtful."
He pops the kit open with his thumb, pulls out tape and a finger splint and some gauze wrap, everything that he'll need to stabilize the break until he can get it looked at. He closes the white box and then pain spikes through him as he inadvertently catches his bad hand on the edge of the kitchen table, making him hiss and instinctively clutch at his wrist, dropping a roll of gauze to the floor. Grace dives to retrieve it.
"Are you okay?"
"Yeah, I just knocked my hand," he forces his voice to stay normal. "It's fine."
"You should sit down," she puts the gauze on the table. "What are you doing with that?"
He makes the mistake of trying to flex his fingers and winces a bit. "I'm going to splint my finger, then tape it and wrap it so that it's stable," he explains. Grace is old enough to understand these things, after all.
"What should I do?"
He hesitates. He knows he wanted to keep her busy, but he didn't think much past sending her off to get the kit. Having an extra pair of hands would help, but then again he's not sure Danny will ever forgive him if Steve enlists his partner's eight-year-old daughter to help with first aid. Finally he figures that it's better to give her something to do than to just let her watch while he sets his own finger.
"Okay, it's not that hard, but it'll help to have an extra pair of hands," he says, carefully pulling off his watch. "First thing is to put that splint over the finger. You see how it works?"
She picks it up off the table. "Uh-huh. It just goes over your finger like this, right?" she slips it over her own index finger, although it's laughably large on her small hand. "Why's it blue?"
He laughs. "I don't know, maybe to make it look pretty? You've got the idea, though. Okay, think you can do that for me? You have to do it smoothly and not stop until it's all the way on."
She nods, lower lip caught in her teeth as she concentrates. Steve has to clench his jaw as the process jars his hand, but she does a good job of it, her hands steady as she slips the splint into place. "Maybe you should take some Advil," she suggests.
"Just as soon as we're done. Now you're going to take that roll of tape and wrap my pinky finger to my ring finger."
"Won't that hurt?" Gracie's face scrunches up again in the same way her father's does when he's worried, and this time he lets himself laugh.
"Yeah, it'll hurt when you do it, but it'll make it hurt less afterward."
She bites her lip harder and sighs, but under his direction she peels off a section of tape, then meticulously wraps it first around the splint, then around both fingers, pausing every so often to ask if she's making it too tight. It hurts like hell, and he can feel sweat beginning to pool at the base of his spine in spite of himself, but he grits his teeth and assures her she's doing just fine. By the time she's done he finds himself wishing he'd followed her advice and taken the Advil right off. He can only imagine Danny's derisive snort and none-too-subtle muttering about bullshit macho stoicism, and the thought makes him smile. Grace doesn't notice, though, too busy making sure that she's wrapping the gauze properly around his hand and securing it to his wrist with carefully-applied strips of tape, stepping back to survey it critically when she's done.
"It's kind of messy," she says ruefully, tilting her head to the side.
It's not exactly the most professional job -maybe a little loose and sloppy around the edges- but it only has to hold until morning, and for a first-time job for a little girl, it's damned impressive. Trust Danny's daughter to be a perfectionist.
"You did really, really well," he assures her. "I know lots of grown-ups who wouldn't have done a better job."
She glows faintly under the praise, lips curling up in a shy smile, and he feels his heart skip a beat, knowing that he's the one who put that expression there. It never gets old. Grace picks up the bottle of Advil, pops it open, and shakes two pills out onto the table top.
"I'll get you a glass of water," she says, brisk and business-like, her tone brooking no argument and practically forbidding him from getting up without her ever having to say it. She might get that part of her personality from her mother. God knows, Danny always says everything that's on his mind, complete with embellishments and metaphors.
"I thought those caps were meant to be child-proof," he says instead, looking at the bottle of Advil.
Gracie rolls her eyes. "I'm almost nine, Uncle Steve. Child-proof caps are meant for babies so they don't accidentally poison themselves."
"Right, of course. My mistake, sorry," he can't help the smile that creeps onto his face as she stands up on her tiptoes in order to get a glass out of the cupboard and fills it at the sink before bringing it back. "Thank you." Normally he would have simply dry-swallowed the Advil, but it seems churlish to refuse the water she went out of her way to get.
"I'll go put the first aid kit back," she informs him. "Should I leave the Advil?"
He nods. "May as well. I'll probably need to take more in a few hours."
She's back within minutes, insists on checking over his hand before pronouncing that the bandages look like they're holding, then perches on a chair across the table from him, resting her chin in her hands. Nearly an hour has passed since this all started, he realizes, and now that he's paying attention there's no more sound of thunder from outside. He doesn't remember when the last flash of lightning was, but it's been a while, and even the rain seems to be dying down a little. Grace's eyelids are drooping, now that the adrenaline has worn off and she no longer has anything to concentrate on. He slides his chair back, walks around the table in order to drop a hand on her shoulder.
"I don't know about you, but I'm pretty tired after all that," he lies. "I'm heading back to bed. You want to go back to the tent, or do you want to sleep in the spare bedroom?"
She scrubs at her eyes. "I put my bunny back in the tent."
"Tent it is, then. Come on."
He takes her other hand, leads her into the living room, and eases himself back into his own sleeping bag as soon as she's settled. She's out like a light within minutes, which is a relief, but he finds himself unable to go back to sleep right away, staring up at the rough weave of the blanket above his head. His hand still hurts, the Advil doing little more than taking the edge off the pain, and he finds himself wondering if Danny managed to get to sleep on the uncomfortable cots at the office, or if he's lying awake too and worrying about Grace. Finally, though, his own exhaustion takes its toll, and he drifts to sleep.
When Steve wakes again it's to the sound of the front door opening. Light is streaming in through the gaps in the boards over the windows, signalling that not only has morning arrived, but the storm is well and truly over.
"Hey, where is everyone?" Danny's voice wafts through the house, loud and cheerful.
"Danno!" Grace scrambles out of the tent and launches herself at her father, who spreads his arms and twirls her once before setting her on his hip. "You came!" Her hair is mussed and her eyes are still half-closed from sleep, and Danny himself is looking more than a little rumpled from spending the night at the office, but Steve can't help but think that they make the most beautiful picture he's ever seen, standing like that in the morning light.
Danny tweaks her nose, making her giggle. "Of course I came, Monkey, as soon as I could. What's all this?" he asks, surveying the transformed living room as Steve extricates himself from his sleeping bag and gets to his feet while trying not to jostle his hand.
"Uncle Steve made us a blanket fort so we could camp in the living room during the storm like he used to do with his sister when they were my age!" Grace explains, beaming at her father. "And we had ice cream for dinner!"
"I can't leave you alone for a minute," Danny says disapprovingly, but he smiles at Steve. "You're going to be paying for her dentist's bills, my friend -what happened?" he stops mid-scold as his eyes land on the makeshift splint holding Steve's finger in place.
Grace intervenes before Steve can answer. "The wind blew open one of the windows and Uncle Steve went to fix it except I followed him and there was lightning and I got scared and he hurt his finger, but I got the first aid kit and he let me help to put the bandages on and he said we should wait for you this morning because it was too dangerous to drive to the hospital."
Steve isn't sure if she actually breathed once during that explanation, but Danny seems to understand well enough. He gives Steve a critical look. "Need a lift to the ER?"
He shrugs a bit sheepishly. "If you don't mind. I promised Grace I'd take you both out for pancakes this morning, so maybe once we're done?"
Danny snorts. "The pancakes can wait. Let's just make sure you're not in danger of needing your arm amputated first, okay?"
Grace pulls back a bit. "Daddy, don't be silly. Uncle Steve just broke his finger. You don't need to amputate for that."
"Oh, you don't, do you?" Danny tickles her until she shrieks. "We'll just see about that! Go get dressed, Monkey, we're going to take Uncle Steve to the hospital. Bring Bunny and a book, too, in case we have to wait, okay?"
"Yes, Daddy."
Danny watches her just long enough to make sure she does as he told her, then turns to Steve. "You need a hand? Or are you just going to go in your pajamas?" Steve hesitates, a little embarrassed, and Danny rolls his eyes. "Come on, tough guy. I helped when you broke your arm going off a cliff, there's nothing you've got that I haven't seen before."
Without so much as waiting for Steve to acquiesce he takes him by the elbow on his uninjured arm and steers him toward the stairs. Steve can hear Grace getting dressed in the spare room, and wonders a little bit that both he and Danny's daughter don't even think of questioning Danny when he's parenting. The thought makes him smile, even as Danny is helping him into a t-shirt, and he finds Danny returning the smile.
"What's so funny? You find trauma amusing, you lunatic?" he teases, and Steve's smile widens.
"Just thinking how bossy you are," he says, can't help the softening of his tone when Danny's eyes crinkle at the corners in amusement.
"You're a goof. I can't leave you unsupervised for a minute, can I? Okay, you're all set," he takes a step back to survey his work critically, and for a moment Steve is forcibly reminded of the self-same expression on Grace's face a few hours earlier. "Let's go, Rambo."
"Rambo was in the Army, Danno."
"Uh-huh. My point still stands. Come on, the sooner we go, the sooner you won't be in pain." He turns to smile over his shoulder at Steve. "And when we're done, the pancakes are on me."
~END~
Summary: Steve and Gracie have to spend the night alone in his house when Danny gets stranded at the office during a tropical storm.
Characters: Steve, Grace, with a side-order of Danny
Rating: G
Wordcount: 5,151
Disclaimer: Nothing is mine, no ownership implied. Sue if you want to, but all you'll get out of that is a bunch of IKEA furniture, an old laptop and three overly-clingy cats.
Warnings: Um, this is kind of schmoopy.
Neurotic Author's Note #1: This is a fic for casspeach, who won it a MILLION YEARS AGO in fandom_flood_ap. I feel like apologizing for how late this is is laughable at this point. I am embarrassingly late, but I did get it written!
Neurotic Author's Note #2: Dear casspeach, I have no idea if this is even remotely close to what you wanted. I know we discussed it a little bit and you wanted Steve coaching someone through administering first aid in the field, but this is only sort of like your prompt. Um. *shifty* It's schmoopier than I intended, and instead of being Danny & Steve or Danny/Steve it ended up being Gracie & Steve with Danny as a bonus. IDK.
Neurotic Author's Note #3: And now part of me really, really wants the show to devote a whole episode to nothing but Steve and Gracie. /o\
"Was that Danno, Uncle Steve?" Grace asks as he hangs up his cell phone and tucks it back into its holster on his belt. "Is he coming soon?"
She's been doing pretty well, all told, alone in the house with him during what's looking like it's going to be a hell of a tropical rainstorm out there. That she's anxious without her father there is normal, Steve knows. She's been following him around from room to room as he's been locking down the house. Not that he can blame her: she's not used to the weather on the island yet, and it's not like there are many tropical storms in Jersey. She was already worried when she saw Steve coming by himself to pick her up from school -the last time he did that, Danny was in the hospital after nearly dying from exposure to a neurotoxin- and if Steve is honest with himself he'll feel better when Danny's home with them as well. He rationalizes it by telling himself that Danny's not used to the weather either, and that it's dangerous for him to be out in the downpour, but in reality he just likes having all his family -extended or otherwise- close at hand where he can keep an eye on them.
"That was him," he confirms, "and he's fine, just wrapping up a few things at the office." He glances out the window at the rain, which is already beginning to fall harder, and wonders if he shouldn't have told Danny to stay where he is until this whole thing blows over. Steve doesn't mind driving out in bad weather, but it can be dangerous for someone who hasn't been trained to deal with it. "He's going to call again when he's on his way, and he said to give you a kiss, so I guess I'd better get on that. You know how your Dad gets when I don't follow his instructions. Butterfly or Eskimo?" he asks, and she giggles.
"Eskimo," she decides, and giggles more when he scoops her into his arms, settles her easily on his hip, and rubs his nose against hers. "Does he still have lots to do? How long is he gonna be?"
"I'm not sure, but not very much longer. He knows he shouldn't be out when it's raining too hard, so he promised to come back as soon as he's finished up what he's doing."
Outside lightning flashes, and Grace flinches He carries her into the kitchen and sets her on a stool. "How about we have a special tropical storm treat? I have ice cream in the freezer, and if we lose power for a little while it might all melt. So I think it would be the responsible thing to do to make sure it doesn't all go to waste. Sound good?"
She grins and nods. "Yeah."
"All right, then."
Ice cream is a great distraction from tropical storms and anxiety about missing parents. Ever since Danny and Grace started hanging out at his place more often, Steve has made a point of stocking the kind of things that make Danny's face turn funny colours while he rants about preservatives and artificial colouring and how it cannot ever be normal for an ice cream cone to be pink. Aside from the amusement factor, it gives him a pleasant tingly feeling to watch Grace's face light up with a smile when he produces rainbow sprinkles for her ice cream, or cookies shaped like animals. If he could keep that look on her face all day long, he would.
They're halfway through their ice cream when his phone rings again, Danny's unmistakable ring tone -You Give Love a Bad Name, for which Danny gave Steve hell for weeks, apparently unaware of the irony in that- loud in the otherwise silent kitchen. Grace looks up immediately, ice cream forgotten, eyes wide in her face as Steve answers.
"Hey Danno, you about done?"
There's something that sounds like static on the other end of the line, which it takes Steve only an extra few seconds to identify as the sound of pouring rain. "Yeah, about that. I'm done, but I've run into a problem. For one, 'cats and dogs' doesn't cover the weather out there. Actually, we had a lightning strike right next to the building. No one's hurt, but it took out a lamp post which then took out a bunch of cars. The street's a mess, babe. There aren't any casualties, thank God, but there's no way I'm getting the car through all of that until it gets cleared away..."
"And that won't be for a while," Steve finishes the thought for him. "Look, there's no point in your trying to make your way out here until the storm blows over, even if they do get the street cleared. It's going to be dark soon and it'll be way too dangerous for you to drive." He hears Danny swear under his breath, glances over at Grace in time to watch her expression grow stricken. "Here, why don't you talk to Grace for a minute? Grace, your Dad wants to talk to you," he says unnecessarily, handing over the phone.
She grabs the phone with both hands, holds it to her ear. "Hi Danno. Aren't you coming back?" Her expression grows sadder, then resigned as she listens. Steve moves a little further away so she can have some space to talk to her father privately if she wants, without anyone listening in. He doesn't know if she's old enough to want that much privacy, but he figures better safe than sorry. The only thing he catches is a quiet "Okay, Danno, I love you too. Bye," when she comes over to give the phone back.
"He'll be fine," Steve tries to reassure her. "I know it's not as much fun without him here, but as soon as it stops raining and they clear away the accident in the street he's going to come straight home."
"Uh-huh." She doesn't sound convinced. "But where is he going to sleep?"
"There are cots for when we have to work for really long stretches of time. They're pretty comfy, if I do say so myself. I've slept on them before, so they've been personally tested out. You done with your ice cream?" he looks over to where it's melting slowly on the counter, and she nods.
"I'm not hungry anymore."
"All right, then." He scrapes the remnants into the garbage, and decides he may as well pull out the big guns right away.
It's nearly six o'clock, which means that he just served Gracie ice cream for dinner -yet another thing for which Danny is going to yell at him and maybe shake his fist for good measure- but one time isn't going to kill anyone. Right now he has to figure out how to distract a really anxious eight-year-old from the fact that she's going to have to spend the whole night in someone else's house when neither of them have ever spent any time alone with each other. Danny has always been around to smooth out whatever rough edges Steve still has around kids. Okay, Steve tells himself, he's survived Afghanistan, so spending a few hours unsupervised with his partner's little girl should be a piece of cake.
"You know what my sister Mary and me used to do when there were big storms outside?"
Grace shakes her head. "What?"
He grins. "When Mary was really little -much younger than you- she thought the storms were scary. So my Mom and Dad used to let me build a big blanket fort out here with the couch and a whole lot of chairs and pillows, and we used to camp out in the living room. We would bring flashlights and I would smuggle in sweet and sour candy because it was her favourite, and then I'd frighten her with ghost stories until she went shrieking to our parents. I was a really mean older brother," he confides, and Grace giggles but shakes her head.
"That is really mean, Uncle Steve. She was already scared!"
"It was fun, though," he grins. "Come on. Want to make a fort? I promise, no ghost stories unless you want them."
He didn't think she would refuse, and he's right. They spend the better part of the next hour or so carefully rearranging all the available pillows and cushions in the house on the floor, then draping as many blankets and sheets as Steve can spare over the sofa and a few kitchen chairs, anchoring them securely in place. It's a lot more elaborate than any of the blanket forts he built as a kid -he has military training now, after all, it would be stupid not to take advantage of it- and Grace is delighted, burrowing inside and letting him hand her a flashlight and one of her favourite books to read.
"I'll be right back. I'm just going to finish locking up the house, all right?"
He took the precaution of boarding up the windows earlier but there are still small things left to take care of, including switching off all the lights that don't absolutely need to be lit -which in this case means all of them. Right now there's enough ambient light to see by, and he has lanterns for when it gets dark. He's pretty sure that they're in for at least a night's worth of this, maybe a little more depending on just how bad the storm gets. By the time he gets back to the living room, Grace has put her book aside and is sitting with the flashlight in her lap, chin propped in her hands, listening to the rain outside beating against the boarded-up windows. He lowers himself to sit next to her, cross-legged on the floor with the blanket brushing the top of his head, ruffles her hair.
"You know you don't have to worry, right? Danno's safe at the office, and this house has withstood much worse than a little rain." Murder and armed assault spring to mind, but even Steve knows it's not a good idea to bring that up right now. "When your Dad gets home tomorrow, if it's stopped raining, we can go out for pancakes."
She nods, but she doesn't seem convinced. "Okay."
He pulls her into a hug, snugly against his side. "Why don't you get into your pajamas and I'll make us a snack before bed. Sound good?"
Steve doesn't remember owning a pair of pajamas himself since he was about twelve, but he changes into an undershirt and sweatpants, because the idea of going to bed stark naked the way he usually does is not really an option with an inquisitive eight-year-old around. He makes up a snack of tomato sandwiches cut into squares with a glass of milk, thinking with amusement that they've done dinner backward today, and Grace manages about half of hers before declaring she's not hungry anymore.
"Okay," Steve takes the remnants away. One night of being hungry won't kill her, he tells himself. She's not going to starve before morning and therefore prompt Danny to throttle him. "You ready for bed?"
"I have to brush my teeth first."
It's a good thing Grace is a really well-behaved child, Steve tells himself as she gets herself ready for bed all on her own and comes back to the living room to slip into the sleeping bag he's set up for her. She doesn't insist on a story or on staying up, although Steve does note that she doesn't fall asleep for a very long time, hugging her stuffed rabbit and staring up at the roof of the blanket fort long after he's switched out the lights, amid the sound of the rain pattering loudly outside, drowning out everything else for miles.
He's awoken abruptly by a loud crashing sound coming from his father's old study, followed by the tell-tale tinkling of broken glass. Grace is sitting up, hair mussed, eyes wide, and he reaches over to squeeze the back of her neck comfortingly.
"It's okay. I'll just go see what that was, all right? I'll be right back."
He shoves his feet into his shoes, heads into the study only to be buffeted by a faceful of wind and rain. Instinctively he raises an arm to shield his face from the worst of it as lightning flashes outside. It's not bad, objectively speaking. The wind has ripped one of the boards free and blown open the window, which has smashed against the wall. It'll have to be replaced, he thinks as he carefully skirts the broken glass on the floor, but he was lucky: there's only a hole about the size of a baseball in the broken pane, which means all he has to do is make sure it's securely fastened again until morning and rig something up to keep out the worst of the rain. Then he'll go back to bed on the not-very-comfortable floor of his living room and reassure Grace that everything's fine. Piece of cake. That's when things go wrong.
He's busily wrestling the window back into place when there's a soft scuffling sound from behind him.
"Uncle Steve?"
He turns back, loosening his hold on the window for a fraction of a second. Lightning flashes and Grace emits a small shriek in spite of herself, immediately clapping both hands over her mouth, but that's all it takes to distract him from what he's doing long enough for disaster to strike. Another gust of wind wrenches the window out of his hands, and when he lunges to catch it again his fingers get caught between the wall and the wooden frame. Sharp pain lances along his arm, and while he can't quite bite back a short cry, he does manage not to swear in front of Danny's kid, which he thinks isn't bad at all.
"Stay by the door, Gracie," he tells her sharply, cradling his hand against his chest. "There's broken glass on the floor, you'll cut your feet."
"Are you okay?" Her voice wobbles.
"I'm fine, I just caught my hand."
It hurts like a son of a bitch, though. From the feel of it, he's broken a finger, which is just really annoying in terms of the timing. It doesn't feel like all that long ago that he got out of the cast from when he broke his arm. He sighs, figures he'll take a look at it in the kitchen. Grace is shuffling into the room, and another flash of lightning that makes them both jump a little at least shows him that she had the good sense to put on her own shoes.
"Did you cut yourself?"
"No, it's fine. I'll just take a quick look at it in the light in the kitchen," he says, hoping that the lights are still working.
Grace follows him into the kitchen, ignoring his admonishment to go back to bed. She's obviously freaked out and trying to be brave, and even in her pink nightie, clutching a stuffed animal, the determined look on her face reminds him so much of Danny that it makes something in Steve's chest clench a little. His little finger is already beginning to purple and swell, and she scrunches up her nose at it.
"That looks bad."
"It's okay," he tries to reassure her, but she makes a face that's so very like her father's that he almost laughs.
"No, it's not. I'm eight years old, Uncle Steve, I'm not a baby. You don't have to lie to protect me. We should call Danno, he always knows what to do in an emergency."
It's absurdly sweet, and he has to resist the impulse to hug her for it. "We'll call him in the morning, okay? Right now he won't be able to come over, and it'll just worry him. I'll be fine, I've had much worse things happen."
"If Danno were here he would tell you you should go to the hospital," she says sternly, and he bites the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling and maybe hurting her feelings. He wonders if she's always been this precocious, or whether it's her parents' divorce and her forced move to Hawaii that made her grow up so fast.
"In the morning, I will. It's too dangerous to drive out there right now."
"Is it broken?"
He grimaces a little. "Yes, I think so."
"You can't spend all night with a broken finger."
Steve glances at the clock on the wall. It's nearly three o'clock, which means there are still several hours until there's any hope of daylight. The best thing to do at this point is splint the finger and ice it until he can get it x-rayed and maybe casted at the ER. Thunder crashes outside, and he sees Grace flinch, her eyes widening a little as she glances toward the boarded-up windows. Time for something to distract her, he thinks.
"Hey, Gracie, you think maybe you could help me out with this until your Dad gets back? He can drive me to the hospital tomorrow, but right now we're going to have to do some first aid. You think you can do that for me?"
She looks away from the window, swallows and nods. Good girl, he thinks, just like her father, always willing to put other people's well-being first. "What do I do?"
"There's a first aid kit in the bathroom under the sink. Can you fetch it for me?"
She nods. "Okay!"
She turns and trots out of the kitchen, her braid bouncing against her back, and Steve pulls open the freezer with his good hand and carefully pulls out the trays of ice cubes he has in there. He shuts the freezer, pulls open the drawer in which he keeps his plastic baggies, fumbling one-handed with the box and cursing under his breath. His broken finger is already starting to throb. If he were in the field adrenaline would have kicked in by now and he'd barely feel this, there would be plenty of time to get to the hospital, get it looked at and get some good painkillers to go with it. Right now, though, it's nothing but him and a little girl and this big, empty house. He has nothing to focus on except how much broken bones hurt, even if it's just a finger.
He's putting ice into a baggie when Grace comes back with the first aid kit tucked under one skinny arm and a small white bottle in her other hand. "I brought Advil, too. Danno takes it when his knee is hurting."
Steve feels oddly touched. "Thank you, Gracie, that was very thoughtful."
He pops the kit open with his thumb, pulls out tape and a finger splint and some gauze wrap, everything that he'll need to stabilize the break until he can get it looked at. He closes the white box and then pain spikes through him as he inadvertently catches his bad hand on the edge of the kitchen table, making him hiss and instinctively clutch at his wrist, dropping a roll of gauze to the floor. Grace dives to retrieve it.
"Are you okay?"
"Yeah, I just knocked my hand," he forces his voice to stay normal. "It's fine."
"You should sit down," she puts the gauze on the table. "What are you doing with that?"
He makes the mistake of trying to flex his fingers and winces a bit. "I'm going to splint my finger, then tape it and wrap it so that it's stable," he explains. Grace is old enough to understand these things, after all.
"What should I do?"
He hesitates. He knows he wanted to keep her busy, but he didn't think much past sending her off to get the kit. Having an extra pair of hands would help, but then again he's not sure Danny will ever forgive him if Steve enlists his partner's eight-year-old daughter to help with first aid. Finally he figures that it's better to give her something to do than to just let her watch while he sets his own finger.
"Okay, it's not that hard, but it'll help to have an extra pair of hands," he says, carefully pulling off his watch. "First thing is to put that splint over the finger. You see how it works?"
She picks it up off the table. "Uh-huh. It just goes over your finger like this, right?" she slips it over her own index finger, although it's laughably large on her small hand. "Why's it blue?"
He laughs. "I don't know, maybe to make it look pretty? You've got the idea, though. Okay, think you can do that for me? You have to do it smoothly and not stop until it's all the way on."
She nods, lower lip caught in her teeth as she concentrates. Steve has to clench his jaw as the process jars his hand, but she does a good job of it, her hands steady as she slips the splint into place. "Maybe you should take some Advil," she suggests.
"Just as soon as we're done. Now you're going to take that roll of tape and wrap my pinky finger to my ring finger."
"Won't that hurt?" Gracie's face scrunches up again in the same way her father's does when he's worried, and this time he lets himself laugh.
"Yeah, it'll hurt when you do it, but it'll make it hurt less afterward."
She bites her lip harder and sighs, but under his direction she peels off a section of tape, then meticulously wraps it first around the splint, then around both fingers, pausing every so often to ask if she's making it too tight. It hurts like hell, and he can feel sweat beginning to pool at the base of his spine in spite of himself, but he grits his teeth and assures her she's doing just fine. By the time she's done he finds himself wishing he'd followed her advice and taken the Advil right off. He can only imagine Danny's derisive snort and none-too-subtle muttering about bullshit macho stoicism, and the thought makes him smile. Grace doesn't notice, though, too busy making sure that she's wrapping the gauze properly around his hand and securing it to his wrist with carefully-applied strips of tape, stepping back to survey it critically when she's done.
"It's kind of messy," she says ruefully, tilting her head to the side.
It's not exactly the most professional job -maybe a little loose and sloppy around the edges- but it only has to hold until morning, and for a first-time job for a little girl, it's damned impressive. Trust Danny's daughter to be a perfectionist.
"You did really, really well," he assures her. "I know lots of grown-ups who wouldn't have done a better job."
She glows faintly under the praise, lips curling up in a shy smile, and he feels his heart skip a beat, knowing that he's the one who put that expression there. It never gets old. Grace picks up the bottle of Advil, pops it open, and shakes two pills out onto the table top.
"I'll get you a glass of water," she says, brisk and business-like, her tone brooking no argument and practically forbidding him from getting up without her ever having to say it. She might get that part of her personality from her mother. God knows, Danny always says everything that's on his mind, complete with embellishments and metaphors.
"I thought those caps were meant to be child-proof," he says instead, looking at the bottle of Advil.
Gracie rolls her eyes. "I'm almost nine, Uncle Steve. Child-proof caps are meant for babies so they don't accidentally poison themselves."
"Right, of course. My mistake, sorry," he can't help the smile that creeps onto his face as she stands up on her tiptoes in order to get a glass out of the cupboard and fills it at the sink before bringing it back. "Thank you." Normally he would have simply dry-swallowed the Advil, but it seems churlish to refuse the water she went out of her way to get.
"I'll go put the first aid kit back," she informs him. "Should I leave the Advil?"
He nods. "May as well. I'll probably need to take more in a few hours."
She's back within minutes, insists on checking over his hand before pronouncing that the bandages look like they're holding, then perches on a chair across the table from him, resting her chin in her hands. Nearly an hour has passed since this all started, he realizes, and now that he's paying attention there's no more sound of thunder from outside. He doesn't remember when the last flash of lightning was, but it's been a while, and even the rain seems to be dying down a little. Grace's eyelids are drooping, now that the adrenaline has worn off and she no longer has anything to concentrate on. He slides his chair back, walks around the table in order to drop a hand on her shoulder.
"I don't know about you, but I'm pretty tired after all that," he lies. "I'm heading back to bed. You want to go back to the tent, or do you want to sleep in the spare bedroom?"
She scrubs at her eyes. "I put my bunny back in the tent."
"Tent it is, then. Come on."
He takes her other hand, leads her into the living room, and eases himself back into his own sleeping bag as soon as she's settled. She's out like a light within minutes, which is a relief, but he finds himself unable to go back to sleep right away, staring up at the rough weave of the blanket above his head. His hand still hurts, the Advil doing little more than taking the edge off the pain, and he finds himself wondering if Danny managed to get to sleep on the uncomfortable cots at the office, or if he's lying awake too and worrying about Grace. Finally, though, his own exhaustion takes its toll, and he drifts to sleep.
When Steve wakes again it's to the sound of the front door opening. Light is streaming in through the gaps in the boards over the windows, signalling that not only has morning arrived, but the storm is well and truly over.
"Hey, where is everyone?" Danny's voice wafts through the house, loud and cheerful.
"Danno!" Grace scrambles out of the tent and launches herself at her father, who spreads his arms and twirls her once before setting her on his hip. "You came!" Her hair is mussed and her eyes are still half-closed from sleep, and Danny himself is looking more than a little rumpled from spending the night at the office, but Steve can't help but think that they make the most beautiful picture he's ever seen, standing like that in the morning light.
Danny tweaks her nose, making her giggle. "Of course I came, Monkey, as soon as I could. What's all this?" he asks, surveying the transformed living room as Steve extricates himself from his sleeping bag and gets to his feet while trying not to jostle his hand.
"Uncle Steve made us a blanket fort so we could camp in the living room during the storm like he used to do with his sister when they were my age!" Grace explains, beaming at her father. "And we had ice cream for dinner!"
"I can't leave you alone for a minute," Danny says disapprovingly, but he smiles at Steve. "You're going to be paying for her dentist's bills, my friend -what happened?" he stops mid-scold as his eyes land on the makeshift splint holding Steve's finger in place.
Grace intervenes before Steve can answer. "The wind blew open one of the windows and Uncle Steve went to fix it except I followed him and there was lightning and I got scared and he hurt his finger, but I got the first aid kit and he let me help to put the bandages on and he said we should wait for you this morning because it was too dangerous to drive to the hospital."
Steve isn't sure if she actually breathed once during that explanation, but Danny seems to understand well enough. He gives Steve a critical look. "Need a lift to the ER?"
He shrugs a bit sheepishly. "If you don't mind. I promised Grace I'd take you both out for pancakes this morning, so maybe once we're done?"
Danny snorts. "The pancakes can wait. Let's just make sure you're not in danger of needing your arm amputated first, okay?"
Grace pulls back a bit. "Daddy, don't be silly. Uncle Steve just broke his finger. You don't need to amputate for that."
"Oh, you don't, do you?" Danny tickles her until she shrieks. "We'll just see about that! Go get dressed, Monkey, we're going to take Uncle Steve to the hospital. Bring Bunny and a book, too, in case we have to wait, okay?"
"Yes, Daddy."
Danny watches her just long enough to make sure she does as he told her, then turns to Steve. "You need a hand? Or are you just going to go in your pajamas?" Steve hesitates, a little embarrassed, and Danny rolls his eyes. "Come on, tough guy. I helped when you broke your arm going off a cliff, there's nothing you've got that I haven't seen before."
Without so much as waiting for Steve to acquiesce he takes him by the elbow on his uninjured arm and steers him toward the stairs. Steve can hear Grace getting dressed in the spare room, and wonders a little bit that both he and Danny's daughter don't even think of questioning Danny when he's parenting. The thought makes him smile, even as Danny is helping him into a t-shirt, and he finds Danny returning the smile.
"What's so funny? You find trauma amusing, you lunatic?" he teases, and Steve's smile widens.
"Just thinking how bossy you are," he says, can't help the softening of his tone when Danny's eyes crinkle at the corners in amusement.
"You're a goof. I can't leave you unsupervised for a minute, can I? Okay, you're all set," he takes a step back to survey his work critically, and for a moment Steve is forcibly reminded of the self-same expression on Grace's face a few hours earlier. "Let's go, Rambo."
"Rambo was in the Army, Danno."
"Uh-huh. My point still stands. Come on, the sooner we go, the sooner you won't be in pain." He turns to smile over his shoulder at Steve. "And when we're done, the pancakes are on me."
~END~