Arrullo
Rating: PG
Pairing: Danny/OFC
Feedback: Makes my day
Disclaimer: If it was in the show, it's not mine.
Archive: At my site Checkmate (http://helsinkibaby.ahkay.net)
Summary: It’s amazing how quickly something can become habit
Notes: For Mags, who came up with the image.
It never fails to amaze Natalie how quickly something can become habit,
how quickly your life can change irretrievably, so that it's impossible to
remember what went before.
If loving Danny Taylor has taught her one thing, it's taught her that,
several times.
The first time she learned that lesson was during her freshman year of
college. Sitting on a bench, trying to enjoy the good weather while reading Ulysses - though she quickly realised
that trying to enjoy anything while reading Ulysses
was impossible - she'd heard a male voice uttering the corniest line
imaginable, had looked up into those dark eyes of his and been promptly
smitten.
He'd asked her out for coffee and she'd agreed without too much
persuasion, and from then on, they'd fallen rapidly into seeing one another
every day. While the rest of her friends went out with different guys, Danny
was it for her, and for the four years of college, she'd never looked at
another guy, couldn't imagine doing it.
She couldn't imagine not having him in her life, couldn't imagine what
her life would be like without him, didn't know how she got by without him. So,
when they graduated and he proposed, she didn't hesitate to say yes.
Even if she knew that he was drinking too much. They could get through
that, and, after all, he kept promising her that he would stop.
It was a long time before she realised that alcohol meant more to him
than she did, and even then, she can't pinpoint what it was that made her
leave. Nothing special about the day that she arrived home to find him passed
out on the couch; it was something that happened fairly frequently. That day,
she felt something break inside her, knew she couldn't do it anymore.
So she left New York and ran away to California and home, where friends
and family, relieved that she'd done what they'd been telling her to do for
months, protected the secret of her location, refusing to tell Danny where she
was, what she was doing.
She got a job, an apartment, tried to move on with her life, even began
dating, eventually. But it was a long time before she stopped comparing every
man to the Danny that she'd fallen in love with, the Danny that she'd planned
to spend the rest of her life with. It was even longer before she felt that she
was really over him, that he wasn't a factor in her life anymore. That day came
when she realised that she couldn't remember the little things she loved about
him, like how his hands felt against her skin, the look in his eyes when he
looked at her, the tiny smile that would play about his lips when he was
telling her something, anything.
When she couldn't remember those little things, it was almost a relief.
Almost.
Not too long after that, a job came up in the New York office, a
promotion, and it was offered to her. Everyone told her that she would be crazy
not to take it, and she knew that they were right. Just like she knew that even
though it had been seven years since she'd been in New York - had never
returned, not since she'd left Danny - she was strong enough to go back.
Then one day she'd found herself in a bookstore in front of a floor to
ceiling shelf of Irish writers, and an all-too-familiar voice had made her
jump. "Finally given up on Joyce, huh?" he'd said, and, not for the
first time since she'd known him, she was completely speechless.
Just like she'd known, the second that she saw him, that she wasn't
over him after all. If a few words in the bookstore hadn't proven that, then a
cup of coffee, a conversation, was all it had taken to make the previous seven
years disappear like mist in the morning.
She'd taken things slowly though, deliberately so, because the last
thing she wanted to do was get hurt again.
That had lasted until the night that he'd shown up at her door,
distraught over a case, and they'd ended up in bed. She'd woken up the next
morning in his arms, turned to him and kissed him good morning, and they've
scarcely spent a night apart since.
She knows she shouldn't be surprised that they fell so easily into a
routine with one another; they always have, right from the first time that they
met.
The last month and a half have been no different.
Nor is tonight.
When the familiar high-pitched wail disturbs their sleep, Danny, with
years of FBI experience of the telephone ringing at all hours of the morning,
is the quicker to react. "I'll go," he mumbles, pressing a kiss to
her shoulder, and as she fights her way through levels of sleepiness, she can
just about make out the rustle of bedclothes, then the sound of clothing being
pulled on. His footsteps head for the door and when he gets to the hall, he
slaps on the light, half-closing the door so that she's not completely blinded
when she opens her eyes, yet leaving her enough light that she won't go back to
sleep again.
Rolling over onto her back, she prises open her eyes, stares at the
ceiling for a long moment before taking a deep breath, manoeuvring herself out
of bed, grabbing her robe and pulling it on, pulling it tightly closed. Sheer
vanity, as well as long habit, has her running her hands through her hair,
smoothing it down, pushing it back, even as she's following him, making her way
down the hall, into the next room.
What she sees there has her catching her breath.
Danny stands at the window, his back to her, and she can see his reflection
in the glass, can see the expression of combined wonder and worry on his face
as he looks down at the baby he's holding against his chest. Their daughter,
due for a feed, is still fussing, but not wailing, her dark eyes wide as she
looks up at her father, his hand supporting her neck. He's talking to her in
Spanish, his voice low and musical, and as Natalie stands and watches them from
the doorway - because really, how could she be expected to disturb this sight?
- he begins to sing softly, still in Spanish. She knows, because he's told her,
that it's a song his mother used to sing to him as a child, adding ruefully
that it's a song he barely remembers, is probably getting half of the words
wrong, but she doesn't care about that. Neither does he, because Andrea always
calms down when he sings to her.
Natalie shifts on her feet slightly, and the movement must catch
Danny's attention in the glass, because he turns towards her, murmuring
something to the baby in Spanish. She catches the word "Mama" and it
makes her smile as she crosses the room to stand beside him, her left hand
reaching out to cup the baby's head, the other reaching out to run over the
skin of his back. The muscles ripple under her touch, and she gives him a
devilish grin as her hand continues down, stopping when she reaches the
waistband of his jeans, pulling at it before her fingers dip just underneath
it. It's enough to have him moving away from her slightly, and she raises an
eyebrow as he says to her, completely in earnest, "What have I said about
not when the baby's in the room?"
"She's six weeks old," Natalie points out, more amused than
annoyed. "I doubt she'll remember what her parents got up to."
It's not the first time she's pointed that out to him, and he offers
his usual protest as he hands Andrea to her. "I'm not taking that
risk," he says. There's a moment of silence where their eyes meet, and
there's that familiar spark in them when he continues, "Now, when she's
back down…"
His voice is still low, but nowhere near as tender as it was when he
was speaking to the baby. Now it's rough with wanting and promise, and she
feels ripples of gooseflesh erupting on her arms. "I'm going to hold you
to that," she says, sitting down in the rocking chair on the other side of
the window, guiding the baby to her breast, Andrea gripping onto the index
finger of her free hand, holding it tightly.
Danny comes over beside her, squats down beside them, and she smiles as
he balances himself by resting his right hand on the arm of the chair, his left
hand moving up to touch her skin, before continuing on to play with her hair.
His hand is as warm as the skin of his back, as is the gold of his wedding
ring, as are his lips when he leans over, fits them against hers.
This has been their ritual for the last six weeks, and she knows what
comes next. When Andrea is finished feeding, she will give her to Danny, let
him sing her back to sleep, lay her in her cradle. Then they will stand beside
her for a few minutes, partly to check that she's asleep, partly to check that
she's breathing, partly because they just can't get enough of looking at her.
Then they will return to their bedroom, where he'll make good on his promise of
earlier on.
This ritual is only six weeks old, and Natalie can't remember what her
life was like before Andrea, before Danny.
She can't remember, and she doesn't want to.
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