A "Family" Moment

Who: Danny, Janey and Maddy
Where: Danny and Janey's place
When: Morning

Maddy was hot. She was too hot and she couldn't move. Everything ached and her mouth tasted like cotton and she couldn't open her eyes. But she was laying on something soft, her head on something cushy, cushier than her bed was at the theater, which garnered a 'what the hell'. So she made her eyes open, reaching up a hand to rub at them. The room was unfamiliar, kind of bare. She managed to sit up a little and it was then that she noticed Janey asleep in the rocking chair beside her. She could dimly remember talking to her at the church, being angry at her for being nosy and annoying. She must've passed out or something because she couldn't think of an explanation as to how she ended up in her apartment.

And her clothes. Her clothes were fucking gone and she was wearing a nightdress that was too big on her. She wiggled around a little bit and breathed a sigh of relief. At least her underwear was still on, but then again, that didn't necessarily mean anything if she'd been passed out.

Maddy struggled out from under the pile of blankets on top of her, bare feet hitting the cold floor, making her toes curl. The door was cracked open and she shuffled over, limbs aching even more than they did before. She poked her head out into the hallway, hearing sounds coming from the direction of the kitchen. So she plastered herself against the wall like a good spy and carefully inched her way down the hallway, tilting her head to see who was in the kitchen. A man was standing in there, pots and pans clanging but it looked like he was trying to be quiet. He didn't look so much like a creep, but looks could be deceiving.

Breakfast would have been easier to start if Danny could find everything. He spent so little time in his kitchen actually cooking, he wasn't certain where any of the pans he needed were. Digging out the right frying pan, finally he set it on the stove, going about getting started until a small creak caught his ear. He might of missed it if he hadn't been listening for it, waiting for someone to wake up and step on the creaky board at the end of the hallway. When he glanced over his shoulder he spotted the small face half peeking out from behind the wall. "Morning," he told her. His voice was calm and casual despite the worry that was starting to race through his veins. Janey had better wake up soon.

Maddy still watched him warily, whole body tense like she was waiting for him to make just one more, one single move that she didn't like. She wished she had a blade on her for protection, because the guy looked like he was in pretty good physical condition but if she had to, she could take him. Totally. Her face was still flushed and she still looked like hell, her body shaking a little bit. "How long have I been out?" Her voice wasn't accusing, per say, but she was clearly on watch for any kind of funny business.

"You were out cold when I got home from work and you slept through the night," Danny said, speaking to the young girl like she was an adult. He busied himself cracking eggs and mixing in milk, pouring the concoction into the warm pan for scrambled eggs. "How are you feeling?"

She continued to watch him carefully, silent for awhile before answering him. "If you did anything to me, you better kill me now 'cause I've got people watching out for me," she threatened, stating it very matter of factly. She didn't know exactly what would be done about it, but that was only semantics that she could work on later.

Danny turned from the stove to eye the girl. "Did anything to you? Besides ensuring that you lived through the night? Or making you breakfast?" His cop attitude was starting to seep through and he was definitely not enjoy being mouthed off to by a street kid. Especially a street kid he'd let into his home, or didn't throw out when he found her in his home.

She shrugged. "Guys like to do things to little girls." Another matter of fact statement but it was stated more quietly and carefully in response to the sound of his voice. "You can never be too careful." And Maddy swore she'd never let something like that happen to her ever again but she had been asleep and she didn't want to admit that she was scared.

The way she said it, like it was just fact and not an unfortunate situation, that killed most of the anger in Danny. "No, I'm the guy who arrests those guys." After beating them to a pulp. The eggs were done and scooped them out of the pan and on to two plates, although one had a far larger portion than the other. Pulling two slices of bread out of the toaster he set one on either plate and moved across the kitchen towards the dinning area, setting both plates down. "You should eat something," Danny said, motioning to the fuller plate.

Fuck. This guy was a cop? Her fingers flexed, ungloved and her heart started to pound. Her fingerprints, they'd be over everything she touched. The best thing she could do was tug the long sleeves of the nightgown down to cover her hands while she slid into the seat at the table. It pulled at the collar showing a boney collarbone not uncommon in kids who lived on the street and she tugged it back up the best she could. Eggs and toast. She hadn't had that in... well, it didn't matter. "Got any butter?" she asked hopefully, looking up at him, big blue eyes large in her little flushed face, looking much younger than her fifteen years. She could play the game. That's what she told herself but despite her nervousness, she didn't want to admit that it was nice to be taken care of.

At least she was sitting, but she'd seemed a little twitchier than she had moments before. Of course he had just told her he was a cop. When her bony collarbone poked through he put the piece of toast on his plate on hers without thinking. "Butter, yes. I think." Getting up he searched the counter for the dish and after a moment found it. Stopping by the fridge he also grabbed a jar of jam, something Janey had gotten from one of the women in the church for helping out at something. "What's your name?" he asked, holding back the butter and jam, with an obvious show that he wasn't going to give it to her until she told him.

"Everyone calls me DG." Maybe she'd tell Roy someday but she'd pissed him off yesterday and she didn't really know when she'd do that. "Or Doll. I'm formerly introduced as Doll Girl. Or Supreme Goddess of the Universe. I'm pretty fond of that one." Maddy smiled charmingly up at him. Not quite a Doll smile, but a genuinely serene one before she shoved a forkful of eggs into her mouth. Yum.

"How about a real name," Danny asked. Supreme Goddess of the Universe huh? Janey had brought him home a total handful. Adorable of a smile as she had, he gave her the "don't fuck with me" cop face, or a nicer version of it.

Maddy wasn't really fazed by it. She was too good for that but she knew she was starting to get on thin ice, but he made her food so he couldn't be too bad. At least in that moment. "I can't do that," she told him seriously, meeting his eyes. If he wanted a staredown, she could do that. And she'd totally win too.

"Actually you can. And you should." Danny's voice lacked its normal bite, but it still carried the air that he wasn't the type to play games. "What about your parents?" Maybe he was letting her slide on the name part. He knew her street name which was probably more useful in the end than knowing her real name.

Maddy wasn't worried about giving out her street name. Dodge had his fingers everywhere in the city and the word was spread. She'd know he was coming if he decided to look for her. "They're dead. Don't remember them though. I was four. Lived with my aunt but she had this boyfriend that came around. I bailed. That good for you, officer?"

It wasn't good enough, but he did hand over the butter and jam. She'd given him something after all. "Eat," he ordered. Judging by her looks she seemed rather young, but her attitude spoke of someone older. Mid-teens perhaps? He'd had run ins before with street kids, mostly petty shoplifting or breaking up fights.

So simple. I'm awesome. Maddy shoveled some more eggs in her mouth before slathering some butter and jam on her pieces of toast. She was careful not to get the cuff of the nightdress sticky when he picked them up. She ate like she hadn't in days, and the soup had been hours and hours and hours ago. Being sick sucked beyond belief. She still felt hot all over and her body was still shaky and she wavered in her seat a little bit, holding onto the edge of the table for stability. "What's your name? Or should I just call you 'officer'?"

He'd intended to eat, but Danny just found the he spent most of his time watching her eat. When she wavered he reached across the table, pressing a hand against her forehead. She was still warm but he guessed better than before. "Danny works fine," he told her, looking at her closely and realizing that he couldn't load her into the cruiser and drop her off somewhere today. "You good to clear that plate?"

Maddy nodded, stopping as soon as she felt her head swimming from the action. She wavered a little woozily again but stabilized herself sufficently. She didn't flinch from his hand, too preoccupied from shoveling food in her mouth. Best to load up now. Maybe she'd gain a pound that could help if she didn't get any good food this week. "Thanks for the food," she said when she finished off the second piece of toast, all the eggs gone.

Inhaling her food wasn't exactly what Danny had in mind, but he supposed that worked. "You're welcome," he told her, a little shocked to be thanked. What did she think, he'd keep her there and not feed her. He took both plates, his also cleaned now, and took them to the kitchen, setting them in the sink. "You still too lightheaded for a bath? Or back to bed with you?" Danny assumed getting clean might help her out, calm her down some and make sleeping a little easier. Really though he had no idea.

A bath in a real bathtub sounded nice, better than a utility sink and cold water. But it was the bed part that got her. "If you could tell me where my clothes are, I'd like to grab a bath then I'll get outta your hair." She was genuine when she said, "You two have done enough. I appreciate it." Because Danny didn't seem like a creeper and Janey was nice. Two nice folks.

Danny considered it. For a long moment he considered finding the girl's clothes and dropping her off before Janey woke up. After a moment though, he realized it was futile. Either Janey would wake up before the girl left or she'd find out what he did and assume it was his idea to send her off, not the girl's. Just looking at her it was obvious she still wasn't well enough to be on her way. "Not an option. Bath, yes, bed next. You're still sick." He held up a hand before she could even think about arguing. "If you want to fight it, you can talk to Janey, although I doubt she'll let you leave either."

Maddy didn't feel well and she was doing a bad job of hiding it, but when your whole body hurt, it was always hard to cover it up. So she nodded slowly. "I'll leave tomorrow though," she said. "Don't want to impose any longer than I have to." Or give them any more time to pin me to the orphanage or turn me in or something

"Right," Danny answered, not enthused that the girl would be there longer, but realizing why it was necessary. "Come on, bathroom." Danny started down the hall, leading the way to the master bedroom, stopping in the hallway to grab an extra towel out of the closet there. Once in the bathroom he started the water, set the towel within reach and then stepped aside. "All yours, yell if you need something." Danny moved to leave, intent on waking up Janey and letting her take over.

"'Kay," she said, closing the door behind him. She looked over the door, finding a latch on the handle and turned it, feeling satisfied at the soft click of the lock.

Janey came slowly into wakefulness, painfully aware of the ache in her back and neck. Danny hadn't bought the rocking chair intending it to be slept in. And Janey hadn't intended to sleep, but by 3AM, the girl seemed to be doing a lot better, a lot less feverish, and with her anxiety eased Janey had apparently drifted off to sleep. Now as she opened her eyes the first thing she noticed was the empty bed. Shit, she thought. If the girl had woken up, chances were she'd bolted. Janey lurched out of the chair, ignoring the fact that her head spun as she came to her feet. Lack of sleep tended to do that to her, but she'd been getting used to it. Coming out into the hallway, she barreled straight into Danny.

He'd been watching so he spotted Janey coming out of the guest room, catching her around the waist when she crashed into him. "Hey I was just about to come wake you," Danny told her. "You okay?"

"Where is she?" Janey asked, sounding panicked. Danny's presence was a small comfort--maybe he'd seen her, at least. "She's gone,". Janey felt slightly irrational--the level of concern that she was feeling was more intense than she could have anticipated for this girl she barely knew, but she couldn't help it. Picturing her pale, innocent face just made the panic worse.

"She's in the bathroom getting cleaned up," Danny told her with a soothing voice. "She woke up a little while ago, so we made breakfast and now she's taking a bath." He wouldn't admit it, but he was rather proud he'd survived his short run in as stand-in dad. Not that he really felt like a dad, more like an uncle who doesn't set the kitchen on fire. "How'd you sleep?"

Danny's response slowed Janey's racing heart. He looked rather pleased with himself, though he was trying to hide it--she knew how to read his eyes. "Oh...I was afraid..." Janey began, but didn't finish the thought. "Thanks for making her breakfast. Anyways, I guess I slept for a couple hours," she said.

"Well I'd intended to make both of you breakfast, but she ate everything." Leaning in he kissed her forehead gently. "Sounds like you got more sleep than I did."

Janey was surprised--Danny was usually a pretty heavy sleeper, especially after a long shift. "I could use some breakfast," she said, her stomach growling just at the right moment. She couldn't even remember if she'd eaten dinner the night before. She turned towards the kitchen. "Did she talk much this morning?"

"A little," Danny trailed behind Janey, following her into the kitchen. "She says her parents died when she was a kid, lived with her aunt some after that." He kept the part where she'd asked if he abused her to himself. The way she'd stated that fact, that it happened, so plainly had him wondering if she was a victim.

"No mention of her brother?" Janey asked, surprised. "She said she used to live with him but he's been missing for a while, I guess," she said as she put two pieces of bread into the toaster.

Danny scowled a little. The stories could line up but it sounded more like the girl had been lying to one of them. He assumed probably to him. "No she left that part out."

Maddy had finished rinsing her hair, feeling more human than she did earlier, but still shaky and unsteady. She heard the voices in the hall and carefully got out of the tub, wrapping the soft, clean towel around her and shuffled over to the door, pressing her good ear to the cool wood. She winced when Janey brought up her brother, Danny's tone of voice with his response. She could fix that. She was awesome that way.

Janey gave a snort, half-amusement, half-annoyance."There's no getting straight answers out of the kid--she won't even tell me her real name. Without that, how can we do anything to help her?" she said, reaching for the jam.

"What do we need to do to help her?" Danny's annoyance at being lied to was carrying over to Janey.

Sensitive much?, she wondered, shakily toweling herself dry. She worked on taking as long as possible, quite content to listen to their conversation. Maybe she should bail. Maddy glanced back at the window behind her. She could make her way down with little effort. Or through the bedroom. She did see a lock on the door and she figured she could buy herself a couple of seconds to break out that window. She tried hard to ignore the ways her legs were shaking and how things were hard to focus in on.

Janey was surprised by Danny's lack of concern. How could he not see the desperate situation the girl was in? "I don't know what, but...Danny, she's homeless and without a family, and far too young to be out on the streets." Just thinking about the situation tugged at Janey's heart.

Too young to be out on the streets? Ridiculous. First off, she was more than capable of taking care of herself. Secondly, had this woman not seen the dirty little children running around? Half of Dodge's boys were thirteen years old at most.

"Janey," Danny's voice was a little lower, and still bore some anger. "We can't do that, we can't just take her in like that. It's ridiculous. She told me she's got people looking out for her, and even if she doesn't I'm not okay with the possibility of a bunch of street thugs descending on my home in search of her. Janey, we can't." He moved closer to her, wanting to hold her as if that would make matters better.

His words stung more than they should have. She hadn't said that it was their responsibility to take the girl in. But they could help find her a home, with family maybe, or help her find her brother. She had to have someone in the world. "I didn't say that," Janey said, trying to mask the sound of tears beneath her voice. Why did she feel so desperate to do something for this child? She seemed to have proven that she was fairly capable of taking care of herself.

Street thugs. That thought made her smile a little bit. Dodge was anything but a thug. He was a smooth talker and she really couldn't think of him hurting people. Roy, on the other hand...

It hit her then how much she missed Roy. Roy who had yelled at her and had looked at her in a way that she didn't like. Who made her go back to the soup kitchen and get some medicine (a fat lot of good that did...). She had no problem imagining him busting kneecaps to find out where she was. Dodge probably would do something like that, but it was harder to think of him attacking people. Boys. Too confusing to think about when she was having a hard enough time standing up on two legs.

Maddy stepped back from the door and slipped the nightdress back on, giving her wet hair a quick scrub with the towel before pulling the plug on the bath. She didn't like being the cause of a fight between Janey and her husband.

"Janey," Danny said, pulling her close and letting his voice drop a little. "Look, we'll let her stay another night, and tomorrow morning we'll see what we can do." He didn't want to keep the girl, but the only thing he could think of was turning her over to the authorities, he was a cop, he thought like that. To the orphanage was where she was headed if she didn't have somewhere else to go.

Janey took a few deep breaths, desperately trying to keep herself calm. She couldn't let Danny see how on edge she was, especially when she didn't understand the feeling herself. But the thought of letting the girl go felt like almost too much to handle. "Okay," she said, nodding dumbly. "Okay."

As quietly as she could, Maddy unlatched the bathroom door and took a shaky step into the hallway, trying not to disturb the arguing couple. Yes, she'd find her clothes and get out of there. She didn't belong, no matter how appealing and comfortable that bed had been.

Danny's ears perked up when he heard the door to the bathroom open. As quiet as Maddy was trying to be, the apartment wasn't that nice, and rather old. Every door squeaked when it was opened or closed, and half the floorboards had a gentle creak to them. "I think she's done," he told Janey. "You take care of her, I'll make you breakfast." He smoothed back her hair and kissed her temple gently. She seemed tense, although Danny wasn't entirely sure, but he'd heard that sound in her voice that meant she was holding back tears, that was why he'd reached for her in the first place. He was shit husband but he knew that sometime being gentler helped.

Take care of her? The thought made Janey nervous. It had seemed so easy last night--when the girl was too feverish and half-conscious to fight back with either words or attitudes, but how would things go now? Janey flung her arms around Danny's neck for barely half a second, before pulling away and heading out of the kitchen.

Maddy sort of loped across the hallway, legs too shaky for any other kind of walking and her eyes were drooping again. Maybe she should just rest awhile before sleeping. She looked over at Janey who was coming back down the hallway. "I'm just going to go back to bed," she said quietly, subdued now.

The girl looked unsteady on her feet, still exhausted from the night. Though she'd slept, it had been fitful and Janey knew that feverish sleep was hardly restoring or restful. The nightgown was only a few sizes larger than she would have needed, but it seemed to engulf her, especially the way she kept the sleeves clenched in her fists, pulled down over her palms. She looked so vulnerable in it, especially how her pale skin stood out against its color. Janey could barely suppress the instinct she felt to reach out and pull the girl into her arms. Instead, she took a few steps closer and reached out her hand towards the girl's face to check for fever.
"May I?" she said gently. Now that the girl seemed more grounded in reality, Janey knew she had to be careful if she wanted to gain the girl's trust.

"I'd rather use a thermometer," Maddy said softly, appreciative of Janey's distance. Yeah, the lady was nice but still kind of clingy. At least she was used to it when it came to women. She wanted to ask where her kids were, but it seemed like her and her husband didn't have kids anymore. Or never did in the first place. So, Maddy supposed, she could throw her a bone.

"Right," Janey said, drawing her hand quickly back to her side. She followed Maddy into the guest bedroom, searching for the thermometer on the bedside table, trying to ignore the sudden pounding in her skull. Damn. She thought she'd gotten enough sleep to ward it off, but apparently not.

Maddy carefully got back into bed, sagging against the pillows, wet hair spread out behind her. "I feel better," she offered while Janey looked around for the thermometer. "I'll be able to get out of your hair soon." I'm outta here tomorrow as soon as I can see straight.

Janey found the thermometer half-buried under the damp washcloth on the table. She gave it a quick wipe before offering it to Maddy. "You're not in our hair," she said. Not mine, at least, she thought. "To be honest, it's nice to have someone else around the house...and something to keep me busy."

She shrugged halfheartedly, popping the thermometer under her tongue. Yeah, that sounded about right. She felt kind of bad about it, which is why Maddy was actually co-operating. After a minute or so, she pulled the thermometer out of her mouth and looked at the reading. "One hundred," she said, handing it over. So it was still high but she'd be back to good tomorrow. Perfect. "If you don't mind, I think I'm gonna try grab some more shut eye." She offered a little smile at Janey.

"Of course," Janey said. "Let me know if you need more blankets, a glass of water--anything." She hesitated, unsure as to whether she should leave or continue to sit her bedside vigil. As much as she wanted to, she knew it was unnecessary now and didn't want to make the girl uncomfortable.

"I think your husband would like to spend some time with you." Maddy smiled a little bit. "I kind of freaked him out I think." And in dismissal, Maddy turned over onto her side and shut her eyes, already feeling sleep coming onto her.