One last time

Summary: "If you heard a shot, it usually means somebody just died."

This story contains spoilers for Episode 6.23 Vacation Getaway. Also if you haven't seen it, be advised that part of the story is an add-on to the actual episode and is therefore pure fiction and - as now proven by the beginning of season 7 - definitely not cannon fact!

Disclaimer: As usual, none of these characters are mine, just borrowing them. I promise to give them back ;)

This story is without beta and just my way of working through my thoughts and get them out of my head.

Please don't just read but review as well! If you don't like it and don't feel comfortable to leave a review, please use mail or PM to let me know what you didn't like! Thanks a lot for your help.

This is not a death-fic or I would have warned for it...

When they had arrived home that evening, Danny had thought it was all over – in a good way, mind you. While they hadn't found Casey anywhere near the lighthouse just yet, he had been sure it was only a matter of time. Really… who could survive a fall like this? A fall from more than a hundred feet to not only a black, raging sea, but also one that was hiding various cliffs and stone formations just below the water surface… nobody expected Casey to survive the fall. If Mac hadn't insisted on it, the Coast guard would have put the search for his body off until the next morning. Instead, they had unwillingly agreed to start looking for the man right away – despite the storm and the darkness of the night.

So, Danny couldn't deny that when he got home, there had still been some nagging doubt; some tiny little voice teasing and torturing him with the knowledge that, just maybe, Casey wasn't dead yet – despite the chances, despite everything; or maybe just because of it. This wasn't the first time they had thought, they had Casey. Hell, they brought him behind bars at one point. And what good did it do to them; to him? It only brought him more grief, more despair and most of all it had scared the shit out of him.

Growing up with the Italian mob as your next door neighbor had taught him a lot about being scared, how to frighten people and when better not to show how terrified you're yourself right then. But even if Casey wasn't the first guy to put a weapon to his head, Danny had never gotten used to it. It wasn't something, he ever wanted to get used to either. The day he lost his fear of a guy holding a weapon to his face, was the day he should quit the force. It most definitely was the day, he would ask his wife to kick his ass for being so careless and stupid.

But, to be honest, after Casey's dive into the dark floods, this nagging fear hadn't been his prominent emotion. Most of all there had been relief , naturally and something he couldn't describe and maybe never would be able to explain at all. Relief was too less a word to describe it; it had felt more as if he had just realized that the weight of the whole world had been resting on his shoulders all along, only for it to be lifted off him the very next second. For a moment he had been so tired, he would have keeled over on the spot but the just as the tiredness actually registered in his brain, there had been only one thought left on his mind. He had wanted to get his arms around his wife and his kid; wanted to know that Casey getting off that lighthouse without killing anyone had been real and not some kind of twisted last breath imagination.

He needed to know for sure; he needed to feel them! From his childhood on, he had been the kind of guy that needed tangible proof – especially if it involved people and their feelings. He needed this little bit more than just a word or a look and may god be his witness, he had found just that in Lindsay. She knew how much he needed a simple touch, her warm hand against his chest, radiating heat inside every fiber of his being. From the start she had understood how much he craved for it after a daring case or a hard day at work. Even more; she needed it just the same.

Maybe that was why that night neither of them could let go of Lucy until they had made it back to their apartment. Safe… they were safe here. This was their home; the place they could let go of everything. That's one of the things they tried to make good on since Lucy was born: Leave work at the lab; don't bring it home. While he knows that they don't manage to stick to it all the time, especially if it's a very hard and challenging case like Casey's had been… at least they tried. And if they still had the occasional slip, at the moment Lucy was most likely still too young to actually understand, even less remember anything of what they were saying later on.

That was probably one of the reasons why Lucy hadn't seemed as shaken as they had been. Thankfully, his little princess hadn't understood that there had been a bad man, holding a gun to her daddy's head, threatening to shoot him. Danny was glad Casey didn't do it right away, although he still didn't know why the guy hesitated in the first place. Just to tell his story? Could it be that simple? Did Casey just need an outlet to vent all that burning anger and hate? If he did, then hopefully he would now find his peace… While he rots in hell!

So after all they had gone through that evening, Danny had hoped they would finally get a break and have a good night's sleep. Mac had given them both a week off to cool down again and make sure that all three of them were alright. After saying goodbye to their friends, they had had dinner and then they had both tucked Lucy in. Together… that night they had done everything together; there hadn't been any "me", "you" or "her". Even in his mind, it had always just been: "Us".

Until he had woken up, hearing his little sunshine screaming for her daddy. At first he thought he was still dreaming, having nightmares of what could have happened in that lighthouse. But when he opened his eyes and felt the very real, residual pain in his knee from the fight with Casey, he knew he wasn't dreaming. Checking on Lindsay, he got up and walked over to Lucy's room.

Only to stop dead in his tracks after he put the lights on. Just like a moment before he had the strange feeling that this couldn't be real. Casey couldn't actually be standing in there. How the hell should he have gotten into the apartment? Without so much as a scratch from his fall on top! This couldn't have been real because it was too much of a nightmare. The only thing missing was Lindsay already laying a pool of blood on the floor and his worst nightmare would have come true.

He had wanted to scream for Lindsay to get his weapon but the sight of Casey smiling madly, while happily bouncing Lucy on his hip was almost too much bear. There was no sound coming out of his mouth; no words that made it even halfway from his overheating brain downwards to his tongue. Instinctively he had tried to raise his arms in an unthreatening way, while wanting to rip the guys throat out. Normally he would have stepped back behind the wall, taken cover, jumped to safety, doing anything of the stuff they had taught him at the academy. But this was his daughter; his flesh and blood!

The fear was plain in her eyes and even if right now it was more about the strange man simply being in her room at night, waking her up from her peaceful slumber… it was enough to tear his heart apart. Like every parent, he wanted nothing more than to know his child was safe – and that she was actually feeling safe as well. So right then, his only consolidation had been that Lucy didn't understand what it meant that the man was wielding a gun; probably planning to shoot her daddy in front of her eyes. She probably wouldn't even understand that daddy could never come back again afterwards.

This thought had hurt more than anything; more than the fear for himself, his daughter and his wife all together. Casey shooting him, didn't just mean the sight of his frightened child would be the last thing he ever saw in his life; it would also mean for his family to never see him again; for Lucy to most likely forget him before she turned two; for her to never remember anything about her father other than what somebody else told her.

He would stop existing for her, as if he had never been real; just a story her mommy would tell; a picture she would show Lucy from time to time.

"Oh my god…"

A voice sounding very much like his own was whispering the words before his brain realized it had formed them in the first place. Again, Danny's instincts threatened to kick in when he took half a step back. Torn between wanting to storm down the hallway to grab his gun and jumping Casey to get his daughter of harm's way, he couldn't really do anything than standing there and stare at his little girl who had become the center of his whole universe within the first minute he had laid eyes on her a year ago.

She was crunching up her lips as she always did, when she wasn't sure what to think of her silly dad. Only this time, it wasn't silly dad, it was the crazy stranger she didn't know what to think of – rightly so. Lucy's eyes were still red and Danny wasn't sure if it was from crying or simply because the maniac woke her up from a well deserved deep sleep. A tiny wail escaped her lips, tearing once more at his heart, urging him to get to her, to hug her to him, feel the heat of her body against his, the silken strands of hair brushing against the rough palms of his hands.

Her tiny hand reached out to him at the same time he heard steps coming closer from the bedroom.

Everything decelerated down to slow motion; voices disturbed by the rushing in his ears; an angry laughter the only thing penetrating the fog around his mind. Gradually his eyes shifted from Lucy's pleading face back to the man Danny had hoped to never see again. His eyes full of madness Casey laughed, the voice transforming into an evil sneer very quickly before he raised the gun to aim it towards the doorframe.

"Told you… I'll never let go of you again," Casey snickered.

Strangely, Danny wasn't frightened of Casey anymore; he wasn't even afraid to die – at least not to the degree he had felt at the lighthouse earlier that night. There were probably so many things he should regret in his final moments, but Danny couldn't think of any single one of them. He had had the great fortune to find a woman he loved and she gave him a beautiful child. Looking at his daughter he smiled. Maybe there would one genuine image of him remain in her memory. If so, he didn't want her to remember seeing him frightened when it could be a good memory as well.

Still smiling, Danny closed his eyes, praying Casey would stop once he got his revenge and leave Lindsay and Lucy be. His heart was beating so hard against his ribcage, he thought it would jump out of his body any second now, sparing Casey the actual chore of having to kill him off himself. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Danny realized that the steps had stopped further down the hallway as well, gladly too far away for her to try anything stupid like pushing him out of the line of fire. Lindsay must have realized that something was wrong. Hopefully she would get his weapon quickly enough to get Lucy out of that madman's clutches. If he himself could divert Casey's attention for just a little bit longer, Lindsay might be able to get help for herself and their daughter.

Another high pitched wail from Lucy tore him back to reality. Opening his eyes and looking at the tearstained face of his child, Danny suddenly realized that he actually did have regrets. He regretted not keeping his daughter safe, not being able to help her now; he regretted that he would miss her first day in kindergarten, her first day in school, to not be the one sending her first boyfriend packing by threatening to emasculate him, see her graduate or her wedding day. But most of all he regretted that he couldn't hold her right now.

Just one last time.

Suddenly a sound echoed through the small apartment bringing with it a burning pain raging right through his heart. He could hear two people screaming. Or were it three? Slowly his hand came up to rub over his grey shirt, searching for the wetness that was bound to be there. He could feel hands pushing against his body from the left, smaller hands, clutching at his biceps and his shirt before they joined the hand on his chest for the briefest of moments but coming up just as dry as his own hand. A second later, they left him all alone again.

He wanted to move as well, wanted to get to the source of the loud crying in front of him but he couldn't. Even slower than before his eyes diverted from the now empty spot downwards to the poodle of blood that was slowly forming on the floor. A shiver ran down his spine, making his legs shake in response. Danny could hear Lindsay whispering something, golden strains barely shimmering through her tight embrace. But when he tried to take a step to get to them, his legs finally buckled and he crashed down painfully on his already bumped knee. He still had trouble tearing his eyes away from the blood spatter on the floor. Looking up towards the ceiling there was even more blood. Strangely, his first coherent thought upon seeing the blood on the ceiling was that they would have to find a new apartment quickly.

"Daddy, daddy…!" a tiny voice called out to him.

With one jump, he was over with his family, hugging them both to his chest and finally ignoring the body next to them. He tried to say anything reassuring but he was pretty sure the only thing getting out of his mouth was unintelligible garbage. Neither Lindsay nor Lucy seemed to care though, so he tightened his embrace even further, glad beyond any comparison that his family was safe once again. And if Danny would have nightmares about Shane Casey rising a gun to his own head and almost blowing Lucy's brain out while shooting himself, so be it. He could still hope Lucy wouldn't remember any of it.

Right now holding his family was all he wanted; simply because he could do it – for more than one last time.

If you invested enough time to read this story, please take one more minute to review as well even if it's been a while now that I published it - I still took the time to write and publish it, so it's only fair, you give something back in return as well ;) Thanks!

As said before, the beginning of season 7 is now showing another story, so this can be considered AU ;)

There are nearly no comments for this story so if you thought it's terrible and you want to be considerate by not writing a review, then please write me a mail or PM with your thoughts instead anyway to let me know. Thanks again.