A/N: Thanks to all who read and reviewed. And a huge, gigantic thanks to TessaStarDean for watching over this and helping me along the way! You totally rock!

Disclaimer: I own nothing you recognize from the show.

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The next afternoon, Danny was parking in the garage when he heard the phone in the house ring. He rushed to make it inside and catch it before whoever it was hung up, although he didn't know why he bothered when he had an answering machine. He caught the phone on the last ring and answered it, completely out of breath. "Hello?"

"Hello. This is Doctor Asher. May I speak with Loren Motalzo?"

"She's not home from school just yet. This is her father, Danny Messer."

"Ah, Mister Messer. Well I called to let Loren know that the radiologist and I have both looked over the films and from what we can tell, the mass is a fibroadenoma. Those aren't cancerous, but I'll need to do a biopsy to confirm it, and I'll probably remove it, just to be safe."

Danny sighed loudly and sat on a stool at the kitchen counter. "Thank you so much, Doctor. You don't know what that means to us. I'll let Loren know as soon as she gets home."

"Okay, just call the office and make another appointment at your convenience. Have a nice day, Mister Messer."

"You too, Doctor Asher." Danny hung up the phone and set it on the table. He sat staring out the kitchen window smiling as he thought about the great news.

He didn't know how long he had been sitting there, but it must have been a while when he heard Loren's voice and saw her hand waving in front of her face.

"Dad? Earth to Dad?"

"Loren!" He jumped up off the stool and wrapped his arms around her.

"Good to see you too. What's going on?"

Danny pulled himself away and held Loren at arm's length, but never letting go of her. "Doctor Asher called. She doesn't think it's cancer. She said it looks like a…" he scrunched his face up as he retrieved the word she used, "a fibroadenoma. But she said it probably isn't anything to worry about."

Loren shrieked and hugged Danny tightly.

"You need to call back and make another appointment. You have to have a biopsy to confirm it, and she said she'll probably go ahead and remove it just to be sure."

Loren wrinkled her nose. "That's not gonna feel so good."

"We'll both play hooky that day, how's that sound? I think with everything that's been going on this last week, we need a day off."

Loren laughed. "I think that sounds about right."

After hugging Danny again, Loren took her cell phone from her purse to call Dr. Asher's office back.

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Thursday morning, Loren was up at 5 am; much earlier than she needed to be up, but she couldn't sleep any longer. She ate breakfast and got dressed like she did every morning, but there was no need to be rushing for the subway at 7:30 on this particular morning. So she turned on the TV in the living room and flipped through the channels.

When Danny walked out of his room just before 8:00, he laughed at the sight. "You used to do that every morning." Loren looked up from the TV with a questioning look. "You got up early every morning and watched cartoons while you ate your breakfast."

Loren laughed and pointed to the TV. When Danny walked further into the room, he saw what she was pointing at. An old 'Bugs Bunny' cartoon flashed across the screen in muted colors.

"I figured if I was skipping school, cartoons were in order."

"Can't argue there. I'm gonna go shower. Would you mind starting the coffee for me?"

"Sure." Loren went into the kitchen and started a pot of coffee, then went back into the living room to enjoy her cartoons.

When Danny was finished getting dressed, he poured himself a cup of coffee and joined Loren on the couch. He sipped his coffee silently for a few minutes before set the cup down and reached to the floor for his shoes. "So what did you tell your friends?"

Loren turned the TV off and watched Danny put his shoes on. "I told Gina what was really going on yesterday. She gave me the best friend speech and told me that she'd be here before school in the morning to walk with me to the subway."

"Gina's a good girl."

"Everyone else thinks I have a dentist appointment today."

Danny laughed. "That's the best you could come up with?"

Loren laughed back. "My father is a CSI. I never bothered learning the fine art of lying because I knew I'd always get caught."

"And don't ever forget that." He stood and picked up his coffee, quickly finishing off the last of it. "Come on. Let's get going."

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Loren walked out of the outpatient clinic and into the waiting room later with a nurse at her side. She looked a little worse for the wear, but forced a smile onto her face.

Danny pulled himself away from the wall he had been holding up and greeted her with a sad smile. "Hey kiddo. How ya feeling?"

"It hurts," she said simply, scrunching her face.

The nurse handed Loren her purse, which she held down at her side now, unable to sling it up on her shoulder. She then looked to Danny. "The mass was a little more entangled in the tissue than the doctor had anticipated, so the incision was a little larger than what we had discussed before the procedure. She's going to be a little uncomfortable for a few days."

"Well, we'll just make it a really long weekend if we have to."

"That might be a good idea," Loren nodded.
Danny accepted the discharge information handed to him and thanked the nurse before gently putting his hand on Loren's shoulder. "Let's get you home and settled in front of the TV for a while."

Once Loren was comfortable on the couch, Danny fixed lunch. He walked into the living room with a plate in one hand and a bottle of water and pill bottle balanced in the other. Loren carefully reached up to take the water and bottle of Tylenol first. After she took two tablets, she put both bottles down on the table next to her and settled the plate in her lap, thanking Danny in the process.

Danny left and returned a moment later with his own lunch and settled on the end of the couch near her feet.

"Thanks for playing hooky with me today. I mean, I probably would have been okay if you had dropped me off here after I was done. I would have just slept it off on the couch all afternoon."

"Yeah, but that's not nearly as fun as watching bad movies with your old man all day."

Loren chuckled. "That's right."

They finished eating and watched TV in relative silence for a while. As they watched the show, Loren couldn't help but smirk as she began thinking. "Hey Dad?"

Danny turned his head in Loren's direction. "Yeah?"

"If it had been cancer," Loren started, which caused Danny's eyebrows to rise up into his hairline, "and I had to have a mastectomy, would you let me get breast implants?" She grinned only a little as she was trying to be serious but knew the laughing potential the question held, coming from a teenage daughter asking a father.

"Yes," Danny nodded, without a second thought.

"Seriously?" Her brow wrinkled.

"I don't think it would be fair of me to tell you no. You're a young woman, and whether I like it or not, you're growing up. You probably wouldn't be comfortable otherwise." He broke his gaze on her. "Besides, your mother had them too. So I know she would never tell you no."

"Mom had implants?"

Danny nodded confirmation.

"Wow. From the pictures I never would have guessed."

"Believe me, I had no clue until I saw the scars."

This time, Loren's eyebrows shot up. "You saw?….Did you guys….I mean, were you…? Dad, help me out here."

Danny laughed as Loren fumbled with her words. "We were friends. Your mom had a bad date one time and we got to talking about her scars. That's when she told me about the first time she had cancer. We had a contest of sorts, comparing scars, and she wouldn't be beat. So she showed me," he said simply.

Loren smiled. "I wish I could remember her like that. There's so much I don't know about her."

"She was a really amazing woman. I'm just sorry she couldn't be here to see how amazing you are too. You're so much like her."

"Tell me."

"What?"

"Tell me how I'm like her. Tell me what she was like. Tell me the things she liked to do, the movies she watched, where she wanted to travel in the world, everything. I know all the big things. She died of breast cancer before I was five. She asked her best friend to adopt me. But aside from that, I don't really know much. Of the things I remember, they don't compare to the things I know you remember. I want to know her like you did."

"Well, where do you want me to start?"

Loren grinned from ear to ear and turned herself on the couch. "Start at the day you met, and don't leave anything out."

FIN

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Well, that's all I have for you. I hope you all enjoyed. Feedback is still greatly appreciated.