Epilogue

A dark runway at a private airfield. An expensive jet warming up its engines, its door open at the top of the waiting steps, sending a shaft of beckoning yellow light into the night.

It was a mirror image of another farewell but this time... "This time it's gonna be alright."

Matt clasped Danny's shoulders as he addressed him with confidence. "I'm gonna be okay, Danny. It's all sorted, like I told you. The Feds have a place set up for me. They seem pretty excited about the few people I met in my short and pathetic criminal career. I'm going to be a better informant than I ever was an outlaw, Danny. I promise." He raised his right hand where a wide leather strap was fixed like half a glove over an unnatural space, giving him the look of a poor man's Michael Jackson. They'd even joked maybe that should be his new assumed name. "You wait, I'm gonna finger them good, bro," he grinned.

It had taken some persuasion but the FBI had allowed Matt to stay in Hawaii until Danny was out of hospital. With a constant guard, he'd been around to support those first painful steps and to make his emotional explanations, begging his brother's forgiveness, accepting the inevitable tirade, then able to bask in their renewed closeness.

Now Special Agent Kipton was waiting at the top of the staircase to take him into full witness protection. "And thanks to your Governor's recommendation, I won't be charged with anything." He squeezed Danny's arms. "Just like we said, give it a while and I can be in contact with you again...with Mom and Dad...and Gracie." He raised his hand again and waved at the little girl holding tightly to Steve's hand a few feet away.

She looked up at him questioningly, her feet fidgeting, her arm swinging with impatience. "Just give them a minute, Honey," Steve advised softly. "Your dad needs this."

He watched as Danny fumbled with his cane to return Matt's embrace and the brothers stood still like that on the tarmac for a few moments more. Clutching each other's faces they pressed their foreheads together. "Keep in touch," Danny whispered his order, then slapped Matt on the back and turned to call Grace over.

Steve felt the little girl's hand slip from his and watched her run, hair flying, into the arms of her father and uncle.

Danny waved the plane away, the family united even as Matt left for his next life. In another mirroring gesture, he slung his arm over his partner's broad shoulders. With Grace skipping between them, he was finally ready to get back to his own.

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End