I can't believe I didn't wear a tie for this, he thinks, glancing at his reflection in the freakishly shiny wood table. How embarrassing. If I was in real court doing this, I would've worn a tie. And a coat. He happens to glance down, then, and his eyes widen when he sees a smear of red on the left breast of his shirt. Shit! He knew he shouldn't have had spaghetti for lunch. Damn Italian comfort food. Damn it to hell.

"Sorry I didn't wear a tie."

The man across the table from him looks up, and Danny nearly winces when the light catches his glasses. "What?" he says.

"Uh…my tie. Sorry."

The man snorts out a laugh and a smile that brings out every wrinkle on his old face. "I'm not looking at your tie; I'm looking at your paperwork."

Danny actually does wince, now. "Right," he says, and then mutters under his breath, "Now I kind of wish you were looking at my tie." He's always been bad with paperwork. He was when he was on the force, he was when he was on Wall Street, and it sure as shit hasn't gotten any better in his current line of work.

The sharp click of a pen and the sound of it hitting the table snaps Danny out of his head.

"All done," the old lawyer – Scott Harris, Attorney at Law – tells him matter-of-factly. "We'll, uh, go submit them to be served. Shouldn't take more than ten minutes, and you'll be good to go."

Danny manages a smile. "This is the first time I've heard that word and I'm not freaking out." After all, between being a cop and being a financier, 'served' is not a word he's been endeared to.

"That's good. Just relax."

But Danny snaps forward in his seat, his watch clacking against the wood of the table. "I can't! I'm totally freaking out."

"Oh, come on. Everything's gonna be great!" Harris says. "I have a feeling that the gods of Family Court are going to put you and your beautiful baby girl together."

Danny thinks about pointing out that his beautiful baby girl is, in fact, eight, but it seems kind of a moot point. Besides, he doesn't get the chance. With a pat on his shoulder, Harris takes the carpal tunnel-inducing stack of paperwork Danny's just spent the last hour of his life filling out, and leaves the room.

"Thank you!" Danny shouts after him, and once the door clicks into place, he sinks back into his chair with a deep, bone weary sigh.

Oh God, I hope this works. I've wanted this for so long. To have Grace living with him at last. His daughter, his family – it's what he's wanted ever since things went downhill with Rachel.

Maybe this isn't how I pictured it, exactly. He always pictured himself with a wife, a house, a picket fence…but after the divorce, he's realized that women aren't so much his cup of tea, houses are hard to come by in Manhattan, and it's really hard to keep picket fences white for very long. But with Stan and Rachel moving from city to city for his work, they sure couldn't raise a child. So he figured it was time to improvise.

Thought I'd have a little more support, he thinks, and he's kind of torn between smiling and grimacing when he remembers telling Mona, his best friend since college, his plans to file for full custody of his daughter. She'd been…vocal, to say the very least.

"Do you realize what kids do to your sex life, Danny?" she'd quipped when he'd paid her a visit the day before. "Because I will tell you. I will tell you about my sex life."

"I don't want to hear that," Danny'd said, because he really, really didn't. Just thinking about it now is enough to make his already-nervous stomach do a flip in his gut.

His conversation with Clive had gone similarly. All he'd asked was to be able to list him as a contact, but the guy just wasn't big on commitment of any kind, and in the end…

Well, that was a bust.

So, he took life by the horns, and he did what he had to do.

Yeah. It's gonna be okay. I have a plan.

The door opens, and Harris comes back in.

"The pigeon's left the coop," he says. "We should hear back in about a week. Maybe more – you know how these things go."

Danny nods, because yeah, he knows the red tape tango. And he thinks he can wait a week. "Thanks."

"Oh, you don't need to thank me." They shake hands, and Danny thinks that's that, but Harris starts speaking again. "By the way, I know an excellent support group for single fathers, if you're interested."

"Great!" He's not actually sure whether he's interested or not, but it doesn't hurt to check it out.

He feels a little bit giddy as he leaves the law office. Which is kind of funny, because everyone in the waiting room looks some kind of pissed, peeved, or otherwise generally unhappy with their lives. But even when he gets outside and it's dropping buckets, he's grinning. A week. A week, and he might have his daughter.

Running out to the street, he raises a hand to hail one of the small army of taxis coming down the street, and he thinks it must be his day, because he catches one of the first ones he sees. He mutters a brief hallelujah before ducking into the taxi.

Imagine his surprise when he sees someone else coming in from the other side.

His eyes quickly follow a pair of long legs in cargo pants – seriously? No one old enough to have legs that long should be wearing pants with pockets at the knees – up to a blue shirt that's not doing anything to hide a chest that, okay, Danny will admit, looks like it was sculpted by Michel-fucking-angelo. By the time he makes it up to his face, he's pretty much decided he's been cab-jacked by the most gorgeous man in New York, with his bright blue eyes and strong jaw and high cheekbones.

None of which excuse him for trying to steal Danny's cab.

"Excuse me?" he says. "This is my cab."

"What? You own it?" the guy shoots back.

"No, but I'm about to rent it."

The cab-jacker makes a face, and Danny decides it looks kind of like he's having a brain aneurism. "If you see someone hail a cab, and the cab pulls up, you can't just jump in the cab and say it's yours."

"Then I guess it's a good thing I didn't see you."

"I saw you see me," the guy says matter-of-factly.

Danny groans, and decides to try consulting a more reasonable party. He turns to the cab driver. "Excuse me, sir. Who saw you first? Me, or Sasquatch here?" He jabs his thumb in Cargo Pants' direction.

Instead of a reply, though, the cab driver just picks up a magazine. The headline reads 'Don't Axe Me' and Danny wonders how many times he's pulled that one.

Clearly, he's not going to be much help.

"Look," the cab-jacker says, drawing Danny's attention back to him, "maybe you're not from around here, but there's a code. There's certain rules that we try to follow—"

"You know what? Fine. Forget it. I'll get out." And he does just that, but not without getting the last words in. "But not because you're right, but because I'm in a great mood, and you—you, my friend, are ruining it."

He gets out of the cab and slams the door, and just when he's about to turn and start what it going to be a very soggy walk to the subway, he catches something out of the corner of his eye. Something tall, dark, and incredibly annoying.

You've got to be kidding me. "Now what?" he snaps.

"I don't know! You tell me—hey, hey!" The taxi drives off, and while Danny only takes a few half-hearted steps after it, he watches the stranger sprint after it a good couple yards. As if he actually thought he could catch up to it.

Danny's waiting with his arms crossed and a pointed expression as the stranger turns back. "Are you happy now?" he asks. "Is this," he gestures around them, "is this what you had in mind, you Neanderthal animal?"

"You said you were in a great mood and I was ruining it!" the man retorts. "I felt bad." His face scrunches up, and it's the second coming of what Danny has now officially dubbed 'aneurism face'. "Wait, did you—did you just call me a Neanderthal?" He holds his arms out to his side, a sort of 'dude, what the hell?' gesture.

Danny doesn't dignify it with a response. Instead, he turns and starts off down the sidewalk towards the subway entrance.

On a good day, subways are unpleasant. There's too many people in too little space, they stink something awful, and everyone's in a bad mood.

But throw in a torrential downpour, and they're downright awful. A lot of soggy, oftentimes sweaty bodies in a cramped space, all hot and sticky and Danny wishes it smelled like wet dog.

He's leaning against one of the poles in the subway, his eyes closed, imagining he's in a happier, less conniption-inducing place. He's trying to pretend he doesn't notice the person standing literally right behind him. And yeah, it's pretty packed, but it's not that packed. Danny kind of wants to tell them to back off a bit, but that would involve actually acknowledging their presence.

"How's your great mood, now?"

Unfortunately, it looks like he doesn't have a choice. He can feel the cab-jacker looking down over his shoulder, and he didn't realize until now just how tall the bastard is. And smug. Very, very smug.

"Stop talking to me," he says, his voice clipped. "Just—stop."

He does, but Danny can practically see him smiling, so it's really hard to enjoy the victory. It's short-lived, anyway. The subway stops, and it's just Danny's luck that the cab-jacker seems to have the same stop as him.

For a second there, he thinks he loses him between the subway doors and the surface. At the top of the stairs, though, he is once again disappointed.

"So," he says as they reach the top of the stairs, "why were you in such a great mood?"

Danny is made aware once again that this guy clearly has no concept of personal space. Which normally wouldn't bother him – it really, really wouldn't – but he's trying really hard to be annoyed at this guy, and he doesn't want to have to try any harder.

"Not that it's your business, but good things are happening to me."

"Well, that's great. I hope it continues."

He sounds so genuine, Danny can't help smiling.

Damn it.

He gives up, then, turns around, and sure enough, car-jacker guy is standing right there behind him, no more than a step or two back. "Thanks," he says, and he's surprised to find he really means that. "Have a nice life. And try not to steal anymore cabs." He turns, then, catching the tail end of a smile that makes Danny's face feel a little warm.

"You do the same."

Danny just shakes his head, smiling to himself, and with a wave over his shoulder to the handsome, irritating, kind-of-sort-of-fascinating stranger, he walks away.

He's grinning all the way to the store, and he's pretty sure he's getting some funny looks from the people he's passing but he just doesn't care.

The bell rings over the door as he pushes it open, but it's drowned out by a loud, boomy bark and the sound of wheels. Immediately, he's greeted by seventy pounds – probably more, with the wheelchair – of happy dog.

"Hey, Jensen," he says, dropping to a knee to intercept the monster truck that is his shepherd/Doberman mix. He's pretty sure if the poor guy could, he'd be rolling over, but right now, he looks content to just stand there and lick Danny's hand and arm and anywhere else he can reach, because he's just so happy to see him.

There's a reason Danny likes dogs.

"Oh. My God. You're glowing."

He looks up to see his friend/employee, Daphne, coming out from around the counter, beaming at him like he's just told her Real Housewives of New Jersey has been renewed for another season.

"I'm applying for custody of my daughter, Daphne; not expecting her." 'Glowing' makes it sound like he's pregnant or something, and his life is weird enough already, thankyouverymuch.

Not that Daphne seems to care. She completely ignores him – as per usual – and looks past him where he can hear Clive coming out of the back. "He's glowing, right?" she asks as he slips past his personal favorite four-legged bulldozer to get to the counter. "Tell us everything!"

"There's not much to tell," Danny says.

"No, no, no, you just declared war on your ex-wife. There's something to tell."

"I didn't declare war, Clive. Stan's job means they've got to move around a lot, and he doesn't like kids. Rachel's signing over her rights by choice; I just have to get approved by family court."

Daphne makes a face. "Ew. Court." Somehow, he's really not surprised she and court aren't fast friends. "Why would you do that?"

"I tried to talk him out of it," Clive says matter-of-factly.

"No, you, my friend, tried to talk me out of getting custody of my daughter altogether." Something about losing his apartment to a sea of Barbie dolls and pink glitter. Apparently, something similar happened to his sister.

Clive just shrugs.

Daphne's not quite as quiet. "So," she picks back up, leaning across the counter intently, "what happened? What was it like?"

"Stiff."

"That's what she said," Clive says suddenly.

"Oh, you're a riot," Danny mutters.

Daphne actually socks him on the arm.

"What?" he whines, rubbing his abused appendage and giving Daphne the stink eye. "You left it hanging right there for me. I couldn't resist."

"Of course you couldn't. You have impulse control of a gerbil on Speed." Which is something he, as a pet store owner and ex-detective, would never condone, for the record. "Anyway, it wasn't that interesting. I just went in, signed a crap load of papers, and left. Simple as that." He grabs a drink of water from the sports bottle he keeps under the counter and then turns. "If you need me, I'll be in the back, self-medicating and trying to uncross my eyes."

"Barbie dolls and pink glitter!" Clive calls after him

"I'll add that to your Christmas list!" he calls right back. He whistles and motions for Jensen to follows him, and disappears into the back of the store.