It had been a weird weekend. Danny coming back had woken up all sorts of feelings Alex thought she had gotten over. Feelings that were at war against her feelings for Brent. A lot. She tried to push those feelings aside and just be happy that her friend was back. Because he was that, first and foremost, a very good friend she had missed dearly.
Alex took a deep breath and walked into the room after all the doctors had walked out. “Hi, Danny,” she said with a smile. “Heard you’re going home.”
Danny was in the process of pulling a pair of Base-issue cargo pants out of the hold-all someone had fetched for him, ready to change into to, when he heard a new voice in the room behind him. He looked up and immediately felt his stomach lurch as he saw it was Alex. He gulped and straightened up, leaving the pants half in, half out of the bag, forgotten for the time being.
“Yeah,” he said with a shy smile, looking down at the hospital gown he was wearing, beneath which his fresh bandages felt tight and reassuring. “They said I’m healing up better than they expected so I’m free to go, s’long as I don’t do anything stupid for a while.”
“Hey, I’m sorry I was kinda out of it when you visited yesterday,” he added. He knew she’d popped in to see him at some point the day before but, somewhere between all his other visitors and the painkillers the doctors had been keeping him well dosed with, the whole day had turned into a blur. He would have been embarrassed that Alex had seen him like that if he hadn’t been completely sure that he’d been a hell of a lot worse the time before, when she’d been helping to care for him.
Alex twirled one of her rings around her finger unconsciously, something she did when she was nervous or worried. Or in this case, both. “They told me they used something new, so that’s great. And yeah, don’t do anything stupid or Betty will kick your ass,” she chuckled.
He looked a lot better than the last time he had been in medical. Although that time hadn’t hurt as much as it had hurt and worried her this time. Because this time there had been feelings involved. Strong feelings.
She mentally shook her head, pushing those thoughts aside and focused on Danny. Her friend, Danny.
She took a few steps closer and shook her head as she smiled. “It’s okay. You were under a lot of painkillers. I just wanted to make sure you were fine... And you are,” she smiled. God, she just wanted to wrap her arms around him to make sure he was really there. “Do you... uh... want me to walk with you to your place? Maybe grab something to eat?”
Danny ran his tongue over his lips. He didn’t know why but something about the way Alex was looking at him was making his heart start to beat faster. It was silly. He and Alex were friends but he guessed still wasn’t really used to having female friends. He always felt more awkward around girls than he did when he was with other guys, even Betty. He wished he was better in situations like this. Rafe was always the one who’d known exactly what to say.
The thing was, he did need someone to show him where his new house was. And he was kinda hungry. And he did like spending time with Alex. So what was the problem?
“Uh, yeah, sure,” Danny replied, giving her a small smile and lifting a hand to rub at the adhesive bandage on the side of his neck.
“I just need to, uh…” He held up the cargo pants.
Alex smiled when he agreed. “Great,” she said, her finger still twirling her ring around her finger. Relax, Aleksandra. she told herself. She could feel her heart beating faster, just like it did whenever she saw Danny the first time he was in Atlantis.
“Oh, right, sorry,” she apologized, her cheeks turning pink. She couldn’t help the image of Danny with nothing more than those cargo pants flash in her head, but she quickly pushed it away. So not the right time, Belikova. She scolded herself.
“I... I’ll go. Wait outside,” she said, motioning to the door. She quickly turned around and closed the door behind her once she was out of the room. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. This was bad. So so so bad. But so good at the same time. Ugh. Conflicted was an understatement right now.
Danny nodded, awkwardly, and waited until Alex had slipped out through the door before stooping down to pull on the pants. A flicker of pain crossed his face as he moved but it passed again before he’d had time to work out whether the sensation which had triggered it was real or just perceived. A lot of the worst pain had subsided already and, when they’d changed his bandages, he’d been surprised to see taught, pink skin where his wounds had been the day before. They knew their stuff, these magical healers, he had to give them that.
Danny straightened up and stiffly pulled the hospital gown off over his head, trying to avoid the bandage on his neck. From force of habit, he folded it and laid it neatly on his made bed, just below the pillow. Someone had removed his dog tags - it must have been when he’d first arrived - and he’d been feeling naked without them since he’d realised they were missing. When they’d come to discharge him, the doctors had given him all of his belongings back (along with the fresh set of clothes) to take with him to his new home, including the tags, his Air Corps ring, his watch and his ruined uniform, although someone had had the presence of mind to seal that in an opaque bag. He wondered whether his picture of Evelyn was still tucked inside the pocket beside the ‘Victory’ cigar from Goose. He didn’t check. Instead, he put on his dog tags and his ring, strapped his watch into place on his wrist, then pulled a white t-shirt out of the hold-all to slip on over the top of his bandages.
Once he’d slipped on his socks and loosely laced up his combat boots (he couldn’t stoop for too long), he tucked the bag containing his uniform into the hold-all, zipped it up and carefully pulled it onto his shoulder then opened the room door and peered outside for Alex.
Alex was just outside the door, leaning against the wall and trying not to think of anything other than her friend Danny. Friend. A very good friend.
When Danny opened the door, she pushed herself from the wall and smiled at him. “Need help with the bag?” she asked, nodding to his shoulder.
“Oh, no, I’m fine,” Danny replied lightly, as he hoisted the bag a little higher onto his shoulder. Although it wasn’t exactly comfortable with his bandages, the bag wasn’t heavy and keeping hold of it allowed him to feel like a little of his pride was still intact, even if she had just seen him in a hospital gown.
“So you wanted to get something to eat?” he asked hesitantly. Now that he was up and dressed, he realised just how hungry he was.
“Okay,” she said with a small nod, starting to walk down the hallway to an elevator. She wanted to hug him, but one, wouldn’t be smart given he was still healing, and two, it just wouldn’t be smart. Not at least until she figured out what to do with her current situation.
“Yeah, I was thinking pizza or maybe tacos? Burger? Italian food?... I’m all over the place,” she laughed softly. “What are you in the mood for?” she asked.
A soft smile rose to Danny’s face as he walked beside Alex towards the elevator. It was heartwarming, seeing her babble like she was. It reminded him of what he was like once he started feeling comfortable around someone.
At the word burger, Danny felt his stomach give a rumble of approval. It had been a long time since he’d had a plain, old, American-style burger and fries, either at home or in Atlantis. The thought of it made him feel strangely nostalgic. It was strange to think that he might not ever see a proper diner again.
“I could go for a burger,” he said, his eyebrows asking the non-verbal question of whether that was alright with her. “You know, I don’t even remember where serves them here,” he added in realisation. Not for the first time, he’d have to put his faith in Alex.
“Perfect,” she replied to his silent question, smiling brightly at him. She was starting to feel less nervous and more comfortable around him; her conflicted feelings finally being pushed to the side and replaced by the simple feeling of enjoying Danny’s company.
“Many places do, but I’ll take you to my favorite place,” she said with a smile, walking into the elevator that was already there, as if waiting for them. “Burger, fries and a cold Coke. Simple but delicious.” Despite needed other types of nutrients in her body, eating a burger every now and then felt good.
She pressed the button and smiled up at Danny as the doors closed.
~
“So, what’s been going on with you?” Danny asked, brandishing a fry as he spoke before popping it into his mouth. He’d demolished almost half of his burger and made a fair dent in his pile of fries already. Once he’d started eating - no, the moment he’d been close enough to just smell the fried food - he’d felt absolutely starving. Maybe it was something to do with all the extra energy his body was using, trying to heal itself. He’d given Alex a few embarrassed smiles and muttered apologies for his bad table manners and, eventually, he’d slowed down enough to be able to hold a conversation again.
It felt good doing the things they used to do again, going and having lunch together, talk about their lives or their work... For a moment it felt he hadn’t left.
Alex told him several times there was no need to apologize for being hungry. She, after all, lived with three damphirs who loved food. Table manners were overrated. She grabbed a fry and took a bite of it. “Working... And being turned into things... You know, normal Atlantis stuff,” she said with a laugh. “COS tried to mess with us taking some of us to an arena and throw crazy things at us until one of us won. You know there’s never a dull moment around here. ” She didn’t mention the fact that she died in the arena. She didn’t think it was the best thing to talk about when he had just died a couple of days ago. For the second time.
Danny tried to smile along with Alex, even though the concept of ‘turning into things’ still felt very odd to him. He’d had so little time to get used to Atlantis before Breckentale had happened that it still felt like somewhere incredibly foreign to him. He was also starting to realise that having missed out on a good chunk of time in Atlantis made him feel almost as out of touch as he had done when he’d shown up fresh from his own time.
“Wait, they threw things at you in an arena?” he asked, stopping the flow of the conversation. He was sure he must look as confused as he felt. “You don’t mean actually throwing things, do you?”
Alex sounded like she was making light of the situation but, from what Danny knew of COS, nothing they did was without purpose. This was war and COS was the enemy. Atlantis magic might be strange but he knew that 99% of the time it was essentially harmless. COS, on the other hand, had an agenda, just like Japan had in the war he’d been fighting. Every move was tactical. You didn’t waste resources just to keep the lives of your enemies interesting. There was something he was missing, something she wasn’t saying.
He realised that his hand, complete with fry, had stopped in mid-air on its way to his mouth. He slowly let it finish its journey but didn’t take his eyes off of Alex.
“Well, no. Although that would’ve been funnier than what they did to us,” she said, pursing her lips. “It was very Hunger Games-ish.” She said, saying everything he needed to know to do some research and find out exactly what the COS did to them. Alex wasn’t ready to talk about her death experience right now. She had only spoken to her grandfather about it.
“Oh!” she exclaimed, as she had just remembered something. “I fought a Strigoi. That was very exciting... And I’ve been training too. Turning these weak Moroi muscles into something useful,” she grinned, not really realizing she had never told Danny what she was. The moment she did however, her eyes widened and she grabbed her burger and took a huge bite off it, wondering if Earth would open and swallow her whole.
Danny remembered that Alex had mentioned something about training when she’d commented to his network post the evening before. Still, he’d been a little overwhelmed by all the friendly comments that he hadn’t given it the thought it had probably deserved. He immediately began worrying that he’d missed something, since there were definitely some words in those last sentences that he didn’t understand. Were they Atlantis things?
“What does Moroi mean?” he asked, feeling stupid but with no alternative than to just come out and ask.
There was no turning back now. She couldn’t get away from explaining what she was to Danny and she knew it. She put her burger down after swallowing and took a deep breath. Here goes nothing, she thought. “First of all you have to promise not to freak out. In most worlds my kind has a very bad reputation, but we’re good. Strigoi are the ones who you have to be afraid of. Not Moroi.” She made a pause, feeling her mouth really dry and took a sip of her coke.
“Moroi are vampires. Good vampires. We don’t turn people like they do in movies, like Nosferatu or Dracula. I mean, we still drink blood, but we never kill anyone,” she explained. “Please please please don’t freak out.” Alex almost begged. She looked at Danny expectantly, waiting for his reaction.
Danny frowned. In his experience, people only told you not to freak out when they were about to say something that was likely to elicit exactly that response. Still, he didn’t want to upset Alex so he steeled himself and gave a quick nod.
He didn’t know what he’d expected but it certainly wasn’t what Alex said. Danny could feel his eyes growing wide, his brows creeping slowly upwards on his forehead. Vampires? He’d seen Dracula in 1931 - he and Rafe had snuck themselves into a showing at the Orpheum in Memphis - but his brain wouldn’t allow him to correlate the monster he’d seen on screen with Alex, sitting in front of him now, blonde and beautiful, full of life. But, then again, he couldn’t imagine her drinking blood, either.
Danny could feel his heart beating faster as he tried to think of the appropriate way to respond. Was there one? He had begun to feel very aware of the healing wound on his neck and it took everything in him not to reach up and touch the bandage. It was a stupid compulsion and one that wasn’t at all linked to what he thought about Alex. He knew she wasn’t going to hurt him. He didn’t need her to tell him that she was ‘good’ for him to know that.
He ran his tongue over his lips, tasting the salt from his fries there. Understanding something and knowing what to say to communicate that understanding were two very different things.
“Alright,” he said eventually. It was the best he could come up with. He mentally kicked himself, not for the first time that day, for his lack of eloquence.
“Is that… something you’ve always been?”
Alright. That was better than freaking out and leaving her there alone. She could deal with an ‘alright’.
She nodded, answering his question. “Moroi are born. Just like Damphirs — they are like humans, but a lot stronger. Most of my family are damphirs. I was adopted,” she explained, her voice a little quieter than usual. “My biological family was killed by strigoi and my mom and my dad found me.” She leaned back against her chair and sighed, running her hands through her hair and looking down. “Sorry I totally killed the mood....” she bit her bottom lip and looked up at Danny. “I’m glad I’ve told you, though. I had wanted to tell you before, but then Breckentale happened and then you left... So yeah... I’m a Moroi,” she said with a small smile.
Danny studied Alex’s face as she talked, his burger and fries forgotten on the table in front of him. When she mentioned killing the mood, he shook his head. She didn’t need to apologise, not to him. He knew what it was like to lose a parent in childhood.
“I’m glad too,” Danny agreed, although he stumbled a little over his words, despite doing his best to sound unphased. He took a deep breath and reached out for his Coke and took a little sip to fill the gap in the conversation. He was glad. It hadn’t been expected and he wasn’t sure what to do with it now he knew but he felt a little closer to Alex as a result and that was a nice feeling.
“Do you… er, do you want to… tell me more about what that involves or…” He put his cup down and licked his lips nervously. “Or not? Either way.” He was well aware that he was out of his depth in the conversation - it was on the verge of feeling very personal - but he wasn’t one to just quit when things got tough. He liked to see things through.
He was too nice. Any other sane person would’ve walked away the second she said vampire -- or maybe someone who hadn’t been to Atlantis for too long -- but not him. He was sitting across from her, asking her if she wanted to tell him more about her life and being a Moroi.
She bit her bottom lip and nodded, grabbing her Coke and taking a sip. “I might ramble, so stop me if I do,” she warned him before telling him about the Moroi, her Spirit and her family. And yes, she probably rambled while telling him about growing in a house with damphirs, how she was close to her aunt Lissa who wasn’t really her aunt but she was for all matters and purposes, how she got her guardian Roman because Lissa was royalty; she even mentioned how her Spirit affected her when she used it... She talked for what felt like hours, but she stopped herself when she started talking about her trip to Greece, not sure how she ended up in that subject.
“Sorry, I told you I ramble a lot,” she laughed softly.
Danny had listened closely as she spoke, making the most of not having to talk much by gradually working his way through the rest of his meal. By the time she stopped herself, the plate in front of him was completely clear.
“No, it’s okay, I do that too, when I get talkin’ about something,” he explained with a warm smile.
He had found himself relaxing as Alex had told him about her life, her family and her abilities. By listening to her explain everything in her own words, he had been able to slowly build up an idea of what her world was like and how she saw herself within it. He was glad to find that it didn’t change his opinion of her at all, just helped put her in context.
“Anyway, I like it,” he ventured, feeling a small resurgence of nervousness but for an entirely different reason. “I like seein’ you smile.”
That smile... It gave her butterflies in her stomach.
Alex knew she shouldn’t feel the way she did -- or maybe she should. It wasn’t like she could control what she felt for a person -- but by doing so she got the answer she had been looking for since Danny arrived a couple of days ago. She wasn’t conflicted -- or rather, she wasn’t as conflicted as she was when she walked into his room earlier that afternoon. She knew what she had to do now.
His next words made her cheeks flush a light shade of pink. “It’s easy to smile with you,” she said softly.