Chapter Text
Despite the guilt of probably being a bad influence, Maddie swelled with relief at the smile that had crossed her son’s face as she dazzled him with tricks. She honestly hadn’t been sure how he would react to the flight; he had become more timid in his teenage years, but when he’d asked to sit in the front, she saw it as an opportunity to capitalize on adrenaline and good old fashioned fun. Even if it was just for a little while.
If she had known it would work so well, she would have suggested it much sooner. When had Danny developed an adventurous side? Maybe Jazz knew.
If it hadn't been for the flight, Maddie wasn't so sure the outing would have gone so well, and not just with the confusion surrounding Danny’s participation. She had hoped to gain some kind of understanding of how he felt, but he was elusive as ever.
Except maybe with Vlad. He talked to him like there was some deeper connection. There was tension, too, but it seemed to mostly come from Danny. If it wasn't for his attitude, their teasing and poking at each other would almost be playful.
Maybe it had been at some point. It didn't look like Vlad was taking offense to the way Danny was acting towards him, even teasing him back.
Maybe that's why Danny had asked to come here in the first place.
It seemed the harder she looked at him and tried to understand him, the more she realized how much of a stranger he had become to her. For Jazz to know him more intimately was one thing, but for Vlad, her friend from college, to somehow have a better understanding of him?
It was a harsh blow to what should have been her most proud occupation. If it hadn't been for the helicopter ride, she would have left that outing in much lower spirits.
Upon returning to the mansion, the three of them had a brief lunch in the kitchen, after which Vlad suggested watching a film in the theater room. With a gesture that warmed her heart, he offered movies that were space-related. Granted, they were more heavy in theme than she thought Danny might have the interest or patience for, but it was a kind gesture all the same.
“Isn’t it your naptime?” was Danny’s reply.
Maddie was once again bewildered by the reaction, but Vlad was ever patient, only smiling and suggesting a different film.
After repeatedly turning down movie suggestions, Maddie eventually bypassed the problem and told Danny to pick the movie. His choice had surprised her, to say the least.
“Are you sure?” Maddie had asked, thinking surely a teenage boy would want to watch something more thrilling.
“No, trust me, Sam showed it to me. You’ll love it,” he had assured her.
With popcorn and sodas in hand, they settled into the theater and an awkward silence fell over them as Blackfish began playing.
The opening scene had Maddie groaning internally, and she cast a glance to her right at Danny. He seemed to be watching intently, so she decided to grin and bear it. She felt a little relieved when she glanced at Vlad and saw he had an identical grimace on his face. At least she wasn't alone in her upcoming misery.
Still, neither of them complained and watched the documentary joylessly. At about a third of the way through, however, Vlad gently tapped her arm. She looked to see him pointing past her. Following his finger, she turned to see Danny’s slumped form fast asleep in his seat.
“Oh, poor baby,” Maddie cooed softly so as not to wake him. “Let him sleep. He needs it.”
Vlad nodded in agreement, then asked her in a whisper, “Did you enjoy yourself today?”
“I did, Vlad, thank you. Getting out was exactly what I needed.” She glanced at her son affectionately. “And what he needed.”
“It sounds like more trips are in order, then.”
“That’s a great idea,” she agreed.
“Actually, our conversation today gave me an idea–with your permission, of course,” Vlad ventured. “In the interest of getting him out more, it might be beneficial to push him into sports. I wasn’t exaggerating when I said he could try out, and I happen to know a coach in the area who would be glad to offer him some training over the summer and could accommodate Danny's injuries.”
Maddie half laughed half gasped at the suggestion, making Vlad tilt his head curiously.
“I’m sorry. I’m not laughing at the idea. I think it's great,” she said, shaking away her surprise. “It’s just, to be honest, when you two were talking about that, I almost thought you were talking about something else.”
“Something else?” Vlad inquired.
“It was nothing,” she dismissed, still not sure what she had thought about it.
“Was it his attitude?” Vlad asked with a knowing smile.
She almost laughed again. “I have never seen him… he's never talked like that. Or acted that way. He's so reserved most of the time. I mean, maybe with his friends, but…”
He smiled. “He means well.”
“Vlad, he… he's rude to you,” Maddie said.
He waved a hand. “He enjoys some bantering, but…” he trailed off, frowning.
She swallowed.
“Even before… what happened, he was particularly resistant about the topic of sports. It’s a shame. He plays well, but he refuses to take it more seriously than that. It seems he doesn’t believe in his own capabilities.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Unfortunately, I suspect Jack may have had a hand in that,” Vlad replied grimly.
Her body tingled undecidedly, warring over whether she felt saddened or enraged by the statement.
Jack was big and capable, and had played quite a few sports when he was in school. It could be that Danny simply felt like he couldn’t live up to the expectation, or that Jack had actively discouraged him.
Either was unacceptable.
She pivoted in her seat to face Vlad more directly, abandoning the documentary entirely now that Danny was sleeping. “Vlad…”
He matched her posture, apparently also eager to do anything but watch the remainder of the documentary. “Hm?”
“Has Danny told you anything? About what happened?”
Vlad’s lips pressed together in a thin line and her heart clenched fearfully.
In an even quieter voice, he whispered, “He confided in me some of what occurred.” His eyes became steely as he stared ahead at her boy.
She inhaled shakily. “What um… Did he say… Did he tell the police everything?”
Vlad winced sympathetically. “Daniel… told them the obvious.”
She pressed her brows together, fear twisting in her stomach.
“Did Jack do anything…” she stopped, almost choked on the question.
Vlad waited.
“Did he do anything … worse?”
“No,” Vlad assured immediately. “No, from what Daniel told me–assuming he was being honest with me–the physical element was a new escalation. I believe all that may have been left out, and likely not even fully expressed to me or anyone else, were some of the mental and emotional aspects… and how long they had been going on for.”
She nodded stiffly, sorrow, rage, and shame forming a lump in her throat. It felt twisted to be grateful that at least Jack hadn't been beating him that long.
And she felt guilty as she recognized that the other part of that relief was that something so obvious hadn't been going on longer than it should have taken her to notice.
But like Vlad said, that was assuming Danny was being honest.
“He hasn’t talked about it with me at all since the hospital… he hasn't talked to me about anything , since the hospital,” she confessed, throat constricting, eyes glossing against her will. “If I’d thought for a second-”
Vlad shook his head vehemently. “Maddie, now, stop that. You can’t blame yourself. You couldn’t have possibly known. He fooled us all.”
“Maybe if I had been a more attentive parent, I might have seen the signs…”
“You’re doing all that you can now,” he soothed, but her soul rejected it.
“Am I?”
She had apparently raised her voice, because Danny stirred.
They both froze, waiting for him to settle again before she continued in a quieter tone. “I tried getting him to open up to me last night, but I gave up the moment he shut me out. I don’t know if I have the strength to help him through this.”
Vlad was quiet, but nodded to assure her he was listening.
“Did he…” her eyes started watering again and she quickly wiped the beads away and looked down into her lap. “Does he hate me?”
Vlad brows rose and he reached forward and took her hands, squeezing them. “ No , Maddie. You’re a wonderful mother and he knows it.”
She wanted to squeeze his hands back and believe him, but she remained stiff, knowing she would be lying to herself.
She could do better. She had to do better.
“Don’t forget, Maddie. You need to recover from this, too.” He gave her hand another encouraging squeeze. “And move past Jack and what he’s done.”
Her heart turned icy at the mention of her husband’s name, but the hands offered some warmth.
Danny stirred again, pinched eyes betraying either an uncomfortable sleep or rough waking.
Maddie unconsciously moved her hand away from Vlad’s and purged Jack from her mind as Danny rubbed his neck and acknowledged them.
“Welcome back,” she gently teased.
His eyes flicked from their armrests to each of them, the pinch in his brow deepening as blood rushed into his cheeks and ears.
“Why did you let me fall asleep?” he grumbled, a surprising edge to his voice that had her exchange a concerned look with Vlad.
“Well, Danny it looked like you needed it,” she explained, watching him fidget in his seat and clench his armrests like a trapped animal.
“How long?” he snapped.
She tempered her indignation with being spoken to so and assured him it had only been about twenty minutes.
“Were you even watching?” Danny accused. His angry gaze again ventured towards their seats, flicked up past her face just briefly, and then finally landed on the screen with a scowl. “Just turn it off already.”
“Danny, you wanted to watch this movie,” she said, tone switching to authoritative. “What’s gotten into you?”
Vlad paused the documentary, the room slowly brightening. The combination of silence and light only served to highlight the mounting strain.
Maddie watched Danny stand from his chair, his agitated glower scorching everything in the room but her as he seemed to scramble for something inaccessible.
“Danny, do you know where you are right now?” she asked, suddenly becoming concerned he was still part way asleep. There had been once or twice she had caught him up during the night sleeping walking in the kitchen or the lab, but he’d never been combative, just very confused and dismissive. Those times she had been able to tell him to return to bed, and he always did.
“We’re not watching a movie, apparently,” he fumed. “We could’ve done something else! And you just let me fall asleep while you--” He stopped himself abruptly, face scrunching up as he bit back whatever else he was going to say.
“Danny, I don’t understand why you’re angry,” Maddie told him honestly. She was more angry than her tone betrayed, only tamed by her bewilderment. “Is it the movie? Was it that important to you that we see it?”
“No, it’s just a stupid movie!”
“Then what is the problem?” she pressed, letting her pitch rise.
He finally looked at her, his expression worrying her more than his outburst. He worked his jaw like it was caught on something, but the almost desperate upward pinch of his brow stole her attention. His gaze blipped past her and his face turned hot and furious again.
“I don’t care about the movie,” he insisted, moving down the aisle to leave. “So just turn it off. Do something else.”
She thought he would storm out, but at the doorway, he stopped and impatiently stared at them both. She returned the stare disbelievingly, standing after a minute before meeting him at the doorway.
Vlad took his time somewhere behind her.
Leaning in close so that they could not be overheard, she caught her son’s eyes sternly. “What has gotten into you?”
He crossed his arms, careful not to agitate the left one, and glared sullenly at the floor.
She took a moment to compose herself.
“I just don’t know what to do, Danny,” she told him, her voice strained in her desperation to understand.
Vlad quietly walked past them and out of the room without an acknowledgement of the discomfort, allowing her to speak more openly.
“What do you want me to do?” she asked, softening. “What can I do?”
She could see him wilting under her questions and he still wouldn’t acknowledge her, eyes fixed on the floor and hiding his face with the bangs of his hair.
Finally, he mumbled, “Can I use your phone?”
Her hopes tentatively jumped and she asked him why.
“I dropped mine,” he explained, his voice strangely deadpan. “It’s not working.”
She went to grab it, but hesitated as worries started rattling around in her mind. Most bothersome of all was that he broke his phone at some point and hadn’t said anything until now.
She decided it best to pry a little first. “Who do you need to talk to?”
He took a beat that wasn’t lost on her.
“I just never got to answer Sam,” he finally replied.
She considered the answer, but moreover, the hesitation. Jazz had asserted that Danny had a crush on Sam, so she wondered if that may be the explanation, but something felt disconnected.
In the end, though, it didn’t matter. She wasn’t about to deny him the ability to talk to his friends. Especially not when this was the first she’d heard of him actually reaching out to anyone.
She handed him her cell. “When did your phone break?”
“Not long,” he replied vaguely. He grabbed the phone and started typing as fast as he could with only one thumb available for him to use. She wondered if his still slung arm had anything to do with his phone breaking.
“Do you need a new one?”
He paused again. “Maybe, yeah.”
It bothered her that he still wouldn’t look at her and she wondered if she was failing him again. Should she give him space or should she push?
“How is Sam?” she asked him.
“She’s fine,” he replied dismissively. “What are you going to do now?”
She shook her head. “What do you mean?”
“Like tonight,” he asked, finishing whatever he was writing and handing it back to her. “Did Vlad have more plans?”
“I don’t think so.” She took the phone back from him, the weight of whatever message he had sent making it heavy in her palm.
“So are you going to write your paper?”
She let out an unintentionally frustrated sigh, shrugging. “I don’t know. I might. Did you want me to do something else?”
“No, you should write your paper,” he said, finally glancing up at her for just a second before looking at the door anxiously. “Can I go?”
“Well- just a minute,” she stopped him, lightly touching his arm.
Push.
“Is that all?” she asked him.
He shrugged at her uncomprehendingly.
She tried to keep her tone even, carefully choosing her words in one more push. “Danny, I’m trying my best…”
She noticed a change in his demeanor, no longer leaning towards the doorway, but now frozen and staring at her.
“But I can’t do anything if you shut me out. I can’t help unless you let me.” She paused, hoping, praying he would fill the silence.
He stared at her numbly.
“Tell me something ,” she begged, reaching out to him as hard as she could with her eyes, trying to convey everything she had failed to in the past.
He stared back at her and for just the smallest of moments, she felt like she had reached some part of him he had locked away from her. He swallowed hard, opened his mouth to answer.
“I want to go.”
Her heart sank and their gaze snapped like splintered wood. Maddie subconsciously pulled her arms in closer.
His eyes had turned cold, glaring sullenly at her. “Can I?”
She didn’t trust her voice, so she nodded instead.
He rushed past her, snapping something under his breath. She listened as his pace quickened, fading as he ascended the staircase. The silence fell harsh in the empty theater and she inhaled sharply to break it.
A soft knock on the door urged Maddie to quickly clear her throat. “I’m coming,” she said, leaving the theater and meeting Vlad in the hall.
“Are you alright?” he asked her.
She nodded shortly, wrestling with a sudden feeling of impatient irritation. She didn’t want to discuss this with Vlad right now.
He seemed to take her reply as sufficient, however, as he didn’t press her on the matter. “The movie was the last of my plans for the evening. However, if you need company, anything I have to do can wait a little longer.”
She smiled stiffly, looking towards the stairway. “I think some quiet is what I need for now,” she lied.
He nodded amicably.