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1_million_words2013-08-03 06:10 pm
witchyemerald.livejournal.com) wrote in 1_million_words2013-08-03 06:10 pm
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Word Race Reward for simplyn2deep -
For her H-50 reward fic, I did add to my What Happened's in Hawaii, verse. On fathers day for the word of the day I posted the first part of this now it is further along, so hun your reward is the Steve meets Grace in the story (800 words too!) I am posting all of Meet the Daughter for those that missed the first part on a word of the day.
Danny hadn’t been this nervous, about seeing Grace, since the day she was born. Standing in the toy aisle at a chain store, he debated buying something to give to her when he had to break the news to his little girl, that he was married, to a person she never met.
To a man Danny, still, barely knew.
It had been a crazy two weeks since Danny woke up in a hotel room, with a stranger in his bed and a ring on his finger. Two weeks of dealing with the fall out of moving yourself across not only the country, but over an ocean as well. His life in Jersey packed and transferred, his family and him on outs, Rachael pointing out that decisions like this, was not a sign of a steady parent, and the brick wall that was Steve. But, Danny would do it all again, in a heartbeat, if it meant he could be closer to his daughter.
“What are you doing Danny?” He was too engrossed on if he should go with the traditional Barbie, or a more craze of the moment, Monster High doll, to hear Steve walk up behind him.
“Am trying to decide if, ‘meet your new stepfather,’ speech warrants a bribe of the toy variety or should I go straight for the car, I know, I’ll get her at sixteen to prove we are the better parent-slash-step-parent partnership?”
Steve gave the ever helpful shrug and, “I don’t know my father never remarried.”
Danny felt his heart race, a throbbing in his ears, “I can’t do this Steve!” Breaths becoming shallower, until he felt Steve’s hand on the back of his neck, thumb rubbing behind his ear.
“It will be fine Danny, your daughter loves you.”
“It’s not that. It’s this,” Danny waved a hand between the two of them, “marriage. What am I teaching my daughter?” Steve’s face expressed his confusion. “Steve, we got married and didn’t even know each other. Hell I don’t even remember that part. And, as much as I would never like it to happen, Grace will date someday. Am I setting up a good example for how she should treat future relationships?”
“You worried about Grace getting drunkenly married on vacation?”
“Yes! No! I am worried about how she is going to expect relationships…marriage…to be. Rachel and my divorce was dirty. She gets married to a guy that can buy her love. I get married, on the day I was supposed to leave Hawaii, to a man who I just recently found out his middle name is Jack!”
“Danny-"
“Steve, what if you two don’t get along? Then what am I going to do?” Danny covered his face with both of his hands. He refused to have a breakdown in the middle of a Wal-Mart knock off, in front of a bunch of vacant bleach bottle blonde dolls.
“Danny it would be okay. You don’t have to tell her if you don’t want too.”
Lowering his hands, Danny glared at Steve, “So I what, lie to my daughter?”
“Well, it won’t be the first time a parent lied to their child,” Steve’s voice sounded somewhat distant, as if he was remembering something from his own experiences.
“About Santa and the Easter Bunny, yes, but not about being married.”
“Well we make up a background story. We use to know each other before she was born, or we met online. We have to make up cover stories whenever we have an undercover assignment, just treat it like the same thing.”
“I am not going to treat my daughter as an undercover operation, for the rest of my life.” Danny crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes, at Steve’s ridicules suggestion.
“Okay , then how about roommates, friends, she can even call me Uncle Steve.”
“I don’t see how that is any different.”
“It’s not really, but maybe it will help ease her into it? Get to know me before hand?”
“And what if she doesn’t like you?” Danny raised one eyebrow, a challenge to Steve.
“I am a very likeable guy, I have you know. But, I was thinking more along the lines of her getting to know me and see you and I together, and then explain it to her, rationally.”
“I didn’t think you knew the meaning of the word, but I do see your point.”
“See it will all work out. Now that I have all the stuff on your list,” Steve motioned to the shopping cart next to him that Danny was too frazzled to noticed, “we can get out of here and go to get pizzas or something before she comes over.”
Looking in the cart, Danny saw Steve took the list to the next level. Floaties for the water, now included beach toys and a pink kick board. Three beach towels instead of one, all in girly patterns. Sunblock also had a pair of purple sunglasses and a matching hat. He even got her bathroom accessories in, “Steve she’ll a little old for Dora the Explorer,” Danny lifted a toothbrush holder out of the cart, “this is for five years olds. She’s more Hello Kitty and fairies. Plus one rule about young girls, they would love to pick out their own room stuff.”
“Oh, so just get the toothpaste and shampoo?” Steve asked pulling out the matching soap dish and water cup.
“Yea, we can come back at another time and she can decorate her bathroom, she’ll like that,” Danny said pushing the cart toward the checkout area.
Steve put the bathroom decorations on an empty spot on the shelf next to him, already thinking of adding a trip to the Home Depot with Grace for paint colors. Glancing quickly over at Danny, Steve grabbed three different Barbie to be safe. He was meeting his step daughter after all. Maybe he’ll luck out and she’ll like pineapple on her pizza. He didn’t think it was likely, but it was worth a try.
___________________________________________________
Steve was sure there was some nice qualities about Rachel, he just hadn’t seen any yet. However, he knew he might have a bios, since she was the ex-wife of his husband. It also didn’t score her any points when the first words to him were, “So you're the man my ex-husband drunkenly married. I trust you will keep your boozing away from my daughter. Daniel we need to talk. Kitchen.”
Rachel waved Steven into a living room that only separation from the rest of the open floor plan house was an archway and a step down into the room. Danny followed Rachel into the kitchen, leaving the pocket door opened, not like it would have done any good, since the breakfast nook off the side of the kitchen opened up to the rest of the house.
Also she didn’t try to keep her voice low, when she lay into Danny, with her posh british accent. Everything from, how their marriage will reflect on their family, to the absurdity of Steve and Danny’s plan to keep the relationship quiet until Grace got to know Steve.
The longer she went on, the more Steve wanted to go in and tell her to back down. But, he had promised Danny, even negotiated a reward for himself if he was good. Still, the woman set him on edge.
“They do that a lot, you know,” a young voice startled Steve from his thoughts. Steve slightly berated himself for not noticing the young girl walk up to him. “The fighting where they think I can’t hear, they do it more now than when we lived in New Jersey.
“You must be Gracie. You dad has told me all about his monkey of a daughter.”
The young girl, Grace, tilted her head to the side watching Steve, like she was a cat trying to figure out another animal who has walked into her territory. Steve hadn’t spent too much time with children before, but he was sure they were more...childlike.
“You must be Danno’s new husband,” Grace said after she came to whatever conclusion we going through her mind, “don’t worry, I already know.”
“Oh you do, huh?
Gracie’s eye roll was on par with her father’s, “Of course I do. I can hear when Mommy and Step-Stan talk, you know, and I do understand them. I am eight after all.”
Steve smiled at her. Gracie Williams, it turns out, was nothing like Steve pictured, “I forgot how smart eight-year-old can be.”
“That’s alright, Step-Stan didn’t know anything about six-year-old’s when Mommy met him. But he is doing alright,” Gracie shrugged, “He’s not my Danno, but he makes a really good banana ice cream shake, when Mommy has PTA nights. He even gives me the large cup, not the small ones Mommy still gives me.”
“Is that right? I don’t make ice cream shakes, but I do Barbeque a mean hamburger.”
“Well that would be silly for you to be the same as my Step-Stan,” Gracie smiled for a brief moment before contemplating something else. Reaching out she poked Steve in the arm with one finger, “Funny, you don’t feel different.”
Confused, Steve didn’t know what to say other than ask, “Why would I feel different?”
“It’s okay,” Gracie said before lowering her voice to a whisper, “I know what you are. I hope it didn’t hurt. I didn’t know what will happen when I wished for it.”
Steve wished Danny and Rachel would hurry up, because he was beginning to feel out of his depth with Gracie Williams, “What did you wish for Gracie?”
“For Danno to marry, and be happy, and get to move to Hawaii, like Mommy and I did. I wished really hard when Danno left that last night, be he had to fly home.”
“Oh.”
“I heard Mommy tell Step-Stan, that Danno had gotten married,” Gracie changed her voice to a childlike imitation of her mother, “and to a seal, not less.” Gracie pause, and looked at Steve, tears forming in her eyes, “I hope I didn’t take you away from your seal family. I understand how it feels when you miss you Daddy.”
Before Steve could, correct her, or comfort her, Danny came into the room, “There you are monkey! Are you packed and ready to go?”
Gracie ran to Danny giving him a hug, before turning a running out of the room “I just gotta get my bag.”
Danny waited until Grace’s feet where thundering down the upstairs hall, “So what did you two talk about.”
“Well, I learned some interesting things, like Step-Stan makes a mean banana milk shake, and sneaks her the larger glasses, oh and she overheard Rachel tell Stan we’re married.”
“Well shit. There goes that plan.”
“Something telling me it will be just fine.”
Danny hadn’t been this nervous, about seeing Grace, since the day she was born. Standing in the toy aisle at a chain store, he debated buying something to give to her when he had to break the news to his little girl, that he was married, to a person she never met.
To a man Danny, still, barely knew.
It had been a crazy two weeks since Danny woke up in a hotel room, with a stranger in his bed and a ring on his finger. Two weeks of dealing with the fall out of moving yourself across not only the country, but over an ocean as well. His life in Jersey packed and transferred, his family and him on outs, Rachael pointing out that decisions like this, was not a sign of a steady parent, and the brick wall that was Steve. But, Danny would do it all again, in a heartbeat, if it meant he could be closer to his daughter.
“What are you doing Danny?” He was too engrossed on if he should go with the traditional Barbie, or a more craze of the moment, Monster High doll, to hear Steve walk up behind him.
“Am trying to decide if, ‘meet your new stepfather,’ speech warrants a bribe of the toy variety or should I go straight for the car, I know, I’ll get her at sixteen to prove we are the better parent-slash-step-parent partnership?”
Steve gave the ever helpful shrug and, “I don’t know my father never remarried.”
Danny felt his heart race, a throbbing in his ears, “I can’t do this Steve!” Breaths becoming shallower, until he felt Steve’s hand on the back of his neck, thumb rubbing behind his ear.
“It will be fine Danny, your daughter loves you.”
“It’s not that. It’s this,” Danny waved a hand between the two of them, “marriage. What am I teaching my daughter?” Steve’s face expressed his confusion. “Steve, we got married and didn’t even know each other. Hell I don’t even remember that part. And, as much as I would never like it to happen, Grace will date someday. Am I setting up a good example for how she should treat future relationships?”
“You worried about Grace getting drunkenly married on vacation?”
“Yes! No! I am worried about how she is going to expect relationships…marriage…to be. Rachel and my divorce was dirty. She gets married to a guy that can buy her love. I get married, on the day I was supposed to leave Hawaii, to a man who I just recently found out his middle name is Jack!”
“Danny-"
“Steve, what if you two don’t get along? Then what am I going to do?” Danny covered his face with both of his hands. He refused to have a breakdown in the middle of a Wal-Mart knock off, in front of a bunch of vacant bleach bottle blonde dolls.
“Danny it would be okay. You don’t have to tell her if you don’t want too.”
Lowering his hands, Danny glared at Steve, “So I what, lie to my daughter?”
“Well, it won’t be the first time a parent lied to their child,” Steve’s voice sounded somewhat distant, as if he was remembering something from his own experiences.
“About Santa and the Easter Bunny, yes, but not about being married.”
“Well we make up a background story. We use to know each other before she was born, or we met online. We have to make up cover stories whenever we have an undercover assignment, just treat it like the same thing.”
“I am not going to treat my daughter as an undercover operation, for the rest of my life.” Danny crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes, at Steve’s ridicules suggestion.
“Okay , then how about roommates, friends, she can even call me Uncle Steve.”
“I don’t see how that is any different.”
“It’s not really, but maybe it will help ease her into it? Get to know me before hand?”
“And what if she doesn’t like you?” Danny raised one eyebrow, a challenge to Steve.
“I am a very likeable guy, I have you know. But, I was thinking more along the lines of her getting to know me and see you and I together, and then explain it to her, rationally.”
“I didn’t think you knew the meaning of the word, but I do see your point.”
“See it will all work out. Now that I have all the stuff on your list,” Steve motioned to the shopping cart next to him that Danny was too frazzled to noticed, “we can get out of here and go to get pizzas or something before she comes over.”
Looking in the cart, Danny saw Steve took the list to the next level. Floaties for the water, now included beach toys and a pink kick board. Three beach towels instead of one, all in girly patterns. Sunblock also had a pair of purple sunglasses and a matching hat. He even got her bathroom accessories in, “Steve she’ll a little old for Dora the Explorer,” Danny lifted a toothbrush holder out of the cart, “this is for five years olds. She’s more Hello Kitty and fairies. Plus one rule about young girls, they would love to pick out their own room stuff.”
“Oh, so just get the toothpaste and shampoo?” Steve asked pulling out the matching soap dish and water cup.
“Yea, we can come back at another time and she can decorate her bathroom, she’ll like that,” Danny said pushing the cart toward the checkout area.
Steve put the bathroom decorations on an empty spot on the shelf next to him, already thinking of adding a trip to the Home Depot with Grace for paint colors. Glancing quickly over at Danny, Steve grabbed three different Barbie to be safe. He was meeting his step daughter after all. Maybe he’ll luck out and she’ll like pineapple on her pizza. He didn’t think it was likely, but it was worth a try.
Steve was sure there was some nice qualities about Rachel, he just hadn’t seen any yet. However, he knew he might have a bios, since she was the ex-wife of his husband. It also didn’t score her any points when the first words to him were, “So you're the man my ex-husband drunkenly married. I trust you will keep your boozing away from my daughter. Daniel we need to talk. Kitchen.”
Rachel waved Steven into a living room that only separation from the rest of the open floor plan house was an archway and a step down into the room. Danny followed Rachel into the kitchen, leaving the pocket door opened, not like it would have done any good, since the breakfast nook off the side of the kitchen opened up to the rest of the house.
Also she didn’t try to keep her voice low, when she lay into Danny, with her posh british accent. Everything from, how their marriage will reflect on their family, to the absurdity of Steve and Danny’s plan to keep the relationship quiet until Grace got to know Steve.
The longer she went on, the more Steve wanted to go in and tell her to back down. But, he had promised Danny, even negotiated a reward for himself if he was good. Still, the woman set him on edge.
“They do that a lot, you know,” a young voice startled Steve from his thoughts. Steve slightly berated himself for not noticing the young girl walk up to him. “The fighting where they think I can’t hear, they do it more now than when we lived in New Jersey.
“You must be Gracie. You dad has told me all about his monkey of a daughter.”
The young girl, Grace, tilted her head to the side watching Steve, like she was a cat trying to figure out another animal who has walked into her territory. Steve hadn’t spent too much time with children before, but he was sure they were more...childlike.
“You must be Danno’s new husband,” Grace said after she came to whatever conclusion we going through her mind, “don’t worry, I already know.”
“Oh you do, huh?
Gracie’s eye roll was on par with her father’s, “Of course I do. I can hear when Mommy and Step-Stan talk, you know, and I do understand them. I am eight after all.”
Steve smiled at her. Gracie Williams, it turns out, was nothing like Steve pictured, “I forgot how smart eight-year-old can be.”
“That’s alright, Step-Stan didn’t know anything about six-year-old’s when Mommy met him. But he is doing alright,” Gracie shrugged, “He’s not my Danno, but he makes a really good banana ice cream shake, when Mommy has PTA nights. He even gives me the large cup, not the small ones Mommy still gives me.”
“Is that right? I don’t make ice cream shakes, but I do Barbeque a mean hamburger.”
“Well that would be silly for you to be the same as my Step-Stan,” Gracie smiled for a brief moment before contemplating something else. Reaching out she poked Steve in the arm with one finger, “Funny, you don’t feel different.”
Confused, Steve didn’t know what to say other than ask, “Why would I feel different?”
“It’s okay,” Gracie said before lowering her voice to a whisper, “I know what you are. I hope it didn’t hurt. I didn’t know what will happen when I wished for it.”
Steve wished Danny and Rachel would hurry up, because he was beginning to feel out of his depth with Gracie Williams, “What did you wish for Gracie?”
“For Danno to marry, and be happy, and get to move to Hawaii, like Mommy and I did. I wished really hard when Danno left that last night, be he had to fly home.”
“Oh.”
“I heard Mommy tell Step-Stan, that Danno had gotten married,” Gracie changed her voice to a childlike imitation of her mother, “and to a seal, not less.” Gracie pause, and looked at Steve, tears forming in her eyes, “I hope I didn’t take you away from your seal family. I understand how it feels when you miss you Daddy.”
Before Steve could, correct her, or comfort her, Danny came into the room, “There you are monkey! Are you packed and ready to go?”
Gracie ran to Danny giving him a hug, before turning a running out of the room “I just gotta get my bag.”
Danny waited until Grace’s feet where thundering down the upstairs hall, “So what did you two talk about.”
“Well, I learned some interesting things, like Step-Stan makes a mean banana milk shake, and sneaks her the larger glasses, oh and she overheard Rachel tell Stan we’re married.”
“Well shit. There goes that plan.”
“Something telling me it will be just fine.”