December 2007
"Do you remember anything, miss? Your name?"
She shook her head, wordlessly. She wanted to scream but couldn't.
"Anything about how you fell off of a cliff? Why you were at the old hospital?"
Danika trembled. Blood. That's what she remembers, lots of blood. Blood, flesh and Aiko. The two special grades... Rage. How? Why? Kept revolving in her head but always cycled back to the same answer. Someone wanted her dead. Someone wanted her dead enough that they were willing to kill others to ensure her own death. Yu and Aiko... That kept her from giving a manager's number to her doctor. Again, she shook her head.
"Okay. We will let you rest."
"We will come back tomorrow."
Dani watched them leave and sank deeper in her bed, feeling empty. "Hey, JD. How are you feeling?"
Another day full of more tests.
Dani waved.
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
"Why in all the stories over all of the years did it fail for you to tell me how pretty he was."
"Geto was prettier." Dani chimed. Pouring two proper glasses of wine and sidestepped Gojo's stuck out foot to pass one to Angelica. "Geto was prettier. In a more achievable way? Gojo is too pretty to be real and the second he opened his mouth, he ruins it. Or does something... Gojo, give me my phone back."
"Got it." Angelica waved to them. "I'm off! Don't destroy the house."
"Hey!"
"You broke the password?" Danika asked. She tried to put aside her annoyance at Angelica. She bought this damned house. If she wanted to destroy it, she would but she didn't. She could take out her built up annoyance on Gojo Satoru.
"Crazy what money can do, Dani." Gojo answered as he peaked in her pantry. She snatched her phone from his hand. Dani couldn't help but to smile with fondness. Just like that Gojo brought her back ten years just by calling her, 'Dani'. Everything felt right and as it should be. As if she never left. "Who is S?"
"Someone."
"Really? So, S stands for someone?"
"Sure does, Satoru."
"Man, keeping secrets early on."
"Satoru, my kids are with this Someone and they are safe with this someone." Danika pointed out. She hugged the towel closer, shivering. That someone being Geto Suguru but she didn't even want to think about him in case Gojo could sniff it out. "So, yeah. I'm not elaborating on who it is."
"Fine, fine." Dani smacked his hands as he went for Mya's snacks. She pointed to the top shelf where she kept her own snack and sweet stash. Gojo threw her, a wink and passed her a Swiss roll. "America has great sweets! Tons of sugar! Back on the subject of coming back-."
"Swiss roll and wine only mix in certain desperate situations but if you can pass me that chocolate bar?"
"Yeah, I wouldn't know. I don't like alcohol."
"So, you're a light weight. Good to know."
"Rude." Gojo bumped his shoulder against Dani on his way with his haul to the living room. "Quit changing the subject. Anyway, I told Nanami that you are alive. He should be here in the morning. Now that Nanami knows that you're alive. He will definitely tell. He won't let you fade back into the shadows."
Danika's mouth dropped open in surprise. She followed him, struggling to string a question together. So, she dropped in the spot next to Satoru. "What? Why?"
"After everything, Nanamin did loose faith in the system and left being a sorcerer. He became a boring salaryman. He worked a normal 9 to 5 job and managed stocks, I think." Gojo said. "Well, that worked fine for a while but he did quit. He says he'd rather do something he enjoys better. I think what he said was that they both sucked equally. So, why not do the one that sucked the least."
"Wow." Dani didn't think about the deeper impact on Nanami over the years. Only the fact that he survived the encounter with the two special grades. The only one out of the three that were with her. Dani's only real concern had been that he had a chance to live life and graduate. "Huh. I had no idea."
"So, while he doesn't like how things are run... He still obeys rules."
Dani wanted to smack Gojo. He had her backed into a corner on purpose. He told Nanami that she was alive, not only as a trump card but as a test. He wanted to see how she would react. Gojo was testing to see if she'll strike and run or stay and accept. Dani wanted to go back. She missed it in some strange way. Even if that world took her family away. It did give her friends and her beautiful daughters. "I cannot stress the importance of my daughters, Satoru. Hell, they aren't even mine on paper nor the same age for their safety."
"Just leave it to me."
"I can't do that."
Gojo sighed in contemplation before turning to look at Dani. "Okay, fine. How about this? Come back with me and give this a trial run. Two months as a fellow teacher and special grade sorcerer. if you aren't certain. I can just 'kill' you and you go back to your simple life where ever you chose." Dani rolled her eyes but laughed at the air quotes and Gojo went on. "And if you want to stay which I know you do... We can bring your kids over under whatever lie you constructed. Which is?"
"Officially, my twins are my second cousins from my father's side. So, as far away from being a Maboroshi as I could make it. They are also ten months apart on their birth certificates... " Dani said and went to grab a file from a safe in her room. She hesitated but she did pass it over to Satoru. Dani had to keep moving, so she went to the kitchen for a refill. "Here, this file is everything, my entire life for two years after the mission."
Danika clicked the TV on to Grey's but her eyes were on Satoru, watching him as he flicked through the file. "Could you not use reverse cursed technique? Was it the technique from the surprise special grade?" There was something different in his voice. A rougher edge to his usually lazy tone. "Grade 4 concussion, brain bleed, broken collar bone, dislocated shoulder, destroyed the other shoulder, shattered wrist, several broken fingers, compressed spinal disks, broken femur, dislocated knee, and internal bleeding. Not to mention what you showed me outside. Danika, you broke your jaw to the point that they wired it shut. Why didn't you use-"
"I was in a medically induced coma for a little over four months." Danika answered, softly. She pushed the heaviness down. The old emptiness and despair. She would need to get over aspects of her past if she wanted to go back to being a sorcerer. "The surgeries took a lot out of me and the drugs... Well, they were needed but clouded my mind. I wasn't in a right state for a while. Month seven, I pulled my IV out and waited for the drugs to clear. Then to control the pain to focus enough on using the reverse cursed energy. One of the worst pains in my life and the doctors called it a medical miracle."
"I see their notes here." Gojo agreed. "Hell... You are just as crazy and stubborn as ever."
"I resent that."
He ignored her. "Who can see this?"
Dani sighed and turned the TV to a HDMI. "Nanami, Yaga, Shoko and whoever who will see my medical file..."
"So, Shoko."
"Good for her." And Dani meant it. She pulled two of the controllers off of charge and tossed one to Satoru. "I just need to blacklist everything related to my twins and we're golden..."
"What's this for?"
"Well, I assume that you are planning on staying until Nanami gets here, huh?" The scolded look in his damned eyes told her that she was correct. "I'm not going to play runaway and hop out of the nearest window with a go bag."
"Huh... That sounds too rehearsed."
"Maybe." Dani hummed and booted up the game. "How about a blast from the past? CoD3? Or you can keep flipping through my file when you know that Nanami will scrutinize everything when he gets here?"
Gojo gave her a sardonic grin. "Well, I do need to ready some one liners to aggravate Nanamin when he gets here... But let's play." Dani won the first round and the second. "No fair, you've had practice."
"Not my fault you suck, Satoru." Dani chirped, tossing the remote aside to get another refill and some pineapple juice for the grown child on her couch. "I gotta keep my kids humble."
Dani started a new match and set up her normal routine. Claymores by the entrance and perching in a two story window. "So, did I react how you expected on your test?"
"I figured it was a 50-50."
"You were wrong."
"I was." Gojo agreed. He was peering at her over the rim of his sunglasses. Trying to gauge her response without any inhibitors. "I'm okay with that, you've grown... Not just a bitter shrew anymore. Only a old maid."
"Being a single parent does that." Dani smiled, thinly. Not feeling bad at what she was going to do to him next. "Didn't remember everything exactly, hm?"
"Why's that?" The wary edge in Gojo's voice was sobering but not enough to stop her.
"You forgot this play." Dani triggered the claymores as his character entered the house. She won the match. "I cheat."
"Running away while you're ahead? Bad sportsmanship, I hope you don't pass that onto the students." Gojo called after Dani as she left the couch. She flipped him off as she retreated. Dani pulled out a sheet and a thick blanket out of a hall cabinet as well as a few pillows. She dumped them on the couch next to him.
"No, I worked a shift at the hospital and exorcised a curse for the first time in years." Dani answered. She fought off a yawn while she dropped the dishes in the sink. "So, yeah. Bedtime. Good night."
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Dani woke up with the alarm on her phone, forgetting to change it to a later time. She groaned and hauled herself out of her warm bed. Stretching stiff and sore muscles that she hadn't truly used in ages. Only one thing was on her mind, coffee. Dani stalked to the kitchen, bleary eyed. Moving mechanically, she set a pot brewing coffee and pulled a mug out. Dani prepped the mug with cream and sugar while she waited. The rich scent of coffee filled the room and the machine chimed cheerfully. She didn't speak a word until she finished her first cup and halfway through the second, she called to Gojo. "You up?"
"Yeah, I am." Gojo's voice sounded rough and raw with sleep. Danika is a little surprised that he actually slept.
"Coffee?"
"With lots of sugar."
Danika pulled a second cup out of the cabinet but remembered what Gojo said, last night. She shut the door. She wrinkled her nose in his direction as she poured her third cup. "Not your maid, come and fix it yourself." Dani shook the lingering sleep from her limbs and started to prep the kitchen to cook breakfast. Bacon, eggs, toast and grits. That sounded like a good plan. "Want food?"
"Do I have to make it too?"
"Nah." Dani said. She watched in amazement at the amount of sugar Gojo poured into the cup of what shouldn't be defined as coffee anymore. Syrup, maybe with a touch of coffee. "There's some cream cheese Danishes under that dome and there is more sugar in the pantry, you absolute monster."
Gojo laughed in her face and she smacked him (infinity) with the spatula. "When's Nanami getting here? He's nicer than you."
"Aw! You wound me, Danika." Gojo draped himself over Danika, weighing her down. "But Nanami will be here in a couple of hours." Danika stopped resisting the weight, dropping sideways and elbowed Satoru with nullify. She straightened back in front of the stove while Satoru caught himself. He left her alone cook while he went to steal the Danishes, grumbling about cheating.
"You made these?"
"Yes."
"I missed your baking."
"Gee, thanks." Dani piled the eggs and bacon on the serving dish. The toast only needed to be retrieved but she was out of coffee. Danika poured another cup while Gojo snooped around the house. She pulled the toast for another plate and pulled the bowl of grits out. "Breakfast!"
Dani took another cup of coffee with a Danish siting on top the mug and she headed to the bedroom to get dressed, properly. "You aren't eating?"
"Not right now." Dani yawned. "I don't eat a lot of breakfast."
So, naturally Gojo barged in after she changed with a plate of bacon and toast. He dropped the plate on her makeup bag and asked about the lacy red bra hanging off of her closet door. "Whose meant to see that?"
"Out!" Dani screeched.