Let Me Call You Sweetheart
So you know how I said I wasn’t going to be posting for an uncertain amount of time because my computer is dead? Well, it’s still true and writing on my phone is still a horrible experience, BUT a certain preview for a certain “Valentines Day episode” filled me with enough rage to do it anyway because the great thing about fanfic is it lets you stuff your fingers in you ears and ingore very unplesent things when the writers try to shove them down your throat, choosing instead to substitute your own perfect reality. Enjoy! (Song is “Let Me Call You Sweetheart” music by Leo Friedman, lyrics by Beth Slater Whitson.)
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Danny catches it as an instinctive reaction, something he couldn’t help. He doesn’t even relive he’d done it until the crowed erupts in cheers, the loudest from the small group assembled around him. As Chin thumps him on the back Danny squeezes the leather of the football tighter, a knot in his throat when his fingers brush as against the lace and frill of the garter around it. He looks ahead at Steve, who’s standing there in his dress whites with a shit eating grin that tells Danny he intentionally threw that curse football directly to him.
It’s not that he’s exactly surprised, he’d threatened Steve that he would only be his best man under the guarantee that he wouldn’t have anything to do with the garter toss, but they both know it was an idyl one; he’d be Steve’s best man even if he had to wear a poka dot dress to do so.
Danny shakes his head with a smile and is about to hand the thing over to Max with a comment about how pretty Sabrina looks tonight when he hears his name from half way across the room.
“Come on Danny! Don’t keep your future bride waiting!”
Catherine is beaming at him, glowing with happiness, her smile shining brighter than the crystals on her white gown, a tight one armed hug around the victor of the bouquet toss. Danny hadn’t been paying much attention to that part, he’d been more preoccupied with keeping Grace away from the potential cat fight. He didn’t see her catch it, and knot in his throat shot down to his stomach.
It’d been two years since he’d opened his email to find a message from Gabby saying she’d accepted a tenured position at U of H and would he like to have lunch some time? A week was all it took for their relationship to pick up where they left off, three weeks before they told the kids (Grace forgot about being a teenager for a minute and ran for a hug the second she saw her), and in a year’s time they were all living under one roof, a happy family.
Gabby looked beautiful in the navy blue bridesmaids dress Catherine had picked out, her hair was falling in soft curls over one shoulder, and she was smiling at him with a little awkward anticipation. The knot in his stomach tightened. What they have is good, really good. They’re happy, the kids are happy, he’s not about to screw it up with the idea of marriage. No way. He’d been down that road before. Never again. Steve had planned this, and he was gonna have to wait until after the honeymoon phase to kill him, when Catherine wouldn’t mind as much.
Then suddenly the bastard himself is all but pushing him over to where their brides, No! Steve’s bride, his girlfriend, are waiting.
“Come on!” Catherine squeals eagerly “The photographer’s waiting to take the picture!”
A burley man with a camera approaches caring an antique wooden frame.
“All right lets have the bride holding this side right here,” he directs Catherine into place, handing her the frame, "And then the groom on the other side” he does the same to Steve. “Good now if I can have you two step back over here.” He nudges Danny and Gabby back and into the center.
Gabby’s warm hand slips into his sweaty one, and the knot in his gut eases a little.
“Excellent.” the pushy photographer continues, turning them so they’re facing each other on an angle. “Perfect now if you can hold the bouquet up like this, good, and if you can do the same with the football, turn it a little so we can see the garter. That’s it. Perfect.”
He runs back over to the front and takes aim, giving Danny a brief vision of a firing squad and making him wonder where exactly the new Mr. and Mrs. McGarrett had found this guy.
“All right, Steve would you mind bending down just a little, thank you” the photographer says from behind his camera. “Ok, here we go, everyone smile, one, two, three.” After several clicks the photographer look around the camera again.
“You two are a couple right?”
“Yeah” Gabby replies with a smile.
“We are.” Danny says at the same time, squeezing her hand with a smile of his own.
“Great, how bout we get a few shots of the two of you giving each other a kiss then? Make it a nice little touch for your own big day.” He adds.
“Umm” Danny feels himself turning red under his collar, but Steve looks back at him with his shit-eating smirk.
“Kiss her Danno!” he chides like the over grown eight year old he is.
“Will you look at the damn camera, you’re paying the man to take pictures, let him take the damn pictures.”
“Danny” Gabby says gently, bringing him back towards her with the hand still holding the bouquet.
He looks back at her, beautiful brown eyes sparkling in the light, looking at him with all the love in the world, a look he returns before closing his eyes and kissing her tenderly. He doesn’t hear the last few clicks of the camera or the “Great, I think we got it”. He just focuses on that kiss, trying to put in everything he’s feeling, how much he loves her, how much he wants to be with her, how scared he is that putting pressure on this beautiful, precious, thing between them could cause it to shatter.
As they broke apart, Danny slipped the garter off the football with a chuckle.
“I think I’m supposed to put this on you.” He said casting a sideways glance to where Charlie was fast asleep in the little corner set up specially for the ring barer and flower girl, his blond hair crushing one side of Joanie’s poofy dress as they slept. Then over to Grace, where his junior bridesmaid was making no effort at all to conceal her giggles, or her phone that she was snapping pictures with.
“Here” Gabby said “how about this?” She took the garter from him and wrapped it carefully around the stem of the bouquet, before whispering slyly “You can put it on me later.”
“All right everybody, it’s time for the other happy couple to share their first dance as the Next-to-be-Married!” And who the hell let Steve have a microphone?
“Come on you two crazy kids, let’s go.”
“No really, it’s fine” Gabby protested, blushing as much as he was.
“Uh-ah” it was Catherine’s turn to push them out to the middle of the floor this time. “You’re doing it. Bride’s orders.”
“All right, a right give me one second.” Danny grumbled and broke away towards Steve.
“Here,” he thrust the football back at him “You hold this while I go embarrass myself.”
“You’re not gonna embarrass yourself Danny. Just dance with Gabby and enjoy it.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know you planned this by the way. You threw that football right at me Mr. All State Quarterback.”
“And Mrs. All State Quarterback threw the bouquet right to your girlfriend. We didn’t do it to embarrass you Danno, it just means that we want you both to be happy.”
Just then the music started up, a languid, sweet, melody worlds apart for anything the DJ had been playing all night. Danny glared up at Steve, or at least attempted to make it look like a glare.
“You’re really gonna use my parent’s wedding song against me?”
Steve shrugged. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Now go before you miss your dance.”
As the music swelled Danny slipped his arm around Gabby’s waist as she wrapped hers around his shoulder and took his hand in hers. It was nice, he had to admit, revolving in a slow circle around a spotlight of color, the rest of the room quietly slipping to the background.
Let me call you sweetheart,
Keep the love light glowing,
Let me call you sweetheart.
“They planned this didn’t they?” Gabby murmured close to his ear. “Isn’t this the song your parents danced to at their wedding.”
“It was, and they absolutely did.” Danny mumbled back.
“Hhmm” Gabby sighed “We’ll have to get our revenge. Although,” she drew back to met his eyes “this is really nice.”
Danny beamed and took a cue from the music to spin her around gracefully, causing Gabby to laugh as he pulled her back in close.
They turned on the spot a few more beats before Danny let the words just come out.
“No, I mean, not right now! Obviously. But, someday, maybe, would that be something you want?”
“Yes.” Gabby replied without any hesitation. “Yes I would. But something tells me you don’t feel the same way.”
“It’s not that I don’t want to.” Danny said quickly. “I love you and I want you in my life, and in my kids’ lives, but…”
“But you’re afraid because of what happened with you and Rachel.”
“I know that you’re not her.” Danny sighed. “And our situation is completely different from what it was when I married Rachel, we were both young, too young, and…But I’m still a cop. That’s still true. I work long, unpredictable, hours and there’s still every chance I might not come home one night. It puts a lot of stress on any marriage.”
“Remember how you once told me that you’d rather have me around part of the time, then not at all?” Gabby asked poignantly.
Danny nodded. “Not one of my favorite conversations we’ve ever had.”
“Mine neither. But I feel exactly the same way. Danny, I would never ask you to give up your career, just like you never asked me to give up mine. I understand that what you do is stressful, and dangerous, but I also know that it’s what you love. You’re an amazing cop, with a good team around you, and that helps me not to worry about the ‘what if’. I know you will always fight with everything you have to come home to the kids, and to me.”
“I can’t control everything Gabby.”
“And neither can I. Nobody can. One of use could get hit by a truck tomorrow on the way to the grocery store, but that doesn’t mean we should fixate on the possibility. I love you Danny. I love you and I want to be with you for as long as you’ll have me. I don’t need marriage to define that. So how about this: we enjoy what we have now, take it one day at a time, and, if, somewhere down the line we do decide to get married, the only thing that will happen is we’ll have the perfect chance to embarrass the crap out of the McGarrett’s over there.” She said nodding over to where Steve and Catherine were watching them, arm in arm.
Danny flashed her a wide grin. “I love the way you think.” he leaned in for a kiss. “And the way you always seem to find the right solution for everything.” Another, longer kiss. “And just you. I love you Gabby.”
Keep the love light glowing,
Let me call you sweetheart.
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*Notes from Jill:
If you’re interested in hearing it, this is the rendition of “Let Me Call You Sweetheart” I was working off of: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgvDariuAN0
Ok like I said I’m really, really, really not happy with the preview for 6x16 for a lot of reasons:
1) KONO HAS BEEN THROUGH ENOUGH, SHE DOES NOT NEED TO BE CRYING ALL ALONE ON VALENTINES DAY, WEARING ADAM’S SHIRT AND WATCHING THEIR WEDDING VIDEO ITS JUST PLAIN MEAN AT THIS POINT.
B) When I read the initial previews I was given false hope that this was going to be the official end of Amblissa. But alas we were led on again. **She’s a non-character, worse than a plot device, and honestly Danny can do so much better than her. Also I don’t buy that he genuinely has feelings for her when virtually every time she shows up they’re just in bed together. Urban dictionary what a 'slampeice’ is. It makes me disappointed in Danny, and also the writers for writing his character like this. Also, I think it’s very telling that we’ve only seen her interacting with Grace once and we all remember how that went down.
3) You will never convince me that rebound girl means anything at all to Steve when only two episodes ago he was compleatly focused on trying to hook up with the woman he met in the plane and clearly succeeded judging by the lipstick that was smeared all over his face. **See points all ready made above.
As much as I do defend the show on a lot of things I can’t forgive these half assed, one dementional “love interests” that they’re trying to smush Steve and Danny with. Like what do either of these women do for a living? Anyone? Anyone? Exactly.
Steve/Cath and Danny/Gabby are my OTPs because their relationships were actually developed, meaningful, and more than just plot filler. (I will seriously pull out my film minor and fight people over how Danny and Gabby were originally supposed to be end game). Also the female characters were ACTUAL characters that actually brought something to the story other than looking good in various states of undress.
