Title: Everyday's the Fourth of July
Rating: PG-13
Setting: Fourth of July, New York City, post-high school.
Summary: The Fourth of July doesn't go exactly as planned when Anna discovers Daniel is in way over his head again.
Feedback: Feel free to review.
Disclaimer: Anna is mine. Daniel belongs to Cimmy. Kate and Fred are mentioned, and they also belong to Cimmy. Jeff, Lex, Matt, and Sammie are also mentioned. They're mine.
Story Notes: This is sort of a companion piece to my story 'Calico Skies,' but this is the reverse situation. 'Everyday's the Fourth of July' is a line from the Chicago song 'Saturday in the Park.'

Anna banged on Daniel’s door. It was the Fourth of July, and Daniel had promised Anna that he would take her for breakfast and that night out to see the fireworks. But Daniel was an hour late and Anna figured that he’d overslept, or forgotten, or fickly changed his mind – but he wasn’t getting off the hook that easily today. He promised.

The door opened after a couple of minutes. “Daniel, you promised me – oh my God! What happened to you!?” Anna shrieked and pushed her way past him and into his apartment.

“It’s nothing,” he murmured, glancing into the hall and then quickly shutting the door. He locked it.

“The hell it is! You’re a wreck!” Anna was trying to keep calm but was finding it extremely difficult.

Daniel was in bad shape. His normally handsome face was disfigured with bruises, cuts and swelling. He had a short sleeve shirt on, and his arms also had deep purple marks. The rest of him was covered by clothing, but Anna figured it was safe to assume the rest of him looked just as bad.

“Anna, really, it’s not as bad as it looks,” he was blatantly lying to her, and she could tell the only reason he wasn’t talking louder to get his point across was because he was having trouble taking deep breaths.

She pulled him into the bedroom, he was limping slightly, and gently pushed him on to the bed. He wasn’t putting up much of a fight, and Anna guessed it was because it was as bad as it looked. Probably worse.

She went to lift his shirt, but he knocked her hand away. “Don’t,” he snapped, “I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not,” she shook her head, “Let me see.” He looked at her. Under all the bruising and swelling, some of the old defiance gleamed in his eyes. She sat down on the bed next to him and gently kissed his neck and his ears. “Please, sweetheart, let me see,” she breathed into his ear, “Let me help you.”

He leaned away and looked at her warily, but this time didn’t object to her lifting his shirt. She had been prepared for what she found, but it didn’t make her feel any better about it. His abdomen was also almost completely black and blue. His back had bruises.

“Is anything broken?” she asked him, “Have you been to a hospital?”

“Yeah, yeah I went to a hospital,” he mumbled, “I’m not stupid, you know.”

“I know,” she nodded. She didn’t want to get into a fight about his intelligence. “What did they say?”

“Nothing’s broken.”

Anna nodded again. She waited a few moments before deciding to ask. “Daniel, who did this to you?”

“Nobody,” he said confidently. It was cocky confidence that Anna knew most of the time was masking something else.

“Nobody? This just happened all by itself?” She tried not to be sarcastic, but she couldn’t help it. He was such an idiot sometimes. After all these years, he still thought he could fool her with his crap.

“I fell down a flight of stairs,” he said, also with the same confidence as before.

“More like ten flights,” Anna said, standing up again to get a good look at him. “It looks like somebody hit you with a Louisville Slugger.” Daniel didn’t answer and didn’t look at her. Anna gasped, “Somebody did hit you with a baseball bat?”

“I fell down the stairs, all right?” Daniel snarled, getting up from the bed and walking to the window, annoyed with her for nagging at him.

“It looks like somebody hit you with a baseball bat!” Anna exclaimed, following him over. “Daniel, who beat you up like this, and why did they do it?” He didn’t look at her. He stared out the window.

“I fell down the stairs,” he repeated again, but only half-heartedly.

Anna glanced sideways at him. She would put money on the fact that somebody beat him up, even if he wouldn’t say it. She’d bet her life on it. Bet. Money. Gambling. It clicked. “You were gambling again,” she moaned with understanding. “You owe the wrong people money again.” He didn’t say anything; he just kept staring out the window. Anna put her hands on his shoulders. “Daniel, please talk to me,” she begged.

He shook her hands off him and went back to the bed, sinking down onto it. “It’s nothing. It’s really not a big deal,” he nodded.

“Daniel! Someone tried to make you into Carpaccio!”

Daniel looked at her confusedly, “Make me into what?”

“Carpaccio. It’s a thin meat cutlet that gets hit a lot with a meat tenderizer.”

“You couldn’t have just said hamburger?”

“My mom went to cooking school, all right? I have culinary class.”

“You’re such a snob.”

Anna remembered the point of this whole thing before Daniel could pull her into a ridiculous argument and distract her from the real issue. “That’s not the point, Daniel!” she exclaimed unhappily, “Somebody hurt you!”

“Yeah,” he admitted finally, “Somebody did.”

“Over money?”

“Yeah.”

“What are you going to do? Can I help?”

“You can’t do anything about it,” he said quietly. “And I don’t want you mixed up in this. Anna, really. I’ll wait for Fred to get back and talk to him.”

Fred was richer than Anna, Daniel, and all their friends combined. He was very generous and would help Daniel out in a second, but at the moment he was out of town with Lex on their honeymoon. They’d gotten married ten days ago and left four days ago. They weren’t due back until the end of the month. “That’s another three weeks!” Anna exclaimed. “You can’t wait that long! These people could kill you! Can’t you ask Kate for the money?”

“I’m not asking Red for money,” he shook his head. “She’ll just worry compulsively and nag me like crazy. Besides, she and Jeff need the money right now anyway. I’ll talk to Fred when he gets back, all right?”

“I can lend you the money,” Anna said helpfully, ignoring the idea of waiting for Fred to get home. “How much do you need?”

“Anna, I’m pretty sure you don’t have the kind of money I owe.”

“How much, Daniel?”

He looked away from her. “Six grand,” he mumbled. “It can wait until Fred gets home,” he insisted, though Anna highly doubted this.

Anna stared at the ceiling. “How’d you lose six thousand dollars?” she asked, then added quickly, “No, don’t tell me, I don’t want to know. I can get the money though.”

He looked at her doubtfully. “You can?”

“Yeah.”

“How?”

“The band. We’ve got a joint account in all our names that we all have access to. There’s a couple hundred grand in there that we’ve earned over the years. It’s for emergencies. I’ll draw from there. The others won’t mind, I’ll tell them I needed it for a medical procedure.”

“Won’t they ask what medical procedure?”

“I’ll make something up,” Anna shrugged, “Kidney stones or something. My dad gets them.” She sat down next to him on the bed and gently put her arms around his shoulders. “Why didn’t you come to me?” she asked, “I would have helped you.”

“I didn’t know you had that kind of money. And I told you I don’t want you mixed up in this,” he said. “You could get hurt. I don’t want that.”

“I won’t get hurt,” she shook her head. “My grandfather’s an ex-KGB agent. I’m badass,” she joked.

He grinned a little bit. “Yeah, yeah.”

“You can always come to me though, I wish you understood that. After all this time, you still don’t think you can trust me?”

He shrugged. “You know how I am. But it wasn’t a trust issue. I just…”

“You just what?”

“I just didn’t want to disappoint you,” he admitted quietly. “I know how you feel about my gambling.”

If it wasn’t going to cause him extreme pain, she would have jumped on him and hugged him as tight as she could. She knew how hard it was for him to admit things like that. “You haven’t disappointed me since high school,” she smiled at him. “I could never be so disappointed in you that you can’t come to me.”

“I bet that’s not true,” he smirked a little bit.

“You really don’t get how much I love you,” she said quietly. He looked at her. She didn’t tell him she loved him very often. He never said it to her, and she only told him when he really needed to hear it. “I love you so. I never want to see you hurt like this. You can always come to me.”

He nodded. “Okay,” he said, though Anna doubted he meant it. He hated having to rely on people other than himself.

“So do you need the money in cash or what?”

“Yeah. Cash.”

“Well, I better get to the bank tomorrow. They’re closed for the holiday,” she sighed. “I guess we’re not going out today?”

“We could still go. I probably won’t be much fun, though.”

“It’s okay,” Anna said, “We can watch the fireworks from the apartment. Sammie will be out with Matt and there’s a pretty good view of the water from the terrace and the roof. We can get pizza and just hang out.”

“That’d be good. I hate people anyway. Damn crowds. And there’s always some jerk that picks a fight,” Daniel grumbled.

Anna giggled. “Funny, I always thought that jerk was you.”

“Laugh it up. I only pick fights with people who deserve it.”

“So everyone deserves it?”

“Not everyone. Just most people.”

Anna laughed and shook her head. “Come on. Let’s pack some of your stuff up and go back to my place. We’ll watch movies and just relax and put some ice on you so you feel better. You can spend the night.”

“You sure you want me around all night?”

“Yeah. And don’t you fight with me about it, or I’ll call Kate and get her on your ass.”

Daniel was not about to call this bluff, as Kate was even better at nagging than Anna was. He put some things in a bag and they left together. The busy city street seemed even more crowded than usual today, probably due to tourists in for the holiday weekend.

Daniel was nervously keeping an eye out for anyone who might be after him. Sure, they gave him until the end of next week to get their money, but when could you rely on loan sharks to keep their word? He really didn’t want to be murdered in front of Anna. Well, he didn’t want to be murdered at all, but he’d rather not have her witness it so he could be pathetic and die alone. It occurred to him that his pride was ridiculous. If there was one sin that would get him sent straight to Hell, it was pride.

He ignored the looks he got from people who stared at his face, but he did notice how tightly Anna held his hand as they walked back to her place.

“Anna, I’m losing the feeling in my fingers,” he complained.

“Sorry,” she said, loosening her grip a bit, “I just don’t want to lose you.”

Daniel doubted she meant in the crowd.

Anna waited on Daniel all day since he could hardly move, and she excitedly bounced around on the terrace that night as the fireworks went off. He secretly liked when she was excited about simple things.

He watched her more than the fireworks. After all these years of screwing around, she still wanted him in her life. Even though he was constantly losing money, and even though their relationship wasn’t perfect, and even though she knew he’d never ask her to marry him, she still loved him and wanted him around. Most girls would have cut him out of their lives long ago.

He wished he was as lucky in his gambling as he had been when he met Anna.