The truth is simple. It take no preamble. It doesn't wait safely caged. Doesn't give you time to breathe or a warning to duck.

It's just there. The way Danny's hand is. Paler on the inside, but still harder than it was the first time he saw them. Holding out from him. A request that is as much words as it is that gesture. Asking him to move and let go of all of it, and he really doesn't think about that part. Because the only thing he thinks looking at Danny's hand, is that if Danny asked he go anywhere. Anywhere.

It's the opposite and exactly the same as when he dropped the letter on Danny's desk. Crisp white edges, and the anything but quickly scrawled Danno. Because he knew. He knew, even before all of this, even without all of this, that if Danny said it was a bad idea, that he shouldn't go, mustn't go, they needed him, Danny needed him, he might never make it to that plane.

There might be so very many problems because of that.

But the tiny voice that says that is shushed almost completely in the way Steve's hand slides into Danny's.

Shoulders loosening, if not dropping, when he's walking toward Danny, even once that has happened. Leaving it behind.