No additional warnings for this scene.
He knew there were plot holes; in a movie, this walk was a cut scene and no one would ask how in the hell Nicholas was supposed to get his car back to him from London (special delivery?). But this was real life, his life, and it was misery, and every step hurt. Not because he was sore in any real way, but because he was sad, and it was an ache that bled down to his bones.
He tricked the NWA and he even tricked his father, who knew the ‘poked-a-fork-in-my-eye’ joke well enough to see through it when tried as ‘poked-a-hole-in-Nicholas.’ His father did not see through it, though, believing that his own son would actually kill his best friend, and so Danny got away with it. Almost. Not quite. No, he really did not get away with it at all. His father would find out that Nicholas was still alive, or at least would find out that Danny’s car mysteriously drove itself to London. His father was good at finding things out. Danny never thought anything sinister about it before now.
He stopped by to visit his mother on the way home. It was cold and cemeteries creeped him out – where was Buffy when you need her? – but his mother would never rise up like the evil dead and hurt him so he felt safe visiting her. He actually visited her a lot, not that he let anyone know, because it might make him look like a pansy, or a nonce, or…the Andes would think of something. He sat beside her grave and cried and tried to explain how he felt about Nicholas and told her all of what happened at the Castle and he asked what, oh god what, was he supposed to do about Dad? As he sat there, he understood that there was nothing he could do, in the same way he could not stop her that day she drove into the water. She was dead, and his father was too, in a way, and Sandford without Nicholas was empty.
When he got home that night he found a message from his father on the answering machine, asking him if everything “went okay” and if he wanted his favorite chocolate donuts for breakfast the next morning, his treat, a reward for his son’s loyalty. It was for “the greater good” after all, the message said, and Danny wondered when his father’s voice became so empty and malevolent. Finally, with that thought, he knew what to do.
At his flat, in the dead of morning, Danny packed his bags. He left home once before, when he was too old to be called a runaway but too young to know what to do, and his father dragged him home without much fan fair. This time, however, Danny was planning it out. Nicholas was in London, and where ever Nicholas was, that was where Danny belonged. He knew skipping work would be suspicious, today of all days, so he called the train station in Northwest Wapping to find out when the evening trains ran and bought a ticket for the 8:47 PM departure. He could make it through the day, and his father would surely not find out about his car or Nicholas that fast, and Danny could take a taxi out of town after work. All Danny needed to do was pretend like everything was normal, agree with whatever story his father concocted about Nicholas, and eat the damn donuts that would be waiting for him without throwing up.
It felt good to have a plan. Nicholas would approve, and agree. As he showered and dressed for work, putting on his “game face” and wishing he could just take on the whole NWA in some kind of Clint Eastwood-like showdown, he imagined Nicholas in London. Was he worried about him? Would he call? Would he try to come back for him?
No, not Nicholas; he was not someone who decided anything on the fly. He might call him at his flat in a few days, to check on him, but Nicholas was not coming back for him – not in time, anyway – and Danny accepted that, because he already decided to go to Nicholas. It was going to be okay. Once he saw Nicholas again, he knew everything was going to be okay.