A/N: I...do not know that I'm doing with my life, but this is how I spent my night. It's probably a waste of time because I'm not sure how many WaT fans really watch Nashville or vice versa, let alone Danny/Martin shippers who watch Nashville for Eric's beautiful face (that might just be me, actually) plus I'm aware Teddy is nooot the most popular character in Nashville...but I have had this idea in my head for a while now. Not a lot is revealed in this chapter because I want to see people's reactions first before committing 100% to another multi-chapter (Promises and Politics will be updated soon I promise!)

As this is an AU fic, I'm disregarding Peggy and Teddy's relationship. I may mention her if I continue with this, but they probably won't be together romantically and she is noooot pregnant. Nope, no way. This takes place sometime after the Nashville Season One Finale, the WaT stuff I'll reveal later I guess...

This is un-beated because I had to publish this before I talked myself out of it haha. I hope somebody likes it! Review or PM me, I would really like feedback on this!

Disclaimer: I don't own Nashville, Without A Trace or any character in this chapter. (Unfortunately!)

"Are we going to see Mom today?" Daphne's voice was cheery, for which Teddy was supremely thankful. These last few days, his youngest daughter had been anything but her typical bubbly self. He was glad that yesterday's visit with her recovering mother had obviously lightened her spirits a little.

"Maybe later," he said, although he knew he knew this 'maybe' was simply for his own sake. When it came to his girls, he was far too easily persuaded. Besides, even if things between him and Rayna were far from perfect, she was still the mother of his children and he was in no doubt whatsoever that they needed her.

As Daphne began to tell him all about a song she had written to sing her mother better, Teddy realised his older daughter was being much too quiet. He looked over to where she sat beside her sister at the kitchen counter.

"How about you Maddie?" he asked, trying to draw her glazed eyes back to him. "Did you help Daphne?"

Maddie shook her head, then looked away. Of course, she may have been back to acting like she didn't care about her mother now, but when they had first heard the news about Rayna and Deacon's car accident, she had cried so much Teddy had felt his heart rip in two.

"Uh, Daph, why don't you go practice that song so it's perfect for your Mom, huh?"

The younger girl was no fool-she knew why her father wanted her to leave them alone for a while. So, with a quick glance at her older sister, she hopped off the stool and skipped down the hall.

Teddy waited until he heard the click of her bedroom door closing before taking the seat she had just vacated. "You wanna talk about it?"

Maddie bit her lip. "When Mom gets out of hospital, do I stay here?"

Oh. Right. She was concerned about her place, now her world had been quite literally turned on it's side. Before the accident, she had been adamant that she wanted to live with him upon finding out they had lied to her about...well, about her paternity. Eventually, she had made up with Rayna, but the damage had already been done to their relationship, and they had all decided it was probably best if she did stay with Teddy for a while.

Then her mother had almost died.

"I would love you to," Teddy admitted. He had never been good with saying the right thing, so he knew no words he would speak now would heal her wounds. "But...you can go back, if you need to."

Maddie looked up with him, those eyes he had once convinced himself were reflections of his- but that now, when the truth was out in the open and he had been forced to say the words 'I'm not your biological father' out loud, he saw they were Deacon's. It should anger him more than it did.

But the piece of paper in Rayna's closet that said he and Maddie did not have matching DNA didn't mean he had loved her any less; the last thirteen years wherein this girl had been the centre of his world did not disappear because she had read it.

He was her father, and he always would be. The last week itself had shown that to be true. Deacon had called to talk to Maddie after the accident, but she had told Teddy she wasn't ready to speak to him. It did hurt that he knew someday she would be ready, but he knew his oldest daughter well enough to know that she wasn't about to begin calling the other man 'Daddy' or requesting to stay in his spare room at weekends. She was a smart girl who he prided to be one of his greatest accomplishments-as well as her sister, of course.

Their relationship would withstand this hurdle...he was sure of it.

Maddie's eyes filled with tears. "I want to stay with you forever," she said and when he pulled her into his arms she began to sob. "But Mom needs me. If I stay with you, she'll think I'm still mad at her...and then she might not get better..."

It was an excuse, and a poorly thought out one by a teenager desperate to be loved and wanted by both her parents. Teddy knew this, so he just held the broken girl of his a little tighter.

He had know this was coming, really. He'd known it from the moment he'd taken the girls to see their mother in the hospital for the first time. Rayna was still unconscious, her face bruised and her skin pale and all the wires connected to her body. Maddie had held her mother's hand, and he'd been standing far enough away to be unable to make out what she was whispering, yet his imagination filled in the blanks.

She felt guilty for kicking off at her mother. Even if they had reconciled, she was afraid of Rayna thinking she didn't love her. More than that, she'd come close to losing her Mom, it was bound to shock her so hard she would want to be near her again. It was a natural reaction, Teddy told himself.

And it would be selfish to resent her for this, of course. It would be feeding into his own insecurities. He couldn't allow his own apprehension regarding Rayna and Deacon to hurt his daughter.

He wouldn't let how he felt push Maddie away. So he pulled back from their hug and looked her in the eyes, cupping her face that still looked so little to him in his hands and wiping her tears with his thumb.

"I love you, Maddie. Nothing will ever change that."

"I know," she said, blinking furiously. "I love you too, Daddy."

"So I understand if you go home to be with your Mom when she gets out of hospital. I guess I'll just see you and your sister at the end of the week, when we swap again."

This children/house timeshare he had Rayna had agreed on was starting to become a challenge with both of their jobs and Rayna's new relationship, but they would made it work. They had to. They were the parents.

His words seemed to have eased Maddie's concerns a little. She wiped her eyes, forcing a little smile. "I'm sorry."

She was apologising...to him? He and Rayna had lied to her for her entire existence, and she was saying sorry?

He took her hand in his own-the difference in size reminding him of the days when she used to want to hold her father's hand all the time. A lot of things had changed since then, but he told himself he could still be the hero she needed him to be. "You have nothing to be sorry for."

He was about to crack a joke, try and make her laugh, when he was interrupted by a knock on the door. Sighing, he looked apologetically at his daughter.

"I'll go help Daphne with her song," she said, and before the unexpected visitor had knocked again, she was gone.

With a sigh, he got up from the stool and made his way to the front door. He assumed it was Tandy, or someone equally as familiar with his security team who controlled his gate.

As long as it wasn't some crazed paparazzi demanding to know how the girls were handling their mother's accident, Teddy decided it didn't really matter who it was.

"Okay, okay, I'm coming!" he called out to whoever it was incessantly knocking on the other side of the door. He turned the lock and the handle, hoping that it wasn't work-related.

Being the Mayor of Nashville meant he never knew when a problem would arise, but he had hoped the people on the council would have the good grace to leave him alone this weekend so he could be with his children after their mother's accident.

Being the Mayor of Nashville, being Rayna James' husband, he had learned to expect the unexpected. But no politics-101 preparation by Lamar has prepared him for just who was standing on his doorstep.

"Good Morning, Mr Mayor," the soft, yet gravelly voice that had once been the undertone of his dreams said.

His brain couldn't function. Teddy just stared at this man, with the cocky smirk on that familiar face, his black hair tousled and wet from the rain outside, his brown eyes unblinking as he looked at Teddy like fourteen years and eight hundred odd miles had not passed since the last time they were together.

Danny. Danny Taylor.

He tried to speak, but no words would come. He felt like his throat was on fire, his heart was racing in his chest, his palms began to sweat.

"Mr Taylor says he's with the FBI, sir," a security guard Martin had not realised was standing with Danny on his front porch explained. "He wishes to speak to you about personal matters."

Personal matters? Teddy's first thought was of the Cumberland deal. Where the FBI on it? Had it escalated that far? He knew the DA was planning to investigate it, but he had never imagined...

Almost as soon as this thought appeared in his mind he shook it from there. Danny was a FBI Agent, yes. But he found missing people, he didn't uncover dodgy business cover-ups.

Or did he? It had been fourteen years. A lot could change in that time. For all he knew, Danny could be working on an entire different unit now.

Fourteen years could change a person. Teddy should know that, shouldn't he?

"I think I can take it from here," Danny said to the security guard, offering up his most charming smile that made Teddy shiver a little.

The security guard looked at Teddy, obviously skeptical of leaving the Mayor alone. Teddy forced himself to nod in agreement-about all his brain could manage to do.

As the larger man turned and began to walk away, Teddy considered the ways to get out of this situation. Slam the door in Danny's face; run to his car and get the hell away from Nashville; leave this damn state and this figure from his past in a cloud of dust and start over, start again.

None of which he could do, of course. Because he had responsibilities here, as Mayor; because there were two little girls in the other room who needed him; because Danny Taylor had no claim to the man that was Teddy Conrad.

"Are you going to invite me in?" Danny's voice, breaking through his thoughts. "Or are we supposed to have this conversation on your porch, a few feet away from the reporters?"

He couldn't see them from his door, but he could hear them calling out his name, Maddie's name, Daphne's name. Rayna's name.

"I have nothing to say to you," Teddy said, finally finding his voice. He went to close the door, but Danny was quicker. He wedged his foot in the doorway, jamming it open.

Danny let out a little chuckle, and that was all it took for Teddy to feel twenty-six again, driving in the car with his best friend humming along to a stupid Spanish song on the radio. He was falling in love for real for the first time in his life with somebody who looked at him like he hung the moon and the stars. He was someone else, for the split second that the laugh lasted for, and it was all too much, all too soon.

Fourteen years, and Teddy was still not ready for this sure-to-be-disastrous reunion; the hundreds of questions this man in front of him must have; the anger, the disappointment, the confusion.

"Thing is, Martin," Danny said, raising an eyebrow in a way that would once have made his stomach flip, instead of the knot that was currently forming there. The sound of that name, of all it meant and the promise it held, it made his hands shake. "I have a lot to say to you."