"My turn."

Danny was surprised, after everything he did and almost did, to be getting yet another chance. Damn that kid, he didn't deserve it. But Danny, the younger, the present version, just didn't know how to give up on someone.

So, of course, Danny, the future, the unmoored, would change his name and protect the little squirt after everything. Protecting was still there, somewhere, in his twisted brain.

Jordan, so he'd still have some tie, but Danny could also keep his name.

Now though, he had an even newer name. One he never expected to have, not after everything. Dying, his family dying, killing his own human half, and then almost killing the Squirt's family just so he wouldn't be alone. He'd hoped beyond hope that he'd just cease to exist when Danny had chosen and assured in every way he could that he wouldn't turn into Jordan.

If he didn't have that damned Time medallion, he'd have gotten his wish back then. But then... where would the Squirt be? Who would be taking care of him after all of that?

Whatever in the Seven Hells had hit the kid, it wasn't pretty. Frostbite had had Danny in a healing stasis for months before he stopped improving and started declining. As much as the Yetis knew about healing ghosts, Halfas still had a living element that needed to be nurtured in a living world.

That weapon hadn't existed in Jordan's time, so he didn't know how to help, beyond taking a little vengeance. That's what he was good at, anyway. He wasn't a great protector anymore, but he had to revive that part of himself now.

Nanda Parbat was somewhere Jordan remembered fondly. It hadn't fixed him in any way, shape, or form, but it was definitely a good place with a surprising amount of protection. The negotiations with the local entity went well, so that's where they were settled.

Most of Danny's memories were more than a little shot, but he hadn't lost anything important. Tiny bodies had tiny body needs, no matter how mature the mind and core.

With a tiny, sleep-warm body in his arms and a laptop in front of him, Jordan was working remote. Just numbers, input, output, copy, paste. Editing for a newspaper before publishing. Whatever he could do.

A sleepy, fuzzy, mumbled, "Daddy?" Almost startled him into jumping. The sound cut him right to the heart. He doesn't deserve this. He doesn't deserve the trusting little core that reached out to his with recognition but no fear.

"Hey, Squirt. It's almost supper time, little buddy."

The tiniest yawn he'd ever heard. "Amity?"

"Safe and sound. Masters and Gray are holding up just fine."

Danny hummed and cuddled closer, absolutely drowning Jordan in warmth. "Thank you."

"Of course, Squirt. You saved them more times than anyone ever bothered to count. You saved me. Now," he murmured as he pressed his chin into the fuzzy hair atop Danny's head, "it's My Turn to protect you."

For the first time in more than ten years, Jordan's eyes glowed green instead of red as he pushed energy forward to surround his charge in a blanket of protection and safety.