Picture Perfect | Daniel Ricciardo

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Dani got the call from Nick that she could volunteer at the animal shelter. On her first day, she actually was exciting. It was a good distraction from what happened in the past few days. After Finn and Oliver found the box with pictures, Dani didn't seem to leave the box alone anymore. She looked at the same pictures every night and every night the same tears seem to appear in her eyes. As much as he hurt her, she also missed him. 

She arrived at the animal shelter and got immediately greeted by Nick who would give her a tour around and would explain everything she had to do. After he showed Dani most parts of the building they ended up in the staff room. She tried to remember everything that he had said, but getting all these new information was hard to take in. Maybe she should've made notes, she thought to herself. 
'I get it if you won't remember everything I just said,' Nick suddenly said as if he could hear Dani's mind. 'It's fine. I just have to do all of this. It's the rules.' Nick showed her a list that they used to show who had to do which task.
'I think they put you with... Oh,' Nick looked at the list and felt immediately awkward as he saw the name next to hers. 
'What?' Dani asked curiously. Was something wrong? Maybe they had forgotten to put her on the list? Dani tried to look over Nick's shoulder, but he put the list already back on the wall.
'You're working with Daniel today,' Nick told her, looking closely to her reaction. 
'Ricciardo?' Dani asked, just to be sure as she tried hard to not sigh. Nick nodded. She couldn't help but smile ironically. Of course this had to happen. She didn't even know he did volunteering work.
'It's fine,' Dani finally told Nick. She was currently volunteering. This wasn't about her, but about the animals. So she just had to deal with it. 
'You sure?' Nick asked to be sure and she nodded. 

When Nick leads Dani to the room where she had to clean the cages of the cats that were separated from others because they had been just found on the street, they both were surprised to not found Daniel there. Nick showed her shortly how and what she had to do, and left her alone with that task as he knew he could trust her with a simple task like that. While Dani was busy with putting everything that had to get out of the cage out, the door suddenly opened. She looked up as she first saw a trashcan walking in and after the person who was pushing it, Daniel. If she didn't know how to act around Daniel before, now she really didn't know how to act around him. 
'Dani, hey,' Daniel said. Her guess was that he already knew she would be here as he didn't seem to be surprised. 
'Hey. Nick uhm showed me what to do so I already started,' Dani said feeling a bit awkward now with Daniel in the same room. She saw him nodding at her as he took some stuff out of the cabins. He opened one of the cages and carried out the full litter box. It stayed quiet between the two old best friends as they worked from cage to cage. It was until Dani heard her co-worker sighed a bit too dramatically to her taste one too many times that she decided to speak up.
'You have something to say?' she asked right after he sighed one more time. She patted the cat in the cage before closing it. She looked at Daniel who also had stopped with what he was doing. 
'I don't know. Is Will here to make me feel like the bad guy again?' he asked as he made eye contact with Dani. She shakes her head slowly as she removed her eyes from focusing on his and looked back at the cages. He sighed again, but this time softer and less dramatic. 'Dani, what happened the morning after prom was a misunderstanding,' he started to explain. She looked back at him as the word misunderstanding sting. He meant sleeping together was a misunderstanding? She had to fight back the tears as the pain she felt that morning came back in her memories.
'When I woke up you were still sleeping and when I realised what we had been doing that night I... I started to get nervous,' he explained further. 'Maybe you regretted sleeping with me, or maybe it meant more to me then for you. I got more and more insecure about it and decided to get up, change and I wrote you a note that I was going to the gym and that if you regretted what happened we could act as nothing had happened, but if you didn't you had to text or call me,'
'I never saw a note,' Dani interrupted him, looking confused back at him. She tried to go back to that memory, maybe she had overseen that note? No that was not possible. She looked everywhere for answers that morning. 'I thought you just left like it was a one night stand,' she confessed in a mumble, hoping he didn't actually hear her. But he did hear her and took a step closer to her. He put his hands on her shoulder, making her look back at his eyes again. He saw she was about to cry.
'Dani, I would never treat you like just a one night stand. Never,' he said, hoping that was becoming clear to her. 'I was in love with you and when it came to telling the truth to you that morning I chickened out and left that note for you. I know I shouldn't have left, definitely not after knowing how it would end between us. But I didn't want to lose what we had.'
'I wished I found that note. I looked everywhere,' she confessed, wiping away one tear that had escaped from her eye. 
'Maybe I should've taped the note on the bedside table,' Daniel tried to joke. Dani sent him a small smile. She was trying to decide if giving him a hug was appropriate right now, but after not finding an answer to that she decided to do it anyway. She throws her arms around him and rested her head on his chest. It took Daniel by surprise, but he soon became to smile brightly and put his arms protectively around her.  
'Can we talk about this more after work?' she asked him as they were still in each other's arms. 
'Sure,' he said back. Both of them felt relieved as for the first time for both of them this felt familiar. 

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A/N: Can we just appreciate that Daniel qualified on P4?! Honestly so stoked for this race tonight 😍