A/N: This was written on a whim, please forgive any cheeseballishness. :D Comments and reviews are appreciated.

Danny checked his watch, hitching his messenger bag up over his shoulder. He was running late. Not typical for him, but really, none of his behavior lately could have been described as typical. He sighed, widening his stride, almost jogging in an effort to not be late. So he'd be a little sweaty when he got to work, no big deal. It was a small price to pay to ensure he wouldn't have an awkward subway ride. He couldn't face her, not yet.

She was heartbroken, and for the life of him he couldn't understand it. It didn't seem possible that she cared that much, already. Surely the tears glistening in her eyes as he walked away were just a product of thwarted expectations and not a sign that she'd already invested that part of her he so ardently strove to protect. His chest tightened, and he blinked rapidly to dispel the moisture suddenly in his eyes.

He pulled at the glass doors in the building's lobby, quickly slipping through them, catching the elevator just before it slid shut. He punched the third floor before looking at his watch one more time. Five minutes late. It could be worse, he supposed. He could have given in to that overwhelming urge to just stay home in bed, not face her at all.

Mindy groaned, the sound of her alarm blaring in her ears. She'd already snoozed it too many times, fully resigning herself to being heinously late for work. Jeremy wouldn't give her heartbreak days, so presumably he wouldn't allow for heartbreak tardies either, not that he knew about her most recent failure.

She pulled her sleep mask up slightly, glaring at the accusatory little clock. A normal person, calculating the time it took her to get to work, would say she had plenty of time, but that would only be if she forwent her normal beauty routine.

She tossed the mask aside, running her fingers through her tangled hair. Screw it. Who cared if she looked like hell today? She felt like hell, she might as well look like it. She couldn't muster the energy to care about that, not when there was this hollow ache in her chest, right in the place where her heart had been carved out.

Danny felt a fine sheen of perspiration on his forehead, the prospect of seeing her when the elevator doors glided open setting his nerves to working overtime. Better to do it like this, rip off the bandaid rather than pick at it incessantly. If they could just get back to that friendly place they'd been before, he'd be ok, she'd be ok.

The elevator dinged, and Danny took a deep breath, schooling his features into a semblance of normalcy. The doors slid open, and his plan to nod curtly toward reception while making a beeline to his office was immediately trashed. Surprisingly enough it was Jeremy, standing at reception, who turned toward him, yelling his name. "Danny! Thank God, you're here. I was so worried."

Danny frowned as Jeremy approached him with a seemingly disproportionate look of relief on his face. "Look, Reed, I'm only five minutes late. It's not-"

Jeremy interrupted his excuse. "Where's Mindy?"

"Mindy? She's not here?" Shame coursed through him, settling in his limbs like lead. "I guess she's not feeling well, or something…" He trailed off, becoming a little alarmed at Jeremy's increasingly panicked expression.

The brit shook his head, eyes widening in disbelief. "You didn't hear? There was a nasty derailment this morning in the underground, several people rushed to the hospital, dozens more still trapped." Jeremy was pacing now. "Peter said he thought it was your line, and we've been trying to call the both of you for the past fifteen minutes, to no avail."

Danny dug his phone out of his pocket, it was off. He pressed the power button, his fingers suddenly shaky, palms sweaty for an entirely different reason. Mindy was fine, right? He'd see a text from her or something as soon as his damn phone powered up.

There were a dozen missed calls. None from her. He turned, facing the elevator, panic edging up on him, a restless energy coiled in his muscles. He had to do something. He couldn't just stand here, waiting. Everything else fell away, the incessant ringing of the phone in reception, Peter and Jeremy arguing about whether or not to close the practice for the day. All of it faded to a white noise, until all he could hear was the erratic knocking of his heart against his sternum. The coiled tension in him sprang into action, darting toward the stairwell, not bothering to wait for the elevator.

Jeremy called out after him, the receiver of Betsy's phone pressed to his ear. "Danny, it's the hospital, Mindy's there…"

He was gone, this time flat out running.

She'd tried, she really had, to get herself together and get out the door in time, but she was stymied at every turn. Halfway to the subway she realized she'd forgotten her phone. And she'd thought seriously about going back and getting it. In the past, the very idea of going an entire workday without her phone glued to her palm was unthinkable, but today it seemed preferable. She didn't want to talk to anyone. People might ask her if something was wrong, and she knew her answer would be a strangled half-sob. She wasn't prepared to deal with that. So she trudged on, phoneless.

But she hadn't gotten a full block before the heel of her Louboutin snapped, in a manner that, in the past, she would have described as heartbreaking, but today just seemed like the universe heaping one more thing on top of her.

So she'd hobbled half a block, looking for a suitable stoop to lean against while she slipped her flats out of her purse, tucking away her heels for later repair, tears stinging at her eyes, her bottom lip quivering. She trudged on, hoping against hope that she would miss Danny's train.

She turned the last corner before her subway station, and was greeted by the sight of a huge crowd of people congesting the street. Surely it was a sign. She should just turn back. Go home, crawl back into her messy bed, and sleep for the next sixteen hours. She started to spin on her heel, determined to do just that, but the sight of EMT's carrying someone up the steps on a gurney caught her attention. How had she not noticed the ambulances parked along the street, the firetrucks blocking off traffic completely? What the hell was going on?

"What's happening?" The question was spoken to the air, but there were dozens of people milling on the sidewalk beside her, three or four of them giving her disbelieving looks.

"Some sort of derailment or crash. They said the relay switches failed, and a car crashed into the one waiting at the station." A short angry looking woman filled Mindy in, in between head shakes and annoyed huffs. She hitched up her giant bag. "I'll never get to work now. Look at this!" She gestured to the crowded street. "Can't even get a cab either." The woman continued to talk as she walked away from Mindy.

Mindy watched her depart, open mouthed. Crashed into a waiting car? Her car? She was frozen by the idea that she could have been in the station when it occurred, a strange sense of relief flooding her. She let out a long breath as she continued to watch the EMT's transport people into the waiting vehicles.

Something still bothered her, a niggling worry in the back of her mind, eating away at her. Danny. Her throat closed up. Her hand dove into her pocket, searching for her phone, belatedly remembering she'd left it at home. She cursed, running across the street to where the people were streaming out of the subway.

She searched for his face, hoping that he'd pop up and take away this breathlessness clutching at her. She was in the way, bumping into people as they came up the stairs. She was stuck, her feet not listening to her brain's commands as her eyes desperately scanned the people streaming around her.

Someone grabbed her, firmly turning back to the entrance. "Ma'am, you're going the wrong way, we're trying to get people out of the subway, if you couldn't tell."

She struggled against him, still attempting to look at every single person emerging from the dimness. "Danny!" She called his name out uselessly.

The grip on her arm tightened, finally drawing her attention to the man at her side. Her eyes widened. The police officer at her side, she mentally amended. Changing her tack, she clung to him, allowing herself to be led back out into the street. He tried to disentangle himself, but she tightened her grip. "I need information, please, give me just a second."

She was giving him crazy eyes, an intensity that told him it would be easier just to quickly answer her questions that shrug her off. "Make it quick."

"The people coming out? They're from the waiting car?"

He shook his head. "Everyone from the stationary car was either taken to the nearest hospital, or checked out by the EMT's and released. These people are from the other car that barrelled into the station." He stepped away from her, casting a wary eye in her direction as me moved back to the entrance.

She spun on her heel, taking off in the direction of the hospital, ignoring the death glares from the people she bumped into. She ran the whole way, her flats pinching, her lungs burning as she finally approached her destination.

Her first stop was the ER waiting room, where she frantically strode through the crowd of people, clutching at the stitch in her side as she studied the faces around her. The place was packed, two head nurses in a makeshift triage area assigning people to groups based on the severity of their condition.

She pushed past the nurses, on into the hospital, their calls of protest echoing behind her. "I'm… a… doctor…" She gasped out the words, running down the hall, looking for anyone who could help her find out if Danny had been admitted. The cop hadn't mentioned any fatalities, had he? She racked her brain trying to remember as she poked behind curtains, interrupting treatment of minor cuts and scrapes. She was sure he hadn't.

She was getting nowhere doing this. She changed her direction, heading toward the operating rooms. She just needed to know if Danny was alright. Ducking into the observation deck of OR1 Mindy pressed her face up against the glass, fogging it up as she panted against it. The med students sitting in the gallery looked at her strangely, but her eyes were glued to the action in front of her.

There was a man on the operating table. Check. A nervous anxiety began to thrum through her veins. He had dark hair. Check. He was on the short side. Check. The primary surgeon had the patient on his side, a large gash running from just below his armpit down and across his abdomen. She couldn't see his face.

There was a soft keening noise, coming from somewhere, interspersed with thready little gasps. She couldn't focus on the watching the surgeons below, the irritating sounds distracting her as her eyes blurred. She whirled around to confront the noise maker, only to be presented with a group of concerned interns, staring at her as though she was about to pass out.

Was she about to pass out? The gasps got closer and closer together, as if the person making all the racket were hyperventilating. She had to get out of this place. She darted toward the exit just as her vision began to gray around the edges.

Danny ran. The sweat blooming out across his dark blue button up. He had to get to her before… Before what? Logically he knew there was nothing he could do to change whatever had already happened, whether or not it was serious, but logic wasn't exactly what was motivating him. It certainly wasn't logic the propelled him through the streets toward her. He loved her, the realization almost stopping him in his tracks. He loved her, and if he never got to tell her, he'd spend the rest of his life regretting it.

He skidded into the lobby of the hospital, immediately hunting down one of the ER nurses he was friendly with. Regina? Rachel? He caught her by the elbow, panting as he tried to catch his breath. She cast him a knowing look, wordlessly leading him away from the waiting room. "You're here for Dr. Lahiri?"

He nodded, his worst fears bubbling up the surface once again. Was she hurt? Was she conscious? The questions stuck in his throat. A fear that uttering them would cement whatever reality he now found himself in. "Is she…?"

They slowed, entering one of the exam areas. Regina gestured toward a drawn back curtain, before departing, clearly busy with other things. The exam room? That meant she was fine, well, not fine, but at least not seriously injured. Danny felt relief wash over him, whatever adrenaline that had been pumping through him suddenly dissipated.

He drew the curtain back with his now shaky hands, for a split second wondering at the way they trembled. He took in her reclined form, her hands covering her downward turned face, softly crying. One foot propped up with a temporary cast on it. The joy he felt at seeing her only minorly injured rushed out of him, sending a surprised laugh infused with tears tumbling from his chest.

"Mindy?"

Mindy was walking through fog… rolling through fog? She asked over and over again if Danny was going to be alright, but no one would answer her, instead just pushing her wheelchair into a quiet corner before shining the pin light in her eyes. She winced when her pupils contracted sharply.

The bored looking intern made a notation in the chart she was holding, commenting to herself. "No concussion, minor contusion, possible broken ankle."

At the mention of ankle, Mindy glanced down at her grossly swollen appendage, drawing in a quick breath, the full force of the pain hitting her for the first time. It provided her with a certain amount of clarity, jerking her from the foggy state completely. She placed a hand on the young woman's arm as she moved from the chair to the exam table. "How is he?"

"Who?"

"Danny. The man who was being operated on when I fainted? In OR1?"

The intern bit her bottom lip, hesitant to release whatever information she had on the subject. "Um, well, I don't know if that's his name, he came in without I.D., but the man in OR1 suffered a lot of trauma." She stopped, afraid to continue when she saw Mindy's pained expression. "You know, there are confidentiality laws and stuff. I can't really say much more."

Mindy stifled the tears she felt building at the back of her throat, tightening her grip on the young intern. "Look, you must be new, but I'm a doctor here, I know all about confidentiality laws. You can tell me, ok. So just tell me." She was pleading now. "He's… he's my…" The sobs broke free, tears flowing down her cheeks. "Damn it! He's my best friend, please just tell me."

Discomfort washed over the young doctor, unaccustomed to dealing with overwrought patients, she patted Mindy awkwardly on the shoulder, sympathy finally winning out. "He's in a coma. A medically induced one. There was some swelling on the brain. They thought it would be best this way. The prognosis is… uncertain I believe."

Mindy crossed her arms, crying softly as her new companion rose from the exam table. So Danny was in a medically induced coma. There was little comfort for Mindy in the fact that medically induced comas were reversible. The coma itself wasn't what was so worrisome. It was possible brain injury lurking beneath the swelling that had Mindy in a panic. There was no way to tell what he would be like when he woke up, if there would be loss of memory, motor function. She didn't even know if he would be himself at all when he woke up.

She was filled with guilt over her most recent thoughts about him. She'd told herself, she hated him, that he was never going to get under her skin again, that she'd spend the rest of her time at the practice ignoring him, and proving that his claim to friendship was totally misplaced. She'd planned on being almost vindictive in her endeavor to get over him, and now all she wanted was to hear him say her name again, to see his stupid lopsided smile after telling some lame dad-joke. She told herself, if she was given the chance to have Danny in her life again, she wouldn't waste it, even if it meant just being friends, even if it meant putting away the love that currently tore at her.

The tears began to pour again, this time she dropped her face into her hands, letting the moisture that fell trickle through her fingers, soft hiccups punctuating her cries.

"Mindy?"

And now she could hear him, saying her name like he sometimes did, the little catch in his throat on the second syllable. How cruel was this? Hallucinating his voice when she'd just been told she might not ever hear it again.

"Mindy."

She tried to ignore it, but her auditory hallucination was persistent in a way that she'd never heard people describe. She gave in to it, hoping as she lifted her head that it would be accompanied by a visual one as well.

Eyes opening slowly, she tentatively lifted her gaze in the direction of the sound. Her heart stopping in her chest when she saw him, standing there, one trembling hand clutching at the curtain, huge sweat stains on his shirt. He looked worse for wear, hair at odd angles as though he'd ran his hands through it a million times, his face haggard with worry, tears pooling in his eyes.

Mindy's body understood that he wasn't a hallucination before her brain, darting up off the exam table, lunging at him, realizing too late that her injured ankle couldn't support her. Thankfully Danny was one step ahead of her, filling her space before she could fall. He caught her, gently under the arms, lifting her to rest on her good foot.

She didn't release him once she regained her footing, instead threading her arms around his waist, hugging him tighter than she'd ever hugged anyone in her life, unrestrained ugly sobs pouring out of her in relief. Between gasps she tried to tell Danny about her epiphany. "Danny…She said…you were in a.. c-coma…. I-I-I…I can do it." She paused, crying in a manner usually left to childhood, she tried to catch her breath. "I'll be your best friend.. if that's… if that's all you have for me, I'll take it."

She buried her head in the fabric of his shirt, not caring that it smelled like sweat and cologne. It was a scent she'd thought she'd never smell again.

Danny encircled her in his arms, lifting one hand to cradle her head, his fingers slipping through the silky waves. Her words were perplexing to him. He didn't know who she was talking about, or why she'd thought he was in a coma. It didn't matter though, now that he'd been allowed to contemplate a life truly without her. It was unacceptable, and every moment they spent apart was a piece of wasted life.

His hands moved up to her face, resting gently on either side, the pad of his thumb tracing a gentle circle on her cheek. He drew it through the still wet trails of her tears, staring down into her eyes. He kissed her, his lips pulling at hers as though he were trying to drink her in, loathe to even stop for a breath. He did finally pull away. Breathing harshly, he let loose the confession he'd held close to him for so long. "I love you, Mindy. I love you." Feeling he owed her something more than a late declaration of love, he continued, "That's why I kissed you on the plane. I'm so sorry. I was a coward, a jerk. I couldn't-"

She cut him off. "I love you, too." She raised up on the toes of her good foot, this time initiating the kiss, her fingers slipping through the hair at his nape.

"Really?" He was awestruck.

She looked up at him, a little frown on her face. "Danny, please don't doubt me. This is real…. I-It's never been like this before, ok?" She swallowed. "I'm all in, Danny. Isn't that what they say in poker when you have a really good hand? I'm all in, I'm betting everything on us, ok?"

"Ok." After a brief moment's pause, he added. "Me too, all in. A ring, a house, kids… everything?" He lifted her back onto the exam table, worrying already about her foot. He looked at her, an open vulnerability on his face as he gently held her hands, waiting.

"Yeah."

He sighed, lifting her hands, brushing a kiss along the back of her knuckles. She shifted, making room for him on the exam table. He slipped in beside her, cradling her in his arms. "So, tell me what fortunate series of events brought us here, like this? I take it you missed the subway."

She laughed, remembering her miserable morning. "Yeah. At first, I thought the universe was conspiring against me." She leaned into him, suddenly feeling very tired. "But now I realize it was just pushing me toward you. A six hundred dollar pair of shoes is a small price to pay."

He laughed, listening as she told him the details of her morning, her journey to the hospital, and all the things that had led her to him. It was a story that would have many retellings over the years, becoming almost fairytale-like as oft told stories usually do. Mindy wouldn't have had it any other way.