A/N: Hey all, just a quick one-shot that has been rolling around my head for a while, ever since I had to get my mandatory shots for work at the lab. I figured this might be a good story for a little D/L fluff.
Disclaimer: Don't own 'em. But if you happen to own 'em, lemme just say that Christmas is coming, and I am always down for it if you would like to bestow them upon me. All's I'm saying is….yeah, I want 'em.
Summary: Who likes getting shots? Um, no one? Okay, but who likes getting a little M&M after a shot to make it feel better? Duh, everybody!
Love, El. That Time of the Year
Lindsay dumped a spoon into her coffee and picked up the mug making her way towards the breakroom door, absentmindedly stirring the creamy brown liquid, letting the warmth seep into her hands through the ceramic of her mug, her fingers gracefully tapering into trimmed fingernails right over top of Donner and Dasher's heads. Santa happened to be in his sleigh, under her palm. It was getting colder outside, New York City was slowly sliding into the winter season. Lindsay sighed, and then laughed at her own train of thought; yesterday the temperature in the city had been 62° and balmy, hardly what one would call winter weather. Still, even if Mother Nature wasn't cooperating with Father Time, the fact of the matter was that it was just after Thanksgiving and the days were steadily slipping by, heading towards Christmas and the inevitable New Year.
Lindsay stopped in front of the bulletin board up near the entrance to the breakroom, reading over the various announcements of interdepartmental items for sale and fundraisers, messages and memos from Mac were up there, as well as NYPD notices. Shoved partially behind a brown envelope with a tech's name on it and an old memo reminding everyone to turn back their clocks was an announcement that all NYPD staff – cops, secretaries, human resources, and lab personnel among others – were required to receive their annual Influenza Shot. Lindsay grimaced subconsciously. She didn't like getting shots – really, who did? – and generally she avoided getting the flu shot because it was only a composite of the strains of influenza that the scientists felt would be harsh in the upcoming flu season, and didn't guarantee that you wouldn't get the flu; one could very well get another strain, or get sick from the flu shot itself. Then there was the fact that someone who might very well be new to the entire process would be sticking a two inch hollowed-out steel cylinder into the very soft, very supple, very bruise-able flesh of one of her arms, before pushing liquid into her body then reversing the invasion and ripping the needle out of her arm, thereby adding to the previous damage to her skin and muscle which would absolutely result in some kind of bruise. Really, she was very susceptible to bruising. So, flu shots just did not appeal to her and therein laid her problem – everyone in the NYPD was required to get a flu shot. Everyone. Including Lindsay Monroe. She shuddered again, thinking of what she would have to go through at some point in the very near future, and went back to her office. The day she had to get the departmental flu shot was going to be a bad day indeed.
The inevitably of that day arriving ran out sooner than Lindsay was happy about, but she figured since she would have to get the shot at some point, she might as well get it over with. At 9AM she was to report to the small office across from Mac's where they were administering the pain-in-a-tube. She dreaded the time. Lindsay sitting at her desk, going over old paperwork and reexamining some polysomnograpy results that Flack had brought for her from St. Vincent's Center for Sleep Disorders and Parapsychological Conditions. She was just filing a paper when her phone bleeped twice, indicating that the time was 5 minutes to 9. Thus began her 300 minute countdown to doom.
Lindsay got up and made her way out of the office she shared with Messer, shaking her head to herself. She really had to change her outlook on shots, she was getting a little too morose a little too early in the morning. Then a new thought occurred to her; there was indeed a chance that she just might faint dead away during the entire process of abuse which the New York City Department of Public Health and her employers were making her undergo this morning. This thought stopped her in her tracks, in the middle of the hallway. There was no way she was going to let some shot make her pass out cold in the middle of the New York City Crime Lab - she was a CSI, goddammit! No way, not a chance. Well, maybe a slight chance. Certainly, a tiny one. She cocked her head, especially if you consider the fact that under normal circumstances nobody but drug addicts and a person getting a tattoo shoved sharp objects into their arms on a semi-regular basis. Really, this was quite an unnecessary measure they were making her undergo.
She started walking again, making her way slowly to the back of the line of people awaiting the same mutilating procedure, thinking that she should protest this mandatory practice of administering flu shots. Yeah, she could gather others who felt the same as her, who were going to help her stand up for the rights of those not wishing to be poked and prodded in order to avoid epidemic disease from encompassing the millions of susceptible immune systems, some of which have been compromised further by the poor living conditions in some New York neighborhoods and by age and by underlying predetermined factors. Okay, well, yeah, when you put it like that, it sounds only reasonable that everyone in the NYPD get flu shots; especially since most of the NYPD dealt firsthand with the public en masse; like those in the Crime Lab, who dealt with dead bodies all day, exposing themselves to large numbers of airborne diseases and displayed bodily fluids, since often the deaths they investigated originated in a pool of blood. Okay, okay, she had to admit that there were very logical reasons behind this requirement and that yeah, it at least was aimed at protecting her health as well as the health of countless others, lest she spread her germs through infected exhalations upon an unguarded and unprepared public that would be possibly helpless because of a lack of healthcare to deal with the ravages which a particularly bad strain of the virus could produce in the unsuspecting victim's body, tricking their immune system and overtaking their healthy cells until the cells explode with millions of new productions of the viral genetic code which with every reproduction creates millions of mutations which adapt and sneak amongst the healthy organs of the person before rendering them lame with infectious by-product, weakening their immune system's defenses so that any present bacteria can entrench itself in the person's lungs and reproduce, grow, mold itself into the once-healthy fabric of the person's lungs until they develop a severe case of lobar pneumonia, as their body stops allowing oxygen to get to where it needs to go, resulting in cyanosis, making the poor victim turn a bluish color ultimately heralding the impending death of the once healthy human body currently being racked by influenza – and all this because Lindsay Monroe had refused to get a flu shot and breathed her viral-loaded breath onto another person. Oh God, she thought, placing her hand over her stomach and doubling over, a queer look on her face registering something between squeamish and awestruck.
"Are you alright, miss?" the nurse dispensing the flu shots asked her. "Do you need to sit down?" The nurse swiped the patient's arm with an alcohol pad before giving him the shot. She dropped the used needle into a sharps box, and turned her full attention to the CSI in front of her, who looked like she might drop or puke or both at any moment.
"It's really not that bad, Monroe, it's over in like 3 seconds," chimed in an accented voice near the door, somewhere behind Lindsay's back.
"Honestly, Lindsay," added Flack, who was sitting in the chair next to the nurse, rolling down his dress shirt sleeve after having just received the shot, "Nurse Baker is so good, I'm not even sure I felt a thing."
Lindsay merely nodded her head absentmindedly, her brain going a mile a minute, creating this elaborate scenario where Lindsay Monroe, NY CSI, starts a deadly Influenza Pandemic, the likes of which have never been seen since the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918, wherein Lindsay kills most of the world's population all because she didn't get a flu shot and therefore spread the disease to others. In 10 seconds flat, her brain had her convinced she would become the Typhoid Mary of Influenza – maybe they could call her Influenza Lindsay? – if she didn't get the flu shot in the next 5 minutes. Her knees were looking a little wobbly when the voice behind her spoke up again.
"Flack, get up and let her have your damn seat already, would ya! Didn't your mother teach you any manners?" Flack looked dutifully admonished for a second and shot Lindsay a look of remorse before getting up as Nurse Baker motioned her over to the chair next to her. Flack grumbled under his breath about how he was just getting to offering Monroe the chair, as he made his way back to stand with the guy by the door, glaring at him. "I was getting to that, Messer; you coulda given me a second though. By the way, I'm telling my mother you were talking about her. She'll be pissed."
"Flack, your mother loves me, besides I'm sure she'd be interested in knowing her son is rude to ladies."
While the two detectives were "chatting", Lindsay seemed in a daze as Nurse Baker asked her to remove her jacket while she prepared the serum for injection. Lindsay took off her jacket, determined now, despite the looming fear of the accompanying pain, to get this flu shot and save the world. Or, well, you know, at least not get the flu this season. Nurse Baker gave her the shot and discarded the needle, all in a matter of 5 seconds, while Lindsay's mind continued to race with wild speculations, only now, she was rubbing her arm at the injection site. Flipping through some charts, the nurse turned to her, saying, "You know, Detective, you still need to get your third round of the Hepatitis vaccination, and since your due next week, what do you say we get it out of the way now?"
Lindsay barely heard her, trying like hell to keep her crazy mind from exaggerating the pain in her arm so that she could avoid trying to remember that her arm was not sliced by a machete – like her brain was trying to tell her right now – she merely got a shot. Nurse Baker prepped the vaccine, and asked Lindsay to stand, needing her arm to hang loose while she swabbed at a place beneath the flu shot injection site in order to administer the Hepatitis shot. Just as the needle went in and Nurse Baker pushed the fluids into Lindsay, her brain finally caught up with her ears and she realized all in an instance that she was getting another shot. At this new influx of data and stimulation of pain receptors where the needle was in her arm, Lindsay's functions stopped functioning, and her brain shutdown. Apparently, so did her legs.
The nurse had just taken the needle out of Lindsay's arm when she looked up to see the female detective's eyes start to roll back into her head, realizing the woman in front of her was about to pass out. The other two detectives in the room were still by the door, chattering on inanely about something or other. Nurse Baker jumped out of her seat, grabbing for Lindsay's upper arms, trying to keep the woman from crashing to the floor.
"Um gentlemen, a little help please!" she called frantically, trying to get the men's attention. Flack and Danny turned their heads to her in unison, in enough time to see Lindsay's knees start to buckle and the nurse struggle to maintain Lindsay's upright position.
Danny shot across the room, Flack was two steps behind. Danny reached out, encircling Lindsay's waist with his arms, sinking quickly to the floor with her body since it was now dead weight. He had his left knee up, supporting her upper back, and was kneeling on his right leg, his right hand running over her cheek and into her hair, checking to make sure she was definitely breathing. "Whoa there, Monroe, I told you it was nothing to worry about, didn't I?" Flack said to the unconscious woman. Messer shot him a look; partly bemused, partly thinking Flack was stupid. Danny ran his right fingertips gently over her cheeks and forehead and eyes, simultaneously wishing she would wake up so he could make sure she was okay, and stay passed out so that she'd remain in his arms.
Making a quick decision, Danny hoisted himself to his feet, Lindsay snuggly settled in his arms, still unconscious, and he started walking down the hall towards their joint office. He could hear the nurse back in the flu shot room telling Flack what had caused Detective Monroe to pass out. Danny carried her warm, unconscious body into their office, squeezing her close to him for just an instant before laying her ever so gently on the tiny couch in the corner of the room. Kneeling by her side, his face bent close to hers, he brushed his lips over her temple, feeling the soft downiness of her currently pale skin before whispering in her ear, "C'mon Montana, it's time to wake up. Please, Lindsay, you gotta show me your gorgeous brown eyes so that I can see you're okay."
Slowly Lindsay managed to regain consciousness, somewhat startled by a) the fact that she was in her office and not getting her flu shot like she remembered, b) the fact that she was such a wussy and passed out, and c) the most important thing being that Danny Messer's face was mere inches from her own and she wasn't nearly as startled by that as she probably should be. "What happened?" she asked, her voice groggy and thick and slightly taking on the huskiness of one who was asleep, even if it was only for a minute or two. "Nevermind, I know what happened. God, I'm such a girl," she murmured as she tried to sit up, feeling slightly dizzy with the effort.
"Ah, ah, ah Montana, just lay back. I wasn't sure you'd pull through there for a second," Danny teased her. His hands gently pushed her shoulders back onto the couch, making her lay back and rest a bit. To be honest, it did feel kind of good to be resting for a few seconds. Yeah, especially considering her right arm hurt like the dickens. Then everything pieced together vividly and in stereo sound. Not only had she gotten a flu shot – to save the world, she told herself – but the nurse had given her a Hepatitis shot as well. In the same arm. Damn her arm hurt. Lindsay reached over to rub her arm as she looked at Danny, realizing the concern and emotion choking his normally bright blue eyes into appearing a cobalt color. "You sure you're okay?" he asked.
"No, I'm not okay," she huffed. "That crazy masochist gave me two shots. Two, Danny. I didn't even want to get one, but apparently it was "make Lindsay get one, give her one for free" day. Ow," she whined, in summation. "Shots hurt."
Danny smiled and chuckled, deep and low and rumbly in his throat. It sounded good, she thought. "Yeah, they do. Do you want me to kiss it and make it better, Detective?" Lindsay knew he was joking but apparently her brain had been hijacked by craziness today, because she nodded slowly and surely in the affirmative. Danny's eyes registered the barest hint of surprise, before he leaned his lips – they were beautiful, she thought, - over her flu shot injection site, and lightly pressed his lips to her skin. Suddenly, Lindsay felt warm and lightheaded all over again, only this time, she was lying down already. Danny's eyes never left hers as he leaned his head back, breaking his lips' contact with her arm.
In the tiniest, breathiest whisper, Lindsay said, "She gave me two, Danny."
This time no surprise appeared in his eyes, but they still seemed to darken a fraction of a shade, as he nodded wordlessly, leaning in closer, but moving his lips past her arm. When his face was in front of hers, he said, "I know, Miss Monroe, but I already kissed your arm. Now I should kiss somewhere I choose to make up for the second shot." Lindsay's eyes flared, as Danny moved his head just a hair's breadth closer, then said, "I'd be happy to make you feel better anytime, Montana." Then he leaned into her face, gently dropping a kiss just right of the corner of her lips, sweetly pressing a kiss to her soft cheek, then nuzzling her nose just a bit before pulling his face back, and sinking back on his haunches, placing distance between them. Lindsay was quite glad she was lying down, because she was pretty sure her heart might bust at any moment.
Danny made sure she was okay then left the office and went back to work. Cool as a cucumber on the outside, as if everyday that he came into the office he carried Lindsay in his arms to their office before kissing her to make her feel better, but who was he kidding, his insides were jello – and melting jello at that.
Lindsay remained on the couch for a little while, reliving what had happened over and over again, surprised that it had all occurred in the space of 15 minutes, since the clock on the wall said 9:13AM. Lindsay shook her head as she sat up, realizing that her arm really didn't hurt – okay, who was she kidding, it still hurt – but maybe not as much since Danny had kissed it, kissed her. Hmmm, she thought, maybe getting the flu shot should become a regular thing. Okay, let me amend that, she thought, only if that always happens afterward, then flu shots need to happen way more often.
Danny smiled.
Lindsay smiled.
I love you guys. Probably love you more if you review.
Nah, I still love you.
(Psst…review anyway!)