New Author's Note:

So, I sat down to write this as sort of a lark while I was trapped in LaGuardia airport overnight. I've never written a story without a strict outline before, and I thought it might be fun to see where it took me. Then I got some very nice reviews and got recc'd at TWoP, which is wonderful but very intimidating because now I have to finish it, and I sat down the next night to write the first chapter, and was horrified at the content of what I wrote. Lindsay really got away from me.

I really wrestled with the story for a while and came to the realization that I can't just ignore Lindsay's character "development," as much as I would like to. That means I have to take it into account in her character as written in this story, which means in turn that Lindsay may seem a little OOC. She's going to be a little deeper than when she was at the beginning of her run on the series and a little stronger than she was at the end. The combination of the two characters also means that she is going to remain a very neurotic girl. Sorry. (She'll never be Marissa, though.)

This new character demands an explanation that will be in the flashbacks, which will no longer be a random assortment of happy moments but a chronological series of vignettes that hopefully will explain why Lindsay got so crazy – and you better believe that she's going to be noticing how unnaturally she's acting, too. The part of the story set in the future will remain the same, though it will probably get a bit more angsty.

All this is by way of saying that I've realized that I need to work on this thing a lot before I can let anyone see it. Also vying for my attention right now are writing my senior thesis, taking what I'm told is a suicidal number of courses (thanks for letting me know at registration, guys), making a lot of money so that I can pay my taxes and have enough money to move to Seattle next year and find a job for next year. I also really don't want to get jossed on this story as regards The Baby, which also makes me want to put off writing until I know what's going to happen on the actual show.

I will write this story, it will be really really long and have lots of twists and turns, and it will have all of the major characters, but for now this is just a teaser. Expect the actual story to start going up in late April. I'm so sorry, and thank you all so much for the reviews – I really appreciate them, and you have ensured that I will see this through. Eventually.

One final note that I forgot to add – the song quoted at the bottom of the prologue (and which gives the story its title) is an old Cole Porter song called "Begin the Beguine."

Original Author's Note:

This is a teaser for a long, long story. The story is based on the fact that 1) we were criminally deprived of any nice relationship happiness between Ryan and Lindsay, and 2) Lindsay's character was assassinated by various episode writers. The first part of each chapter will be a scene from their high school relationship that I feel we missed out on, and the majority of the chapter will be set ten years from the Rainy Day Women.

Rating: Everything posted on will be PG-13 or below.

Disclaimer: None of it is mine. Except for Danielle, unfortunately. I guess she really belongs to herself, though.

Begin the Beguine

Prologue

It was nice, Lindsay reflected dreamily, to just lie there with her head on a pillow and think of nothing. It was rare that she could convince her busy mind to just shut up; she usually was able to rest only after extensive studying, reading, or writing.

Or extensive foreplay, the part of her mind that shocked her piped up stridently.

Shut up, she suggested to the voice.

Of course, the fact that her pillow was none other than her boyfriend's naked chest did nothing to help her case.

Realizing with a sigh that the incipient argument inside her skull was a sign that her inner peace was soon to be over, she decided to break the silence with a question.

"Ryan?" she asked.

"Mmmmmmmrph?"

"Ryan – hey, are you asleep?" she realized.

He reached up his hand to rub his head.

"No, 'm not asleep. Nope. Not me." He paused. "Huh?"

She giggled. "You were Go back to sleep, it's nothing."

He smiled blearily down at her. "Nah, it's okay. I wasn't sleeping. What is it?"

"It's nothing, seriously." He looked at her sternly. She sighed. "Well, okay – what do you want to be when you grow up?"

He raised an eyebrow.

"I told you it was stupid."

He looked up at the pool house ceiling, as if he could find the answer written there.

"I guess when I was younger I wanted to be a firefighter. Then I worked construction for awhile and I wanted to be an architect. Then...then I guess I sort of lost track."

She frowned. "What do you mean, you lost track?"

He laughed shortly, looking down at her once more. "I didn't think I was going to finish high school, let alone go to college or a professional school. Architecture was out of the question."

She bit her lip. "But it's not now...right?"

"No, it's not," he mused, "and everyone seems to expect me to be an architect now. I don't know, though...I never thought I'd have any options. Now I have so many." Her brilliant smile seemed to make him uncomfortable, for he threw the question back at her. "I don't know – what do you want to be when you grow up? Become a world class oboe-player?"

She laughed. "No," she told him, "I've always know what I was going to be."

"And what's that?"

"I'm going to be a doctor."

At 5:55 a.m., the coffee cup shattered on the clinic floor, brown nectar splashing from it onto nearby shoes in a stain-producing manner. Dr. Lindsay Gardner stared at the shards of her cup and the liquid pooling around it and thought that she just might cry.

"Dr. Gardner?"

Lindsay ignored the voice. The voice was female, she realized hazily, and familiar, but she couldn't be bothered to place it (or, for that matter, acknowledge it).

"Dr. Gardner?"

Bother. It was Danielle. She'd have to say something. "Yes?"

"Are you okay?" Danielle was the receptionist in charge of the free clinic. She was responsible for farming out the hundreds of cases that went in and out of the Long Beach clinic all day long, and as such she was an incredibly competent woman. In all other particulars, she was a gossipy flake whom Lindsay wouldn't trust with her car keys, let alone her inner turmoil, but that was beside the point.

Lindsay sighed tiredly and pushed a strand of fine red hair out of her eyes. "I'm fine, Danielle. I just spilled my coffee. I'll make another cup. It's not big deal. I was just..."

"Zoning out?"

"Mourning." At Danielle's shocked look, Lindsay clarified, "For the coffee."

"Oh. Right." Danielle shot her a worried glance. "Well, let me clean it up. You have a patient already."

"But I'm not even on call!" Lindsay said indignantly.

"She says it's urgent. Here's the file."

"Okay," Lindsay sighed, and took the proffered file, "She's in the waiting room?"

"Yep," Danielle chirped.

Lindsay rubbed her head and walked through the door into the waiting room. As she arrived, she heard a little girl's voice.

"Mama, it hurts."

"I know, honey, and it'll be okay, I promise. The doctor will make it better."

"Really?"

Lindsay smiled at the pair, and knelt down to face the little girl. "Yes, really. What's the problem, kiddo?" As soon as she saw the girl at face level, however, she knew what the problem was.

She was a beautiful little girl of maybe ten years old; she had curly black hair, smooth, café crème colored-skin, and deep black eyes, one of which was encircled by blackened skin to match.

Lindsay wished that it was a new sight for her, but a ten year old with a black eye was far from that. She smiled at the child. "Hey, did you hurt your eye? That's too bad. I have something that's going to make that feel a whole lot better, but why don't you run to talk to Danielle over there at the desk while I talk to your mom for a sec, okay, hon?"

The girl sniffed. "Okay. Will I get a lollipop?"

"Natalie!" Her mother hissed, "Be polite."

Lindsay laughed. "Yeah, you can have a lollipop."

"Okay!" Natalie skipped over to the desk, her eye momentarily forgotten. Kids, Lindsay thought and stood up to face the mother, ready to accuse her of negligence, but stopped abruptly. The mother had a similarly shaped black right eye.

Lindsay laughed shortly. "What, you guys got the matching set?"

The mother bit her lips. "What do you mean?"

"Look, Mrs. – " Lindsay looked at the file to get the mother's name, " – Mendoza, you can tell me about it now or you can tell me later when your daughter had a broken arm, but – "

Hang on.

Mendoza.

Lindsay looked at the mother's name again.

Theresa Mendoza.

And the girl is ten years old.

She laughed again, shortly, bitterly, and glanced up towards Mrs. Mendoza, who, distressed, appeared to be about to attempt an explanation of her daughter's facial abrasions.

Lindsay didn't even let her begin.

"Your husband's name wouldn't happen to be Eddie, would it?"

So don't let them begin the beguine,

Let the love that was once a fire remain an ember,

Let it sleep like the dead desire I only remember.

And then they begin the beguine...