A/N: I don't own CSI:NY or any of the characters. Set after "Love Run Cold".
Danny looked up from his desk when he heard familiar footfalls coming from far down the hall. Lindsay was approaching their office with Flack close behind. The tall detective stood head and shoulders above the brunette. He was talking to the top of her head and she was responding over her shoulder with a slight smile. She was gesturing with her hands and Flack was smiling and nodding although she couldn't see him. When they got closer to the office door Danny could hear their conversation.
"Bottom line, that interview was a waste of time. Anyway, DNA should be back by now. Let me check my desk," Lindsay said as she ducked into the office.
Flack remained in the hall leaning on the doorjamb with both arms. "I'm getting a coffee from the breakroom, you want?" He asked Lindsay.
"No." She replied emphatically. "I won't be putting another thing in my stomach for a while. I'm stuffed from lunch. That was so good," Lindsay said while taking off her jacket and draping it on the back of her desk chair.
"I told you it would be," Flack said with a smug grin.
"You were right. Very good call." She answered, combing her desk for a new report.
Danny's eyes narrowed but he said nothing.
When Flack returned holding a paper cup Lindsay said, "Nothing here, lets go see Adam." The pair left the office and Danny was left feeling as if he had been kicked in the chest. Lindsay had, and had enjoyed, lunch with Flack. He could barely get her to share the air in their office let alone a meal. He was swallowing back his own bile when Flack and Lindsay returned.
"I'm going to go look at the husband's phone records again." Flack said walking behind Lindsay as she entered the office and sat down. "I'll call you if I find anything. "Otherwise," he said sitting on the edge of Lindsay's desk looking down at her, "about Saturday, pick you up around 8:30?" he asked somewhat tentatively.
"Yeah, great." She said looking up at Flack, beaming with excitement. "I'm really looking forward to it."
"Good, good." Flack said looking around the office while wrapping on her desk with his knuckles. "Ok then." He said rising from her desk and leaving.
Danny could take no more of this. He would have said something to Lindsay but he knew where that would get him. She was an ace at stone-walling him. He rose and followed Flack down the hall. He shuffled-jogged to catch up with his friend as he waited for the elevator. When he reached Flack's side, he stopped then half spun on his heel, his hands in fists touching each other in front of his own face. Now what? He asked himself.
"Danny-o" Flack said casually, then noting his friend's demeanor added "You OK?"
Danny rested his forehand against both his fists. "Uhhh…no. Not really." He looked at Flack then looked around him as if someone nearby might explain what he should do next. He rolled his head around and decided to just get to the point. "What the hell are you doing Saturday with Montana?" He asked.
"Saturday? Montana?" Flack asked.
"Lindsay. Lindsay Monroe." Danny said impatient with his friend's stupidity.
Flack looked at him puzzled, and then smiled with realization. Danny had overhead something. The feelings Danny had for Lindsay that he so fiercely tried to hide were peeking through.
"I'm not sure where this is your business Danny." Flack said with a tight grin.
"Godamit Flack. Just level with me. Is she into you? Is she going out with you?"
"Danny." Flack said, his voice a mixture of amused and annoyed. "I think you will have to ask her." The elevator arrived and Flack stepped in. He raised his eyebrows and tilted his head as if to say to Danny, "Go on now." The doors closed separating them.
Danny returned to their office but she was gone. He found her looking through a microscope in the trace lab. He stood at the lab table next to her, unsure of himself.
"You off Saturday?"
"Yeah. Hey, sorry you're not. I know Flack would have asked you first."
There was his opening. He didn't quite understand what she meant but at least he got her talking about her and Flack and Saturday.
"Asked me what?" Danny questioned.
"To go with them." She replied making notes in her notebook.
"Montana, I'm lost here. Them who?"
"Don and his YMCA kids. To the DNA exhibit at the Natural History Museum. Don said he was going to ask you to go with them, but he checked the board and you were on so he asked me."
Danny was glad its wasn't a date, but his anger wasn't abated. For the first time she looked up from her experiment and notes and looked at Danny who seemed annoyed.
"I suppose we could switch shifts if you wanted. I think its all boys, they might feel more comfortable with you."
He snorted. "That's OK. Having been an adolescent boy once I can assure you they would prefer your company to mine." She smiled and shook her head returning to her experiment when Danny added, "Same's probably true for Don."
"Hmm?" She said again peering down the microscope.
"Don. He's probably not at all disappointed to spend his day off with you."
"Danny, what are you talking about?"
"I'm talking about you and Flack. You seem chummy all of the sudden. Lunch, now field trips." He said a little too loudly.
She looked up and put her pen down, walking over to where he stood.
"What are you getting at?" She said quietly her brow furrowed.
"I'm talking about you. You won't so much as split a pizza with me, you stand me up, you tell me you need space, and I give it to ya. But you and Don, you don't need space from him?" His eyes were steely as he held her gaze.
"No I don't," She said plainly as if it made all the sense in the world and he was being thick. "I'm safe with Don."
"I get it. You're safe with him, but you're not safe with me? What am I? Gonna jump across the table and maul ya?" He said. She didn't immediately reply and he lost patience with her, turned on his heel and walked away.
She remained where she was in stunned silence. When she realized what he was thinking, and how she had let him get to that conclusion she followed after him to find him sitting at his desk in their office.
She sat in her chair and looked at him, but he wouldn't meet her eyes, looking only at the computer screen.
"Danny?" she said softly. He didn't respond.
"Danny, its not that I'm safe with Flack because I trust him, and not safe with you because I don't trust you." She said. Nothing in Danny's appearance reflected that he even heard her. But she continued.
"I trust myself with Flack, because he's a friend and I don't feel anything more than friendship for him." She said now looking down. "And its not that I don't trust you. But I don't trust myself with you, because I feel much more than friendship towards you." He closed his eyes. "But I know I'd be no good at anything more right now. And I work so hard to keep a guard up against you. I don't have to with Flack. Because he's just my friend, and you're…you're Danny." She looked at his profile but he wouldn't face her. "Doing that, trying to keep from getting closer to you is hard. It takes effort. Effort I don't have to expend with Flack, because he's just Flack," she said in almost a whisper, "not Danny."
He said nothing and his eyes were still closed. But she didn't notice because now she was looking at the papers on her desk, gathering them and shuffling them as if putting them in order might help her put her feelings in order.
"You're dangerous because of how I feel about you, not because of you. And Flack. He's harmless, because of how I don't feel about him." Still silence. She felt like she was making the same point over and over and it wasn't getting her anywhere, he was still upset with her.
"Danny. I guess I'm doing a lousy job of explaining this and I know you don't owe me anything. I certainly don't expect you to wait for me, but just know if I were able to go on a date now, or be in a relationship now, the only person I want to do that with is you. But I can't right now, and until I can being too close to you is unsafe."
He finally met her eyes and saw the earnestness and sincerity in them. She didn't mean to hurt him, and she didn't think she was betraying him.
"I'm sorry Danny." She said in barely a whisper.
He shook his head. "Its ok." He raised his eyebrows slightly and licked the edge of his lips. "I guess its my fault." He said causing her some confusion. "If I were as resistible as Flack we wouldn't have this problem."
She laughed. She realized too late she had just given Danny justification for some of his cockiness, but she didn't mind too much. She was glad the mood was lightened and some semblance of their relationship returned.
"Mmm." She groaned out of the corner of her mouth. "No," She said rising to return to the experiment she abandoned in trace, "but you do have your moments Messer." She said hoping to recover, but she knew it was hopeless. She left him in their office grinning to himself while returning to his paperwork.
The End.