A/N: This would have been up sooner but ff. net decided to crap out on me last night after I had spent a good two hours having a meltdown over the last line. I swear - two hours it was! Just would not come to me. That right there is dedication and obsession.
Huge thank you to Meg for helping me with this and tolerating me whining when things would not work out - regarding the stupid last line that is kind of alright now! haha
Hope you enjoy it! x
Lindsay took a deep breath as she strode confidently through the ME's office, looking for her target. Smiling, she grabbed her blue overcoat and tapped on the glass, making her presence known. "What do we have, Sid?"
"Lindsay Monroe." Sid smiled as he unclasped his spectacles and placed them around his neck. "Or should I say Messer?"
"We're sticking with Monroe at work."
Sid nodded, "To avoid confusion?"
"No." Lindsay laughed, "Me and Dan was walking down the hallway last week, Flack called Messer and we both turned. We literally had to peel him up from the floor."
"Why? Did Danny hit him? Surely not."
"No," Lindsay laughed, "he was doubled over in laughter at the fact we had both turned. So we're doing it to avoid Flack ribbing."
Sid smirked as he grabbed a Petri dish from behind him and passed it to Lindsay. "Trace - from his tie. Not sure what it is…"
"I'll get Blake working on it."
"Isn't Blake in DNA?"
Lindsay smirked. "Blake is wherever Danny's wife wants him to be."
"Still terrified of daddy is he?"
"Shall we say he looked around the lab for a good two minutes solid before asking me how Lucy was this morning. My dear husband put the fear of God into the poor guy."
Sid laughed amusedly, taking in Lindsay's story. "How is the little one?"
Lindsay smiled, "She's fine. She's with daddy right now."
"Still not arranged anything regarding childcare?"
"Well, I'm still on part time." Lindsay said, "And Mac said that as long as she doesn't get into harms way and it doesn't affect our work, he has no problem with people spending their break time watching her, Lord knows there's a queue of people wanting to pitch in and aww over her... And we don't want to put all that pressure on Danny's mom, travelling back and forth everyday at crazy times. We'll figure something out."
"I'm sure you will," Sid nodded. "You made a good team."
Lindsay smiled. "What do you have for me, Sid?"
"Oh," he smiled as he snapped his glasses on and glanced down at the body, but before he did, he zoned in on her wedding band and unsnapped his glasses. "He did well, didn't he?"
Lindsay furrowed her brow. "Sorry?"
"Your wedding and engagement ring…" Sid smiled. "It's very beautiful."
Lindsay smiled as she fiddled with her ring. "He says it's simple and beautiful, like me."
"You're anything but simple, Lindsay."
"No," she smiled, "He means…"
"I know." He smiled. "He's lucky to have you, Lindsay. You're really good for him."
She smirked at him, disbelief displayed across her face. "Sid, what do we have here?"
"Did you know that Mac once told Danny that he'd fall in love and Danny all but laughed in his face?"
Lindsay folded her arms and shifted her weight onto one foot, "I have been told about that conversation over the dead bride," Lindsay smiled, highly amused by Sid's procrastination. "Your point, Sid?"
Sid smiled as he folded his arms, mirroring Lindsay's position. "I'm just sayin' he's good for you. And you're good for him. You two balance each other out."
She smiled.
"Shall we get to it?"
Lindsay smiled and nodded adamantly.
He snapped his glasses over the bridge of his nose and flashed Lindsay a small smile, before bending over the body. "I told you so." He murmured.
She laughed, "Excuse me?"
He glanced up as he flashed her a knowing smile. "You heard me,"
She gave him a small shy smile, "I heard you."
"He had a crush on you the whole time," Sid teased. "And look at you now."
"I still think he called me it 'cause he thought I was a 49-ers fan." Lindsay smirked.
Sid raised an eyebrow. "He had a crush on you. No if ands or buts. And you know it."
"Sid!" Lindsay sighed, "What did you find? I'm on a tight schedule, here!"
"Mhmm." He teased. "Yes, the tight schedule, and not the fact that you're blushing like you did all those years ago when I told you that he had a crush on you. I know that look Lindsay,"
"You'll soon be learning another look, Sid."
"What's that look?" he asked, amused.
"The 'mommy's not happy with you, and you need to do what mommy says right now' look."
Sid smiled proudly at her before snapping his glasses together and getting down to business.
"Upon extracting the stomach contents, it brought me back to a memory I had of Chef school many of years ago…"
Lindsay smiled and nodded as she attempted to listen to Sid go around and about the answer to her simple question. And continued to smile at Sid as he showed her the ligature mark around their victim's neck with another story seamlessly flowing after his previous one.
Lindsay threw in an appropriate giggle, in response to one of Sid's jokes while thinking; must make mental note to call Danny and tell him to save me a seat at Lucy's graduation.
I could be here a while.
Lindsay stretched and yawned as she stood in the hallway after dropping off her trace and DNA to Blake, who was more than happy to put a rush on it for her.
She gazed into her's and Danny's shared office as she spied her husband and daughter sat on the floor facing each other, clearly engrossed in an important conversation.
Lindsay quietly opened the door and stood in the doorway, her presence unknown as she listened to Danny's calming and 'daddy' tone he had especially reserved for his baby girl.
"And then, Lucy… A princess came from nowhere!" he gasped as Lucy giggled and flailed her arms forward onto the floor as Danny held her upright. "He had never felt anything as strong as what he felt for her, and he didn't know what to do. He had only ever played with the other boys. So, in keeping to that, he decided to act like an immature fool just like what boys do. The Princess though, she saw right through his facade and childishness and quickly he found himself falling in love with her. He and the Princess started to do everything together, from a slightly disgusting bug dinner date to him carrying her across a magical rooftop garden,"
Lindsay smiled as she watched Lucy's face light up and giggle at Danny's animated voice. Deciding she wasn't done listening, she remained silent and listened contently.
"Everything that he and the Princess did together gave him a glance into happiness; a happiness he had thought he would never, ever in a million years, experience. But, what came with the happiness was a past. A troubled past, Lucy, and it stopped the Princess from letting go, and being true to herself. It stopped her from sharing her true feelings with the Prince... Finally though, after been blocked from her life for months and months on end, he took the biggest step he had ever taken for a Princess… his Princess, and went to support her through her time of need. The Princess realised how amazing and sweet the Prince was and finally let him into her heart. And it was good for them for a long time, until something happened to the Prince and he, like the Princess had, closed off his feelings, and forgot how truly special his Princess was to him. He was silly, and stupid, and he broke her heart. She promptly snapped him back to reality. He realised that his Princess was everything that he wanted and he fought for her. He dove past the dragons and fought the other evil knights that were in his path to get to her. But he did it, because he loved her, and was willing to do anything for her, even though the Princess was still hurt by what the Prince had done."
Lindsay let out an almost inaudible sigh as she watched Danny turn their reality into a fairytale for their daughter.
"Neither the Princess or the Prince saw what the future had in store for them. It was thrust upon them by the powers that be, but by taking baby steps, the Prince and Princess made their way through it together, like they always had and always would. You know why, Lucy-lu?"
Lindsay half expected their daughter to answer, but Danny continued regardless.
"Cause they love each other so much, and they'll always make it through." Danny concluded. "If it's up to the Prince, he will never, ever, hurt his Princess like he hurt her in the past."
Lucy giggled and grasped Danny's pinky finger.
"Looks like someone is wrapped around Lucy's finger."
Danny turned and smiled at Lindsay as she walked into the office and shut the door.
"How much did you hear?"
"Well, I know that I came from nowhere, and I'm here to stay no matter how hard it gets," she smiled as she chucked her casefile on her messy desk and sat down on the carpeted floor, next to Lucy. "How's it hanging, baby girl?"
Lucy let out a shriek as she flopped onto Lindsay's thigh with her head and wrapped her arms around her mother's leg.
"That good, huh?" Lindsay smiled as she scooped her daughter up and cradled her to her chest, "Was daddy telling you a story? A nice pretty girl fairytale."
Lucy giggled as she gripped Lindsay's blouse and let out a little disgruntled cry.
"I think baby girl's hungry." Danny said as he shifted up onto his knees, making Lindsay shiver when they cracked on the floor. "What?" he smirked.
She glared and shuddered again as she traced her finger along Lucy's temple as she cradled her to the chest, "I married an old aged pensioner with all your creaks and cracks."
He shot her a glare as he deliberately stretched and cracked his back noisly.
"I shan't react." Lindsay glared as she shuffled across the floor to Lucy's diaper bag and grabbed a bottle of breast milk from the pocket. "Is the bottle warmer still in the break room?"
Danny nodded. "Goddaddy Mac used some of the surplus money in his salary this month so we don't have to use water from the kettle and it getting the milk too warm on the outside and not warm enough on the inside..."
Lindsay smiled as Lucy let out as shrill cry as she fussed and reached for the bottle.
"I think that was codeword for 'mommy stop talkin' to my daddy and feed me already'." Danny smirked.
Lindsay returned his smirk as she stood up and bounced Lucy softly in her arms, "Would you mind readin' over that casefile for me, Dan?"
"Sure, what do you need to know?"
"Just the basic details, I had to talk to Sid about… well…"
"Was he fully engrossed in his creepy place?" Danny mused as he grabbed the case folder from her desk and began scanning through it.
"No," she smiled as she made her way out of the door, "About my Prince actually,"
"Oh yeah," he mused, his attention drawn away from the case file for a moment, "Good or bad?"
"All good." She smiled as she tickled Lucy's belly, gaining a giggle.
She turned and headed out of the office and dashed across the hall to the break room.
Unbeknownst to the couple and their daughter; Mac Taylor and Sid Hammerback smiled, mirroring each other with their arms crossed across their chest and smiling warmly at the scene that had just unfolded in front of them.
"Doesn't it feel fantastic to say 'I told you so' to them?" Sid mused.
Mac flashed a rare smile in Sid's direction as he turned to glance at Danny, who was watching his wife and daughter in the break room for a moment, like a proud daddy, before sitting in his chair and reading over his wife's case file. Mac's eyes then moved to his goddaughter and her mother as she, looking as at home in the break room as she did in her own kitchen, warmed up her daughter's bottle in the bottle warmer.
"I feel very proud, watching them like this." Mac admitted. "We've seen them grow together and separately."
"And now we get to watch their little girl grow." Sid concluded.
They both heard Lucy let out a little shriek of giggles in the break room as Blake took her from Lindsay's arms and tickled her belly. Before Sid and Mac even had the time to turn their heads to the office to see Danny's reaction, the man himself was stomping across the hall and into the break room.
"S'goin' on here, Blake?" Mac heard Danny grumble as he snatched Lucy from the technician's arms.
Sid let out a laugh as Mac shook his head, "I think it's time I go in and break up the imminent battle for Lucy's affections."
"You need the practice." Sid nodded as he turned slightly, heading back towards the elevator. "You have the next eighteen years to protect Danny from himself."
"Try thirty two..." Mac laughed and nodded as he patted Sid on the back in a kind gesture before making his way into the break room.
The heated discussion between his three employees over the baby soon ceased as Mac moved into the break room, took Lucy from Danny's arms, the bottle from Lindsay's hand and exited the break room without a word.
Mac bit his lip amusedly as he heard silence as he walked down the hallway to his office.
"You can thank me for saving you later," He smiled at his goddaughter as he pushed into his office and sat down on his leather couch and began to feed Lucy her bottle. He watched her contently, marvelling at how beautiful the little girl was. Prodding the baby's nose he smiled as she snuggled further into his chest.
"The things I could tell you about your mommy and daddy, Lucy," Mac smiled fondly at her as she sucked eagerly at the bottle, "I will tell you one thing though, baby girl… I told them so. Me and your Uncle Sid, we knew."
Lucy broke away from the bottle and hiccupped, and Mac moved her to his chest to burp her before feeding her again. While she was placed against his chest, Lucy gazed out of the glass and giggled as she saw her mommy and daddy wave at her from the hallway before entering their office and getting on with the ominous amounts of work that lay ahead of them.
She finally burped, and Mac continued to feed her, as he cradled her to his chest.
He sighed happily, feeling extremely proud of the two members of his team that brought his goddaughter into his life.
With the pride swelling in his chest, he pressed a delicate kiss to Lucy's forehead and smiled as she peered up at him with inquisitive eyes.
"I told your daddy so." Mac smiled.
Lucy merely blinked; completely unaware of how everything in her parent's fairytale had led to her.
And would now focus around her; until their very last breath.
Let me know what you thought - ;) x