A/N: Originally written for a fanfiction writing contest.

DISCLAIMER: I do not own any of the characters or ideas created by Anthony Zuiker, Carol Mendelsohn and Ann Donahue. I borrowed them for the entertainment and amusement of my audience.

SUMMARY: How did Lindsay Monroe and Danny Messer end up asleep on his pool table, prior to the events illustrated in the episode titled "Snow Day?"

SPOILERS: No actual spoilers, but I do recommend seeing the CSI:NY season three finale episode ("Snow Day") after reading.

GENRE: Romance

RATING: PG-13

DATE COMPLETED: July 3, 2009

::~*~::

Lindsay rubbed at her eyes in frustration. She couldn't believe that she had let this case get to her like it did. She tried so hard to distance herself from the emotional aspects of the cases she worked, but she was going to be the first to admit that on occasion, some slipped through and reached to the core of her being. But it was all done now. They had arrested the man responsible earlier in the day and now all she needed to do was finalize her report and file it. Then she would go home to a well-deserved rest. Sighing, she grabbed her pen and shifted around in her seat before glancing down at the forms in front of her, ready to begin again.

She jumped halfway out of her chair when a loud bang echoed from the door. She glanced up to see Danny entering the room with a grin on his face. She was about ready to ask him what had him all cheerful when he spoke first.

"What's a gorgeous woman like you doing hiding out in the break room filling out paperwork when you should be out celebrating the fact that another one of New York's scumbags is rotting in jail, thanks to New York's finest?"

She couldn't help but smile at that. Danny was like that. He had a way of making her smile, especially when she felt so far away from being happy. "I only have a couple more pages to finish and then I am thinking about going home and treating myself to a nice long bubble bath. I think I could use it after this case. That guy…I can't believe how dirty he makes me feel and I wasn't even a victim!"

Danny perked up at the mention of "bubble bath," but it immediately went away when Lindsay voiced her worries to him regarding the rapist they had locked up that day. He wanted to comfort her; in fact, he wished he could shield her from the horrors of the cruel world, but he knew that, as her job, it wasn't possible. So, he decided to do the next best thing, take her mind off of it.

"Don't think about it. It's over and done with and in the past. What's that famous phrase? 'Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure.' Do that."

Lindsay stared at him open-mouthed. Breathlessly, she said, "Detective Messer! Are you spouting Jane Austen?"

Danny looked at her in mock horror. "Oh no! Is that what I did? Well, don't let it get out. I've got a rep to protect."

Lindsay laughed outright at that. Danny smiled again, that smile that in recent weeks had started making her heart catch in her throat. "Come on. I'll help you finish up your report and then I insist on taking you out for a drink."

He pulled up a chair after getting a bag of chips from the vending machine and grabbed a form off of Lindsay's pile of papers. Pulling out a pen, he started to fill in the required fields. He looked at Lindsay out of the corner of his eye and his heart somersaulted in his chest. She was biting the tip of her pen as she studied the paper in front of her earnestly. How adorable she looked! He took a deep breath and pried his eyes away from her and back to the business at hand.

::~*~::

With Danny's help, ten minutes after he started assisting with the paperwork, they were finished. With the completed report on Mac's desk, Lindsay went to get her light jacket out of her locker. As she opened the door to her locker, she heaved a sigh of relief. It was done. She knew this case would always be in her mind, somewhere at the back, hovering, but for the time being, she would put it as far back as she could and proceed with her life. She closed her eyes as she rested her forehead against the cool metal of her locker and immediately pulled back and opened them again. His eyes. They appeared behind her closed lids as clearly as if they were in front of her. Those eyes pierced her and seemed to probe her deepest secrets as if they were floating just below the surface of her being. How could this man, no, this lowlife criminal, affect her in such a way.

Banging her fist against the locker door, she pulled her jacket out and after closing it again, hurried up the stairs to where Danny was waiting at the top.

"Drinks for the lady. On me. Come on. You look like you really need some cheering up."

"Thanks Danny." Lindsay hesitated for a moment. "I think it's just what I need right now."

::~*~::

The bar was dimly lit like all bars tend to be. Business was relatively slow, which was weird since it was after 10 o'clock at night. Music was coming from the speakers mounted in various corners around the room and was controlled by the under-the-counter entertainment system. Right now, some cheesy country song from the early 90s was playing.

Danny and Lindsay threaded their way through the tables to sit at two stools at the bar. The bartender, an older gentleman with brown hair streaked with some gray, came over to take their orders. Lindsay ordered a strawberry/kiwi margarita and Danny ordered a Jack Daniels beer. For a few minutes they just sat at the bar sipping their drinks, neither one eager to start a conversation, lost as they were in their own thoughts. Lindsay was thinking about that dreaded case from earlier and Danny was thinking about how lucky he was to have finally convinced Lindsay to go out with him, even though it wasn't an official date, but, baby steps, baby steps.

Lindsay was so tired of thinking about that stupid, insane criminal that, in a burst of emotion, she grabbed her drink and chugged the rest down. Danny stared at her, amazed, as she ordered another one.

"Hey, are you alright? I know this case has really gotten to you, but I don't think you're going to find solace in the bottom of the glass. You know—" his voice trailed off as she turned and glared at him. "Have another…on me."

::~*~::

Twenty minutes later, Lindsay was fairly drunk and Danny was fairly informed about her life. Turns out, Lindsay was quite the conversationalist when drunk. He had learned enough tidbits about various things in her life to be pretty educated about her. Not everything she spoke about was light and fun. She talked about her guilt over the murder of her friends ten years prior. She talked about issues she had when dealing with cases regarding young girls from small towns and how they all reminded her of herself and her deceased friends. She talked about her family and how much she missed them. Danny had a feeling that Lindsay wanted to have her own family someday. She even talked about this crazy party she went to when she was a teenager with her boyfriend and how they somehow found themselves asleep in the woods behind the party house. Danny got really uncomfortable at that admission; he didn't really care to know about her intimate history with other boys, but, as if she knew what he was thinking, she stated that nothing happened, they were both fully clothed when they woke up and it had been discovered that the punch had been spiked so much that it was almost entirely alcohol with very little actual punch in it.

Checking his watch Danny saw that it was getting close to midnight and he figured he better get Lindsay home. She had slumped over to lay her head on the bar and he could see that she was getting quite drowsy. He shook her shoulder to help wake her up and then, slinging an arm around her waist, he guided her out the door and onto the street. It was a bit chilly since the sun had set almost five hours before, leaving the heat to dissipate with the lengthening of night. He hailed a taxi and helped Lindsay into the backseat. He figured he would go with her to her apartment to make sure she got there okay.

The taxi ride was uneventful as Lindsay had her head against Danny's shoulder as she slumbered. He thought she was so cute, but he was a bit remorseful, wondering whether Lindsay would even remember these close moments in the morning when she sobered up.

::~*~::

The taxi pulled up in front of Lindsay's building and he helped her back out of the car. It seemed like the car ride had renewed her strength a bit as she was awake and didn't look as drowsy as she had been when they left the bar, though she was still a little woozy from her alcohol intake.

"Where are we?" she asked, somewhat disoriented.

"I escorted you home. I wanted to make sure you made it safe."

They approached the elevator and got on, Lindsay hitting the button for the floor where her apartment was. About halfway up, Lindsay slid her hand into her pocket and then began frantically searching the rest of her pants' pockets and her jacket pockets. Danny, noticing her frantic searches, asked what she was looking for.

"I think I left my keys in my locker," she replied, shamefaced.

Danny started rocking back and forth on his feet as he stared at the elevator doors. Finally, he said, "You know, you could, probably, you know, stay at my place." He looked sideways at her to watch her expression. She looked surprised and, after a slight pause, said that would be fine. Once the elevator stopped at her floor, Danny pushed the "Close Doors" button and they started back down to the lobby.

Upon arriving at the lobby, Danny went outside to hail another cab, while Lindsay leaned against the wall just inside of the door, putting her hands to her head. All this alcohol was catching up to her; she could feel the aftereffects starting up, beginning with a slight headache that she only knew was going to get worse. Danny motioned for her to come out to the cab that pulled up to the curb and, noticing her discomfort as she got in, he pulled out a small bottle of aspirin and handed her two capsules. She gave him a weird look as she swallowed the capsules dry and asked if he always carried aspirin in his pocket. He smiled and said that sometimes the job just became so demanding that headaches tended to visit him frequently.

::~*~::

Fifteen minutes later, the cab pulled up in front of Danny's building and they both got out. He led the way into the front entrance and up the stairs to his floor. He pulled his keys out and unlocked the door, and held it open for Lindsay to precede him. She walked into the darkened apartment in front of Danny and then waited for him to turn on the lights.

She gasped when he turned the lights on and she saw a pool table in the center of the room. She turned to him with a mischievous smile. "I've always loved playing pool, but I haven't played in so long. Can we play a game or are you ready for bed?"

He chuckled as he closed the door and tossed his keys on the counter. As he pulled off his jacket, he glanced at her and saw that she was looking at him waiting for an answer. "Sure. Why not? I'm not really ready for bed now anyways."

Lindsay pulled off her jacket and set it over the back of a chair as she moved towards the pool table. Danny pulled out two cue sticks and handed one over to Lindsay along with the cue chalk. As Lindsay applied the chalk to the tip of her cue stick, she circled the table while Danny set up the balls towards the end of the table. He then wandered into the kitchen to get drinks for the both of them. He figured alcohol probably wasn't the best choice at this point in time, so he grabbed some lemonade out of the fridge and poured it into two glasses.

Being quite the gentleman, Danny acceded the starting shot to Lindsay and, bending over the table, she took her first shot. She ended up sinking two balls (both solids) into differing pockets. The game progressed rather quickly and ended with Danny winning, but only just so. They both had played rather well considering their alcoholic consumption only a couple of hours earlier. Danny was about ready to pack up the equipment when Lindsay stepped in front of him and playfully demanded a rematch.

After he finished setting up the table, he allowed Lindsay to start the second game, as he had won the last. It got off to a slow start. Whether from the alcohol or the increasingly sleepy constitutions, this game seemed to hold a bit more interest for the two players as subtle flirtations began to run their course between the two. Towards the end of the game, when both of them were pretty well tied for the win, Lindsay began to sink balls like there was no tomorrow. Her last shot lined up on the table proved to be quite difficult to line up with the cue stick and she walked around the table a couple of times to find a good angle.

"There's no way you're gonna make this shot, too, Montana," Danny pointed out.

"A Benjamin says I do," she retorted, smiling at him.

Leaning over the table, Lindsay finally had her shot lined up. She pulled the stick back and jabbed it forward, sending the black eight-ball into the corner pocket. Turning to him triumphantly, she playfully demanded her money from him.

Trying to weasel out of it, he responded by saying, "You know what? You're gonna have to wait until pay day." Lindsay refused and, moving towards him, told him he better offer something better.

Danny almost got drunk on the scent of her as she stood in front of him, so close that her lips were inches from his. Standing on her tip-toes, she gave him a quick kiss on the mouth. Having been tempted thus far, Danny couldn't stand it anymore. He pulled her to him and bent to kiss her again, this time longer and more passionately. She ran her fingers up into his hair as she kissed him back just as passionately. Without breaking the kiss, he picked her up and set her up on the pool table. Sleep was all but forgotten as they continued their intimate embraces and sensual kisses. During the course of their rising passion, shirts were shed as they slowly started getting even more intimate. Both partners were lost in the touch of the other.

::~*~::

Outside, the city of New York continued on as it always had. Taxis shuttled their fares to all parts of the city. Subway trains moved restlessly from one end of the island to the other and back again. Small boats with late-night partiers floated in the water as their inhabitants partook of whatever youthful mischief the mind could imagine. The lights continued their faithful twinkling on every street corner from the highest skyscraper to the lowliest subway tunnel. And, in a warehouse hidden away in Manhattan, dark men with dark purposes moved about carrying out their dark deeds…