A/N: I know someone else has now already done a groundhog day fic, and I only have less than 1.5k words & 1 1/2 chapters right now, so I'm just putting this up to see if people would still want to read it/if I should continue it. Tell me!
Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Be-
Danny's hand slams on the snooze button.
"Okay, I know..." he grumbles, still mostly asleep. He runs his hand down his face as he lays flat on the bed. The clock reads 7:30. About an hour until work. It's a Thursday, and there's only one appointment that he knows of today; it's a pretty simple one, so it'll be an easy day. He sighs before slowly sitting up.
After sitting there for a few minutes, he stumbles up to find clothes and trips over the wire connecting his alarm clock to an outlet, causing it to fall with a crash and nearly take him with it.
"Ah, great," he mumbles. He sets the alarm clock back.
As he walks to the closet and sifts through the clothing, he thinks about Mindy. He knows he's been getting closer to her than before, and that's saying something. Denying it isn't really an option anymore.
He finds a suitable shirt and pants, then puts them on. After going through the usual morning routine, he gets in the car to drive to work. It's raining today. Something about this day seems off, despite what a simple one it'll be. His car passes a couple of hitchhikers, and he diverts his eyes away from them. You can't give strangers rides in this city. You'll get murdered or, worse, get stuck driving people who will tell you all about their situation without you asking for it.
Parking his car into the normal space doesn't appear to be possible. Someone else's car has taken it. Fine. He goes a little farther to find an available one, stops the car, and gets out.
He's right on time, as always. Mindy is probably either going to be slightly late or getting ready in the employee's bathroom. She never seems to have enough time to be completely ready before work. Danny lips turn up at the corner.
Just as he's thinking it, he bumps into exactly the subject of his thoughts.
"Hey!" Mindy smiles at him. She's already wearing her work clothes: scrubs, glasses and all. Apparently she's proven him wrong.
"You look nice," he's never stopped liking that outfit. She usually dresses so fancy, it's nice to see her look natural. Well, maybe not natural in general, but natural to him.
"Stop lying, Danny."
"I'm not lying," he grins at her.
She smiles back, then points to a room to her right. "I have to go. You know, all that annoying 'work' stuff."
Danny nods. "I'll see you later."
"Bye." She opens the door and disappears behind it.
"Everything looks great," Danny reassures the woman.
"Really?" she asks.
"Yeah," he smiles kindly.
Jeremy replies charmingly, "I'd say better than great." Ever since he lost that weight, he's been his old self. Not exactly a good thing.
"Okay-alright," Danny says, now looking at him. "Cut it out."
"No...it's fine," the woman answers. Did she just wink at him? Danny politely says goodbye to the patient. He goes to the door, but stops at the it briefly to assess Jeremy. He can tell Betsy likes the British man-whore. Why can't Jeremy see it? Maybe there's something in the water here that makes everyone oblivious to others' feelings.
Danny leaves and passes Betsy in the hallway. She goes into the room and says something he can't make out from the distance he's now at, but she rushes away afterwards.
He hasn't done much today; he was right, there was only that one appointment, and there isn't really anything else to do. He's only seen Mindy once, which is the one unfortunate thing, but he has plenty of other days for that.
It's already about four in the afternoon. He spent most of the day getting ready for future appointments and checking his schedule. Basically, he spent most of the day doing nothing. He has to stay here for a couple more hours...but what's he going to do during all that time? Still nothing?
Nothing is exactly what Danny does. He sits in the lounge absently watching some show about animals on the Nature Channel, as he's been doing for almost an hour and a half. Mindy quietly steps in. He does a double take when he sees her. She's wearing a tight blue dress and she's done something with her hair to make it shinier and wavy.
"Got a hot date?" he give his best fake smile, but it just comes off as sad.
She doesn't seem to notice. "Yes, actually." She sits next to him.
"Shouldn't you...get going or whatever?"
"I'm just waiting for him. Why, you just can't wait to get rid of me?"
"Obviously." He pauses. "I gotta go anyway."
Danny drives home, having nothing else to do. It's just one of those days where everything is mundane. Maybe not for Mindy, though. He sighs.
He has a frozen TV dinner and again watches shows absently. Either this day is depressing, or his life is.
But he doesn't really want to think about it.
He steps outside to smoke a cigarette; although he doesn't listen to Mindy when she tells him to stop the habit, he wouldn't smoke inside. She doesn't understand why he does it. He can keep up the easy, relatively happy exterior most of the time, but every once in a while that feeling comes back. The one where he isn't sure he's doing the right thing, or that he's missed a lot of opportunities.
He's probably missing an opportunity with Mindy right now. Her date showed up soon after Danny said he had to go, and he could tell already that the guy's just like the ones she usually dates.
Why can't he just tell her? It was never a problem with anyone else, but it's different with her. There's the potential to ruin things and lose her if she doesn't feel the same way. He doesn't want to risk it, so he'll put it off indefinitely.
After watching the white smoke trail off into the dark for a while, feeling uncharacteristically sorry for himself, he goes back inside.
He's asleep by nine.