Details

…

Happiness, they say, is in the details.

…

Lindsay Monroe rolled over amidst her pile of bedding, searching with a wandering hand for the other occupant of the bed. Her fingers found empty sheets, the cool of the cotton causing her to shiver. Agitated, she untangled herself from the layers of fluffy comforter, squinting around the room.

"Danny?" He must have heard the confusion in her voice; she listened as he grunted a response through his toothbrush, coming to lean haphazardly against the doorjamb of the bathroom across the worn hardwood floor.

"Hey, I didn't want to wake you." The toothbrush that he balanced precariously on the corner of his mouth swayed casually with his words, making Lindsay smile. The ease at which they translated their relationship from scientific jargon into domesticity would never stop amusing her. "I've got to head in, Mac called, with a lead on the Giovanni case."

She nodded, yawning and glancing at the bleary red numbers on the alarm clock on top of the dresser. 3:26 AM. He turned back into the bathroom, rinsing his toothbrush and spitting once into the sink before returning to her line of sight. She ran a hand through her disheveled hair; watching him slip his pants onto his hips, pull a clean polo shirt out of a drawer, and over his head.

"You seen my badge?" He rubbed a hand over his eyes before pushing his glasses back over his nose. She smiled softly as the glint of his frames caught the dull glow of the streetlamps through the window. She sat up completely now, wrapping the sheet loosely around her chest, watching him move around the bedroom. Her badge was in the locked drawer, beside her gun. Where it always was. Where his things ended up, she could never predict.

"Not since after shift."

It was the badge that had caught her eye at first. Not completely centered on the black leather backing, not entirely shiny, but because of years of careful wear, rather than neglect. It was identical to hers… they held the same class standing in the department. Same class, same badge. Maybe it wasn't the badge, though. It was more of the way it hung off his hip, like an after thought. Like; 'I'm a scientist. Oh yeah. And a cop.'

And he definitely made it all look good.

She grinned sleepily, her gaze following him as he rummaged through a pile of laundry. He was definitely a science geek. Lord knows how much she loved science geeks. He glanced at her, breaking into a smile when he caught her eye.

"Whaddaya smilin' at?"

"Nothing spectacular." Her voice held a teasing quality to it, and he chuckled, tossing the laundry back into the basket. "Still no badge?"

"Where could it have gone?" He stood squarely, shifting his weight to one foot, causing his hips to slant, his belt to tilt at a gentle angle. "What did we do yesterday?"

"Uh, work, dinner, ballgame, sex, sleep." She rattled off in a lazy list, cocking an eyebrow at him as his face lit up.

"Dinner." He turned on his heel, slipping out of the bedroom quickly. She stifled a laugh, listening to him fumble through the cabinets. "There you are!"

"Any luck?" She called down the hall, not bothering to leave the nest of sheets and blankets.

"Yeah. Got it." She laid back down, and listened to his accent thicken due to the exhaustion of a week of double shifts. She groaned as she felt the bed dip slightly under his weight; giving only a halfhearted attempt at pushing him off of her as he climbed under the covers, laying against her body.

"Jesus, Danny." She squirmed, laughing, shooting her hand down to push his newly affixed badge away from the skin on her hip. "Why was your badge in the freezer?" His chuckle rumbled through her, and she arched into him when he dropped a series of kisses along the underside of her jaw. "Don't start something you don't have time to finish, Detective."

"I'm not. Much." He found her lips, catching them in a slow, deliberate kiss that made her wind a naked leg around his hip, disregarding the icy cool of his badge against her skin.

"So I'll see you at the lab, then." She mumbled into his kiss, gasping at the pressure of his hip into her thigh.

"Sounds like a plan." His kisses turned choppy, sweet, quick.

"I'll bring you coffee."

"I love you." His lips lingered against hers for a few moments, before he broke away from her, and climbed off her and out of the bedding, as if he hadn't even spoken those words. Those words. They had agreed not to use those words.

Whoa.

They had just taken the next step, at three something in the morning. He stood, and turned, making his way to the door. And he was leaving.

"What?" Maybe she hadn't heard him correctly. Danny turned back around, pausing for just a moment to flash her a softened smile.

"I mean it, too." He ran a hand though his hair, making it stand up in short, scruffy spikes as he disappeared down the hall. "I'll see you in a few hours." She heard him open the front door of her apartment, and close it a few seconds later, securely, behind him.

He loved her.

He said it himself.

And men from Staten Island, they're men of their word.

She scrambled out of the blankets, kicking the bedding away and throwing open the window that had emitted the yellowing light of the streetlamps. Two floors below her, Danny was jogging down the front steps of her building, letting out a puff of a sigh in the crisp autumn air as he turned onto the sidewalk, headed toward the subway station a few blocks away.

"Hey, Messer!" He stopped dead at her voice, turning to find her leaning on her elbows against the sill of the window, a crooked smile creeping onto his features.

"You ever gonna let me get to the lab, Montana?" He shoved his hands in the pockets of his jacket, squinting up at her in the dim light of the street. The timbre of his voice was teasing, and she smiled.

"I just. I wanted." She paused, trying to muster the courage. Below, Danny shifted his weight, waiting patiently for her to finish her thought. "I love you, too."

On the deserted street, he smiled, genuinely and broadly, and Lindsay wondered if that was what he looked like on Christmas mornings.

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"'Magine that."

"I know."

"This is kind of a big deal, Linds."

"You started it."

"Remember that, when you're hacked off at me for one thing or another." He laughed as she rolled her eyes, effectively ruining their moment. "I'll see you at the lab." She nodded, moving to close the window, pausing to watch him disappear around the corner, grinning at the trace of a bounce in his step.

………

A/N: just a little something in celebration of the series premiere. Yay. Tell me what you think… I'm a bit rusty with Danny and Lindsay… my apologies.