So ... here I am supposed to be cleaning my house and this is what happened instead. Just a little idea that's been done before in a dozen different ways ... and maybe even a CSI:NY way, I don't know. Takes place in season 4 mid way-in that place few want to go again. But don't worry. It just might come out a little differently. (Some of the future timeline is a little messed with-but you'll see eventually :p )

They'd been assigned a murder on the West Side. From the time they arrived, the tension between them was cold. Even Flack, normally one to crack wise cracks and jokes, simply walked away. His last words to Lindsay, whatever they were—were quiet.

When he took her hand, and she smiled gently up at him in understanding, Danny nearly snapped.

He stopped himself, as he thought all over again of Reuban and of his mother, and he held the retort in so that it burned in his chest. If Lindsay saw something in Flack she couldn't see in him—that was her business. They were only dangling on the edges of relationship anyway. She deserved better.

Still he couldn't keep the bitterness from crawling out of him. At the world, at himself. It spilled over toward her. For the most part, she placated him. It drove him nuts.

Just end it, he wanted to say.

Finally, as they packed up to head home, she seemed to get the message.

"Are you sure you want to do this now?" she snapped. He looked across at her, expecting to see ice cycles, like picks, pointed at him. Instead he saw sadness.

He swallowed against the guilt. "No," he snapped back. He didn't have it in him, not to fight with her, not to talk to her. Not to end it, as he should.

He climbed in the avalanche as she did—silent. He stared ahead, his jawline tense. Around him snow fell, in small flakes. A memory flashed of last year. She'd been the one who was sad at Christmas. He'd heard some rumors around the lab, about how she'd broken down. He'd seen her crack, just a little.

So, he took her to central park, as the snow fell.

He told her to look up, thinking she was homesick. "See—its just like Montana."

But when he looked back down, he saw her looking at him. "No," she murmured, and for the first time in months reached out her hand to him. "No it's not."

He'd taken her hand, and they'd walked through the park as it snowed. Her hand was gloved, and so was his, but it didn't matter. They'd wondered over to the statue where Hans Christian Anderson looked on a duck. A for a moment—just a moment—he head had rested on her arm.

And he'd pretended, just for a moment, that it was all okay.

Now, he just felt cold. He should have stopped himself. He didn't have it in him to do that, to be that—whatever it was—for her. Or anyone.

"Danny?"

She'd put her hand on his arm, this time ungloved, her skin seeming so warm to him—even through his coat. He looked down at her hand, then up through the windshield as he started the truck and he ignored her.

She would be better off without him, he told himself.

And the grief blinded him, so that the squeek of tires and her scream seemed so distant. A flash of light and he thought—

It's over. He was glad it was over...

I know I don't always put the best effort into editing, but as this is a Christmas story and Christmas is three or four days away, I'm going to push this out ASAP. It's mostly written, just pulling out or putting in a few details as I post.