A little s4 AU with some Danny/OC and Lindsay/Adam because Rachel is really good at hyping me into an idea when we've been on the road for like six hours. So, yes, this is an AU with the characters from my other AU, Love Like Crazy, but really you don't need anything from that fic to understand this. PS not proofed because it's late and I'm lazy.
Disclaimer: I own nothing. At all.
It's too much pain to have to bear,
To love a man you have to share
-Sugarland's Stay;
Autumn was sweeping across the eastern seaboard as September slowly faded away but inside the cruiser that had been sitting at the curb for several long minutes the beating sun made the air inside nearly stifling for the detective that sat behind the wheel. She could see him just beyond the yellow tape, crouched over a dead body and a hand grazing the back of the woman next to him who kept sparing glances his way and chuckling in that way she once had. Pulling the keys from the ignition, she lowered her head to the steering wheel for a long moment to gather herself before unbuckling her belt and swiftly moving from the vehicle and making for the uniform that was standing guard at the edge of the scene. Flashing her badge at the rookie, she rattled off her name and rank before ducking under the tape and approaching the scene as she pulled her notebook and pen from her back pocket. She could do this, just remain professional. She approached the techs and let out a soft sigh before resigning herself to her fate. "So what we got?"
"Looks like-" He started but trailed off slowly as the voice he hadn't heard in two years registered in his brain. His gaze narrowed to a glare but she refused to shirk away. "What in the hell are you doing here?"
"Hi honey," she greeted him sarcastically. "Nice to see you too. The family? Oh they're fine. They send their best."
"Cut the bullshit," he ordered her.
The woman to his right turned around at the commotion and quirked an eyebrow. "Anyone care to fill me in?"
"Lindsay Monroe," Danny introduced the woman. "This is Detective Hawthorne."
"Messer," she corrected him. "Detective Austin Messer. I never changed my name back."
"Holes, Danny," Lindsay told the man. "Big holes. Gaping holes. Start filling them. Now."
"We were, uh..."
Austin sighed and kicked at the ground. "We were married."
"For a year," Danny added.
"And we were together for like a decade before that and we've been joined at the hip since we were five," she added.
"And then you left," Danny countered.
"Wait," Lindsay interjected. "You were married? Didn't think that was a thing to bring up before you proposed?"
"You're engaged?" Her breath hitched in her throat. It had been eighteen months since she had walked out on their life together – it wasn't like she could pretend a guy like him would just be a monk for that time period but she couldn't imagine him marrying someone else. As foolish as it was, she couldn't believe that he wouldn't wait for her.
"Please tell me at least the divorce papers are finalized," Lindsay told her fiancee with a glare.
"They are," Austin supplied for him.
"I'm just... I'm gonna..." Lindsay sighed and pointed toward the vehicle that belonged to CSI and grabbed her kit before making for it.
"Babe," Danny grabbed at her but she twisted away from him and stormed off. He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose before turning to glare at his ex-wife. "Classy entrance as always, Graceless."
"I didn't know you were engaged," she countered. "Plus, you're the asshole who didn't tell her you were married before."
"You moved to fucking California," he growled. "I didn't expect to run into you in the bodega let alone a crime scene."
"Well sorry for not clearing my life plans with my ex-husband," she growled back and crossed her arms over her chest. "Look... I didn't do this to piss you off, okay? My dad died. I moved back home because ma needs help – she ain't getting any younger and she refuses to leave the old place. Not like Andy could uproot his whole family, ya know?"
"Jack's dead?"
She nodded. "Been worm food for three months now."
"Lovely." He sighed. "Look... I know you guys never had the easiest of relationships but-"
"I don't need your sympathy," she told him. "Just give me the rundown on the body so I can do my job and I'll file the change of name papers by the end of the week so your fiancee don't got to worry about two Mrs. Messers running around New York City. Other than your ma, that is."
"Graceless," he sighed.
"Don't," she told him. "Don't call me that, Danny." The nickname, a play on her middle name and penchant for clumsiness, had once been endearing but now sounded like venom on the tip of his tongue – what had once been full of love was now filled with tolerance and only just. "Just run the scene for me. Please."
"So the world didn't implode," a familiar voice came from behind them. Don Flack ducked under the crime scene tape and approached the duo with such a casual calm that it threw Austin back to the days where her boys would find her between Home Ec and Algebra. "Hey Grace. Cap talked to Mac and found out that he'd assigned his favorite anger management case to the same scene as her ex-husband and sent me out to play kindergarten cop. So... I'm taking point and you'll be my back up. Danny, you'll run stuff through me from here on out. We clear?"
"Crystal," they mumbled in unison.
"Good," Flack grinned. "Ah. The team back together. Good times."
"Shut up, Flack," they both growled.
"Where's Monroe?"
"The SUV," Danny said. "Austin's entrance stirred some things up."
"Well if you had told your fiancee that you had married before..."
He rolled his eyes. "I'm gonna go make nice with my fiancee and then I'll be back to run the scene."
"Be fast, huh, Danno? This body ain't getting any fresher."
Austin watched him leave and sighed heavily before turning to her other best friend. "He hates me."
"He doesn't hate you," Flack countered. "He's probably pictured this moment a thousand different ways and I doubt it was with his clueless fiancee beside him and a dead body as a witness. Give him some credit, Grace. He didn't turn tail and run."
"He hates me," Austin repeated herself. "I never thought I would see the day when Danny Messer would hate me. I mean... We've fought before. We've broken up before even. But he's never hated me before. He never looked at me like that before – like I was the last face on earth that he wanted to see."
"You divorced him," Flack reminded her gently. "Austin... You didn't see him after that. It was bad enough with the baby but losing you too... I know, you had to go. I know you did. But as much as you needed to leave, he needed you to stay. And it might take him a little while to get over that."
"I..." She groaned and wiped a hand over her face. "I don't know what I was thinking coming back to the department. I should have went into private security or something."
"You would have gone stir crazy," Flack told her. "This is where you belong."
"Don't judge me for this," Austin pleaded as she watched the man her heart had long belonged to kiss another woman. "I thought he would wait for me. Which is stupid because I divorced him and that's not like our usual breakups. That's not something you just get over and move on from. But I thought... I thought I would come back and he would be here. For me."
"He still loves you," Flack promised. "You can't hate someone that way unless you've also loved them deeply."
"He hates me," Austin countered. "Which is what I deserve really... All I ever gave Danny Messer was a hard time."
"Okay, you need to stop," Flack ordered as Danny coaxed Lindsay from the car and they hugged for a moment. "He's gonna come back over here with Monroe and you're gonna have to be professional so now you've got to pull it together, Austin. We'll go get trashed later and you can lose it as much as you want but right now... You've got to be Detective Messer."
"Hawthorne," Austin told him with a pull deep in her gut. "Detective Hawthorne."
"Detective Hawthorne," he agreed and crooked a finger under her chin. "Just keep breathing, kid."
She cast a glance toward the approaching pair and gave him a crooked smile. "I'm gonna go start the canvas... You can run things here, right?"
"You're volunteering to do the uniform's job?"
She nodded.
"You really do need a drink."
"So badly," she concurred. With a spine straightening breath, she steadied herself and extended her hand to Lindsay Monroe as she made her way back to the scene. "I'm Austin Hawthorne and it's nice to meet you."
"Lindsay Monroe," the crime tech told her. "It's nice to meet you too."
Austin shook her hand and then stepped away. "Danny... I'm sorry."
With that, she ducked under the tape and was halfway down the block when she heard him call her name. "Graceless." She paused mid step and turned to look at him. He closed the distance between the two of them and glanced over his shoulder before turning his gaze back to her. "Me too. Austin... I'm sorry too."
Her lungs seized up for a second and she had to hide a cough in the crook of her elbow. "Yeah... Okay..." She exhaled slowly. "Look... Flack's taking me out to get trashed later. Why don't you and Lindsay join us?"
"Is that a good idea," he countered.
"Invite Stella and Mac too," she suggested. "Hell, invite the whole shift for all I care. Danny, you were my best friend for more than twenty years and just because our marriage ended doesn't mean I hate you. I mean, we're going to have to work more scenes together and I don't want them all to be like that one."
"Fair enough," he told her. "I'll ask Lindsay and if she's okay with it then we'll join you."
"Okay." There was something in his voice, something that had shifted and it felt familiar – like home. "I've got to go canvas and you need to go run that scene."
"Alright," he relented. "Hey Aust?"
"Yeah?"
"Part of me... Part of me wishes like hell you were elsewhere," he told her honestly. "But another part of me is glad you're back. Welcome home."