Reruns

A/N: I am personally going to appologize in advance for the cheesiness of the plot or the idea for the plot ... lol. As angsty as it is ... Just a simple moment of friendship ... :p ... oh, just in case you missed it, this takes place during Sweet Sixteen.

Her mind was moving in a thousand different directions at once, so she wasn't really paying attention to what was on television. The case itself had just been another reminder of home, though for once it was of her mom and dad and not of the diner downtown or the halls of the high school.

It wasn't hard to bring it all back, to see her mom's old pinto on the dusty, dirt drive like it was only yesterday that her parents had smiled as they handed her the keys. Her brothers drove the pickup trucks, she had access to the car. Her dad had fine turned it, so when she got out on the open, Montana highway, the engine simply purred–even as she edged toward 100 mph.

She could still feel the accelerator beneath her foot and hear that just off purr of the engine as it adjusted to a new speed.

She'd driven it to town that night, to meet her friends at the diner. They'd been sitting around, like the always did. So alive ... then he'd come in. She could still remember his face. She could see him, through the crack as she's opened the bathroom door. There had been a wildness to his eyes.

It contracted against the emptiness she saw when she'd stepped out of the bathroom on trembling legs. Eyes stared up at her. Blank. Empty.

But with a message. Searching. Deep.

Help me.

She'd called 911, but it was already too late. She couldn't stop looking them in the eye—even as the laughter they'd shared moments before still rang in her ears, she just looked.

Until someone came and pulled her out.

Ten years later, alone in her New York apartment, Lindsay leaned forward and put her head between her legs. She was going to hyperventilate. She didn't need to be here, at home alone. She didn't need all this time to think.

Time and space seemed to meld together. She was back, and in her childhood room. Hiding in the science lab on the back hall of the high school. Beneath the sink, in the bathroom at the diner.

The buzz surprised her. She sat up, looked at the intercom beside the door.

She was in New York, she remembered. She was grown up now, a detective.

Home. She was home.

Pushing off the sofa, she walked over and pushed the button.

"Yes?"

"Montana–"

"Danny?"

"You want some company?"

She didn't have to see him in front of her to visualise those eyes of his. That smile. The boyish personality. The way he could turn serious, or slide into humor. She needed a distraction. It just wasn't that easy—

"Lindsay?"

"Sorry—" she'd drifted off in her thoughts. She pressed the button. "Come on up."

She glanced down at herself. She'd put on some yoga pants and a jersey t-shirt when Hawkes had dropped her off earlier. She was decent. She turned, took in her apartment and moved quickly. It wasn't that it was a mess, but things were out of place. She had a half dozen sweaters around the room, a few books, papers, bills. Dishes still sitting on the coffee table where she'd left them when she'd been called in ...

When Danny knocked on the door, she carried the armload into her bedroom and left everything—dishes and all—on her bed before closing the door.

Then she stopped, took a moment to stabilize her breathing before she moved to open the door.

He'd brought daisies. She looked first at them, then up at him.

"Friendship—" he said and held them out awkwardly. "Didn't seem right to come empty handed when you've just been released from the hospital."

He was right. They had this "thing" between them, she thought. It wasn't something she could deny. But it wasn't something she could take on right now. The trauma of the trial coming up and the balance they would have to maintain at work. It was too easy and too hard. Too ... emotional.

But she didn't have it in her to send him away. Today, she needed a few laughs.

"Thanks," she took the daisies, smiled as she ran the edge of one against her cheek. "You want to come in? I was going to order some Chinese. Sit back, relax."

"I should have stopped and picked something up, but I didn't know if you'd feel like Chinese," he said as she shut the door behind him.

"Me, I'm starving. And fine," she held out her arm, pulled back the sleeve, and showed off the relatively small bandage. "Nothing a little worry won't fix."

"Don't tell me. They have bigger, bader snakes in Montana."

"Depends on where you run into them," She grinned at him as she picked up the phone. "Besides. The owner imported this one. So I'm not sure it counts. You know what you want—"

"Yeah—ah, Montana? What are you watching?"

She glanced at the television, a second hand find and laughed. She'd forgotten all about the fact that there was an episode of the old cartoon version of GI Joe playing.

"Oh–that's just ... Sam. He was coming home from school when Hawkes brought me. He thought the snakebite was cool—and wanted to know all about it. He knocked on my door a little while ago and brought me the complete series—he said it was perfect. You know, Cobra. He didn't win. That kind of thing."

He finally let out the laugh that was clearly in his eyes. "And you didn't just take them, set them aside. Pull out something more ... adult?"

She shrugged. "It seemed apt. Cobra. Besides. Whole series."

"Let me guess. You watched GI Joe growing up."

"Watched, reenacted. Imagined. I have three brothers. Someone had to play the bad guy."

"The Baroness."

"Are you kidding me? I played Cobra himself."

It felt good to laugh, to share the laugh with him. If only ... the thought broke in, came so quickly it took her off guard. There was just something in his eyes. Not just interest, not just laughter. She could tell he was working it out in his mind, picturing her as a young girl. It was almost like he could see, right into her heart, into her memories.

And that's what scared her the most.

Danny.

The tension was back. She swallowed against the lump in her throat. She had to tell him to leave, had to find a way ... even though she didn't want to be alone.

"Chinese and GI Joe," he considered. "If you want some company..."

She smiled, and took the olive branch he offered her. It might be harder to guard her heart tomorrow, but she couldn't turn him away, not tonight. "I could use some company."

Later, they sat side by side on her sofa, sharing a various cartons from of Chinese they'd had delivered. Danny's arm was relaxed behind her on the sofa. It felt ... just right. If only, she thought, she could just relax and let them be ... they way that they were. No fighting it, no boundaries. Friends. And more.

But she couldn't.

As Cobra fled again, vowing to return, Danny looked over at her.

"So, you played the bad guy."

"Only because they said I was Cobra. But, when I played, I was Scarlett the last one left to save the day against the soldiers who'd gone rogue, swallowed an evil potion or put into a deep trance ... " as he stared at her, she shrugged. "It was my mom's idea. She knew what was going on. I always get to be the hero. On my own terms."

Danny laughed and for a moment his arm slid around her, tightened. She jostled against his side, felt the warmth, then inwardly sighed as he released her.

Things were just ... paused for now.

So ... the inspiration was the cartoon, and yes I had a brother and grew up watching it and pretended to be Scarlett. Its sad that all the good hero/heroine shows are ... well maybe I just don't watch them :) ... and the title comes from the reruns in Lindsay's head ...