A/N: Hi guys, a bit late with this one, but I had a day out planned with my girls, and I didn't have time to write and watch the episode this morning, so we just watched. I loved the episode - a sneak attack DL bantering scene - who would have thought? I approve writers, good job on that one!... it's about time we got a acknowledgement that our favourite couple are married!
As a side note, I know I messed up the last post-ep I attempted, and I really hope that this lighter one will make up for that mistake in my judgement. For the time being I have turned off anon reviews - I hate to do it, but when reviewers are getting attacked for sticking up for a differing opinion, it is not something I wish to happen. DL are a happy ship and there's enough negativity going around - so let's keep it nice? Please? Life is too short for negativity in my eyes, and differing opinions are just that - opinions. Everyone is entitled to them... I think we should all bake a cake filled with rainbows and smiles so that everyone can happy... sorry Mean Girls quote. Basically, let's just cast the negativity to the side, if you don't like a story posted, there's probably another one you can read that is more to your liking.
Alright, I'm off my soapbox now. I hope I haven't offended anyone; I just wanted to say that and be on with it.
So, here we go. Post ep, I hope you like it.
Post ep- season 7, episode 18; Identity Crisis
"I know, and he was just so unimpressed with all of us. I couldn't help but laugh."
Danny Messer craned his neck towards the living room where his wife was curled up on the couch, engaged it what clearly was a very important conversation.
"Well, I think it was borderline 'get your asses back to work' more than anything; you know how he is... more so than I apparently. What do you mean what do I mean? You know fine well; I can't say I've ever been offered a burger and a beer."
Danny's interest peaked at that. Burger. Beer? He liked burgers and beers... Why wasn't he in on this? Padding barefoot from the kitchen to the living room, he leaned against the doorframe and smiled as he watched his wife mindlessly gossip on the phone, with her laptop balanced on her lap.
Jo had been a welcomed co-worker in the lab, but even more so, she and Lindsay had really hit it off, which honestly was something that warmed Danny's heart. In a career and a workplace that was hugely male orientated and male ran, when Stella left, Lindsay had very much felt like she was left spinning as such. The move had been so quick, Lindsay hadn't realised her friend had gone until she was well and truly gone. When Jo arrived, Lindsay had been going through some heavy stuff and Danny had hoped and prayed that Jo understood that it wasn't a personal thing; it was simply the wrong time for Lindsay to be making introductory small talk. And thankfully, Jo had been more than understanding. She'd actually been helpful and supportive; knowing exactly what had happened and taking a step back while the Messer's dealt with the traumatic events that had rocked their very core. After the bump in the road, Jo had slowly infiltrated her way into Lindsay's life, and vice versa. Finding common interests, ranging from motherhood to the same sense of humour, they'd quickly hit it off as friends both inside and outside of the lab.
"... and yeah, I looked ridiculous. He was just stood there laughing his ass off."
"Don't throw dirt at my name Montana, you know as well as I do had it been the other way round, I'd have been scraping your ass off of the floor from laughing."
"Jo's telling me to tell you to pipe your ass down," Lindsay smirked at her husband.
"I'm not even playin' that game." Danny shook his head, a teasing glint in his eyes as he took a seat on the couch and stretched his legs onto the coffee table. "Ask her how Ellie's doin'?"
"How's Ellie?" Lindsay repeated down the line and waited eagerly for the response. "I bet, but I'm sure she's- she what?"
"How is she?" Danny asked, trying to direct Lindsay's attention back to the question he'd asked her.
Lindsay waved her hand as a way of telling Danny to be quiet as she listened to Jo on the other end of the line.
"Oh, good." Danny muttered to himself. "Really glad she's okay."
"Oh Jo, why didn't you say," Lindsay scowled at her husband as she threw a cushion across the room, missing him by a mile. "What did you say to her?"
Bending down onto the floor, Danny swiped up the cushion his wife had chucked at him and placed it nicely on the couch with the other matching cushions he'd been coerced into buying when they'd moved.
"Well, what did she say?" Lindsay inquired, her tone indicating her concern. "How are you feeling about it?"
Rolling his eyes, Danny stood and busied himself tidying away Lucy's discarded toys into their rightful places around their living room.
"Alright, yeah... well you make sure you take it easy, okay? And if you want to talk about it, I can have the coffee machine on in five minutes alright; we have decaff... Make sure you do, you too, bye."
"What's up with Ellie?" Danny asked as soon as Lindsay had ended her call.
"She was on the way to see her Mom."
"At work? She was on the wrong train."
"No, not Jo honey; her real Mom."
"Oh shit," Danny cringed. "That's a little awkward."
Lindsay nodded. "I mean it's understandable though. She is twelve."
"What's being twelve got anything to do with that?"
"Well from what Jo told me, at her school some girl looks exactly like her mom and Ellie just wanted to see what she would look like when she was older, and obviously she's not gonna look like Jo... so she wanted to go find her real Mom."
"Damn, I bet that was a blow to Jo. How is she?"
"Fine, now at least. I think she was pretty upset earlier though to be honest."
"I saw her ex-husband in the break room earlier with some kid. Think that had something to do with it?"
"Probably," Lindsay nodded. "That's Tyler, I think."
Danny nodded. "Seemed like a pretty good kid from what I saw of him. Gave her a kiss and everythin', I couldn't imagine kissing my ma at that age."
"Well, our son is going to kiss me," Lindsay said with determination. "So's Lucy."
"Oh please, Lu thinks the sun shines outta your ass babe, she worships you; you ain't got a problem there."
"Says you, she's a daddy's girl through and through."
"Nah, Mama's girl." Danny insisted. "she always wants you."
Shrugging, Lindsay turned her attention back to her laptop. Danny took a few minutes as he watched her before clearing his throat to get her attention, "Listen babe, speaking of seeing what you look like when you're older... I hope I didn't upset you earlier when I laughed."
Shrugging, Lindsay cast her eyes down to her laptop, trying to avoid eye contact with him. "It's alright."
"Is it?"
"Yeah," Lindsay nodded. "it was just banter, right?"
"Well yeah, and you were a good sport but... it was kind of mean, you know?"
She shrugged.
"Babe?"
"What?"
"I upset you, didn't I?"
"No," she shook her head. "You stuck up for me, that's all I could ask for, I know we were just goofing off. It's fine baby."
"Sure?"
"Danny," she paused, getting his attention and catching his gaze. "I promise it didn't upset me."
"You'd tell me if it did, right?"
"I would," she nodded. "To be honest, I think if it upset me, you'd have known about it by now."
"You were ranting about it on the phone to Jo." He pointed out to her.
"Only because Mac had mentioned it to her; he'd asked her if she'd ever messed around with it, and she said yeah. He got all pissy with her because he couldn't finish his rant apparently."
"Oh, like hell Mac's never messed around with it."
"Have you ever aged yourself?" Lindsay inquired.
"Me? No." Danny shook his head. "Why?"
Biting her lip, Lindsay nodded in acknowledgement but her attention was being drawn to her laptop screen.
"Babe, what you lookin' at?"
"Nothing," she shook her head, desperately fighting the giggle that was bursting out of her. "Nothing worth sharing anyway!"
"Oh yeah?" He inquired, standing up gingerly and padding over to her. "You sure?"
"Positive!" She cried, snapping her laptop shut. "It's nothing."
"Looks like something."
"It isn't, trust me."
"Thing is, you're actin' real suspicious Montana, you wanna share with the class?"
"No." She said folding her arms around her laptop and holding it to her chest. "Danny... no."
"Babe, what you doin'?"
"Nothing," she insisted.
"It looks like something; let me see."
"Babe, no."
"Linds!" he cried, finally pulling the laptop free. He opened it, and tapped a few of the keys randomly to get it off standby. The screen loaded and the image that stared back was one that burned his retinas. "Holy crap! Lindsay!"
Bursting into laughter, Lindsay buried her head against her knees as she ignored the embarrassed wails of her husband.
"Linds! This isn't funny!"
"It is if you ask me!"
"Linds, look at the state of me!"
"Exactly! You thought I was bad; look at you!"
"See, look at that; my little Montana, looking all sweet and me thinking she's too innocent to do anythin' like that. Little did I know she was sat here making me bald."
"You asked for it," she smirked, biting her lip. "Come on though Danny, it's funny."
"For you!" he cried, "Look at that," he spat at the screen, pointing. "Just look, I'm bald."
"Well, you do have that cute little patch at the back of your-"
"Get outta there," he cried smacking her hand away from the patch at the back of his head that was slowly becoming bald. "Be nice, Montana."
"Oh, come on, coming from you – that's rich."
"I didn't do it though! Adam did!"
"Oh I know," she smirked as she took the laptop from him and pulled up another window. "I already did him. I'm printing one or two off and sticking them around the break room and lab. He's not going to get away with that stunt he pulled earlier."
"What was I thinkin'; marryin' a practical joker? Flack still curses the day you got him with that doll."
Smirking and basking in the memory, Lindsay giggled. "That was the best one, ever."
"It must have been good, he was mortified."
"It was just – ugh, perfection." Lindsay mused, still clearly proud of herself. "Honestly though Dan, look at us; we're going to look cute. You bald, me gray. Lucy's going to have some beautiful parents."
"How much have you aged us?"
"A few years," she shrugged.
"A FEW?" Danny cried, "I'm going to be bald in a few years?"
"Not so funny when you're on the receiving end of it, is it?" she bit her lip.
"I thought you said you didn't care," he muttered, running his fingers through his hair, protectively. "Ugh, I can't lose my hair babe."
"Oh calm down." She smirked.
"Calm down? I'm gonna be bald in like ten minutes accordin' to this piece of crap."
"Ten minutes," Lindsay smirked. "Really?"
"I don't know; Linds, close it. C'mon, I don't wanna see it."
Shutting it down, Lindsay couldn't help but giggle. "There, happy?"
"No," he huffed, still running his fingers through his hair. "I don't wanna lose my hair."
"Oh you big baby."
"Well I will look like a baby with no freaking hair."
"Will you calm down? It's no big deal, babe."
"Big deal? Linds..." he whined. "I don't wanna be bald."
"You'd pull it off," she assured him. "Don't worry. You're stuck with me anyway, so you don't have that extra stress of trying to find yourself someone."
"Not. Funny." He said, emphasising each word.
"It's a little funny," she giggled. "I can you just see you now; us on vacation with Lucy's kids, you're bald and screaming 'c'mon, we're a hundred yards from the ocean."
"You just won't let that go, will ya?" he smirked.
She shook her head proudly. "Nope."
"Why?" He asked; interested on why she was so fixated on that little exchange they'd shared almost a year ago.
"Because," she shrugged. "I'm not telling you; you'll think it's silly."
"I won't."
"Trust me, you will."
"Babe, come on... I won't. What's got you so much over that?"
The pink of her cheeks blushed slightly and she sunk into the chair a little more as he took a seat on the arm. "It just hit me that you and I were in it for the long haul; that I'd be the one that'd get to see you being all grumpy in your sixties. "
"Grumpy?" Danny asked with an arched brow.
"A grumpy grampa," she giggled.
"And you hadn't felt that before then?"
"Well, we'd never really done anything like that before, had we? We'd not really been anywhere together as a couple, or a family should I say. It was nice to see you... I don't know, in a different light. It opened my eyes that we do work outside of the hustle and bustle of Manhattan and it was just a nice eye-opener for me... until about five thirty at least."
"The ocean air really messed with you, didn't it?" he smirked, attempting to gloss over the fact that their trip had gone downhill not long after sunset. "Like big time."
"See, I knew you'd think it was stupid."
"I don't think it's stupid babe." He smiled, pressing a kiss to her temple.
"Not even a little stupid?"
"Maybe a little bit stupid," he nudged her with a wink.
"Jerk," she growled at him.
"If I'm honest babe, that vacation made me realise how much I needed you; how much I love you."
"It did?"
He nodded. "In the lighthouse, I'm glad he let you guys go; I was terrified he'd wanna keep you up there knowing that keeping you two would be the two things that got me the most... so when he said you could go, and you did without much insistence on staying, I was so glad."
"I only went because I had Lucy, you know that right?"
He nodded as he wrapped his arm around her. "I know, and I'm glad; because it gave me the chance to kick his ass."
"Yeah," she nodded absentmindedly.
"And then you went that step further and just saved us," he finished. "My hero."
"Come on," she shook her head. "Don't."
"That moment though Linds; when you took Lucy and I had my arms around you; it was the best moment ever because I knew if we could get through something like Shane Casey together, then we were in it together forever."
"No you didn't," she snipped, her mood drastically changing from the playful and light-heartedness she'd felt earlier.
"I did babe, because we'd both saved each other that day."
"Good job," she muttered. "Otherwise it'd be pretty lonely spending the rest of my life just Lu and me."
"And God help Lu if I'm the only one she had," Danny teased lightly; both of them knowing how much truth Danny really believed was in the statement.
"We were lucky weren't we?" Lindsay said, snuggling into his side and laying a hand on his chest as he shuffled himself further onto the armchair. "I don't think there's many people that took him on and survived it."
"Not lucky," Danny shook his head. "Just meant to be."
"Meant to be?" Lindsay asked, clearly puzzled. "What do you mean meant to be?"
"You and I," he smiled. "We're meant to be; we're a good team us two."
"Yeah," she smiled. "I guess we are... and at least we know that in the future, we're still going to look cute together; me all gray and you with no hair."
"You just had to remind me about that, didn't you?"
"Just the once," she giggled. "I'll still love you no matter what though, hair or no hair."
"You will?" he teased her with the tone he had.
She nodded enthusiastically and laced her fingers through his. "Absolutely, I'm not going anywhere."
"Good," Danny smiled as he squeezed her hand, "because neither am I."
Hope you liked. Thanks for reading :)
