A/N: Woo hoo! Got this one ready a little earlier than planned… we had Thanksgiving Dinner on Sunday and my sister and I were put in charge of cooking this year with four day's notice! Jeez. But it was a huge success and I've been wallowing around in a food coma all day. I got this started on Saturday and managed to finish it today between naps, so I hope you enjoy.
At first glance, I didn't much care for the episode this week. It left me feeling decidedly blah. I didn't really care about the case, I felt that the writing lacked any real emotions or character development and I found myself struggling for an angle of attack for my post-ep story. However, I made myself watch it again and I did find a few highlights – among them, lots of Danny in uniform (yum!) and hello? Lindsay with a huge freaking gun! Hell ya! My biggest disappointment of all was that we finally got another car episode and yet they gave that role to Jo when it has always been Lindsay who has gotten to work with vehicles in the past.
Don't get me wrong – I don't necessarily dislike Jo. I don't really feel one way or another about her to be honest. But what I do hate is that she's kind of become this big black hole that is sucking up all of the traits the writers have given to Lindsay over the years. We rarely see Lindsay as a mother because Jo is also a mother and apparently that's more important. And now they've gone and taken away the cars? *grumble grumble*
I could go on and on for hours (and I did Friday night!) but I'll stop myself here so that you can all get down to reading. I've done my best to try and wind in aspects of the episode, but mostly it's just an excuse to make me feel better with some fun, flirty, fluff (holy alliteration, Batman!).
Enjoy!
Danny had intended to head straight home after saying goodnight to Cooper. But as he had stepped out onto the front steps of the precinct, Lindsay had called, telling him that she was too tired to cook dinner. He'd begun to offer to take on the kitchen duties for the night, but Lindsay had cut him off midstream, saying that she felt like going out for dinner. And so it was that half an hour after the end of his shift, Danny pushed open the door of the popular family style restaurant just a few blocks from their apartment.
He glanced quickly around the dining room and a wide smile spread across his face when his eyes fell upon his girls sitting in a small booth in the middle of the restaurant.
"You ladies mind if I join you?" he asked, sidling up to their table and sliding into the bench seat across from his wife and daughter.
"Daddy!" Lucy bellowed as she bounced in her booster seat, eliciting a few smiles from the surrounding tables at the little girl's obvious excitement at the addition to their small group. "Hi, Daddy!"
"Lucy, shhhh!" Lindsay shushed her daughter, running a calming hand over her silky hair. She cast a welcoming smile at her husband. "Hey, babe."
"Hey yourself, beautiful," Danny replied with a wink in his wife's direction. "How're you guys doing tonight? You have a good day?"
"Yup," Lucy nodded her head eagerly before Lindsay had a chance to get a word in edgewise. "Know what I maked at school, Daddy? Know what?"
"What did you make?"
"I maked a twano… um, twano-sawus!" Lucy carefully sounded out the tricky word. "It a dino-sawr," she explained knowledgeably.
"You made a dinosaur?" Danny asked. "Wow, baby. That's great!"
"Uh huh. Outta p'ay-doh," Lucy informed him. "It so scawy, Daddy. It gots lots of teefs. And know what it says?"
Danny chuckled and shook his head indulgently. "No, baby. What does the dinosaur say?"
"Raaawwr!" Lucy growled loudly, curling her little fingers into claws for dramatic effect.
"Lucy," Lindsay sighed resignedly as once again other diners around them turned to stare at the source of the commotion coming from their table. "You have to be quiet, sweetie. People are trying to eat their dinners."
"But Mommy, I a dino-sawr and dey don't gots to be quiet," Lucy countered seriously and Danny had to raise his hand to his face to hide his smile at his daughter's cheekiness.
"Maybe not, but little girls who want to have ice cream after dinner do," Lindsay returned with a warning look. She glanced up at Danny, taking in his badly hidden amusement. "And you… stop encouraging her," she snapped.
"Sorry," Danny raised his hands in surrender, noting but deciding not to comment for the time being on his wife's uncharacteristically sharp tone. Usually she was as enamoured as he when it came to their adorable daughter, especially when she was doing nothing more than showing her excitement at something she'd created. There would be time for that later, he reasoned. Instead he reached for her hand across the table, lacing his fingers in with hers and gently squeezing. "And how was your day, Mommy?" he asked. "You have fun with the Ferrari I sent your way this morning?"
Although the circumstances surrounding the Ferrari had been less than pleasant – it was never a good thing when a life was brutally taken before it's time – Danny had known the moment he'd seen that poor girl inside the hood of that luxurious machine that his wife was going to have a field day with the car. She certainly knew her way around an engine – a fact about her that had a surprisingly arousing effect on Danny since long before they'd become a couple – and for the remainder of his shift he'd struggled to keep himself from grinning like an idiot at the mental picture of her in those all-encompassing blue coveralls.
Until he'd met Lindsay he'd never given the blandly utilitarian garment a second thought. They were there to serve a purpose – to keep the wearer's normal clothes from getting tarnished by the inevitable grease and grime that came part and parcel when working in the garage. And it wasn't until the first time he'd seen Lindsay bent over the engine of whatever vehicle had rolled into the Crime Lab's garage oh so many years ago that he'd begun to associate them with something other than pure functionality.
It wasn't that the garment itself was sexy… but Lindsay was damned sexy in it. The way it left everything to his overly fertile imagination had sent his pulse unexpectedly racing. They were baggy on her petite frame, but when she positioned herself just right he'd found himself unable to stop staring at the gentle curve of her butt, the narrowing of her waist above her slender hips, the accidental smudge of grease on the tip of her nose from an unintentional swipe of her hand… they'd set his blood to boiling, stirring up feelings of longing inside of him that had left him slightly dazed and speechless, especially after she'd unbuttoned the coveralls when she's gotten too warm, letting the upper part of the garment hang from her waist and revealing a tight white tank top beneath that gave him the merest hint of cleavage. He had been unprepared for the way her distinctly tomboyish appearance laced with a hint of latent sexuality had make him feel. That, combined with her impressive knowledge of the inner workings of pretty much anything with wheels and an engine had further intensified his newly-formed feelings for her, adding yet another tally to the long list of their common interests. He'd blushed and stammered like a hormonal teenager before finally gathering his wits, eventually managing to add something useful to their conversation as they went through the evidence from the car together.
Since then, Danny had eagerly looked forward to any case that involved some kind of motor vehicle, knowing that it meant a day or two spent with the sexiest grease monkey he'd ever met. And the experience only got better as their relationship grew, because once Lindsay had caught on to his admiring glances, she had used it to her advantage, being blatantly flirtatious with him to the point of bordering on the improper. He recalled the hot rod they'd had to reconstruct with Adam nearly two years ago and the way she'd casually flicked open the collar of her coveralls before bending over the shelled-out vehicle, giving him a deliberate eyeful of her ample cleavage. His palms had suddenly begun to sweat, causing him to drop the wrench he'd been using. Swearing as it clanged harmlessly off his steel-toed boot, he'd earned himself a confused look from Adam at his clumsiness and a knowing smile from his wife.
"What's the matter, babe?" she'd asked with wide, innocent eyes.
He'd narrowed his eyes at her, waiting until Adam was suitably distracted by something on the other side of the garage before sliding up behind his wife and pressing his lips to her ear. "You did that on purpose to torment me," he accused huskily, smiling to himself at the shiver he felt run the length of her spine at his tone. "You do that again and I may have to put you over my knee. That's not playing fair; not when I can't do a damn thing about it until we get this damn car rebuilt. And the more you play with me, the longer it's gonna take. So cut it out." He nipped at her ear after taking a quick glance around to make sure they weren't being observed, and gave her ass a firm pinch before he went back to work.
Because of the long hours of overtime they'd put in on the case, his mother had volunteered to keep Lucy overnight, much to Danny's relief. When he'd finally gotten Lindsay home that night they had barely made it through the door of their apartment before he'd allowed his lust to get the better of him and they'd made loud, messy, desperate love against their front door before moving on to the bedroom for a night of passion that Danny still counted among the highlights of the sexual experiences in his life thus far.
And so it was that today – knowing what she would have been up to down in the garage all day – Danny had allowed his thoughts to linger on the mental picture of his wife while he'd been waiting for Cooper to hurry the hell up with processing the evidence from her less-than-impressive drug bust. But as his thoughts turned back to the present, he realized that Lindsay still hadn't answered him, choosing instead to pick up one of the brightly coloured, laminated menus from the table top and studying it intently. The small lines furrowed between her brows told him that there was something on her mind other than what to order for dinner.
"Babe?" he prompted again. "You okay?"
"I can't decide between the Mediterranean Chicken Burger or the Pulled Pork Sandwich," she replied, deliberately evading his question. She glanced up at him over the top of the menu. "What are you having?"
"Lindsay," he said, reaching out and using his finger to lower the menu so he could see her face. "Come on, don't do that. What's the matter?"
But Lindsay once again ignored his question, turning the menu over to the kid's page on the back. "You want chicken fingers, Luce?" she asked.
Oblivious to the situation at hand, Lucy happily nodded her head. "Wif f'ies," she declared.
"Hmm… maybe we can get them to do half fries and half veggies," Lindsay mused and Lucy scrunched up her face at the prospect of the dreaded vegetables. "No arguments, Lucy. You need to eat your veggies if you want to grow up to be big and strong."
"Daddy…" Lucy whined, turning her big blue eyes on her father in the hopes that he would take her side. Danny chuckled but shook his head firmly.
"Sorry, squirt. But Mommy's right," he said.
Lucy jutted her lower lip and crossed her little arms across her chest with a huff of irritation. "Don't want no veg'ables."
Danny rolled his eyes at her theatrics. "Hey, Luce. Wanna know a secret?" he asked, leaning forward over the table and speaking in a conspiratorial stage whisper. Lucy appeared to contemplate his question before slowly nodding her head. "Now this is top secret and you can't tell anybody, okay?" Her interest was clearly piqued and she nodded again more eagerly this time.
"I p'omise," she assured him, leaning toward him in anticipation.
"You know how you told me all about your dinosaur?" he asked.
"Yah…"
"Well, I heard that there were some dinosaurs that ate only veggies - all day long!"
Lucy regarded him for a moment, her expression calculating. "Because dey Mommies to'd dem to?" she asked.
"Nope," Danny shook his head. "Because they liked them."
Lucy's eyes went wide with wonder and she turned to her mother. "I eat my veggies!" she declared vehemently. "I eat dem all up, Mommy!"
Lindsay smiled at her daughter. "That's my good girl," she praised.
"I gonna be a dino-sawr when I g'ow up," Lucy informed her parents, grabbing the tiny plastic cup filled with crayons and the kid's activity page the hostess had left on the table when she'd seated Lindsay and Lucy, and beginning to draw colourful shapes all over her paper.
Danny leaned back in his seat and chuckled at his daughter, her childish insolence now all but forgotten as she lost herself in a make-believe world where a squiggly green blob became a fearsome dinosaur munching daintily on a carrot. He glanced up at his wife who was smiling fondly at him from across the table.
"What?" he asked.
"You never cease to amaze me, do you know that?" Lindsay asked. Lowering her voice, she continued; "But I'm warning you now; you're on your own to deal with the eventual fallout when she realizes that becoming a dinosaur isn't exactly a stellar career choice."
Danny shrugged his shoulders. "So she'll be a paleontologist. It's the next best thing, so I'm told."
Lindsay giggled, resting her elbows on the tabletop and cupping her chin in the palms of her hands. "I miss this," she said simply. "It's so nice to be able to have a night together like this, just the three of us. It's been a long time."
"Too long," Danny agreed. "So," he continued, hoping to steer their conversation back to whatever had been bothering her earlier. "How was your day?"
"It was okay," Lindsay replied vaguely.
"Just okay?" Danny pressed. "Come on, Lindsay. I know you better than that. Something must have happened to dampen your mood after spending all day under the hood of that beautiful Italian machine."
"But that's just it," she sighed. "I never even got to see it."
Danny frowned. "What do you mean? You guys haven't processed it yet?"
Lindsay shook her head, her brown eyes flashing momentarily with annoyance. "No. It got processed… just not by me."
Sitting up straighter, Danny leaned forward. "What? By who?" he asked.
Lindsay toyed aimlessly with the salt and pepper shakers before answering his question. "I heard it was coming in and I was just about to head down to the garage when Jo found me and handed me a giant stack of evidence that needed to be processed. She asked where we kept the coveralls because she wanted to have a crack at the car."
"Oh, baby. I'm sorry," Danny said. He reached across the table and placed his hand over hers. "I figured for sure you would have… otherwise I wouldn't have kept going on and on about it."
Lindsay shrugged her shoulders, placing her other hand on top of Danny's and effectively sandwiching his between her palms. "It's no big deal," she said, although her voice was rife with disappointment. "I mean, I can't blame her for wanting to do it. From what I heard and the pictures I saw from the scene, it was a beautiful car. I just… I would have liked to have been given the chance, you know?"
"I know, sweetheart," Danny sympathized.
"But in a way I'm kind of glad," Lindsay continued, smiling shyly across the table at him. "I mean… we always… it was kind of our thing, Danny – yours and mine. And it would have felt weird to be down there with someone else. Kind of like I was cheating on you or something."
"Well we can't have that, can we?" Danny teased gently, his heart warmed significantly by the idea that Lindsay had found the times they'd spent together in the garage just as special as he had. "You know… if the car's still in the garage we could always go and have a look for old time's sake," he suggested with a playful wiggle of his eyebrows. "I've always wondered if the backseats of those cars are as small as they say, or if there's actually room back there for…"
"Danny!"
"What?" he laughed at his wife's half-hearted indignation at his suggestion.
"You're terrible," she replied, although the way her foot found his beneath the table and the slow ascent it was making up his calf belied her words.
"You love it," he smirked.
"I love you," she smiled in response.
"Right back at ya, babe," he replied. "For what it's worth, you can check under my hood any time you want," he offered magnanimously.
Lindsay let out a snort of laughter. "Oh, I can, can I?"
"Well, I know you have a thing for high-performance Italians…"
"Hmm… that I do," Lindsay murmured with a decidedly appreciative twinkle in her eyes. "If you're a good boy I might even see if I can dig up a pair of those coveralls you love so much."
"Check please!" Danny exclaimed, jokingly looking around for their waitress. He blushed when she appeared unexpectedly at their table at that precise moment with their food, blusteringly waving off the young woman's concerned, "Is there something wrong, sir?", much to Lindsay's amusement.
They were momentarily distracted from their conversation as they dug into their meals, Lindsay smiling to herself as she watched Lucy bypass her chicken strips and fries and immediately devoured her veggies with gusto. After chewing and swallowing her last bite of vegetation she turned to her mother with a wide smile.
"See, Mommy!" she said proudly. "All gone!"
"What a good little dinosaur you are," Lindsay chuckled before she took a large bit of her burger. "Mmm… so good," she sighed. Setting her burger down, she reached for her napkin and dabbed at the corner of her mouth before turning her gaze on her husband who was sitting across from her with a contented smile on his face. "What are you thinking about, babe?" she inquired.
"Just… you know," he shrugged his shoulders, "I love you guys. And I'm glad I got a chance to hang with you tonight. I wasn't sure that was gonna happen at one point today, so I guess I'm just appreciating being here with you all the more."
Lindsay nodded her understanding. She'd talked to Mac when he had arrived back at the lab after interviewing Arthur Noonan and his daughter. He'd wandered into the office where Lindsay had been bent over her microscope and mentioned that he had seen Danny down at the precinct. A look of fatherly pride had crossed his features as he briefly outlined the conversation he'd inadvertently overheard between the newly promoted Sergeant and his rookie.
"It was definitely an eye opener," Mac had mused, leaning casually against the table where Lindsay was working. "I mean, I knew he could do it… I never doubted that fact. But believing in something and actually seeing it play out in front of you are two vastly different things." He shook his head and chuckled. "When he saw me standing there, though he looked like he wished a crack would open in the floor and swallow him whole."
"Why?" Lindsay had inquired. Although she'd seen glimpses of her husband in Sergeant-mode at various scenes where their paths had crossed, she'd not yet gotten to see him in action, so to speak. She knew he took his role as mentor and leader to his crew of rookies very seriously and was more than a little curious as to how the formerly impulsive and rash Detective Messer was faring as the responsible and thoughtful Sergeant Messer.
Mac smiled. "I think he thought I was gonna chew him out," he said. "He seemed to think he'd handled the situation wrong and was waiting for me to let him have it." His expression turned more serious then and he tapped the folder in his hand thoughtfully against his other palm. "From what I saw, he's got nothing to worry about; he kept his cool and let Cooper know what he expected from her in the future."
Lindsay's lips quirked upward in an amused smile. She knew that more than anything, Danny had worried about dealing with the various personalities that would present themselves on his new team. "I think he's just worried he's going to find himself in the position of having to deal with a version of himself ten years ago," Lindsay said, earning a chuckle from Mac.
"Now that I'd love to see," he said. "But even then, I think he'd handle himself well. He's got a good head on his shoulders now," Mac said, then rethought his words. "Actually, I think he's always that… he just needed a calming influence in his life to help him realize it." He smiled warmly at Lindsay and patted her shoulder affectionately before he bid her farewell and wandered back to his office, leaving Lindsay seated at her table with a wide smile on her face at Mac's round-a-bout compliment.
"I heard about that," Lindsay admitted. Her heart had fluttered in her chest when Mac mentioned that Danny had voiced his concerned about once again missing out on spending time with his family. It was comforting to know that even in the midst of his busy day, she and Lucy were still at the forefront of his mind. She slid her hand across the table, lacing her fingers in with Danny's and giving them a comforting squeeze. "You have to stop second-guessing yourself, Danny," she said. "I know it's a tough pill to swallow, but I think it's time to admit that you're actually pretty good at what you do."
A faint hint of colour rose on Danny's cheeks and he grinned somewhat sheepishly. "Thanks," he said. "I'm getting there… I think. It's just tough, you know? I always wonder if I've crossed some kind of line, if I'm being too hard on them. And other times I think maybe I'm letting them get away with too much. But I'll get there. Eventually."
"Well from what I hear, you're already there, babe," Lindsay encouraged, lovingly stroking her thumb over the back of his hand. "So… this Cooper that Mac mentioned… is she pretty?"
Danny rolled his eyes. "Lindsay…"
"I'm kidding," Lindsay giggled. "I'm not worried, babe. I'm pretty sure I still know how to turn your head."
"And then some," Danny agreed with a wink. "You always managed to get my motor running. But just so you're sure…" He pushed himself up from his seat and leaned over the table, pressing his lips against his wife's in a chaste yet surprisingly sensual kiss.
Lindsay hummed quietly to herself when Danny pulled back. She kept her eyes closed for a beat, savouring the lingering taste of her husband's kiss. "Mmm… think you could run that by me again?" she teased. "I missed that last bit."
"How 'bout I elaborate when we get home?" Danny offered, making his eyebrows dance suggestively.
Lindsay giggled flirtatiously and looked at him through fluttering lashes before turning her attention back to her dinner. Danny grinned before doing the same. It was answer enough for him.
The conversation with Lucy regarding eating her vegetables is a bit of a paraphrase of a similar conversation I had with my friend's daughter a few weeks ago. At four years old she's a little older than I imagine Lucy to be, but I hope that I've managed to capture Lucy all the same. It came about similarly, in that she's at the age where she's absolutely obsessed with dinosaurs and actually has a stuffed T-Rex named Tim that she carries with her everywhere. (Seriously? Tim? I love kids!)
Anyway, I know I'm not alone in feeling that this wasn't the strongest episode but that doesn't mean we can't have a little fun with the fiction, does it? I'd love to hear what you guys have to say about this one!
PS: I had considered following them home to Chez Messer to see where things went between Danny and Lindsay... but that would mean another couple of days delay in posting. That being said, if there was enough demand for it, I could be persuaded... P