"So, our killer must be bipolar?" Danny asked, shuffling the papers on his desk. He glanced up at Hawkes, who nodded.
"Only way it explains the drugs in their system," Sheldon explained. He looked down the hallway, to see Lindsay walking up with the baby in a sling around her chest. "Lindsay," he smiled, and headed towards her.
Supporting the baby's bottom with one hand, she ran the other through her hair. She was wearing a baggy, gray sweatshirt and jeans, her curls mussed, dark circles under her eyes. Danny found himself wondering how she could look so beautiful.
Hawkes touched the baby's head gently, then kissed Lindsay's cheek. "Is that cold gone?" he asked Lindsay, peeking down to Celia. The baby had on the little pink cap Danny had bought for her.
"I think so," Lindsay said, "She's been having some trouble sleeping, but other than that, she's healthy."
Sheldon reached down and tickled the little girl's cheek. "I'd better run these to the lab," he said, "But it's good to see you. Mac hasn't got you back on full time yet, has he?"
Lindsay shook her head. "Not yet. Just a shift here and there. But I'll be back soon."
Hawkes grinned and waved goodbye, walking down the hall to the Trace lab.
Danny walked over to Lindsay. "You OK? Something wrong?"
She shook her head. "Why?"
"You aren't on shift. What's up?"
She reached into her pocket, gently shifting Celia's weight to her left side, and pulled out Danny's wallet. "You left this at my place," she explained.
"You didn't have to come down here," Danny said, "It's raining. I'da come over to see you." He blinked. "To get the wallet. To pick it up, I mean."
She smiled faintly. The expression faded quickly. She opened her mouth hesitantly. "I …" she said in a raspy voice, "I was being silly last night. I'm sorry."
"I already told ya," he said, gently taking Celia from the baby sling, "No big deal. Thanks for letting me stay the night." Celia gave a light sniffle and rested her little head on Danny's chest as he held her. He supported her neck with one of his large hands, making sure she was stable.
Lindsay smiled. "She likes you."
"Course she does," Danny grinned. He scooted her further up on his chest. "I'm her daddy." He kissed Celia's head.
"She's almost ready to spend the night with you at your place, if you want. I asked her doctor, and he said it was fine." Lindsay reached out and rubbed Celia's back gently.
"Yeah, that sounds great," Danny said excitedly.
"Just no taking her out on the motorcycle," Lindsay said gravely.
"Linds," Danny said, his eyes wide, "I'd never –"
She burst out laughing. "I'm kidding, Danny. "
Danny's shocked face broke into a grin. "Jesus, Montana. Cut me some slack, here."
She giggled and reached out her arms for Celia. "I've got some errands to run – Celia needs medicine from the pharmacy."
"I can grab it," Danny said, "Or at least let me pay for it." He handed Celia to Lindsay and attempted to pull out his wallet.
Lindsay shook her head. "I got it." She settled Celia back into the baby sling. "And I dropped the baby bag off in our office, so I've got to run and get that before she needs to be fed again." She gave Danny a little wave, and turned away.
Danny sighed and continued to the trace lab to meet up with Sheldon again.
"Hey," Sheldon said, "I just started running the trace on the t-shirt. Nothing yet."
"So … the baby was sick?"
Sheldon looked up. "Yeah, you didn't know? A little cold, a few days back."
"Lindsay never said anything to me," Danny said, absentmindedly dabbing a bit of sterile water onto a slide, over the hair he'd sampled.
Sheldon turned away from Danny and watched the mass spectrometer whir away. "You asked for minimal involvement," Sheldon said.
"I never said that," Danny reminded him, "I just said I wasn't ready for it yet."
"Doesn't matter if you're ready, Danny," Sheldon said, a bit hotly, "It just happens. You've got to rise up to meet things like this. You can't just play the immaturity card."
Danny sighed and shoved the slide under the microscope. "You don't know the whole story, Hawkes," he said tiredly.
Sheldon turned and glared at Danny. "All I know is, you went to exactly two doctor's appointments, Danny, and to me that says you don't give a damn," he said dangerously.
"I love my daughter," Danny replied simply.
"Now," Hawkes said, "You love your daughter now."
"It ain't any of your business, Hawkes!" Danny shouted, and ripped off his lab coat. He stormed out of the room, leaving the evidence for Sheldon to put away.
Lindsay sighed as she stood in line at the pharmacy. On her mother and Sheldon's advice, she was stocking up on baby medicine. Sheldon had advised her to be well stocked in band-aids, diaper rash cream, Tylenol drops, and fever drops in case of a crisis. He told Lindsay to call him at any time if Celia was sick. He was taking his role as Celia's godfather very seriously. Hawkes had been the one to recommend her pediatrician, a nice older woman who had helped him out during medical school.
Lindsay looked down at Celia, who was napping against her chest. She touched the baby's wispy hair, and trailed a finger down the little girl's cheek. "How's my baby girl," she whispered in her baby voice, bending in towards the Celia.
The events that occurred during Lindsay's gentle baby talk took no more than ten seconds. Not a single person in the line understood what was going on until it was too late. As Lindsay bent down, the man behind her with dark sunglasses and a backwards Yankees cap slid to the side and swiftly reached up to spray paint the security camera lens black. As he did so, the man ahead of Lindsay pulled his beanie down low on his face, and took a step forwards and reached behind the counter of the pharmaceudical desk and took the collection of pills that were lying there. And as he did that, a third man in a hideous blonde wig stepped from behind an aisle and shot the pharmacist at the counter.
At the sound, Celia began to shriek. Lindsay's head snapped up, her arms tightening around Celia's tiny body. Lindsay cursed quietly under her breath, and took a step back. She glanced to the side, her keen detective senses kicking in. She briefly noted the size, appearance, and movement of the man to her left, in front of her, and to her right.
The man in the blonde wig raised his gun into the air and fired another shot. "Everyone down," he grunted. "On the floor. Anyone lifts a finger, they get a bullet between the eyes."
Lindsay slowly complied, along with the elderly man to the side of the desk, and the woman with her hair in rollers who was behind Lindsay in line.
Lindsay carefully lifted the sling off of her body, her mind racing. Could she risk anything with Celia lying right next to her? She set the baby down on her back next to her and bent her head down.
Her eyes kept alert, trying to get a glimpse of the make and size of the shoes each man wore on his feet, and the places they stood in case they left trace.
Celia's crying quieted as Lindsay rested her hand on the baby's stomach, smoothing it in circles. "Shh, shh," Lindsay hushed her.
From the movements of their feet, Lindsay could deduct that the men took more pills from the pharmacy, then snagged the cash from the register, then seemed to take something from the aisles. They stopped as a siren sounded in the distance, heading towards the pharmacy.
She turned her head briefly to look at the two other people in the room with her. The elderly man had his eyes squeezed shut, and was mumbling something. From the tune of his words, it seemed that he was singing some sort of hymn. The woman behind Lindsay was panting heavily, as though she'd just run a marathon. In the reflection of the shiny metal pharmacy desk, Lindsay could see that the woman had her cell phone next to her hand. Lindsay smiled. The woman had called 911.
"It's OK," Lindsay whispered to Celia, who had returned to sniffling and was sucking on her fist, the tears drying on her pink cheeks.
"Shut up," the man in the blonde wig snapped. "We done?" He asked, turning to the other two men.
"Yeah, we're good," the man in the backwards Yankees cap said. Suddenly, he swiftly turned to the elderly man and stomped down on the man's leg. The old man let out a sharp yell of pain. "Be good little shoppers, now," the Yankees fan snorted, and walked out. His two friends followed.
Lindsay, eyeing the reflection of the police car's lights in the pharmacy desk, knew the time was right. As the man in the beanie jogged by her, she slowly stretched her leg out. The man, not seeing her change in position, tripped and toppled headfirst to the ground. His forehead smacked dully against the edge of the aisle, and he fell to the floor with a thud, blood seeping from his head wound. The second he hit the floor, his friends looked back at his unconscious body, then at the approaching police car. They seemed to make the same split second decision and leaped into the black van they'd arrived in. The car sped off into an alleyway, tires screeching.
Meanwhile, Lindsay had leapt up, picked up Celia, and went to check on the injured pharmacist at the counter. She couldn't get the latch open, so she was forced to climb carefully over the counter.
The injured woman was lying on the floor, blood gurgling from a hole in the middle of her chest. Her stick straight black hair was sticking to the blood pooling around her body. "You're going to be fine," Lindsay said weakly, lying Celia on the floor beside the woman's body.
Lindsay carefully placed her hands on the woman's chest, over the bleeding wound, and pressed down. The blood gurgled again as the woman took a shaky breath.
"Don't try to talk," Lindsay soothed.
"Lindsay!" she heard from behind her. It was a terrified, booming shout that echoed in the room.
"Behind the counter," she said back, "we need the paramedics, she's bleeding out!"
Danny leaped over the counter, landing on the floor with a heavy thump. "I got it," he said quickly, and moved her hands aside, his large hands moving to cover the woman's wound.
"Are you hurt? Anyone hurt you or Celia?" he asked as he pressed down on the wound.
"No," Lindsay said. She stood and motioned to the paramedics, who were assessing the fallen robber and the elderly man. "We need help," she shouted.
One of the paramedics raced over, reaching over the little door of the counter to unlock it and open it.
He assumed Danny's position by the injured pharmacist's side and called out to his partner what he would need.
"C'mon," Danny said to Lindsay, "Let's get you out of here." He picked up Celia in her sling, the blood on his hands staining the white baby swaddle. Celia sniffled and continued to suck her fist sleepily.
Danny wiped blood from one hand on the sling, then carefully checked Celia for signs of injury.
"She's fine," Lindsay said, peering shakily into the baby sling, "they were only here for a few minutes. They never touched her."
"And you?" Danny asked, looking up into Lindsay's eyes as he led her out of the pharmacy.
"I told you already," she said, her voice trembling, "No."
A second ambulance arrived, the two paramedics climbing out from the car. Danny pointed them in the direction of the elderly man, who was hobbling out of the pharmacy with one hand on the shoulder of one of the police officers who'd shown up with Danny.
"How did you get here so fast?" Lindsay asked, her hands slowly ceasing to shake.
Danny led her to the silver SUV he'd been driving. He helped her into the passenger seat, handing her the baby. "I was on my way over to offer to take Celia for you for a little while. You didn't have your phone – you left the baby bag with all your stuff in the office." He reached out one hand and rubbed her arm. "How about I take your statement and then I'll take you two home?"
Lindsay nodded shakily and told him the story. He took notes on a pad of paper he kept in his back pocket. When she was done, he kissed the top of her head, whispered that he was glad she was OK, and took her home.
"Danny, thanks for making dinner. You didn't have to." Lindsay said, putting her plate in the sink.
He was on the floor, his legs stretched out in front of him, as Celia, on her belly between his legs, slapped her little hands on the floor and tried to wiggle towards him.
"No problem," he said, reaching out for Celia, "Don't clean up, I got it." He extended a hand towards Celia. "C'mon, baby, just get up on your knees. C'mon…" he held his open hand out about a foot in front of her.
"You're not going to get her to crawl. I told you, she only did it once. Last week. She hasn't done it since then," Lindsay said, washing off the last plate and sitting down on the hardwood floor next to Danny. "Plus, she's only four months old. Most babies don't start crawling until they're at six months."
Danny leaned back against the cupboard, letting his hand drop. "Well, she's my kid. She's advanced."
Lindsay snorted. "Yeah. You're so advanced, Danny."
"Watch it, Monroe," Danny warned teasingly.
"You're so advanced that you only took six weeks to figure out how to open the baby-proofed cabinets," Lindsay laughed.
"Well maybe you shoulda held off on doing the stupid baby-proofing shit until she's actually moving around your apartment without one of us carrying –"
Lindsay smacked his arm and pointed towards Celia.
"Ow, what was –"
She reached up and covered his mouth with one of her hands. She used the position to forcibly turn his head to look at Celia.
The little girl was struggling to get up onto her hands and knees, moving forwards by pulling her hands on the floor and scooting her pudgy lower half towards her parents. Her baby blue onesie allowed her to slide along the floor easily. When she reached Danny's torso, she reached up her hands to him and made an excited cooing noise.
Lindsay's hand dropped from Danny's mouth.
"Good girl!" Danny said excitedly. He lifted her up and cuddled her to his chest. "Holy shit! That was amazing!"
"Don't swear!" Lindsay laughed, punching him in the shoulder. She reached out and nuzzled Celia's cheek, causing the baby to let out a little shriek of laughter. Danny patted her back and kissed her head.
After a quick game of peekaboo, the two put Celia to bed, tucking her in and kissing her. They returned to the kitchen and Lindsay started to put the plates away in the dishwasher. Danny shooed her away and did it himself, telling her to make herself "some tea or somethin'."
Lindsay settled down with a cup of tea on her faded blue couch. She tucked her cold feet under her and turned on the TV. When Danny came back in, she was watching the national geographic channel intently.
"You're so obsessed with this station," he chuckled, sitting down next to her.
"It's good," she said absentmindedly, watching as a leopard chased after a gazelle.
"Scintillating," Danny grunted.
She giggled and shut it off. "Thanks for doing the dishes," she smiled. "I'm fine, you know, Celia too. You don't have to stay."
He paused and looked at her, his hands itching to tuck her hair behind her ears and kiss her soundly. "You sure? You're OK?"
She nodded and smiled.
"A'right," he said, a little forlornly. He stood up and headed to the door, where he'd left his shirt, still stained with the blood of the pharmacist. He'd had a change of clothes for himself in the car, thankfully. He scooped up the shirt and kissed Lindsay's cheek goodbye. "I'll come by tomorrow and check up on you," he promised, and left.
