AN So it took me a bit longer than usual and I got a bit of inspiration from this week's ep. I hope you find this to your liking, more to come and as always read and review:)

Time

Time is relative. Almost everyone on the planet has a reaction to time. Some because they do not care to acknowledge it and others because it consumes them, however most will agree that time rarely goes by the way we want.

Take for example the time it takes to go over a number of files for a case. The time it takes to pour over the information, the necessity to organize one's time around the examination and study of the evidence.

The amount of time two people have to sit and desperately ignore the pent up…something, that has been consuming them.

Danny's eyes were blurring together, he'd poured over pictures of the crime scene while reading and rereading Mac's notes. He looked up and regarded his partner who was looking through some of the interviews Flack had conducted at the scene. She had a pen gently pushed onto her bottom lip that was pursed slightly as she read.

He had never wanted to be a pen so badly in his life.

He shook his head; he refused to be jealous of an inanimate object, but then watched enthralled as she rolled it back and forth over her lip. Dear Lord this was slow torture.

Looking back down at the crime scene photos he cracked his neck and sighed. He needed to move and just be out of her presence, or aura, or whatever it was about Lindsay Monroe that made his mind swim. "I'm gonna go see if Hammerback has cleaned the impression around the license plate imprint." He said.

She looked up at him then rifled through a box and passed him a couple of bags, "Mac found some paint transfer and what looks like headlight glass on the vic's clothes, you can use that in your search for the vehicle."

He smirked, "Oh is that what I volunteered to do?" He watched fascinated as she took the pen that had been sitting on her lip and twisted it in her hair so that it was piled up on the top of her head. Damn pen.

She nodded with a smirk of her own, "Yup, I'm gonna start processing her clothes and purse before…" Her phone rang as she spoke. "Hi it's Lindsay." She answered, then groaned, "Oh damn I'm sorry Jesse," She looked at her watch, "Yeah I know I should have been off an hour ago…I," She sighed, "Right, I'll be there as soon as I can." She hung up the phone.

"Change of plans?" Danny asked trying desperately not to act too curious as well as too pleased that she had been spending time with him when she should have been with O'Malley. It didn't matter that it had been for work and that they had hardly exchanged two words most of the time, she had been with him. Oh wait, he wasn't supposed to care about things like that.

She stood and ran a hand over her face, "I was supposed to meet him half an hour ago, I'm meeting his sister and her husband tonight." She sighed and started putting the files away, "Damnit."

Danny closed his eyes, he didn't want to do what he was gonna do next. What he wanted to do was just watch her act flustered because he found it all kinds of sexy for some reason. Instead he put a hand to her arm, "Don't worry about it I'll clean this up, you can process her clothes in the morning."

The skin underneath his hand was burning up so much Lindsay was sure her arm was going to catch fire. A few tendrils of her hair fell into her face as she looked up at him with a grateful expression, "Really? You don't mind?" If she were a poetic kind of person she'd describe his eyes as pools of blue that she wanted to swim in forever.

"Well," He smiled, "You'll owe me." He wished to high heaven that she could repay him in a way that was highly inappropriate for their working relationship. He bit his lip in an effort to quell that thought.

She nodded, inwardly wishing he wouldn't bite his lip like that, "You got it," She walked passed him and put her hand up on his chest and shoulder, "Thanks Danny."

He had to mentally stop himself from outwardly groaning. This was insane; it was just her hand for the love of god! He merely kept smiling and stepped away from her touch, "You're welcome, now go or you'll be even later."

She snapped out of her trance, "Right, see you tomorrow." She called over her shoulder as she left to quickly freshen up in the locker room. When she got to her locker she had to lean against it for a moment to get her heart to start beating normally again, it rarely did when she was around him. It never did when she touched him. She closed her eyes and told herself that she had to stop thinking about Danny Messer and focus on her boyfriend. Jesse deserved her full attention and damnit if he didn't need something to make up for her being so late.

It took Danny a full minute before he moved again, if her fingers on his stomach had made him think before, her full hand on his chest made it worse. What was it about her that made him desperate to know what her skin felt like against his? He shook his head, don't go there Messer, she's off limits for more than one reason.

He debated calling Cindy on his way back to the morgue but decided against it. She had been getting on his nerves lately. She had lasted a bit longer than most of his girlfriends and was getting to the point that always made him uncomfortable, that point where he either coped out or became vulnerable.

It wasn't a difficult decision; he would start avoiding her at that moment.

Dr. Hammerback handed Danny a memory card when the CSI arrived at the morgue, "What you read minds in your spare time?"

Hammerback grinned, "Wouldn't you be embarrassed if I did?" He asked with a raised eyebrow.

The implications of that question was too much for Danny to delve into, besides the Doc was always, well, weird. He changed the subject, "Are these the shots of that impression on her thigh?"

The doctor nodded, "Make of it what you will."

Tapping the memory card to his hand Danny smirked, "Oh I'll get something out of it I can be very persuasive."

"I've noticed." Hammerback quipped as he turned around. "Although I don't think it'd take much persuasion for her."

Danny stared at the back of the man's head. What in the world did that mean? He was almost at the point of asking, but most of him was afraid to know. He couldn't mean Lindsay could he? He didn't want to persuade Lindsay to do anything; she was just a co-worker after all.

Damn, how many times was he going to remind himself of that?

He worked three hours overtime before he finally made his way back home. His car had been giving him problems so he'd been taking the subway for a week now. Heading to the back where he always stood he looked down at his phone as it vibrated in his hand. He rolled his eyes, so it began, that was the fourth time Cindy had called. He pocketed the phone and leaned back against the cool glass, maybe if he gave it time Lindsay would work her way out of his mind.

Lindsay shifted uneasily in the cab on the way to meet Jesse. At this rate they had been waiting for her for a full hour. She was wringing her hands. What was going on? She'd never lost track of time like that, even if the case was the most important to her career she'd never blown off someone she cared about for work before. Why was this different?

After spending a lot of time with him she'd noticed a few things. He'd let his tongue sit on his bottom lip when he concentrated. He flipped his pen between his fingers as he read through files. There was always a furrow in his brow when he'd analyse crime scene photos. It was almost like, however much he tried to act jaded his job still affected him. She found she admired that about Danny…

Oh, that's why it was different.

Damn, why did this have to happen now? She was comfortable with Jesse, he understood the importance of her job and was content just sitting around spending time with her when they could. He was safe and warm and predictable, everything Danny Messer wasn't. She was gonna be content with Jesse O'Malley if it was the last thing she did.

If she just gave it time it'd blow over, this was a stupid little crush and nothing more. She adjusted her hair and plastered her most apologetic smile on her face. She knew how to win Jesse back into her good graces. She liked that, not much spontaneity.

Wait, did she like that?

Time heals all wounds. Time ticks away. It is easy to forget, if you just give it time. What if what you are trying to forget is embedded into your very system? What if no matter how much time you spend forgetting their touch just won't leave your memory?

Over time something can become obsolete and it can also grow to something that can't be ignored and isn't going to go away.