Disclaimer: I own nothing, not danny not lindsay not clark griswald…
A/N: I don't know why but I like elaborating on the family I've made up in my head with CBS's help, so just go with it, hopefully it all makes sense.
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A group of 5 walked into the kitchen followed by a lot of introductions, hugs and kisses. There was Maria's brother Nick, his wife Annette, there daughter Karen, her husband Stephan, and their son Kyle. The house was louder than ever, with 11 Italians drinking wine and talking over one another.
They had moved. Or were shoved into the living room by Maria. "Too many cooks, out all of you out. You'll ruin the fish."
So there they sat Danny his arm slung around Lindsay, his Karen was next to Lindsay, and somehow Stephan had slipped in too. Sal was sitting back in the big recliner, which Danny had told her was bunny ear quoted ""His chair."" Nick was on the floor with his grandson of about 5 playing with cars. Tony had stepped outside for a smoke, one of the last smokers in the family, and Annette was helping with dinner as was Reda, or at least she was trying. It was christmas loud and noisey, the show om the television had been flipped to National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, so the occasional obsinity and laughter could be heard from time to time. Poor Kyle's ears were quickly covered up when Clark went into his rage: '…I want to look him straight in the eye and I want to tell him what a cheap, lying, no-good, rotten, fore-fleshing, low-life, snake-licking, dirt-eating, inbred, overstuffed, ignorant, blood-sucking, dog-kissing, brainless, dickless, hopeless, heartless, fat-ass, bug-eyed, stiff-legged, spotty-lipped, worm-headed sack of monkey shit he is. Hallelujah. Holy shit. Where's the Tylenol?
The whole room started laughing and Kyle looked around confused but just kept playing with his cars. "Imagine Mac saying that about Sinclaire." Danny whispered in Lindsay's ear, causing her to burst out laughing.
"That's an image." Lindsay said as she calmed down slightly. "Think Adam, could choke it out too." To that Danny definitely laughed. The poor guy was still in the lab for the time being, but in a few months, who knows, and it's all because of Sinclaire and his political gain.
"He would be choking it out. The guy is leaving Pheonix behind as much as you have left Montana behind." He eyed her up and down, she was beautiful, could he think that enough. Sitting there with his family, which actually seemed to be behaving themselves, she fit. She fit into his life like his hand fit into that baseball glove at age seven. She was perfect. His eyes glanced to her abdomin for a second and he smiled. His mother was going to flip, his father for probably would too, as Danny looked over to see Slavador Messer on the floor participating in a high speed matchbox car chase with Kyle. Every one loved that little boy, he was the first of the new generation of Messers.
"How is that little Bug he knows about doing?" He asked her quietly.
"He's good, Happy." She whispered back before she kissed him lightly on the lips. Danny's smile grew bigger and to that same funny expression he got when he was amused by something.
"Now it's he? What happened to she?"
"Nothing, just right now it feels like a he." She shrugged, wanting to turn the conversation she didn't want to give anything away too early and they were in a room surrounded by Danny's family.
"Whatever floats your boat Linds." He said pulling her closer in a hug, and also because Kyle had come to sit between Lindsay and his mommy.
"Mommy, Uncle Sal says real police cars have bars and walkie talkies in them! Is that right Mommy?" The little boy asked. His eyes staring into his mothers.
"I don't know honey, but you know, Uncle Danny is a police man, why don't you ask him." She nodded to Danny who was smiling, having watched the interaction. The little boy climbed down from his spot next to his mother and jogged over to Danny who promptly picked him up and plopped him in his lap. "Uncle Danny, do they REALLY?!" He asked again.
"Yea buddy, yea they do."
"Are you really a real police man uncle Danny?"
"Yes I am. So is Lindsay." Danny nodded over to the woman watching them. Kyle looked at Lindsay, then shook his head.
"No Uncle Danny, she's a girl. Only boy's can be police mans." He clarified for Danny.
"I think girls can be police." Lindsay teased the little boy.
"No they can't its police Man, like big boys all growned up. You a growned up girl."
"But I can be a police Woman. Like a girl all grown up." Kyle looked confused and stretched so he could see his mom.
"Is that true mommy? Can girls be police?"
"Yea Ky, they can, Lindsay is, she even works with dead people." His mother told him, after all, mommy's are all knowing.
"LIKE ZOMBIES!!!! LIKE SCOOBY DOO!?" He asked perking up and looking back and forth between Danny and Lindsay his eyes bugging up.
"Kinda." Danny said. "but we also get to do experiments like they do on Sid the Science Kid."
"WOW. I want your job! When I growed up." Kyle exclaims as his father, Stephan groans.
"Kyle, bud, no fireman for you?" he asks
"No daddy, fire burns. It hurts me." He said holding up his bandaged pointer finger. Which he shows Lindsay. "The candle licked me and it hurt and got big and red and stung and mommy ran it under really cold water for a long time. But it still thumps." He told her.
"And did mommy kiss it to make it better?" Lindsay asked
"Uh huh, and it worked, but then it hurt again."
"Well maybe mommy has to kiss it again. Or daddy, if daddy's a fireman he really knows how to make burns feel better. Doesn't he?"
As they greeted eachother earlier in the day the 'Great Debate,' as Maria called it, began: Police v Fire, Danny v. Stephan. It wasn't so much as a fight as a slue of joking comments thrown back and forth between the two men. They got along amazingly in a banterfilled compitition that seemed eerily similar to Danny and Lindsay in the early early days. A lot of one upping. But when it came down to it they both had respect for the other.
"yea he does, Daddy was on the news you know that. He saved a little girl from a fire!" he said hopping off of Lindsay's lap that he had manuvered into and ran over to his father. "Daddy, can you kiss it make it bette?" Kyle asked holding a hand up to his father's lips.
"Sure buddy." Stephan whispered before kissing the little boy's finger and pulling him into a hug.
"Maybe I want to be a fireman too." Kyle said as his father released him from the embrace. A smile graced his lips, and he gave a thankful nod to Danny. Kyle had been a miracle baby, and to follow in Stephan's footsteps as Stephan had followed in his father's was something that Stephan hopped would happen in the future, although he would never admit it. Karen would kill him. Her boy was going to be in a safe job where he wouldn't get hurt.
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Lindsay excused herself, tha bathroom was calling. When she left she ran into old photos hung nicely up on the wall. Lindsay was engulfed, was her little boy going to look like this toe-headed, blue eyed, kid smiling at her, his eyes still twinkling behind specticals. Or would it look like the pictures her parents had up of her deep brown eyes, and light brown hair, or would it be a mixture.
The pictures themselves told a story. There were two school picture circles, the kind where you see just how much a person changes in 12 years. Danny was a brighty smiling kid in kindergarden, no glasses, hair in a crew cut, and a 1000 watt smile, even little dimples he seemed to have out grown. That turned into a slightly sulky skinny kid with aviator glasses in the 4th grade. Then into a gangly kid with thick black fraames with a black eye in the 7th grade. In highschool he seemed to find his own, lost the glasses for, bulked up a little, a prelude to what was coming in another 12 years.
Other pictures included Danny and his brother covered in mud in a fishing boat, playing football with the old man, a few of Danny in a baseball uniform. And then of course the communion photograph. There Danny sat his hair slicked back, in a white little tuxedo and a white tie, his hands pressed together to pray. He looked so innocent, and yet so guilty. It was as she leaned into that picture to get a closer look that Danny found her.
"So the pictures ropped ya in huh Linds?"
"What, oh yea." Lindsay blushed.
"Was wondering what you got to, now what are you looking at?" He asked as he leaned over her shoulder to get a look. "Oh God, not the communion photo."
"Gotta hand it to ya Dan, not all guys can handle a white suit. And wow, who knew your hair could do that." She teased.
"Yea yea laugh it up. Either I had to slick it back for the day or my ma was buzzing it. That was not a good look for me."
"Oh, I don't know, I think the crew cut was cute." She said as she wrapped her arms around his waist and pulled him in for a hug.
"If you say so Linds, but if we have a boy, no way in hell am I letting you do that to the poor kid." He said softly into her ear causing her to giggle as he pulled her deeper into the hug. There was a brief gust of wind to Danny's back as the door opened. Then closed. Lindsay had felt it against her face and looked up to see a face she had only seen in person once before.
Danny pulled out of the hug and turned around to greet the newest arrival, but froze in place at the sight. Louie. "Louie?" he looked up at the sight his brother with his arm wrapped around the small frame of a take-home-to-mom type of girl and laughed. Who woulda thunk it.
"Hey Dan, guess by that question ma didn't tell ya I was coming." Louie smirked. "She actually does listen, ha, good to see ya, now who's your friend, or do I have ta introduce myself." He laughed.
"Sorry, Lou, it's just been a while since I heard from ya, this is my grilfriend Lindsay. Lindsay you remember Lou."
"Remember, don't think I've met the likes of a girlfriend this pretty Dan." Louie said as he winked at Lindsay.
"No, not formally." Lindsay smiled. "I a, I work with Danny, so a couple of years ago…" Lindsay trailed off, she didn't like bringing up the subject of her friends murders around her family back in Montana, she wasn't really sure Danny or any Messer wanted to remember THOSE few weeks either (those weeks Louie was beaten to a pulp), especially on a day like today.
"You're Montana." Louie said as he discovered why this woman held such a tie on Danny's heart. It was a connection he saw as soon as he opened the door on the embraced couple. Danny and Louie had spent a good day talking when he finally came to a few days after the beating, by then Danny had been cried out, and ready to mive on with life. The brothers had moved ever so slightly past the wall that had crumbled when Danny had heard the copy of the tape Lindsay had brought him. Louie had spent another week or two in recovery before packing up and leaving New York, his past had almost killed him, it was time to get out and start a future so he took a job in Boston and had been there for the last two and a half years. He and Danny talked occasionally, but not often, and never about anything as big as the girlfriends that actually stuck around. Louie did however know about Montana, she was the one Danny had talked about that day in the hospital, the woman he swore he wasn't falling for.
"Yea, yea I am."
"Well Danny, so much for not falling for her." Louie winked as he slapped Danny on the back with the paper he had brought in from outside. "Ma, your first born is home." Louie called out into the kitchen as Danny and Lindsay stared at each other for a second.
"So you weren't gonna fall for me." Lindsay teased.
"I was in denile."
"I'd say. So what made you change your mind there Messer?" She asked as she stepped closer,
"Think it was a combination of things, all starting with when you rambled off sports stats."
"Oh, the first proposal." Lindsay smirked as Danny wrapped his arms around her.
"Told ya, it was a dangerous thing." He said as he placed a kiss to her forehead. They stood like that for a second until they heard Maria call "Dinner."
"Guess we were waiting on Louie to get here." Danny smirked as he grabbed Lindsay's hand and led her into the dining room for dinner…