"I…I can't do this," Lindsay said, her hand shaking as she dropped her pen, not even flinching as it bounced off the edge of the clipboard, hit her knee and fell to the ground.
"Hey, I know it's hard," Danny said, reaching down to grab the pen before returning to his seat next to his wife. "But I'm sure the doctor is doing…"
"No, you don't understand," Lindsay interrupted, shoving the clipboard and the paperwork attached to it into Danny's lap. "This, Danny, I literally cannot do this. I can't answer a single one of those questions. Not one."
"I'm sure that's not true," Danny said gently. "Let's just start with…"
"Danny, I can't tell them if she's ever had surgery," Lindsay said. "I don't know if her first pregnancy had complications, I don't know if she's allergic to anything, if she's ever had a broken bone, none of it. I can't even answer the first question."
"Lindsay, the first question is her date of birth," Danny pointed out.
"I know that," Lindsay snapped. "And I can't answer that, because I don't know, Danny. I know she was born in 1988, I'm pretty sure it was January, but beyond that, I don't know. What sort of a horrible person doesn't even know her own sister's birthday?"
"Lindsay, you are not a horrible person," Danny assured her. "You were just a kid."
"I could have been better," Lindsay said. "I should have been better, Danny. That whole sheet, it's things I should know. I could fill it out without thinking twice for you, or for Lucy, or for any one of my brothers. I should be able to do it for my sister, but I can't."
"I don't really know what to say here, Montana," Danny admitted, wrapping an arm around her waist and scooting her a little bit closer on the hard plastic bench. "I think you're being too hard on yourself. You were twelve years old, you wouldn't possible be expected to handle things differently."
"But I grew up, Danny, I wasn't twelve the whole time. I grew up and she still needed me," Lindsay said. "And I still wasn't there; none of us were there. There was so much we should have seen, so much we should have done…but we were too busy living our own lives. And now it's too late; you saw her back at the precinct – she hates me, Danny."
"I don't think she hates you, Lindsay," Danny assured her. "She's angry, but did you see the way she was holdin' onto you back there at the morgue? You just gotta give her some time – think about the position she's in."
"What do you mean?" Lindsay asked.
"Someone she trusted enough to make her daughter's godfather just shot her husband in cold blood," Danny pointed out. "She's five months pregnant, facing single motherhood for the second time in her life; she's got to be worried about Janie; she just lost a guy she clearly loved. That's a lot for anyone to deal with, Lindsay – and I'm sure seein' you was as much of a shock to her as anything else."
"She's twenty-one years old," Lindsay said, shaking her head. "She should be in college, having fun with her friends, not five months pregnant and in an emergency room."
"I know," Danny sighed, kissing Lindsay gently on the forehead. "I know."
"Ms. Monroe?"
Lindsay practically bolted out of her seat at the sound of the doctor's voice, turning anxiously to face him in the center of the room.
"Is she alright?" Lindsay asked. "What's going on?"
"She's resting now," the doctor said. "We'll be moving her up to the maternity floor shortly. I'd like her to stay overnight for observation, but that's really just a precaution at this point. Her blood pressure was extremely high, and it doesn't appear that she's been eating recently, so her blood sugar was quite low – the combination of those two factors likely triggered the pains she was experiencing. With some rest, she should be just fine for the remainder of her pregnancy."
"Thank God," Lindsay sighed, leaning back against Danny in relief.
"She's asked to see you," the doctor said.
"Me?" Lindsay asked skeptically.
"Go, Linds," Danny whispered encouragingly. "Talk to her."
"Hey, you," Lindsay said softly, standing nervously in the door of Kelly's room.
"You can come in, you know," Kelly said. "I'm not running this time."
"I don't want to intrude," Lindsay said, taking a few hesitant steps into the room.
"Lindsay, for God's sake, just get your butt in here," Kelly said impatiently. "If I didn't want you to come in, I wouldn't have asked for you."
"Right," Lindsay nodded, pulling up a chair next to the bed. "So, uh, the doctor said you should be fine. That's good news."
"Yeah," Kelly agreed. "Just avoid stress and no heavy lifting. Hey, it's not like I have anything to stress about, right? Or, you know, a four year old to take care of."
"You could let me help you," Lindsay suggested. "I know you hate me, Mandy, but I could help…or I could call someone? A friend? Helen, maybe?"
"Did you grow up in the same universe that I did?" Kelly asked skeptically. "Even if she were still alive, hell would have to freeze over before I let my mother anywhere near my family."
"Helen's dead?" Lindsay asked in surprise.
"Has been for about seven years," Kelly said.
"I'm sorry," Lindsay said. "I didn't know."
"How could you?" Kelly asked. "We were living in Los Angeles at the time."
"Do you mind if I ask what happened?" Lindsay asked hesitantly.
"She shot herself," Kelly said. "She was drunk, no surprise there. She got pissed off about one thing or the other and had the gun out…I don't know if she really intended to shoot herself or not, but that's what she did."
"Why didn't you call?" Lindsay asked. "You were just a kid, Mandy…social services should have at least called Dad."
"I never saw social services," Kelly admitted. "I called 911, grabbed my bag and took off before the cops arrived. No way was I letting them put me in a foster home."
"They would have sent you back to us, not to a foster home," Lindsay insisted. "And if not Dad, then to me, Tommy, Lucas, Peter, Evan…any one of us would have taken you in, sweetie, you would have been more than welcome."
"Maybe I would have, maybe I wouldn't have been," Kelly shrugged. "But what in the eleven years I spent living barely two hours from all of you was supposed to convince me that you wouldn't turn your backs on me?"
"I guess we weren't exactly what siblings are supposed to be, were we?" Lindsay agreed sadly. "I'm so sorry, Mandy…I don't know what else I can say beyond that."
"Don't apologize, Lindsay," Kelly said. "It is what it is; you can't change the way you acted back then. And yeah, I think you all screwed up with me, and a big part of me wishes that I could change that – but what else would I be changing? I wouldn't have ended up on the streets, but I never would have had Janie, either, and that little girl is my whole world, Lindsay. And maybe I wouldn't have had so much heartache, but if I'd stayed in Montana, I never would have fallen in love with Ryan. I can't even imagine a world in which I would never have Ryan and Jane."
"I still wish I'd been better," Lindsay said. "There's so much I should have seen, Amanda…so much you went through that never should have happened."
"Hey, it wasn't all bad," Kelly said. "I mean, yeah, some of it sucked. But we had a few good times stuck in among all the bad ones."
"Did we?" Lindsay asked skeptically.
"Well, that's how I remember them, anyway," Kelly said. "Even that last weekend I spent with you…it didn't end well, but a lot of it was really fun."
"I guess I usually just think about the way it ended, but we did have a good time that weekend, didn't we?" Lindsay agreed, a slight smile crossing her face as the memories of those two days flooding back into her mind…
Lindsay sighed impatiently as she leaned back against the hood of her car, glancing down at her watch before crossing her arms over her chest, shivering slightly against the cold late March chill. After what seemed like hours to her, the doors of the building across the street swung open and a stream of children began filing out and hurrying across the snow-covered yard to their waiting rides.
Straightening up, Lindsay stood high on her tiptoes and craned her neck as her eyes scanned the crowd. Finally, just when she was beginning to worry that she'd missed her, she spotted a flash of the familiar red hair at the back of the crowd. She was walking slowly, all alone and slightly removed from the other children, one hand clutching tightly to an old backpack slung over her shoulder, the other hanging loosely in a sling. Lindsay immediately recognized the long winter coat she was wearing as the same one her sister-in-law, Katrina, had dragged Lindsay out to buy just before Christmas. At the time, she'd thought it was a ridiculous gift, and she'd been certain to tell Kat as much too. They lived in Montana, she'd reasoned. Getting a decent winter coat at the start of the season was as vital for a child as getting a vaccine as an infant, but who needed two? After all, Lindsay remembered pointing out, it wasn't as though Helen had no money to purchase a coat. Lindsay was certainly aware enough to know exactly who those checks her father wrote every month were sent to.
As she watched Amanda struggle to adjust her patched up backpack, though, Lindsay wondered if perhaps Kat hadn't been quite so far off when she'd not so subtly suggested that Helen wasn't appropriately utilizing those child support payments.
"Amanda!" Lindsay called out, waving her arm in the air to catch the girl's attention.
Lindsay couldn't help the slight smile that crept onto her face as she watched the way Amanda's whole face lit up at the sight of her older sister standing across from her school. Breaking out in a huge grin, Amanda hurried across the street, dropping her backpack and throwing her arms around Lindsay's waist as soon as she was close enough to reach.
"Well, hi there," Lindsay said, pulling back in amusement. "I guess you're glad to see me, then?"
"Of course I am," Amanda said. "I didn't know you were coming, Lindsay."
"That's the point of a surprise," Lindsay said.
"What are you doing here?" Amanda asked curiously.
"I came to see you, silly," Lindsay said. "I thought it might be fun if you came down to my place and we had a little sleepover, then tomorrow you could come hang out with me at work."
"Really?" Amanda asked in awe.
"Yes, really," Lindsay said, reaching out and grabbing Amanda's backpack. "Now, I didn't get a chance to your mother first and ask her permission. Is she picking you up?"
"No, I usually walk," Amanda said.
"You walk in this weather?" Lindsay asked skeptically, glancing up at the storm clouds in the sky and back at the little girl in front of her.
"It's not so bad," Amanda shrugged. "I walk pretty fast."
"Well, maybe we can swing by your apartment and talk to her there before we head back to Bozeman," Lindsay said.
"She won't be there," Amanda said. "Besides, Helen won't even notice that I'm not there; don't worry about it."
"Are you sure?" Lindsay asked hesitantly.
"Yup," Amanda nodded eagerly, pulling open the door of Lindsay's car and slipping into the passenger's seat. "Come on, Lindsay, let's go!"
Laughing at her sister's enthusiasm, Lindsay shook her head, tossing the backpack into the backseat and hurrying around to the driver's side door.
"Alright," she said, slipping into the front seat. "Let's get this show on the road, little monkey."
Danny closed his eyes as he sat in the quiet hospital room three floors above where Lindsay and Amanda were slowly reconnecting, listening in stillness to the steady beeps of the machines crowding the space around the head of the bed.
"You know what freaks me out the most, Stel?" he asked eventually, opening his eyes and leaning forward to take her hand. "None of this really bothers me anymore; the hospital, the sterilization, the damn beeping…it's all starting to feel normal, and that ain't right. This can't be our normal, Stella, it can't be. Today, when we came in with Lindsay's sister, I swear to God the ER nurses were starting to recognize me."
Danny shook his head and leaned back again in his chair.
"You didn't know that, did you?" he asked. "That Lindsay has a sister? See all the stuff you're missing? I guess if it makes you feel better, I didn't know until today, either, so it wasn't just you. I get the feelin' there's a whole big story there, but it ain't really the time to be askin' her all about it, I guess. Especially not since her sister's husband was my vic from yesterday's big case. Worst thing about all of this…I think her brothers are flying out. I'm tellin' you, Stella, I kinda wish you were gonna be here for this, because then maybe I could hide behind ya, you know? They don't like me real well, so if I don't stop by for a while, you think you could maybe wake up to save me?"
Danny chuckled slightly to himself as he sat up once more.
"Too much to ask?" he mused. "Still, it couldn't hurt to ask, right? Look, I know I ain't even been here that long, but I gotta go, Stel – I just wanted to stop by and say hi while I was, you know, in the building. I gotta run to pick Lucy up and then I gotta go flash my badge and see if I can't get Lindsay's niece, too – I know, more family I didn't know about. Maybe I'll bring Lucy up later; I know she sure misses her Aunt Stella…we all do, Stella, we miss you so much."
Danny sighed as he eased himself out of his chair, leaning over slightly to gently kiss Stella's cheek and squeeze her hand before straightening up again.
"You take care, Stella," Danny whispered. "Come back to us soon, okay?"
