WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN

Disclaimer: The characters in CSI: New York and CSI: Miami do not belong to me. No infringement is intended, no profit is made.

Summary: After her and Danny's difficult break-up, Lindsay Monroe is transferred to the Miami Crime Lab. Two years later and the past comes knocking on her door…

Notes: Hi! Another new chapter for you. Firstly, there is some adult talk and scenes in this one so please bear in mind the rating. Secondly, (living in the UK), I know nothing about baseball apart from what I've seen on TV and in films, so you'll have to forgive any inaccuracies about what day/time the games are held etc… I'm assuming Saturday early-to-mid afternoon in this instance.

Okay, I think that's about it with the introductory stuff. Hope you enjoy! x

OOOOOO

Part 9 – Getting Back To Love

Mid-morning, the following day…

Removing the slim wand from the tube of pale pink gloss, Lindsay smoothed a thin coat over her lips, and then stepped back to survey her reflection in the mirror in front of her. Dressed casually in a pair of snugly fitting jeans and a spaghetti-strapped purple top, her only concession to the fact that this was technically a date were the low-heeled shoes that she wore on her feet instead of the habitual sneakers that she might normally don to an event like this.

Well that and the artfully applied natural-looking make-up, the strategic spritzes of seductive perfume, and the criminally expensive La Perla lingerie, of course. Danny may have left her at her hotel room door last night with only a sizzling kiss for company, but if today went as she hoped it would then she didn't think she'd be sleeping alone again tonight.

After they'd left the party the previous evening, they'd taken a long, leisurely stroll through Central Park, regularly stopping to sit on one of the many benches that dotted the park's myriad of walkways. Their frequent breaks were ostensibly to take in their beautiful surroundings, but mainly to give Lindsay's aching feet a rest from the spectacular, if slightly uncomfortable shoes that she'd rashly splurged her money on earlier in the day. Over those two short hours, they'd talked, laughed and teased one another in the way that they used to before Ruben Sandoval's tragic death had torn their comfortable world apart at the seams.

Up until then, Lindsay had been feeling a certain amount of regret for the decision that she'd made in Miami a year or so ago, but she had re-discovered the courage of her convictions during that protracted conversation. She would never forget how he'd betrayed her, but that niggling distrust of him was no longer in existence. It had taken the past year of separation for her to finally let it go and move on though.

Danny had changed in the intervening months too. He was still the same fun-loving, slightly off-beat individual that she had fallen in love with in the first place, but there was a new maturity to his character now. She'd noticed it in Miami in relation to his work ethic, but it had become much more rounded over the past year, filtering into every aspect of his life. He'd grown up, yet had still managed to retain his unique, devil-may-care approach to life. Perhaps he, like her, had needed the closure they'd found in Miami and the time apart since then to really come to terms with who he was in the wake of everything that had happened to him.

It was as Danny had said the previous day. If they renewed their relationship now, it would be a conscious choice on both their parts. A year ago, it would have been a knee-jerk reaction to the assuaging of all the heartache they'd suffered over their painful break-up. Back then, it would have been like trying to re-build a relationship on shifting sands, whereas now they would have a considerably more solid foundation to work from.

If she were honest with herself, Lindsay had pretty much made up her mind what she wanted the previous evening. She was simply waiting for Danny to catch up with her now. She could understand him being a little wary. She'd had six weeks to think about their possible reunion, him less than twenty-four hours so far. She just hoped that the next couple of days would allay his lingering concerns. She had to fly back to Miami on Monday and she knew that it would be a lot more difficult for them to reconnect hundreds of miles apart.

She was distracted from her thoughts by the sharp rap of knuckles against the door then, and she quickly crossed the carpeted floor to answer Danny's distinctive knock.

"Hey!" she said, her face splitting into a warm smile of greeting as she stepped back to let him in.

"Hey!" he echoed, his gaze meeting hers as he pushed the door closed behind him.

The tension thickened between them until neither could resist the unrelenting pull. Lindsay stepped instinctively into Danny as he, in turn, reached impulsively for her. Their lips met and clung for a frozen moment in time, then parted for a brief, tantalising second before being drawn back together again like bees to a honey-pot. Lindsay's breath caught in her throat as Danny's hands settled low and firm in the small of her back, the tips of his fingers cheekily grazing the curve of her jean-clad bottom. Cupping his face in her hands, she kissed him back ardently, her lips willingly parting so that his tongue could tangle passionately with hers.

After about thirty seconds or so, Danny reluctantly disentangled himself from their embrace, emitting a low groan of frustration in the back of his throat as he did so. "Jesus Montana!" he cursed, running an agitated hand through his hair. "You're driving me crazy. It never used to be this bad. I used to have a modicum of self-control around you at least."

Lindsay's lips curled up into a cat-that-got-the-cream smile at his rueful confession, and he couldn't help but laugh at the supremely self-satisfied expression that lit up her coffee-coloured eyes as a result.

"Okay, I think we should get out of here," he decided. "Because, baby, if you keep looking at me like that, we're not going to make it past the door, let alone to the game."

"And that's a bad thing?" Lindsay remarked, throwing a mischievous glance over her shoulder as she retrieved her purse from where it sat on top of the dresser.

"Oh no, it's a good thing," Danny said as he laced his fingers through hers and led her towards the door, "A very good thing in fact. Just maybe not the most sensible thing right now."

"Spoilsport!" Lindsay pouted with faux discontent and then laughed. "Don't worry, I promise I won't jump you until after the game," she told him, leaning into him flirtatiously and wrapping her free hand around his forearm to keep him close by her side.

Danny shot her an amused sidelong glance, his blue eyes full of mirth. "Is that supposed to reassure me?" he quipped good-naturedly, "Because it sounded a whole lot like a threat to me."

"Danny!" She punched him on the upper arm in protest and he laughed as they made their way down the corridor towards the elevator. Outside on the sidewalk a few minutes later, Lindsay was somewhat surprised to see his Harley parked nearby.

"There are a couple of hours yet before we have to make our way to the Stadium," Danny explained off her questioning look. "I figured we could take a ride and then grab ourselves an early lunch before the game." He unhooked the spare helmet and offered it to her. "I retrieved this from the back of the closet where it was gathering dust."

She recognised it as the helmet he'd bought her when they'd been dating the first time around. His regular spare had been too large for her, she recalled. "The back of the closet?" she queried as she settled it on her head and allowed him to fasten the strap for her. "You buy a different helmet for all your girlfriends?"

He looked at her, confused, for a moment and then his expression cleared as her meaning dawned. "No." His laughter rang out clear and resonant. "You wouldn't have caught Maya on the back of my Harley even if you'd paid her a million dollars to do it," he said.

Lindsay smiled, her eyes dancing playfully. "Well, that's a relief. I was imagining a secret closet with hundreds of alphabetised helmets there for a minute."

"Interesting thought, Monroe, but sadly no. You were the one and only…"

"Seriously?" Her eyebrows lifted.

"Seriously," he confirmed with an incline of his head.

"Wow! I'm privileged," she declared expansively.

"Not really," Danny responded. "You were the only woman I ever went out with who didn't mind messing up her hair!"

He grinned at her and then sobered, realising how that may have sounded. "Well apart from Maya, of course," he went on. "That was more an aversion to motorbikes kind of thing."

Lindsay nodded without comment, trying to quash the unexpected jealousy that burned like acid in her stomach at his solicitousness towards his ex-girlfriend. He seemed genuinely happy to be here with her, but he spoke of Maya with such honest, underlying affection that it unnerved her a little. The woman had obviously made an impression on him. Maybe reconciliation between the two of them wasn't quite such the done deal as she'd originally thought? After all, Danny had only broken up with this Maya girl a few weeks ago…

As the Harley took off into the late morning traffic, she instinctively tightened her arms around his middle in a vain attempt to hold him closer to her. 'Please don't let it be too late,' she pleaded silently to anyone who would listen. 'I couldn't handle it if it were too late.'

As if sensing her unspoken disquiet, Danny's left hand dropped briefly away from the handlebars to squeeze her fingers before he executed a sharp right turn onto the next block. Lindsay wasn't sure of their destination because, in her distraction, she hadn't thought to ask him. He was clearly taking the scenic route to wherever it was they were going however. Resting her chin on his shoulder, she forced herself to relax a little and enjoy the unique perspective of New York City's famously cosmopolitan streets.

It reminded her of the first time that they'd gone away together. They'd each taken a couple of vacation days so that a rare weekend off for them both had turned into a four-day mini-break. It was at a time shortly before they went official with their relationship and Lindsay remembered being concerned that it had been a little too obvious for them to be away at the same time.

Danny had shrugged off the whole matter with typical nonchalance however. "Well at least it'll give the Lab gossip machine something new to grind," he'd remarked languorously, and then laughed at her dismayed expression. "Come on, Montana. They're gonna find out eventually. We can't keep it a secret forever."

He'd told her to 'pack light' and it wasn't until he showed up at dawn on his Harley with the brand-new helmet in tow that she'd understood why. They'd ridden beyond the city limits and on into upstate New York, stopping for breakfast at a diner on the outskirts of the city, and then for lunch at a roadside rest-stop somewhere on the edge of a wilderness as far as her city-born boyfriend was concerned.

"If you think the absence of sky-scrappers and wall-to-wall traffic is country, Messer, then you ain't seen nothing yet," she'd told him laughingly as she climbed off the back of the bike and shook her hair free of the restrictive confines of her helmet.

"Oh yeah?" he'd said, wrapping his arms round her waist from behind and nuzzling at her neck as they headed across the parking lot towards the restaurant. "Gonna take me to meet the folks in Big Sky Country are ya, Montana?"

She'd turned in his arms and looped her arms around his neck. "If I said yes, you'd run a mile," she'd gently teased.

He'd looked down his nose at her. "You think so little of me, Miss Monroe."

"No," she'd contradicted. "I just know you."

She'd kissed him then, savouring the warm sensation that flowed through her veins as his lips moved confidently over hers. With pleasure came fear however. It didn't matter how much she tried to pretend she wasn't, she was little by little falling in love with this man and she had absolutely no idea of whether he was capable of loving her back in the same way.

"This is nice," Danny had remarked when he'd eventually lifted his lips from hers.

"What is?"

"This. Us. Away from work, away from well, everything, I guess."

She'd smiled at the sentiment, determined not to let her doubts get in the way of what this weekend was supposed to about. Just them. Alone, simply enjoying each other's company for what it was and taking pleasure in that.

Lindsay sighed. She could honestly say that, for all the time they'd been dating, she had never felt closer to him than she had during those few days of solitude. There'd been other weekends away later, but the pattern of their relationship had settled into something of a routine by that point. That first vacation had been a journey of discovery for them both. Their passion for each other had been unequivocal, their relationship fresh and new. It was only as they'd gotten closer on a day-to-day basis that the barriers had started to go up between them. After that, they'd quickly hit a brick-wall that they'd never quite managed to break down until it was too late.

"Remember that time in the cabin?" she asked Danny, forty-five minutes later as they strolled, hand in hand, towards a one-time favourite pizzeria to grab a quick slice before heading to the game.

He shot her a curious sidelong glance and then nodded with a glimmer of a smile tugging at the corner of his lips. "I'm not likely to forget any time soon."

"I fell in love with you that weekend," she confessed. "Not that I admitted it to myself at the time, but that's definitely when my feelings for you went beyond mere like."

There was a short pause. "I'm not entirely sure what I'm supposed to say to that," Danny eventually responded.

"What would you have said?" Lindsay asked, "If I'd told you?"

"Back then, you mean?" he enquired.

She nodded.

Danny sighed. "I don't know, Linds. I'd probably have freaked out and backed off to tell you the truth."

"Because you didn't feel the same?"

Danny thought about it for a moment, and then shook his head. "No, because I wasn't ready to feel the same," he said. "If I was going to look back over our relationship and pinpoint a time when you became more than just a 'friend with benefits' to me, then that weekend would probably be it. At the time though, I convinced myself it was just the sex talking."

Lindsay smiled, her brown eyes twinkling at him. "Because of course there was no shortage of that!" she remarked.

Danny grinned broadly at her, a healthy dose of male ego on display. "No, we clocked up a pretty impressive number of notches on the bedpost that weekend that was for sure," he concurred smugly.

Lindsay laughed. It was true – they'd barely left the cabin they'd rented the entire time they'd been there. The only two occasions they'd ventured out was to visit a nearby restaurant for dinner on the Saturday evening, and to take a short walk in the surrounding forest on the Sunday afternoon. The rest of the time they'd remained cut off from the outside world, immersed in their own private bubble.

It was the quiet, intimate respites between the frequent bouts of lovemaking that Lindsay remembered most clearly though. They'd talked for hours, opening up to each other in a way that they hadn't done before. All right so Danny may have held back on the experiences that he'd eventually confided to her in Miami just over a year ago, but through stories of his childhood, fledgling baseball career and subsequent training as a CSI, she'd discovered so much more about the man she was falling in love with.

In turn, she'd shared similar anecdotes of her own upbringing with him, and had also found herself confiding further details of the horrible night that had shattered her childhood innocence for good. There was no need for her to keep that part of her life a secret from him anymore. A few months earlier, he'd sat in court at Daniel Kadem's trial and listened to her sworn testimony, and then steadfastly remained by her side during the interminable wait for the verdict. She hadn't been able to tell him much more at the time; she was too emotionally drained from the effort of having to relive her ordeal in court. The intimacy of that weekend had lowered her emotional defences however, and so it was that, through Danny, she'd finally been able to put her painful past behind her and at long last begin to heal.

Back in the present, impulse had her reaching out to take his hands in hers, the act bringing them both to a standstill on the sidewalk. "I want you back," she told him, the strong emotions behind the statement making her voice tremble a little.

"No, no, you don't have to say anything," she said, placing her forefinger over his lips when he opened his mouth to speak. "This is a bolt from the blue for you, I know that. I just want to make things absolutely clear because I need you to be careful with my heart, Danny. I don't think I could handle it if… if…" she trailed off, unable to continue.

The fearful look in her eyes told Danny what she hadn't been able to articulate and he tightened his fingers around hers in response. "This isn't a game to me, Linds," he assured her. "Having said that, a lot has changed in the last twelve months and I honestly don't know where that leaves us. I have no intention of making you any promises that I can't keep though."

"You're still partly in love with Maya, aren't you?" she asked as they continued on their way down the street.

"What?" Danny's blue eyes widened at her question.

"The way you talk about her, Danny…" Lindsay tore her gaze from his and shook her head. "The two of you only split up a month ago," she pointed out.

"I know but…" Danny broke off and sighed. "Look - me and Maya – it wasn't like you and me, Lindsay. I'm sad it ended between us, of course I am, but I have no regrets about the choice I made. Maya and I - our relationship was finite, I think I always knew that. It was something I needed to experience though. It was the last piece of the jigsaw puzzle in a way – I needed the time I shared with her to prove to myself that I could be the man that I want to be, the man I know you need me to be."

"So what? She was like a practise run?"

Danny chuckled. "Well, I wouldn't put it exactly like that, but I guess you could view it that way, yeah."

"But what if…" Lindsay broke off, afraid of the answer.

"What if what?" Danny pressed.

"What if she was the right one for you and I'm all wrong?" Lindsay said in a rush.

"Then we wouldn't be here now, would we?" Danny told her matter-of-factly, the statement puncturing the knotted ball of tension that had lodged in her stomach at the turn their conversation had taken.

"But we are here, Lindsay," he went on. "Try to have a little faith in that, huh? What I felt for Maya in no way diminishes my feelings for you. The fact that I can feel that kind of affection for her and still look at you and see someone that I want to be with is a testament to the strength of them, not the reverse."

"I know, I'm sorry, I'm just…" Lindsay closed her eyes. "I'm wound so tight right now…" she admitted.

"Come here." Danny drew her close, curling his left arm around her shoulders and resting his chin on the top of her head. Lindsay wrapped her arms around his waist and pressed her face against his collarbone as he rubbed her back with his other hand, his palm moving in slow, soothing circles over her spine.

"Lindsay, look – the god's honest truth is that, if I had to make a decision right here, right now, then I'd probably say yeah, let's go for it. But this is make or break time for us and I don't want to get it wrong. I have to be sure and, for that, I need a little more time. I want to say yes though, all right? I'm not looking for reasons to say no, quite the opposite in fact."

He stroked his fingers through her hair and kissed the top of her head. "You've gotta try and relax though, babe. Today is supposed to be about reconnecting and it's hard to do that when you're so uptight. You need to calm down and let it happen or we're never going to get to where we both want to be."

"I know," Lindsay said, her voice muffled by his t-shirt. "I just… I want this so badly, Danny. I didn't realise how much until I saw you yesterday. It was all just fantasy up until then." She lifted her head and looked up into his face. "And you being with Maya – I honestly didn't expect that."

Danny's lips quirked up into a small smile. "You expected me to become a monk?" he asked with wry amusement.

Lindsay smiled at his self-deprecating tone and shook her head. "No, but I didn't expect something quite so serious even so. I know that's horribly selfish of me, but the whole thing has knocked me sideways if you want to know the truth."

Danny sighed. "Lindsay - look in Miami you had all the power. I was so desperate for your forgiveness I would have done anything you asked of me. And before, I guess the balance of power was mainly mine. You'd fallen in love with me and I was holding myself back from you. If we're going to do this, then we need to find the right balance this time around. So please don't turn yourself into someone whose existence is completely dependent on my love, okay? Be that strong person you were in Miami – the one who believed she deserved something more."

"And the one who knew that if I couldn't figure that out for myself, I wasn't worth the effort," he added with a grin.

"When did you get so wise, Detective Messer?" Lindsay asked, partially pulling out of his embrace but still keeping an arm wrapped firmly around his waist.

Danny slung his arm casually over her shoulder as they crossed the street to the restaurant. "Trust me, it's a temporary aberration," he told her. "I'm still a total screw-up deep down."

Her fingers lifted to tangle with his. "Well, thank god for that," she teased, tilting her head back to look up into his face. "Mr Perfect was getting kinda scary."

Danny laughed and dropped a sound kiss on her upturned lips. "Come on, let's eat," he said as they finally reached their destination. "We've got a baseball game to get to."

OOOOOO

A couple of hours later…

"Here you go." Don Flack said, handing Lindsay a plastic cup of diet soda as he squeezed past her on the way back to his seat. "Nacho?" he offered as he sat down next to her.

"No thanks." Lindsay wrinkled her nose in distaste. "That's a heart attack waiting to happen, you know."

"Yeah but at least I'll live before I die," he told her with a grin.

She laughed. "Where's your 'friend'?" she asked lightly.

Don shrugged. "Restroom."

"Does she actually know anything about baseball?" she queried pointedly.

Don narrowed his eyes at her. "What exactly are you trying say, Monroe?"

"Me?" Lindsay said innocently. "Nothing." A beat and then: "There's no way those boobs are real."

"I'll let you know tomorrow," he told her with a wink.

She rolled her eyes in response. "You're disgusting."

Don laughed. "Look, I know she looks as if she just stepped off a glamour shoot, but appearances can be deceptive. She does actually have a brain in her head, I swear."

"And besides," he went on with a sidelong glance. "You didn't pick that outfit for pure comfort."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Flack waggled his eyebrows at her. "Betcha got your sexy underwear on too."

Lindsay blushed, uncomfortable at just how close to the mark he was getting. "This is highly inappropriate, Flack," she remonstrated.

He waved that off. "Relax. Number One rule of the Bro-code: don't mess with your buddy's girl. I was merely making an observation that's all. Got yourself all dressed up for Messer, didn't ya?"

She stuck her nose in the air. "I don't see as that's any of your business," she told him reprovingly.

Flack laughed at her defensive primness. "I missed you, Linds, you know that?" he said. "And don't sweat it – I bet Danno's got his sexy underwear on for you too."

"Actually, I'm going commando," Danny claimed as he rejoined them, taking the seat to Lindsay's left.

"Danny!" Lindsay protested, the rosy red of her cheeks turning scarlet.

Don laughed while Danny sidled closer to his blushing ex. "You got your sexy underwear on, Montana?" he asked with a non too subtle attempt at looking down her top, which only prompted Flack to laugh even harder.

"Will you two quit it?" Lindsay exclaimed, shoving Danny roughly away from her. She shook her head in exasperation. "I swear you're like two little boys in kindergarten sometimes."

"I was more into pulling little girl's pigtails back then," Danny observed, settling his arm across the back of her chair, his fingers playing in her hair. "I only graduated to second base when I hit puberty."

Lindsay laughed in spite of herself. "You're incorrigible."

"Where's Bryony?" Danny asked his friend over her head.

"Bronté," Flack corrected. "And right there." He pointed to where his date was making her way along the row of seats towards them.

Lindsay looked over at Danny. "Out of interest – who would have been sitting in my seat if I hadn't been in New York?"

"Adam won the straw poll at the Lab," he told her, "But he graciously gave up the ticket for you."

Lindsay giggled. "Would have been interesting if he hadn't," she remarked with a mischievous grin.

Danny followed her gaze towards the well-proportioned and mini-skirted Bronté and smiled. He leaned in towards her. "Witnessing his reaction would have almost been worth ditching you for," he murmured in her ear.

"What does Bronté do exactly?" Lindsay asked in an undertone.

"Umm, legal secretary, I think. Something in a lawyer's office anyway."

Lindsay's eyes widened at that and he grinned at her. "There see – reason why you should never judge a book by its cover," he observed, twisting his legs to one side as Bronté squeezed by them to re-take her seat on the other side of Flack.

The proximity of their topic of conversation effectively ended it, as did the hooting and whistling of the crowd as the two baseball teams began to make their way back onto the playing field. Rising to her feet, Lindsay joined in enthusiastically, clapping her hands and stamping her feet with the best of them. She grinned excitedly at Danny. "I've missed this," she told him.

Danny affectionately hooked his arm around her neck, "I knew I'd make a Yankee's fan outta you one day, Montana," he said, and then, drawn by the animated sparkle in her shining eyes, he dipped his head and covered her mouth with his.

Curling her fingers into the waistband of his jeans, Lindsay leaned into the embrace, closing her eyes and shutting out the crowd as they exchanged a series of soft, sweet kisses. It felt so natural, so right. It amazed her that two people who were still trying to decide whether to take a second shot at things could be so in tune with each other in this way.

It wasn't that they didn't love each other, she realised. It was more a question of whether they believed they could make it last. They were playing for keeps now; there would be no further vacillation after the decision was made. For good or for ill, this was it – it would either be a brand new beginning for them or a final, painful goodbye. There would be no in between anymore. It wasn't healthy for them to continue to live in the past in this way. If they weren't going to stay together and make a future for themselves, then it was finally time for them to move on with their separate lives.

OOOOOO

Later that night…

Twisting the faucet, Danny poured himself a glass of cool water and then wandered out of the kitchen and into the apartment's dimly lit living space. The standard lamp in the corner by the door was the only thing lighting the room and the space was bathed in shadows as a consequence. He crossed to the window and looked out, sipping at his drink while his scientist's brain categorised and processed the unanticipated turn his personal life had taken in recent days.

Today had been something of a rollercoaster ride. There was no denying the strong attraction he had for Lindsay, nor the deep love that he still possessed for her. It wasn't something that had diminished with time. Yes, he'd learned to live without her in his life, enough so that he had even managed to enjoy an honest and real connection with someone else. But his feelings for her had never really gone away. They had simply lain dormant inside of him, waiting to be re-awakened.

Step by step, over the course of a couple of days, those feelings had gradually been rekindled. So much so that by the time twilight had descended earlier that evening, he'd no longer been able to resist the need to relight their fire…

A few hours earlier…

The short ride up in the elevator was an exercise in torture as far as Danny was concerned. They were standing as close as was humanly possible without actually physically touching. You could almost hear the sexual tension fizzing in the air between them. It had all his senses on high alert and was causing goose-bumps to rise on his flesh as well as anticipatory shivers to go down his spine. When the elevator drew to a stop, he was off and striding down the corridor towards his apartment almost before the doors had finished opening.

Lindsay had to jog to keep up with him, but she barely noticed. Infected with the same electric mood as he, her heart was sounding a rhythmic drum in her ears and her palms were beginning to sweat. She stood nervously waiting as he fumbled the key in the lock, and then they were inside his apartment, finally and unmistakably alone.

While Lindsay hovered uncertainly near the door, Danny tossed his keys in the tray on a nearby table and then spun around to face her, the expression in his blue eyes focused and determined. An instant later, Lindsay felt her back collide heavily with the wall behind her. Her shocked gasp was abruptly cut off as his lips descended insistently over hers. Her hands rose to clutch at his back, the material of his t-shirt twisting in her grip as he devastated her senses with an all-consuming kiss.

Breathing heavily, Danny pulled away just long enough to remove her top over her head before his mouth was fused on hers again, his roving hands branding her flesh with fire everywhere he touched. Finally, with an almost animal-like groan, he ripped his lips away from hers and dropped his face into the crook of her neck, trying to regain some semblance of his shattered self-control.

"Okay, okay," he muttered against her skin. "We need to slow this down before it gets out of hand."

With an impressive show of willpower, he forced himself to step away from her, then ran his fingers through his hair, causing it to spike in all directions. He looked so goddamn endearing that Lindsay recklessly decided to throw caution to the wind, go after what she so desperately wanted, and hang the consequences. Maybe it would hurt like hell if he turned away from her in the morning, but, right now, she honestly didn't care.

"Lindsay…" Danny protested, his hands settling firmly on her hips as she wrapped her arms around his neck and tilted her face purposefully up towards his.

"It doesn't matter," she said, her lips brushing his in a feather-light kiss. "Whatever choice you eventually make, I want the rest of this weekend with you."

"You asked me to be careful with your heart," he pointed out, his voice a little hoarse.

"Yes, and you are," she assured him, "By pulling back, by making this choice mine, you're doing exactly as I asked." She tightened her arms around his neck and pressed her body intimately against his. "You want me, don't you?" she asked, her eyes intent on his.

Danny's laughter came out slightly hysterical. "I think that's a given, don't you?" he told her. "I don't want to hurt you again though, Lindsay. I would hate myself for that."

"If you decide that we don't have a future together then hurting me is inevitable," she said, "But that won't be on you. You can't change the way you feel anymore than I can. And I'll survive, you know. I can live without you, I just don't want to."

He rested his forehead against hers. "I need to think."

"Think later," she whispered. "Right now… Just feel… Just act…" she said, punctuating each statement with a kiss. "Make love to me, Danny. Forget about tomorrow, just be with me tonight. Please?"

When she asked like that, how could he ever deny her?

Back in the present…

Danny sighed and turned away from the window to survey the room before him. Their discarded clothing made an untidy trail from the front door to the archway that led through into the short hallway off which the apartment's two bedrooms resided. He'd made love to her as requested – in the comfort of his bed, despite a half-joking suggestion that they re-live old times on the pool table. Afterwards, they'd ordered in Chinese takeout, and then repeated the experience a couple more times before Lindsay had eventually fallen asleep in satisfied stupor, her body curled into his side and her hand resting intimately over his heart.

He, himself, had been unable to sleep though, his mind churning with thoughts of the decision he now had to make. He wasn't even sure why he was hesitating. He loved her, he wanted her both emotionally and physically, plus he could honestly say that he enjoyed her company more than that of any other woman he'd ever known. Maya was a factor, of course – because he had genuinely loved her, and it seemed so incongruous that he could do that and still want Lindsay in the same way as he had done before.

But he did, that was the scary thing. Despite everything, she was that self same woman who had fascinated him from day one with her clipped attitude and pithy retorts, before eventually going on to win his heart with her sweet nature and fun-loving zest for life. They each had such power to hurt the other, and he guessed that was also part of what was making him wary. This wasn't simply about being with Lindsay; it was a about making a choice that could change his life forever. She may not have been directly asking him for marriage and babies, but she was asking him to commit to a future with her, and those things were bound to come up sooner or later. He'd be a fool to think otherwise.

Did he want that though? He wanted Lindsay; that was clear as day. But could he be a husband and a father? Did he have that in him? The truth was he didn't know. He knew he would try, he knew he would give her the best of himself and never intentionally hurt her again. But was that enough? He just didn't have the answer to that question.

After gathering up their scattered clothing, he returned to the bedroom and stood in the doorway, watching her sleep. It was nearly six years now since that late summer day when she'd exploded into his life at a murder scene inside a tiger enclosure of all places. Back then, he'd thought her cute, if a little uptight, but he had been impressed by the way she'd conducted herself during that first investigation even so. She hadn't let him faze her despite his new girl joshing. He'd enjoyed the various one-liners she'd tossed back at him too.

At the time, he couldn't have envisaged where it would lead, but he would go back and do it all again without a moment's hesitation. Maybe that was his answer. Maybe it was that simple. He would repeat his time over with her if it was possible to turn back time - so how could he give up the opportunity of a future with her when he had no idea how it would end? Maybe it wouldn't work out for them, but at least he wouldn't be left with any regrets. Plus, if they did manage to make it work, the possibilities were endless.

Sliding back into the bed beside her, he propped his head up on his hand and traced the outline of her pretty face with his forefinger. He would sleep on it and consider things fresh in the morning, he decided. To all intents and purposes though, his decision was made. There was no way he could turn away, even if he was still a little unsure. Lindsay undoubtedly owned his heart and their relationship was far too precious to throw away without giving it their very best shot.

Moreover, he was curious to see where a life together might eventually lead them…

To be continued (only one more time, I'm afraid – for this story anyway)…