A.N. All right! Got it up just under the wire. (Still don't own anything, unfortunately.)
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Lindsay pulled on the neck of her shirt under the bib of her striped dress. Sighing tiredly, she trudged up the steps leading to the kitchen door and pushed it open. Music and laughter drifted to her from the front of the house, and she paused before setting her backpack on the kitchen floor.
Following the noise, she walked through the house to the living room. Peeking in the doorway, she saw Shelby, Toni and Gwen dancing around the room. Her eyebrows shot up as the three of them sang along to Madonna, never having noticed her entrance.
A smirk settled over her face and she leaned against the doorway, watching them. In the middle of spinning around, Gwen finally noticed Lindsay. "Hey," she said, catching the other girls' attention. "How's our favorite little candy striper?"
Lindsay shook her head and moved further into the room as Shelby reached over to turn down the volume on the portable cd player. "Tired. I was reading to Mr. Morrison today and he demanded that I act out all the parts. MacBeth has a lot of parts," she whined, collapsing onto the couch and tossing an arm over her eyes.
"He made you act out MacBeth?" Shelby wrinkled her nose in distaste, coming to sit on the arm of the couch.
"Happy birthday to me."
There was a silent beat, then Shelby's mischievous voice. "When life gets you down, you know what you gotta do?"
Lindsay lowered her arm slightly so she could glare suspiciously at her best friend. "What's that?"
"Dance."
Groaning as Shelby pulled her off the couch, Lindsay let Shelby pull her to the middle of the room. She sighed as Toni switching in a new cd. Then Toni stood and grinned wickedly, turning the volume knob to the highest it would go. Lindsay laughed uncontrollably as Journey's "Don't Stop Believing" came blaring out of the speakers.
She let herself be pulled into the circle of her friends as they danced around the living room, singing at the top of their lungs.
Happy birthday.
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"Freddy?"
Danny glanced up at the sound of Molly's voice and saw a tall brunette man standing just inside the doorway. He looked exhausted, but managed a small smile for Lindsay's mother.
"Hey, Molly."
He didn't look much older than Danny, which was surprising since he knew this had to be Lindsay's uncle. As he came into the room, Danny noted the creases in the other man's t-shirt and the unkempt beard on his face. He was pretty sure Lindsay's uncle wasn't homeless—surely she would have mentioned that—but he certainly looked the part.
Freddy dropped a backpack in the corner and leaned over to kiss Molly's cheek. "This better be the last time I get this call."
Molly sighed. "My feelings exactly."
Freddy glanced up and seemed to notice Danny for the first time. "Oh, hey." Then he raised an eyebrow at the sight of Lindsay's hand cradled in Danny's. He'd taken hold of it sometime during the night and couldn't make himself let go.
"Hey," Danny said, half-standing and leaning over the bed to offer his free hand. "I'm—"
"Danny," Freddy finished, nodding. "Heard about you some."
Barely keeping the surprise off his face, Danny nodded politely. Appearing to dismiss the matter, Freddy glanced around the room and sighed. "There decent coffee in this place?" he asked hopefully.
"If by decent you mean sludge, sure, down the hall," Molly told him, smiling wanly.
Freddy chuckled, his entire body drooping from exhaustion. He turned to leave, one hand rubbing absently at his neck, when Gordon appeared in the doorway. Danny blinked as Lindsay's father stopped dead at the sight of Freddy.
Danny's eyes flicked between the brothers as they eyed each other warily. A tense beat of time later, Freddy nodded once. "Gordon."
"Freddy. Thanks for coming."
"Of course I came," Freddy muttered, pushing past his brother into the hallway.
Gordon didn't move as Freddy disappeared from sight, staring blankly at the place his brother had occupied not a moment before. Instinctively, Danny's fingers tightened around Lindsay's.
Molly took a deep breath. "Gordon—"
"You know I didn't mean it like he took it," Gordon told her, sounding exasperated. But her voice seemed to snap Lindsay's father out of his daze, and he moved fully into the room to collapse in the chair Connor had left near Molly's when he left with Brad.
"That boy never grew up," Gordon muttered so quietly Danny almost didn't hear him.
Molly smiled apologetically at Danny. "Are you hungry? I think I need a sandwich."
"Nah, I'm good, thanks."
Nodding, Molly stood and smoothed her shirt. Lindsay would have just yanked on the hem, while Molly gently ran her hands down the fabric, easing out the wrinkles.
Danny wasn't keen on being left alone with Gordon, but he just turned his eyes back to Lindsay. Softly, he brushed a finger down the hand he still held, the skin silky even after days in a hospital.
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Shelby bit her lip and glanced down at the paper on the counter yet again. Lindsay sighed. "Shelby, all you're doing is dumping that," she pointed at the tiny measuring spoon full of salt, "into that." Pointing again, she indicated the beaker full of liquid.
When Shelby still didn't move, Lindsay groaned. "It's not rocket science, Shel."
"And it's not going to explode?"
Staring at her in disbelief, Lindsay felt her mouth open and close a few times. Finally, she said, "It's salt and heavy water. What, you think the ocean is explosive?" Throwing her hands in the air, Lindsay cried, "Watch out, California!"
Rolling her big eyes, her tawny lashes quivering as she glared, Shelby huffed and shifted on her stool. "You don't have to be so dramatic."
"I'm being dramatic? You just asked me if the salt water was going to explode."
The incredulity in Lindsay's voice made Shelby crack a smile. Glancing at each other, the girls broke into peals of laughter, clutching at each other to keep from falling off the classroom stools.
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The doctor lifted his stethoscope with a sigh. Out of the corner of his eye, Danny saw Molly's hand squeeze Gordon's a bit tighter. Everyone waited, but the doctor just moved his stethoscope to another area on Lindsay's chest and listened again.
After an eternity of silence, he seemed to be finished and removed the buds from his ears. Freddy shuffled a coin between his fingers absently, his eyes locked on the doctor. "Well, doc, what's the verdict?"
"She's healing nicely," Dr. Weston said, shoving his stethoscope in his white coat.
"It's been four days," Molly whispered. "Shouldn't she be awake by now?"
The doctor took a deep breath before speaking. "Unfortunately, with comas, it's hard to tell how long they'll last."
"But she's going to wake up," Freddy responded calmly, as if he had no doubts on the subject.
The doctor tactfully remained silent, reaching over to check Lindsay's iv and morphine drip. Squeezing his eyes shut, Danny shoved his hands in his jean pockets and let his head hang in front of him.
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Shelby laughed, the sunlight glinting off her blonde waterfall of hair as she shook her head. "Seriously, Lindsay, get your nose out of that book."
"I've only got one chapter left," Lindsay muttered, trying not to let her attention wander. Shelby just couldn't seem to reconcile herself with the fact that homework was something that needed to be done, not avoided at all costs.
Out of the corner of her eye, Lindsay saw Toni's tanned fingers sweep a charcoal pencil over her sketchbook, miraculously recreating Shelby's frame lit by the sunlight on the plain white paper. Her fingers never paused as she spoke. "Why are you even reading it? You hate Melville."
"Lawrence insisted it would be on the AP exam," Shelby explained, wrinkling her nose. English was not her favorite subject. "Lindsay Monroe, the sun is shining, the birds are singing, your two best friends are trying to spend a beautiful day with you and all you can do is read about a giant whale? Do you realize how much of a loser that makes you?"
Flipping the page, Lindsay tried to ignore them. "You know you can't reason with her," Toni murmured from her position on the blanket. Her voice was, as always, cool and even as if nothing could ever ruffle her.
"Lindsay," Shelby said sharply, finally succeeding in getting the brunette's attention.
Huffing out a sigh, Lindsay lifted her head and glared at the uncharacteristically serious blonde. "What?" she snapped, her finger holding her place in the book.
"Melville wasn't on the exam."
"What?" Lindsay asked, her voice losing its edge as she blinked at Shelby in surprise.
"You aced all of your APs, remember?"
Frowning, Lindsay tilted her head to the side. "How do you know? We haven't taken them yet."
"Yes, you did."
"What are you talking about, Shel?" Lindsay asked, laughing nervously. "The exams are next week."
Shelby smiled sadly at her best friend, her green eyes brimming with sympathy. Toni sat up to scoot next to Shelby, the pages of her abandoned sketchbook stirred by the wind ruffling their hair. Lindsay automatically reached up to tuck hers behind her ears, but found that the wind didn't touch her, and her hair lay still against her suddenly throbbing head.
Swallowing, Lindsay spoke again, this time in a whisper. "No, they're not. We took them ten years ago. And then you died."
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She wasn't sure exactly what was happening, but the voices surrounding her were getting clearer now. They'd been background noise for a while as she'd drifted in the numbness. At first, what seemed like eons ago, she'd thought focusing on them would be a good idea, but as soon as she tried, blazing agony swept through her, eating down to her bones, and she hadn't been able to hear at all for a time.
Needless to say, she was reticent to try again.
The agony was still there, white hot and angry, lying just beneath the surface. But Lindsay was tired of drifting. She was sure she'd heard her mother's voice, which didn't make sense for a very good reason—she just couldn't quite remember what that reason was.
When she heard Danny's voice, she'd tried desperately to hold onto it, but it was so quiet and she was so far away. She picked up a couple of words—something about a church maybe—and felt a wave of exasperation as the sounds faded away again.
When his voice came back, she held on tight and tried to understand. She had a feeling that what he was saying was important. The sounds were vague and she could only pick out one or two words, like he wasn't speaking English though she knew he was. Frustrated, she inwardly groaned.
Then Danny's voice went loud, and she cringed away.
That's when the next voice came in, talking about heart rates and blood pressure. But she had stopped listening again, distracted by the agony and that awful incessant beeping.
Lindsay moaned at the sound of the alarm. "Turn it off," she grumbled at whoever was in the room with her.
"Turn what off?" Hearing her mother's voice, Lindsay cracked an eye open then hissed at the brightness. "Is she awake?"
She'd been dreaming about something, she recalled. She just couldn't remember what it was. She was sure Shelby had been there. Suddenly, something cold was pressed against her chest and she was startled, losing the vestige of memory she'd held onto.
"Close the blinds," someone said, and Lindsay saw the light dim against her eyelids.
Cautiously, she tried opening her eyes again. It still hurt, but in comparison to the rest of her body, it felt like a feather-touch. A strange man was leaning over her, looking distantly concerned.
"How're you feeling, Lindsay?"
Licking her lips, Lindsay croaked, "Peachy."
"The morphine will kick in. Just give it a moment," the stranger staring down at her assured her.
He was right. A moment later the pain ebbed a bit, though it didn't disappear entirely. Finally, she was able to feel that someone was holding her hand. Curious, she carefully rolled her head to the side.
Danny gently squeezed her fingers and smiled down at her. "Hey you."
"Hey," she whispered, her throat dry. Then she remembered what happened. The gun, Angell. "Jen?"
Something flickered across his face, but her brain was too groggy to recognize the emotion. "She's fine. Don't worry about her."
A small smile tugged at her lips as she blinked lethargically. "I moved this time, Danny."
"What?" he murmured, leaning down so he was closer to her when she spoke again.
She carefully held his gaze though she was having trouble focusing. "I didn't just stand there. I moved."
A slow grin spread across his face. "You did good, Montana."
She wanted to sigh happily and curl into a contented ball, but the pain was still lingering, making her twinge with every breath. Working through it, she opened her mouth again, needing him to know. "I heard you."
Danny kept smiling though he seemed confused. "That's good."
"What were you saying?" she murmured, her eyes drifting shut as the sudden floating feeling took over. "Something about church."
"Church?" he questioned just before she passed out again.
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When she woke up the second time, she did it less dramatically, slowly rising to the surface. A lot more noise filled her room and she didn't think anyone noticed as her eyelids fluttered open.
Looking around, she was surprised to find the room filled to the brim with people. Her parents were there, as were Brad and Connor. Danny was still at her bedside, though he was speaking over his shoulder to someone she couldn't see. Mac stood rigid at the foot of her bed, not looking entirely pleased with the noise level in the room, despite the fact that everyone appeared to be murmuring to each other.
"Hey," Molly said, hurrying to the side of Lindsay's bed.
Lindsay looked tiredly up at her. "Hi, Mom."
"Morning, sunshine. How are you feeling?"
Smiling as much as she could, Lindsay watched her mother smooth out the sheets around her body. "Great. How's the bullet?"
Her mother winced as the room grew quiet, and Lindsay cursed the morphine for making her flippant. "Sorry, Mama," she managed to whisper, already losing her strength.
Suddenly, another person walked through the door carrying two flats of coffee cups. "She awake?" Freddy asked, handing cups of coffee out to the room at large.
"That for me?" she asked, her voice still languid from sleeping for almost a week.
"I don't think so, Linny. You won't be having coffee for a very long time." She pulled a face at him and he grinned. "Good to have you back."
"Weren't you in the Galapagos Islands?" she murmured, her eyes sliding shut for a drawn out minute.
"I came back," he told her simply. "That's twice now you've scared the hell out of me. You want me back in the country, call. Don't step in front of any more guns."
"Try not to," she promised.
"Do better than try."
"Have you met everyone?" she asked tiredly, finally having noticed Stella standing near the window, obviously the person Danny had been looking at.
"Yeah, we took care of that while you were indisposed." She felt him eyeing her worriedly, as was everyone else in the room. "Why don't you get some sleep?"
"No more sleep. Been asleep for days."
"No, you've been in a coma. Slight difference," Brad offered from behind their mother.
Irritably, she shifted on the bed and winced from the pain, her breath catching in her throat. She tried to take short breaths so she wouldn't jostle the wound, but the damage was done.
"Should we call the doctor?" Molly asked worriedly as everyone listened to Lindsay's heart rate increase.
"No," Lindsay groaned. "Fine. Just…hurts a little."
"Understatement of the century, I'm sure," Danny muttered, restlessly moving from one foot to the other.
Lindsay managed a small chuckle and the entire room relaxed.
"You need more morphine?" Mac asked evenly.
"No. Already on it." She paused. "I think."
"Montana, you got enough drugs in you to open a pharmacy," Danny told her, stepping close enough to grip the railing on her bed.
"I do feel a little loopy," she admitted, smiling up at him as the pain faded back into the background.
He grinned down at her and shook his head indulgently. "At least now I know what you're like drunk."
"A pressing question in your life, Messer?"
It was strange. His eyes had been the first thing she'd been able to focus on when she woke up, and he didn't seem to have moved from the room since, but she couldn't seem to get enough of them.
"Pretty," she murmured, her own eyes fluttering shut again.
"Pretty?" Brad repeated in amusement as Danny ducked his head bashfully and adjusted his glasses.
Everyone else hid smiles by looking away and Danny caught Mac coughing to cover up a chuckle. "Danny, we're going to head back to the lab. Call us if she wakes up again?"
"Yeah, will do," Danny told him, his cheeks still burning.
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"If you wanted time off, you should have just put in a request," Stella teased, fluffing the flowers she'd brought to brighten Lindsay's room.
"I used up all my vacation time during the trial. I had to be sneaky about it," Lindsay croaked, her voice still unpredictable due to the potent mix of too much sleep and drugs.
"I give you props for going with a gunshot wound. Mac never saw that one coming."
Laughing hurt, and it left Lindsay cringing on the bed. Stella gasped and clutched the bedrail. When Lindsay's face relaxed and her heart rate slowed, Stella muttered, "I'm sorry, Lindsay. I shouldn't even be joking about this."
"Well, what are we going to do? Cry about it? That'd be stupid," Lindsay told her, still dazed and a little snappish from the pain.
A throat clearing made Lindsay roll her head towards the doorway where she found Jen standing hesitantly. Smiling a bit, she called out to her as loudly as she could. "Come on in, the party's just getting started."
Jen smiled wanly and slipped inside, eyeing Stella nervously. Lindsay felt her lips pull into a frown as Stella turned away from the other woman. "I've got to get back to the lab," Stella said, giving the flowers one last fluff.
Reaching out, Stella swept a curl off Lindsay's forehead and stared down at her. "Danny'll probably be by after his shift."
A blush was staining her cheeks as Lindsay nodded, suddenly wanting Stella gone. The older woman's smile widened and she shook her head, turning to go. She nodded once at Angell before leaving, looking uncertain, and Lindsay furrowed her brow.
After Stella had moved past the windows looking into the room, Jen moved closer to the bed until she was standing over Lindsay. She wasn't close enough to touch Lindsay or vice versus, but close enough for Lindsay to see her face clearly. Swallowing nervously, Jen didn't seem able to speak.
Lindsay frowned at her. "Jen?"
"Why'd you do it?"
The words came out in a rush, like they'd been on the tip of her tongue for so long nothing else could get past. Blinking wide eyes up at her, Lindsay answered as honestly as she could. "I didn't want you to get shot. I couldn't lose someone else like that."
"Someone else?" Jen asked, her voice as rough as Lindsay's. Closing her eyes, Lindsay wondered if Jen had used hers any more frequently than she herself had over the course of the past week.
Swallowing, Lindsay prepared herself and decided it would be easiest to plunge right in. "When I was eighteen, my friends and I were involved in a shooting. They died. I didn't."
She knew that she was mincing the story, but she was tired of telling it. Jen needed to know the gist, not the details.
"I watched them die. I couldn't do that again," Lindsay explained. "You're the first real friend I've made in ten years. I kinda want to keep you around."
"It was my fault," Jen whispered, tears welling in her eyes. "I'm so sorry I didn't listen to you."
Lindsay frowned, furrowing her eyebrows. She felt a distant wave of frustration over the fact that even moving her facial muscles seemed to take extra effort.
"Jen," she said shortly, unable to make a brain muzzy from drugs and pain wrap around what the other woman was saying. "Romero was crazy and he pulled a gun. What could you have done about that?"
"I could have waited for Hawkes. You told me to, but I didn't."
"The man was crazy, Jen. He pulled a gun with two cops in the room," she pointed out. "I somehow doubt a third would have stopped him."
Wiping away a tear with a vicious hand, Jen swallowed thickly. "I shouldn't have egged him on—"
"Jen." Taking a shallow breath, Lindsay shook her head. "It's done. Over. You can't keep reliving it, wondering what if."
Jen bit her lip and looked away, her expression tragic. The pain was slowly retaking the hold it had over Lindsay, but she had to get it out before she fell asleep again. Jen needed to hear it.
"I don't blame you for this, Jen. This was my choice."
Jen's arms loosened from around her stomach, as if she finally believed it might stay in one piece. Nodding, she eased herself into the chair Danny left by the bed for his visits. Lindsay could tell the other woman still blamed herself, but there was little she could do to change that without more time.
"I still owe you my life."
"You can buy a round at Sullivan's," Lindsay said, trying to sound flippant—a difficult task given that she couldn't quite catch her breath.
"Oh, yeah, then we'll be square," Jen said dryly, wiping the last of her tears off her cheeks.
"Seriously, Jen. You would have done the same for me."
The confidence in Lindsay's voice made Jen wince. "I couldn't even move. I was completely frozen."
"So was I, that first time."
"That doesn't make me feel better," Jen told her, her voice low and remorseful.
"Yeah, it didn't make me feel better either," Lindsay agreed.
They were quiet for a long time. Then, looking up at her friend, Lindsay lifted one hand in a silent invitation. Jen smiled the smallest of smiles and reached over to clasp it in hers.
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Resting his elbows on his knees, Gordon folded his fingers together and leaned forward towards the bed. Lindsay bit her lip at his stoic expression. "Daddy?"
"Your brother and I have to get back, Lindsay."
Nodding against the pillow, Lindsay hid the pang his words caused by dropping her eyes to the railing. "The hands have been running things, but with both of us gone…Connor's mother called, says things look a little fishy out in the north pasture."
She reached out a finger and absently touched the plastic. "When do you leave?"
"Tomorrow morning, early flight."
She nodded again and cleared her throat. "Thanks for coming, Daddy. I'm sorry I took you away from the ranch."
Her father winced then stared directly into her face for a full minute. Catching her breath, Lindsay waited to see what he would do. A small smile, the barest curling of his lips, broke the impassive expression on Gordon's face.
"Lindsay Isabella Monroe, do you think that mattered at all?" A tiny sob escaped her lips. "Do you really think I wouldn't walk across fire for you?"
She shook her head, not arguing, merely overwhelmed. "I just wanted you safe. That's all I ever wanted," he murmured, healing another of the bleeding pieces inside of Lindsay.
For a suspended moment in time, she wasn't almost thirty with a life that had long ago used up most of the tears in her reserves. She felt like a little girl again as her father stroked her hair while she cried herself to sleep.
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Two weeks after first waking, Lindsay was allowed to sit up in bed. A painful process, to be sure, but she felt she'd obtained a certain amount of freedom by doing it. Of course, now that everyone had gone home or returned to work, she was bored out of her mind.
"How you doin?"
Looking up, she found Danny in the doorway, grinning at her. Her heart skipped a beat at the sight of him, and she spoke quickly to cover the noise of her heart monitor. "Hey, I thought you had to work today."
"I do, I do. But I'm on lunch, so I thought I'd stop in and say hi. See how you're doin."
She picked at the blanket covering her legs while he scooted a chair closer to her bed. "You didn't have to come check on me."
"I know I didn't," Danny said calmly, setting the bag he was carrying onto the table next to her bed. "I also didn't have to bring you this."
Out of the bag, he produced two containers and two forks. She felt a flutter in her stomach. He'd cooked for her?
"It's cold," he warned her. "I didn't think they'd let me in with the stuff if I asked to use a microwave."
Lindsay's mouth dropped open as he popped the lids to reveal lasagne. Large, heaping servings of homemade lasagne. "You made lasange?" she asked incredulously.
Danny shrugged. "My mother always claimed it was a cure-all. We stubbed our toes, she made lasagne. We broke our arms, she made lasagne. Louie got arrested—" He cut himself off.
"She made lasagne?" Lindsay offered him a tentative smile, picking up her fork.
"Yeah," he murmured, cutting up the noodles in his Tupperware.
Trying to ignore the sudden awkwardness, Lindsay took a bite and wanted to moan. "You made this?"
A wicked smirk made his eyes sparkle. "Happy to see me now, huh?"
"Well if you brought food every time you came, I might be more receptive in general," she teased him.
"Oh, don't even try it. I know you love seeing me. Admit it."
She stuck her nose in the air and refused to acknowledge him. He just laughed and she relaxed. Louie didn't seem to be a comfortable topic with him.
"So I'm pretty, huh?"
Lindsay's eyes flew to his face. "What?" she mumbled, lowering her fork and staring at him as if he'd lost his mind.
"You called me pretty," he told her, raising his own fork to his mouth.
He couldn't be serious. "I didn't," she said, horrified.
"Oh, yes you did. Everybody heard it."
"Everybody?" she repeated, sinking back in the bed and wanting to disappear.
"Everybody," he confirmed with relish.
Taking in his amused expression, she hid her embarrassment and shrugged with a determinedly casual air. "Well, you are."
Danny nearly choked on his lasagne.
Smugly, she scooped up the messy casserole. Once he'd recovered, he raised an eyebrow at her. "Men aren't pretty, Montana. We're rugged—"
She snickered.
"—masculine—"
His brows lowered into a glower while she laughed. "—sexy—"
Her laugh abruptly stopped as her eyes flew to his. His darkened as he leaned forward. "I am most definitely not pretty," he warned in a low, gravelly voice.
And there it was. The wolfish expression she'd seen him use on countless other women that weren't her. He looked like he wanted to devour her rather than the noodles and cheese in his Tupperware.
"Your eyes are," she murmured unthinkingly, caught up in the gaze.
As soon as the words were out of her mouth, his eyes softened and the predatory expression disappeared. Part of her wanted it back.
"Thank you," he told her simply, a smile lighting his face.
She blushed and lowered her head to concentrate on the food. "You're welcome."
"I brought lemonade," Danny said abruptly, as if he'd just remember. Reaching into his jacket pocket, he pulled out a large glass bottle.
Delighted by the change in topic, Lindsay responded enthusiastically. "Thank you!" Too enthusiastically.
His eyebrows shot up at her exclamation, and she grimaced. "I've had nothing but water since I woke up."
"Not even juice?" he asked disparagingly. "Are they trying to torture you?"
"I think they are, yes."
He grinned, opening the bottle and offering it to her. "Cheers then."
The first sip had her sighing in pleasure. "Contraband is so cool."
He laughed as she raised the bottle to her lips again. The sound washed over her, and a soothing satisfaction spread throughout her body. She wasn't sure she would say that the pain was lessened by his presence, but he was an excellent distraction.
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qt4good: Jen's got a long way to go before she stops feeling guilty, I think. We didn't see much of Connor here, but he's still around. And will be for some time.
Kavi Leighanna: Oh, I was bouncing with happiness after the first bout of relief passed. I've rewatched the episode a couple times already and I bought it off iTunes the next morning. I can't wait for the new episode in just a few days!
Tenley: She's awake! And I don't think Jen's at peace yet with what happened, but she'll get there eventually now that Lindsay's back in the game. Danny's reaction to Jen is still uncertain, though.
oddie33325: I never expected the Almost Kiss, for which I am soooooo grateful. I was ecstatic. I made my roommates watch it with me (I taped the episode) and now they're hooked even though they've never watched the show before. How can people not like Lindsay and Danny together??
chili-peppers: Aw, jeez. I didn't mean to scare you. : ( I love Lindsay way too much to ever kill her off. Danny's such a sweet man that I couldn't imagine he would leave her if she needed him, even if she didn't know he was there.
berta101: I think Connor's accepted that Danny is in Lindsay's life, but I'm not sure he's given up on her. They do seem like they were really close at one time, though she never returned his feelings.
Leena7: I did it! I got the chapter up before midnight! I'm so proud of myself. :-p Essay, shmessay. Always procrastinate; it's the most valuable thing you ever learn in school. At least, that's what I tell myself when I do it.
The Little Corinthian: Jen does need a hug and everyone seems to be mad at her. :-/ Oh my goodness, speaking of Danny being sex on sexy legs, I had to share this story. I was reading Glamour magazine and there was an article on women's five top fantasies and guess who starred in one of them: Danny Messer, that's who. I was shocked, but somehow not.
messermonroe: Epic as in long, drawn out and angsty with a suitable amount of fluff thrown in for good measure. But I've also decided to make this a trilogy, so after this is done, the next story will begin. Though the final story will work just as well as a stand-alone fic. I think Marissa in general was hugely overrated, though I did stop watching in the first season. Maybe she got cooler under all her tragedy?