Title: Balance Beam
Characters: Don Flack, Lindsay Monroe
Warnings: Minor language.
Rating: PG-13 / T
Disclaimer: The names of all characters contained herein are the property of Anthony Zuiker, Jerry Bruckheimer Television, CBS and Alliance Atlantis. No infringements of these copyrights are intended, and are used here without permission.
A/N: Lyrics from the song "Balance Beam" by Blue October.

Balance Beam

"I haven't been quite the same,
So sure the story of my life would never change."
-Blue October

It always seemed as if he were living precariously on the edge of a precipice, ready to fall if only he was allowed. But he never has been and, for some fell reason, he never will be. There are certain things that he has always known, certain things he has grown up knowing. These things come down to one small point – that he has never been in control of his life.

He's heard the story since childhood. Not even out of his mother's womb, the doctors performed a Caesarian section and brought him out into the world when he otherwise would've died. (the cord was tied tight around his neck, you see, and he would've strangled then from lack of air as he was strangling now.) It was almost fate.

Not that he wasn't grateful to those doctors, because he is; without them, he wouldn't be alive now. He wouldn't have met the love of his life. He would've have met his friends, who mostly keep him sane these days – except for Danny, he could say Danny drives him mad all the time – but those doctors saved his life and he was always grateful for that.

Then, nearly thirteen years later, he was playing out on the street – baseball, god knows why, he always liked hockey better – and he broke a window. He was notorious for having the strikeout record, for as he put it, "felt wrong not to swing." And, as a matter of course, never before had he hit a homerun. But it had to be at that one perfect moment when the ball centered in, spiraling right towards him – he swung, and the ball broke free of its skin, and he ran. He heard the window break as he reached second and he froze halfway to third.

It was almost as if God was telling him something. His pops found out, of course, police dads always do – he received a hearty beating and he had to pay for the window (three different paper routes out in the suburbs, fuck, how that sucked back then. At least he held his head up and afterwards his pops clapped him on the shoulder and said, "Well done, son."

Years later he was in high school and on the way home, walking as he liked to back then, Tanglewood boys shot at the kid he was walking next to – the kid's name was Martin, he wanted to be a journalist – and fuck if he can ever forget that day. He called the police and his pops showed up, interviewed him like a regular witness and when they got home his pops pulled him close for the first time in his life and said it would be okay.

He lay in bed later that night; blood still staining his hands, and thought about his future. (The future Martin would never have, he would have to live for Martin from now on.) He had always known that becoming a cop was expected, if not demanded, of him. His father, his father's father, and so on and so on. He just had always thought that he might have a choice along the line – you know, stick it to the man, become a veterinarian or some shit like that, but now… Now, he has no choice. It's almost as if there's some plan out there that shoved Martin's death in his face, almost as a message – "Here, this is what you have to do. This is your plan, your destiny."

And he would've asked Aiden to marry him, too, if things hadn't changed so rapidly it was almost as if gravity reversed. First, it's DJ Pratt back from the abyss, raping a victim for the second time and Aiden had to take the case, just had to work it even though everyone (including herself) knew it was far too personal. Then she nearly planted evidence (what the fuck, Aid?) and got herself fired. But you know he supposed it was all part of the grand plan. It was Lindsay, you know, it had to be Lindsay because without Aiden he never would've had the grace to meet the country girl.

It has to be mere coincidence that they first started talking about Aiden (she felt that he was the only she could talk to, what with Messer being a total ass, Stella being the Ice Queen, and Mac being the emotional cripple while Hawkes stayed nice yet unavailable.) So they talked more and more and he fell in love, her shortly after. It was a chain of coincidences that couldn't really be too coincidental. After all, when taken in context, it was almost fate.

He had lost control of his life a long time ago (before he was even born) and even now to think of gaining that control back is quite terrifying. He would like to think that all of these happy coincidences have not led him astray thus far – and so, he has now relinquished control of his life to some other thought process, and he remembered once something he had heard.

Dream is destiny.