Welcome back! I trust you all had lovely holidays. I'm super stoked that I am back. I must give a special thanks to my sister for helping me with this one. I'm glad you all thought it was 'interesting'. Not really sure if that's goo or bad, but it's whatever.

atizzyfan93yes the senior prom was also the night that her friends were killed. Sorry if anyone else was confused, I tried to make it clear.

Peace

Lindsay drudged into work the next morning, and the sudden change in her normal cheery mood, was not lost on her co-workers, Danny included.

She couldn't help but think of exactly what might happen if she were to return to Montana, she didn't expect it to go like it did in the movies, where she would show up and then everything just like that would be forgiven.

Walking to the locker room, she was trying to think of some way out of her current predicament, but ran into Danny on her way, literally.

"Wow Montana, where's the fire?" He said, smiling at his own joke.

"No where Danny, I'm just in a hurry to get to the locker room." She said trying to get past him.

"Hey, what's wrong?" Noticing the strain in her voice, concern washed over him.

"Nothing Danny I need to--"

"Nuh uh Montana, don't give me that, something not right. What is it?"

"Nothing Messer, get out of my face!" She said, her voice rising as she did.

Reluctantly he stepped out of the way, as she made her attempt to get past him once more. Lindsay felt bad for yelling at him, and even thought about turning around and appoligizing to him right then. But by the time she had reached the locker room door, and turned to say something, he was already gone from the corridor.

XxXxXxX

Adam Ross walked into the locker room, still trying to cover up the orange juice spill located in the groin of his jeans.

It wasn't Adam's fault entirely, after all Kindle had been eating that orange rather seductively, which he was pretty sure had been impossible until that moment.

He opened the door slowly, before sprinting to his own locker, and grabbing the spare jeans there.

After changing in a bathroom stall, which is surprisingly more difficult than you would imagine it to be. He rounded a row of lockers, almost tripping over a weeping Lindsay in the process. Taking a few steps back, he was immediately taken back to his childhood. Watching his mother doubled over crying in pain, with his drunken father standing over her.

To this day, he hadn't been able to see a woman cry without wanting to punch his father.

"Lindsay are you okay?"

"No." She said looking down at her hands, an playing with the chipping nail polish there.

He could tell she was holding back tears for his sake, but it was obviously hurting her more to keep them in, then to just let it flow.

"Well, I'll go get Danny, he'll know--"

"No!" She shouted, keeping him half risen from his seat. Lindsay having stood to her feet as well, slumped unto one of the wooden benches there. "I can't deal with anyone right now."

"Okay, I'll just leave--"

"No, I don't want to be alone." She said, changing her mind once more.

Moving slowly down to the bench, he crossed a leg, and sat to face her, "Alright," He said carefully, "I won't go get Danny, and I won't leave. Do--do you want to tell me what's going on?"

"'Want' is a very subjective term Adam." She said looking up at him.

"Well do you think that you should?" He rephrased.

"Maybe. I'm just really stressed out right now, and I'm having a hard time deciding what to do about it, I just feel like I'm in way over my head right now." She said with a sigh.

"Come on Linds, relax and be happy."

The words rang in her ear like church bells."What did you say?" She asked looking more puzzled, still unsure whether she had heard him correctly or not.

"Relax and be happy?" He said slowly, making sure he had ample room to dodge a flying shoes should one be sent his direction.

"Where did you hear that?"

"Um, I don't know. It just kind of came to me, why?" He asked curiosity showing in his tone.

"One of my best friends used to say that to me all the time." She said smiling at the memory.

"Really? Where are they now?"

The smile disappeared from her face, "Bozeman County Cemetery." She said, receiving a small 'O' from Adam, "Along with my other two best friends."

He looked down at his hands, not really sure what to say. Comfort had never been his strong point.

Lindsay was crying again, and softly saying something.

"When I was eighteen, my three best friends were killed right in front of my eyes." Adam sat too stunned to do anything.

But he allowed her to continue venting.

"I don't even know why we were friends really, we couldn't have been more different. Aurora was the artistic one. She loved to draw, and to paint, and taking pictures and she was amazing at all of them. She had even gotten in to the New York Institute of Photography. Emma was a hippie always trying to get us to relax about everything, and not think too far beyond tomorrow.. Then there was Amber. She was the one who brought us all together. She had her own style, her own language and this attitude about her that just made her more noticeable."

He smiled at the mental image of the foursome, back in Montana, sitting in the middle of a wheat field.

"I still remember hear the gunshots go off, and how helpless I felt about it. I had been shot in the shoulder and was just lying there on the floor hearing all of them scream, and there was nothing I could do."

It broke Adam's heart to see her this way, she had always seemed so strong, but now it felt like all he had to do was breathe wrong and she might crumble to pieces to small to put back together.

Her eyes brimmed with tears, that she was still trying to withhold. "I still remember the looks on all those peoples faces, the faces of their parents, all looking at me, and accusing me. Like I had done something wrong by living."

The tears were now starting to flow, her voice barely above a whisper, but somehow Lindsay forced herself to keep talking, she wasn't quite sure why.

"They turned that town upside down looking for him, but we went home without answers. After that day, my parents started talking to me less and less, soon my brothers had a hard time looking at me, and in the end even my sister turned on me too."

Adam was having a hard time not just pulling her into an embrace, not really knowing her that well, but damn if he didn't want to.

"Before long I started to move on, I had too. As much as I didn't want to look back everyone else in my town seemed to be stuck in that moment. So one day, I just packed up my stuff, and left. I went to Washington D.C, and went to the academy there, once I graduated I spent three years working there. Before I got this job offer. Just like back in Montana I left everything behind, again." She said letting one more tear run.

Adam couldn't eve look at her anymore. Seeing her cry was more would be enough to drive him to do something stupid. But mostly he looked away because he could stand to see her like that, so vulnerable and weak.

"Then I met Danny." She smiled involuntarily at the thought.

"He has quite the reputation Messer, all the talk about how the infamous Danny Messer, the ahrd ass New Yorker, with the whole bad boy complex. Who once I met him, wouldn't give me the time of day. And no matter how many times I protest, refuses to stop calling me Montana. Now despite my best efforts not, to I think that I may be falling for my partner."

"Wow." Was all Adam, could think to say at the moment.

She nodded, "And I just don't know what to do."

"Are you hungry?" Adam asked after a moment of silence.

"Starving." Lindsay replied laughing at the sudden change in subject.

He nodded standing from his cross legged position, and moving his head toward the door, to show he meant for Lindsay to follow himi. An the two left smiling as they hit the streets.