HOLD ME NOW

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

Summary: The cliché was true, sometimes you didn't know what you had until it was gone. The question was: could you ever get it back again once you'd lost it? Lindsay Monroe was about to find out the answer.

Notes: Hi! New chapter for you. Sorry about the delay in updating. I wrote about half of this part, and then hit a major brick-wall with it :-(

Anyway, I eventually managed to batter my way through it, thankfully getting inspired after much gnashing of teeth! Hope this is worth the wait, please let me know what you think…

OOOOOO

Part 28 – All or Nothing

So Mac didn't have to do them yet another favour in addition to all the other special consideration he was giving them at the moment, Danny and Lindsay decided to schedule their couple's counselling sessions on the same afternoon that they'd already arranged with him to be work-free.

It gave them just enough time to grab a quick lunch together before their appointment at 2 o'clock. Afterwards, they would have the rest of the afternoon together before they had to relieve their nanny from her duties at six. All in all it was a sensible arrangement, but Lindsay couldn't help feeling sick to the stomach as the end of her shift approached on the day of their first appointment a week or so later.

She honestly thought that she might actually be physically ill from all the stress. With so much riding on the success or failure of today's therapy session, she couldn't prevent her expectations from building to fever-pitch as a result. Of course then she found herself succumbing to the debilitating nerves those expectations inevitably brought with them. It didn't help that her first appointment with Simone was in two days time either. She wasn't quite sure how she was going to handle having her emotions hung out to dry two times a week. She'd probably need the other five days to recover from the psychological mauling if the way she was feeling at the moment was anything to go by.

Oh God! Now she really was going to throw up. Clapping her hand over her mouth, she rushed to the bathroom, only just making it in time before she lost what remained of her breakfast in the most undignified manner possible. Swallowing back the dry, painful heaves, she forced herself upright on shaky legs and took several slow, measured breaths as she willed her rebelling stomach to settle down again. A minute or so later, she exited the cubicle and crossed to the wash-basins to splash cool water on her clammy face and rinse out the nasty taste in her mouth.

A light rap of knuckles on the door disturbed her ablutions and Danny's concerned voice came to her through the panelled wood. "Linds – you okay in there, sweetheart?" he enquired solicitously.

Lindsay swilled her mouth out for one final time, and then pushed away from the sink and went to join him in the locker-room. "I'm fine," she said, going to her locker to retrieve the pack of breath-mints that she always carried in her purse.

"Don't lie to me, Lindsay, I heard you throwing up!" Danny said in an exasperated tone as he followed closely on her heels.

Lindsay sighed as she felt the warmth of his body-heat spread across her back, effectively blocking her escape route. Clearly, he wasn't going to let this one go in a hurry. Popping one of the chalky white sweets into her mouth, she paused for a moment to gather her thoughts, and then turned to face him.

"Haven't we been here before?" she asked lightly, unintentionally voicing her thoughts as she experienced a peculiar sense of déjà vu.

Danny stared at her confused for a moment, until his brain kicked in and he realised what she meant. "B-but you can't be!" he protested, his eyes wide and panic-stricken. "I-I used something!" He shook his head in stunned disbelief. "Jesus! It was only one night."

Unable to contain herself, Lindsay dissolved into highly inappropriate giggles at his wild-eyed alarm. "Contraception wasn't much of a barrier against the determination of Lucy, was it?" she remarked laughingly, and then reached out and patted him reassuringly on the cheek.

"Relax," she soothed, her fingers rasping pleasantly against the stubble on his face. "I'm not pregnant. I was just commenting on the similarities between then and now that's all."

"Jesus Montana! Give a guy a heart-attack, why don't you?" Danny exclaimed, bringing a palm to his thudding heart before he belatedly realised how his reaction might have been construed.

"Look, I mean, don't get me wrong," he went on quickly, seeking to remedy any misunderstanding caused. "Another baby'd be nice at some point, but right now? The timing couldn't be worse."

"It wasn't so great last time either," Lindsay felt the need to point out.

"All the more reason for us to get it right next time around then," Danny replied.

Lindsay felt a warm, pleasant glow ignite in the pit of her stomach at that. "So there's going to be a next time?" she asked, lowering her gaze shyly as she waited on tenterhooks for his answer.

"Yeah," Danny said, his expression softening into a distinctly goofy grin. "Well - as long as it's what you want too, of course."

Lindsay's answering smile spread like the sunrise across her face. "It is," she assured him. "More than I thought possible in fact."

There was a short silence as Danny studied her thoughtfully, a slight frown creasing his forehead. "Are you still on the pill?" he enquired bluntly a moment or two later.

"Umm no," Lindsay stuttered in response, momentarily taken aback by his abrupt - and exceedingly personal - query. Should they really be discussing their contraceptive regime when they could be interrupted by one of their colleagues at any moment? "There didn't seem much point after…" She broke off and shrugged her shoulders rather sorrowfully.

Danny nodded gravely. "You should probably make an appointment with your OB-GYN then," he decided solemnly.

Lindsay couldn't help but smile at that. He sounded so earnest about it all. "I'll do that," she replied, having to forcibly tamp down the bubble of laughter that threatened to break free.

Danny crossed his eyes at her obvious amusement. "Don't laugh!" he bemoaned. "I'm being serious. I seem to have super sperm where you're concerned for some reason."

Lindsay did laugh then. "Danny," she told him matter-of-factly. "Since we aren't actually having sex at the moment, the probability of you fertilising another little Messer is a big fat zero right now."

Danny however, waved her perfectly logical reasoning aside. "Yes," he agreed, "But it's not going to stay that way, is it? And there's always the possibility of us getting carried away in the heat of the moment too," he added.

"Don't have much faith in your own will-power, do you babe?" Lindsay commented wryly, her brown eyes sparkling with undisguised mirth.

In answer, Danny reached out and grasped her firmly by the hips. "It's not my fault you're so damn hot," he complained as he backed her up against the wall of lockers, the wicked intent in his blue eyes causing a shiver of anticipation to run down her spine.

"Danny…" Lindsay's hands rose to clutch at his biceps as he dipped his head to nuzzle at her neck, his lips warm and wet against her tingling skin. "Someone might see!"

"So?" he murmured unconcernedly, before grudgingly heeding her half-hearted protest and drawing back so that he could look down into her upturned face. He was relieved to discover that she had regained some her lost colour in the intervening minutes, but still felt the need to double-check that she was okay even so.

"You sure you're all right?" he asked, tenderly stroking her hair back from her face and tucking it behind her ears.

Lindsay nodded. "Yeah, I feel much better now. I suppose I got myself a bit worked up about this afternoon," she admitted shamefacedly, her gaze sliding away from his in embarrassed mortification.

"I would tell you that there's nothing to worry about," Danny said, leaning forward to press a delicate kiss to her forehead, "But I don't think it's quite that simple, do you?"

Lindsay gnawed at her bottom lip. "It's the fear of the unknown that's getting to me more than anything, I think," she explained. "I just don't know what to expect."

Danny nodded. "That's understandable," he said, "But if Simone says her therapist friend is on the level, then I, for one, am prepared to give it a shot. If it isn't for us then we'll reconsider, but we've gotta at least try to make it work."

"I know, I wasn't suggesting otherwise," Lindsay said. "It just feels like this is our last chance to get it right, and I can't bear the thought of anything happening to ruin that."

Danny rested his forehead against hers. "Me either," he told her, "But we've played the avoidance game for far too long now, babe. It's way past time we moved things onto the next level."

Lindsay sighed. "So it's all or nothing? Is that what you're saying?" she asked.

"Pretty much," Danny replied as he drew back from her a fraction. "We've either got to move forward as a couple, or make the final break from one another. My fingers are crossed for the former, but if it turns out to be the latter then at least we won't be living in some kind of limbo land like we have been doing this past year."

"I wouldn't exactly call it limbo-land, Danny," Lindsay responded in an acid tone. "We were on the brink of divorce. It felt pretty damn final to me."

"Legally perhaps," her husband acknowledged with an incline of his head. "But emotionally?" He shot her a meaningful look. "I think we were both a long way from accepting it was over, don't you?"

"You didn't seem to be having too much trouble moving on," Lindsay remarked cuttingly, the biting words out before she could question the wisdom of voicing them under such circumstances.

Danny flinched a little at the barbed comment, but decided to let it pass, not wanting to stir things up before their imminent therapy session. "That was just smoke and mirrors, Lindsay," he told her sombrely. "However much I tried to convince myself that I was over it, there wasn't a day that went by when I didn't think 'what if?' It was just my way of handling things, I suppose. Being alone nearly killed me. Having Rachel's companionship – well, it gave me the necessary strength to keep going when it felt like my whole life had gone to hell."

Lindsay was silent, her gaze fixed firmly on her feet. Try as she might to ignore it, there remained a twisted knot of resentment lodged in the pit of her stomach over Danny's relationship with Rachel. It was so typical of him to use another person as an emotional crutch when the going got tough. Hadn't the same thing happened with Rikki Sandoval six years ago, for instance?

And another thing - why wasn't it ever her who he turned to in his hour of need? Why was it always someone else? Worse still, why was it always some other woman? It made her feel so inadequate and more than a little bitter. She knew that airing that grievance right now was counter-productive however. That's why they were going for counselling, wasn't it? So that they could deal with the difficult issues in a positive way, and not get dragged into an endless cycle of pointless recriminations and unproductive antagonism towards each other.

She heaved out a long-suffering sigh. "I've got to get back to work," she said, her tone brisk and unemotional. "I need to finish analysing the trace I was working on before we leave today, or Mac's not going to be very impressed with me."

"All right," Danny said, running a hand down her arm and squeezing her fingers before he moved aside to let her pass. "Just try not to worry so much, okay?"

Lindsay didn't trust herself to answer that. Given their current situation, how could she not worry? It was as Danny had said earlier – it was all or nothing for them now, and she was so frightened that it would be nothing that she'd end up with, when what her bruised and fragile heart craved above all else was simply for them to be happy and in love again…

OOOOOO

"This is killing them, you know," Stella observed quietly to Hawkes as they watched Danny and Lindsay leave the Lab together an hour or so later.

The space between the semi-estranged couple as they entered the waiting elevator may have only been about thirty centimetres or so, but it may as well have been a five hundred metre chasm as far as Stella was concerned. The strain was beginning to tell on both of them, and in all honesty, it had her more than a little worried for their future.

"The first step is always the hardest, Stella," Sheldon told her in his soothing, matter-of-fact way.

"I don't think she could have slept more than a couple of hours last night," Stella continued fretfully. "Her light was still on when I got home after my late shift, and I could have sworn I heard her pacing about the apartment later on too. Not to mention the fact that Lucy's usually up around six-thirty on a good day."

"She's nervous, that's understandable," Sheldon said calmly. "It won't seem quite such a daunting prospect after today, I'm sure."

"She's got her individual therapy session on Thursday as well," Stella reminded him. "To tell you the truth, Sheldon, I'm seriously concerned about how she's going to hold up. She's not eating properly again, and I've seen her lose her temper with Lucy a couple of times recently. Not seriously, but it's telling to her state of mind all the same. She normally deals with Lucy's tantrums in such a calm and rational manner."

"Everybody has their off-days, Stella," Hawkes reasoned. "But if the situation persists, you should talk to Danny about getting her to see her doctor again. Her therapist should pick up on anything out of the ordinary in her behaviour though, so I shouldn't worry too much about it. Lindsay has a lot of people looking out for her. She'll be fine."

"Nobody noticed how bad things had gotten for her before though, did they?" Stella persisted.

"That's because we didn't know she was prone to depression before," Sheldon answered. "We all knew she was having a rough time of it, but we just thought it was down to the pressure of the divorce and that she'd eventually battle her way out of it. Now we know differently so we're going to be more aware of the signs. The leaflets I gave Danny will advise him what to look for, and he's the best-placed of any of us to decide when it's time to be concerned. He'll soon learn the difference between everyday low spirits and the onset of depression."

"That's if they stay together," Stella said, her tone full of uncharacteristic foreboding.

Sheldon raised his eyebrows at this atypical pessimism. "Do you honestly think that they're on that shaky ground?" he asked.

"No, no," Stella reassured him with a shake of her head. "It's just that they seemed so happy when they came back from Montana, but everything suddenly seems to have become a lot more tense between them in this last week. They've certainly not seen each other as much."

"Danny's been pretty busy with the 'See No Evil' case," Hawkes pointed out, referring to the high-profile serial murder hunt that was currently the NYPD's top priority case. "He's barely had time to breathe in between shifts, let alone anything else."

The press had termed their perp the 'See No Evil' killer due to his M.O. of blinding-folding his victims shortly before death. It had started with the crime scene that Mac and Danny had processed in Brooklyn a week ago, and two more victims had been discovered since then. There was a lot of pressure from the Mayor's office to catch the killer ASAP, so it was telling of Mac's enduring support for his married CSI's that he had still allowed Danny the afternoon off so that he could attend his and Lindsay's pre-arranged therapy session.

"So, in other words, I should stop reading too much into things?" Stella said.

Hawkes smiled at her mercifully lighter tone. "They'll get through it, Stell'" he said, placing a comforting hand against her back. "They love each other too much to let go of their marriage without one hell of a fight, and you know how stubborn they both can be when the chips are down…"

"One thing the two of them have definitely got in common," Stella agreed with a half-smile.

"Precisely – so relax, okay? You're like a regular mother hen around them at the moment."

"I just want my chicks to be safe and happy," Stella said, running her fingers through her cascade of dark brown curls.

"I know you do, but they flew the coop a long time ago now. It's time for them to make their own way in life."

Stella tucked her arm through his. "Tell me - why is it that you always manage to make me feel better about things?" she asked him.

"It's my superior bedside manner," Hawkes replied with a wide, sunny grin.

"Ahh," Stella said with knowing nod. "Once a doc always a doc, huh?"

"For my sins," he concurred rather ruefully.

"And to everyone else's infinite advantage," Stella returned with a warm, affectionate smile and a squeeze of his arm.

"Get outta here!" Sheldon protested, squirming uncomfortably.

Stella laughed at his embarrassed discomfiture, and then sobered as she noticed Mac's hurried approach. Something about the urgency of her colleague's stride told her that the news wasn't good.

"We've got another body," he said as he joined them, confirming her fears.

"Same M.O.?" she enquired, her mind immediately back on the job.

"First reports from the scene seem to suggest it," Mac answered, his expression grave and his eyes bleak. "I know you're supposed to be working the Maclousky case with Sheldon," he continued, "But you're the only senior CSI available to run point on this. I need to follow up on some of the evidence we got from the last crime scene and it can't wait. I don't want the trail to go cold – it's about the only solid lead we've got at the moment."

He frowned. "I could call Danny back in, I suppose…" he said, his reluctance to do so more than obvious to his two companions.

"It's fine," Stella cut in quickly. "Hawkes can manage on his own for the afternoon, can't you?" she said, glancing over at her colleague who immediately nodded his assent.

"I'll bring Danny up to speed with events tomorrow," she said, reaching out to place a calming hand on Mac's forearm. "Look - I know catching this bastard's important, but Danny and Lindsay's future happiness has got to take precedence over that. It's only a few hours – we're all prepared to work extra time to cover them if necessary."

Mac nodded. "I know," he said. "And I'm sure they appreciate it," he added before returning to the business at hand. "Take Adam with you," he instructed shortly. "And call me if you find anything significant."

"I will," Stella assured him. "Let's hope that Lady Luck is on our side for once, huh?"

"We can but hope, I guess," Mac replied in an uncharacteristically despondent tone. "It's about time we caught a break with this case. At the moment, it seems like we're on the highway to nowhereville…"

OOOOOO

Downtown Manhattan, an hour or so later…

"Are you okay?" Lindsay asked Danny as they sat side-by-side on a sofa in the reception area waiting to be called through for their appointment.

He'd been unusually subdued throughout lunch, forcing her to carry most of the conversation and also prompting the occasional lapse into awkward silence with his monosyllabic responses to her increasingly vain attempts at small talk.

Resting his elbows on his knees, Danny set his brow against the tips of his fingers and heaved out a huge sigh. "I'm sorry," he apologised, his voice low so that their conversation wouldn't be overheard. "I've just got a lot on my mind at the moment. This case is pretty rough-going, and it's getting harder and harder to switch off at the end of the day."

Not without justifiable reason, Lindsay felt her temper begin to rise at his candid explanation for his current unresponsiveness. What did he have to go and call the Lab for anyway? If he'd left it alone like he should have done, he wouldn't have known about the fourth victim and his mind would be where it was supposed to be – here with her trying to save their marriage, instead of itching to be elsewhere with a goddamn dead body!

"This is important, Danny," she chastised him, attempting to keep her voice calm even though irritation was simmering just below the surface.

"You think I don't know that?" he snapped at her tetchily.

"I think you need to get your priorities straight," she retorted sharply. "It was you who decreed this as all-or-nothing territory for us, remember? If work's more important to you than our relationship, then what the hell are we doing here?"

"That's not the way it is, Lindsay, and you know it!" Danny said, gritting his teeth to hold back a more hot-tempered retort. Having an all-out row in the waiting room wasn't the way to demonstrate their commitment to the counselling process, now was it?

"Well, you've got a funny way of showing it," Lindsay shot back, the tremor in her voice revealing how close to the edge she was.

"All right, I'm sorry!" Danny hissed in frustration, and then cursed under his breath at the glitter of tears that he could see in her eyes when she shot a pain-filled glance his way.

"Don't," he said, his temper deflating at her obvious distress.

"You wanted this," she said shakily. "It was your idea."

"I know, I know and I'm sorry. I just got distracted for a moment." He lifted a remorseful hand to her face and rubbed a gentle thumb back-and-forth over her cheek in a light, soothing gesture. "This is important to me, Lindsay," he assured her. "The most important thing in the world, I swear."

"So why is it so difficult for you to forget about everything else and focus on us for a few hours then?" she lamented. "I mean you're planning to go running back to the Lab once this is over, aren't you?" she accused.

Danny sighed. He had been intending to do that, true, but she was right, this was the time that they'd promised each other to work on their relationship. If they were already allowing other things to erode into that, what hope did they have of making it work?

"No," he said with a decisive shake of his head. "No, I'm not going to do that." He leaned forward and kissed her gently. "It can wait until tomorrow. The rest of the day? It's about you and me, and you and me only, okay?"

"You really mean that?" Lindsay asked, not entirely convinced by his earnest assurances.

Danny nodded. "Yes, I really mean that," he promised before his lips quirked up into a self-deprecating smile. "Just keep on giving me a well-deserved kick up the butt if I allow myself to get side-tracked, all right?"

Lindsay breathed a heady sigh of relief as the tension between them thankfully began to dissipate. "Count on it, cowboy," she told him with a slight smile, finally accepting his contrition as the genuine article.

"Danny and Lindsay Messer?" the receptionist announced then, smiling reassuringly at the anxious couple when they both looked towards her with no small amount of trepidation in their eyes. "You can go on through now," she informed them.

Nodding his thanks, Danny stood and held out his hand to his apprehensive wife. "Shall we?" he asked, his voice sounding stronger than he felt inside.

Steeling her nerves, Lindsay slipped her fingers into his and rose to her feet, grateful that they were now back on the same page insofar as to how they wanted this therapy session to turn out.

"So," Doctor Samantha Whittaker said ten minutes later, after she'd introduced herself and asked them a few general questions about their relationship to break the ice. "Why are we here?"

Stumped by the question, both Danny and Lindsay looked at her blankly before the latter finally managed to formulate some sort of response. "Because we love each other, and because neither of us wants to give up on our marriage," she answered.

Samantha nodded. "Well, that's reason enough," she remarked, "But why do you need me?"

"I guess because we're at a loss on how best to go about making things right between us," Danny answered this time. "It's not enough to just want it, is it? You have to make it happen. Admitting that things had gotten so bad that our relationship couldn't survive without professional help was hard for us, but if that's what it's going to take to save our marriage then we're both prepared to make the effort – right babe?" He looked towards Lindsay for confirmation and she nodded her agreement.

"Well – that's a good start," Samantha said, sitting back in her chair and folding her hands loosely together in her lap. "That you've made the decision to come for counselling together, I mean. So often in these situations, I find that one partner is more committed to the process than the other and that invariably hampers progress."

Danny nodded. "So how do we go about this?" he asked.

"That's for you to decide," the blonde therapist replied. "This is your marriage; it's up to you to take ownership of it. I'm here to guide you through the process, suggest things along the way, but ultimately what we cover in these sessions is your decision. I can't hope to understand everything about the two of you in an hour a week. You're the experts on the matter. I assume you must have some idea of the reasons for the breakdown of your relationship?"

Danny exchanged a significant look with Lindsay. "Well yeah," he said slowly, "Although knowing what's wrong and resolving it are two different things."

Samantha nodded. "Nobody said this was going to be easy," she told them. "I think what we need to establish first is some sort of game plan – a list of issues that you want to address. What I need from you both above all else is for you to be as honest as you possibly can however. I know that's easier said than done, but better outside than in, as my grandmother would say."

Danny nodded. "Makes sense."

"And are you on board with that too?" Samantha asked of a notably silent Lindsay.

The other woman nodded. "Yes, but if I'm honest I'm really nervous about how this will affect us. Things are so much better now than they were a few months ago, and I'm afraid that therapy'll cause us backslide if we're not careful."

"Well, I'm not going to lie to you, sometimes counselling does end up with a couple realising that the best thing for them would be to split," Samantha told her gently. "Some find that a relief in itself, however. Yes, it's sad and painful for all concerned, but when it's a conscious choice rather than an instinctive reaction, it makes it so much easier to come to terms with."

"Having said that though," she went on encouragingly. "The goal here is for a positive outcome, so let's think about working constructively towards that rather than worrying about things that might never happen."

Turning in her seat, she retrieved two pads of paper and two pens from the desk behind her and handed them over. "The idea is to establish an open and frank dialogue between the two of you," she explained. "Many couples find it easier to put pen to paper in the first instance however. Why don't you both write down what you feel are the top five issues you need to address and we'll go from there? No essays – just a few words of explanation. Try not to think too much about it either; the first thing that comes to mind is usually what's most important. Our mind is a clever beast, it has a habit of suppressing the most painful issues as a coping mechanism, but it's also a creature of instinct. Go with its initial response and you'll not go far wrong."

It was probably the hardest thing that she'd ever had to do, but Lindsay forced herself to be brutally honest when constructing her list. It ended up as a mixture of her own neuroses and some of her - as yet unspoken - resentments towards Danny personally. She supposed it was an appropriate balance, but it also had the potential to break both their hearts, which immediately made her want to screw it up and come up with something considerably more palatable. Samantha – somewhat perceptibly perhaps – held out her hand just as her pen was poised to strike through the most objectionable items however, and she reluctantly handed it over, her heart thumping like a drumbeat inside her chest.

"Well, there are several items in common, which is good," Samantha observed after she'd studied both lists. "It shows that you're generally in tune with regard to the problems that you face which helps." She handed Lindsay's list back. "How about you read yours out?" she suggested.

Caught on the hop, Lindsay baulked at that. "Why me?" she asked plaintively.

"Because you seem to be the one least in control here," Samantha told her honestly. "And I believe the exercise will give you back some of that control."

She turned her attention to Danny then. "I need you to listen and not comment for the moment," she instructed. "You'll have your say, but there's a time and a place for it, okay?"

"Okay," Danny agreed, his voice scratchy with nervous tension.

"So, how about we start at the top and work down?" Samantha said, looking at Lindsay expectantly.

"I err… umm…," Lindsay stuttered uncertainly, and then forcibly steadied her voice to communicate the first item on her list. "Number one – Rikki Sandoval and Rachel Havers," she read.

"You've grouped the two into one issue," Samantha remarked incisively. "Is that how you see it?"

"I err… I'm not sure," Lindsay said in confusion. "Why do you ask?"

"Because Danny has Rikki Sandoval on his list, but the other name isn't mentioned."

"Probably because he probably doesn't see Rachel as an issue," Lindsay surmised.

"But you do?" Samantha pressed.

Lindsay shrugged. "I have questions," she admitted. "It's not the same, but it kind of is in a way." She broke off with a nervous laugh. "I'm not making any sense, am I?"

"You're expressing how you feel, that's all that matters," Samantha said. "You can worry about making sense another time. This is about getting everything out in the open. There'll be time enough to analyse specific issues in more detail later."

"So," she continued after a brief pause. "Shall we move on?"

Lindsay nodded and read the next item on her list. "Number two: better communication."

"In what sense?" Samantha asked.

"We're not great at talking to each other unless we absolutely have to," Lindsay explained. "We've gotten better at it recently, but I think we both still hold back a lot. We prefer to avoid issues rather than confront them."

"And you believe you're both equally guilty of behaving in that way?" Samantha enquired.

"Yes." Lindsay nodded, keeping her gaze firmly trained on the other woman's. She wasn't sure she could continue with this if she was forced to look Danny in the eye right now.

"You'll be glad to know that your husband agrees with that assessment," Samantha told her. She lifted the pad in her hand. "I would say 'Learn to talk rather than suppress' describes what you've just explained rather aptly, don't you think?"

Lindsay nodded. "So umm… Number three…" she hurried on, desperate to get it over with now that she'd begun. "The adverse effects of my depression."

Samantha nodded. "I can see how you would think that's an issue, but, interestingly, that doesn't figure anywhere on Danny's list," she revealed.

"It doesn't?" Lindsay asked, her eyes widening in astonishment.

"That surprises you?" Samantha asked her.

"Well yeah," Lindsay replied. "I mean it's a big deal and… Why?" she demanded of Danny. "I don't understand."

"You can answer that," Samantha told him when he shot her a questioning look, clearly asking for permission to speak.

"I'm not saying it's a non-issue," Danny said, "It just doesn't rate in my top five that's all."

"Okay, so Lindsay, answer me one thing and try to be as honest as you can," Samantha said. "Did you mean the effects of your depression on your relationship, yourself or Danny personally?"

"The first and last, I guess," Lindsay answered after a momentary pause for thought. "Mainly the last if I'm honest. Other men in my life haven't been quite so accepting of it, you see."

"Which brings us neatly to one of Danny's issues so we may as well raise it now," Samantha said. "Do you want to explain to her what you've written down as number four?" she enquired of Danny.

"Sure," he agreed, and then immediately discovered it wasn't as easy as he thought. He cleared his throat in an attempt to force the words past the frog that had taken up unwanted residence there. "For umm… for Lindsay to see me as me, rather than view me through the shadows of her past relationships," he said.

Samantha nodded. "You feel she judges you as a collective rather than individually?" she asked.

"Yeah – I mean, I know I've done things that have hurt her badly, but I'm not prepared to be punished for other men's mistakes as well - or to be judged by their standards either."

"All right so that's another thing for us to explore then," Samantha said. "Now Lindsay - can you explain a little more about what the last two items on your list mean please?

Lindsay nodded before continuing. "I guess by 'why me?' I mean that I need to know why he loves me, what he sees in me, what drives him to stay with me. Sometimes I feel as if I don't measure up and I umm…" She stalled unable to put what she felt into words. "This is so hard to explain."

"It sounds as if you don't trust in his love," Samantha observed astutely.

Lindsay nodded. "I suppose on some level I don't," she admitted frankly.

"Jesus Lindsay!" Danny said with a shake of his head before he could stop himself from reacting. "What do I have to do to convince you?"

"I don't know!" Lindsay shot back in irritation. "That's what we're here to figure out, isn't it?"

"This frustrates you?" Samantha asked of Danny.

"Damn right it does!" he replied heatedly. "It's like it doesn't matter how many times I say it, she just doesn't believe it – not completely anyway. Every time I think I've finally gotten through to her, she drags us straight back to square one. I can't win."

"Rest assured we'll work on remedying that," Samantha told him soothingly, "But let's just set it aside for now and finish what we've started, okay?"

"I don't think I can do this," Lindsay interrupted tearfully, her emotional strength shot to pieces by Danny's impassioned outburst. "It's just too hard!"

"You're nearly there," Samantha told her in a tone of calm encouragement. "One more to go, and then it's Danny's turn for the spot-light. Just take a deep breath and spit it out."

"Okay, okay," Lindsay murmured, closing her eyes as she struggled to regain control. "The last one… it… I guess I want to know 'why not me?' but I… I don't mean it in the same way as 'why me?' It's more about him this time."

"How so?" Samantha prompted.

"It's just… he never turns to me when he needs someone to lean on," she said in a rush. "It started with Rikki Sandoval, but it's more than that. I'm the last person he'll trust with anything that's emotionally painful to him. It's always someone else he goes to."

"Other women you mean?"

"It feels like that sometimes, but no, not entirely. I'm his wife, but it's like I'm only there for companionship, sex, being a mother to Lucy… I'm not his emotional support system – other people fulfil that role for him. It's not as if I expect him to confide everything to me, but I expect to be at least on the list of possibilities. To me, that's a big part of what marriage is all about so without it…?" She broke off and shrugged. "Well, something really important is missing isn't it?"

"Do you look to him for emotional support?" Samantha asked her.

Lindsay nodded. "I don't find it easy sometimes, but yes, yes, I do. But when I do I feel like I'm a burden to him, like... like…"

"Like you're not good enough?" Samantha interjected when words once again failed her.

"Yeah, like I'm not good enough," Lindsay agreed, "But that's bringing it back to me again, isn't it? And it's not about that - it's about him not trusting me with such things, not the other way round."

"So what you're really saying is that you feel that he doesn't trust in your love any more than you trust in his?" Samantha suggested.

Lindsay looked at Danny, pain rife in her gaze. "Yes, I guess I am," she said. "How messed up is that, huh? I mean, we want to be together, but we can't let go enough to allow that to happen. We keep on fighting it." She shook her head sadly. "Maybe we're kidding ourselves thinking that this is ever going to work," she said despondently. "Maybe we should just call it quits and go our separate ways."

"Is that really what you want, or is that just the fear of change talking?" Samantha said.

Lindsay bit her bottom lip in agitation. "I'm scared to let go…"

"Of him or yourself?"

"Both, I guess – but mostly of myself."

"If Danny trusted you with his heart in the way that you want him to, would that reassure you? Give you the strength to put your heart on the line where he was concerned?"

"Yes, yes I think it would," Lindsay replied with nod.

"And does the same go for you?" Samantha asked of Danny.

He hesitated and then nodded his agreement. "We're sabotaging ourselves, aren't we?" he remarked ruefully, "Locking our relationship into a permanent Catch-22?"

Samantha nodded. "It does seem that way, yes, but the first step in moving past that is recognising it for what it is, so I think we've achieved something important here."

"So now it's up to one of us to break the deadlock?" Danny asked.

"Or you break free of it together," Samantha told him. "Is there any one specific issue that you think your problems particularly stem from?" she asked then.

Danny shifted uncomfortably, guilt weighing heavy on his soul. "Err yeah, umm… Rikki Sandoval … I uhh…" He looked away guiltily. "Well you know."

"Slept with her?" Samantha supplied.

Danny nodded. "Yes."

"And that was the cause of your break-up?"

Danny immediately shook his head. "No, no, I mean it was years ago, before we were married. It was a stupid, one-off mistake – infidelity is not something I make a habit of, I assure you. But, it did leave its mark on us all the same. We never really dealt with it, you see. It was too painful to talk about so we just pushed it aside and moved on."

"But it came back to haunt you when you least expected it to?" Samantha guessed.

Danny shrugged. "You could say that, yeah, and I guess that's where my fear comes from. All that was in the past for me; I thought it was in the past for both of us. Next thing I knew, she was turning round and saying 'sorry, didn't mean that after all.' She punished me for it years afterwards and it cut me off at the knees when she did."

"So that's why you want 'Lindsay to understand just how badly her filing for divorce affected me'?" Samantha asked, quoting from his list.

Danny nodded. "Yes, because I don't think she truly gets it even now."

"I broke his heart, I know that," Lindsay cut in.

"As payback?" Samantha asked, her tone direct.

"No!" Lindsay said, horrified at the suggestion. "No! That's not how I operate. Maybe the whole thing with Rikki wasn't as in the past as I allowed him to believe, but I didn't consciously set out to hurt him, I swear I didn't."

"But clearly Danny doesn't think that…"

"I didn't say that," Danny denied. "I said I didn't think she understood how deeply our split affected me. That's partly due to some of the issues on Lindsay's list, I suppose. She doesn't understand why I love her, so to her that means that I don't – or least it means that I don't feel as strongly about her as she does about me."

"So you can't possibly have been hurt in the same way?" Samantha surmised.

Danny nodded. "Exactly."

"So – is that true?" Samantha asked Lindsay. "Do you believe that?"

Lindsay wanted to deny it, but found that she couldn't, not completely. However unjustified it was; part of her did think that. She hadn't recognised the potent effect of her actions upon him because she couldn't accept that he loved her even half as much as she had loved him. But then his actions before and after their split hadn't helped matters, had they? He'd turned to Rikki all those years ago instead of her. He'd moved on with Rachel because he couldn't stand being alone. What was she supposed to think? How was she supposed to feel?

"It's hard to trust him," she said, side-stepping the question because she wasn't sure how to answer.

"In other words, yes," Danny cut in acidly.

"Well, can you blame me?" she demanded hotly. "Why do you think Rachel's such an issue for me? If I hurt you that badly, why were you with her?"

"It's not like I started seeing her straight away," he protested. "Jesus Lindsay! It was months after we split. I thought we were over and done with back then."

"And yet now you're claiming to still love me, to have loved me all along," she shot back. "Can't you see how sometimes that's difficult for me to believe?"

Forced to confront how his actions, however unintentionally, had exacerbated her insecurities, he stared at her helplessly, not knowing what to say.

"Do you accept that what she's feeling is valid?" Samantha interjected.

Danny sighed. "Yes, of course I do. It's just that I don't look at it that way. It wasn't how it was, it wasn't."

"People deal with loss in different ways," Samantha explained. "Some of us want to curl up in a ball and hide away from the world and everything in it. Some of us put on a brave face, grab the nearest life-raft, and soldier on regardless. Can I assume from what I've heard that Rachel was someone you dated while you and Lindsay were separated?"

Danny nodded. "Yes."

"So this Rachel was your life-raft, your way of coming to terms with what you'd lost?"

"I suppose."

"Did you love her?"

"I thought I did at the time, but I was always aware that what I felt for her wasn't in the same league as what I felt for Lindsay."

"And in retrospect?"

"And in retrospect, I can see that I was just using her to make me feel better. Not deliberately, but using her all the same." He looked at Lindsay. "You never told me it bothered you that much," he complained.

"I know," she admitted. "And I should have done. I was trying to be mature about it, you know? It's not as if you weren't free to be with her. I don't really have a right to be jealous, do I?"

Danny frowned. "Is that what this is? Jealousy?"

Lindsay shrugged. "More like inadequacy."

He sighed. "Lindsay…"

She closed her eyes. "I can't help it."

Danny looked appealingly at Samantha. "I don't know what I can say to make it right," he told her plaintively.

"Is it really about that?" she asked him. "Isn't it more about recognising where you've gone wrong in the past and working on not repeating those mistakes in the future?"

"It should be, but is it really?" Danny demanded. "Most of the time it feels like I have to prove something to her."

Samantha turned to Lindsay. "Is that what you expect?" she asked.

"I guess I have in the past," Lindsay admitted, "But I can see that's not really very fair on him. I mean what proof can he give? In the end, it's down to trust. I have to trust him, just like he has to trust me."

"Couldn't have said it better myself," Samantha concluded. "So, I guess the million dollar question is: can you learn to let go of your fears and trust each other? Or are you going to keep on putting up unnecessary walls and ultimately tear each other – and your marriage - apart?"

To be continued…

A/N2: And she annoyingly went and finished it on a cliff-hanger… Naughty CharmedBec! LOL! xx