10 hours. That's how long I'll be stuck in a car with Danny Messer. 10 fuckin' hours. I am so screwed.

Danny's gone to get his kit and Mac's left for... where ever, I'm not sure, but all I can think is 10 hours. Oh man.

I walk out of the lab where Danny and Mac left me and head for the locker room. Yeah, there's a chance Danny might be there, but whatever, my brain's too fried to think about anything else but my impending doom in the form of a car ride.

I walk into the empty locker room and open my locker and just look through it because there's nothing that I need from it really. I'm just killing time so I don't have to go to the car and wait and brood and think about all the interesting things we have to chat about on the ride to Albany. Normally, a car ride with Danny isn't that bad. Sure, he talks. A lot. And he tends to gesture a lot more than he usually does when he's talking a car (which is why NO ONE lets him drive-- he can't keep his hands on the steering wheel long enough to control the movement of the car). And he cracks bad jokes or tells funny stories. But normally Danny hasn't heard me saying what a nice ass he has. Normally, he doesn't grin in that hungry way he did in the Lab. Normally...

"Hey, Flack, hear you're goin' to Albany." Stella interrupts my thoughts. I give a small nod and she continues, "Kind of surprised me."

I raise an eyebrow in silent inquiry. Stella smiles.

"You and Danny? Telling a poor crippled woman who already lost her husband she lost her son, too? I dunno, I just thought Mac would send someone with a little tact... or, at least y'know, sensitivity."

I roll my eyes. "I'm plenty sensitive."

Stella laughs. "Oh, yeah. How about when you come back tomorrow we'll watch a chick flick, eat a tub of chocolate ice cream and have a good cry."

I'm about to come back with what I'm sure is a good comeback (can't let Stella get the best of me) when what she said clicks in my head.

"When I come back tomorrow?"

Before Stella can answer me, Mac comes in to the locker room and hands me a pack of papers.

"Flack, here's directions to the Jacobs residence. I'm sure you and Danny can find a hotel within budget in Albany. Just make sure you get receipts back so that I can reimburse you." And then he leaves again.

I look at my watch. Right now, it's already 12:30. So, by the time we get there, it will already be 5, 5:30. Even if we interview Mrs. Jacobs today, Danny and I will still have to stay at a hotel over night.

Oh crap. This is so not good.

I'm leaning against the back passenger door of the car we're taking to Albany, my fingers tapping wildly on the slick, dark blue finish, waiting for Danny to get his gear and come out of the building. My overnight gear is already shoved into the trunk (turns out I needed to be in my locker after all) and the directions are on the front seat, so now all I need to Messer to hurry up. I'm praying that maybe, just maybe, in the span of 10 minutes that Danny has forgotten about this morning. Not likely, but hey, I can always hope.

Finally Danny appears out of the doors, carrying in CSI kit in on hand, his overnight bag slung over his back. He gives me a big grin, all white, sparkling teeth, like he's all excited to be getting out of the city and investigate elsewhere for once, and I'm hoping his enthusiasm has nothing to do with torturing me during this trip.

I glance at my watch. We're leaving at 1 pm. Great.

As he steps towards me, I push away from the car and clear my throat. "Ready to go, Messer?" I ask, quite proud of the fact that my voice didn't waver and give my nerves away.

"You bet!" He says, his blue eyes sparkling with his eagerness to get on the road. He shoves his overnight bag into the trunk and then carefully puts his CSI kit in, too, not wanting anything in it to break and what-not.

I go around the front and get in the driver's side, half dreading, half anticipating this trip. Danny gets in the passenger seat and hooks in his seatbelt. As I start the car, he looks at me. Oh shit, here it comes already. Can't even wait until we're out of the city to grill me about this morning.

"How come no one ever lets me drive?"

That's really not what I was expecting.

For the first hour, Danny keeps the conversation up by himself. He complains about the fact that no one lets him drive ever (not that I can blame anyone), he whines about Aiden (apparently she's been picking on him again-- like he doesn't do worse to her) and Mac and recent cases, and then he finally winds up on the subject of baseball (the dirtiest sport in the history of mankind and I know he chose that topic on purpose. Bastard.)

Around 2:30, there's a lull of silence. It isn't tense, but it isn't relaxed, either, and I can't help but tap my fingers on the steering wheel.

"Hey Flack?" Danny asks softly, dispersing the quiet.

My stomach tightens. Oh shit, I am so not ready for this.

"Yeah?" I croak out. I clear my throat and try again, "Yeah, Danny?"

"... Who do you think is hotter, Stella or Aiden?"

...Again, not what I was expecting. I glance at Danny once (Dammit, is he smirking!) trying to keep my eyes on the road and look at him at the same time. It's not working that well, but I take another quick glance just to see if the smirk is there. But all there is a look of complete innocence Like hell, I don't think Danny's ever been innocent.

"Uh... well, I don't know." That bastard. He's testing me! "I don't really think of them like that. Or at least, I try not to."

Danny snorts. "Riiiight. Flack, you're the biggest perv on the planet."

"Hey, I take offense to that." Can't help but smirk, because yeah, it is true.

And we bicker for a half hour about my "perv-i-ness" as Danny (and Aiden, as I find out from him) calls it (and I don't even try to deny it) and about who's hotter: Stella or Aiden.

At 3:15, Danny looks at me again.

"Flack?"

I sigh internally. Either he's going to ask about this morning, or he's going to keep messin' with my head. Maybe he'll wait 'til tomorrow on the way home. I can only hope.

"Yeah?"

"What do you call cheese that's not yours?"

What the fuck? "I dunno, what?"

A broad grin crosses Danny's face. "Nacho cheese."

I roll my eyes. Apparently, I can't get through one car ride without a few dumb jokes. Except Danny's jokes become more and more and I throw a few dirty ones in as well, and soon we've managed to pass another half hour. At which point we stop for gas.

I gas up the car and Danny goes inside the Mini-mart for ... whatever, I'm not sure, all I told him was to get me a soda to drink. I pay at the pump and get my receipt and Danny moseys back out carrying a plastic bag.

"Good timing." I tell him. We both get into the car and are back on the highway, continuing one to Albany. Only 4:00, not too bad. And not one hint of this morning. Maybe he did forget.

Danny hands me the soda bottle he got me in the store and I nod my thanks. We drive another few miles without a word, not a sound... until Danny starts going through the plastic bag. I glance at him just in time to see him pop a lollipop into his mouth. Oh. Shit. Eyes on the road, not on Danny's pretty mouth, which is sucking on a lollipop and he's licking and putting it back into his mouth and is he smirking again? He most certainly is. I force my eyes back to the road and I know he knows I was looking at his mouth. Ok, openly staring when I should have been watching the highway. Bastard. He is doing this on purpose. What is he playing at?

I sneak a glance at him again and, of course, he catches me.

"What?" he asks innocently (yeah, right), the words garbled from the sucker in his mouth. "Do I have something on my face?"

I look out onto the road. "No, you're good." Asshole.

I feel as if I'm in one of those bad fanfiction stories that teenage girls who don't have a life write. Not that I could really say much in the whole having-a-life department...

I can sense his smirk from across the seats. I hear a soft crack and then some crunching noises and I know he's eating the lollipop instead of sucking on it. Really hope he wouldn't do that with something else he can suck on... Nononono, not in the car, no thinking that now, not here...

Danny rolls down the window, tosses the abused stick out, and then rolls the window back up. "I know I'm good." he says.

4:30 and Danny has fallen asleep. His glasses are askew and he looks... cute when he's asleep. Peaceful, none of that excitement and happiness or anger and confusion that usually colors his face when he's on the job. It's hard to believe that someone can be so adorable and so hot at the same time. Not that I'll tell him that.

For that next half hour I glance at Danny freely as he sleeps. No worries of being caught, no tension in my stomach about imminent conversations...

At 5:00, I glance again and find myself looking into blue eyes. I quickly look back at the road. Again, I can feel his smirk.

"So, Flack..." Danny starts, staring at me from across the front seat.

"Uh huh?" Very articulate, if I so say so myself. This is it, we're going to have this conversation.

"You think my ass is fine, huh?"