AN Happy New Year! Okay I'm early, but heck I wanted this up cause I said it'd be soon...not sure where I'm going after this...any ideas? Anyway, this feels to me like an added fluffy chapter…so I apologise if it isn't up to the calibre of the others. I gotta get some more conflict going or this story will get boring awfully fast…Either way R&R… :)

Disclaimer No owning going on here, just fantasizing and it's ever so pretty in my mind. I hope CBS doesn't mind me borrowing and manipulating their characters. They'll come back unharmed I promise. ;)

"Answer your question?" Mandy thought for a bit, "A little from column A and a little from column B."

"Very evasive," Flack said with a smile.

She turned to face him with a smile of her own, "I'd think you'd be used to that."

"Last time I checked you weren't a perp."

"Then maybe you should check again."

"I don't know about you Mandy Monroe." Flack said with a shake of his head.

"I thought you were a detective," She winked and kissed his cheek, "Why don't you detect and find out about me."

"So," Lindsay sat across from Danny on her couch and regarded him, "Now what?"

He was flipping through channels, "Now we definitely don't watch TV. Everything that's on is a cop show. I swear, they exploit our job and make it look way snazzier then it is." He sighed and turned the TV off.

Lindsay laughed, "That's ironic."

"What's ironic?" He asked with a smirk.

"Mandy asked Mac if it was a requirement to be attractive to work at our lab." She said.

"Wow she said that to him huh? What did he say?"

Lindsay shook her head, "I think he actually liked the comment."

"Mac just keeps changing," Danny mused, "He was mostly a hard ass last year then he starts dating; now he's a hard ass, with a sense of humour."

"Deadly combination," Lindsay grinned.

"Especially when you're on the receiving end," He sighed.

"What is it with you two?" Lindsay asked.

Danny shrugged, "We clash from time to time."

"That's it, that's what you're going to go with? You clash from time to time?" She asked incredulously.

"What have you heard?" Danny was instantly suspicious, gossip spread around the lab like wild fire. Gossip about him seemed to spread even faster then that.

"Nothing of consequence," She retorted and was getting slightly annoyed, "Danny are you going to give me a list of things I can talk about around you?"

He opened his mouth then closed it and sighed. He rubbed his face and looked down, "I really suck at this part." He mumbled.

"What part?"

"This whole emotional bonding part," He said with a wave of his hand.

Lindsay looked at him as he stared at his hands. She licked her lips and thought about it. This was much different than what she was used to, back home you knew everything about everyone. Even if they didn't want to talk it didn't matter, she'd know their mother, or sister or some other relative that would fill her in. Here, she was completely in the dark. She knew nothing about this guy except what she observed, that's it. She had no real inside track, she just had her intuition.

He got up when she didn't say anything and put his hand to the back of his neck, "Maybe this was a bad idea." He said and headed toward the door.

She watched him but couldn't bring herself to say anything. Logically he was right, they shouldn't be doing this it wasn't smart. What if they broke up, how could they work together? Could they really keep their relationship out of the lab? It was a bad idea it was better if he just left and they forgot anything every happened.

Then why was she making her way to him and putting her hand on his arm? "Don't go." She said quietly.

He stopped but didn't turn around, he was mentally beating himself up for coming there, for kissing her, for allowing himself to get this far. His problem wasn't that she wanted to know about him, his problem was he wanted to tell her. "Why?"

She walked around him so she was facing him and smiled, "Because you are the most mysterious person I've ever known and I like mystery."

He gave her a tentative smile, "You have no idea what you're saying."

"I know, that's what makes it fun." She said bringing herself closer to him, "Now tell me you don't want to stay."

He closed his eyes, he shouldn't, he thought. "You know I can't tell you that."

She smiled and kissed him, "I do now."

Mandy knocked on the door then jiggled the handle then after turning her key she knocked again. Peering her head around the door she had her eyes closed.

"Lindsay, you're sister is a whole new realm of weird."

Opening one eye then the other Mandy regarded Danny who was in the kitchen putting something back into the fridge. Lindsay was sitting on the couch looking at her sister with a bemused smile, "I was just making sure I didn't catch you in a compromising position."

Danny winked as he walked by her, "You're about twenty minutes late, that's a sturdy counter in there." When he saw her face he chuckled, "I'm kidding."

"Hey, she's speechless," Lindsay laughed, "Nice one."

"I'm not speechless," Mandy explained as she pulled her coat off and flopped into the armchair, "Just amazed at hottie's ability to be witty."

"Sweetheart, I've always been witty," Danny said with a laugh, "I just like to let others shine; it's one of my better traits."

"One of them," Lindsay agreed with a laugh.

Mandy got up and walked to the door and opened it, she stared at the number on the front then back at the couple, "It looks like the right apartment," She mused, "Okay who are you and what have you done with the denial twins?"

"No one denied anything Mandy." Lindsay said.

"Yeah, we just hate being dictated to," Danny added, "Now will you shut up about who's apartment your in and what's wrong with us and come over here to explain how this damn DVD player works."

"Honestly, you can break a particle down to the smallest atom and yet you can't make a DVD player work." Mandy laughed.

"We all have out talents; I just want you to feel needed." He countered then sat back and kicked his feet up on the table with a smile at Lindsay who was leaning against the other end of the couch.

Sheldon Hawkes walked by the trace lab and stopped. He watched Lindsay back out of the way smile at Danny and move around the table to give him more room. He responded by handing her a test tube she needed then went back to analyzing something in the microscope.

"What are you looking at?" Flack asked.

"Them," Hawkes pointed. Lindsay had printed something and indicated it as it came out. Danny stepped back from what he was doing to get it for her. He read out the results then handed it to her.

"What about them?" Marty said coming up to the two men who were intently watching.

"They're working together," Hawkes explained, "And I haven't seen one of them scowl, not once."

"Mandy said they were rather in sync the other night when she got home," Flack said.

"Wait a minute, isn't Mandy the sister?" Marty asked with a glance at Flack, "When did she start talking to you?"

"Right after I called and asked her out," He said with a grin.

"Shut up, you asked her out?" Hawkes was incredulous.

"Yup."

"Hey don't I get dibs cause I met her first?" Marty asked.

"You didn't call dibs, so therefore you forfeit the right." Flack said, "Besides I think she liked me best anyway."

"I wonder if Lindsay has any more sisters." Hawkes mused.

"You know," A voice said from behind them, "All you guys would need is curlers in your hair and a cup of coffee."

All three men became an interesting shade of red and turned, "Uh, Hi Stella." Flack was the first to speak.

She smiled at him, "May I ask what you three are finding so interesting in there?"

"Those two," Marty explained indicating Danny and Lindsay who were so engrossed in what they were doing neither noticed they were being watched.

Stella glanced at them, "Does the fact they are working fascinate you? Since neither of you are."

"No, they're not…" Hawkes started to explain then stopped, "Oh right."

"Yeah," Stella nodded, "I need you to drop off that DNA sample about five minutes ago and Flack, Mac is waiting in his office to talk to you and Marty I'm pretty sure that multiple at the bodega has enough bodies to keep you busy for a week."

"Right, sorry Stella." They said in unison and went their separate ways.

Leaving Stella to watch as Danny and Lindsay worked together, "Hmm," She muttered, "They aren't fighting."

Meanwhile inside the trace lab

"We are being watched, you do realize that right?" Lindsay said without looking up from her work.

Danny kept looking in the microscope, "Yup, they're waiting to catch us making out."

She chuckled, "They're gonna be waiting awhile."

"Agreed, I don't feel like putting on a show."

"Me neither," She got up and walked around him to get something she needed, "We can save that for later."

He smirked and looked at her out of the corner of his eye, "After work you mean?"

"Mandy won't be home, she's meeting Don." Lindsay said manoeuvring around him to go back to where she was working.

"Well then consider it a date."

"Done."

She didn't have to take the subway home that night, Danny drove her. "Are you sure Mandy's not here?" He asked once they got inside the apartment.

"You really are scared of her aren't you?" Lindsay asked.

He smiled down at her in a way that made her skin warm instantly, "Nah, I'm just a private person."

"Private?" She raised an eyebrow, "Now what could you be thinking that's so private?"

He hooked his fingers in the belt loops of her jeans and pulled her towards him, "Not so much thinking and more along the lines of doing." He whispered into her ear then kissed along her jaw line to her mouth.

She closed her eyes and inhaled sharply, "Oh." She managed in between kissing him, "I like this doing idea."

"Good, now stop talking." He put his hands under her and pulled her up so her legs were around his waist.

She did as she was told, mainly because she couldn't think of anything to say anyway. Her mind was deliciously elsewhere.

Mandy found a note hanging on the door handle of the apartment when she got home. She read it and smiled. Dialling a familiar number she waited.

"It's been three minutes do you miss me already?" Flack answered.

"Something like that," She said as she headed back to the elevator, "Mind if I come over, I think the apartment is, umm, occupied."

"Oh!" Flack understood instantly and laughed, "I am really going to want that mental picture out of my head."

"I'll see what I can do to help you with that."

"Perfect, I'll be back around the block in a sec." He pulled a u-turn and headed back to pick her up.