Title: Had A Dream
Summary: Lindsay came to New York City on the wings of a dream. MacLindsay.
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: Minor spoilers for "Stuck on You." Okay, my Flack/Lindsay following is probably "wtf?" but I need to write for other 'ships if I'm going to preserve my sanity.
Rating: T

Had A Dream

"If I'm dreaming, never let me wake. If I'm awake, never let me sleep."
-Chinese Proverb

Lindsay became a CSI because, in all honesty, she thought she could make a difference. She still does. Death came close to her and she saw what it does, saw the devastation it wreaks in the lives it leaves behind. Saw the tears and the broken souls, and what lingers with her most is standing by the gravestone with an umbrella over her head as it rained, remembering her mother. By the time Lindsay left the academy the case had gone cold and now that file never leaves the corner of her desk. She supposes that's what first drew her to Mac (at least romantically), those files on the corner of his desk.

When she called the New York Crime Lab, searching desperately for work, it was Mac that answered and he offered her a job. There was a vacancy, he said, they had just lost a CSI and with her credentials she'd be an asset to the lab. The way he said "lost a CSI" came with extra weight and it made Lindsay curious but in a sad way, there was lots of backstory there but she wasn't going to push.

The first time she met Mac was at the zoo. The cute CSI with the glasses had told her to call him 'sir' and naturally Danny (for that was his name) had just been giving the new girl a hard time. Mac offered her a small smile and said, "And, ah, you don't need to call me 'sir.'" With that smile, Lindsay knew she would call him anything he wanted. She just wished it would reach his eyes.

Lindsay, to be completely honest, came to New York City on the wings of a dream. She wanted love, she wanted justice, she wanted to defy gravity and just fly away. After she met Mac, Lindsay felt for the first time in a long while that she could smile freely. So this was laughter, this was freedom, this was what it felt like to be complete.

The first time she asked him out to dinner he hesitated at the door to the AV lab and looked away, finally looking back to say no. She knew why he said no, and it wasn't because Mac didn't like her, or feel the same way she did about him. Because he did, at least in some small part; Stella had told her as much. Mac felt he simply shouldn't, she was young, she was his employee and he was her boss. Plus, Mac just wasn't ready to admit that he was loving somebody who wasn't Claire. But, being a country girl and used to toil, Lindsay wasn't going to give up that easy.

She watches Mac now, out of the corner of her eye at crime scenes or at the lab. He looks so intense when studying the evidence, and occasionally he's overcome with a sense of boyish glee, like the time when they worked the case with the bow and arrow. She liked that case too, and even after they were done testing the bow, she kept working it. She think that's when Mac first accepted his feelings for her, cause he looked at her with his head slightly tilted and he smiled, watching Lindsay shoot the bow and arrow at the target in the gun lab.

Now she's lying in bed and Mac's sleeping, next to her of course because that's the way it was meant to be. She strokes the side of his face lightly with the tips of her fingers, kisses his forehead softly.

"We are such stuff as dreams are made on," she whispers, letting herself pull close to the warmth of her lover.

So this was the dream that carried her to New York City.

finis.