Danny had thought to give Lindsay a little time to cool off, but when lunch time came around and she hadn't returned, he decided to go look for her. She hadn't been hard to find. She was down by the lake, sitting of the dock, with her bare feet dangling just above the water and her face tilted towards the sun.

He was struck again by how beautiful she was, with the sunlight glinting off of her silky hair and her eyes shut. She looked like a priestess making an offering to Apollo. Too bad that it didn't make the upcoming conversation any easier.

Danny shoved his hands into the pocket of his jeans and walked down the length of the wooden dock. He was sure she heard him coming but she didn't turn to look at him, not even when he sat down next to her.

"Hey," he said softly. For a minute he didn't think she was going to answer him, but she finally replied just as softly.

"Hey yourself."

He ran a nervous hand through his hair and started twiddling his thumbs. He still wasn't wearing his glasses and the lake looked slightly blurry. He watched the dark water as it rippled slightly in the breeze.

"Stella called to tell me that Riker found out 'bout the shootin' I was involved with last year."

Lindsay turned to regard his profile, studying his eyes. Even without the barrier of the glasses she couldn't tell what he was thinking. She waited patiently for him to go on, afraid that if she spoke he would clam up again.

"I'm sure ya heard 'bout it. Cops are worse than old ladies when it comes to gossip."

She nodded. "I might have heard a mention or two."

Or three, she added silently to herself. The truth was she had heard all about it during her first week on the job. At the time she had figured it confirmed the opinion she had developed of him at the zoo, but now she considered the whole thing hearsay. She had wanted to ask him about it a dozen times, to get his story, but had always been too chicken. Now though, he was going to tell her and she felt a fission of fear race up her spine.

He was so guarded about his personal life and she was afraid that if she knew too much about him then a time would come when she wouldn't be able to shrug off these feelings that he invoked deep inside her.

Who was she kidding? She was already in danger of that.

Danny looked down at his hands and turned to face her.

"I'm gonna be honest, Monroe. I'm not really sure anymore what happened that day. Me and Mac, we entered this apartment and this guy, he was hidin' in the closet. Well I pretty much trip over him and he bolts. I go after him and chase him a few blocks down into the subway. It was so clear when it was happenin. He shot first and I shot back, or at least that is what I thought. Turned out the guy was Rodney Minhas, an undercover cop. Mac kept tellin' me to stay outta it, kept sayin' that my story didn't fit the evidence. The way Mac said it went down was that Minhas identified himself and was goin' after this other guy named Michael Anderson. Incidentally he was supposed to be the guy that I started out chasin."

Danny wiped a hand over his face again and turned back towards the lake.

"I made the mistake of talkin' to Chief Hilborne, the guy from IAB that investigated, 'cause with the way Mac and everybody was actin' it felt like they had already hung me out to dry. Me and Mac, we was never really the same after that ya know? I mean it's gotten better but sometimes I still feel like he don't really trust me anymore. Accordin' to Mac, I got lucky when IAB came up short in the evidence department and didn't press charges."

Lindsay didn't know what to say. She had always picked up on a different kind of dynamic between Danny and Mac but she had never imagined it went so deep.

His story illuminated a lot of things she hadn't really understood about their relationship and Danny's pressing need to prove himself. She found him watching her again with unfathomable eyes and she knew that what she said next could make or break this something that hung between them.

"Danny, I'm not going to trivialize what you told me by telling you that everyone makes mistakes and you are only human," she said carefully and added.

He bristled a little and she reached out to grasp his forearm.

"We're cops, more importantly we're CSIs, and even if we make mistakes we don't have the luxury of them. That said, you are one of the best detectives that I have ever worked with, and please don't point out that I haven't been on the job long enough to meet many detectives. Despite what you think of Bozeman, there were some really good cops there. Every time we process a scene together, or question a suspect, or interrogate a perp, I make a choice that I'm going to trust you, and I haven't regretted the decision to do so once since I started working here. Not even when Davis tried to choke me. So if you hoped to scare me off with that story then you're out of luck mister."

He didn't respond for the next two minutes and Lindsay was afraid that she might have said the wrong thing or gone too far with her honesty. She was looking deep into his impossibly blue eyes and she still couldn't figure out what he was thinking.

"You're beautiful, do ya know that?" He said, finally. She started a little, the comment unexpected, but not as unexpected as what he did next.

He gave her plenty of warning, she could have pulled away, but she didn't. Ever so slowly he leaned in and brushed his lips once, twice against hers in a feathery caress, her eyes fluttered closed.

Lindsay felt him move closer to her and his hand tangled in her tawny hair as his mouth crashed down on hers. She moaned and leaned into the kiss, her tongue battling with his. My God he was a fantastic kisser. She should have known that he would be as through in this as he was in the lab.

She had wanted this, wanted to feel this total lack of control and abandon. Heat pooled between her thighs as he ran his other hand up her spine and angled his head to take the kiss deeper, make it hotter.

She was dying, slowly, blissfully; she had never thought a kiss could bring her to her very knees. His tongue, his teeth, his lips, did things to her, wanton, sexy things, which is why when he stopped she felt like someone had pulled a rug out from under her and left her flailing.

He was watching her again, this time with blue fire burning in his gaze. He licked his lips and ran a nervous hand through his hair.

Before he could speak his phone rang and he glanced down at his belt with an evil glare. Danny pulled the offending object off his belt, checked the display, and cursed.

"I'm sorry, Linds, it's Mac," he apologized and stood up.

He pushed a button and put his phone to his ear. "Hey boss, what can I do ya for?"

Lindsay touched her bruised lips and watched him walk down the dock, back towards the house. She was too stunned to move and left to wonder how such a little thing, like a kiss, could change everything.