Title: Swing
Fandom: CSI: New York
Characters: Danny Messer, Lindsay Monroe, Evelyn Monroe.
Spoilers: General season two.
Rating: T
Warning: Mature language, AU.
Disclaimer: "Swing" is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Author's Notes: Inspired by the song "Call Me When You're Sober" by Evanescence and a trip to the playground with a three-year-old relative. Thanks to Spunky for the beta. Reviews are very much appreciated!
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"Selfishly hated, no wonder you're jaded.
You can't play the victim this time, and you're too late.
So don't cry to me, if you loved me you would be here with me."
- Evanescence, "Call Me When You're Sober"
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The forecast had warned New York citizens of high temperatures. Even the long-range forecast on the weather network held promises of temperatures in the high eighties, low nineties. Despite the warnings and the constant reminders that all outside activity - strenuous or not - was to be put on hold during the peak hours of day, I found myself out in the sun.
I carried my daughter in my arms across the small park across the street from our home. The sun beat down on, my face, influencing beads of sweat to form and mat the wisps of hair around my face to my skin. When I reached the wood frame enclosing the sand-filled playground, I set Evelyn down and watched as the small tyke waddled over to the swing set and looked up at the towering equipment.
"Mommy, can I go in the swing?" Evelyn asked, pointing at the vacant swing set.
I smiled. "Sure."
Following her through the sand, I hoisted her up and placed her into the children's swing, pausing to tuck her pink summer dress into the seat. She was exceptionally happy today to be out in the sun and on her favourite playground toy.
"Push me."
I slipped behind the swing and began to gently push the swing. It propelled up in the sky, Evelyn's small hands holding onto the chains tightly. She giggled as the swing moved up and came gliding back, her dress fluttering in the wind.
"Higher!" she wailed. "Higher, Mommy!"
Again, I pushed her, sending her higher into the air. As the swing moved, I wiped the sweat from my forehead and breathed a heavy breath, the hot weather beginning to take its toll on me. The sun beat down on me, warming my skin.
Feeling eyes on me, I looked around the playground and saw Danny Messer standing at the periphery, watching me. My jaw clenched. I left Evelyn in the swing and walked through the sand to the edge where the wood frame separated the playground from the grass.
"What the hell are you doing here?" I asked coldly, jamming my hands into the pockets of my jeans.
"I just wanted to see her," he said simply. "Come on, Lindsay."
"No," I said, shaking my head. "No, you waved that right when you left me, three months pregnant to work things out on my own."
"Mommy, the swing is stopping!" Evelyn cried. I looked back at the swing set where my daughter sat in the thick leather seat, staring back at me.
"Lindsay, please." Danny touched my arm gently, his eyes begging.
I looked into his pleading eyes and saw a man who wanted to see the child he helped to create. Every time he did this, I came closer and closer to letting him have his way, giving in to the small twinkle in his blue eyes, the curl of his lips when he smiled, and the smell of his cologne that I missed. Round and around like a ride at the carnival, he tried to ease his way back into my life, even going to the trouble of staking out the locker room after his shift several times to talk to me, to persuade me. I had never been so close to filing to restraining order in my life.
"I've tried to see her." I knew he had asked me time and time again to see Evelyn since she was born, and every time I had come so close to allowing it, before I came to my senses and thought back to the day two blue lines appeared on the stick, and again when I had spent six hours in labour with no one to hold my hand but my uncle and the midwife.
The nights with two hours of sleep, wedged between feedings and diaper changing, the hours spent reading Evelyn bedtime stories about princesses searching for the always-perfect Prince Charming. I remembered when I had found whom I thought to be my Prince Charming, but it turned out I was duped; he was Prince Deadbeat with an attractive facade and what I thought to be a winning personality.
Now he was trying to force himself back into my life and the life of my unfortunate child who stared at those illustrated bedtime stories and questioned me about my Prince Charming. How do you explain to your small, innocent child that her father is a bastard who screwed around with her mother and walked out on her?
"Mommy!"
"I'm coming, honey!" I called over my shoulder. Facing Danny, I said, "You haven't tried hard enough."
"Hard enough? I call, e-mail and write," he said, counting off on his fingers. "What do I need to do to show you that want to be her father?"
"You already missed your chance, Danny. Do you know how many nights I spent crying after I found out I was pregnant?" I asked, my voice beginning to rise. "How many times I considered giving that little girl up because I was so convinced that a family life without you wouldn't be possible? You don't understand, and you never will." Turning, I walked back to my waiting daughter, whom had long forgotten that the swing had stopped moving, and shifted her attention onto the small yellow butterfly fluttering around.
I pulled Evelyn out of the swing slowly and gently, making sure her white strap-on sandles didn't become caught in the bar across the seat.
"Where are we going?" she asked as I held her close, the fabric of her sailor's hat rubbing against my chest. "I want to swing, Mommy!"
"We're going home, honey. You can go in the swing tomorrow." It pained me to have to drag her indoors because of Danny. Why should she suffer more because of that asshole? It was bad enough that she barely got to see me after I returned to the lab, transferring to the night shift because I couldn't work with Danny. Now her absent father and my ex-boyfriend was controlling our lives, inexplicably setting boundaries for where we could work and swing.
I was nearly five steps away from the swings when I heard his voice.
"She's my daughter!" Danny called out over the barren playground.
Holding Evelyn's round face close to my chest so that she wouldn't so that she wouldn't see him, I turned to see Danny, his feet still planted on the grass on the other side of the playground.
"She may be genetically your child," I retorted, "but that's as close to being her father as you'll ever be."
And with that off my chest, I carried Evelyn home and never looked back.