Chapter 2: You're a Heartbreaker, Dream-Maker, Love-Taker
You're a heartbreaker, dreammaker,
Love-taker, don't you mess around with me
Any other work place would have called 911 for an ambulance, but here, Mac just picked her up and carried her down to the morgue for Sid to examine her. By the time Mac had reached the elevator, with Danny right behind him, a mortified Lindsay was conscious and struggling to be put on her own feet. "Let me down, SIR, " she said which such determination that Mac reluctantly let her feet slide to the floor. He kept an arm around her, just in case, though.
"You need to be checked out by Sid, then Danny's taking you home." The voice of command brooked no argument, and with a sigh, Lindsay knew it was better just not to argue. She choked at the thought of Danny driving her home cloaked in ice as he had been all night, but when she looked over at his worried face, she began to breathe a little again and felt herself begin to thaw a little as well.
"Sid can't do anything, Mac. It's just a migraine hangover; I've had them since the … since I was pretty young." Both men had noted the slight hesitation, but, eyes meeting over her head, silently agreed not to pursue it at the moment.
Unmoved, Mac ordered Sid to give Lindsay a thorough checking out, and ordered Danny to take her home once it was done.
"You don't have to stay, Danny. Sid can page you when he's done. You should go back to the lab and finish those tests. Please? I'm fine."
"Don't even go there, Monroe." His face was bleak and set, and with a sigh, she gave in to the total humiliation of the next several minutes.
When she finally was tucked into the car Danny had borrowed to drive her home, her head was spinning pleasantly from the pain shot Sid had given her, but she could not relax. She felt as if she were floating somewhere a few feet above the pain, but still connected to it, like a kite to a string. She also felt cheap, letting Danny think she'd stood him up over a migraine, when it was so much more that that. Even her pediatrician back home, a dear, doddering old man, had told her parents that a migraine was a symptom, not a disease. Just the though of trying to explain herself now was overwhelming, so she took the coward's way out again, and escaped into sleep.
Danny couldn't help glancing over at Lindsay every few minutes. "That's three, Montana," he muttered under his breath. Three times she had made his heart stop with fear: when he'd heard the radio call about the bomb blast at her crime scene; when he'd watched her strap on the flak-jacket to go under cover; and when he'd seen her bones dissolve in front of him and she'd hit the floor.
He discounted the way his heart had slowed in the restaurant as he had waited for her to show up. Every breath then had become a conscious act, as he waited half an hour, then 15 minutes more, telling himself she was running late, caught in traffic, lying to himself at every tick of the clock. Lindsay was never late; it was one of the jokes of the lab. As soon as 7:00 had passed, he had known she was standing him up. His hand had strayed to his cell phone a hundred times, but each time he'd stepped away from that final, total loss of pride.
Until now. What he had been unwilling to even contemplate earlier that evening, letting her see his hurt and anger, had become irrelevant now. Even Mac, an observant but not very emotionally attuned person, had quickly realized that Lindsay was going nowhere without Danny. She may reject him in the end: Danny thought he was prepared for that, though it would be like amputating a limb, but he wouldn't leave her now until she told him to.