Thanks to Aly and lily moonlight for reviewing! I'm glad you liked the last chapter!

Chapter Thirty Seven: All Here In Montana

Lindsay Monroe's House, Bozeman, Montana

Lindsay rushed around the house, trying to make everything look as clean and neat as it had looked the day Danny had arrived in Montana. Calleigh and Horatio had helped her, but she had a feeling she had spoken her orders too fast and they had gotten confused. So they had decided to make dinner instead, since they wouldn't have to worry about getting confused by Lindsay's instructions. Lindsay was very thankful about two things: That Calleigh and Horatio were always ready to help and that the power was on. If the power had still been off, they would be having dinner in the absolute dark, messy house. She quickly grabbed the vacuum to begin vacuuming the living room, and she wondered if Calleigh and Horatio would be disturbed by the noise. When she was done with vacuuming, she didn't hear any complaints from them, so she decided that they hadn't been bothered at all by the noise.

She ran into the kitchen to see how far they had gotten on making dinner. "How's it going?" she asked as she sat down at the table.

"Almost out of breath, huh?" asked Calleigh. "You should take a break and relax."

Lindsay shook her head. "I've been relaxing for two weeks, waiting out the storm. I like being able to clean the house again, it's something to do other than sitting around watching TV all day, like maybe Danny would do." In mention of his name, she asked, "Did Danny call to report anything from the airport yet?"

"No," replied Calleigh. "He'll probably be here soon though."

Lindsay immediately stood up from her chair and ran over to mirror. "Ugh! I've really let myself go these past two weeks." She put a hand on her disastrous looking hair. She rushed back into the kitchen. "Do you two mind if I use the shower first?"

"No," said Calleigh. "It's your house. You can use the shower first."

"Thank you," she said and ran into the bathroom.

Calleigh looked at Horatio. "You think she's trying to impress Danny when he gets back?"

Horatio shrugged. "Did you think about inviting Eric to dinner?"

"Maybe," replied Calleigh. "I don't know if he stayed in the same hotel during the storm, but I can call him to find out."

By the time they had finished making dinner and Lindsay was done with her shower, a car pulled up into the driveway. They heard a loud honk from Danny's car. Lindsay rushed to the door and ran outside. "Danny!" she exclaimed.

"Montana!" He took her in his arms and wrapped her up in a hug.

The rest of the CSI investigators appeared from Danny's car. Lindsay smiled. "It's like we're all back in New York, working together again."

"If you joined the CSI again, maybe it would," said Danny.

"Well, then maybe you should get a better job than, 'Hi, I'm Mr. Daniel Messer and I'll be your server today. What would you like to eat?'?"

Danny shook his head.

"And maybe you could be our server for tonight."

"Okay, that's enough Lindsay," said Danny. "I get it. I should be a CSI too. But you should join the CSI again; it'll be better than your FBI job, no?"

Lindsay shrugged. "Maybe," she said.

Stella came over to join them. "Hey Lindsay," she said cheerfully. "Are you ready to see your guest list?"

"My guest list?" asked Lindsay with a suspicious look at Danny.

"Yeah," said Danny. "We CSI investigators aren't the only ones attending dinner tonight."

She turned to see that there were more cars pulling into the driveway. "Who…?" But before she could finish her sentence she turned to Danny and said, "I hope y'all took a shower of your own before you came here."

"Some of us did," said Danny.

"Wait, Lindsay, did you just say, 'y'all'?" questioned Stella.

"Yep," replied Lindsay. "Y'all got a problem with that?"

"More and more like a country girl," said Danny.

"That's what you get for growing up in Montana," said Lindsay.

They turned to look at the other arriving cars. "Is by any chance Samantha here?" Lindsay asked Stella.

"Oh, the whole FBI team is here," said Stella. "And some doctors from New Jersey are here too. And, two detectives from, well, what used to be Philly are here as well."

A voice sounded from the front door. "Uh, Lindsay, I think we're going to need to make more food…"

Lindsay turned around to see Calleigh's shocked face. "Don't worry; we'll have plenty of food to make. And we will all help."

They waited for everyone to get out of their cars and greeted them at the front door. They stayed outside for a while, but then got cold and headed inside. Lindsay went over to talk to Samantha. When she saw Cuddy, she greeted her with a friendly smile. She taught Lindsay the alphabet in sign language and some useful terms. She was glad to see that Cuddy was doing well and that she had come so accustomed to living in a soundless world.

All in all, it seemed as if Cuddy had come more used to the fact of being deaf and dealing with it more than she had accepted being Paige Hobson. She was able to live her life on while she kept crying over wanting to know the truth. What had caused her to be that way? Why couldn't she handle the truth, accepting who she really was? She didn't know who she really was, that was the problem.

Many of the guests had shifted into the kitchen, helping Calleigh and Horatio with preparing dinner. Lindsay hurried to join them since she hadn't helped them with the first dinner. It didn't take them long to finish; soon the table was set and they were sitting at the kitchen table. Not everyone had decided to eat in the kitchen; Lindsay had allowed Danny and the others to eat in the living room under one condition: If they dropped any food or spilled any drinks on the floor they would have to clean it up themselves. And she told Danny he wouldn't be allowed to watch the flat screen TV again. She knew he would be devastated by that.

Sitting at the table was Mac and Stella, Calleigh, Eric, who Calleigh had been able to contact, and Horatio, Samantha, and herself. The others stood around in the kitchen like Lilly and Scotty, Jack and Elena, Cuddy and House, and some of the other doctors. But the two Dannys, Adam, Flack, Hawkes, Martin, and Sid were in the living room, watching a football game and yelling as loud as they could. Chase and Cameron were also in there, and even Thirteen was enjoying her time yelling at the TV when the football team made a bad play. Everyone was having fun, just the way as it should be.

When dinner came to an end, everyone did their part and helped clear the dishes. Nothing was dropped or spilled on the carpet in the living room, which made Lindsay happy. The kitchen still looked the way it did before anyone had come to her house, which showed how much everyone had helped with cleaning up. Even though Lindsay hadn't been introduced to everyone at the party—well that's what it was now—she felt like she knew everyone. And she was glad that everyone was enjoying their time. But only one person wasn't. And that was her.

She was outside now, gazing out at the sky filled with stars. The snow was almost gone now, and the temperature had begun to warm up. Montana was normal again, but now that the storm had passed by, and things were starting to go back to normal, she had all the right to worry again about her problem, about secretly being two different people. The door creaked behind her, and she quickly turned around to see Samantha, standing out on the porch. "You're thinking about it again, aren't you?"

Lindsay nodded. "It's hard not to, you know?"

"I understand." She walked over to her. "Do you want to talk about it?"

Lindsay looked down to the ground. "I'd rather not."

Samantha glanced at the night sky and then back at Lindsay. "Do you want to show me around, like the land around your house? It's a nice area here, in Bozeman."

She nodded. "Yeah, it is nice. The country is always nice." She looked up at Sam. "I'll show you around."

The two walked around the house, by the trees on her property and by the lake in the backyard. They were soon sitting on the deck, gazing into the water of the lake. "You know, you always seemed to have something against Danny," said Samantha. "I think you two are a good couple though."

Lindsay laughed. "Yeah, I do like Danny. I just didn't want to admit it. With the whole Paige Hobson thing, I didn't want Danny to have to know anything about it or see me miserable, crying every night. I pushed him away to protect him from becoming the way I did. But really, he quit his job as a CSI and then became a waiter because he couldn't stand working without me. He became miserable without me."

"How did he react when he saw you at the airport after not seeing you for a year?" asked Samantha.

"He called me Montana a lot," said Lindsay, "my nickname. We had a few fights, but soon were able to agree. But the night that Calleigh and Horatio came to Montana, I went to sleep early, and when Danny came in to say goodnight to me, he found out about the names 'Adisa' and 'Paige'. But after that, he never said anything."

"He didn't have a clue who they were, did he?"

"No," replied Lindsay. "But when I figure out who I am, I'm going to tell him. He deserves to know; especially after all he's been through."

"Do you think Danny might have made that website?"

"That website," Lindsay said. "No, he wouldn't have made it. Who knows who made that website? As long as the person who made the website doesn't say who I really am, then I don't think I should worry about it that much."

Sam nodded. "You know, you've have changed. You don't cry through the night, thinking that is the only way of forgetting everything. You don't keep calling me on the phone, asking if I've figured out anything about your true identity."

"But I do still do that," said Lindsay. "I asked you a bunch of times at work if you've found out anything and I've cried myself to sleep at night. I am still worried."

"But you've become stronger," explained Sam. "You might be scared of the truth, but you know that whoever you are you can't stop from being that person, Paige Hobson, Lindsay Monroe, or not. You know that you have to continue living life, even when things are difficult. You believe that if you're Paige or Lindsay, you believe that's who you were meant to be. You're not afraid."

Lindsay looked at Samantha thoughtfully. Through the storm, she had begun to accept life as either Paige or Lindsay, and knew that she couldn't stop from knowing the truth. It would be hard to face, especially if she was actually Paige, but she had to know. She couldn't hide from the truth forever. "DNA testing," she said. "I want a DNA test."

"I don't know if that'll help determine your true identity..."

"No," Lindsay said disagreeing. "You haven't tried it. It's my decision, I want a DNA test. If it comes up as Lindsay Monroe, then we'll keep continuing to find out if that DNA test was real or not. If it comes up as Paige Hobson, you tell the FBI, and I go to jail, where I'm supposed to be right now."

"Okay," Sam agreed. "But we'll have to wait some time. You said there might be a chance on going back to New York?"

Lindsay nodded. "Maybe in the next few months."

"We should wait until then. But I'll get a DNA test for you before we leave, if we can go back to New York. How does that sound?"

"That's good," replied Lindsay. "Thank you, Sam."

"You're welcome," said Samantha.

They walked away from the lake, heading back to the house. When they had reached the front door, they realized that some of the guests had started to leave, going to check into a hotel for the night. On the front porch, Cuddy was waiting for Lindsay. She walked over to her and signed, "What is it?", which had been one of the things she had learned to sign.

Instead of signing back, she handed her cell phone to her. Lindsay quickly read the message.

It'll be 2 hard 2 explain 2 u if I sign. But, I told her, Stella, about u being Paige Hobson. I'm sorry, but she had already known something, so I'd thought it would be better for her to know.

Lindsay looked up to Cuddy in surprise. "Why?" she signed.

Cuddy mouthed the words as she signed. "She had to know. She's that 'someone' you've been looking for to understand your problem."

Lindsay looked down at the phone again and then gave it back to Cuddy. "Thank you," she signed. She signed the next sentence more slowly. "She did need to know; she is that 'someone'."

Cuddy nodded. "Goodbye, Lindsay."

"Paige," she signed back. As she had requested Samantha to call her before, she told Cuddy to call her the same. "Call me Paige."

"Goodbye, Paige," Cuddy signed again.

"Goodbye, Lisa," signed Lindsay.

Cuddy nodded and then walked over to House. She waved one last time at her and then she left. Lindsay went back inside the house, to find many of the CSI investigators talking together. She hurried over to join them.

"Thanks Mac," Sid was saying. "That was the Thanksgiving dinner I had in mind."

"I didn't make it," Mac replied. "You should thank Calleigh and Horatio; they were the ones who made the dinner. I just helped."

"We all did," Stella said, who was standing besides him. "But I would thank Lindsay too. If it wasn't for her, we wouldn't have survived this storm."

Lindsay looked up at the mention of her name. "I just told you about the storm…I didn't help you guys through the storm at all."

"Sure you did," said Stella. "You told us of precautions we should follow, the things we needed for the storm, and most of all, you warned us about the storm. It was our faults for not believing you at first."

Lindsay didn't know what to say. During the two weeks of the storm, all she had done was cry and worry, the two things she was good at. Lamely, she managed to say, "Thanks, for um, thanking me."

Stella nodded. "You helped us kiddo. You deserve your thanks."

Lindsay smiled at the mention of the name kiddo. That was Stella's nickname for her. She hadn't called her that for a long time.

"Well," Sid said, waking her from her thoughts, "I thank you too."

Lindsay nodded; still overwhelmed by the thanks everyone was giving her. Suddenly, she saw Adam, who was about to walk out the front door with a cake, the dessert they had made. Horatio nodded to him. Calleigh couldn't help herself from laughing, which made Eric begin to laugh as well. Adam stopped by the door. Lindsay walked over to him. "What do you think you're doing with that?"

Adam looked down at the cake. "I'd thought they let me take it on the plane and I'd give it to my folks when I got back to Arizona?"

She put out her hand. "Hand over the cake mister."

"Why should I?" he asked. "You'd eat it all yourself then."

"I'd let you have a piece of the cake if you gave it back to me," Lindsay said, getting ready to negotiate with him.

"How about five bucks for it?" he asked. "Just think of how much richer you would be with five bucks. You're driving, and all of the sudden you get hungry. You stop at a gas station, only to realize you don't have enough money to buy anything. But if you had those five bucks, you'd be able to buy that candy bar you wanted."

"I would have paid more than five bucks for that cake if I had bought it," said Lindsay. "Do you seriously believe I'm going to let you pay me that much for it?" Before he could reply, she grabbed the cake out of his hands and took it away to the kitchen. "And," she added, as he followed her into the kitchen, "I would be carrying more than five bucks with me if I were driving somewhere. I have a better allowance unlike you Adam."

"I was just negotiating," Adam said with a shrug. "So can I have a piece of that cake?"

"Why should I let you?" Lindsay questioned. "You didn't give it back when I said, so you lost your cake. But you can pay me five bucks for a piece of cake."

"Or I can take the cake and shove it in your face," Adam suggested.

"The cake's free," she said, moving out of the way to let him take a piece of the cake. The other CSI investigators appeared in the room, along with Calleigh, Eric, Horatio, Jack, and Samantha. Elena also appeared in the room, saying, "It that cake?"

"What else would it be?" Adam asked her.

Elena shrugged, but then went over to grab a piece of the cake. Jack and Samantha laughed, but they soon decided to have a piece of cake themselves. The others decided to have cake as well and they talked for a while. When they were all done with dessert, they once again helped in clearing the table and washing dishes. Soon everyone began leaving, and Lindsay hurried to say her quick goodbye to Sam.

"Cheer up," Sam said, noticing the frown on her face. "We'll figure out that secret of yours."

"Okay," Lindsay said. "Thanks for the reassurance."

She closed the door to be left in the dark of the hallway. But she didn't have that sense of feeling that she was all alone, because she wasn't. She turned around to see Danny and he walked over to her. "I'd say goodnight to you, like the others," she said. "But Danny, I don't think I can let you leave again. I can't leave you again."

Danny hugged her. "That's all right Montana," he whispered. "I'll stay."

Lindsay looked up at him, her frown disappearing. "Thank you."

She knew he would stay; she knew he would help her in any way. She started to wonder if he was that 'someone' who would actually understand her problem, more than Stella would. But something still told her she couldn't tell him, not just yet.

Chapter 38- Lindsay finally decides to tell Danny and Stella about her double identity. But Lindsay will finally find out who she truly is… There will also be a little SMacked moment in this chapter!

A/N: The next chapter will either be up Monday or Tuesday! I hope you enjoyed this chapter! And I know I said there were 4 more chapters left in the last chapter, but I really meant to say 5, so now there are 4 more chapters left! :D The countdown continues...now there are 4 more chapters until the end of this story!