A.N. I had to replace my computer's hard disk, hence the lack of updates. Sorry guys. I was actually worried for a while there that I'd lose all my information. (relieved sigh) Anyway, here's the long awaited update! (Oh, my spellcheck still isn't working, so I hope there aren't too many glaring errors. Unbeta-ed. )
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Opening her eyes, Lindsay blinked at the bright light shining directly into her face. Immediately, she remembered the embarrassing incident on the phone the night before. She knew she'd have to call Danny back since he was most likely worrying about her, but she wanted to put if off as long as possible.
So embarrassing.
Painfully slowly, Lindsay pushed herself to her feet. Steeling herself against the pain of her wound and underused legs, she grabbed the nightstand and waited a moment to get her bearings.
She shuffled across the floor to the bathroom where she leaned against the wall to catch her breath. As she brushed her teeth, the wound began to ache. Moving as quickly as she could, she finished in the bathroom and made her way back across the room to the bed and her pills.
Grabbing the remains of the water and another pill, Lindsay carefully edged herself back under the blankets. She lay perfectly still for several minutes after swallowing the pill, willing herself back into sleep. But it was too bright in the room and she would have had to get up to pull the curtains shut, which wasn't exactly a brilliant plan according to the fire in her side.
So, she rode the pain out until the medicine started to work. After a few minutes reveling in the numbness, Lindsay dialed the familiar number and took a deep breath. She nearly groaned with happiness when all she felt was a slight discomfort in her side.
"Angell."
"Hey, Jen," Lindsay said, smiling at the other woman's brisk tone.
"Hey." Voices in the background faded as if Jen were moving away from a crowd. "How ya feelin'?"
"Great."
"Is that the valium talking?"
"I'm not taking valium, but the gist is spot on."
"Great, so you're stoned, huh? Is that like drunk dialing?"
Lindsay rolled her eyes. "Yes, Jen, I'm stoned on pain medication."
A horn blared out of the phone and Lindsay jerked it away from her ear. Frowning, she tentatively replaced it and asked, "Where are you?"
"At a scene."
Suddenly, the tension in Jen's voice made perfect sense. "I thought you were on desk duty."
"I was." Lindsay heard the murmur of a voice that was much closer than the others. "I should probably get back."
"Yeah, okay. Hey, Jen? Are you all right?"
Jen sighed in Lindsay's ear. "I will be when I'm done with this and back on desk duty."
"Jen—"
"Can I call you tonight, Linds?" she murmured into the phone.
"Of course."
"Crap. I gotta go."
The loud click that followed confirmed that Jen had indeed hung up on her. Eyebrows raised, Lindsay flipped the phone shut and stared at it. Apparently Jen was having a worse time at work than she'd let on.
Feeling as if she couldn't honestly put it off anymore, Lindsay opened the phone and pushed speed dial three. She waited as it rang. And rang. She sighed with a twinge of relief when it went to voicemail.
"You're reached Detective Daniel Messer. Leave a message and I'll get back to you."
She smirked at the use of his full name. She'd never heard anyone call him Daniel. Fleetingly, she wondered it his mother called him that, but somehow couldn't imagine it. He was just Danny.
"Hey Danny, it's Lindsay. Just calling you back. Um…I'm sorry about last night." She hesitated a beat then hurriedly added, "Talk to you later."
Absently, she hit herself in the head with her closed phone, wondering why Detective Daniel Messer possessed the ability to make her feel like a complete spaz. With a disgusted groan, she tossed the phone onto the bed next to her and wondered what she was supposed to do now.
At least in the hospital there had been tv she could complain about. And cute doctors to ogle. And visitors, lots of visitors that came and went at all hours of the day.
She'd been lying, staring at the ceiling, for maybe ten minutes when her door eased open. Craning her neck to see, she grinned when she caught Freddy doing the same thing around her door. When he noticed she was away, Freddy pushed the door open fully and stepped inside.
"Morning," he said, crossing the room.
"Hey." She shifted a bit so he could settle on the edge of the bed.
"So here's the plan for today."
Raising an eyebrow, she eyed him suspiciously. "Plan?"
"Yep. I have a meeting at eleven. Sorry, couldn't be helped. But other than that, I'm free. So I was thinking puppet show. Whaddya think?"
Stifling a laugh at the lame joke, Lindsay shook her head. "You know The Sound of Music scares the hell out of me."
"Scratch that then." Clapping his hands together, he stood. "How about we start by moving to the couch?"
"Oh, thank God," she said, starting to pull her legs up.
"Wait."
Freezing, she stared at him with wide eyes. "What?"
Bending down and shoving her covers out of the way, he slid his arms under her. "You're not supposed to walk far." He carefully lifted her, watching her face for signs of pain. "Okay?"
She nodded, hooking an arm around his neck. As Freddy carried her through the apartment, Lindsay told herself it was okay that her family would always make her feel like a kid. But the thought just made her sigh.
He bypassed the large living room opening into the dining room and kitchen. As they swept by, Lindsay noted it took up the length of the penthouse, though the apartment wasn't as large as she'd originally thought. It seemed bigger because the wall that ran along those three rooms was made entirely of windows and opened onto a large balcony.
But Freddy went on to a small room through a doorway at the far end. Lindsay grinned as she was settled onto the old couch. "This looks more familiar," she murmured.
Freddy smiled wanly, which made her eyes narrow at him, and left again. "Be right back," he called, already out the door.
The room was full of his books and notebooks, piled high on the desk in the corner and stuffed into the bookshelves lining the walls. To Lindsay's delight, a large tv and dvd player were stationed across the room from the couch.
When Freddy came back in, he carried her phone and a tray of snacks that he set on the table within her reach. Then he pulled the pill bottle out of his pocket. He shook it at her. "Remember to take these on time."
Lindsay sighed, wincing with remembered pain. "Don't worry. I'm not going to forget again."
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When the phone rang in her hand that night, Lindsay jumped a mile, gasping as it momentarily tightened the muscles of her stomach. She waited for the agony to subside to a duller pain then opened the phone.
"Hello?"
"How ya doin'?"
Danny's voice was warm and she was glad she'd left the message for him, glad he'd called her back. She smiled as the last of the pain faded away.
"I'm all right. The pain meds are working now," she added, trying to joke.
"Not funny," he said on a sigh.
"Yeah, I know." She bit her lip as he went quiet. "Are you still mad?"
His voice was shocked. "Mad?"
Lindsay heard him toss keys onto a surface and squinted at the clock. "You're just getting home?"
"Court case ran late again. Why would I be mad?"
"When you called last night…" She paused and considered her choices. "You seemed mad."
When he didn't answer right away, Lindsay's breath whooshed out of her lungs in exasperation. "Danny, you were mad."
"I wasn't mad," he countered roughly. "I called all over New York trying to find you, Monroe. The doctor said you'd been released, but no one knew where you were. You weren't answering either your cell or your home phone—"
He cut himself off as his voice rose angrily. "I wasn't mad," he muttered darkly.
"Yes, you were."
"Okay, fine," he snapped. "Yeah, I was mad. I was really steamed."
Lindsay furrowed her brow. "Why?"
"I was worried." He was shouting now, and Lindsay raised an eyebrow, but let him continue uninterrupted. "Why the hell didn't you call me?"
"When I was discharged?"
"Yeah."
"Danny…My uncle dealt with all of that. I didn't even know for sure I was leaving until the night before. And I told you last week they were thinking about letting me out."
He was quiet for a long time before letting out a weary breath. "Yeah, you did," he agreed, sounding defeated.
Lindsay wished with frustration that she could see his expression. She hated having to go back to talking on the phone after having him there in front of her for so long. It was so much easier to read him in person.
"I am sorry, Danny," she murmured.
"It's all right."
"I just didn't think that—" She stopped and regrouped because, of course, she had thought. "You didn't stop by for a few days and my uncle was acting weird what with the car and the penthouse and…"
He was silent on the other end, letting her finish, but she couldn't bring herself to find an explanation. "I'm sorry," she repeated hesitantly.
"It's all right."
He seemed somewhat mollified and Lindsay let herself relax against the bed. "How was your day?" she asked, trying to shift to a normal conversation. He snorted but even that sounded exhausted and Lindsay winced. "You still pulling triples?"
"Not intentionally," he replied over a loud yawn.
"I'm sorry," she said again, regret lancing through her.
"Why are you sorry?" The annoyance in his voice made her blink, and she couldn't think of an answer. "Don't be sorry."
"All right then," she said calmly though her heart pounded at his irritation. "I'm not sorry you've been reduced to getting a couple hours of sleep every other night. Not sorry at all."
"Mac's been sending Adam into the field with us."
The abrupt change in subject had Lindsay narrowing her eyes at the dark ceiling. "Really?"
"He hates it."
His dark chuckle was malicious. Lindsay rolled her eyes. Danny and Adam had a strange relationship.
"He says he can't wait until you get back," Danny mentioned idly as though he were thinking about something else.
A flush of pleasure made Lindsay bite back a smile. She shook it off and concentrated on the conversation. "Flack been giving him a hard time?" she asked pointedly.
Danny badly covered his chuckle with a cough. "You know Flack," he said innocently.
"Uh-huh."
The conversation trailed off and Lindsay lay listening to him breathe. It was a lulling noise and her thoughts faded away as her muscles completely relaxed for the first time all day. Right up until a yawn broke the rhythmic breathing in her ear.
"You should get some sleep while you can," she murmured.
"You, too."
"Yeah."
Danny paused then spoke quickly. "I'll call you tomorrow if I get a chance."
"All right."
She waited until he'd hung up, then flipped the phone shut and placed it on the side table. Shifting against the bed, she tried to get comfortable. Having spent the last month on her back in the same position, she looked forward with longing to the day she could lie on her side or stomach. It was, after all, her favorite position to wrap herself around a pillow, nearly facedown on the mattress.
She was startled when the phone rang again almost immediately. Reaching over, she snatched it up before the ring could disturb Freddy down the hall.
"Hello?"
Jen chuckled on the other end. "Hey. I've been trying you for an hour."
"Oh." Lindsay winced. "Sorry."
"On the phone much?"
Unlike Danny, Jen sounded calm, teasing really. Lindsay's muscles eased. "I was talking to Danny."
"Yeah?" The excitement barely concealed in Jen's tone made Lindsay roll her eyes. "What'd he have to say?"
"We, uh…" Lindsay frowned as a thought suddenly occurred to her. "I think we were fighting."
"You think?"
"No, I'm pretty sure we were fighting. At least, he was. He was definitely mad," Lindsay stumbled to a finish.
"Why was he mad?"
"I didn't call him when they released me. So, he stopped by, but I wasn't there and then I'd passed out, so I didn't hear my phone."
"Jeez. You must have given him a heart attack."
"I don't see how," Lindsay countered. "I mean, where else would I have been except at home?"
"But you aren't at home," Jen pointed out dryly.
"You know what I mean. Where did he think I was?" Hearing Jen sigh on the other end made her tempter flare a bit. "What?" she snapped.
"Lindsay, you died," Jen snapped back at her. "Danny saw you being given CPR as they wheeled you inside the hospital. You were in surgery for hours and he stared out the window the entire time."
That last part—as heart pounding as it was—seemed like a non-sequitor, but Lindsay couldn't argue. Instead, she listened uncomfortably as Jen scolded her.
"He probably walked into that hospital room and thought his worst nightmare had come true after all."
"But wouldn't someone have told him I went home?" she argued weakly, finding it difficult to hold on to her indignation.
"Sure they did. But that doesn't mean he wasn't worried. And then he couldn't find you…Poor guy."
"Should I have called you, too?" Lindsay asked, her voice small and contrite.
"You did," Jen said, confused.
"But not until this morning."
"Oh, nah, you were fine. A day is completely acceptable among friends."
Lindsay smiled ruefully. "Then what does that make Danny?"
Hearing Jen's exhausted sigh, Lindsay grimaced. "I don't think anyone knows at this point."
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Lindsay stared at the colors flashing on the screen, positive she could feel her brain rotting away. Sighing, she blinked, trying to refocus on the shadowy room. Another day had passed by while she wasn't looking.
Groaning in disgust over her melancholy mood, she clicked the tv off and threw the remote onto a distant chair, determined not to turn it back on. Her eyes flitted consideringly over the closest pile of books. Freddy had been careful to set them where they couldn't be accidently toppled, but she was sure she could figure out a way to reach them.
Her phone rang as she stretched for the top book. Barely catching herself as she nearly rolled off the couch, she took a shallow breath and kicked petulantly at the blanket over her legs. Great, now she was melancholy, sulky and in pain.
Flipping the phone open with more enthusiasm than usual, she snapped, "Monroe."
It was quiet for a few seconds. "Hey there."
Lindsay furrowed her brow at the thread of amusement in Danny's voice. "Hey. You on a break?" she asked.
"Nah. Case wrapped up early. I'm on my couch."
Lindsay snorted lightly. "Me, too," she muttered bitterly.
He was quiet again. "You all right?" he asked, sounding both cautious and confused.
"I'm fine. Just tired of tv."
"Good thing I called then," he said brightly, all discomfort gone from his tone.
Laughing a little, Lindsay adjusted the cushion behind her head. "Yeah, good thing," she murmured.
"How are things at the palace?"
Lindsay glowered as she carefully shifted herself on the couch. The already sore muscles screamed in protest, but the medicine took the edge off. "It's all right here," she told him grudgingly. "But I've been here two weeks and all I've seen are the bedroom and study. I'm getting cabin fever."
"That might change once you can walk around," he pointed out calmly.
"But we rattle around in all this space. It's like he doesn't know what to do with it."
She heard Danny take a deep breath. "Lindsay," he said with strained patience. "I don't know what you're talking about."
Grimacing, she lifted the phone away from her mouth for a moment. "I'm sorry," she said when she'd brought it back. "I sound irrational again."
"Maybe a little bit." There was another pause. "Why does this bother you so much?"
She swallowed. "It'll sound stupid," she warned evenly.
"I can handle it."
"I know," she sighed. "Freddy left home when he was seventeen, right after high school, and disappeared for two years."
"Oh." This obviously wasn't what he'd been expecting to hear. "Why?"
"There were a couple of reasons that I know about. I'm sure it's more complicated than what I've managed to put together, but my parents don't talk about Freddy much. Or to him, for that matter," she muttered, lightly rubbing her side.
"He never wanted to be a rancher, never had, that much I know. But I think the main reason he left then, not later, was his sister's death. She was only twelve."
"I'm sorry," Danny said.
"Yeah," she murmured. "I don't really remember her. I was only five at the time."
"What happened?"
"She and Brad were out at the pond on the Flanagan property. I guess Connor wasn't around. He never mentioned it, so I assume he wasn't there. Anyway, they were horsing around and Trix fell in the water. She must have hit her head on the dock because she never came back up.
"Brad was pretty tiny as a kid and he couldn't pull her out, so he ran for Freddy." She paused and finished simply. "She'd drowned before they got back."
"She and Freddy were close?" Danny questioned, prodding her out of her thoughts.
"Brad once told me she used to follow Freddy around while he did his chores. My dad was too much older, I guess. I think she saw him more as an uncle than a brother. He was eighteen when she was born."
"And your uncle left home after that?"
"Six months later. The day after his graduation. He didn't tell anyone he was leaving, he just cleared out his bank account and left in the middle of the night. It broke my grandmother's heart all over again. I don't think my father ever forgave him for that," she said sadly.
"We didn't hear anything for two years. I think everyone thought he was dead. Then a postcard showed up addressed to me."
"To you?" Danny sounded confused.
"Yeah. It was weird. I was only seven. I'd just barely started reading and suddenly I was getting mail." She chuckled. "He didn't say much in that first one. Just that he was in Egypt about to tour a pyramid. Told me to look em up."
"That's…random," Danny muttered.
"Yeah, that's how my parents felt."
"What happened than?"
Lindsay frowned and shrugged, forgetting for a moment that he couldn't see her. "Nothing really. A new postcard would show up every six months or so, always addressed to me."
"Why you?" Danny asked quietly.
"Honestly, I don't know. Maybe he subconsciously saw me as a substitute for Trix. I was the closest he could get to her. I remember it used to make my father angry when a postcard showed up. Maybe that's why he did it."
She paused then cleared her throat. "But I do remember that, before he left, Freddy used to show me places in the big encyclopedia set my grandfather had in the living room and tell me all about them. Maybe he just saw it as a continuation of that? I don't know."
When Danny didn't interrupt again, Lindsay sighed. "We didn't see him again until I was 18. I woke up in the hospital and there he was."
"He was gone for thirteen years?" Danny asked incredulously.
"Yeah," she agreed, voice low. "He was different somehow, but I was too young when he left and too drugged up to figure out what had happened to him."
"What happened to him?" Danny repeated in confusion.
Lindsay ignored the question in his voice. "He stayed until I was walking and then took off again. He left a number I could leave messages at and a New York address. Apparently, he'd started working for the magazine a few years before.
"The next time I saw him was on my twenty-first birthday. He showed up on my parents' doorstep with a duffel bag and a full beard. Said he wanted to buy me a drink. God, I barely even recognized him. He'd been living with a group of sherpas below Everest, apparently," she said dryly.
"He was living with sherpas?"
Swallowing a giggle at Danny's resigned amazement, Lindsay shifted again, trying to ease the crink in her hamstring. "Yeah, he's a little crazy. Tried to climb the mountain, too."
"Tried?"
"Different story. Anyway. So we went to the only bar in Bozeman worth going to—"
"There's more than one?" he murmured.
"Shut up, city boy." But her voice didn't have any heat in it and she heard Danny chuckle on the other end. "He ordered me a whole slew of mixed drinks, said I needed to find my poison or something cliché like that. We were just talking and I mentioned I was going to marry Connor. And he flipped out."
"He didn't already know?"
Lindsay sighed. "It was stupid. I assumed someone would have told him, but I was really the only one that spoke to him on a semi-regular basis. And even that was strained at best. I got letters from him more often over the years, a phone call every now and then, but mostly he was unreachable. He liked the isolated places. The places no one could find you. I was never sure what that said about it," she murmured.
After a few moments, Danny prompted her. "So he flipped out."
"Yeah," she mumbled, shaking herself out of the philosophical mood. "He told me I was an idiot, that love was the only important thing in life. He'd had a few whiskey sours at this point," she explained dryly and heard Danny stifling a laugh.
"I told him I didn't have the luxury of choosing and he said it wasn't fair to Connor either. Then I asked him what the hell he knew about it, since he never stuck in one place for more than the time it took to a scale a mountain."
"Ouch," Danny murmured.
"Cold, I know. I was a bit pissy at this point," Lindsay said, the old guilt spreading through her chest. "But he didn't get mad. His shoulders drooped and I remember thinking that he looked so tired. So…old. He was only thirty two.
"That's when he told me about Marilee." Lindsay's voice grew stony. "Her father was, still is maybe, on the board of the magazine. Very high society. Only comes to work for board meetings and formal functions, you know?
"Freddy met her at a dinner, I think, and they just clicked. They only dated for four months before he proposed and she said yes. Whirlwind courtship and all. I think that's when Freddy got the apartment, determined to settle down as much as he could, I guess. But something happened.
"I don't know what her father said to her, but she gave Freddy the ring back the next morning. Freddy took off to Nepal or something pretty soon after he returned the ring. He never got an explanation and she married some other guy a year later."
Lindsay took a deep breath, feeling as though she'd been talking for years. Danny was silent on the other end. "Wow," he said finally. "That sucks."
Lindsay snorted at the understatement. "He wasn't too happy." She refrained from mentioning she'd been the one to drag Freddy back to the ranch rather than the other way around, the more tradition situation for a twenty-first birthday.
Danny waited a few beats to speak. "So what does this have to do with his shiny new apartment?"
Worrying at her lip with her teeth, Lindsay tried to organize her thoughts. "I think…" She trailed off, eyes narrowed in concentration as the argument came together in her mind.
"I think Freddy's doing all of this because of her," she said finally. "He doesn't care about money. Doesn't even like it. He used to complain about the opulent lifestyles Americans lead, particularly the higher levels of New York society. Now he's leading one. Why else would he change his mind?"
"I don't know your uncle well enough to answer that," Danny murmured, carefully leaving his tone neutral.
Setting her jaw, Lindsay stood her ground. "I know him. And this—the apartment, the car—it's not like him. High society Marilee wanted opulence and now he's in a position to give it."
"Lindsay, you don't know that she'd the reason. Maybe he just figured he needed a place to…hold dinner parties. I don't know."
"He doesn't throw dinner parties, Danny. That's the point," she snapped at him.
"All I'm saying is maybe stop giving the guy such a hard time," Danny said, through clenched teeth.
Inexplicably, she wanted to cry. When the front door closed in the foyer, Lindsay froze. "I have to go. Freddy's home. He usually brings dinner," she added inanely, as if trying to leave the conversation on a normal note.
"Fine," Danny muttered. "Have a good night."
"You, too," she whispered.
As Freddy's footsteps came closer to the study, Lindsay shut her eyes and tried to calm herself. Slowly, she inched herself into a full sitting position and waited for him to appear in the doorway.
"Hey. Sorry that meeting took so long," he said with his wide smile.
She smiled back, glad it was dark and he couldn't see the way her lips wavered. "Was it productive, at least?"
Freddy snorted and leaned against the jamb. "When are board meetings every productive? The first hour is spent sitting around talking about cigars or wine."
The disdain in his voice just reinforced Lindsay's sense that she was right. Freddy still didn't want to be part of that world, but he already had a foot in the door. She sighed and swung her legs around to put her feet on the floor.
"Whoa. Slow down, Linds," Freddy said, hurrying to the couch to help her.
"God, that smells amazing," she told him when the bag he was carrying drifted under her nose.
He glanced at her with a sly grin. "That's my dinner, Lindsay. Yours is steamed vegetables and rice."
"There's a shocker," she muttered as she accepted his help in standing. "Cuz what else is the invalid going to eat?"
He shot her a mildly irritated look. "When is the invalid going to stop referring to herself in the third person?"
"Shut up."
Grinning even more widely, Freddy began leading her to the door. "Come on, let's get you fed and back in bed."
"What's the rush?" she asked in surprise. Usually nighttime found the two of them hanging out in the study, talking or watching tv.
"You have an appointment in the morning." When she just stared at him, he shook his head with a teasing expression. "First day of physical therapy, remember?"
Excitement coursed through her, nearly making her stumble from the sudden adrenaline rush. "You mean I get to leave the apartment?"
Freddy stared at her like she'd grown a second nose. "No, she's coming here."
"Are you kidding me?" she snapped, trying to draw her arm away from his hands.
He didn't let go. "Standard procedure, Linds. You can't go out, yet."
"Bull hickey," she muttered bitterly. She eyed him from the corner of her eye. "How'd you swing it?"
"Money is a wonderful thing."
"Bastard," she said on a sigh as they crossed the living room. He didn't respond, just held her more tightly.
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mercy4vr: Freddy's apartment is definitely suspicious. Maybe Danny's right, though, and she is over-reacting a bit. Not sure yet. Luckily for Lindsay, she's now off the heart monitor. It must have been pretty embarrassing.
scoob2222: I like Hawkes acting doctor-like. I think he really would snap into doctor-mode if one of the team was sick or something.
RachelHeidi: Danny hasn't even seen her since she got out. I wonder how he's doing at work. Hawkes is probably being driven out of his mind. (evil laugh) Flustered Hawkes is Sexy Hawkes. Thanks for the hint about AIMing while watching. I've been trying to convert one of my roommates, but she's resisting since she feels like she watches too much tv already. Sigh. Silly girl.
Leena7: Freddy's pretty complicated. He'll get clearer later, I promise, but if it helps now, he doesn't spend a lot of time with people. So he's not very good at that whole interaction thing. :-p
qt4good: Grey's is an awesome show. I missed the last couple of episodes because of work, and I've been going crazy cuz (without my computer) I couldn't download them. But now I'm back online! Yay! Freddy is fairly complicated and confusing. I'm still working his storyline out, but I hope the background info helped clear him up a bit.
The Little Corinthian: My obsession with the interaction between Danny and Lindsay had me rewinding and rewatching that part where they pass each other in the wine cellar over and over again. I couldn't tell what expression is on Danny's face. It looks like he's smiling shyly as he passes her, but his face is in shadow so I just can't tell for sure. My roommates think I'm crazy whenever a new episode is on. It's kind of funny, they won't talk to me until the episode is over, despite the fact that they talk over the tv for any other show. I think I just give off the Don't Interrupt Me vibe.
Tenley: His move will be explained, though I hope the background gave some insights into his behavior in general. Gordon is still a problem; he and Lindsay haven't completely healed the rift yet. But they're on their way, which is nice. I think her family will be heading back into the story soon, at least remotely.
Lauren: I think the tension between Lindsay and Danny, paired with the fact that he gets a little nervous when he can't see her, is why they keep fighting. They're frustrated, if you will. Sorry the update took so long, but that was a lovely rendition of Shakespeare.
messermonroe: Dude, I totally pwn angst. But don't worry, the next major angst doesn't come up until the next story. Ravishing…well, let's put it this way: The story is almost over, just a few more chapters. Wink wink, nudge nudge.
serenity2bliss: Thanks! Your last review was really encouraging. I'm glad the jumping through time in the last chapter wasn't too frustrating. I'm trying to slow it down a bit, but not a whole lot can happen while Lindsay bed-ridden, you know:-p
chili-peppers: I hope Uncle Freddy is still intriguing. He's a complicated person, but I hope he's lovable. Danny was being pretty sweet. Still is, I think, but he and Lindsay are both getting a bit punchy.
oddie33325: I'm glad you're still liking it. Hopefully the updates will be more timely from now on. Stupid hard drive. (Er…I didn't mean that computer, please don't die again.)
Devilla: I think it's good that Lindsay is worrying about the people around her rather than focusing on herself (which would be understandable since she's just been shot and all). She's finally starting to look outside of herself after ten years of keeping everything in. It's definitely a sign that she's moved on.
Ashley Booth: Fluff is coming, don't you worry. They're about to start spending more time together again now that Lindsay will be up and moving around.
OneEaredGirl: Thanks for reviewing! I'm glad you've been enjoying the story. I'm sorry the update took so long; my computer apparently lost patience with my prolific writing. I think I just overused it. Sigh.
karakamas: Hehe, I'm glad you like it! Sorry about the sudden disappearance from the net. Sigh. I just have to keep telling my computer that I love it. It's a little needy, I think.
Lauren: Hamlet is definitely overrated. Awesome soliloquies, but the experts all say MacBeth is so much better. So why do we have to bother with that play's bastard cousin, Hamlet?
Seren23: Thanks for reviewing! I'm glad you like the story and that you liked Can't Go Home Again. Hopefully, the updates will start happening regularly again. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that my computer will still love me when I come back tonight. That way, I can update tomorrow!
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A.N. Wish me luck, I'm going to try to finish the next chapter before midnight. I figure you all deserve several more updates in the next couple of days. Hopefully the new harddisk will be up to the challenge.