Chapter 14 – December 14, 2006

"Hey, Monroe, wait up, I got a favour to ask."

Lindsay slowed her step, on her way to the elevator and down to the morgue. "What's up?"

"My family dinner's tonight and Mom wants to know if I'm bringin' someone with me. You up for it?"

"Dinner with your family, Danny? Christmas dinner with your family?"

"Why not? You got plans?"

Lindsay shook her head. "No, I don't, but—"

"Then why not?"

She pulled him into the empty elevator with her, waiting until the door closed to talk. "This is your family, Danny. Me going to your parents' for Christmas… says things."

"Truth, Montana? They've wanted to meet you for a while."

"What? You talk about me?"

He shrugged, trying to play it off as the elevator descended. "Sure. You're a big part of my life."

"To your family?" Lindsay's voice jumped an octave.

"Yeah to my family, now are you comin' or not?"

"I…I…"

"Good, Ma'll have dinner on the table at six so I'll pick you up at five?"

"Danny, I don't get off until—"

"I'll handle it," he promised, pushing her out of the elevator doors and pressing the button for the lab.

Lindsay rolled her eyes and growled under her breath. That man could be endlessly infuriating!

Mac had sent her home at 3:30 and Lindsay was pretty sure she hated him for it. She hadn't made an official decision as to whether or not she was going to go with Danny to his parents, but occupied herself by having a shower, doing her hair and spent a good forty minutes in front of her closet trying to pick something to wear. At the end of it, she hadn't found anything she felt she wanted to wear.

Or that's what she told herself.

She was standing in the doorway of her room, looking at the horrendous mess she'd made and a cup of tea in her hand when her buzzer sounded. Glancing at the alarm she saw the bright red numbers read 5:55. The buzzer was probably Danny.

"Hello?"

"You ready to go, Montana?"

"Come up," she asked, buzzing him through the door.

Five minutes later, she'd thrown on a robe and pulled open the door for him.

"You're not dressed."

"I'm not even sure I want to go. I raided my closet and couldn't find anything to wear."

"You have to be kidding me."

Her eyes widened imploringly. "Come look! Cleaning my bedroom is going to be murder!"

He followed her down the short hallway to her bedroom. "Crap, Montana, you really did do a number on this place."

"You're not helping," she growled. She started with her bed, dividing her clothes between what was supposed to go in the closet and what was supposed to go in her drawers.

"Hey, hey, hey," he stopped her, grabbing her wrists gently.

"My family isn't going to care," he told her, making sure to catch her eyes. "You wear what you feel comfortable in."

She eyed him up and down, her eyes finally lighting up. "Go wait out there." She virtually pushed him out the door and closed it behind her.

Danny sighed, making his way back to the couch in her living room. Apparently, something had given her a better idea of something to wear. He only hoped she wasn't going to back out on him. His parents had been getting on him about finding someone to settle down with and, with the apparently temporary pause in his relationship, he hadn't even thought about anything other than finding a way to win her over. When he thought back on it, he realized that, other than Stella, he didn't talk about any other women.

"Sorry, Danny," she apologized as she emerged from her bedroom, doing up a black coat as her curls tumbled around her face.

He stepped out first, waiting for her to close and lock the door before putting a hand on the small of her back, head bent towards her as she started rambling.

"Daniel!"

Lindsay almost took a step back at the loud cheer that rose through the house as Danny stepped in. She looked up at him, hoping for guidance. He tugged on the collar of her coat and she blushed, unbuttoning it and handing it over to one of the women nattering at Danny in what she could only assume was Italian. Instinctively, she reached for his hand. He smiled down at her, interweaving their fingers.

"Who is this?"

"Lindsay, this is my cousin, Katherine. Katie, this is Lindsay Monroe."

"From the crime lab," Katherine exclaimed. "It's so great to finally meet you. Aunt Maria talks about you all the time, passing on stories from Danny."

Lindsay blushed. Not only was she important enough for Danny to talk about with his mother, but his mother obviously found it important enough to pass on to the rest of the family. He tugged her through a doorway on their left, Katherine following and nattering on behind them

"Ah, my Daniel, there you are."

Lindsay looked up from her feet to find a kind-smile.

"Mom," he said with a smile, kissing both of her cheeks. He then tugged Lindsay up beside him. "This is Lindsay."

"Well aren't you precious."

Lindsay couldn't help the wrinkling of her nose. Precious?

Danny laughed outright, knowing exactly what was going on in Lindsay's head. Not only was she completely overwhelmed with what was happening around her, but his mother had called her precious. Lindsay slapped his arm

"Are you sure this is the Lindsay you've been telling us about?"

Danny untangled his hand from hers to wrap it around her back and pull her snug against him. "Can't you tell from the slap?"

"Ah, you need someone to keep you in line," his mother said with a bright smile. "I'm Maria."

"It's a pleasure to meet you," Lindsay said with a mirroring smile. "He's pretty good most of the time."

"Most of the time he's working."

Lindsay closed her eyes. Katherine, Maria, she told herself mentally before turning to meet the new arrival. If all of these people kept coming up to say hi, there was no way she'd remember all of their names.

"Oh, come on, what is this, pick on Danny day?"

It was Lindsay that stepped in with a response before anyone else could. "That's any day that ends in 'y', Danny. Does today end in 'y'?"

He glared down at her playfully as those within ear shot burst into laughter. "You're supposed to be on my side."

"If I was on your side, you'd think something was wrong with me," she replied.

"Somethin' is wrong with ya if you're bravin' a Messer dinner. And Christmas no less," their still unidentified comrade stated frankly, earning a rather hard slap on the arm from Maria.

"Tony," Maria warned.

"Sorry," Tony replied, though his voice was remarkably unapologetic. "I'm Tony, Danny's cousin's husband."

"He did mention he had a lot of those. Cousin's I mean," Lindsay replied, finally coming out of the shy shell she'd entered in. "Lindsay Monroe."

Tony's eyebrow went up. "The Lindsay Monroe?"

She threw her hands up in exasperation, looking to Danny. "Am I some sort of celebrity?"

Danny shrugged, all innocence. "I didn't know Mom would be tellin' stories, Montana. Come on, let's find you somethin' to drink."

Lindsay couldn't find Danny. Maria, Katherine and a few of the other cousins and female family members had pulled her aside and she'd lost sight of him. She was on her way through the front foyer when the door opened again and a family of five came in, two young children screaming their heads off and a baby doing exactly the same. Before she knew it, the baby had been thrust at her by his frazzled mother while she dealt, along with the father, with their two other children.

Lindsay moved out of the way, to sit on the stairs, murmuring softly to the infant in her arms. It was where Danny found her ten minutes later.

"Allie said she'd shoved Will off on some unsuspecting woman. I think she figured it was one of the regulars," Danny explained as he sat beside her. "Kids get passed around in this place all the time so the parents just start trustin' their safe."

"In New York?"

"We protect our own, Montana, someone's got an eye on 'em all the time."

She continued to rock the baby in her arms absently, one of her fingers firmly encased in one little hand. "It's loud in here."

"Always has been, always will be. Wait until we sit down to dinner."

Lindsay met his eyes. "Whose Allie?"

"Alexandria, my sister."

"Sister? I thought you just had Louie."

"Biologically, yeah. Allie found us and Mom couldn't let her go."

"You don't talk about her."

Danny chuckled. "Lindsay, you know I'm overprotective of the people I care about. People found out about Allie…"

"I get it," she assured him. "Who knows?"

"Louie, me, my parents and Allie's husband for sure. We all agreed to keep this one mum."

"Is she ever upset about it?"

"Nah. She knows DNA is nothin'. Family's what you make in your heart."

She smiled at him. "You, Danny Messer, are a closet teddy bear."

"Only at home," he told her, the twinkling of his eyes counteracting the seriousness of his face. Then he looked at the picture she made and felt his heart speed up. "That's quite the picture you make, Miss Monroe."

She chuckled softly, feeling heat rise in her cheeks. "Someone will come looking for him soon enough," she said, watching Will's eyes flutter closed then open again.

"I'll go find Allie, see if she's got her diaper bag. His blanket should be in there and we can probably lay him down for a bit."

She smiled as he stood, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. Sure enough, Allie came around the corner not five minutes later, diaper bag slung over her shoulder.

"He out?"

"Thirty seconds ago," Lindsay answered softly, shifting to hand him off to his mother.

"Can you bring him up? I don't want to move him if he just fell asleep."

Lindsay nodded, following Allie up the stairs.

"Danny tells me you're the Lindsay he's always talking about. Montana."

Lindsay rolled her eyes. "Yeah."

"You must really be something special if he's bringing you here."

She looked at the other woman in confusion. "He's never brought a girl home before?"

"His family members are his best kept secret. Christmas dinner is family hell with all of us together. It's one of the rare times we can actually get all of the Messers together in one place. You get the double whammy."

Lindsay's eyes widened. "He said you guys wanted to meet me."

"Oh we did, and let me tell you, the fact that you've impressed Tony and the fact that Mom thinks your Danny's perfect woman, I think you've made a name for yourself."

Lindsay almost sighed in relief as she placed Will on the blanket. "I'm glad. I had a panic attack before coming."

"Andrew almost cancelled on me when he came to meet them. Then he almost peed his pants because Danny was sitting on the couch with his gun and badge clearly visible. When I scolded him about it later he went all innocent saying he had to drop something off for Mom and got sidetracked."

A knock halted any further reply from Lindsay. Danny stood in the doorframe. "If you ladies are done gossiping, Mom's got dinner all set."

Danny walked Lindsay all the way to her apartment door after dinner that night. She took the opportunity to press a kiss to his cheek that lingered too long to be considered platonic.

"What was that for?" he asked, surprised.

"Saying thank you," Lindsay replied.

"For what?"

She blushed. "For bringing me to meet your family. Allie told me I was the first girl you brought home."

Danny groaned. "I knew I shouldn't have left you alone with her."

"I like her," Lindsay said on a laugh, unlocking her door and opening it just slightly. "You want to come in?"

He did. Seeing her interact smoothly with his family, the way she bantered with Tony fiercely, the way she and Allie got along fabulously and most importantly, how she looked with a baby in her arms almost made him forget that he was taking things at her pace. "Nah, not tonight, Montana." To reassure her, he kissed her forehead tenderly before pressing another kiss to her temple, then to her cheek. "I'll see you in the lab tomorrow?"

"Yeah. Good night Danny. Call me when you get home, okay?"

He chuckled. Sometimes she was as bad as him when it came to protecting those close. "Sure thing. Night."

It wasn't until he'd text messaged her to tell him he was home safe that she folded herself under her bed covers and closed her eyes.

Was anyone else slightly disappointed with the way they handled Lindsay's past last night? I guess that means Anna's still pregnant, huh?

Anyway, hope you enjoyed. You guys have been fabulous in reviewing. Wish me luck on my exam tonight!