DISCLAIMERS: I do not own any of these characters. They belong to Jerry Bruckheimer and the wonderful writers for CSI: NY. Any resemblance to scenes from the episodes is included for clarity and continuity and I do not claim any of those as my own work. However everything else is mine.
The Argument
Lindsay got into the taxi in a daze and gave the driver her destination. Her mind was swirling, not only from the amount of cash she had just dropped, but from the thoughts that were playing delightfully in her mind of the moment when that special someone would see her in her new purchase. She sighed in happy resignation, as she knew Stella was right, that is, when Stella said it would be worth it.
The taxi driver broke her thoughts when he announced the cab fare. She blinked herself back to the present, pulled out the cash, paid him, stepped out of the taxi with her purchases and gave a start. She was standing in front of her apartment building. Talk about déjà vu, she must have distractedly given him her home address instead of Danny's.
Oh well she thought nervously. There is no time like the present. Besides, she needed to stash her dress in her apartment where Danny wouldn't see it before she was ready to wear it for him.
As she climbed the stairs to her apartment, in trepidation, her legs weakened and her heart rate increased with each step she climbed. When she reached her door, she turned her back to it and leaned against it gratefully, to catch her breath and allow her legs time to stiffen into some manner of support for the rest of her body. She wasn't cognizant of how long she rested like that, but only of the phone ringing her out of her recovery trance. She pulled it out with trembling hands and flipped it open without looking at caller id.
"Lindsay," she said a little shakily into the receiver.
"Lindsay, are ya alright?" Danny asked a little worriedly. He had picked up on the slight tremor in her voice immediately.
She paused for a moment before she answered. "Yeah, um I think so…. "
"What's up? Did the eval go okay this morning?" he asked, encouraging her to continue.
"Oh that…" she said distractedly, as that seemed eons ago now and completely out of range of her coherent thought.
"Lindsay?" Danny queried a little more forcefully.
She shook some composure back into her head and replied a bit more steadily. "I'm fine... really… I'm just standing in front of my apartment door deciding whether or not to go inside."
"Damn," he swore softly. "Lindsay, couldn't you have waited until I could be there with you?"
"It wasn't planned," she babbled in explanation. "I was distracted and must have given the taxi driver my address by default."
"Okay I can be there in 30," and then as an afterthought, "if you want me there."
"Could you really, Danny? Yes, I do… want you here." she replied gratefully.
"Hang tight!" and he clicked the phone shut and headed out to battle the afternoon traffic.
Lindsay sunk down in front of her door in relief. Danny was coming! She was so relieved and grateful. But as her heart rate slowed to a more manageable rate and her legs returned to their normal, weight bearing state, she replayed everything that had happened in the past several days. Then she thought about Laurel. She missed Laurel terribly and would love her eternally, but there was no way she could ever bring her back. The only thing she could do now was to go forward with her life and live it to the fullest, in bittersweet remembrance of Laurel and in utter defiance of the s.o.b. that had taken Laurel's beautiful life. She vowed, then and there, that Laurel's killer would not rob her of one more second of her life. And with those thoughts firmly etched in her mind, she stood up, fished her keys out of her purse and unlocked her door.
She pushed the door open, took a step inside and flipped on the lamp on the table beside the door. She dropped her very expensive boutique purchases on the couch and quickly went around the apartment opening the blinds, dispelling the darkness, not only in the physical space of her apartment, but also in the intangible and sacred space of her heart, soul and mind. She righted the overturned stool, pushed it back into its place under the counter, picked the cast iron skillet up off the floor, lovingly washed it in the sink, and put it in a place of honor on the stove. She went into the living room, gathered her purchases and put them away in anticipation of wearing them soon for Danny. She picked the bat off the bedroom floor, took it into the bathroom and rinsed off all traces of Laurel's killer. She walked back into the bedroom and placed it carefully beside the bed where she vowed it would be every night for the rest of her life. Then she slipped out of her work attire and into something more relaxed. She felt more at home and more like herself, than she had since Laurel had died.
"Lindsay!" Danny yelled from the other side of her apartment door. Before she could get to the door to unlock it, he had it unlocked, with his key, was inside, his eyes searching for any sign of her in the apartment.
"Danny," she said reassuringly, greeting him with a pearly white smile spread across her face.
He stopped short and stared at her. It wasn't what he expected to see, after their earlier phone conversation. There was a light in her eyes that he couldn't ever remember seeing before and she had doffed her work attire for the far more relaxed look he had come to favor. The fitted, red, capped sleeve t-shirt had the words, 'Country Girl', tantalizingly scrolled across her chest, and her low slung jeans hung seductively around her hips and slapped rhythmically against the wood floor as she walked, in bare feet, toward him. He could see that teasing, inch or so, of bare skin around her waist that he immediately wanted to caress. The red in her t-shirt brought out the burnished highlights in that wavy tangle around her face. Why, the woman was positively oozing sweet, simple, overwhelming happiness and raw, mind numbing sex appeal all at the same time.
Leave it to a country girl! He nodded appreciatively as she approached him.
"Didn't your mama ever tell you it was rude to stare, Cowboy?" she teased as she pulled up short, in front of him.
"My ma tried hard, but good manners ain't never been my strong suite," he returned with a smirk.
"What is your strong suite then?" she said seductively as she made his personal space her own and slid her palms up his chest and around his neck.
"It's not something that is easily put into words, Montana. I'm much better at demonstratin'!" he said, in a voice a shade lower than before and desire burning intensely in his eyes.
She inched up on her tiptoes in order to sigh into his ear, "You know what I say?" He still hadn't touched her and she didn't think she could go a second longer without some initiative on his part. "Talk is cheap, so show me!"
That was all he needed to hear. His hands found the bare skin around her waist and slid around to her back, spreading his fingers over both her upper and lower back, to initiate as much skin to skin contact as possible. His lips claimed hers in an intensity that sent tremors to the very core of her being. She returned his kiss with equal fervor and her hands scrabbled wildly at the back of his neck. She lifted a leg to his waist and he obligingly ran his hand along her rear-end and thigh to hike her other leg around his waist. Her inner thighs tightened instinctively around him and he broke the kiss momentarily to strangle out, "Bedroom?" All she could do was whimper in response, which he took as a resounding yes.
BRRRINNGG!
Lindsay gave a visible start as she pulled back from Danny.
"Ignore it" Danny whispered urgently.
"Stop, Danny!" she said forcefully as they approached the bedroom door. He paused and searched her face for some clue as to what was going through her mind.
"C'mon Lindsay, it's not your cell. Let the machine pick up," he said earnestly.
BRRRINNGG!
"Let me go, Danny," she said almost frantically, pushing against his chest and trying to squirm her legs out of his grip. But he didn't want to let her go. He could see the terror in her eyes, the terror he hadn't seen since that day in the hospital when he had made that triggering comment to her. He wanted, desperately, to make it better for her, as soon as possible, to put them back into the moment they had been in not 5 seconds ago.
She managed to struggle out of his hold and run to the phone. She yanked up the receiver as it jarred out the third ring.
"Leave me alone you fucking s.o.b.!" she shouted into the phone.
Hearing Lindsay swear like that, bolted Danny into action. Within a split second he was behind her, taking the receiver from her trembling hand and clipping out, "Who the hell is this?"
He shook his head slightly and replied a little more calmly, "Sorry, no George here." He clicked the receiver back into the cradle and dropped to his knees, gathering Lindsay into his arms, who by now, was sobbing hysterically.
"Lindsay… Lindsay, it's okay… I'm right here," he murmured as he picked her up and sat down on the couch with her in his lap.
After a few minutes, she wiped the remaining tears out of her eyes, pulled back and looked into his eyes, disbelief and fear clearly displayed in her own eyes. "Danny, I thought it was him!"
"Who... Who did you think it was?" he asked, almost sure he knew the answer.
" Laurel's killer," she said faintly, with a faraway look in her eyes.
" Laurel's killer called you?" Danny asked anxiously. "When?" he asked as he nervously licked his lips.
"The night… the night we were supposed to… the night I stood you up," she finally finished with an apologetic look in her eyes.
"Fuck, Lindsay, that was weeks ago! Why didn't you tell me then?" he said with anger in his voice.
"How could I have told you something like that?" she asked incredulously. The words tumbled from her mouth, "At the time, you knew nothing about Laurel, or the murders and I wasn't even sure it was him. I thought maybe I had imagined the whole thing, so I pushed it to the back of my mind."
"You mean you blew it off!" he nearly shouted at her as he lifted her off his lap and placed her on the couch beside him, so he could free himself to start pacing the floor.
It made her angry that he yelled at her and she lashed back at him. "What are you saying, Danny?" as she sprang up to place herself in the middle of his pacing path, effectively blocking his movement.
"Do you know how dangerous that was… for you… for…" he didn't finish as he ran a hand through his hair and his eyes snapped like tiny blue flames.
Her eyes narrowed. "You think that it's my fault… the murder… here… in New York!"
"That's not what I said, Lindsay!" he ground out, his face mere inches from hers.
"But you were thinking it, weren't you?" she accused him and her heart was beating so wildly she thought it was going to thump right out of her chest.
The thought had briefly entered his mind but he wasn't about to put that on Lindsay. There are so many factors involved in the committing of a crime. There are no guarantees whether a crime will be committed or even if it can be prevented, regardless of whether one has prior knowledge or not. He was truly more concerned about her safety, about her having to bear this burden alone than about placing blame. Oftentimes his emotions caused things to come out, not quite the way he meant them. But how to convince Lindsay of that was the tricky part. He paused and calmed himself before he spoke again.
"Lindsay, your safety and well being is the main concern to me. Hell, all I want to do is to be with you and take care of you, I've told you that," he exclaimed in pure frustration.
But Lindsay's emotions had her mind stalled on his previous statements. "Danny, I don't need you to take care of me. I already a have a mother… in Montana… one that is a crack shot at reminding me how often I've screwed up… how Laurel's murder was my fault. I don't need another person like that in my life!"
His emotions overwhelmed him again at the tortured thread in her voice and her unwillingness to believe him. He was barely able to choke out, "Lindsay, it's not like that at all, I swear." He tried to grab her hands but she jerked back and a veil went over her eyes, effectively shutting him out.
"Danny, I can't do this right now… I want you to leave," she said in an amazingly calm voice.
He hated it when she did that… just turned off all the emotion. He knew it was there, but she had removed herself from it. It was her way of coping with a difficult situation. She needed time. He knew the routine, but fuck, if he didn't have the hardest time dealing with it.
"Okay, Lindsay, I'll go, I'll give you time, but this is not over, I'll be back" he clipped out in the most controlled voice he could muster, even though he knew he failed miserably. His emotions were writhing and seething and they needed to be aired and soothed, not put on the back burner.
She turned her face away from him.
He turned on his heels and left, slamming the door in his wake.
As he jogged down the stairs of her apartment building, he mentally cursed himself for getting involved with such a complex woman. But that's how it is with life. What doesn't kill you will surely make you stronger and the thing that you love most about a person is always the thing that drives you the craziest. So fuck me! I'm not dead yet, but I'm slowly being driven crazy!
He needed something to take his mind off things until Lindsay came around. Some way to expend all the emotion that was boiling just beneath the surface, or he was going to put his fist through a wall. He glanced at his watch as he exited the building. Perfect timing! He would have much rather done this with Lindsay, but he could find a quick substitute, he reasoned, as he strode down the sidewalk with a destination already in mind.