A/N: Big thanks to Peanut2lb for the most admirable job of parsing my long, involved sentences, deciphering my unorthodox verb usage and providing honest and useful feedback! hugs

I think I've replied to everyone that reviewed however I want to say thank you to all who are reading but not reviewing. I hope you are enjoying the story.

DISCLAIMERS: The CSI:NY characters belong to Jerry Bruckheimer and the wonderful writers for CSI: NY. However everything else is mine.

Do Not Doubt

Do not doubt the sincerity of my words

As they issue forth from my lips.

For my actions have always shown

What surely you must have known

Since that first day we met.

That there is not a person who can meet

My hopes, desires, and dreams

With merely a look, a sigh or a smile

Or complete the duality of my being

As simply as you do, as only you do.

-Sally Jetson

"Did you mean it?" he reiterated, a trace of urgency appearing in his voice at her silence.

She turned in his arms, placing her hands on his chest as she looked up at his expectant face.

"I meant it."

"Say it again."

The pause seemed longer than mere moments.

"Not yet… not until I show you… I want to show you first, Danny."

She tugged at his hand, and he followed her into the bedroom where she stopped beside the bed, turning to face him. Her hands sighed across him, releasing a tight groan from the back of his throat, as she finished unzipping his jeans.

She pushed his jeans and boxers down along his legs raining hot, ardent kisses the entire way. As her hair swept across his groin, he thought he was going to unload right there on the spot.

When her lips reached his knees, he wove his fingers through his silken tresses tilting her head back so he could see her face.

The whole night he'd been in control of himself but now… but now, his fists clenched in her hair as he rasped out,

"Damn, Lindsay… I don't know how long I can hang on here."

"You don't have to hang on, Danny. I'll do anything for you," she murmured tremulously, kneeling before him her small hands gripping the backs of his legs.

Damn! With the darkness and the lack of glasses his vision was so blurred. It would be so easy to…. But something wasn't right he could sense it. Fuck, he wished he could see her face!

When no answer was forthcoming from him, she moved upwards, her hands gliding up to cup his ass and he knew in an instant that no matter how torqued he was, he did not want her to go down on him, not here, not now, not this time. Although he knew from experience that she gave a phenomenal blowjob, her mouth, arousingly hot, wet and 'oh'ed' so perfectly to fit him and her hands an expert master of the stroke; this was not the occasion for that. No, he wanted all of her this time, in absolute completeness with him.

He heard a faint sob escape from her and then he understood! Messer, how can you be so fucking dense?

He quickly squatted down on one knee, releasing her hair to cup her face in his hands feeling the wetness of her tears as he brushed his thumbs across her cheeks.

"Lindsay, I'm a first class ass!"

"What?"

"Lindsay Monroe, I- love- you!"

She fervently wrapped her arms around him, burying her face into his neck, sobs racking her petite frame as he palmed the floor trying to keep them upright. He wound one arm around her shoulders, pushing off with his other hand to deftly lift them both up, looping his arm underneath her knees and laying her gently on the bed.

He stretched out beside her and whispered soothingly into her ear, brushing the hair back from her face.

"Baby, you can stop crying… It's okay… I'm here for you… I'm so sorry… I love you."

With those last words she started babbling, "Danny, it has been so hard being away from you… I didn't want to burden you but…. but I wanted to tell you and… and… when you heard me… and you didn't say it back…I…I…I knew then I shouldn't have said it… what with all you have on your shoulders and me leaving for Montana in a few days. I can't blame you for not saying it back… you don't have to say it just because I've said it."

She turned away from him and curled into a tight ball, her arms wrapped around her knees.

He frustratingly ran a hand through his hair and then touched her shoulder lightly but she shrugged it off. He knew she was under a tremendous amount of strain. Hell, he had certainly felt the strain since their 'talk' on the ferry. How was he going to convince her? Giving her no chance to resist, he quickly cinched his arms around her and anchored her back against his body.

"Lindsay," he pleaded hoarsely into her ear. "Ya gotta believe me when I say I love you… I know I should have said it back to you as soon as you said it…but…but…you caught me off guard and then I wasn't even sure I heard you right….and…when you said that you meant it. I needed to hear it again first."

At this she turned in his arms and laid a hand along his jaw.

"Why? Why did you need to hear it again first?"

He let out a deep sigh as he glided his knuckles across her cheeks to clear the tears.

"'Cause Linds, when it comes to the serious stuff, actions are much easier for me than words and until tonight. Until tonight, I could count on two fingers the number of women I've said those words to," he said holding up two fingers for emphasis.

"And who would those two other women be?" she teased, gently stoking a thumb across his lips.

He chuckled in relief at her return to lightheartedness.

"Oh you may know one of them, petite red head, cooks like a little, old, Italian woman, a real spitfire who has kept me in one piece until the woman of my dreams can take over."

Lindsay looked heavenward and let out a good laugh.

"What if the woman of your dreams doesn't want the job?" she questioned as she cast a mischievous look in his direction.

His face grew serious then he hastily disentangled his arms.

"Danny?"

As he hauled himself up from the bed, he turned back to her reassuringly, "Hold that thought, I'll be right back."

She heard him go into the living room, then come back and dig through the pockets of his jeans. He switched on a dim light, then the bed depressed with his weight as she sat up and crossed her legs.

"Here I got you a little something for Christmas."

She cupped her hands and he coiled a dainty gold chain into them.

Her breath caught in her throat at she stared at the glimmering pool of gold in her hands and then at his expectant face. He licked his lips nervously and inclined his head towards her hands.

She shifted the delicate treasure carefully into one hand and fingered it gently. Grasping one end carefully between a thumb and forefinger she uncoiled it to its full length, the dim light catching the filigreed medallion, barely larger than quarter, dangling at the end of the chain. It turned hypnotically casting glints across Danny's glasses as she stared up at his face in amazement.

"It's exquisite," she whispered. "How did you? Where did you…"

"Ya recognize it?" he asked, a pleased grin erupting across his face as he shifted his shoulder into her line of vision.

"It's an exact replica," she said disbelievingly as she dangled the necklace next to his shoulder, "of your tattoo…. so intricately and expertly crafted."

"Here let me put it on you," he offered as he took the necklace from her.

She lifted her hair as he leaned forward so he could clasp it at the back of her neck. She dropped her hair and he placed a tender kiss on her collarbone and trailed his index finger along the chain down to the medallion taking it into the palm of his hand and running a thumb across the surface.

"So what's the story?"

"Story?"

"With the tattoo. You once told me you got the tattoo in honor of your ma."

He grimaced and shrugged, then turned his face away to focus on something beside the bed.

As the seconds ticked by she finally murmured, "It's okay Danny; you don't have to tell me if don't want too… the necklace is perfect and I love it. I don't need to know the story."

He grasped the bat propped up beside the bed. It was his old Summer League championship bat that he had refinished for her; the one the CSI team had presented to her for her birthday, half-jokingly, for use as protection; the bat that she had used to beat off Laurel's killer when he had attacked her in this very apartment.

He suddenly whacked the bat on the bed causing Lindsay to give a visible start.

"It was a stupid bar fight… just a fucking- stupid- bar fight… and it killed the whole dream."

"Danny, I'm sorry. I didn't know."

His lips were seamed in anguish and he gripped the bat tightly as if to take a couple of death swings at an unseen demon.

She laid a soothing hand along his thigh. He glanced down at her hand and sighed.

Finally he spoke with more composure. "After it happened, Ma said that my path was destined to go in another direction… that there was something else out there for me… something more important than a career in baseball. Course I didn't believe her… not at first… but as I worked my way through the police academy and then became a CSI it finally began to make sense…"

He looked at her with that familiar gleam in his eyes, the gleam that appeared when he was fascinated by a piece of evidence or when the case fell into place allowing them to nail the criminal.

"…Ya know, using the science to put the pieces of a puzzle together… to solve crimes and put well deserving scum behind bars. It gave me a sense of purpose. When I realized that Ma was right after all, I chose one of the tribal pieces that she designs and had it tattooed on my shoulder…. just to thank her for believing in me."

He palmed the bat at each end and slowly rotated it around reading the signature of each CSI team member. When he finished, he carefully propped the bat back against the bed and turned to her, caressing her cheek.

"All those people, Danny… they believe in you," she said softly as she pressed his palm to her lips.

"And what about you, Lindsay?"

She placed his hand low on her hip and drew him down to her as she sank back into the bed.

"I not only believe in you; I love you, Danny."

As he fitted his well-muscled form atop her soft, inviting curves, the bed creaked in harmonious reassurance.

Her fingers began a hypnotic trace of his angled features and he closed his eyes in thorough concentration on the heat rising in the wake of her velvety fingertips. They tracked across his eyebrows, slowly, oh so slowly. They trailed down the side of his face following his whiskered-roughened jaw and brushed across his lips. She placed one kiss tenderly against his lips, as she feathered her hand over the bulging swell of his shoulder, outlining the tightened muscles of his back on her leisurely journey down to his waist.

He opened his eyes. This time, in the dim light of the lamp and with his lens-corrected vision, he could clearly see her. Her eyes were two luminous pools reflecting the very depths of her soul.

"Lindsay, I love you so much."

She gently removed his glasses and placed them on the bedside table.

And with that he covered her mouth with his own as she wrapped her legs around his hips bidding him to enter. A primal need as ancient as humanity guided their actions as their bodies moved in flawless succession of each others' needs and desires. Each tightening of the thigh was rejoined by a tension heightening thrust. Every arch of the back was nurtured with a stroke of fingertips and a branding from the lips. Ever deepening sighs were echoed by intensifying groans. But the yearning in their hearts fulfilled a sacred and profound connection beyond that of the physical one. With hushed and reverent 'I Love You's', their glistening and trembling bodies collapsed into a familiar intertwining of limbs and a long awaited peacefulness.

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Hours later when the rosy fingers of the morning light enticed her eyelids to open, Lindsay stretched luxuriously relishing the weight of Danny's arm resting low on her waist, his hand curled possessively around her hip.

He stirred when she turned in his arms and instinctively he pulled her leg across his body tucking a hand behind her knee as she snuggled into the sheltering crook of his arm.

"When do you leave for Montana?" he murmured, his lips against her forehead.

"You heard that last night…. amongst all that crying and babbling," she teased, enjoying the springy sensation of the hairs covering his well-muscled chest as she palmed it.

"Crying, babbling, screaming, yelling, whispering, moaning, sighing," his voice was mischievous, " Montana, there's not much I don't hear. You got my full attention."

She reached across and started tracing the tattoo on his shoulder in procrastination. Do we have to ruin a perfectly good day and talk about this now? Her stomach began to churn at the thought of the ordeal awaiting her out in Montana.

"Day after tomorrow."

As if sensing her anxiety, his chest rumbled against her arm as he began to speak, "I didn't tell you the rest of story."

"There's more to the story?"

She perked up and adjusted her weight onto one elbow so she could see his face. He stretched out his free arm, grabbed his glasses and adjusted them around his ears. Then he fingered the medallion hanging around her neck.

"Yeah," he said softly, "there's more to the story."

He took a deep breath and ran his hand down her arm to intertwine their hands.

"Remember when I told you I felt like I was caught between two worlds?"

She nodded as he fixed earnest blue eyes upon her.

"I don't feel that way anymore, Lindsay," he continued a bit more hoarsely now and she felt the tears filling her eyes, "'cause you've given me a world to belong to."

A tear escaped and he gently brushed it aside as he always did with all her worries and fears.

"So however long it takes you in Montana, it doesn't really matter, just hang onto this medallion and know that the other half is waiting for you to come back home."

Her face nestled into his neck as she murmured, "Danny, I'll be back, don't doubt that."

"I don't doubt ya, Montana," he rejoined as his arms tightened around her.

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A/N: I had to gut my way through this one but I finally did it. Thanks to MariaLisa for her initial feedback before she got a wild hair and lit out for Texas! hugs