Winter Dreams
By Dragon's Daughter 1980
Disclaimer: Other than being a fan, I have nothing to do with CSI: New York.
Author's Note: As part of a color fic meme, I was given the prompt Danny/Lindsey, snow-white
Danny's a city boy, born and raised. He knows all the seasons in the Big Apple. Snow doesn't fall too often. When it does fall, it doesn't stay pure white for very long. The heat on the sidewalks turns all those ice crystals to slush, and then add in the dirt and salt on the roads, and the winter wonderland vanishes quickly in the city that never sleeps.
He remembers, though, getting up in the early mornings as a little kid, and seeing everything covered in silent white powder, making the world seem just a little bit closer to Heaven. He remembers tussling with his brother in the snow, and stuffing a handful of ice down the back of Isabella Carmine's coat and listening to the sound of her outraged shrieks. He remembers wishing those afternoons would never end, despite the fact that he couldn't feel his fingers after a while, making snowballs and angels in the white fluff and mounds of snowmen (or whatever the correct P.C. term is nowadays) that leaned a little off center of straight vertical. He'd troop back home, and Ma would be there with hot drinks and warm food, scolding them for playing outside for way too long before giving them freshly baked cookies to eat.
Fast-forward around two decades, and he's out on her family ranch in Montana, being with her family during Christmas. She's inside with her mother and sisters, wrapping presents or something, her father and brother have just finished up the "if you ever hurt her, Son, I don't care if you're still a cop or the President himself, I'm going to hunt you down and make you pay for making my little girl cry" conversation with him, and now he's just standing out there, on the freezing cold balcony, watching his breath mist in front of him. The snow-covered fields stretch as far as he can see, with the mountains in the distance covered in white. The trees are decorated with a fine dusting of fine powder, like sweetened confectioner's sugar on the cookies that one of her sisters baked this morning for everyone. She slips out to stand next to him and he pulls her into his arms as they stare out into the silent night, hearing nothing but a peaceful stillness that he's never heard before. She offers him that, a serenity to stop and hear earthbound angels sing, in a life that's filled with the nitty-gritty of policing New York streets. Somewhere along the way, she's become an anchor in his days and he's not afraid of that change at all.
Skip forward a year, and he's standing in the freezing cold snow wondering if he's lost his mind by saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. He had something else all planned out, with a nice evening at a classy restaurant, with roses and apple cider (he'd go for wine, but she's not going to drink and so he's not either) and all that romantic stuff. It was going to be a perfect candlelight affair because he's not going to screw it up and he's going to treat her with the romance she deserves to be wooed with.
Instead, they're in the middle of leaving a crime scene because the snow's started up again and it's going to make getting back to the Lab a major pain. They've been out here for hours, processing in the silence because their vic was found in the middle of upper state nowhere. He's been staring at her since there's snowflakes in her hair and on her snow-colored ("It's called ivory, Danny.") knit cap and jacket. There's still cops all over the place and the only reason she's out here is because Stella got shot by the bastard they're trying to catch and everyone's on the war path, Mac especially, and she bullied her way into processing the scene with him. He's thrilled that she's back in the field, terrified that she's back in the field, and then his mouth goes and shots off by itself.
The thing is, though, she's staring at him like he's hit her with a two-by-four, and not necessarily in an "I'm going to pull out my service weapon and shoot you" kind of way either. After a long moment, she asks him, "Are you saying…?"
He nods because despite all the white wet stuff that surrounds them both, his throat is about as dry as the Sahara desert. Then she smiles and says, "Yes."
It's when the chilly air mists out in front of him that he realizes he's been holding his breath for her answer. The nipping cold oxygen when he draws in a lungful to whoop with manly pride is the sweetest breath he's ever had. He knows that she would say "yes" but he wasn't sure that she'd say "yes" at this precise moment, in a situation stripped of all the romantic gestures she secretly loves and that he doesn't mind setting up. The cops on-scene stare and she's arching an eyebrow like she wants to take her answer back, but then he's kissing her and she's kissing him back and ohmyGod, he's going to be a married man and a father.
And that's the story about how he proposes to her in the middle of a New York winter in the middle of a case.
Professional, real professional Messer, but honestly, he doesn't care because today, they're waltzing gracefully across the dance floor as their families and friends all look on. It's a bit crowded inside, and he's not sure it's all good by the Fire Marshal's standards, but it doesn't matter. People are watching them move fluidly across the wood-paneled floor and he thanks Stella for every moment she put up with teaching him how to dance without stepping on anyone's feet. He sees Stella beaming at him with pride from the sidelines, her arms cradling a baby while she leans against her date, before he twirls his bride away.
It's a mess outside, with ice on the roads, power out in the countryside, slush covering the streets and people acting like people. Tomorrow, there'll probably be a pile of casefiles on Mac's desk, a harsh reminder that the holidays can be the deadliest season of all. Their jobs never stop, even when the world ought to pause for a perfect day.
But inside, it's warm with the people they love surrounding them, and everyone's happy here. He's heard about people exploding with joy and all that other sappy stuff, but now he kind of understands how maybe a man can feel like that. She's wearing a snow-white dress, with white flowers in her hair, and his ring on her finger, and she's dancing with him to their first song as husband and wife. He knows the lyrics by heart, but all he can hear is the silence of snow-covered fields, and a night where Heaven was so close to Earth.