Parental Obligations: Of Tears and Phone Calls

For three days, the Monroes managed to avoid any unpleasant subjects. They managed to pretend that nothing was amiss, like they were just a normal family that had random spats about nothing in particular.

Lindsay was at work, processing evidence. She and Danny hadn't made much progress on their case, but Stella and Mac had basically breezed through not one but three cases. Apparently, the evidence was just handed to them or something.

Finished with their cases, Stella and Mac offered to relieve the babysitter, a sixteen-year-old girl in Lindsay's building, of Grace, Samantha, and Elizabeth. Lindsay and Hannah, the babysitter, accepted the kind offer.

Lindsay leaned over and studied the bloodstained shirt. She had to be missing something.

"Are you going to answer that?" Danny asked, breaking her out of her thoughts.

"What?" Lindsay asked.

"Your phone. The one you've been ignoring for the past ten minutes…?"

Lindsay glanced down at her phone just as it stopped ringing. There were four missed calls. She remembered ignoring one but not the other three. "Huh," she said before turning back to what she had been doing.

Danny watched Lindsay curiously for a few brief seconds before turning back to what he had been doing.

When Lindsay's phone rang again, she reached down and picked it up. Flipping it open, she said, "Hello?"

"Lindsay," a breathy female voice said, "Thank God. I just heard."

Lindsay almost wished she hadn't picked up. "What did you hear, mom?"

Danny glanced at her, raising his eyebrows. "Mom?" he whispered.

Lindsay rolled her eyes and turned away. "Mom? You still there?"

"Oh, God. He didn't call you," Silvia Monroe gasped. She should have figured.

"Mom, I don't really have time for this," Lindsay said. "If you're just going to keep talking in circles, then you're going to have to call back when I'm not at work."

"Charles," Silvia explained as if that explained everything.

"What about him?" Lindsay asked, stepping away so Danny would stop trying to listen to her conversation.

Silvia went silent. Lindsay didn't know anything? "Oh, God," Silvia whispered. "Lindsay, baby, I'm so sorry."

Lindsay became very worried when she heard the tears in her mom's voice. "Mom, you're scaring me."

"Charles came here about a month ago. He's been staying in the Young family house while his parents went to Paris for the summer, and he came here ranting and raving about custody. He's getting married, you know. Well, I had no choice—until you got back and we could figure things out—I didn't know what to do, and you already had so much on your plate—"

"Mom, stop," Lindsay ordered, stopping the unending rambling. Silence followed her order. "Now, tell me what's got you so worked up."

Silvia took a deep breath and prepared to completely devastate her only daughter. "Lindsay, baby, Charles came about a month ago and took the girls. He has plans to get full custody, but he called earlier and…he went out of town for a few days and left them with the house keeper, but—"

Realization dawned on Lindsay. "Mom, they're here with me," she said soothingly. Then everything else that had been said sunk in. "He has plans to do what?!"

((((((((((CSI:NY)))))))))))

Lindsay concentrated on her work with a determination that rather scared Danny. They had the case solved within an hour and she beat a path out of there.

Danny pulled out his phone. "Hey, Mac. Yeah. Lindsay's on her way home, and I think she's going to need to talk to 'Lizbeth. It's probably best if you keep Sammy with you. Alright, yeah. I'll talk to you later."

Danny's phone flipped shut with a snap and he grabbed his jacket out of the locker room before heading to Lindsay's. He was going to calm her down at least a little before Elizabeth got home.

((((((((((CSI:NY))))))))))

When the knock on the door rang through the apartment, Lindsay was surprised. She wiped away her tears and composed herself before opening the door. "Danny," she said with a faux smile, "what are you doing here?"

Danny took in her red rimmed eyes and tear-stained face and immediately enveloped her in a hug.

Lindsay wiggled out of his embrace and frowned at him. "What was that for?"

He gave her an impish smile. "You looked like you needed a hug," he said playfully.

Lindsay frowned in confusion until she remembered her words from when Danny had first told her about Grace. "Ha ha, Messer, you're a real riot."

"I try," Danny said humbly. He thought it would be best if he didn't acknowledge her obvious tears. She was upset enough as it was.

Lindsay stepped aside to allow him to enter her apartment. "What are you doing here?" she asked, repeating her earlier question.

"I thought you could use some company," Danny said. He knew she knew he was lying, but the question was: was she going to call him on it?

Lindsay looked away from his challenging gaze and let her eyes drift to look through her apartment. In the three days since her children had showed up, the clean, barely lived in apartment had become a messy, lived in home. Tears welled in her eyes and she turned, willing them away. It didn't work.

Danny watched as huge tear leaked out of Lindsay's eye and made its way down her cheek. "Mon—Lindsay," he said, pulling her into his arms.

Lindsay shook her head, backing away. She couldn't. Taking deep breaths, she pushed away the tears and stood up straight. "I need to call Stella and Mac."

"Already taken care of," Danny said. Off her look, he explained, "I called them when you left the lab. They're dropping Elizabeth off and taking Sam for a little while."

Lindsay paused. She wasn't sure whether to be offended that he didn't think she could take care of herself or pleased that he'd thought of it. Deciding on the latter, she offered him a small smile. "Thanks."

"You wanna tell me what that was all about?" Danny asked, stuffing his hands into his pockets.

Lindsay's eyes warned him off.

"Was it the phone call from your mom?" Danny prodded. "Did she have some bad news?"

Lindsay, seeing he wasn't going to let it go, plopped down on the couch with a sigh. "I kind of wondered how Sam and Lizzie got away, you know. I figured that Lizzie came up with some clever scheme. I just never occurred to me that…"

Danny sat beside her on the couch. "What?" he asked.

"Charles, their dad, is suing me for custody…or so he says. He had them, and that's how they got here without alerting or worrying anyone." She put her head in her hands. "I didn't even know they were with him and they've been there for a month." She felt like the worst mother in the whole world.

Danny tried his hand with comforting her. "Well, you were in New York. There's no way you could have known."

Lindsay turned her head. "Yeah…that's the problem." Her wide eyes were so sad. "Charles would never hurt a fly, but he's not really father material. Mom says he's trying to turn over a new leaf because…because he's getting married and his fiancé is pregnant."

Danny watched as a myriad of emotions played across Lindsay's face: pain, anger, jealousy, and sadness. He wasn't sure what to say so he just took her hand in a silent offer of comfort and strength.

Lindsay thought about yanking her hand back, but decided against it. "He left for L.A. last week to help his fiancé pack for her big move to Montana. When he got back yesterday, the girls were…not there obviously. He freaked out but decided to take the coward's way out and call my mom twenty-four hours after he found out."

"Well," Danny started.

"If you're about to make an excuse for him, I would advise against it. He can't just breeze in and out of our lives for fourteen years before deciding to put down roots in my town. Who does he think he is? Elizabeth and Samantha are my kids. He has no legal rights…his name isn't even on the birth certificate!"

Lindsay's grip on Danny's hand became steadily tighter as she continued her rant. "He had no right to take my daughters away from their grandparents' house, and he had no right not to tell me!"

A knock on the door stopped Lindsay from going any further in her angry outburst.

When Danny opened the door, Elizabeth breezed by him with a carefree grin. "You would not believe what Sammy did," she said, her eyes sparkling.

Her smile was infectious and Danny couldn't help the grin that spread across his face. "What'd she do?" he asked.

"She totally…" Elizabeth trailed off, having caught sight of her mom's face.

Danny gently turned her to face him. "Focus, Lil Montana. What did Sammy do?"

Elizabeth glanced over her shoulder before turning back to Danny, her eyes a lot more dull. "She poured soda on Mac when he called her short…what's going on?"

Danny was amused that Sam would actually do such a thing, but he could tell Elizabeth was worried about her mom. "Uh, I'll leave you ladies to it."

Lindsay smiled at Danny and his caring attitude toward her daughter. "I'll call you later," she offered.

"I'll be waiting," Danny promised.

When the door was shut behind him, Lindsay turned the lock on habit before turning to Elizabeth. "Have fun?" she asked, plastering a fake smile on her face.

Elizabeth stared at her mom. "What's going on?"

Lindsay leaned against the counter. "Well, your grandmother called me today," she said casually.

Comprehension dawned on Elizabeth and she pulled herself onto the counter beside where her mom was leaning. There was a long stretch of silence before Elizabeth's quiet voice broke it. "He was promising all kinds of things, and it was really great," she said quietly, "…at first."

Lindsay bowed her head, wishing she could've gotten a hold of Charles. His empty promises and half-assed attempts to salvage the ruins of his relationship with his daughter always left Elizabeth with a greater, more cynical view on life. It was hard, as a mother, to see Elizabeth pull into herself after visits with her dad. "I'm sorry," Lindsay said, putting her hand on Elizabeth's.

Elizabeth so wanted her mom to pull her into her arms like she was five again. Instead, she pulled her hand away and slid from the countertop. "Oh, well. Now he's getting another kid and another chance. Maybe this time he won't screw it up."

"Lizzie—"

"No, mom," Elizabeth interrupted. "I'm not Lizzie anymore, and you don't need to be sorry for the things dad does. For me, this was his last chance. I'm over it. I think he is growing up though. Valarie is nice and doesn't take crap from him, and he seems to really love her."

It was hard to hear that. Lindsay knew things between her and Charles were unsalvageable, but it hurt to know that someone else could make him settle down and be the father and husband that he could never be with her and her kids. "Do you want to talk about it?" she asked softly.

"Nope," Elizabeth said. She reached into the newly stocked fridge and pulled out an apple. "So…what did Nana actually tell you?"

"That he was supposedly suing me for custody, and that you were there for almost a month," Lindsay said. She studied the young girl as she casually bit into the apple.

"It was pretty great those first couple of weeks," Elizabeth said. She bit into the apple and held it with her teeth as she pulled out the Kool Aid. Setting the pitcher on the table, she finished the bite and swallowed. "We went to the Wheat Festival. The carnival was fun…as always. We ate, we played fun games, he threw up…and I got my first period."

Lindsay was laughing at Charles's inability to hold anything in her stomach after a carnival ride when she realized what Elizabeth had said. "You…you got your first period?" she asked.

Elizabeth nodded. "It was so mortifying. My stomach and back had been killing me all day, but I just thought it was from walking around and eating too much junk food. But then, when I went to the bathroom…I thought dad was going to have a heart attack. He bought enough tampons and pads to last a year."

Lindsay hugged her daughter. "Oh, baby, I wish I could have been there."

Elizabeth shrugged. "It was no big deal." Her throat constricted and she turned away to put the pitcher back into the refrigerator.

Lindsay studied her, feeling once more like she had failed her children. "Lizzie—"

"Don't call me that," Elizabeth said automatically. She tossed the apple core into the trash and picked up her glass. "Shall we take this oh-so-meaningful talk into the living room?"

Lindsay rolled her eyes and sighed, following her eldest daughter into the living room. "So what else happened while you were with your dad?"

Elizabeth shrugged. "He took us out to eat every night he was home, and we always went to the GPs for Sunday dinner…He bought everything we asked, and Valarie visited about two weeks into our stay and talked about being a family and stuff. Dad really loves her so I think mostly he was just doing what she wanted."

"She wanted to take you away from me?"

Elizabeth rolled her eyes. "Puh-lease. I don't think dad was ever going to seriously take us away. He just heard you ran away to join the circus."

"I didn't run away," Lindsay said.

Elizabeth shrugged and studied the muted t.v. A rerun of Prison Break was on. "Fine. Your relocation."

"Not funny," Lindsay said.

"It's kinda funny," Elizabeth said. "I know you're upset about this dad thing, but maybe you should just call him. He's not really a bad guy. He just wanted out and when he got out, he didn't want to come back."

Lindsay shook her head. "That is so not what happened. He was running."

Elizabeth lazily turned her head and gave her mom a pointed look that clearly said You're one to talk.

"I was not running, and you'll understand that one day," Lindsay said, standing up and stretching.

Elizabeth rolled her eyes and unmuted the t.v. "In the meantime, I'm going to rot my brain with lots of television."

"You will rot your brain at night," Lindsay agreed, "but during the day, you will be studying."

Elizabeth raised her eyebrows. "Studying what?"

"You tell me. You're the one that failed the seventh grade." Lindsay glared at her daughter.

"Whatever."

TBC…So, I was looking up Bozeman on the internet to see how big the town was that Lindsay lived in...gotta say, it's huge compared to the town I live in...my town has a little under 4,000 people...her town had over 25,000. That's small compared to New York, but big compared to where I live. The emotional roller coaster here was fun. I was working it from the teenage angle in the end...Elizabeth wants her mom to be her mom, but she's caught between wanting to be her mom's baby and being an independent, righteously angry teenager.