007: Changing Winds

Angela hated Mondays. They were such a drag. It had been a rather nice weekend though. They hadn't gotten a single call for two full days, leaving Angela with a nice chunk of time to just relax. She even took a nice, long bubble bath, something she hadn't done since college.

But Monday was here, and it was time to get back to work. She walked over to her desk and winced when she saw her phone blinking with messages.

"Yeah, that thing has definitely been ringing off the hook since about six this morning," Vivian said as she walked by her desk with a cup of coffee in hand.

"Why me? Why Mondays?"

"It's probably about the new case."

"Already?"

"At least they waited until this morning to call," Vivian said as she wandered off to her desk.

Angela sat down at her desk to listen to her voice messages. There was a message from the credit card company telling her that they were going to fax over someone's records because it was requested… blah, blah, blah. A message from the tech team about getting some computer fixed… blah. And then a message from someone in the Dallas offices asking her how her transfer was going. She deleted that message.

"Good morning."

Angela turned and was pleasantly surprised by Danny's grinning face.

"And a good morning to you. How was your weekend?"

"Much of the same," he shrugged as he sat on the corner of her desk. "Catching up on much needed sleep. What about you?"

Ever since Angela had told him her story about the Incident, she and Danny had become relatively close.

Things had been pretty awkward for the first week or so as they tried to figure out how to be friendly towards one another. At first, Angela considered the fact that he was just feeling sorry for her, but it seemed that he had just realized that she wasn't trying to take over his territory. She had learned that she could tolerate his sarcastic wit and even laugh at a few of his remarks. Once they had broken down the cold, icy barrier, Angela realized how alike they really were.

"About the same. I rented a few movies, and made some phone calls back home."

Danny raised an eyebrow at this. "To Dallas?"

"Just to my family and friends. Outside of the office."

"Ah. How are things there?"

"Not nearly as cold as it is here," Angela laughed as she looked outside to the cold, snowing weather. "I can't believe how cold it is. Dallas hasn't even iced over."

"How did a Texas girl like you get transferred to the big, scary city of New York?" he joked.

"Fate," she replied nonchalantly with a smile.

Danny snorted and stood up. "Right. Well, anyways, the new case? Jack wants us to head over to the house were the guy was taken."

"Us?"

"Yeah. No guns, I swear. But just to get you out of the office a little."

"Is this Jack's way of promoting me?" she joked as she stood and grabbed her coat.

"Maybe. You might want to take your scarf too. It's pretty cold out there."

"This is why I should have been transferred to Los Angeles. I don't like the cold," Angela said buttoning her coat as the two walked down the hall.

"But I'm glad you were transferred here instead."

The answer caught Angela off guard a little. She stopped midway through buttoning a button to look at him. He seemed to have realized his comment, and quickly changed the subject.

"Ok, this guy that's missing. His name's Aaron Class. Thirty-nine year old professor, last seen yesterday morning with his groceries. He was supposed to meet his daughter yesterday afternoon, and when he didn't show up, she got worried."

Danny continued to give her the run down of the situation on the way to the car and during their drive. Truth be told, Angela had been tuning him out since they had left the building. She was just watching him. Watching him talk. Watching his hand gestures. Watching him walk. Watching his eyes.

The forensics team was already present and they were sweeping the whole house for fingerprints and anything else that seemed out of the ordinary. A familiar face peeked out of one of the rooms.

"Hey, you guys," Martin said. He looked from Angela to Danny and tried to suppress a grin. He was absolutely thrilled that his plan for putting the two of them in the same room until one of them broke had worked. "You should come check this out."

As the two followed Martin into the room, Angela sensed Danny's hand barely touching her waist, as if he were guiding her. If it were any other man, she would have taken offense, but she simply felt so protected whenever she was around him. And she had found herself thinking about him more and more. If she didn't know any better, she would say that she actually liked Danny.

It was a tough thing to admit, but the more that she was around him, the harder it was to deny that her feelings for him were blossoming.

"We've got a pretty good lead already. Listen." Martin pressed the play button on Aaron Class's answering machine.

"Uh, hey Mr. Class. This is Harry Glover from your Epics Class, and I just had a question about the—"

There was a disturbance from the machine as if someone had tried to grab the phone away from Harry Glover.

"Hey, man, get off me! I'm just calling my professor!"

"Is that dude your advisor?" Another voice came from the machine as the phone picked up the conversation. "Huh? You telling him about what's going on? About how you're scared?"

"Lay off, man. I had a question—"

The message ended.

"Let's go check out Harry Glover," Danny said with a raised brow as he observed the answering machine, almost expecting it to give him some sort of clue.

Angela, however, was looking at the professor's bookcase. Something didn't seem right. The rest of the apartment was as neat as a pin, but there were several books on the shelf that were shelved haphazardly.

Danny seemed to notice that she was no longer paying attention to him, which apparently bothered him. "Angela?"

"Did either of you read The Grapes of Wrath?" she asked as she reached up and pulled out the book.

Martin and Danny exchanged confused looks. "In high school," Martin replied with a raised eyebrow. "Why?"

"Because." She opened the book and grinned. "The Joad family definitely didn't have this much money."

Angela turned the book so that the boys could look at it. The middle of the pages were cut out, making a large compartment within the book were a large stash of twenty dollar bills was secured.

"Wow. This is definitely not part of the professor's salary," Martin said, taking the book delicately. "Nice find."

Danny grinned at Angela, making her blush. "I always knew she was a good addition to the team."

---

Over the next few weeks, Angela visited more and more of the crime scenes with the team, and from time to time worked with forensics as a go-between. She was often sent as a messenger by one of the agents to go and check on an item in the forensics queue.

It was nice to get out of the office every once and a while, and it was even nicer that it was usually Danny who accompanied her to the site. He now acted as if there had never been any bad blood between them, and that was perfectly fine with Angela. He also never once mentioned the Incident for which she was extraordinarily grateful.

The temperature had continually dropped, and it was becoming ridiculously unbearable for Texas-geared Angela. Martin and Jack continually dropped jokes about it nearly every day as she came into the office with her long, thick black coat. She usually wore it in the office for about fifteen minutes before taking it off. And even when she did take it off, she usually kept her scarf on.

It was just way too cold.

It was late one Friday evening. Another case had been wrapped up. Another weekend was approaching. Angela had done more background checks in the past twenty-four hours than she had in the past week, and she was exhausted. They had started the case at four in the morning yesterday, and she hadn't been able to sleep at all.

"Hey."

Angela turned and nearly stumbled as she saw Danny standing behind her, his ever present grin on his face.

"Hey," she replied with a small smile. "Ready for the weekend?"

"I give it about ten hours before we get another call," he said, sitting down in the chair that she had just occupied.

"Way to be optimistic," she rolled her eyes as she searched for her keys. "I'm just ready for a nice warm dinner and a nice warmbed. But of course, there's nothing in my apartment to eat. And if I order something in, I won't be eating until one in the morning because it'll take that long for it to get there. The grocery will probably be ridiculously crowded and I just—"

"Do you want to go out to eat?"

"—don't know what I'm going to do," Angela continued. What Danny had said didn't register with her immediately. When it did, she turned sharply to look at him. "What did you say?"

"I asked if you wanted to go get something to eat with me," Danny repeated, not looking away from her. He was however fiddling with a button on his shirt and he was bouncing his foot, and from watching him over the past three months, Angela knew that he only did that when he was anxious or nervous. "Since this whole eating thing is causing a great deal of stress for you."

"Oh," she said, still shocked at his offer. And yet, she was extremely flattered. But then again, maybe he was just trying to solidify their friendship. He and Samantha went to dinner often enough. But then again, he was fiddling with his button. But then again, there was no way that Danny could possibly like Angela. But then again, he was bouncing his foot…

Finally, some rational part of her kicked in and yelled, "Stop analyzing the situation, Angela! Say yes!"

"I'd like that," she said with a smile. "That sounds good."

Danny grinned widely. "Great. You ready now?"

"Uh, yeah. I'm ready whenever you are."

"Well, let me grab my coat and I'll be ready."

And when Danny had gotten his coat, the two of them walked out of the office together. Though neither of them knew it, they both felt as if they had won the greatest victory of all time.

A/N: Yes. Yes. It's the moment you've all been waiting for. Danny and Angela are actually being… civil with each other. GASP.

Anyways, I have to thank each and every one of my reviewers! You guys have made this story phenomenal! You make me smile with each review!

Thanks so much for reading and have a GREAT rest of the week! And keep sending in those reviews!

Oh, and some of you mentioned that the chapter email hasn't been going out. And I haven't been getting the review notice email. If that happens again, let me know. I'm not sure what I'll be able to do about it, but it'd be nice to know. Have a great week!