Spoiler Alert: Spoilers for Seasons 2 & 3, up to and including "Silent Night".

A/N: Thanks to all reviewers (yay for the alerts finally being up again!): I promise if you review, I respond! Thanks to those who are following the story, too; I hope you are enjoying it.

Disclaimer: No infringement of copyright is intended. All characters originated with CSI:NY; all song lyrics are from The Beatles.

Chapter 4: Lost Time

We have lost the time that was so hard to find,

And I will lose my mind,

If you won't see me, you won't see me.

Danny went to his office to try and work on the case Mac had reluctantly assigned him when he refused to go home. Even Mac's fiercest glare had done no more than dent his protective shell this time. Frankly, Danny didn't care what Mac thought about him or his work today. There was no frigging way he was going back to sit in his apartment and wait for someone to let him know what was going on with Lindsay.

Of course, his office was a crappy place to be if he was trying to avoid thinking about Lindsay. Everything about the room reminded him of her: the faint smell of her shampoo and hand cream in the air, the obsessively neat desk, the computer screen saver of a skier flying through the air in the Bridger Range. When he had noticed it the first time, he had asked with a smirk if she was the skier; her blush and nod had shut him up pretty fast.

Attached to her computer was a little Christmas ornament of Tony the Tiger on skis he had found for her first Christmas, a sort of apology for being a smart-ass.

He slouched down in his chair and put his head back, closing his eyes. It was just for a minute, not so much to avoid the work as to avoid seeing Lindsay everywhere he looked. The pain meds were definitely not doing the job; he felt as if he was floating in a river, chained to a concrete block of pain holding him in place. He could feel himself drifting off.

He saw Lindsay in front of him. She was smiling, that Big Sky Country smile that lit up a room, and walking towards him with a spring in her step he hadn't seen in months. He could feel the grin on his face growing as she moved over him and touched her lips to his. He could feel the warmth and sweetness of that kiss even when he woke up awkwardly hunched in his office chair, chilled and shaking.

He stood up and walked out of the office, still trembling a little. It had felt so real that he could swear Lindsay's scent was even stronger on the air than it had been when he had first walked into the office. He poured himself a cup of coffee in the break room and wandered back through the lab, sipping it in mild distaste – whoever had made the last pot hadn't rinsed out the machine first, so it was strong and grainy. Still, it was something to do with his hands, drinking coffee, seeing as he didn't smoke any more.

He was a few feet from the door when he heard his cell phone go off. It was sitting on his desk where he had dropped it. He instinctively started to run when he heard the ring tone, but stopped dead at the door, staring at his phone in shock. It was playing Shania Twain's "That Don't Impress Me Much", and the only person with that ring tone was Lindsay. She had programmed his phone with it as a joke months ago, after he had been particularly annoying (and right) one day. He had never changed it.

Stella heard it too, from down the hall. She had stolen Danny's phone in the first place to help Lindsay set him up, so she knew as well as he did who that was. She crashed into Danny still standing at the door, "Danny! Answer the phone. Dammit, that could only be Lindsay, couldn't it?"

She pushed past him and grabbed the phone just as it went dead. Danny was staring at her, so white she was surprised he hadn't passed out. She shoved him into Lindsay's chair, then yelled for Mac as she pushed Redial on Danny's phone. "Mac," she snapped when he came running as well, "Lindsay just called Danny's phone. Let Flack know, and Hawkes. Lindsay? Lindsay? Is that you?"

Stella dropped into Danny's chair in relief as she heard Lindsay's voice. "Where the hell are you? What happened? Are you all right? Jesus Christ, Lindsay Monroe, you scared the living crap out of us." She took a breath, and gave Lindsay a chance to answer at least some of the questions. "Okay, what are you doing now? No, Lindsay, come back here. Yes, get on the plane – we'll come pick you up. In four hours. We'll be there. Lindsay? Don't do this to us again, okay? Okay. We'll see you in four hours at the airport. Four hours, Lindsay. It's okay, honey."

Stella looked up at Mac, her eyes full of tears. "She's in Denver."

"As in Colorado? What the hell is she doing in Denver?" Mac's voice started quiet, but snapped at the end like a whip.

"She wasn't on the direct flight – and hers had a stop over. She got off the plane, and didn't get back on for Montana. She wasn't on the plane that went down. Danny, did you hear? She was never on that plane." Stella spoke slowly to Danny, who was still staring at her as if he couldn't understand anything she said.

"She was sitting in the bar, trying to decide what to do, and saw the report of the plane crash on the TV." Stella took a deep breath. "She was crying." All Lindsay could say at first was Danny's name, but Stella didn't think he could handle knowing that.

Danny closed his eyes, then stood up suddenly, shooting the chair back and walking out of the room, banging into Flack as he did.

Stella stood up and said to Flack, "She's okay. She wasn't on the plane. She's coming back." Now everything hit and Stella began to shake. Without thinking, Flack put an arm around her and eased her back into the chair, before crouching down beside her and rubbing her back a little helplessly while she cried. Mac walked out to the break room and came back with a glass of water.

"Sorry, sorry, guys," Stella was gasping and trying to apologize in the same breath. "I'm okay. It's just the sound of her voice. I wasn't sure it was her at first." She sipped the water until her own voice was under her control again.

"What now?" Flack looked at Mac. "You said she's coming back? Where is she?"

"Denver. It'll take about four hours; Stella said we'd pick her up, but we can't all go. Maybe just Stella and you should go," Mac said a little uncertainly. This wasn't what he was good at – these emotional twists just confused him. He glanced at Stella, hoping she would correct any mistakes he made.

Hawkes hit the door at a run at that moment, "Danny says Lindsay called?" He looked from one person to another, trying to gauge the temper in the room.

Stella stood up, decision made. "Shel, would you take Danny to the airport? Lindsay will be coming back in about four hours. She got off her plane when it stopped over in Denver. I hope I convinced her to get on the plane to come back, but they were calling it when she was on the phone. She might have missed it."

Unspoken was the question of how Danny would handle Lindsay not being on the plane. Stella thought Hawkes was the best person to deal with him; she knew Danny and Shel were friends, and Shel was not as volatile as Flack.

"Where's Danny? Didn't he talk to her?" Flack questioned her.

She shook her head, "He couldn't even answer the phone. He walked out."

"He was in the locker room when he told me Lindsay had called." Hawkes volunteered.

Flack sighed. "I'll see if I can find him."

Turned out finding him wasn't hard. He was sitting on a bench in front of Lindsay's locker, staring blankly into space. He was running a bottle of shampoo back and forth in his hands. Flack sat down beside him and said, "Hey, Danny. What's up?"

"I dreamed about her," Danny said abruptly.

"Huh?"

"Just before she phoned. I fell asleep, and she walked into the room and kissed me. She was smiling. When I woke up, I could still smell her. I could feel her, Flack."

"Okay, so that's weird," Flack said cautiously. He wasn't actually sure what Danny wanted him to say here.

"No, you see, it wasn't weird. It was normal – real. The dream was real. Then the phone rang, and it wasn't real any more. I thought that was the dream. I couldn't answer the phone, Don. What if it had been my only chance to talk to her, and I hadn't answered the fucking phone?" Danny was shaking again.

Don put a hand on his back. "Danny, you've had a rough night. Don't beat yourself up about this, okay? You are going to have lots more chances to screw things up. This one time, give yourself a break. Stella was there, and she took care of it. She talked Lindsay into getting on the next flight from Denver to New York. She'll be here in about four hours. Mac wants you and Hawkes to go. That work for you?"

He patted Danny on the back when the other man nodded. "It's all going to be okay, Danny. You'll work things out."

He just hoped he was right.