Spoiler Alert: Spoilers for Seasons 2 & 3, up to and including "Silent Night".
A/N: As always, thanks to my reviewers and readers, both new and old! I love hearing what you like and want to see and know more about. Lindsay and Danny are together, but nothing comes easy to people with complicated lives.
Disclaimer: No infringement of copyright is intended. All characters originated with CSI:NY; all song lyrics are from The Beatles.
It's A Long Journey Home
Chapter 54: Memento Mori
But of all these friends and lovers
There is no one compares with you
And these memories lose their meaning
When I think of love as something new
Lindsay moved slowly back to the stove and poured Danny a fresh cup of coffee, fixing it the way he liked it. He breezed in through the door, arms full of split logs, which he dropped by the stove. He hung up his coat on the back of a chair, moving it close to the heat to dry off. He was grinning when he came up behind Lindsay, slipped his arms around her, and nuzzled his nose into her neck.
She squealed and pulled away. "That's cold, Danny!"
"So was sending me out there! Colder than a banker's heart out there! But at least we have enough wood for the next couple of days."
"Hmm."
"We don't?" Danny grabbed his coffee cup and took a sip, then pulled himself up to sit on the counter. "How much wood you figure we'll go through?"
"It all depends." Lindsay hobbled over to the fridge and pulled out a container of something from her mother's leftovers contributions. She didn't recognize it, but she doubted it could be bad. Diane Monroe had prepared it, after all.
"On what? Shouldn't you be sitting down, getting off that foot?"
"Stop bossing me around, Messer. I'll sit down when I'm finished. And," she moved towards him with a hint of a smile, "It depends," she stood between his knees and ran her hands up his chest, "On how hot you plan on keeping the bedroom tonight."
Danny swallowed hard, then threaded his hands through her hair and pulled her close for a kiss. He may have intended to keep it sweet, but Lindsay had different plans. She opened her mouth under his, and quickly sank his best intentions in a tidal wave of lust.
She felt a thrill of satisfaction when he slid off the counter, wrapped his arms under her hips, and pulled her up into his embrace, her feet dangling off the floor.
She felt a thrill of triumph when he turned with her in his arms and moved out of the kitchen.
She felt a thrill of chagrin when he dumped her on the couch and stood back, breathing heavily.
"Nice try, Linds. Don't move."
He turned away and picked up his coffee mug from the counter, taking a big gulp. At least, she thought with a grimace, she'd made his hands shake.
He went over to the pile of boxes he had brought in from the truck and searched through until he found one that was neither blue nor red. With a shudder, she recognized it as her case file, one she had carried around with her like a rock on her heart for thirteen years. He placed it on the coffee table in front of her, picked up her coffee cup and filled it, adding milk and sugar.
Every move was precise and controlled. He didn't look at her once. She closed her eyes, humiliated.
And then he sat down on the couch beside her, pulled her into his arms, kissed the top of her head and said, "I'll trade you."
She opened one eye and looked into his face. He looked worried and tense, the same look he'd had lingering on his face every time he'd been near her for months now, ever since she stood him up and then shut him down. She couldn't stand that she'd brought that look to his face again. Not now.
"Trade what?"
"A story for a story."
Her body relaxed against his, although she twisted slightly to look into his face a little suspiciously. "You start."
Danny didn't hesitate, "My best friend when I was seven years old was Tony Mancuso. Lived upstairs from me. Our mothers were laundry room acquaintances, ya' know?"
Lindsay nodded. She wouldn't have got that before moving to New York.
"We were in the same grade at school, and so they made us walk together, keep us out of trouble."
Something about Danny's wry tone told the rest of that story, and Lindsay laughed. "How'd that work for you?"
"Well, we usually made it to school. Eventually."
They were silent a moment, then without prompting Lindsay said, "Tricia. Tricia Collins. She was my best friend. We met in kindergarten. She lived in town, and I thought she was so cool. She had sneakers that lit up and a Barbie lunch box."
Danny began rubbing her back gently.
"She had really long hair when she was five; her mom had never cut it. My mom cut mine when I was three and kept it short until I was old enough to look after it. But Tricia was an only child, and her mother didn't work. So she was always pretty, you know? Hair French braided with ribbons every day and the most beautiful clothes. Mrs. Collins knit and sewed and dressed Tricia like a little doll."
Lindsay laughed a little shakily, "But Tricia loved horses. She came out to the ranch when she was six and tried to move in. She wanted to be a cowboy when she grew up. Wouldn't wear anything but jeans and t-shirts, made her dad buy her these cool blue cowboy boots."
She stopped, twisting her hands together. "Mrs. Collins never quite forgave me."
They were silent a moment. Then she sighed and looked at Danny. 'So what did little Danny Messer do on the New York streets?"
"Played ball." The answer was swift and complete.
Lindsay raised her eyebrows. "That it?"
"Pretty much. Tony and me, a bunch of boys from the neighbourhood. Stick ball until we got on teams, then the ballpark every day. Darryl Strawberry and Ron Darling were the only heroes we'd admit to. Batting cages until the street lights were on, pick up games that went for hours."
"Where's Tony Mancuso now?" Lindsay threaded her fingers in his.
"Dead."
She froze at the cold monosyllable.
"I'm sorry." She wanted to ask how, but his voice didn't encourage it.
"Don't be. Most of the guys I ran with are dead, locked up, or knocked up some local girl and took over their fathers' business. Only a couple of guaranteed ways off Staten Island, Linds: a paddy wagon or a box are pretty common exits."
"Or baseball?"
"That was another way." Danny blew out one hard sigh of longing for a dream as dead as the rest of his childhood, then brought Lindsay's hand to his lips.
"Grade … five. What did you want to be when you grew up?"
"A world-class barrel-racer." She giggled when he looked confused.
"Yeah, I saw the ribbons and things in your room."
"When were you in my room?" She stared at him and was surprised to see a tinge of red on his cheeks. Danny Messer? Blushing?
"Explain this to the city boy, would ya? What kind of challenge is it to race a barrel? Doesn't it just sit there?"
It took several minutes and a demonstration with the coffee cups to explain the subtle intricacies of barrel-racing to someone who had never seen a stampede, even on television.
"Not that you really understand anything by watching it on TV," Lindsay told him. "You have to be there, in the middle of it all. The crowds and the smells. The animals. I traveled every weekend: through Montana and Oregon, into Alberta and even to British Columbia a couple times. Tricia and I raced until ..." Her voice faltered, but she picked up with hardly a drop in rhythm. "Then I joined an equestrian drill team. We were an exhibition team, did most of the big stampedes in the western states and Canada."
"Okay, those I have seen. In parades and stuff, right?"
Lindsay slew him with a look. "That's like saying that you've seen New York City because you have a postcard of the Statue of Liberty."
He laughed, "Point taken."
Lindsay closed her eyes for a moment, then took a leap, "First girl you kissed."
Danny didn't answer for a minute.
Lindsay looked at him, worried that she had inadvertently brought up a bad memory for him. He was frowning slightly, running his tongue consideringly over his lip.
"Danny?" she asked, a little tentatively.
"Which one?" He asked seriously.
"What do you mean?"
"The first one I kissed like this?" His mouth caught hers softly and tenderly.
"Or the first one I kissed like this?" His voice was hoarse, and this time there was dueling tongue and quivering desire, whipping her into a frenzy without, it seemed, him even trying.
"Or the first one I kissed like this?" Somehow, he did the impossible, blending the sweetness and the desire until she was breathless and blinded.
He broke the kiss and smirked down at her. "Mary Louise Kirkpatrick, grade 2. Rosa Fiorelli, grade 8."
She elbowed him, "And the third one?"
He ran his finger over her lips, his heart in his eyes, and she cuddled back into his arms with a deep sigh of satisfaction.
"Grade 2? A bit precocious even for a city boy, weren't you?"
"She was blond and beautiful," he answered simply.
"And Rosa Fiorelli?" Lindsay deliberately rolled the 'r', trying to make the name even more exotic.
He smirked down into her face, "Well, she was hot. And she was easy – do anyone for a sip of beer."
She looked at him with a tinge of shock. "You gave her a sip of beer and she had sex with you?"
He shook his head, still smiling, but his eyes were hooded. "Gave her a whole bottle – stole it from Louie."
They sat in silence, while Lindsay tried to assimilate that information. In grade 8, she'd barely known boys existed. All her friends had been into horses. Sex had not even been a topic of giggling, speculative conversation for another two years.
"What happened to her?" she finally managed to choke out.
"No idea," Danny shrugged.
There was a ripple across the companionable peace they had shared earlier, as if a cold wind had suddenly kicked up. Lindsay felt the shiver ooze through her.
"Cameron was your first, wasn't he?" Danny's voice was quiet, contained.
She sat, frozen, at the mention of his name. Then, like a river bursting its banks, the story of that day in the Science Lab gushed out of Lindsay.
The story was fluent and clear: obviously rehearsed over and over. Lindsay had been well briefed for the court appearance that had never come, as Forbes had pleaded guilty. She had polished and honed the story in the intervening years until it flowed like water over stone.
She appreciated that Danny let her run through it with out interruption, even though he had essentially heard it all before, back in New York, when she had returned from her first aborted trip home. His arms tightened almost painfully around her when she recounted how Forbes had pointed the rifle at her and said, "Bang." She got through the whole thing without a sob, without a tear.
"Is that all you need, Detective?" She turned in Danny's arms to stare him down, her hands on his chest. She was suddenly, blindingly angry with him for forcing her to do that, to go through that again. Rage flooded though her body, filling her with an edgy need.
It was only a move of a few inches, but this time they made the move in the same breath.
Mouths melded together: heat and light fused. She could feel his hands slide under her t-shirt and sweats, seeking warm flesh. She could feel the ridge of his erection against her and pressed close until he groaned. His restless hands pushed her t-shirt up over her breasts, thumbs running over the fullness until her nipples were erect, begging for more.
He struggled off the couch, and yanked her into his arms. "Not here." He pulled her into the bedroom, restless hands stripping them both as they went. She hit the bed and he was over her, lips tracing the curve of breast, of hip, then tasting her honeyed heat, making her come so hard the scream locked in her throat.
He soothed and gentled her, whispering her name, then driving her over again with his fingers. She was sobbing now, hands fisting in the bedclothes as she came back down. He pulled the blankets over them as he kissed his way back up her body.
"Danny," she pushed so he was on his back with her draped over him, and kissed him sweetly, tasting herself on his lips. His hand tangling in her hair, he closed his eyes and took the kiss.
"Cameron was my first kiss, my first love." She whispered it as she slid over him, velvet heat sheathing him. "You are the love of my life."
He stilled under her, letting her take him in further than she could have believed possible. His breathing caught as she pushed against his hands which roamed over her body, only to come to rest on her hips, trying to coax her into a faster rhythm. She resisted him for as long as she could, reveling in the control he allowed her. Her head went back as she moaned his name.
He rolled then, capturing her under him, entwining his hands with hers, taking her lips as he moved in time to their linked heartbeats. As he emptied himself into her, he answered her, murmuring, "My love. Siete la luce della mia anima. Lindsay."
They curled up together, cocooned in the warmth they had created, emptied and filled in the same moment. He pulled her into his arms, spooned against him, lips nuzzling her neck as he drifted off.
"Damn!" thought Lindsay, trying to catch her breath, "I am going to have to buy an Italian/English dictionary!"