Ch 4 Where Ever You Will Go
Disclaimer: I don't own it. I never have owned it. I never will own it. I own a cat of questionable sanity, so, if you sue me she's all you'll be getting!
And maybe, I'll find out
A way to make it back someday
To watch you, to guide you
Through the darkest of your days
If a great wave shall fall and fall upon us all
Then I hope there's someone out there
Who can bring me back to you
-The Calling "Where Ever You Will Go"
"Lindsay, we really need to talk about this," Danny had finally cornered her in the locker room at the end of shift.
"I know we do Danny, I know, It's just that..." she trailed off, not really sure what to say.
"I never thought we'd be having this conversation either," he admitted with an inner twinge of pain, knowing that it was because of him and his selfish actions that this was happening in the first place.
"But we are," her voice was cool and professional.
"So how about we meet at my place in say," he consulted his watch, "two hours?"
His place? How could he possibly expect me to go over there now?
"Actually, I think it would be better if we met at my place," she countered hoping he would know why she couldn't be in his apartment right now.
"Yeah, okay. If that's the only way I can get you to talk to me, then I'll meet you at your place in a couple of hours. That sound okay?"
"I'll see you about seven o'clock then," she said with a polite smile and walked off, intent on being able to get home in enough time to gather her thoughts in peace before Danny arrived. It had been over a week since he had admitted his infidelity, and she had spent a lot of that time really thinking about what she wanted to do now. If she had done half as much thinking as she suspected she had, her phone bill would reflect that.
'Thank god for Penny,' she thought as she passed up the chance to be packed in a subway car like a sardine, in favor of hailing a cab. The two women had, sometimes, spent hours on the phone working out different scenarios and weighing the pros and cons of Lindsay trying to salvage, at least, their friendship versus them just being co-workers. She remembered Penny had laughed at how her organized nature came out, even in matters of the heart, she hoped that her organization would pay off tonight and things wouldn't end up a total disaster between them.
"Meet at my place," Danny muttered in a self deprecating tone. At the time, he'd been so desperate to talk to her about their situation, that he hadn't even given a seconds rumination to the fact that she probably didn't want to be in his place right now.
She probably wants to be as far away from here as possible now. As far away from me as possible, he thought looking around his apartment. As he walked into his bedroom to change, his eyes fell on the bed.
"Of course she'd rather meet at her place. I didn't betray her trust and sleep with another woman in her bed," he trailed off his musings, wondering if he should get rid of that bed or just move.
Like that's gonna work Messer. Sure, you can get rid of the bed, burn the sheets and, move to Queens; but you'll still be the man that broke her heart.
"Nothing can ever change the fact that I made her cry," he somberly reminded himself as he grabbed his jacket again and hurried out the door to catch a cab to her place. Tonight would be a make it or break it moment in their relationship. He just prayed to whatever god was out there, that he hadn't fucked things up so bad that they were permanently broken.
The doorbell rang, causing Lindsay to practically jump out of her skin. As she checked herself over once more in the full length mirror that hung on her closet door she muttered to herself, "I don't want to look good for him, I just want to make sure I don't look like total shit," and she didn't. "Okay, here it goes," she took a deep breath and hurried to the door as the bell rang again.
"Hey," Lindsay said, uncharacteristically shy for her, as she opened the door for him.
"Hey," he replied in kind, accepting her silent invitation and stepping over the threshold. Following her into the small living room, his mind was suddenly flooded with images of the last time he had been here. God, he hoped tonight would end differently than that had. If she told him wearing a grass skirt and coconut bra to work for a week would make everything better, he'd do it, Flack and Hawkes be damned!
"You want something to drink," her sweet voice broke him out of his reverie. God how he loved that voice. That voice, sometimes soft and sweet, other times firm and serious. He loved hearing that voice first thing in the morning, still a bit hoarse from screaming and moaning his name the night before. He swore if he had the chance to hear that voice again, he would do whatever it took. He would always do whatever it took to make Lindsay feel happy, loved and protected. He just hoped she'd afford him another chance to correct his horrendous mistake.
"Uh, yeah, whatever you have will be fine."
Relieved that he'd accepted her offer of a drink, and left it up to her what to bring him, Lindsay nodded her understanding and quickly retreated in the kitchen where she took her time getting the drinks to collect her thoughts and try to remember the advice Penny had given her not an hour earlier.
"Alright twitch, when is he coming over," Penny asked, using the nick name she'd given Lindsay their freshman year, given her tendency for always moving.
"Gosh, I haven't heard that name in ages," Lindsay laughed lightly before getting back to the original point of the conversation, "he's supposed to be here in about forty-five minutes or so...as long as he doesn't blow me off to go play with Rikki," she muttered.
"Now, why in the world would he do that? He knows you want to talk about the state of your relationship and that's the point of this whole meeting. Besides, didn't you tell me he said she was moving," she queried as she slipped on a pair of leopard print pumps in preparation for her second date with Jacob.
"Yeah, he told me she was moving out of state, but he's lied to me before, when he was having the affair. Told me he had to go to the bank, dry cleaners, and get his bike fixed at the shop. She was there when he told me all that. He told me all that and then hung up and had another round of sex with her. When I confronted him about pushing me away, he tried to relegate me to some clingy needy girlfriend who was making a big deal out of nothing," she sighed, grabbing a container of Cherry Garcia ice cream out of the fridge and began to indulge in comfort eating. She'd been doing that a lot lately.
"And how did you respond to that," Penny easily slipped into counselor mode now. Heaven knows she'd seen more than her fair share of them, since she watched her grandmother fight, and ultimately lose, her twenty year battle with Huntington's Disease; when Penny was only 11 years old.
Lindsay thought about her answer for a moment, "I just shrugged and said okay. I'm not quiet sure what to say to that in this type of situation Penny. I've never been in a relationship like this before. I'm so used to keeping my guard up around people that, when I let it down for Danny and allowed myself to trust him, I guess I just shut down emotionally when he tossed me aside in favor of being with her."
"Let me ask you something here. I think I already know the answer, but I need to hear you say it to be sure I'm thinking along the right lines of what issues are causing you a problem. When Danny stopped talking to you, just to talk; stopped asking you to do things when you both weren't working, stopped asking you to stay over night at his place and him staying over night at your place, Started ignoring your phone calls and basically stopped acknowledging you at, and outside of work unless it was work related, how did that make you feel," Penny quickly sent Jacob an email to his Blackberry informing him that she was helping a dear friend through a relationship crisis and she might be running a bit late.
"It made me feel like total crap Penny! I felt like he'd abandoned me for something better with Rikki. I felt just like I did back in high school when no one would talk to me or try and be my friend because I was that weird kid from the diner. I felt like there was something wrong with me. I'm not good enough for him, or he was expecting something more than what he got when he started dating me," Lindsay swiped a tear from her cheek, not wanting to look like she'd been crying when Danny arrived.
"Then tell him."
"Excuse me? Tell him? Tell him what exactly? Tell him that he's made me cry myself to sleep more in the past six months, than I have since I left everything I've ever known back in Montana for my dream career? Am I supposed to tell him that I feel like he doesn't care about me as much as he says he does? Are you saying that I should tell him that when it comes to the priorities in his life it seems like I'm last on his list? That I used to feel like I mattered to him, but then Ruben died and suddenly Rikki is the one that matters and I'm left out in the cold, feeling like what we had wasn't even important enough for him to break things off with me before he jumped into bed with her," Lindsay finally stopped talking as she afforded herself permission to let all the emotions she'd just been through come out in the form of quiet weeping.
Penny had never met this Danny jerk, but already she hated him. Lindsay had been through so much in her life and now here this guy was; the guy who flew half way across the country just to be with the Montana native when she needed someone, breaking her heart all because he couldn't, or wouldn't, break things off with Lindsay before taking an other woman intimately to his bed; because it made them both feel good.
"See, all that there that you just told me, you need to say it to him too. Now, I know, I know you have worked so unbelievably hard for half of your fucking life to work through your trust and abandonment issues, but babe, I hate to break it to you that you're going to have to work through all those issues again."
"I knew I should never have trusted him with my heart. The techs in the lab all said he had a reputation for not being the commitment type, and letting him get too close, would only result in me getting hurt. Did I listen to them? No. I listened to my heart and now he's gone and broken it," while she had spent a lot of time being angry these past ten days, her emotional barometer had randomly switched from an angry reading, to ones of loneliness, loss, sadness, numbness, and at times, devastation.
"Lin, the only way he is ever going to really understand the gravity of what he did to you emotionally, is if you tell him. You need to tell him how what he did; the lies, ignoring you, forgetting your birthday, the arrogance which he used to defend his actions and try to make you the bad guy, his professed love on the heels of telling you he's cheated on you; how it made you feel. I mean how it really made you feel. He hasn't sugar coated anything for you, so don't do it for him."
"What if telling him how much he hurt me only makes things worse? What if he decides that he doesn't even want to try and work on this because of all the hurt? What if he does want to work it out, but I can't ever trust him again," she rattled off her worst fears, as if she were gearing up for a Presidential debate.
"Okay, first off, you need to stop talking and breathe! Now, all those things are possible, but if he really, truly cares about you, then he'll understand what emotional place you're coming from and he'll understand. After all, he does understand that the two of you wouldn't even be in this situation if he had been using the big brain in the first place, right," the other woman quipped sarcastically as she sat her purse and jacket by the door.
"He knows he's the cause of all this turmoil, but I wouldn't go and say he was using his other head, he was just upset over Ruben, and the guilt got the best of him, I guess," for some reason, she felt a need to defend what he'd done as an act that wasn't as unthinking as Penny made it sound.
"Don't rationalize sweetie. He cheated on you. The reason he did it is a moot point. The fact is, he did it, and now you have to figure out how to heal. You're a fantastic woman, Lindsay. Don't let those old trust and abandonment issues slither back in and take control of your head and your heart. Okay," Penny finished what she needed to say and she knew that Lindsay needed to get herself prepared for the talk.
"Okay, I'll keep an open mind tonight and not make any major decisions about us until I've had time to really think it over."
"And?"
"And I'll be completely honest about my feelings, and ask all the questions I need to ask to be able to move on, no matter how much the answers might hurt."
"That's my girl! Okay, sweetie, I have to go meet Jacob for dinner, and you need to give yourself a few minutes to relax before Danny gets there."
"Okay, thanks again Pen. You really are a life saver, you know that?"
"I know. That is why my friendship services are in such high demand," she joked lightly, causing Lindsay to laugh.
"Good night Penny. Have fun with Jacob!"
"'Night Lin. Good luck with Danny tonight, and remember what we talked about. Infidelity in a relationship is a big deal, so don't expect any miracles over night. Getting through this kind of thing takes a lot of time, work, patience, and it will have it's ups and downs."
Realizing just how long she'd been in her reverie, Lindsay quickly hurried back into the living room with two glasses of Cream Soda.
"I'm sorry that took so long," she apologized as she sat his glass on the coaster in front of him, and then retreated to the recliner across the room and made herself as comfortable as one could, amidst such an uncomfortable situation. The two remained silent, sipping their drinks and avoiding eye contact with each other, until Lindsay spoke up.
"Danny, why are you here?"
The slight edge to her voice made him more nervous than he already was. She was still feeling the hurt and betrayal of what he had done, and her voice carried that message to him loud and clear. He'd fucked up big time, and for the first time, he had no clue how to fix it. In the past, if he hurt a woman he was seeing, it was no big deal, he'd just cut ties with her and go on with his life while he waited for the next woman to come around. Lindsay was different though. He didn't want to cut ties with her. He loved her. He wanted her to know he loved her. He wanted her to know how sorry he was. He wanted her to forgive him. And maybe, just maybe, one day he would want to tie the knot with her.
"I know I've messed up, and I want to fix that. I want us, to start being us again," he admitted, hoping that she wanted the same things.
Sighing deeply, she looked up to the ceiling, before meeting his eyes and speaking, "Yeah, you have messed up, Danny. Messed up doesn't even begin to cover what you've done, and you think you can fix it? You treated me like shit because you felt like shit, and now that Rikki made you feel better, you want to fix it, so we can be an 'us' again?! Is that what you said? Did I hear that right?"
"I know I hurt you and I'm sorry Lindsay. God, I'm so damn sorry! If I could take it back I would, but I can't," he answered her, tears catching in his throat. Now, he knew he really hurt her. Hell, he'd known he hurt her when he was doing it, but it was only now, hearing her state that he made her feel like shit because he felt like it, did the weight of his responsibility for their current situation really hit him.
"You know you hurt me? Do you Danny? Do you really know how much you hurt me; what I've been going through for the past four months trying to give you your space, but be available for you to come to me? Do you have any idea how much it hurt when Flack told me that Rikki had stolen your gun, and instead of calling it in, you ignored my phone calls and went to find her? And then the icing on the cake was when he told me he'd found you right when you found her! You didn't take her to the station right away; no, you took her to get her calmed down first. An hour Danny. There was an hour in between the time you took her out of the alley and turned her in at the precinct. Do you have any idea what you could have done in an hour? Plenty! Hell, thinking of all the things we've been able to squeeze into an hour sickens me when I think that you could have been doing those things with her during that time," she finished, suddenly resigned to hearing him confirm her worst fears about that day.
"We didn't do anything. I took her home, made her a cup of tea and then brought her into the station. Jess took her back to be booked, and I went to a bar and got plowed, end of story."
"I don't believe you," she stated boldly, hoping Penny's advice to just lay it all out was the right thing to do.
"Don't believe me? What the hell do you want me to tell you Linds? Do you want me to tell you I took her back to my place ripped off her clothes and fucked her against the wall? Is that it, huh?"
"Danny...I just...I...I...I just want you to be completely honest with me and I don't feel like I'm getting that from you."
"You think I'm lying now? All the sudden, I'm the kind of guy that would lie to you? Hell, since I met you, all I've ever done is be honest with you and exercised extreme patience while you worked out your issues, and now you think I'm lying to you about something this important?"
Lindsay had had it. He actually expected to come in here, apologize for what he did, and for her to forgive him, no questions asked. That was not something she could do. Getting up and pacing agitatedly, she spoke, "you know what? You're right. How could I possibly think you're lying to me now? I mean, you've been so damn honest with me through this whole thing Messer! Hell, not being able to meet me for lunch because you had to go to the bank, the dry cleaners, and take your bike to the shop were all legitimate reasons. Only problem is, I didn't consider you were getting your bike tuned up in her garage. My bad."
Danny just stared. He'd really hurt her, and right now, that hurt was manifesting itself as anger and sarcasm. As much as she tried to make her self blame sound sarcastic, Danny knew better. He knew she had a habit of taking responsibility for things that really weren't her fault.
Just like me.
Realizing that they were going to have to work from where they were at right now, Danny sighed and began to speak, "Linds, listen," he started before she abruptly cut him off.
"No Danny! You listen! I've heard everything you've said loud and clear and now it's time for you to hear me out," forget frustrated, Lindsay was down right pissed off now, and Danny sure as hell was going to hear about it. "Every time you've ignored a phone call from me; every time you pass me in the hallway without so much as a wave; every time you rush into, or out of, work early enough or late enough to not risk seeing me, you send a very clear message to me! You let me know, every time you do those things that I don't mean a damn thing to you! It was all just a game to you! As long as you were feeling good and making your pain go away; you didn't give a crap about my pain!" Lindsay had finally run out of steam, and in spite of herself, she felt the torrent of tears cascade down her cheeks, as the months of pain, frustration and rejection made themselves known to Danny in words and actions.
Shocked by her outburst, Danny sat, dumbstruck. He'd seen Lindsay angry before, but never had he seen her angry enough to cry, and knowing the tears were because of him was almost too much for him to take.
'Way to go Messer, you selfish ass! You've managed to get so wrapped up in your own misplaced guilt and anger, that you effectively convinced her she doesn't matter worth a lick to you! Good luck fixing this one Danny boy,' the voice in his head that always told him how much he'd fucked up, crowed loudly as he watched Lindsay sit back in the chair, face buried in her hands as she tried desperately to reign her emotions back in.
"Lindsay," he started, moving to kneel in front of her, "you do matter to me. You matter a lot to me, I'm just sorry it took me screwing things up this badly and making you cry to realize it," his voice choked with emotion as he gingerly placed his hands on her knees to test her reaction.
"I wish I could believe that, Danny. I really do," she sniffled, wiping the dampness off her cheeks, as broken-hearted whiskey eyes met sorrowful cerulean ones.
"But you don't."
"No," she shook her head sadly, "I'm sorry."
It was a feeling of loss for the both of them. She wanted to believe Danny. She wanted to let him love her; as much as he wanted to do so, but she just couldn't. Not now. Maybe not ever again.
"Now what?"
"Let me go. Just...let me go, Danny."
"Lindsay. Montana," he started, but no other words followed. He knew that, right now, there wasn't anything he could say to fix this.
"Danny," she whispered on a quiet sob, as she got up and headed towards the door, him following, trying to keep his own set of tears at bay.
Walking to the door, they both felt it. No longer were they the Messer and Montana they used to be. Now, they were just Danny and Lindsay. It was as simple and complicated as that.
"Goodbye Danny," she felt her heart shatter even more, with the utterance of those two words. So simple, yet so powerful and final in nature.
"Goodbye Lindsay," he whispered in kind as a few tears slipped silently, down his cheeks. Caressing her cheek one final time, Danny turned and headed for the stairs.
Watching until he was out of sight, Lindsay remembered her words of a couple weeks prior: "I'm mad at myself because I've fallen in love with you, and now, I have to figure out...how to let that go."
"I'll never let that go," she whispered, closing the front door and sliding down the dark wood , dissolving into tears.
One day, maybe one day they could work their way back together. Back to being a team. Back to being a couple. But right now, as Lindsay opened the door to let Danny out, they were just two people, fighting against the rough currents of the river infidelity, trying to make it to the shore.
A/N: I am a D/L shipper; I swear! Please don't shoot me!