Thank you for all the kind reviews. Apologies for errors that may appear in my haste to get this up… I didn't like how last night's episode turned out and so I decided I'm going to ignore that it ever happened .. Anyways I hope you enjoy this 'mostly' filler before the real action begins. Enjoy!

Chapter 5

You'd be surprised at how many doors the words 'malpractice suit' can open

It didn't seem possible, not with a body like that. Not when they were married. Yet he had definitely seemed uncomfortable to her. She wasn't leaving. Giving up, Danny dragged the bath towel from the side of the stall, shutting off the water simultaneously. He quickly wrapped the towel around his middle and secured it.

'I'm being in a hurry,' he corrected, stepping out onto the mat. 'Emergency rooms are notorious for long waits. I want to get there as soon as possible. You don't want to waste the whole day sitting on an uncomfortable plastic chair, do you?

'No.' Fascinated, she watched drops of water negotiate a path down the lightly haired expanse of his chest. Several had already made it down, pooling in his navel. She felt a pleasant sensation wash over her. There was no logical reason why she suddenly felt that things were going to be all right, but she did. Raising her eyes from his waist and the towel settled snuggly along his hipline, she began to back out of the steamy enclosure.

'I guess I better get dressed,' she murmured. His clothes, she noticed, were hanging behind the door.

'Good idea.' He urged her out. 'I'll be with you in a minute.'

'Sure.' She found herself facing a closed door. There was a click on the other side, telling her that he had flipped the lock. Who would have thought that someone like Danny would be shy? Maybe they hadn't slept together before they'd gotten married, after all. And maybe the wedding night had set off fireworks for her. That would explain why she felt her body humming at the sight of his, fleeting though it had been. Her body had a memory, even if she didn't. Lindsay searched through the bureau drawers until she found one of her undergarments. Preoccupied, she got dressed. She wished that there was some instruction booklet she could turn to, something that could make this easier for her somehow. She felt as if she was groping around in the dark. Of course she had to admit, from what she'd seen groping might not be so bad. Despite the dark side of the situation she found herself in, Lindsay felt a smile creeping over her lips as she finished getting dressed. After all, things could be worse.

The emergency room waiting area of community general was crowded with people waiting to be seen by the resident on call. Though he didn't say anything, she could feel Danny's impatience as he took in the scene.

Lindsay caught Danny's arm. 'Maybe we should come back later,' she suggested.

There didn't seem to be much of a reason to wait around, anyway. She'd actually come more to see if something looked familiar to her from the other night than to be examined again. She had a sinking feeling the doctor wasn't going to be able to do anything for her.

Danny wasn't about to leave. 'Later's no good. We're here now,' he added before she could ask him why later presented a problem. Danny nodded toward one of the last available chairs. 'Sit down over there, I'll be right back.'

Leaving her, Danny crossed to the woman at the out-patient desk. From where she sat, Lindsay could see that the woman was busy with another patient. Danny leaned over the desk and whispered something into the woman's ear. The receptionist response was short and terse. The discussion ended there. Turning from the desk, Danny waved for Lindsay to join him. She crossed to him, wondering if the receptionist was going to ask her for some information she wouldn't be able to provide.

Danny took her arm and ushered her to the side. He lowered his voice. 'The doctor'll see us in a couple of minutes.'

As he said it, an orderly came out to bring them to a small room off to the side of the admission desk that was reserved for private consultations. Lindsay stared at Danny. They had just gone ahead of a roomful of people.

'What did you say to her?'

Danny ran his hand along the back of his neck. His damp hair was just beginning to dry. It curled at the nape of his neck. He wished the itchy feeling would go away, but it persisted. It probably would until this was all over, he guessed. He grinned as he spared her a glance. 'You'd be surprised at how many doors the words 'malpractice suit' can open.

Her eyes widened, 'You threatened them?'

Danny frowned. When he did, she noticed that all his charm turned into glinting steel. 'It's not a threat; it's more like thinking out loud, a definite possibility to consider. The doctor told me that you'd be fine, that you were fine. Not remembering your own name isn't fine in my book'.

The momentary anger she saw rise in his eyes held her at bay. There was an aura of danger about him she hadn't detected before. She began to suspect that Danny Messer was not a man to trifle with.

The physician on call, Dr. Mondino, a harried-looking man in his late forties, tugged at the stethoscope that was slung around his neck. It was a habitual gesture, born of frustration and a sense of impotence. He'd been unable to answer the questions posed to him to anyone's satisfaction, least of all his own. Mondino shook his head, when he looked at Lindsay; his eyes were full of genuine sympathy.

'Were stumbling around in the dark with amnesia, if you forgive the comparison.' He was relieved when Lindsay nodded. 'There's no certainty when it comes to amnesia.' He avoided looking at the man on his left. 'Its selectivity isn't something was can even explain. You could remember everything tomorrow – or not.'

Lindsay didn't like the sound of that. 'When you say 'or not', just now how long a period of time are we talking about..?'

Dr Mondino spread his hands helplessly, they weren't dealing with an exact science here. 'Any length of time.'

Lindsay could feel the air backing up in her lungs. Having Danny to occupy her mind with, she'd temporally pushed the severity of the situation aside. It glared at her now like a cold, cruel specter. She hazarded a guess. 'Like a year..?'

Mondino inclined his head. It would be cruel to let her think there was some predictable end in sight. 'Or –'

Danny jumped on the word. 'Or forever..?'

He knew before he asked what the answer would be and silently cursed it. There was no one to blame but himself, he thought. Even if he couldn't have foreseen this, he was still to blame. He should have found a way to make her stay in the hotel room. It had only been necessary for one of them to do. Damn Lindsay and her competitiveness. The question made Mondino uneasy, but he had to be honest. A doctor owed a patient that.

'Yes.' He saw the colour drain out of the woman's face. 'But the odds are against it,' Mondino added hurriedly.

'Odds I guess this is the city for it,' Danny muttered, A bitter taste rose up in his throat. He swallowed it back. Mondino brightened at what he took to be a shred of optimism.

'That it is.' He enveloped Lindsay's hand in paw-like hands that had precluded his ever picking up a surgical scalpel. They might not be skilled at surgery, but they could offer comfort. 'And your wife appears to be very healthy in all other respects.'

There was a knock on the door, cutting him short. He knew other patients were waiting to see him. Mondino leaned on the doorknob. 'I'm sure that this will eventually pass.' His eyes shifted to Danny's face. 'Just try to be reassuring and supportive. Talk about things that are familiar to her. I'm afraid that it's a wait – and – see situation.'

Danny hated playing waiting games. He'd never been very good at them; even when the stakes were high, but there was obviously nothing else he could do except wait. He stopped the doctor as he was leaving. 'Why did it happen like this? I mean, why didn't she lose her memory when she hit her head instead of this morning when she woke up?'

Mondino shook his head. 'Damned if I know.' He saw the way the man and woman exchanged glances. The answer didn't satisfy them. They weren't the only ones. 'We've made an awful lot of strides in the past few decades, but there is still a lot about the brain that is still a mystery to us.' He pulled several business cards out of his deep pockets and flipped through them until he found the one he wanted. He offered it to Danny. 'I could refer you to a neurologist here, but he'll probably tell you the same thing I did. You just have to wait.'

Danny took the card, pocketing it, he could tell by the look on Lindsay's face that she wasn't eager to see another doctor, not if it meant being told the same thing. He couldn't say that he blamed her.

Mondino crossed the threshold, and then paused, as if suddenly remembering. He hesitated. 'About that lawsuit…' There was no point in making the man twist in the wind.

'There won't be one,' Lindsay told him. Danny looked at her, surprised. Well that hadn't changed. Lindsay always liked to take charge of things. That was her problem. And right now it became his as well.

'We'll be in touch,' he told the doctor, negating her assurance. When Lindsay opened her mouth to protest he placed his arm around her and ushered her through the waiting area.

'You never know, we might need to come back here,' he whispered firmly, stilling the question on the tip of her tongue. 'This'll give us an edge, so that we don't have to wait forever.'

She supposed he knew best. Right now, he was the only one who knew anything, she thought darkly. With a sigh, she walked out through the electronic doors ahead of him. Outside she looked up at the sky, there wasn't a single cloud in sight. It was crystal clear, with a sky so blue it made her sould ache. For now, she supposed that she could be contebt just to be alive and married to a man who looked to be a twelve on anyone's one – to – ten scale. Making the best of it Lindsay surprised Danny by threading her arm through his,

'All right, now what?'

He brought her over to the car. 'Now we get back to the hotel.' Danny opened the passenger door and held it as she got in.

That didn't sound very romantic, or very interesting. She waited until Danny got in on his side and started up the car. 'Isnt there someplace else we could go?'

Danny inserted the token that the woman at the desk had given him into the slot at the gate. The striped security barrier rose to let them pass.

'Like where?'

'I don't know.' She shrugged, feeling restless. 'It seems so lovely out and I though that maybe we could go somewhere and just talk.'

He guided the car into the moderate traffic. 'We can talk at the hotel. Besies, we're meeting Richard Quinton at one. Danny glanced at the digital numbers in the dashboard. It was just past noon.

'Our breakfast benefactor,' she recalled. It wasn't difficult to remember that when there wasn't much in the way of thoughts in her mind.

Danny nodded without looking at her. 'That's the one.'

She shifted in her seat to look at him. 'I know that I'm kind of new at this, at everything, actually, but shouldn't newlyweds be alone?'

Was she going to give him trouble after all? 'This isn't the town for being alone, besides we have lots of time to be alone later.' Glancing in her direction, Danny was unable to read the look on her face. 'Anyway, the more people there are around you, the more chances that something someone says might bring back your memory, or at least jog it.'

'I suppose'

She sounded unconvinced. He didn't have the time to argue about this. Since there wasn't anything that could do about her memory, he was going to keep her in the dark for now. And hope that the light didn't come on at the wrong time. He changed the topic. 'How do you feel?'

'You mean other than the fact that my mind feels like this huge shapeless snowbank?'She shrugged thinking. 'Fine, nothing seems to hurt, even the headache's gone.'

'Good.'

They were talking like strangers. It was time they communicated more like a husband and wife. 'Listen, I've got a lot of questions-'

'Fire away.' Danny braced himself as he took a corner. Her headache might have abated, but he had a feeling that his was just beginning…

What do you guys think? Let us know by reviewing since I'm still relatively new to this fan fiction world so I would like to see how I'm going :). Things are moving along nicely now… Lets see how Danny reacts to Lindsay's 'questions' … until next time