A/N: I was wondering the other day… if we, the viewers, have noticed the subtle changes in Danny's attitude since he fell for his Montana… what does someone closer to him, like Flack, has noticed?

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DANNY / LOVE AFTER LOVE

I grew strong there, where I never saw, no one can tell me who I am…

Oh, I know you're a strong one, Danno. In every sense of the word. You've spent half your life fighting and there's still plenty of that to spread around, if need be.

It couldn't have been easy growing up the way you did, always trying to prove something, and always having to stay one step ahead in order to survive. Some last names force a man to always achieve to be bigger than them, I know that. Especially when there's an older sibling whose footsteps seem to big for you to fill… or for you to want to follow them. That's just two of the many things we have in common.

You almost managed to get out. Almost. I wonder what the hell were you thinking when you got into that bar fight that cost you your future. Truth to be told, I don't think you were thinking at all, not when you knew your hands were your ticket out of Staten Island, out of the mob, out of the streets. Had it been me, I'd probably have spent my nights hitting the books to try to get out of there even faster. But, then again, I'd have also tried to beat the living crap out of the bozo who messed with my family, as well.

After you joined the force, we sort of drifted towards each other. It seemed only natural, as you were trying to prove you were nothing like your old man and I was busting my ass to prove I was exactly like mine, only better. The other guys made fun of us when we were by ourselves, but once we began hanging out… they thought about it better and life was a lot easier.

My old man almost had a seizure when he found out. I'm guessing yours wasn't that pleased, either. But we told them both to leave us the hell alone, perhaps in less diplomatic words than that and it worked. We started to hang out after work, on weekends, and soon it was a given that to find one of us you just had to find the other one.

That's when the scoring game began. It was mindless, stupid fun, but hell, we were just twenty-two and we didn't know better. Or perhaps we did, but we refused to acknowledge it. Either way, the number of notches in our bedposts grew, as did our fame for being a couple of players. We never meant for things to get serious, and we could always rely on the other one to help us out if things got too hot to handle.

Remember Marissa? Looking back, we should have been ashamed of ourselves. But back then, it seemed only fair. She thought it would be fun to play with both of us, and we thought it would be fun to see her try. So she went out with you on Friday, went out with me on Saturdays and we spent Sundays comparing notes. She told you she was an only child, she told me she had two sisters; and we switched information back and forth until the poor woman didn't know up from down. If she had kept her facts straight, or if she had told us the truth, perhaps we wouldn't have been so mean about it. I still can see her face when we both showed up at her doorstep, claiming that she had agreed to go with both of us on the same night, and pushing until she broke down and 'fessed up. We left her there, crying after making an utter fool of herself, and went to Sullivan's for a beer and an easy pick-up. Not one of our finest moments.

Then there was Sherrie, the one that got away because she refused to play our game. And Lorraine… the only woman we actually fought for. We learned a couple of things after that: we never went after the same woman again, and I never sought actively to get in on your bad side. You pack one mean punch, Messer, and if that's your hand with lessened strength, I sure wouldn't have wanted to be on the receiving end of it when it was at its prime.

When we reached 30 we took a long hard look at our lives. Serial dating wasn't so appealing anymore, no matter how much you denied wanting to fall in love and settle down. You were still doing the "love 'em and leave 'em" routine when things began to become too serious and I… I was starting to want things to get serious, but falling time and time again for your female equivalents. There were times when I was tempted to go back to our "trading" days, so you could fool around without breaking any hearts and I might get a chance of actually falling in love instead of lust for a change.

I thought we'd hit our 35th anniversary exactly the same way, but then something happened. Montana happened. I'd never seen you fall so hard and so deep and I envied you all the time I was making fun of you. Danny Messer, Casanova extraordinaire, had been caught by a cowgirl, and all she had to do was demand you to make tracks and eat deep fried tarantulas.

And I'm happy for you both. It couldn't have been easy, with all that shit from her past she had to deal with. When I heard you had flown to Montana (the state, not the girl, you'd flown to her a long time before that) just to be with her in her moment of greatest need, I knew your player days were over. And I felt happy, envious, but happy.

You're a good man, Messer, and you deserve all the happiness this crappy world we live in can dish out your way. I know you're in for the long run, and I'll probably won't make too much fuss when you finally ask me to be your best man before accepting to do it. On those dead minutes to kill in between writing up our cases paperwork I've started to work on my speech for the reception.

Don't worry, I won't mention all of the girls in your past… only those I'll know will make you squirm in your seat, under your tux bowtie, and that will give Montana hours of sadistic fun asking you about them when you start to give her any sort of grief. Not that she needs it, though. She's quite capable of roping you in, one hand tied behind her back.

Have you ever asked her if there's a friend of hers who might be interested in relocating to New York?

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"El amor después del amor" by Fito Paez seemed like a good choice for Mr. Messer, as it seems that he's found love after all those years of pretending to be in love…