hey guys !
thanks for all of the amazing reviews, it really makes my day, like seriously.
before you read the next chapter, i have an idea to run by you all, let me know what you think.
i thought i would start making the chapters a once a week type thing, like once every wednesday, in place of the CSI we're missing out on. im not guaranteeing they'll be out at 9 every night, but every wednesday for sure. i thought it would be a cool idea, but if youre not too hep on waiting 7 days, that's okay too, haha. if i did it, i might even be all cute and add previews for next week, hahah.

anyway, here's the next chapter, and let me know what you think about the idea.

enjoy (:

--mtc.

Chapter 15

When Lindsay awoke, she had expected a lot of things.

She had expected to be surrounded by dozens of other people, her privacy being invaded by their chatter and simply their mere existence. She expected to be cold, seeing as the blankets in the hospitals were never warm enough, having the consistency of tissue paper. She expected to glance over at the bed that was pressed up against hers, the one that Danny had inhabited for the past week, sheets rumpled, him sitting atop them with two coffees in hand, smiling down at her slumbering figure. She had expected them to take their coffees with them and make their way to their daughter's room together, awaiting test results and holding her hand as she endured the grueling physical therapy sessions. She had expected grotesque hospital food for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and then sleeping atop the same makeshift bed she had woken up in, the routine beginning once again, on repeat like the previous days had seemed to be. But never in her wildest dreams had she expected to wake up in her own bed, Danny's muscular arms wrapped tightly around her, his shallow breathing warm on her back, lying ever so peacefully in the comfort of her own home. She didn't dare move for fear of disturbing his sleep, it was just too perfect a moment to ruin. Instead, she closed her eyes and drank in everything around her; the scent of his cologne, the softness of his flesh against hers, the way he held her ever so gently. She smiled as she let herself fade back into him, needing to be absolutely nowhere else in the world.

The sereneness of the moment was interrupted by the familiar pitter patter of little feet making their way towards her bedroom door. She jumped up from the bed, startling Danny as she ran towards the door, attempting to stop her daughter before she walked in on her mother and her best friend lying in bed together. Wouldn't that be a hard one to talk her way out of? She quietly snuck out her door, closing it behind her to block out anything her little girl might notice.

"Mommy, why are you still in your pajamas, you have to go to work!" the little girl questioned with a very determined look on her face. As Lindsay began to focus a little bit more, she noticed that her daughter was already fully dressed, the smell of toothpaste lingering on her lips, her backpack in tow, all ready to head out.

"Baby, did you get ready all by yourself?" she asked with a yawn.

"Yeah, we have to go, I have school and you have work, let's get a move on!" she insisted as she began to drag her mother to the kitchen. "I already made you breakfast, so you don't even have to waste any more time," she said gesturing at the bowl of Fruity Pebbles that were growing soggy sitting in the milk. "Well, go on, eat it." Lindsay stifled a laugh as she stared at her daughter, arms folded across her chest, foot tapping impatiently.

"Bailey, sweetie, mommy took the day off so she could stay home and take care of you. You're not going to school today baby. You just got out of the hospital. You can go back to sleep."

Bailey's face dropped at this news. She wasn't expecting a flaw in her plan so soon.

"Why can't I go to school? My head feels fine, I'm not in the hopstickle anymore, I wanna see my friends!" the little girl said in defense, tears brimming in her blue eyes.

Lindsay tried to hide her laughter at the way her daughter still mispronounced some of her words, and pulled her into a hug, trying to comfort her. "Baby, I know you want to see your friends and go back to school, but you were in a big accident, you have to take it easy for a little while. You'll be back in school in no time, I promise."

"But I have been taking it easy, I was in that stupid bed for five whole days!" she replied.

"I know, but that was because the doctors had to make sure everything was okay. Now that the doctors are gone, that's mommy's job. I don't want you to get hurt again."

"And neither do I." Both girls turned around to see a very sleepy looking Danny standing behind them, a sigh of relief washing over Lindsay as she noted that he had put a shirt back on.

"Danny!" Bailey exclaimed, running over to him and wrapping her arms around his legs in a tight hug.

"Mornin' kiddo. Did you sleep well?"

"Yeah, it was way more comfortable than those stupid hopstickle beds," she responded, earning a chuckle from Danny.

"Well that's good," he replied as he got down on his knees so that he was now eye level with his little girl. "Listen kiddo, I know you wanna go to school today, but you just got out of the hospital, and your head is still a little hurt, so the doctors put me and your mommy in charge of keepin' an eye on your boo boo until it goes away. So if you can tough it out for a few more days, I bet it would make your mommy real happy."

Bailey glanced back at Lindsay and then back to Danny.

"Okay, I guess," she said sadly. "But I don't wanna stay at home for a whole week. Can't I go to work with you guys?"

"Bay, I already told you, I took off so we could stay home," Lindsay said.

"Come on Linds, what could it hurt? I'm sure Mac could use the extra hand anyway," Danny asked her.

Sighing, Lindsay gave in. She couldn't help it. When it came to those blue eyes and that Messer grin, she couldn't win.

"Alright, alright, I quit, you guys win," she said as she jokingly threw her hands up, surrendering.

"Yay!" Bailey shouted excitedly as she gave her mom a hug. "Thank you mommy, I promise I'll be a good girl."

"I don't doubt it baby. Now why don't you go watch some tv while me and your dadd--Danny, go get ready?"

She watched their daughter skip over to the living room as she turned to Danny, a smile spreading on his face.

"Boo boo? Hopstickle?" she laughed as he pulled her into a hug.

"Hey, it worked, didn't it? Go get dressed, we've got a lot of work to do today. Mac's probably gonna be ridin' out asses for not being in all week," he told her, giving her a playful shove towards her bedroom. He watched her walk down the long hallway in his t-shirt and a pair of shorts, her hair still rumpled from her sleep. She was beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. And she was his. He wasn't going to let her get away this time.

"So what are we watchin' kiddo?" he asked, settling into a seat next to Bailey on the couch.

"Spongebob. It's the only thing on," she replied with a sigh as the characters on tv seemed to bore her. "Did you sleep over last night or somethin'?"

The question shocked Danny. He had forgotten that she didn't know. "Yeah I did kiddo. I told you I'd be here til you kicked me out, didn't I?"

She smiled up at him with her four year old charm and then returned her attention to the cartoons on the television.

Eventually, Lindsay returned, showered and ready to go, leaving the bathroom open to Danny, who got ready as quickly as possible so they wouldn't be late to their first day back since Bailey's accident. Lindsay, in the mean time, called Mac to make sure it was okay she showed up instead of taking the day off like she had planned, packed Bailey's medicines that the doctor had prescribed, and loaded everything into the car. As soon as they were ready, the three headed out to the crime lab. The entire trip, Bailey pretended she was busying herself with her crayons and coloring book, making it look like she was completely oblivious to the amount of flirting going on in the front seat between her mother and Danny. All the while, the little girl was plotting, thanking God that she was going to the crime lab today rather than school. This just made it easier to set her plan into motion. All she needed now was the assistance of Don Flack.

-----------

As they entered the crime lab, Bailey was swarmed with hugs and well wishes, everyone on staff telling her they were glad she was okay. As appreciative as she was, she only needed to see one person at the moment, and that person was currently missing in action. A huge grin spread on her face as she sought him out in the crowd.

"Uncle Flack, Uncle Flack!" she exclaimed as she darted away from the swarm of people that had been surrounding her. She jumped into his arms as he pulled her into a tight hug.

"Hey sweetheart, I'm glad to see you."

"Me too," she replied with a wink, making him laugh as he returned the gesture and carried her back towards Danny and Lindsay.

"So he gets a huge hug and a parade, and all I get is a 'morning mommy'?" Lindsay joked as she put on a fake pout and pretended to cry.

"Mommy, I haven't seen him in forever!"

"It's been four days Bay, he came to visit you in the hospital," she countered.

"But me and him are gonna go play, you weren't gonna let me do anything," she responded, sticking her tongue out at her mother, causing Danny and Don to erupt in laughter, and Lindsay's mouth to form the shape of an "o".

"Alright baby, but be careful, no rough play Donnie," she said, pinching his cheek. "You break my daughter, I'll break your neck."

"Trust me Monroe, we won't do anything you wouldn't approve of," he said, sending a smirk towards Bailey who giggled in response as the two walked away hand in hand.

"So whaddya think they're up to?" Danny asked as they pair watched their daughter walk off with their best friend.

"Your guess is as good as mine," she replied, equally confused as he was.

"Messer, Monroe."

They turned their heads at the same time, meeting the grin of their boss, Mac Taylor.

"Get your asses back to work, you've got a lot of catching up to do," he said with a smile, handing them each a mountain of paperwork.

This was going to be a long day.

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After three and a half hours of grueling paperwork, both Danny and Lindsay were ready to get back to field work and lab work. They had missed the hands on part about their job over the past week, and were ready to dig right back into it. But they both knew Mac would start them out on paperwork, and no matter how much of a bore it was to sit at a desk all day, they both knew someone had to do it.

They just wished it wasn't them.

"So, how's your stack goin' over there Montana?" Danny asked her, looking over his barely started stack of files.

"Pretty good, I'm about half way done. I figure I'll work through lunch and see if I can get off early. What about you---Danny!" As she looked over at his desk, she realized that Danny had barely started, let alone gotten nearly as far as she had.

"What?" he replied, peering over the enormous stack with an innocent look on his face, reminding Lindsay of a lost puppy.

"Danny, we've been at this for almost four hours and you're still on your second file, what have you been doing over there?"

As she got up to head over to his desk, he popped an M&M into his mouth and put his feet up on the desk, almost knocking the organized stack of manila folders over. As she approached the desk, she put her hands on her hips as she realized just how much of a little kid the thirty three year old man in front of her was. One of Bailey's "Flash" coloring books was sitting open on his desk, a fully detailed picture sitting in front of him, his bag of M&M's torn open and scattered about the desk for easy access. He smiled a toothy grin up at her and held his palm out, full of the tiny chocolate candies.

"Want one?"

She rolled her eyes and smacked him on the forehead playfully, taking the coloring book and shoving it in one of her desk drawers.

"Hey, Montana, I wasn't done with that!" he yelled at her in protest.

"Danny, get to work," she laughed as she saw the look of disgust on his face when he realized there was nothing left to distract him from the work in front of him.

She glanced over to make sure he was doing his paperwork, and when she saw him lazily and annoyingly pick up a file, she was satisfied and returned to her own diminishing stack. No more than 10 minutes later, she heard the opening of his desk drawer, a familiar slide of plastic on plastic, and then clicking. Rolling her eyes, she got up once again and walked over to his desk, taking the device from his hands.

"No texting Danny, WORK," she said, emphasizing the word "work" as she pocketed his cell phone and returned to her own desk.

"Hey, give that back! What if I get called out?"

"Then I'll answer it for you, now get back to work before I have to come over there and babysit you."

He stuck his tongue out at her as he picked up his pen and returned to the file that he had been staring at for the past 2 hours.

"You're such a kid, you know that?" she said with a laugh. "You're worse than Bailey, I only have to tell her things once and she listens."

"Stop talking to me, you're distracting me from my work," he said sarcastically, sticking his tongue out at her again as he returned to his files. He was actually making some progress on the stack when he heard the opening of her desk drawer. Glancing over, he saw her with her own cell phone in her hands, texting away like a teenager. He got up sneakily and walked around behind her desk, snatching the phone out of her hands.

"HEY!" she screamed as whipped around, seeing him standing there smirking, her phone in his hand.

"No texting Montana," he said, mocking her voice from earlier.

"Danny, I was just--"

"Ah, ah, ah. No. If I can't text, you can't text," he said pocketing her phone like she had his own.

"Danny--"

"Nope."

"Dan--"

"Work."

Becoming agitated, she whipped his cell phone out of her pocket and scrolled through the contacts until she found herself, listed as "Montana :] ". She glanced up with a smirk as she heard the vibrate go off in his pocket. Startled, he reached fished the phone out of his pocket and saw "Wiseass :P " displayed on the screen in front of him. He clicked "View Now" and read the text message.

Nice smiley face Messer. Now seriously, can I have my phone back? I was just texting Flack to check up on Bailey.

This was going to be fun.

He hit reply and started typing on the keypad of her phone, the room silent except for the sound of clicking keys.

Why thank you. I thought the smiley was a nice touch. Now what's up with me being Wiseass in your phone? I go all nice and make your name look cute, but I look like a jackass in your phone? And no, you can't have it back :P

Reading the message, she tried to stifle her laughter. This was strictly a text conversation, and she wanted to keep it that way.

Why not? What if she's in mortal danger? What if Flack brought her out to a shooting and used her in place of his vest? As for your name, I like it just the way it is, thank you.

Trying to hide the laughter on her face, she watched him as he read the text message, trying to picture the images of his daughter as a gun shield going through his mind, hoping to scare him. She got what she wanted, seeing his face go from a smirk to sheer terror. She had to bite down on the inside of her cheek to keep from breaking into a laughing fit at the look on his face. A few minutes later, she got her reply.

I'm gonna fucking kill you for that. It's not funny! I see you laughin over there. I can't believe you would say such things about our daughter. By the way, I changed my name. I think you'll find it a bit more suiting than this "wiseass" character you so pegged me as.

Reading "our daughter" made her heart flutter, but reading that he had changed his name in her phone caught her interest. She glanced over at him and quirked an eyebrow.

Oh you did, did you? Can I see it?

He laughed as he opened the message. Oh, how he loved teasing her.

No :P

Reading his simple reply, she glanced over at him and tried to read him with her eyes. But he had already returned to his work, much to her dismay.

Why not? It's my phone Messer, I want it back.

Tough luck, it's mine now :P

As he typed the message, Lindsay had glanced up from her file, hearing footsteps at the door. Mac was standing behind Danny, putting a finger to his lips, signaling to Lindsay not to make a sound. She silently giggled and gave him a thumbs up, watching as Danny replied to her text, a huge smile on his face.

"Whatcha up do Danny?"

"Aww nothin', just texting Linds--WOAH!" Flustered, he whipped around in his chair, knocking over the stack of files on his desk, facing his boss who was now laughing at him, along with his partner in crime across the room.

"Yeah, yeah, I know, 'get back to work'," he muttered as he began picking the file folders up off the floor, watching Mac's feet as he exited their office laughing.

"Gee thanks Montana, you got me in trouble with the principal."

"Sorry cowboy, you walked into that one all on your own," she replied, still laughing.

"You could've warned me he was here!" he protested.

"Well, I could've, but this way was a lot funnier," she said sticking her tongue out at him.

"Oh really?" he said quirking an eyebrow and folding his arms across his chest. "I'll get you for this later," he said with a smirk.

She looked over at him questioningly and walked over to his desk where he now sat reorganizing, placing her hands on his shoulders and leaning down so that her lips were now brushing up against his ear.

"Is that a threat or a promise?" she whispered seductively, sending a chill up his spine. She patted his shoulders lightly before turning to exit the office, leaving one dazed and confused Danny to sit at his desk and ponder what had just happened.

-----------

After being picked up in the front of the crime lab by Flack that morning, Bailey had taken over the poor man's life for the remainder of the day. They had been to at least a dozen stores trying to find exactly what the little girl wanted to set up the perfect night in for the two oblivious adults in her life, all she needed was Don's car and credit card. After four hours of shopping, she had carefully selected everything from the plastic wine glasses, the grape Juicy Juice, the frozen pizzas, and the candles. The little girl's determination to make the "date night" perfect had Don chuckling the whole way home, her pigtails bobbing in the rearview mirror as she munched on her chicken nuggets from McDonald's.

"So, do you think they love each other Uncle Flack?"

"I don't know sweetheart. But I know they both love you very much, and they're going to love the little surprise you planned for them," he replied with a laugh, knowing it was bad to lie to a four year old, but knowing she wouldn't understand what he knew deep down.

"I hope so," she said with a sigh. "Danny's really nice, and he makes my mommy happy. Maybe one day he could be my daddy."

Her maturity level shocked the young detective. For someone so young, she sure was smart for her age. The remainder of the car ride was silent, the wheels in both of their heads turning as they imagined what would happen when they got home that night.

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Around six o'clock, Lindsay awoke, her head lying on her desk. She had passed out. Glancing at the clock, she realized it had been for two hours. How had she let this happen? She smoothed out her hair and clothes, and glared as she realized that the stack of paperwork was still stacked a quarter of the way of what it had been previously. She hadn't accomplished what she had wanted, meaning she would have to take her work home with her once again. As she began to gather her things to pack up and leave, she felt a buzzing in her pocket and remembered how she had stolen Danny's phone earlier, laughing at their conversation. She expected the buzzing to stop after one, telling her it was a text message, but instead, it kept buzzing. Someone was calling Danny. She pulled the phone out of her pocket, Call From Flackie displayed on the screen. She laughed as she read the name; she'd give him crap for it later.

"Hey Flackie," she said in a singsong voice, answering the phone.

"Lindsay? What the hell you doin' answerin' Danno's phone?" he asked confused.

"Long story, we switched phones for the day, what's up?"

"Umm, see, I was kinda hopin' Danny would answer, he'd probably handle this better, but I guess I can tell you." The worry in his voice scared her. He was, after all, watching her little girl. She began jumping to conclusions.

"What happened to Bailey, Flack? Is my little girl okay?"

"Yeah, yeah, Bailey's fine Linds, but uh…your tv's not."

She let out a sigh of relief hearing that her daughter was okay, but the fact that her television was in distress made her skeptical. What were they doing back at her apartment? And more importantly, what the hell could they have been doing to break the tv?

"Don, what the hell did you do to my tv?"

"Uhh, I think you should just come here and see for yourself, kinda hard to explain. But you should come home now, I don't wanna break it anymore than I have."

She threw her head back and rubbed her eyes. She already had a load of work to take home and a four year old to take care of, she didn't need any more problems in her life.

"I'm on my way Don, try not to break anything else."

As Don hung up the phone, Bailey let out all the giggles she had been holding in.

"You told her we broke the tv?!" the little girl squealed.

"Yeah, I couldn't think of anything else, you got any better ideas?" he scoffed back.

"I guess not," she sighed in defeat. "So do I get to call Danny now?"

"Sure kiddo, have at it," he laughed as he handed her the phone.

"Hey Danny, it's me Bailey!" she said excitedly as soon as the man had answered on the other line.

"Hey kiddo, what's up?"

"I need your help with somefing."

"Anything ya need, kiddo."

"Cool. But you can't tell my mommy, okay?"

"Alright, promise," he said, growing a bit skeptical.

"Me and Uncle Flack broke the tv, could you come over and fix it before my mommy gets home?"

At first he was shocked, and then he couldn't help but laugh. He began to imagine the television set in Lindsay's apartment toppled over with wires hanging out, Don trying to put them back together and Bailey standing over to the side laughing at him.

"No problem kiddo, I'll be over there as soon as I can."

"Thanks Danny, you're the best," she replied before hanging up.

"So, what'd he say?" Don questioned, although he had heard the entire conversation.

"He's coming!" Bailey exclaimed satisfied.

"Awesome. We'd better get this all fixed up then, huh?"

Together, they set to work fixing up the kitchen.

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Danny and Lindsay pulled up to the apartment complex at the same time, both curious as to what exactly was going on as they swapped stories. The rode the elevator up in silence, both pondering what exactly was going on in the apartment, fearful thoughts running through both of their minds. As Lindsay put the key in the lock and opened the door, the scene set out in front of them was not at all what either of them were expecting. Their little girl stood in front of them wearing one of her Disney Princess dresses, holding two paper menus that she had clearly made on her own with her crayons and construction paper. They looked at each other, and then at Flack who was standing across the room with a smirk on his face, pointing at Bailey, mouthing "It was all her".

"Good ebening sir, ma'am. Would you like a menu?" Bailey said in the most grown up voice she could muster.

Laughing, they looked back at each other. What had they gotten themselves into?