Cheat: Part 1

Lindsey sat completely still in the lab, apparently staring at nothing. Stella edged her way in, trying to see what Lindsey was staring at. When she worked it out she sighed and put her hand on Lindsey' s shoulder.

"Lindsey…"

"He's cheating on me again Stella." Lindsey barely moved. "I know he is. I'm not sure I can forgive him again."

"Then don't!" Stella shook Lindsey's shoulder emphatically then sat next to her. "Don't put yourself through this, what Danny's doing to you is completely unfair. You can either let him get away with it or show him once and for all that you're not going to take him messing you around."

"I just…" Lindsey's tucked her hair behind her ear, sniffing a little. "I thought this was it, you know? I thought we'd spend the rest of our lives together. I don't wanna get divorced! I love him so much, I just don't understand why he insisted on us marrying if he was going to do this."

"Well, I doubt he planned to cheat on you." Stella remarked with a sigh. Lindsey sniffed again.

"I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry at that!" There was a pause, then she cried. Stella hugged her tightly and glanced over to where Danny was discussing something with Sheldon, with something akin to murder in her eyes.

Mac was having one of his usual arguments with Chief Sinclair on the phone when Sheldon walked in. He motioned to Sheldon to stay while he got rid of the offending voice at the other end of the line. Finally he slammed the phone back on the hook and rubbed a hand over his forehead.

"Bad day?"

"Tell me about it," Mac laughed humourlessly and sat in his chair. "What is it?" Sheldon strolled over, hands in pockets.

"More bad news I'm afraid." he apologised. Mac shrugged and sighed. Sheldon delivered the bad news. "Our main suspect on the Credly case is dead."

"Murdered?"

Sheldon shook his head apologetically. "Sorry Mac, not even that. He died of a chest infection he contracted when he was in Asia on holiday." Mac groaned and got up.

"This day just gets worse and worse." He muttered. He and Sheldon walked to the door together, Mac inquiring after Sheldon's boyfriend. "How's Jacob? Did he find a job?"

"Yeah, he's a police officer."

"Oh yeah, you said, sorry."

Sheldon smiled gently as they started down the corridor. "You can't be expected to remember everything." Mac noticed a slight sadness in Sheldon's brown eyes.

"Sheldon?"

"Yeah?"

Mac stopped and turned to face Sheldon. "If there's anything troubling you," he said gently, "don't struggle with it on your own again." Sheldon looked to the floor and shook his head.

"It's nothing," he began, "honestly, it's just because Jacob's working now I don't see him so often. I just have to get used to it."

"Mm," Mac agreed, "you've had it too easy for too long!"

"Danny."

Danny turned around to see Stella standing in the doorway of their shared office.

"Yeah?"

"We need to talk."

Danny followed Stella out of the lab and realised they were walking towards the fast food stand.

"Stel, I appreciate you've evidently got something on your mind but I got a lot of work to catch up on." Stella whirled around, her bushy hair nearly whipping him in the face.

"Listen Danny, I don't know who it is and I don't know why it is, but if you value Lindsey and Lucy in any way at all you'll stop breaking their hearts."

Danny felt like the whole of his body had suddenly been put into a deep freeze. Did she know? Or was she guessing? Did Lindsey know?

Stella could see from the expression on Danny's face that she'd caught him. So he was cheating. This made her so angry she gave a small yell of frustration and slapped him across the face. Danny reeled, one hand to the side of his face that had suffered Stella's attack.

"I thought you were better than this Danny. Now get this, when you married Lindsey I don't think there was one of us who thought it would be plain sailing. None of us saw you as the marrying kind, and we all knew that you didn't think of yourself as the marrying kind, but we held our tongues for Lindsey's sake, and for almost a year we've been happy to believe we've been proved wrong." She shook her head, her eyes never leaving Danny's. "But evidently we gave you more credit than you deserved."

Danny wanted to speak, he wanted to defend himself, but he couldn't explain to Stella what was going on for him, the things he was struggling to work out. How could he explain when he didn't understand himself? Stella had folded her arms and she was furious, looking at him the way she normally reserved for hated criminals.

"Stella…I…"

"I'm not going to tell Lindsey, because I think that excruciating pain should be yours." She hissed. She shook her head again, her expression turning to one of disbelief and betrayal. "Why Danny? If you had to why did you have to do it to Lindsey?"

A few days more and the situation didn't show any signs of improving, and after one particularly long hard day at work Lindsey shut the door of the flat as best she could with Lucy in her arms who seemed to be getting heavier and heavier. Lindsey made her way to the sofa to put her bag down, and put Lucy in her chair. As she went to the cupboard to find Lucy's supper she thought she heard Lucy groan. She turned around, worried, but Lucy was sitting playing happily with her bear. Lindsey put the food down on the table then heard it again, it sounded less like a groan and more like….Lindsey stormed through the flat, unable to believe what was happening, already furious with Danny, already tears were welling up in her eyes as she arrived at the bedroom door and pushed it open to find her husband….She screamed in disgust at the sight before her.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx so much love to you lovely people!xxxxxxxxxx (and the moral of the story is…..if you're a CSI NY scriptwriter don't think it's cool to marry Lindsey and Danny together!)