A/N: So here I am, updating this old thing again. I kind of wanted a more final ending (although i think it's begging for one last chapter, we'll see). As always leave reviews if you want, I always appreciate them, and love to hear what people say. I had a lot of time to sit and do nothing over Christmas break. I wrecked my car and couldn't really escape my parents, so I wrote this and one other chapter for another fic. Enjoy.

CH 25

Six weeks. That's how long it had been since the "exclusivity" talk. That's how long it had taken for Mindy to burrow herself completely into Danny's day to day life. There wasn't a night of the week that they didn't spend together, occasionally alternating whose place it was. They arrived at work each morning together, but no one seemed to notice.

Actually, no one at the practice seemed to be any the wiser. It's not that they were hiding it, exactly, but rather that Mindy had taken into account Danny's need for privacy, tabling her own need to overshare. Also, Mindy was beginning to think that maybe they weren't as invested in her love life as she'd previously thought.

Sure, she had lured Danny down to the hot pipe room a couple times on some wild goose chase for office supplies, but that was considerably more private than her office, and they'd never had sex down there, even though she usually left him in an embarrassing state (it was usually about half an hour before anyone in the office saw him again). No one commented on their somewhat frequent absences.

She liked it. It was nice having something just to themselves. They held hands on the subway and most of the way to work, and they kissed in the elevator on the way up (unless Deslaurier or some other jerk was already in it) breaking apart just before the door whooshed open.

Mindy was floating on a cloud, all smiles and sparkling eyes, and Danny wasn't much better at hiding his happiness. He found himself staring at her several times each day, a sense of wonder enveloping him as he did. Jeremy even asked him if he'd finally been medicated for his moodiness. It felt unreal to him sometimes, but he wouldn't trade it for anything.

They still argued, about trivial things mostly. They'd had a seemingly endless one about loofahs (or lack thereof) until Danny had finally given in and tossed his wash cloth. What else could he have done? She'd taken shower sex off the table until he agreed. Besides, Danny had come to view their arguments more as discussions. Lively ones that invigorated him. She became so impassioned about everything she talked about. It lit a fire under him. The biggest difference these days was how the arguments ended, usually with a pile of hastily divested clothing, and the two of them horizontal on the nearest surface.

Here they were again, companionably lying on one of those frequently used horizontal surfaces, his bed. Although, they weren't making love, that would come later, they were flipping through the channels, trying to find something to watch.

Danny kept an eye out for horror flicks. He loved how clingy she got when they watched them together. She loved and hated them at the same time. They terrified her, but it was a kind of terror that was safe. She usually only halfheartedly argued with him when he chose a scary movie.

"Oh, look, Nightmare on Elm Street, have you ever seen that one?" She was finishing up her nightly moisturizing ritual, smoothing the last of her lotion into her hands.

She sent him a sidelong glance. "No, and judging from the name it sounds like one I wouldn't want to watch."

He grinned. "Oh, come on, you know you love the scary ones, plus this one's old, so the effects are almost laughable."

She twisted to sit her bottle of lotion on the nightstand, turning back to him with a little half smile pulling at her lips. "Well, maybe you're right, but it's only when I spend the night with you. And that's only because you've reassured me that a real man would get up in the middle of the night, butt naked and all, wielding a baseball bat against whatever intruders were to materialize." She leaned forward to kiss him, but stopped inches from his lips. "So I guess we can watch whatever scary movie you want, since you happen to be a 'real man'."

He smiled. "When you're right, you're right." Closing the space between them he captured her lips in his, enjoying the lavender scent that wafted up from her freshly moisturized hands. It was a smell he'd grown incredibly accustomed to, missing it on the occasional nights they spent apart.

He sighed as she pulled away from him, settling into the pillows behind her. He did the same, and flicked off the lamp beside them, finding her nestled into the crook of his arm with very little prompting.

It didn't take very long for her to get very chatty and very clingy. "Oh, god, Danny, she can't go to sleep. What is she doing? No, that's not good. What is he doing? Oh god." She buried her face in his shoulder, her hair flipping over across his face.

He reached up and brushed the hair out of his face, lingering a little and threading his fingers through it, cradling the back of her head. She'd wrapped her arms around him, clinging desperately to his torso, her leg hooked over one of his. "Just tell me when it's over. I don't want to look. Is she dead?" Before he could answer she had turned her head slightly to peek back at the screen, quickly squeezing her eyes shut again when she saw the horrible scene still before her. She mumbled into his shirt. "Ugh, Danny, why do you always do this to me? You know I'm such a wuss."

Danny was barely aware of what was on the screen. He was completely lost in the feel of her. He always marveled at how well they fit together. If someone had asked, he would have said they were corresponding puzzle pieces, and then felt foolish for being so cliché, but really he didn't know how else to put it.

He smiled. "You agreed to watch it. Don't put this on me." He squeezed her and she looked up at him.

"I'm obviously a poor decision maker. You should at least try and save me from myself."

She stared up at him wide eyed, and he felt a fluttering in his chest. Her arms still around him, the scent of her lotion and shampoo surrounding him, the sight of her happily wearing his Springsteen shirt. All of it was just a little too much. "God, I love you so much." The words came without prompting. He hadn't even known he was going to say them until they had already spilled forth.

She pulled away from him, eyes even wider now. A look of surprised painted her features. "Danny…" She was speechless, definitely a unique state of being for Mindy.

Danny felt like an idiot. "I'm sorry, I know you wanted it to be different… I'd been waiting for the perfect moment… like a grand gesture, or something, but I'm just not creative when it comes to things like that, I didn't mean to say it just now, it just, well, you're lotion, and my shirt –"

In his flustered state Danny didn't notice as the expression on Mindy's face morphed from shocked to gleeful. She lunged forward, stopping the flow of stuttering words with her lips. She kissed him hard. She wanted to devour him. He loved her. The words echoed in her brain, sending new vibrations of joy across her body every couple seconds.

She finally pulled away from him and peered down at him. "You mean to tell me you've known for a while? You've kept it from me in the hopes you could reveal it in a more romantic way?" She feigned irritation and punched him in the shoulder. "Oh, Danny, that's so sweet, but I've come to realize that what's real is more important than some idealized notion of romance."

He looked up at her expectantly. "And?"

She smiled. "And, God, I love you so much, too." She bounced up and down when she said it, climbing over him and settling across his lap. "Don't get me wrong, when I tell Gwen about this I'm totally going to lie and say I was wearing something from Victoria Secret's fall collection, and not these holy sweats of yours." She plucked at the elastic waist and looked down at the shirt. "And I'm definitely not going to mention this old guy who's having his face totally distorted by the shape of my boobs." She grinned down at him, bouncing slightly again, letting the awe wash over her. "It happened so quickly, but it feels so much more intense than ever before…. More real." She leaned down and put her hands on either side of his face, dropping gentle kisses across it. "You know me so well, and you still love me, it's amazing."

He threaded his hands through her hair, and pulled her into him, plucking at her lips with his own. "You've got it wrong, I don't love you in spite of knowing you, I love you because I know you." He brushed the hair away from her face so he could gaze up at her, his tone suddenly become serious. "I need you to know that. There's nothing about you I would ever change."

Her eyes stung with tears. She tried blinking them away, but that just made them fall. Suddenly she was full blown crying, hiccupping between breaths. "Oh, Danny, I… I just… how are you like this?... I didn't know before… We wasted so much time…"

He drew her close to him, encircling her in his arms, letting her tears fall on his shoulder. He rubbed comforting circles across her back. A thought had formed at the back of his mind while she was babbling about wasted time. He felt butterflies in his stomach, but he pushed forward anyway. "Min, maybe we do need to make up for lost time."