"What the hell, Danny?" Mindy stood over him, her expression a mix of concern and confusion. "One minute you're telling me I have to come play Chinese checkers with you and the next you're flying through the air. I didn't even see you trip."

"I..." he began, realizing that he had absolutely no idea what had happened to him, much less how he'd explain it. "...tripped. I guess I tripped. I'm fine."

She rolled her eyes and offered her hand to help him up. "You are so dramatic. Only you would trip over your own feet and fall to your knees like you'd been shot."

"Why, what did I look like?" Danny tried to be inconspicuous as he picked himself up and scanned the room to make sure he was really where he thought he was. She was definitely wearing that weird bird shirt that he hated, and his own shirt had a little coffee stain that he'd been cleverly hiding with his coat all morning. He'd only brought one change of clothes to work that morning and if he could just make it to lunchtime he'd shower and change at the gym. This couldn't be happening. What if he'd just dreamed everything, trying to kiss her, then trying to flee? Almost getting killed? Agreeing to therapy? He sucked in a breath and let the relief wash over him.

Then he swallowed and the unexpected taste of coffee flooded his senses, like he'd only finished a cup a few minutes ago, which wasn't true. Well, it wasn't true for today, but if he was wrong about the dream and everything had happened with the laundry detergent and the cyclist and the weird coffee shop, he was still tasting coffee served by a redheaded stranger he wouldn't even meet until tonight. Which couldn't be true, right? The woman had told him she could help him fix this, then he'd felt cold, then he'd hit his knees 12 hours in the past. What the hell?

"Dr. Castellano?" Betsy's voice drew him back out of his head and away from Mindy. "Your next patient is here."

Danny blinked at her, a little slow to grasp what she was saying. He shook his head a little, as though that could clear it, and looked back at Mindy, who was regarding him with drawn brows. She had that look she got when she simultaneously understood and didn't understand something, which snapped him back to reality. He turned back to Betsy and gave her a weak smile. "Sure Bets. Could you show her to my office? I'll be right there."

He shot one last glance at Mindy as he moved toward the door. This was real. You can't dream an expression like that, it was all Mindy.

He couldn't remember anything about his next appointment, but as he approached the office Danny recognized the deep red waves and slim build of the woman perched in the chair opposite his desk and the reality of this unreal situation hit him like a gut punch. The door slammed behind him as he charged past her. "What the hell did you do to me?"

Erica sat back, giving him a calm, wry look that just made his blood boil. "Hello to you too."

He swung around to his side of the desk, hovering over his chair. Anxiety crackled over his skin like an electric current, making him too anxious to actually sit and a little too weak to stand. He thought he might puke. "Tell me the truth. Am I dead? Did I die out there? Are you an angel?"

"No, I'm not an angel."

"Is this purgatory?" His voice cracked, making him sound too emotional, but she was so placid he felt like all of his nervous energy was being sucked away from him, a feeling of calm settling behind it.

"I wouldn't know."

"Wait, you're not Catholic?"

"Jewish."

A horrifying though stung Danny as he stood there contemplating whether there were Jewish angels and if this was a punishment for missing Mass this week. "Oh God, who's gonna take care of Ma?"

"Hey, you need to calm down."

The panic was back twofold. When the fuck has telling someone to calm down ever calmed them down? "Calm down? Calm down? My head's bust open like a grape on Canal and my guardian angel is Jewish. And it turns out purgatory is getting stuck on a loop in the worst day of my entire life. Sure I'll 'calm down.'"

"Sit. Down." Erica's tone was firm but controlled, and something about her calm snapped him out of it. "You're not dead."

"I'm not dead," he repeated numbly.

"You're not dead." She shook her head decisively. "Are you always this dramatic?"

"Mindy says I..." Danny's voice trailed off and his legs started to buckle beneath him, forcing him to land heavily in his chair. "Oh God, Mindy. I'll never get to tell her. The last thing I did on earth was hurt her."

"No, you didn't."

"What?"

"Hasn't happened yet."

"What?" The question was softer now as the wheels started to spin in his head.

"None of that happened yet. You said that you could fix everything if you just had another chance. So here you are." For the first time Danny stopped to look directly in her eyes, finding them to be familiar. He'd seen that look a thousand times in Mindy's eyes right as the shit hit the fan in the delivery room and she switched from Mindy the coach to Mindy the healer. Erica tilted her chin down and set her jaw. "What's the plan?"

"I'm...I didn't do it yet?" Danny stood suddenly, rushing out of his office and across the reception towards Mindy's office. The door was open, but it was dark. "Has anyone seen Mindy?" His voice was louder than he'd expected it to be, clearly louder than anyone was expecting because Jeremy and Betsy exchanged a confused look, and Jeremy broke away from their conversation to approach Danny cautiously. "She's gone for the day. Did you need a consultation? I'm free."

Danny spun around, but when he stared into his own office he saw an empty chair. "Betsy, did you see my patient leave?"

"No, Dr Castellano. Did you want me to try and schedule another appointment for Mrs Fitzpatrick?"

"That's okay, Betsy. I, uh..." Danny hesitated. "No that's fine."

Danny wandered back toward his office slowly. Instead of circling around to his own chair he sat in the chair where Erica had been only moments ago and closed his eyes. Jeremy followed Danny into the office, closing the door softly behind him. "Danny, what's going on? You look like you've seen a ghost."

"Do I have any more patients today?"

Jeremy frowned and leaned forward to push the intercom button on the phone. "Betsy, does Danny have any further appointments scheduled today?"

"Dr Reed, he has one at 3:10 and another at 3:40."

"Thank you Betsy."

Danny blinked stupidly and tried to refocus on his friend. "Jeremy, can you take those? Please? You know I wouldn't ask if it wasn't important."

"Sure." Leaning back, Jeremy crossed his arms and fixed Danny with a curious stare. "Danny, are you sure you're okay?"

"I'm not." Danny stood abruptly again and grabbed his coat from the hook behind his door. "But I will be."

. . . . .

He'd been standing in front of her door for about 5 minutes now. He knew he just needed to lift his hand and knock, but when he thought about what happened the first time – seeing the disappointment and confusion in her eyes as she'd pushed him away, listening to her lock up and make her way down the hall to meet another man while he'd stood just on the other side of his own door, his fingernails cutting into his palms, feeling sick as the sound of someone else making her gasp cut through the night - he couldn't do it. He heard her phone ring from inside the apartment, then the soft lilt of her laughter - again her date laughter, not the way she really laughed. Not husky-deep with tears gathering in the corners of her eyes, not followed by hiccups or accompanied by a playful shove. Not the laughter that took his breath away.

Danny swallowed the memory and knocked. He'd done this before, but when the door swung open he was suddenly aware that he really wasn't prepared for this. Prepared for her. Light notes of lavender and vanilla hung in the air, and the fading daylight from the windows gave her a halo as she stood in the doorway.

He'd planned to start by apologizing. He'd planned to tell her that when he'd said she was his best friend what he'd really meant to say that she was his entire world. Tell her that he knew that his fear of ruining this ruined this. Every word of it dried up on his tongue as he looked down into her eyes. She was barefoot, and his whole body remembered how perfectly she fit right under his arms. She wore pink (or electraberry or sugarplum) and her hair was so soft as he threaded his fingers into it and pulled her lips to his. It was only when he felt her shoulders tense against his forearms and her balance shift that he realized he'd done it again. He let her go before she could push him, gasping as his own fucking stupidity and desperation flooded out of him, threatening to take them both down.

"What are you doing?" Her voice was softer this time, still surprised, but the sharp edge that had cut him so deeply last night (last time) was not there. His heart fluttered in his chest. This time would be different. This time would make her see.

"Mindy, I love you." The words were a surprise to him. He hadn't mean to say that, but he knew as the words fell into the room and shattered across the space they'd been so carefully cultivating that they were true. He loved her.

"What?" She was touching her lips, the gesture so like she was blocking them, blocking him and he felt ashamed.

"I love you. I want to be with you." He had to turn, look at anything else but the growing confusion on her face. "That night when I said I have to have you... I thought that meant at any price."

"Danny, stop." She was frowning now. "You can't just charge at me when you 'have to have' me. You let me go and I've been trying to put everything back together for months. Now that we're friends again you suddenly 'have to have' me again? Do you know how fucked up that is?"

"You're right, and I'm sorry. I should have said that first. I'm sorry, Mindy. I'm sorry. I fucked everything up." He started to reach for her hand and thought better of laying his hands on her. That's how he kept ruining these things and he was so close to doing it again. "I haven't ever once asked you what you want and I'm sorry. Please tell me what you want."

Mindy stared at him, her face unreadable. He felt it all slipping away. She'd told him that she got to decide, and he'd just rushed at her again, like a prize to be won. He swallowed hard, breathing through his nose in an attempt to hold back the tears that threatened to choke him. She stepped toward him, eyes intense, lips pursed as she reached for his face. "You, dummy. I want you."

Her lips were as soft as he remembered, but her hands were rough as she pulled him to her. She fit right under his arms, just the way she had before. This time he let her lead, mirroring her motions, only responding to what she asked of him. The trip to the bedroom was surprisingly long as she dragged him by the very clothes she was tearing off of him, and when they hit the edge of the bed they toppled over, a tangle of tongues and legs and crushing need. She guided his hands to her thighs, prompting him to slide her dress up. "Yeah?" he asked, but she responded by pulling at his belt buckle and unfastening it in one swift jerk.

He'd tried so hard to hold his own feelings in check, but his body caught fire and there was no hiding how much he wanted her. She unzipped and unbuttoned his jeans and slipped her hand into his boxers. He whimpered helplessly as she squeezed him lightly and sucked his bottom lip between her teeth. Then she pushed him away and struggled up out of the bed, leaving him exposed and confused. When she pulled the dress up and over her head he felt a stab of unexpected jealousy. She was wearing a matching bra and panty set, deep purple and adorned with a little black lace. It wasn't meant for him. She nodded at him, and he shrugged out of his half-unbuttoned shirt and quickly wriggled out of his jeans, but he couldn't get the image of her in this bed with Charlie out of his head, especially not now that he could imagine her taking charge, pushing another man down and straddling him the way she was straddling Danny right now.

He shook away the image and concentrated on the softness of her skin across her ribcage, and the way she shivered as his hands slid into the cups of her bra. He'd had so little time to learn her body, but every fiber of his being knew the exact weight of her breasts in his hands, how the underside felt full and warm, the tops always very lightly bitter to the tongue with whatever dusting powder she used. His focus was drawn away abruptly, to the warmth between her thighs, something he hadn't learned in their time together, not really. His fingers knew every fold of her, but they'd never come this close to the real deal before, and she burned white hot where her wetness had soaked through the thin silk of her panties and the fabric now stuck to his exposed cock. Her breathing was heavy as she rubbed herself against him, and he held himself motionless, waiting for her to take whatever she needed from him. He felt every muscle in her body tighten as she came, quaking against him as lay there frozen, afraid to move and break the spell. She saved him the trouble and shifted to pull her panties off and his boxers down, settling again right over him, but only just. He slipped his hands out of her bra and cupped her face again. "I love you, Mindy. I want to be with you."

As she leaned down to kiss him she rolled her hips and pushed down, taking him in slowly. He didn't want to respond so quickly, but he'd spent the last 24 hours convinced that they would never ever be able to come back from the things he'd done, and he'd been holding on too long already. When it was over they lay curled together, sweat drying on their bodies, and she finally spoke. "Why now? Why didn't you tell me before?"

It was a question he should have expected, but just like the moment when she'd opened the door he found himself unprepared for her. "I thought I'd lost you."

She went eerily still, and he struggled even to hear her breath over the sound of his own heart pounding in his ears. "You didn't lose me, Danny, you pushed me away."

"I know. I'm so sorry. I got scared, and I got stupid and I ran. I thought we could be friends again, but then you started dating that cop..."

She sat bolt upright in the bed and stared at him. "Wait, you did this because of Charlie?"

"No, I did this because of you. Me and you."

Her mouth was a grim line as she shook her head. "You did this because of you."

"No I want you. I always did."

"But you broke up with me."

"Because I was scared."

"And now you're not scared?"

"Of course I'm scared. But I'm more scared to be without you than to be with you."

"You don't want to be with me. You want me to be with you. There's a difference." Her nostrils flared and her eyes went a little unfocused. "I'm not something to have, Danny."

"I know that. I'm sorry. I don't mean it that way."

"I think you do. I think you made your choice and now you just want to take it back to stop me from finding something real."

"This is real. It's real."

"No. It was real. And then you changed your mind." Mindy stood and began to gather her clothes. "I don't know why I fell for it. You told me once that guys don't break up with girls they secretly want to date."

"No, I didn't mean that. I mean I didn't mean me. I meant Cliff."

She turned on him, eyes sharp and clear. "Right. Cliff breaks up with me because he doesn't want me, but when you break up with me, I should just give you some time and you'll change your mind."

He was up on his feet, following her through the apartment powerless as he watched her scoop up her keys, jam her phone into her handbag. He didn't know if it was just because he was naked, or if this was what if felt like to have all of the hope in your life drain out of your body at once, but he felt a chill, and his voice shook as he pleaded with her, "No, I won't change my mind."

"Danny, you just did." Her hand was on the doorknob and she shook her head. "I'm not gonna do it anymore. I get to decide."

As the door swung shut the room began to spin. Danny shut his eyes tight and murmured a short prayer, the only words he had left before he hit the floor. "Help me."

Notes:

Thanks again to Smapdi for fixing the messy bits. I have clearly started to ignore my own spellcheck. I just assume it's mad at me when I spell things the American way and I pretend it isn't there.