Danny stood with his back to the door, the room in front of him familiar gold and coffee-scented. The words to describe what had happened this time just formed a lump in his throat. He was too tired to think about it, too tired to talk about it, and way too tired to have lived through it. Erica watched him from behind the counter with a contemplative look. To her credit she didn't ask him about the tears drying on his face, or the way he gasped for each breath. She just walked up and reached behind him to lay her hand on the door. "I think it's time for you to get some sleep."

He nodded dumbly and let her turn him with gentle pressure on his shoulder to face the door. She squeezed his shoulder once as she pushed him through the doorway and he found himself staring at his own bedroom, the windows still dark and his bed unmade from the last time he got up to go jog his anger away. Silently he walked to the window and shut it, unsure of the time and whether Mindy might actually even be next door with her guest or if whatever had just happened would have had the net effect of changing that too. Maybe God was merciful, and when he woke up at least he wouldn't have to face the reality where he'd tried to kiss his beautiful best friend when she'd tried to hand him laundry detergent. Maybe the breakup in her bedroom this time had been easier to recover from, and he'd wake up to a world where his original dream had come true – that they'd gotten over everything and she was happy. He knew now he could stop fighting if she could just be part of his life that he regretted, but a part that was still there.

As he collapsed onto the bed fully clothed he thought about what a small, stupid dream that was, that he would just be able to live parallel with the life he wanted. Danny Castellano always dreamed the wrong dreams.

. . .

He could tell by the angle of the sun when he woke that he'd overslept. His pillowcase stuck to his face where he'd fallen asleep face-first with his mouth wide open and drooling. As he struggled up off the bed he could hear his phone buzzing on the carpet where the contents of his pockets had clearly emptied onto the floor from his hoodie some time in the night. 12 missed calls.

He'd have to call the practice and tell them...something. Maybe just that he was sick. If Jeremy wouldn't let Mindy get away with heartbreak days, he definitely wasn't gonna let Danny. Hoping he could buy just a little longer to try and wake up, he chickened out of calling and just sent Jeremy a text. The reply came immediately with a little coda: Call Mindy. She's freaking out, which is extremely irritating.

Thoughts swirled to the surface as Danny stumbled toward the bathroom to begin his morning routines. Maybe he'd be able to face a phone call once he'd had a shower, but right now he was trying to separate what had happened from the what if's he'd re-lived last night. Or dreamed. No, he was too tired for that to have been a dream. Maybe he needed to go to church, see if that could clear his head. Maybe ask Father Frank if there were Jewish angels.

By the time Danny was out of the shower he almost felt ready to hear Mindy's voice again. Almost. He cradled the phone in his hands trying to imagine which scenario would be worse, the one where he'd just humiliated himself by trying to kiss her or the one where they'd made love and she'd stormed out. In both instances she'd been convinced that he didn't think about what she wanted and maybe that was something they didn't come back from either way. She saved him the trouble of having to reach out by calling him first, the unexpected buzzing of the phone in his hands startling him out of his thoughts.

"Mindy?"

"Danny! What the hell is wrong with you?"

Danny swallowed hard. "I'm fine. Just taking a sick day."

"You're never sick."

"Well, I'm sick today. I'm just gonna go back to sleep, okay?"

"Danny, is this because?" she let the question hang. "I know we had a fight last night, but you don't have to be a drama queen about it."

"A fight?" he asked tentatively, a silent prayer running over and over in his head that he'd simply embarrassed them with an unsolicited kiss and not the other, more complicated past. He didn't know which fight they'd had or what he was responding to, but the important thing was that she was still talking to him.

"Don't keep trying to pretend it was a joke. You tried to kiss me and it was weird, but we can get past this." She paused and continued, her voice just a little more formal than before. "I know we're still in a weird place, but I'm ready to move on and I'm going to move back to my place and give us a little space."

"Okay." His voice was flat with the realization that whatever he thought happened last night might not have happened.

"Listen, I'm at home right now."

Your place? The idea that she might be next door made his stomach flip.

"My actual apartment. I have been puked on by queasy preggos twice today and I needed another change of clothes. Why don't you meet me for lunch? I know you're not sick so don't pretend you can't."

"Mindy, I'm really not up to it." The answer was honest. Somehow it would have been better if all those things had happened. He couldn't spend his lunch break watching her dissect a sandwich to pick out every molecule of lettuce when all he could think about was the fact that she might have wanted him, if things had been different. If they'd spent last night together, and had the other fight at least they'd have shared that. At least once he'd have been able to show her how much she meant to him. At least he would know that she'd shown him too and meant it. At least he'd have told her he loved her, once.

"Danny. I told you the night I broke up with you that I would always be in your life."

"What?"

"I'm not willing to let a stupid fight get in the way of that. We should talk. We can't work like this and Jeremy's already way too smug to let him be right about our breakup causing some sort of implosion for the practice. Come on. I'll let you pick the place."

As the pieces fit together, he realized that some of what happened had stuck. They'd still broken up, months ago, but it wasn't his breakup. It was hers. ""Mindy, I can't. I'll just see you tomorrow, okay?"

"Damnit, Danny. I just want us to get over this. Please."

That stupid little please undid whatever it was that had been holding him together until now. All he could see was her face as she begged him to walk away. It had been months for her, but it was moments ago for him and he couldn't separate how he felt when she sent him away then from the way she'd sent him away when he tried to kiss her and the way they'd never be able to get over any of this. "I can't get over it, Min. I don't want to get over it."

His voice shook, and to his relief her voice was so low when she replied that he knew she was struggling too. He didn't want her to hurt, but he was tired of feeling like he was alone in this. "You have to, Danny. You have to."

"I am trying, Min. Every single day I try, and every single day I'm reminded of how much I've lost. Maybe there was a time when I thought we could just go back to where we were when we were friends, but I don't think we can."

Her voice cracked as she spoke and he knew she was definitely crying now. "Why did you kiss me, Danny? Why did you even start this?"

"I'm sorry," he whispered as she hung up on him. He knew he could only make it worse, but he couldn't live with the sheer misery of the situation; Mindy at home alone, crying again because of something he'd done or said. Danny stuffed the phone into his back pocket and grabbed his hoodie again, realizing only as he stepped out the front door and heard the security lock click into place that his keys were still on the bedroom floor.

As it happened, the problem was moot. Sun streamed through the windows of the cafe as he tripped forward and was caught by a small redheaded man with stubble and round blue eyes. They stared at each other in surprise for a few moments before they heard a voice cut in from nearby. "Throw that one back, Dave. Too small."

The redheaded guy let go of Danny with a weak smile. "You okay?"

Danny nodded and looked around for the only person who could explain what was going on. "Have you see Erica?"

"Erica? I thought she was still in New York." A big guy with dark glasses wrapped his arm around the redhead as he approached. "Dave, have you seen her?"

Danny's brow wrinkled with confusion. "Wait, what?"

"Why don't you go upstairs, see if they're back?" Dave suggested and pointed to a door Danny hadn't seen the night before.

"Okay?" Danny turned back a couple of times as he walked toward the door, catching the couple staring at him. He could hear them bickering quietly as he made his way up the stairs. "I wasn't going to keep him." "You are a married man." "Like you'd ever let me forget that."

Danny had only a moment to look around the offices upstairs before Erica came tumbling through from another door. "Sorry about that. Entirely my fault. I'm glad you got to meet Dave and Ivan though."

"Who?"

"The guys who own this place. They're old friends. Why don't you come sit down in my office?" Erica gestured at a third door and led him to an office that looked way too big for the floorplan of the coffee place. Books lined every wall and the color scheme was not unlike something Mindy would choose, which made Danny suddenly furious that he'd been pulled out of his own plans again by this woman.

"How do you do this stuff? I thought you were like a time traveler, but now I'm not sure what you are. I keep walking through doors and ending up in the wrong place."

"I'm sorry about that. If you would believe it, the door thing is much easier than the thing where you get cold and then get dropped into your own body."

"What?" He turned away from the bookshelves and stared at her.

Erica lifted one shoulder in a kind of noncommital gesture. "Trust me, the doors are easier. Did you get some sleep?"

"Yeah I got some sleep. Then I woke up and the stuff that shouldn't be different is different and the stuff that is different shouldn't be different."

"How so?"

"I mean nothing changed. You sent me back to fix things and everything's the same. Only I don't know if everything that happened to me is the same as what happened to her."

"Isn't that just how everyone feels?" Erica finally sat in her own chair, leaving him standing awkwardly in the middle of the room.

"What?"

"I mean, no matter how you experience something, you can't know if someone else had the same experience."

"No, that's not true. If I was there and she was there then we'd remember the same thing and at least I could talk to her about it."

"You could talk to her about it now."

"No, I can't." Danny raked his fingers through his hair in frustration.

"Why not? Tell me what happened when you went back to the breakup."

"She broke up with me."

"Why?"

"Because everyone stuck their nose in, like I knew they would."

"Is that what she said?"

"No, she said that she jumped into our relationship for the wrong reasons. She said she couldn't keep changing to make a relationship work."

"That sounds pretty reasonable to me."

"But I didn't ask her to change. I don't want her to change."

"That's not up to you, though."

"I know that!"

"Do you? You've gone back to fix two regrets and in first one you tried to get her to change her mind. This time you went back to change your own mind, but when she made a decision you didn't agree with you are still talking about it in the context of what you want. You didn't ask her to change. You don't want her to change. I'm going to ask you the same thing I asked you last time. What did she want? Last time you said she wanted you. What did she want this time?"

He wanted so badly to remember it differently, that she'd said she wanted him. What she'd actually said was I'm mine. And he just didn't listen to her. His voice failed him as he croaked out the answer he didn't want to admit was true. "Herself. She chose herself."

"And you think she's wrong?"

"No." Danny finally slumped into the chair across from Erica. "I'm such an asshole."

"You're not an asshole, Danny. You're just hurting. Sometimes it's hard to see past that. You need to stop punishing her for the way you feel, and you need to stop punishing yourself."

"I am an asshole. I'm the one who got us in this mess in the first place. She's the one who thinks she jumps into things without thinking about them, but I'm the one who did this to us. I dragged her out to see my dad. I stopped her from getting back together with a guy she'd wanted for a long time. I shouldn't have kissed her."

"Do you think that would have worked?"

"She didn't even kiss me back the first time. She just looked surprised. I should have left her alone. All I know is I caused her months of pain because I got a little scared on a plane."

"You got scared on a plane? Is that really the story?"

"It has to be the story. She deserves better than this."

"And don't you think she's chosen what she wants?"

"I don't know." Danny rubbed his eyes tiredly. "But I can step out of the picture. Let her find her happy ending."

"Happily ever after?" Erica asked, that determined look stealing across her face again.

"Yeah." The chair started to shake and he reached for a seatbelt, which seemed like a stupid reflex, but he probably should have seen this one coming.

The last thing he heard as he found himself once again on a plane, shivering with cold or fear or something a little harder to explain away he heard Erica's last words to him.

"Good luck."

Notes:

There are a couple of incidental characters here from the other show, for the few who watch both.