A/N: Guys we're almost in real time here! I mean not real time, but almost caught up to the present. Does that make sense? It does to me. Anyway, this chapter is the only idea I have left for a while, so hopefully my brain will start working sometime in the near future and I can figure out my next move. And sorry this is so long, I just couldn't get the ending to work the way I wanted.

"Just five more minutes."

"I gave you five minutes five minutes ago."

"I know."

"Adam."

"I really wanted like half an hour, so I figure if I ask for it in increments…"

"I gotta get up."

"Three minutes?"

"I have an appointment," she argued as he planted a warm kiss on her lips. "I have to keep it."

"Well maybe I've got an appointment that you just don't know about."

She chuckled as he rolled them a little, pressing gentle kisses to her neck and over her collarbone. Part of her wanted to just give in and stay in bed all morning, but the rational, go-go-go side of her knew she had to get up and get moving. She had appointments and errands to take care of, and she really wanted to get them all out of the way so they could enjoy the rest of their weekend.

"I have to go to the post office."

"Uh-huh."

"I have to go get groceries."

"Yeah."

His ignorance to her protests should have made her mad, but it really made her care less about them anyway.

"I have to go to the bank."

"Mm."

"You're making my life difficult," she near-whimpered as his hand began to fiddle with the drawstring on her pants.

"Mm-hmm."

"Baby, I'm serious," she managed to get out, clearing her throat. "I really have to go."

He sighed and moved away from her, making guilt settle in her chest. It wasn't often that they had so much time off together and she knew they should be taking advantage of it, but there were things she had to do this morning or they couldn't be done for days.

"Hey," she said softly, reaching over to run her hand through his hair. "I'll make it up to you. I promise."

He gave her a half smile as his thumb came up to soothe over her lips.

"You really think so?"

"Tomorrow morning we'll stay in bed until noon."

"Ambitious."

"So were you. I love you, remember that."

"I know. Go, get out of here."

"Thank you," she said, leaning down to kiss him quickly. "I owe you."

"That's what they all say."

Giggling, she chucked a pillow at his head and made her way into the bathroom. She was actually running a lot later than she had originally thought, so she showered quickly and dried her hair, then threw some clothes on and was out the door.

She would have walked had it not been for the time and the groceries she needed to get, so she took the car, navigating the slushy streets carefully and scanning through the radio stations until she found something acceptable. She hummed along with it, as happy as if it was a sunny spring day, not an overcast and murky end of winter one. If snow stayed white and if the cold did nothing more than make your nose pink, and if the streets never froze over, she could almost accept winter as a season. But the snow was gray, the cold put static in her hair, and the streets were death traps in most places, so winter to her was something to be gotten through and forgotten.

The drive was fairly short and once again she was glad they lived just outside of the reach of the city that the commute wasn't far and they could still find parking in most places. The car alarm chirped behind her as she closed the door and headed inside the building, going through three doors before she entered the office she was looking for. She signed in and sat down loving her Saturday appointments when there was no one else around. It made her feel less like a spectacle that she knew she wasn't, but was always afraid of being anyway.

She thumbed through one magazine before the receptionist invited her back to see the doctor. It was always a few seconds of apprehension as she stood up from the chair, always wondering just for a moment if she was going to be labeled as crazy and thrown in the loony bin. She knew it wouldn't happen, but it still scared her if she thought about it too long. The walk back to the office was short and she soon found herself seated in a familiar plush chair, sighing in comfort because she knew this routine so well.

"Good morning, Lindsay," Dr. Cathcart greeted, sitting down in her own chair. "I'm so sorry I had to reschedule the appointment."

"Oh that's okay. It worked out a little better this way," she said, her mind briefly flicking over to the look on Adam's face when she'd gotten out of bed just a little while ago.

"Good. I know we've cut down our sessions some, so I always worry a little if I have to move them around."

"It's not a problem."

"So how have you been feeling?"

The one thing that Lindsay liked about Emily is that she didn't beat around the bush or walk on eggshells. She jumped right in and it felt more like talking to a friend than a therapist.

"Pretty good. Everything's fine and perfect, so no complaints."

"How's work?"

"It's work. It's never an easy day, but it's worth it, so I can't really complain."

"Any cases bothering you lately?"

"No, we haven't been working on very much that's earth shattering. It's really been a lot of the same."

"And how are things at home?"

"Really good. Colton's walking now. He's into everything, chasing the cats, hiding in places we never thought he could get to. He's crazy."

"How do you feel about that?"

"Mixed. Mostly I'm happy and excited and I love watching him grow up and learn things and I can't wait to see what's next. But there's that little bit of me that wonders where the last year went and why I can't keep him a baby forever."

"I suppose that's fairly common."

"A year ago he was a newborn. And in that long he's been an infant and a baby and now he's suddenly a toddler. I'll blink twice and he'll be in preschool and heading off to college and getting married and having his own family. It went so fast. I guess I wish I could control it, you know? Just press a button and pause him, just for a second."

"Do you feel like you need that control to be happy?"

"No, because I'm happy without it. Sometimes I feel like I want that control… maybe to be safe. I want to control what happens to him and when because I want him to be safe. And maybe it's not so much of a puppet master kind of thing as it is a desire to make things as perfect as they can be."

"Do you think that you bring that into your marriage at all?"

"I don't know," she sighed, shaking her head. "I've never felt the need to. Maybe it's because I know I'm safe with him. I can't think of a time when I have honestly tried to control him or us or anything like that. Maybe I do and I just don't see it, but I really don't think I do."

"What about at work?"

"Yeah, maybe a little bit."

"How?"

"I go too fast sometimes. Jump to conclusions that I should have waited for because I want… not to be right, really. I guess I want to be able to direct things a little. Make people head in a certain direction. I guess I just thought that that's how I am, but maybe it was a little bit of that desire for control sneaking out."

"Is that something that you think needs to change?"

"Maybe not so much the action as the motivation behind it."

They talked for a while longer, touching on a few but not finding anything that needed to be talked over. Lindsay was doing really well now, and she found herself in therapy more out of habit than need. Soon she would be comfortable enough without it, but she made herself an appointment for next month anyway.

The line at the post office was long and she kept glancing at her watch, knowing she couldn't make it to the bank before it closed if she went to the grocery store first. She hated having to change her schedule around, but that's how it worked. She sighed and looked at the few packages again, making sure they were absolutely ready to send and there would be no delays at the counter.

Her cell phone chirped and she wrestled it out of her coat pocket, blowing a strand of hair off of her forehead.

"Hello?"

"Hey so remember when you got that big thing of spaghetti noodles figuring they would last us a while?"

"Yes," she answered warily.

"Guess who just poured the bag on the floor and stomped them all?"

"Are you kidding me?"

"All I did was go to the bathroom, and I come out and find this."

"Sweep it up and pitch it, I guess."

"I already did. And while I was doing that, someone went into the bathroom and had a little fun with your shampoo. And by fun I mean pouring it all over the cat."

"Oh no."

"So I am trying to clean that up and I wasn't sure if sticking him in his crib so I could get it done was a bad move or not."

"It's exactly what I would have done. I'm sorry he's being such a pill."

"It's okay. I just thought you might want to know."

"Thanks babe. I should be home in a couple hours."

"You'd better be. The kid is nuts today."

"Yeah, I hear the screaming."

"Hurry up."

"I will. Bye."

She clicked the phone off and chuckled to herself. It was really no different than any other day, it was just that the two messes were harder to clean up than when all the DVD's got thrown on the floor or the cat bed was upside down.

Finally she got to the counter and mailed the packages with relative ease, then headed back out to the car. She really hated going to the bank, and this close to closing on a Saturday, it was bound to be busy. She parked in the last available spot and headed inside, sighing at the line before her. The poor tellers all looked a little frazzled at the abundance of customers and she seriously considered just waiting to deposit their paychecks until Monday. She stood there for a moment, trying to figure out what bills would come due before she could make it back to the bank, if they had enough to cover everything, and if she would actually make it a few days without losing the paper checks.

She was just about to turn around and head back out the door when a loud yell came from behind her.

"Everyone down on the ground, you know what this is!"

There was a small part of her that was annoyed at the intrusion on her day, but a bigger part of her that carefully lowered herself to the floor with the other customers.

"Nobody move or it'll be your last!"

Slowly she opened one eye and looked around at the four men who had now locked the doors and drawn the shades and were holding rifles while directing the tellers to fill bags with money. They were all wearing masks of course, but she knew almost immediately who they were. Flack had been working on a case for the last few months, a group of drug dealers who had resorted to robbing banks to pay their way. He'd talked about it a lot, frustrated at the lack of leads and grainy surveillance videos. The last robbery had been bad, three tellers and one customer dead while the group made off with a good chunk of money. She knew that Danny had been helping with the case and had heard from Austin how frustrating the whole thing was because they were really no closer to closing the case now than when they had started almost six months ago.

She kept the information in the back of her mind for now, concentrating instead on the voices and the words they used and the way they moved, hoping that it could help later, when she got out of here.

There was a commotion behind the counter and one of the men jumped over it angrily.

"Did you push it?" he yelled, waving his gun. "Did you push it?"

They must have been talking about the emergency button that most tellers had behind their counter for moments like this. She gulped, almost hoping that the button hadn't been pushed, or that the teller could lie because this would not turn out well if the police were on their way.

"I'll ask you one more time. Did you push it?"

There was some silence and then a deafening gunshot, which had Lindsay wishing she could bury her face in the floor. The panic started to rise in her body and she stiffened, trying to ward off the panic.

"Well someone pushed it!"

Another shot, this one seemingly rippling the floor.

"Was it you?"

She cringed as each teller was asked and then shot without a chance to respond. She was desperate to run or to hide or to do something other than just lay here, but the panic and the memories kept her cemented to the floor.

She was vaguely aware of sirens in the distance, though they could have been very close, for as far into her head as she had drawn. She breathed deeply, trying to settle her heart rate, but the images were coming too fast and the smell of coppery blood and deathly gunpowder flooded through her mercilessly, ripping down every vestige of calm she'd so carefully put up.

The tile floor was cool underneath her. The light was unnatural and bright. There was water running. Silence. Screams. Gunshots. His face. The bells on the door. Red. Everywhere, red. Sticky. Life on the floor. Life on the floor. The phone. The voice. Kelly's eyes. Hide. The bells again. Lifted higher, into warmth. Dark night, bright lights, commotion, questions.

Bile rose in her throat as she recalled the snippets of memory, each one hitting her as if a bullet, slicing into her and taking over completely. She felt it in her knees first, the shakes that wouldn't go away. She willed them to stop moving focusing all her brain power on that rather than the thoughts that so desperately wanted to devour her.

It seemed like forever that she laid there, silently fighting her demons while new ones flew around the room, finding minds to embed in and stay forever. She squeezed her eyes closed and tried to think of anything else but what had happened, what was happening. Nothing came to mind, nothing broke through the panic and she knew she was going to that scary place again.

There was a loud crashing noise, the sound of glass breaking, shouting and gunfire, and she trembled, wishing for silence, praying for silence.

It actually came a while later and she wanted to look and see what was going on, but she couldn't make her body obey her mind. She could hear voices, urgent but comforting. The people who had been on the floor next to her started to move, and with everything in her she pushed herself up off the cold stone and back up against the wall, for standing wasn't an option right now. She heard Danny's voice first and the relief almost knocked the wind out of her. She wanted to be able to call out to him, to have some kind of contact with normalcy to break her out of the shock that she was slipping into, but it had her too hard. She just sat silently, her eyes fixed straight ahead, blinking slowly.

"Lindsay?"

Flack crouched in front of her, tipping her chin up a little to look at her.

"Are you hurt?"

She couldn't respond, as much as she wanted to and that scared her possibly more than the events that had just taken place.

"Hey Danny, Lindsay's over here."

Danny rushed to her side, his face one of panic as he and Flack looked her over, checking for injuries.

"I think she's in shock," Danny said, brushing her hair back from her face. She wanted to tell him that she was fine, just a little shaken up, she could handle it. But the truth was that she couldn't. She'd been pushed to far back into that diner and she could see no way out again.

"Linds, can you stand up?"

She managed a whimper and he hooked one arm under her legs and one behind her back, lifting her easily off the floor.

"You're okay, Linds. Let's get you outside."

The cold air hit her and she shivered in his arms, afraid he was going to drop her.

"It's alright, I've got you."

He took her to one of the ambulances and she wanted so badly to protest, to refuse the hospital but she couldn't make a sound. He lifted her up onto a gurney, then hopped up next to her, turning her to face him.

"Linds, I need you to talk to me."

She opened her mouth but words wouldn't formulate, much less come out. She tried so hard, closed her eyes and concentrated, but she couldn't make a noise.

"I think you're in shock. I want you to go to the hospital."

She shook her head almost imperceptibly and he shook his right back.

"Lindsay, you're freezin', your pulse is racin' and you're breathin' really heavy."

She bit her lip and silently begged him not to take her in. He sighed and pulled her closer, trying to get her warm.

"Want me to call Adam?"

She nodded as vigorously as she was able, then closed her eyes and tried to at least regulate her breathing. Danny was saying something, but she couldn't be bothered to figure out just what that was. She found her body responding a little more to her mental commands and she drew her legs up onto the gurney, wrapping her arms round them and resting her chin on her knees.

"Adam's on his way. You gonna be alright? 'Cuz you're kinda scaring me here."

She gulped and nodded, not fighting it when he pulled her head down to his shoulder. Part of her wondered if he knew about the diner. He knew something had happened, but she'd never really given anyone the whole story, save for Adam. Austin had filled in the gaps between the few details she had shared, and of course Mac knew, but she had never said much to anyone else. She hoped he knew somehow, or this freak out would seem a little silly.

She kept her eyes closed and took a deep breath before finally speaking.

"I heard it," she whispered.

"Heard what?"

"They shot them. All of them."

"I know," he said, rubbing her arm to try and warm her up. "You're okay, Linds. It's all going to be fine."

He held her tightly and it helped to calm her a little but she still wasn't completely at ease. She wanted to pull completely within herself and shut down, lick her wounds in private as she was so rarely able to do. She needed warmth and peace and quiet and safety and she wasn't going to feel that sitting out here in the cold and noise.

"Danny?"

"Yeah?"

"Are they okay?"

"I don't know."

She shuddered and wrung her hands, slamming her eyes closed again, and trying to put herself somewhere else. She concentrated hard on somewhere safe, somewhere that was happy before her life had ever spiraled so far down.

"Linds, Adam's here."

She opened her eyes and found him just a few feet away, and reality suddenly snapped back. She wrapped her arms around him as soon as he was within reach, and the waxiness crumbled out of her mind.

"Hey, hey, you're alright. I have you."

Her breaths were shaky and she finally just let go, the sobs pounding against her lungs almost painfully.

"Shh, baby, it's okay."

"It happened again."

"No it didn't. It's not the same."

"I'm falling apart," she whispered against him.

"No you're not," he said pulling her away from him and looking into her eyes. "You're not going to let yourself, honey. This isn't the same. Do you hear me?"

"Yes."

"Do you believe me?"

"Yes."

He kissed her forehead and wiped her tears away then wrapped her more completely into his arms.

"Why does this happen to me?"

"I don't know, baby."

"I want to go home."

"Let me talk to Danny real quick, okay?"

She nodded and he let her go for just a second, walking a few feet away to talk to Danny.

"She alright?"

"Yeah, she's fine. She gets flashbacks sometimes, to what happened. She just has to pull herself out of it. Sometimes it takes a while. She wants to go home though. You guys need to take her statement?"

"We'll get it later. Just take her home."

"Thanks Danny."

He walked back over and helped Lindsay off the gurney, making sure she was steady on her feet before they made their way to the car. He opened the door and she got inside, slowly running her fingers over the seatbelt before she buckled it. He watched her closely for a moment before he closed her door and went around to the other side.

"Babe?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you need anything?"

"I just want to go home. Please."

"No problem," he assured, wiping a tear from her eye.

"I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"That I can't hold it together."

"Lindsay, first of all, you can hold it together and you do hold it together. Second, holding it together is not all that important if you're denying what you feel. And third of all honey, you're always going to have this hurt. It's a part of you. But it is in no way your fault. Do you hear me?"

"I hear you. Thanks."

"I'll take you home and cuddle you for a while, okay?"

"You're the best."

"Only for you."

"Where's Colton?"

"He's fine. Austin took him."

"Okay."

"Let's go home."

"You still cold?" Adam asked, handing Lindsay a cup of tea.

"Little bit."

He sat down and put his arm around her, kissing the top of her head.

"You want to tell me what it was like today?"

She sighed and stared down at the mug she held, watching as the tea leaves and the water reacted together.

"It was the closest I've been to that panic since it happened. It was like it just grabbed me all the sudden. I wasn't even sure what was happening now and what was coming back from then. I was okay until I heard that first gunshot. It feels like it ripped through me. Not pain so much as it was like… I can't really explain it, it was just like it took over. I don't like it, Adam."

"When Danny called me he said you weren't talking. Was it because you couldn't?"

"Yeah. I was trying, I just couldn't make words come out. I'm not sure why though."

"What do you wanna do about it?"

"Right now? I want to forget it. But I think that tomorrow I'm going to need to talk about it."

"I'll meet you wherever you are."

"I know that."

He took the mug of tea from her and set it on the table, then pulled the blanket off the back of the couch and wrapped it around both of them. He didn't say anything, just held her as safely as he could while she did what she had done so many times before and banished the fears and thoughts one by one until she could breathe easier, and the tears that coursed down her cheeks were of relief and cleansing.

"Lindsay, I want you to know that no matter how bad this hurts you or when it happens or anything like that, you never have to keep anything from me."

"I won't."

She leaned up and kissed him softly and he felt her relaxing, little by little.

"Maybe this morning you should have stayed in bed."

She couldn't help but chuckle at his observation, as she had thought the same thing several times in the last few hours.

"There's my girl," he said, tracing her smile with his finger. She closed her eyes and sighed, using his strength and stillness for herself for just a little while.

"Thanks for finding me every time."

The kiss to her forehead promised forever and no matter what. Even when her world was crashing down, or when she didn't even know where her world was, he would be there to hold her and cherish her and keep her safe.