Hey there, so this is my first D/L fanfic in english. I wrote it in German originally but I decided to not translate it word by word but write it again with the same meaning. I postet it at fanfiction.net, too, but I thought I might post it here, too, as it's my first ff here So this takes place after “Run silent run deep”. I don’t know what happened to Louie after that, this is just one possibility. Hm if anyone knows – tell me!^^ I’ll try not to make major mistakes, but feel free to correct! Anyways, hope you’ll like it. Bye, SandleDL A/N: I wrote this when I didn’t have a clue about LRC, NWILL and SOOH, just for you to know. ---------------------------------- Totally alright “Danny?” The young man jerked and turned his head to localize where the soft voice had come from. “What?” “Sorry”, said Lindsay who was standing in the doorway, watching her co-worker. “I… I didn’t mean to disturb you, I just…” “Then you might as well leave”, Danny answered, much louder than he had intended to. He sounded self-confident, determined, and only someone who knew him well enough would be able to notice the subliminal shaking in his words. “Danny, maybe…” “Maybe what?!” His eyes behind the glasses were cold as ice and they hit the young woman like a punch in the face. She had expected everything but this reaction. Had she been wrong? Didn’t she know him as well as she’d thought she did? ‘Stop being riddiculous!’, she warned herself. ‘You know him much better than he thinks you do.’ “I just wanted to know if I can help you, Danny”, she asked quietly. “If I need help I’ll let you be the first to know, okay?”, the blond man replied through gritted teeth. “And now…” Lindsay stepped back and turned round. “I know you’re not okay, Danny”, she stated calmly. “Maybe you’ll feel like talking some day.” With these words she closed the door, leaving behind a motionless Danny, who was standing there like an ice sculpture. “I’m fine!”, he shouted, his voice a mixture of anger and despair. “I’m totally alright!” But his words remained unheard. Danny sat down on a near-by chair, resting his ellbows on he desk. Alone. Finally he was alone. All of a sudden the ticking of the clock seemed frighteningly loud, time passed by to rest in peace forever in this mysterious place called eternity. A monotonous rhythm, both calming and threatening like the permanent signals in the sterile hospital room. “Dammit!”, he yelled, crashing his fist down onto the white desk. A sharp pain emerged in his wrist, crawling up his arm at high speed, and for a slight moment Danny closed his eyes. Pain. Yes, it hurt, more than he ever could have imagined. He was shivering, there was nothing he could do against it as it was the inner iciness that made him freeze and his shivering only a desperate instinctive attempt to keep him alive. He spotted a little plastic bag, evidence he had to investigate, he remembered Mac’s order. The detective got up and took a pair of gloves out of a box. He put them on almost mechanically, the left one first, then the right one, like he had done it a million times before. Only touching it with his fingertips, he took a blood sample tube out of the bag and placed in the rack. With his right hand he fetched a pipette and an appropriate tip, which was shiny yellow in colour and actually way too bright to fit his mood. It slipped from his shaking hands and fell to the spick-and-span floor. “Fuck!!” Totally frustrated Danny smashed the pipette onto the desk and sqatted to pick up the small tip. It had rolled over the floor, then rested in a spot of light. A ray of light was hitting it, one of the last ones of the decaying day, the twilight was setting in, covering the giant skyscrapers of New York like a curtain falling. And in this moment, feeling the dim light of the setting sun in his face, Danny Messer leant his back against the cool wall and cried. He was crying and he was praying, praying that no one would see him like this, not Flack, not Stella, and above all not Lindsay. Mac was the only person about whom he didn’t care, he had seen him crying before, standing in front of the hospital in that night that seemed so far and yet so close. He had felt so damned helpless, desperate, so… guilty. Guilt was all that was left for him beside the terrible feeling of fear, guilt that haunted him like a demon hidden in the shady corners of his soul. It wasn’t your fault!, he tried to comfort himself, but all his efforts were in vain. ‘I’m totally alright!’ His own words echoed inside his head. Of course Montana had been right, as always when it came to him. He wasn’t okay at all, he was feeling all fucked up to be honest, and she knew it. She always did. She had this creepy ability to look inside his head and know what he himself didn’t even knoe. Did she also know that at least he felt a bit better every time she was around? ‘Why did you hurt her like this?’, Danny accused himself. So here he was, in a modern lab of the Crime Scene Investigative Service, being just about to throw away the one last thing that could save his day. Lindsay Monroe. No, he corrected himself. It wasn’t only the day she could save, but his life. She could if he only let her. The vision of Lindsay appeared in front of his inner eye, the moment she showed him the DNA results repeated as if in slow motion, and he relived the second in which his trust into everything he had once relied on was burnt and something new had arisen from the ashes. The feeling that she would be there for him, come what may. And now he had surrendered this precious gift to the hungry flames and he was motionlessly watching them destroy it forever. “You’re such an idiot, Messer!”, he murmured. “Just go and see her!” “She’s already there.” Danny lifted his head. She was standing there, her shiny hair covering parts of her beautiful face, and she was watching him. “Lindsay, I…” He choked, his mouth was all dry. “Lindsay, I.. I shouldn’t have been so rude. Please forgive me.” She didn’t reply and her facial expression was emotionless. “You… you will forgive me – won’t you?” His last words were barely audible, and he wasn’t asking – he was begging. Slowly Lindsay approached her colleague and sat down beside him. He didn’t even try to cover the silvery lines which his tears had left on his cheeks, it would have made no sense, this at least he knew for sure. Her hand rested on his thigh and her voice was filled with warmth when she finally spoke to him. “You know that I’d forgive you everything, Danny. When I asked you whether you’d like to talk to me I’d wished desperately for you to give up this damned pride and be honest. Until I realized that it’s this side of yours that would always make me return. Because you need me to.” Gently she laid her fingertips on his cheek, tracing the barely visible lines that ran down to the corner of his mouth. “Thank you”, was all Danny could say as he let his head sink onto her shoulders and closed his eyes. He could feel her hair on his skin, it was a comfortable feeling, and for the first time since long he had the indistinct feeling that finally everything could turn out well. “You know what, Montana?”, he whispered hoarsely. “I think Louie would’ve liked you. He would’ve liked you pretty much.” A light smile crossed the young woman’s face, she took his hand and sqeezed it carefully. “It wasn’t your fault, Danny. He gave his life so that yours wouldn’t be destroyed like his had been long before. You didn’t ask him to do so. It was his decision, Danny. His own.” He nodded slowly. Maybe she was right and he really wasn’t to blame. The feelings might remain and never leave totally, like fine scars running over his skin, but he had finally found someone to help him forget the pain. And that was all that mattered when he kissed her gently while the last rays of light disappeared behind the windows. -----------------------------------------------------------------