*Author's Disclaimer: I understand the likelihood of all of Manhattan's public transportation - especially the subway system - being shut down in its entirety basically does not ever happen. But for the purpose of fiction we're all going to collectively agree that this is a thing that is plausible. Agreed? Agreed.

Mindy is prepared. Sort of. She did forget to buy real food. It's okay though, because there is some pasta, a couple cans of soup and stuff in her cupboard, and some, perhaps dubious frozen pizzas that may have been in her freezer since before she went to Haiti. But there is plenty of wine. She made sure of that and stocked up really well. After all, she is an adult who watches the news. Or. Well. Accidentally overheard someone on the subway saying something about 'massive ice storm' and then checked the weather on her phone. Same thing. Mindy is prepared for anything. Bring on the ice, you Arctic-blast bastard!

She's got her most snowstorm appropriate pajamas on - the icy-blue colored ones with the big snowflakes on them and her fuzziest socks, has just opened a very yummy Malbec, and is confronting the hardest decision of the entire evening: Young Meg Ryan? Or, not-as-young-but-still-adorable Meg Ryan? Huh. She has a day or two probably, might as well make it last. She'll start with When Harry Met Sally and then work her way all the way through to You've Got Mail, and maybe even Kate & Leopold. This is going to be a great snow storm.

Harry is just about to explain to Sally on the way to New York how men and women can't really be friends because even if they think they're friends the men still secretly want to sleep with the women, and, therefore, can never be 'just friends'. Which is complete bullshit. Mindy has plenty male friends who she is clearly just friends with, so Harry has it totally wrong.

Mindy is engrossed in the argument she's having in her head with a fictional character, and jumps when there's a knock on her door, almost spilling some of the Malbec. She doesn't move. It's probably crazy Mrs. Kotsiopoulos, and if she's very still, and very quiet, the old lady will go away. She mutes the TV. The knocking starts again, more like banging really, and Mrs. Kotsiopoulos must be in pretty good shape. She wonders as she tiptoes to the door to look through the pep-hole if it will give away her movements?

"Mindy? I know you're home. I could hear your TV."

"Danny?!" Mindy throws open her front door, and, yup, Danny. And oh god, "Whoa, you look terrible! What happened to you?"

"I got stuck. I was working late finishing up some paperwork and I didn't notice it was snowing. By the time I realized and made it to the subway station everything was shut down. Did you know the buses aren't even running?"

"Yeah. The mayor shut everything down. You do know the entire state of New York has been declared a federal state of emergency and we're supposed to get like three feet of snow and ice, right?"

"No! I did not know that! You think if I'd a known that I would have stayed at the office, almost getting stranded, to work on some stupid charts? Why didn't you tell me when you left earlier?"

"I don't know, Danny. For one thing, you're an adult and I just kind of expect you to know these things. Isn't the weather channel all you DVR? And I distinctly remember you saying," - Mindy goes into her best super-macho-Italian, Danny Castellano impersonation - "Real men respect that weather is a bitch you don't wanna mess with. Never forget Sandy. Never forget."

"Okay, that's offensive. Sandy was a national tragedy."

"Did you walk here?"

"Yes! I told you. The subway and buses had already shut down. I think I have frostbite."

"Jeez, that's like -" Mindy does the mental math from Shulman to her apartment - "twenty-six blocks!"

"I know that. I just walked them. Are you going to let me in?"

She hesitates, just for a second, but it's long enough that Danny takes it as a no and turns back towards the elevator. "Danny. Stop. Of course you can come in."

It's when he steps out of the soft yellow light of the hallway and into her apartment, shrugging off his soaking wet coat, a crunchy layer of ice still clinging to the shoulders, that she notices the broken blood vessels spider-webbing across his face. His hands are shaking as he tugs at his scarf, fingers a tinged a purpley-red and the skin at his knuckles cracked.

"Danny," she whispers, tugging on his wrist, bringing him into the kitchen and turning on the bright overhead light. "This is frostbite."

"Yeah. I said that."

"I thought you were being dramatic; this is bad." She flips the tap on and lets it get warm. "Here." Mindy takes his hands gently and pulls them into the stream. He flinches when the water touches him, but he doesn't pull away.

Slowly his skin loses that purple tint and changes to an even, vibrant crimson. And with apparent warmth and feeling returning, Danny starts to shiver, his shoulders trembling and teeth chattering. "Stay like this. I'm going to turn on the shower."

Mindy grabs a towel and makes sure that the water coming out of the shower-head is warm and not hot. When she walks back in the kitchen his teeth aren't chattering as badly and she tugs on his elbow to get him moving down the hall.

While he's in the bathroom she goes rifling through her closet looking for wayward pieces of clothing left behind by random exes.

She thinks about just leaving everything in the hall before knocking softly on the door.

"Yeah?" His voice is muffled by the pounding water.

"I'm putting a change of clothes just inside the door, okay?"

"'kay."

Mindy turns the knob and a wave of steam slips through the crack. It's weird and not altogether unpleasant smelling her soap and shampoo being used by someone else, it smells different somehow when you're on the other sides of it. She shoves the clothes through the opening, dropping them in a heap on the floor - then she peeks. She really doesn't mean to, it just happens. And she can't see anything anyway, not really. With the shower on the other side of the door all she can see from where she stands is his distorted image through the opaque shower curtain reflected in the fogged over mirror. Mindy doesn't see anything that isn't completely abstract, the dark smudge of his hair and color of his skin. She closes the door soundlessly and finishes her wine.

There is an extra glass of wine sitting on the coffee table when he comes out of the bathroom. Mindy's on the couch, knee pulled up under her chin, wineglass in her left hand and cell phone in her right. "Do I want to know who's clothes I'm wearing?"

She looks up at him, that bright, closed-mouth smile on her face she's been giving him a lot recently, and shakes her head. "Probably not."

"Good to know." Danny picks up the glass and sits on the sofa, right in the middle where he can feel the tips of her toes through the thick material of her socks pressing against his thigh, and takes a long sip of wine. It's spicy and tastes like black cherries and currants and he bets that's how her mouth tastes right now too.

Damn it. He should not have come here. It hasn't even been two weeks since she spent the night at his apartment. Less than two weeks since he thought she had feelings for him and it made him start to consider things he never had before. It's been eleven days - he's been counting - since he had his arm around her shoulders, her body shockingly tiny, fitting perfectly against him, his lips brushing a kiss in her hair.

"How are you feeling?"

"Ah, I'm all right. It's not too bad. Just needed to get warmed up." He flexes his free hand to show her, and it's true, he's fine, the skin on his hands looking no worse than an abrasive windburn. "So what have we got going on here," he tips his head toward the TV where the DVD player's screensaver is bouncing from side to side.

"We have a Meg Ryan movie marathon, starting at the beginning with your personal favorite, When Harry Met Sally." He must be scowling because she hastily adds, "And if you grumble about what I'm watching I reserve the right to kick you out. I'm sure Mrs. Kotsiopoulos upstairs would love to have you stay with her."

"Hey," he puts his hand up in defense, "this is your party. Do up all the Meg Ryan you can stomach."

"Oh. Okay." She looks a little startled by this easy acquiescence and he hides his smile behind the wine glass. "That's exactly what I'm going to do."

Danny picks the remote up off the coffee table and is about to hit the play button, then asks, "Why do you say this is my personal favorite?"

"Well, deduction. Of the times I have had my favorite movies on in the doctor's lounge, this is the one you complained about the least. And, I've noticed that you know an awful lot about some of the secondary characters and the actors. You didn't just learn that from the bits and pieces you've seen with me. Ergo, you've willingly watched it at least a couple times before."

"Ergo, huh?"

"Yes, ergo. What of it?" Mindy prods at him with her toes.

He shrugs at her, because, yeah, that's accurate. "Alright, Sherlock, you're right."

"Ha! I knew it. You are such a sap, Danny, just admit it. You love this romantic crap."

"No. I'm not a sap. And I maintain this movie is ridiculous. It's just -" he shrugs. "My ma had the tape. I watched it with her."

"Aw, you love your mother, Danny?" She reaches a hand out to touch his arm, and she's doing that thing where her voice sounds really condescending and insincere, but she actually means it in a nice, genuine way.

"Of course I love my mother. Everyone loves their mother." He shakes off her hand. "We'd watch the VHS of Die Hard, too, so it's not like it was a thing."

He hits play and the movie starts back where she must have paused it earlier and he wills himself not to look at Mindy and the way she's smiling softly at him like she thinks he's full of a gooey marshmallow center.

Billy Crystal is just getting good and amped-up on his diatribe about men and women not being able to be friends because sex is always a part of it, and Danny wishes like crazy this was any other movie that has ever been made.

"That is such crap. Isn't it, Danny? Men don't really feel that way. I've got a ton of single guy friends and sex has never made our relationship awkward."

He thinks for a long moment, trying to come up with an answer that will appease her and contradict what is a sexist idea from a twenty-five year old movie. Yet all he can think is how horribly spot on that feels right now and how much easier it would be if he never had imagined what it would be like to have Mindy share his bed.

"Seriously?! Why do men think like that?" His silence an apparent agreement. "You guys are gross."

"I didn't say that. I'm just not coming up with a good argument against it."

"Well, it isn't true. I don't care what men think. I've got plenty of single guy friends I'm just platonic with."

"Phh! Name one!"

She thinks for a minute, her brow scrunching, and he needs to change the subject. He does not need to be encouraging this train of thought.

"Jared!"

"Jared from your beauty parlor?"

"Well, I'm not a housewife in 1953, so it's not my beauty parlor," Mindy makes a face saying the words, "but yes. That Jared."

"Okay, first of all, Jared is married. And maybe more importantly, Jared is married to a man, so you're 0 for 2 on that one."

"I don't have to give you a list. I know there are plenty, so..."

"Believe that if you want to, sweetheart, but we both know that any single, reasonably attractive male friends you have you've either dated, slept with, or tried to do both." Danny sees the obvious exception and hates himself a little for pointedly placing himself in whatever shithole of non-attractive relationship Siberia that puts him in. She doesn't seem to make the connection and he smirks at her triumphantly anyway.

Then Mindy narrows her eyes and, oh, he does not like that look. She shoves her fingertips hard against his chest. "YOU are the exception to that, Danny. Duh. Clearly we have never dated and I certainly never tried to have sex with you, so - who's the Sherlock now?"

Danny tries to smile and ignore the way his stomach plummets, the fine-point she put on how uninterested she is in him stinging. He should say something, anything to move this along, but even falling back on his usual snark is too much for him to hold on to, not even feeling up to pointing out that her gloating Sherlock comeback makes no sense. It feels a little like he's swallowed his tongue and he's glad his cheeks are frostbitten because he's pretty sure even if they weren't his face would be red.

The smile is rapidly slipping from her face, the moment starting to feel strange, and Danny grasps to say something that isn't pathetic. Please, Lord, help me get out of this, he prays.

And there his answer is, in the form of a burnt offering. "Is something on fire?" He turns toward the smell and what looks like, yeah, smoke billowing out of her oven, the alarm starting to blare.

"Crap! The pizza!" Mindy runs to the kitchen and Danny raises a silent prayer of thanks; God does love him.

It is surprisingly easy after another bottle of wine, a dinner consisting of the worst pizza he's ever eaten - and that was the one she made after the one she burned - to convince Mindy that if they are doing a best of Meg Ryan movie marathon chronologically they really should have started with Top Gun.

They drink almost three bottles of wine total and sing along to all the songs in the movie. Mindy unsurprisingly knows every word to 'Take My Breath Away' and they harmonize on 'You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling'. Mindy is tipsy when she goes to bed a little after midnight. No one else would notice it, she is a very good drinker. He notices. On her way to bed she kisses his cheek and tells him she's glad he's here. That's how he knows.

Danny lays awake a long time staring at the living room ceiling, thinking about how warm her lips felt against his skin. He really shouldn't have come here. He could have made it eleven more blocks uptown to his own apartment. Yeah, the frostbite would have been critical at that point. He could probably still perform a C-Section with the tips of his fingers missing though, couldn't he?