Ch 9 Tongue Tied

Disclaimer: I don't own CSI: NY, or do I own Faber Drive or the song Tongue Tied. I'm not making any money off this, but writing is cheaper than therapy, so therefore, I write.

A/N: I'm glad you guys enjoyed the last chapter. One thing I want to get cleared up is something in the last chapter. I wasn't trying to say that because Lindsay understands why he went to someone else, that it's alright now; it's not. That was there simply to say that she understands more and can start coming from a place besides hurt, anger and betrayal. I hope that clears up any misunderstandings.

I know it feels like again,
to want to be here again.
And we could help each other off the ground, so we never fall down again. And what it takes I don't care,
were gonna make it I swear.
And we could help each other off the ground, so we never fall down again, again.

-Faber Drive "Tongue Tied"

Maybe it was the toy that did it, or the fact that his eyes were so impossibly blue and his hair mussed from the rain. Or, maybe it was the fact that she was already at the end of her emotional threshold after talking with her mother, but before either of them knew it, Lindsay had her arms wrapped around Danny's neck, as if he were the buoy keeping her from drowning in a ferocious sea; and her face was buried in the crook of his neck as she inhaled his uniquely musky scent, mixed with the smell of his leather jacket, and the fresh rain.

Taken by surprise at this sudden turn of events, Danny's arms wrapped around her torso, acting as the strong bands of strength, she'd come to depend on them as. Instinctually, he knew she just needed to cry it out right now, so he held her firmly against his chest, one arm wrapped low around her waist and the hand of the other creeping up her spine until he reached the nape of her neck, where he could stroke her hair; something he'd found worked to gently bring her back down when she was as emotionally overworked, as she was right now.

"It's okay baby. You go ahead and let it all out. I'm right here and I'm not going anywhere. We'll talk when you're ready. You just cry and let me take care of you, okay?"

In response, he got a nod, along with a sniffle and another hearty sob.

When, after ten minutes, she showed no signs of calming down; Danny slowly backed them into her living room and sat on the large plush sofa, where the pair had shared more than a few horny moments together. Right now wasn't about hormones though. This moment was about being the emotional pillar that Lindsay so desperately needed. She would tell him why she needed it when she was ready. He knew trying to force it out of her, would be akin to leading a horse to water and trying to make it drink; it just wasn't going to happen! So, he made himself comfortable on the overstuffed leather settee with Lindsay snugly tucked into his side, one arm protectively wrapped around her shoulders, and his other hand gently cupping her chin, his thumb stroking her jaw while her head laid pillowed against his shoulder as she continued to cry out years of anguish, abandonment, loneliness, hurt, anger and loss.

"There, how you doing now," Danny crooned gently as her sobs turned to sniffles and then to soft hiccups, followed by the occasional tear drop, which he gently wiped away with his thumb. "You want to tell me what caused my best t-shirt to get a free shower," he joked, noting a large wet spot on his green shirt. The woman beside him smiled shyly, but remained silent. "I'll take that as a 'no' then," he noted. "How about a drink then? I'm thirsty," he said, getting up for two large glasses of water without waiting for her to answer. He came back, resuming the previous seating arrangement, and sat two large glasses of ice water in front of them. They were silent for several minutes before Danny spoke up again, "It's not that I always mind having an entire conversation with myself; but this one might be a bit more effective if you had some input," apparently she would need some prodding this time around.

"Sorry about your shirt," she said quietly, looking intently at the glass of water in her hand.

"Don't worry about the shirt; I'm not. I'm worried about you though," he decided to go for the blunt, yet thoughtful angle and see where that led them.

"Me? Why are you worried about me?"

"Because when I arrived at your door, you were in the middle of an emotional meltdown. That's not like you Linds. You're always so strong and confident. Of all the people on the team, you're the emotionally stable one that can handle whatever comes her way. What happened to that woman?"

"That woman spent half an hour on the phone with her alcoholic mother being reminded of what a disappointment she is," Lindsay spat out bitterly, then took a long swallow of water, hoping that the tears lodging in her throat would go back down with the liquid.

"Your family isn't normal either," Danny noted, careful to keep all note of pity out of his voice, afraid it would either spark anger or another round of crying from her. Given how he'd treated her while in the throes of grieving, and then the clutches of the misery and subsequent guilt he'd made for himself, he knew it sounded strange, but, he hated to see Lindsay cry. What he hated even more was the fact that, lately, she'd been crying because of the shitty choices he'd made. Choices that had hurt her deeper than he could even imagine. Knowing that he'd made such selfish and self destructive choices, not caring if they hurt her, made him want to cry. He wanted to hold her in his arms and cry, promising that he would never break her heart again, and promising that he would fix them; she would see. Most of all though, Danny wanted reprieve. He wanted a reprieve from the guilt, anger and, self-loathing he'd been carrying around for himself ever since the morning after his infidelity. It was a form of absolution only he could give himself.

"It wasn't always like this. The drinking, I mean," she began to explain. "She was a normal Mom. Yes, she had one glass too many when she and Daddy went out, but it didn't get this bad for awhile. Not until after the murders."

"Whoa! Wait a minute. Hold it right there. This is not your fault! No ma'am, you're mother becoming a fully fledged alcoholic was not your fault! Something horrible happened to you, and that wasn't' your fault either," Danny quickly jumped in, knowing all too well how this general train of thought had a tendency to derail in her head.

Looking at him, Lindsay offered a half-hearted attempt at a watery eyed smile. "I know that it's not my fault she's an alcoholic, Danny. Thank you for telling me that though." He nodded a silent 'you're welcome' and waited for her to continue; an affectionate smile gracing his masculine face and a look of patience and encouragement in his aquamarine colored eyes.

His demeanor towards her since his arrival at her place, over half an hour ago, coupled with the cogent nature in his response to her mother's alcoholism brought Lindsay to a decision; well, a couple decisions, really. First, she had to tell him about her past. He knew about the murders, but she hadn't ever elaborated on how she had coped with such intense emotions that she really wasn't mature enough to handle, nor had she told him about the hardships she faced for the rest of her adolescence. Now was the time to tell him. She just hoped that he wouldn't do what every other significant person, save for her Dad and her brother, in her life had done when she allowed her emotional difficulties to show, and abandon her for good this time. She'd gone through so much emotional abandonment in her twenty-nine years of life, that, more and more frequently, she was sure that any more would break her.

'Dear God, please let him understand this and not walk away from me.'

Taking a deep breath, she began her story in a shaky, hushed tone, "I didn't have anyone I could talk to…after the murders; or at least that's how I felt. Bozeman is a bigger town now, than it was when I was growing up there. Now there's a population of over thirty-five thousand. When I was fourteen, there were thirty-four thousand. I know that doesn't sound very small, but…"

"Montana, we're two of eight million New Yorkers. Compared to that, a five figure population is very small," he interrupted with a chuckle, getting that shy smile he loved so much to emerge from her face.

"Point taken," she giggled in spite of herself before continuing her story. "When something as horrible as my friends' murders happens in such a small area, everyone finds out about it and quickly. They find out who it was that was killed, how it happened, when, where, and even who survived. In less than two days after the shooting, the whole town knew that I was the one that made it out alive. Everywhere I went, there was always someone whispering about me. Whenever my parents went anywhere, someone was always talking about them being the parents of 'that weird girl from the diner'. That's what people called me." She paused to keep a reign on her emotions and saw the disgust on Danny's face that people could refer to a violent crime survivor as 'that weird girl'.

"You lived through hell and people had the audacity to call you weird for it," he inadvertently raised his voice, the sudden urge to pound everyone that had ever called her that, getting the better of him momentarily. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to yell," he apologized when he saw her visibly recoil at the abrupt change in his temperament. I just can't believe that people, adults I'm assuming, would say that about a traumatized young girl. How did the town even find out you were the survivor? I'm sure it was a huge story out there, but the authorities aren't allowed to release the names of minors who commit or survive a crime to the media. Since the killer was still out there, I assumed they would be even more careful to keep your name under wraps," he explained, still trying to wrap his mind around the reality of a young Lindsay, his Montana, being ridiculed for surviving.

"My name wasn't released to the media Dan," off his confused look, she expounded on how the town found out. "You know how cops are when it comes to gossip. Most the time, they can put old ladies to shame!" He chuckled knowing the truth of this all too well. He remembered when the entire department found out he and Lindsay were a couple, via a certain Detective Flack. By the time Danny had been asked about him and Lindsay for the fifteenth time on his first day back on desk duty, a mere week after the hostage situation, he found out that Flack had spilled the beans. When he asked how in the hell he'd known in the first place, his cocky friend's answer had simply been that any good detective could tell the difference between discussing the situation with a colleague, and dealing with the hysterical girlfriend, even if said girlfriend was conducting herself as professionally as possible. Besides, he said he noticed a bite mark on the back of her neck while they were waiting for him to come out of surgery. "Besides, I'm the only daughter of Lucas and Lucy Monroe. A little fact like that made my name a subject of immediate interest."

"Your family is pretty important there then, I assume? I'm sure you're not the only daughter in a family in that whole town," Danny commented, interested to find out a bit of her family history and her personal story; something he wished he'd put more effort in to when they were together.

"My grandpa was the sheriff of Gallatin County for fifteen years," she supplied happily. She'd always wanted to be in a relationship with someone that would want to know these little things about her. Danny had always been interested enough in whatever she talked about, but he didn't ask a lot of questions about her past. She suspected this was because he was afraid to dredge up bad memories of that night in the diner for her.

After the trial, she'd been such an emotional disaster that first night, that Danny spent half the next day on the phone trying to get Mac to let him stay with her, just for a few days until the prosecutor said she could come back home. When he kept hitting a brick wall with Mac, he called Stella and explained the fragility of Lindsay's emotional state, as he saw it, and that she had no one there with her but him, and if he left her like this, he was afraid she wouldn't be able to handle it. Stella, having been rooting for the two to become an official couple, worked her 'Stella magic' on Mac, and Danny was allowed to stay in Bozeman for the five days until Daniel Katums was sentenced to death, and then he returned to New York with Lindsay happily in tow. The pair talked a lot during the first three months of their relationship, seeing as how their relationship wasn't a sexual one at that point, but the topics had always remained rather superficial and always about them and the future. The darkness in both their pasts was something they never broached. Now, it seemed that they were going to dive right in to the dark and uncomfortable waters of the past, and they were going to do it tonight. If they really wanted a chance to change the present course of their relationship, this was a crucial step that couldn't be ignored, postponed or only done half way.

Finishing off her glass of water in one final gulp, Lindsay pulled her small, bare feet onto the couch and tucked them under her petite body, settling into a comfortable position. In an effort to keep from fidgeting with her fingers; something she often did when nervous, Lindsay reached back to the table and brought the stuffed toy Danny had brought her to rest in her lap with both hands firmly clutched around it. She idly played with the tiger's bean bag paws as she desperately tried to come up with a game plan for how to tell Danny about the aftermath of the murders. For all the conviction Lindsay had when she'd invited him over to talk tonight, she was certainly doing a shit job of getting the words to form in her brain and then come out of her mouth in a reasonable manner.

Sensing her need to say something along with the apparent inability to do so without any prompting, Danny spoke up gently. "Earlier you said that after the murders you didn't feel like you had anyone you could talk to?"

Her brain snapping back on task at his words, and a feeling of calm falling over her that he'd been paying attention and wanted to know more, prompted her to nod in the affirmative to his question.

"That must have been rough."

"It was. I'd never felt so lonely before," she chanced a look over at the handsome detective, seeing his eyes imploring her to tell him more, "I mean, there were people all around me, but I couldn't talk to them; couldn't tell them how I felt. Everyone just kept telling me that I was the lucky one and I should be glad to be alive."

"And how did you feel?"

"I felt…I felt," a small sob hitched in her throat.

"It's okay. We've got all the time in the world; just take your time," he spoke softly, one hand stroking her hair before guiding her head to rest on his shoulder as his large right hand came to rest atop both of hers, as she continued to clutch the plush toy.

"I felt like, if this is what it was like to be the lucky one; if what my ordinary existence had become was some kind of fucked up karma for surviving, then… I wish I had died."

As the reality of what she said slowly seeped itself into Danny's brain and he felt his heart stop and his blood run cold. He was no stranger to the feeling that your life was such shit, that dying was a better option than existing; but just hearing this incredible woman that he'd been lucky enough to get to know and grow to love, and be loved in return (and how he hoped with every fiber of his being that she still loved him); this woman who, when he would come into the lab having: overslept, missed his train, not gotten his morning coffee, and wearing clothes that looked as if they'd been grabbed off the floor in haste; would invariably greet him with a winning smile, hot cup of coffee and smart comment about how he looked like a ragamuffin, say that she wished to have died with her friends, was almost too much for him to comprehend.

Say something! She just told you something she's probably never told anyone else! Say something to her you fool!

"Ah shit! Linds, look, I have no idea how I'm supposed to respond to that. I don't know what to say that will make you feel better, or express how glad I am that you didn't die. Hell, I don't even know if it's appropriate to tell you something like that right now; but I do know that I'm so sorry. I am so sorry that you went through all that and had to deal with all those feelings all alone. I'm sorry that no one was clued in enough to ask how you were and then just shut the hell up and let you talk. I'm sorry that your mother is an alcoholic and makes you feel like you're a disappointment because of what's happened to you. I'm sorry that you don't have a good relationship with her. I'm sorry that the good relationship you and I had has been lost. I'm sorry that it was my shitty and selfish actions, taking you for granted, that did it. I'm sorry for a lot of things."

"I know you are, Danny. I'm sorry too. I'm sorry for a lot of things. I'm sorry that my friends' parents lost their children. I'm sorry that I lost my friends. I'm sorry Ruben died. I'm sorry that Rikki lost her only child. I'm sorry that I was in the emotional vicinity when you said, 'to hell with anyone that's not me', and did whatever you damn well please! I'm sorry I didn't try to help you more. I'm sorry that I was the only one vested in our relationship, and I'm sorry that I allowed myself to get close enough to you to be hurt like this in the first place," she half-screamed, half-sobbed.

Having expected an outburst from her at some point during this conversation, Danny wasn't shocked that she picked this particular time to raise her voice. However, feeling the self-contempt emanating from her was a very distressing sensation for him. Realizing the intense emotions that were driving both Lindsay's voluntary and involuntary reactions to their conversation, Danny knew he couldn't chance reacting unclearly, in words and actions, to her right now. Hoping that despite the current chaos overtaking Lindsay's mind, she would understand, and accept, the meaning behind this simple gesture; Danny tightly wrapped his muscular arms around her slender frame and pulled her into his chest, lightly pressing a kiss to the crown of her head, thanking the heavens when she didn't push him away.

"Sweetheart, you tried every way you could think of to help me. It's not your fault I didn't accept what you were offering; that was my fault. I guess I was just so caught up in feeling miserable and guilty that, at some point, I didn't want to feel better. Rikki was alone and miserable," he felt her bristle when he said the other woman's name, "and part of me felt like I was betraying her if I didn't feel the same way."

"So, to keep from feeling, however preposterous it was, that you were somehow being two-faced by being in, what I thought, was a happy relationship between the two of us, yet trying to understand and support her in her grief; you decided to abandon me and our relationship for one night of grief-stricken fucking," she screamed the last six words in what could only be described as a mix of rage and crushing sadness; as she jerked her tense body from the confines of his arms and made her way to the opposite end of the small living room; trying to keep the tears running down her face, somewhat in check.

Danny sighed partly in defeat, and partly in frustration. He knew it was asking a lot to come here, say that and then expect her to just say she understood and forgive him; error corrected, please press any key to continue your relationship. Still, he was frustrated with the lack of progress they were making here.

"Look, we're clearly not making any headway here. Maybe I should just leave, and when you get back from Boston, we'll talk some more," he said as he made his way to the front door.

"Unbelievable," she sniffled as she stood by the window and watched him prepare to walk away from her and them…again, "you're running away from this."

"Excuse me?"

"This is too hard for you! You came here with a game plan for how things were supposed to go, at least in your world, tonight and now that I'm not conforming to what Danny wants to do right now and how Danny feels right now, you're leaving me!"

"Linds, I'm not running away from this, you or us. I just think we've been through enough emotions already for one night and it's time to step back and process," he explained, slowly making his way towards her.

"Is that some sort of new code with you or something?"

"Huh?"

"Time to process; that's what you said you needed when Ruben died, just some time to process. Your processing of that consisted of treating me like a useless piece of shit and cheating on me! Care to save me the trouble and just tell me what that phrase really means this time?"

"Shit," Danny muttered as he realized how his actions of the past months had made her feel and just how much work it would take to get their relationship back on track.

"Shit? What does that mean? Is that a revelation or something," she asked sarcastically, not really expecting an answer besides him walking out the door.

"Yeah, it is. While I was being talked at by Stella today, I realized some stuff, and I just realized some more stuff on top of that," he answered, stepping closer to her, stopping just on the fringe of her personal space.

"And what stuff and more stuff have you realized," she asked, suddenly feeling nervous at their close proximity.

"What I did, sleeping with Rikki, and how I've been treating you since Ruben died, was wrong. After he died, I was able to justify pushing you away, at least to myself. When you told me you were in love with me but had to let that go, all my justifications for pushing you away, treating you like crap and cheating on you went out the window."

"How did you justify your actions," she was genuinely curious about how he made his behavior okay, and if it was anywhere near the same way she had justified the things she did after her friends' murders.

Sighing, Danny reached out and clasped her delicate fingers in his hands, needing to cultivate some physical connection between them as he spoke. "Protection," off her confused look at that answer, he elaborated, "I convinced myself that by keeping you at arm's length, I was protecting you from my emotions and the actual situation. I didn't want you to get hurt, whether it was from recurring nightmares at seeing his body or feeling unwanted because I didn't want to be around anyone. It wasn't' anything against you, or to do with negative feelings about what you'd been through and what you could and couldn't handle; I didn't want to be around anyone at that time."

"Except Rikki; you didn't want to be around anyone except Rikki. As sad as it was for me to see Ruben's body in the morgue, it hurt a hell of a lot more when you didn't want me around anymore and wouldn't talk to me. All I wanted to do was help you and love you, and all you wanted to do was push me as far away as possible and cling to Rikki. When I realized that you didn't want me anymore, that you wanted to be with her, it hurt me Danny. It really hurt to realize that I'd been replaced and you didn't even have enough decency to tell me!"

"Oh, no! Montana, baby, I do want you! You are the only person I want to be with," he replied, removing his hands from hers and placing them on her shoulders, lovingly rubbing her upper arms as he slightly pulled her body closer to his, "I just wish that I hadn't been so selfish that I had to lose you first to realize it." He hoped that she could feel the truth in his words, although he wouldn't be able to blame her for questioning his honesty.

"Is that what you realized after talking with Stella, that you wanted to be with me," she questioned as her hands came to rest on either side of his waist.

"No," his voice dropped to that low, intimate tone she had always found so incredibly sexy. She also knew that in that tone, he wasn't speaking from his head, but purely from his heart. Whatever he said now, she didn't doubt was the absolute truth, "I've wanted to be with you all along. At least since the doll hospital. That day, when I held your hand, I felt that spark between us. I've never felt that with anyone else, and I don't want to feel it with anyone but you…ever. What I realized when I was talking to Stella was just how selfish I've been the past few months. I realized that it was my selfishness that caused this separation between us. I miss you, Lindsay Monroe. I miss us. I want what we had back and I'll do whatever it takes to fix us. I promise," he replied before dropping his head and just letting his lips connect with hers, tenderly for a brief moment before pulling away and searching her demonstrative brown eyes, needing to know what was going through her mind right now.

"I believe you. I want us back to," she whispered before wrapping one hand around the back of his neck and pulling his lips down to meet hers, allowing him to gently suck on her lips as his arms wrapped around her, one low on her waist while the other crept up her back until his fingers threaded in her hair allowing him to tilt her head and deepen the kiss. Sighing contentedly, Lindsay opened her mouth granting him the access he wanted. For several minutes the pair stood in her living room, bodies pressed securely against each other as their tongues languidly explored each other's mouths. There was no urgency to the kiss, just them getting reacquainted with one and other as the setting sun peeked through the clouds bathing the room in a soft glow.

Once the need for air became critical, the pair pulled away breathing heavily. Danny pulled Lindsay in for a hug and buried his face in the crook of her neck. God, he didn't ever want to let her go now that he had her back. Finally, Lindsay pulled away. She didn't want to ruin the moment, but she couldn't let him have false hope either.

"I can't make any promises Danny, but I'm willing to try if you are."

"I'm not asking you to marry me…yet," he smirked at the surprised look on her face, "I'm just asking for another chance. Give me the chance to prove to you that I can be the kind of guy you deserve. I know I've hurt you and blown whatever trust we had built up between us out of the water. Give me a chance to earn that trust back, Montana," he spoke sincerely, fully recognizing that they might not make it, that the damage might be too much, but he was going to be damned if he would just walk away from what they had without giving it his all to fix what he'd made wrong.

"Okay," she nodded as she placed another hopeful kiss to his lips.

Surely, the road ahead wouldn't always be easy, but they could take whatever twists and turns were awaiting them…together.

A/N: So, am I done? With this story…yes. There's a sequel though so don't worry! My muse just works in strange ways sometimes and insists on the sequel. So, stay tuned!