The Courtship of Lindsay Boxer.

By Angelfire-08.

Rating: R to NC-17 for scenes of fluffy wooing, sickly romance, perhaps some inappropriate and hopefully hysterical comedy, possibly some bad words, and lastly, sweet seduction. Angst may also rear its ugly head.

Fandom: Women's Murder Club.

Pairing: Cindy/Lindsay.

Timeline: Let's say, after episode 1.13. And also, that there's not so much fiasco with the Kiss-Me-Not killer; just some fallout and such. Nor Pete. In fact, Lindsay and Pete never went past their two weeks and Lindsay didn't see him off at the airport.

Genre: Romance/Comedy.

Spoilers: Everything up to the last episode.

Disclaimer: Lest we forget, I, as a fanfic writer, don't own anything to do with Women's Murder Club. But this stuff is mandatory. I don't wish to make money off something that isn't mine. I just write to suit myself. And the term starving artist was coined for a reason.

Author's Note: My first foray on many accounts. I hope its smooth sailing. I hope some small spark of enjoyment is derived from my offering to the WMC fandom gods. Anyway, this idea struck me in the middle of a nine-hour shift at the bowling alley where I work when I was in desperate need of an imagination vacation. Continuous exposure to tenpins getting slaughtered by fourteen-pound bowling balls; who'd have thought it could insight inspiration? That and I may be just a little bit insane. Works for me. Enjoy… I hope.

Chapter 2: Remedies of the Wise, All-Knowing Sage.

"Welcome to the dog house," the reckless lead crime reporter, Cindy Thomas, mused evenly to herself.

Her reflection in the Homicide Department's bathroom mirror agreed wholeheartedly. Two red-rimmed eyes, one of them blue and colouring straight to black, took in the developed damage her mug shot had alluded to last night, and stirred a sigh to whoosh as gently as possible from her sore, stiff, and aching abdomen. She was a sight alright. And she felt like shit. But what happened to be bothering her the most at such an early hour of a new San Francisco morning wasn't her condition or the overnighter in the holding cell.

What was bothering the ever-curious reporter was waiting outside the bathroom door: a vision of leather and jeans and boots and dark, wavy curls. And caramel. Leather and caramel. She'd never noticed it before this morning, and Cindy suspected it was the result of her new, heightened awareness of all things Lindsay Boxer. But this morning, in the light of a new day and a fresh Inspector Boxer yanking her unceremoniously out of the holding cell, Cindy had discovered that Lindsay in the morning had the unmistakable aura of leather and caramel. It was a combination she should have noticed before, she thought, but given that it had suddenly revealed itself to her now, she was glad she hadn't. Noticing beforehand would have been a warning sign to imminent trouble as subtle as an avalanche. Noticing now was the kind of revelation that tempted her curiosity into wondering what else she hadn't noticed about the woman she now found herself gooey over.

Wait, gooey?

Surely that wasn't the best she could do in an effort to describe it…

And yet…

There was that headshake of self-ridicule she was waiting for. She was one, full-blown step away from pathetic. And she was so off topic of her original line of thinking. And, good god, she was gooey. Gooey all over for leather and caramel and the woman who embodied it standing, no doubt impatiently, outside of the bathroom waiting for her.

Was there ever going to be a moment in the very near future where she didn't think she was going to be fucked… and not in the good way?

Another sigh, bringing with it a first class ticket on the train of pain, broke past her lips, stinging the gorge carved into the bottom one, and blew cool against the surface of the mirror. What was bothering the ever-curious reporter was the fact that sub-zero temperatures had penetrated her skin, seeped into the very marrow of her bones, and was refusing to let her go at the reception of Lindsay Boxer. The Inspector's shoulder couldn't be any more colder than that of an Artic winter. Cindy shivered hard, and not pleasantly, at the thought.

So she'd tuned out of Lindsay's savage, rage-induced rant the night before. So what? It wasn't like she hadn't been barraged by various other versions of it. And it wasn't like she did it on purpose. More mind-grabbing and life-affecting revelations were occurring to her, agreeably at the most inopportune moment, but occurring none-the-less. Was it really her fault that she hadn't received the message Lindsay was so graphically trying to expound on her? Was it really necessary for the woman to give her nothing but ice and glares and hard, crushing grips on sore, upper arms as she dragged the bothered reporter from one place to another?

When the bathroom door was thrown open with a most unnecessary force, Cindy answered those questions with a hard, guilt-induced yes. Her forehead came into contact with the smooth, cool glass of the mirror as the weight of the Lindsay Boxer doghouse settled well and truly on the shoulders of the unapologetically ambitious reporter.

"Get comfy, Cindy," she whispered very softly to herself against the surface of the mirror, fogging briefly with each exhalation from her aching ribs. "Looks like it's going to be a long stay in the rain."

"It doesn't take fifteen minutes to pee and wash your face, Cindy! For Christ's sake, what the hell are you doing in here?"

Suspicions confirmed.

The dogged lead reporter wished she had energy enough to muster up some kind of emotion in the vein of annoyance or frustration. But she just couldn't seem to do it. It might have been the result of no sleep mixed with aching limbs and sore muscles. Cindy was more inclined to think it had something to do with being ambushed by that intoxicating and sinful combination of scents she'd discovered before. Either way, the conclusion was this: Lindsay was still royally pissed in addition to the ice lacing her voice; a fact which wasn't about to change in any concept of the near future.

And Cindy?

Well… gooey made a reappearance in the swirl of her mental blank and the sudden lurch into spin-cycle her stomach decided to take. That, and the Lindsay Boxer doghouse suddenly felt a hell of a lot more un-fucking-comfortable than before. A dreamy little sigh from between her lips at the sound of Lindsay's voice, and the protesting of her ribs at the love-conscious action, might have had something to do with it. Cindy couldn't be too sure in this current state of mental atrophy. The only thought that was conscious enough to make any kind of dent was the hope that Lindsay hadn't heard that little exhalation of breath.

"Am I going to get a god damn answer or are you going to be as oblivious as you were last night?"

From yelling to growling. Cindy Thomas was on a one-way trip to the fiery pits of Lindsay Boxer hell if she didn't gain some kind of control on her verbal faculties. It really said something, though, that the woman could render her speechless. And again, disgust reared its devil-head at her lack of verbage.

"Thomas, I swear I'm-"

"I'm finished, Linds," Cindy cut her off, and surprisingly, with not an ounce of gentleness in her tone. Perhaps she was finally tapping into that pool of annoyance/frustration with the entire situation. "Besides, you've released me, haven't you? Is there any reason why you're waiting around for me?"

A pair of crackling, dark wells of solid brown turned suddenly rock hard at, Cindy could admit only upon immediate reflection, her thoughtless question.

This was another thing that could get the reporter into trouble: her ability to run her mouth off without former knowledge of the words circulating in her head was an old and always constant way for her to cement any kind of trouble she could sniff out for herself. Sometimes she wished she could keep her gabby trap shut. But then in a moment of returned annoyance/frustration at the situation, half of that guilty feeling, or maybe at least two thirds, vanished into the ether. To meet Lindsay's cold shoulder with a frost of her own, perhaps she couldn't entirely achieve, but she could always fall back on her reliable method of getting under Lindsay's thick skin and setting off her temper. She'd rather take that, on any day of the week, at any hour of the day, then the blizzard of ice she'd received the first thing upon waking that morning.

And yet the stonewall of dark-as-night-brown showed the reporter that she may not have achieved even that slight reprieve.

Really, was it too much to ask for lady luck to pull her sorry ass back into her corner for a change?

"Waiting would assume I want to see you right now," Lindsay snarled across the open space at her. Cindy withheld the urge to cringe, for once, but didn't summon the decency to pull her forehead from the cool surface of the mirror and face Lindsay's tongue lashing. "Waiting would stand to reason that I'm only mildly annoyed at the fact I can't walk into the bullpen anymore without seeing you sitting on the other side of those god damn holding cell bars. Simply waiting would assume I'm not at all the least bit cranky with you, or your condition, or your inability to take any of this seriously. Do you honestly think I'm waiting for you to hurry your ass up so I can send you trotting off back to The Register?!"

Maybe, Cindy thought, but dared not enunciate it. She finally pulled herself out of her perch over the sink and turned her tired eyes on the reflection of the towering inferno of dark, curly waves. She was a little more prepared for the wow-factor of seeing Lindsay in all her gloriously enraged beauty. God, she was head over heels if the woman's all-encompassing anger could send her into a spiraling frenzy of gooey-ness. And again with gooey. Cindy really need to get a grip on this love-sickness thing or…

Claire.

Finally, the return, if only momentary, of the intuitive little reporter she could be. The Force was with her once more.

"You're making me go see Claire?" Cindy murmured.

Her tone was flat and monotonous, even to her perception, but the thought of seeing Claire right now, in all her currently injured glory, brought about a mixed reaction of reluctance and salvation. Sure, the woman was going to tear shreds off her for getting herself into such a physical mess. But then it was Claire, and Claire gave good advice, and cleared confusion and uncertainty up like Advil expunged the nastiest of headaches. Which Lindsay was steadily turning into for her if the subtle throbbing growing behind her sore eyes and the lowering temperature of the bathroom were any indication.

"Making you would assume, in some sick and twisted parallel universe, that I trusted you enough to take the elevator all by yourself down to the morgue," Lindsay returned acidly.

Okay, so her ability to meet ice with ice was clearly not up to standard. Her inability to piss off the chill of the Inspector was currently laughable. Maybe – just maybe – if she threw in the head-tilt? A lock of red tress fell across her darkening eye as she dared to launch the major weapon in her 'you-know-you-want-to' arsenal. Lindsay's eyes narrowed instantly and Cindy felt quite literally pinned to the bathroom mirror with full, unbridled and absolute unwavering laser vision. Her tender abdomen went taut at the image; her fingers once more started to twitch and itch with the desire to touch something so outright forbidden. And yeah, to top that all off, she sighed… dreamily… again. God, send her to the hospital. She was one o'clock half-struck with the gooey-ness of the 'IN' love virus.

Better yet, she should just get her ass down to see Claire. While the risk of enduring gut-wrenching, soul-despising disappointment in the elder woman peaked the heights of Mount Everest, the need for good, calm, confusion-clearing resolution topped out everything guilt-related she was sure to become acquainted with once her eyes found the courage to look back at Claire's. And maybe, if lady luck could get her ass into gear, maybe Claire could understand?

The small shred of hope that bloomed to bursting life in Cindy was enough to have her accept the momentary, or at least she hoped it was only momentary, frostiness of Inspector Lindsay Boxer.

"You honestly don't trust me to get off on Claire's floor?" the dogged lead reporter asked with a pinch of her good ole' sarcasm.

"I honestly don't trust you to wait in her office for her to get here," was the swift, and painfully terse reply. "She's got another fifteen minutes in traffic tops. Another five to get to her office. That gives you twenty minutes to figure out what you're going to say to her that you obviously couldn't say to me."

By this point, her Inspector had stalked her long-legged way over to her side and claimed, once more in one of those patented crushing grips, her upper arm in order to walk her to the elevator. So it was easy enough for Lindsay to ignore the reporter's hiss as the result of the force with which she'd taken her arm. For Cindy, though, it was the almost undistinguished hint of what she'd put good money on was hurt in the Inspector's tone, which brought forth that tiny reaction. Could Lindsay be upset, not because of the reason, but because of Cindy's expert and totally unintentional clamming-up of the subject last night?

It was food for thought during the elevator ride…

Speaking of food, Cindy's stomach rumbled with the need of sugary sustenance as an oblivious Uni waltzed by with a chocolate iced, purple sprinkled Krispy Kreme treat wedged firmly between his teeth. Her doe eyes glistened greedily for a morsel, her body instantly floating in the direction of that circular delight in the hope of finding more. Oh, how she could go for some cop food right now… But Lindsay, ever on top of that whole escort-thing, yanked Cindy away with a little more force than necessary and practically dragged her over to the gaping elevator doors.

The groan of disappointment was unintentional and, Cindy thought, inaudible.

Lindsay's snide, "Heel, girl," was not.

Cindy Thomas: valiantly bearing arms against the first wave assault of the Abominable Snow-Lindsay.

And then the elevator doors were closing with a gentle slide and ever-observant Cindy Thomas realised too late that she was trapped in the claustrophobic space of Lindsay and leather and caramel.

Oh, Fuck!

Her instinctive reaction was instantaneous. And lest she forget, decidedly primal. She could feel the tiny – imperceptible to the human eye – sweat droplets start forming at her temples. That sinful scent invaded every sense she possessed. She wondered if her eyes had glazed over with the stupor that had fallen on her highly aware perception of the world around Lindsay Boxer. Her breath, growing more laboured, was steadily pulling on all of the sore muscles located anywhere in the vicinity of her aching ribs. And god damn it if she couldn't control the sudden tremble that had assuaged her bruised and scraped hands. All because of that pungent… delightful… entrancing… leather… caramel…

Her mouth watered. Literally watered at the intoxicating aroma. And that was when she knew she was in the express lane heading straight for trouble-city.

Oh, please, please, please let this not be the longest elevator ride in the history of elevator riding, Cindy silently prayed to the deities. Her preference had been to the 'Love' one, but she'd settle for any who would listen. Because lord, help her, if she didn't get out of that tiny, little, suffocating, space…

Her doe eyes, the traitorous little things, slowly turned until Lindsay was all that she could see. And what a sight to couple with that potent, sinfully delightful scent. Lindsay with her trademark jeans, boots, dark button-down and leather jacket; her tall and lean silhouette and with those long waves that were just dying to have her writer's fingers run softly through them. And all of it mixed with that fucking scent. Really, could Cindy Thomas be blamed by a court of her own peers if she happened to say, jump, the unsuspecting Inspector? Was it really any fault of her own that she lacked an iota of self-control?

The chime of the elevator and the opening of those gaping doors really couldn't have come any sooner. The minute the cool air of the lower floors swept into the open space and swallowed the remaining shred of all things leather and caramel, the frustrated for an entirely different reason reporter gulped, very loudly, and mentally breathed a sigh of relief. The bodily action wouldn't do her any favours at the moment and it was better not to incite anymore chill from the woman dragging her down the hall.

The rustle of keys and the various 'clicks' and 'clacks' of turning locks signaled an end to Cindy's torment of being in the presence of such tempting fare. For now, at least. But it was with life-affirming clarity that Cindy knew this thing, this gooey-ness, this harbouring of deep and searing affection for one, Lindsay Boxer, was only going to get worse the more she was exposed to the cause and the more time she spent doing absolutely nothing about it. However, this small burst of reprieve? Was nothing short of what she definitely needed to calm her raging, riling nerves and the resulting, itching urges to touch… caress… grab… rip open. And at that, she just had to slam hard on the door of those dangerously gooey thoughts.

So she wasn't too offended – much – when a sharp barb was tossed her way by the problem in question –

"Sit and stay, Cindy! If I see Claire later and she tells me she hasn't seen you… Need I spell out what I will do to you? Or where Jacobi and I will bury you?"

– before the office door was rammed closed, and locked Cindy heard with more than a little insurgent indignation, and a clomping of the boots spoke of the retreat of ice-monster Lindsay.

Alone and unsupervised in the sanctum of the Chief Medical Examiner, sitting on a roiling stomach for two very different reasons, a bout of mischief seized the over-tired, injured, dogged lead reporter of all things crime. It very briefly occurred to Cindy that her best option available right now would be to sit and wait, as patiently as an impatient reporter could, for Claire to arrive. It also occurred to Cindy that sugar was needed if she were to stand any kind of chance of drumming up the courage she felt she needed in order to meet that woman's gaze and talk. Harmless mischief clearly won out. Grabby hands, sore, stiff, and whining from all kinds of movement, went in search of that skull in Claire's office. It was no Krispy Kreme. And it was certainly was no form of wake-up drink. But the treats she swindled from the elder woman's morbid candy-jar were enough to seat her in good stead for the kind of conversation she was daring to embark on and quell any future tummy rumblings of the hunger oriented kind.

And Cindy wasn't thinking at all about ridding herself of the Lindsay Boxer induced tummy rumblings.

Twenty minutes later, to the second, the sound of locks 'clicking' and 'clacking' brought her attention to the arrival of club-member number two.

Cindy Thomas: suddenly gripped by the idea she was facing yet more trouble. Her red-rimmed doe eyes widened with the intake of a stabilising breath before they closed in time with the door to Claire's office. Her hearing picked up the elder woman's quick footsteps and the gentle, inquisitive mumbling of a rhetorical question.

"I wonder why my office smells like a holding cell?"

Sheer affection kept any offence the comment could wield well and truly outside of the box. Cindy tried valiantly to withhold the resulting smile, hissed when it didn't work, and thanked the powers that be she had chosen not to greet Claire face to face as the woman came into her domain of all things 'Medical Examiner'.

"Hmm. Smells like she's been in the holding cell. Looks like she's been in the holding cell. So Cindy Thomas must have spent the night in the holding cell," Claire voiced in a tone which, the reporter was sure, would have set club member number one off into a dizzying rage the likes of which she so effortlessly caused. That, and the tone spoke of the woman holding entirely too much information to just know nothing about the situation.

"Sorry," Cindy returned, infinitely dreading what she was about to do next. "Didn't think the 'inside' would leave itself on my outside given I was only in there – what? Eight or nine hours." And with that, she turned to face Claire Washburn, Chief Medical Examiner, a friend beyond the level of best, the unrepentant mother-hen, and promptly grimaced at the look that instantly coloured the elder woman's formerly affectionate gaze.

"Cindy, what in the hell-" the immediate cringe at the bark of concern broke off Claire's question and instantly changed the track to song number two. "Sweetheart, let's get you over here so I can fix you up."

And lady luck finally pulled herself back into the game.

A thankful sigh, no less pain inducing but relief bearing, worked its way past her split lip and Cindy allowed herself to be directed to the chair nearest Claire's first aid kit. The Medical Examiner took her time surveying the injury-laden reporter, disapproval warring with a curiosity that damn near rivaled hers. So Cindy decided, against all of her concerns and better judgment, that she was going to be an honest little Polly and sing the tune to which her healer asked of her.

She had one card up her sleeve, one card that could serve to trump any negative reaction garnered by what her big mouth was about to communicate. She chanted a few deep, painful breaths, summoned up her sugar-charged courage, and immediately chickened out as Claire brought a cotton-ball swathed in alcohol straight to the split in her lip.

The move had come so far out of nowhere that it was an honest, knee-jerk reaction to yank her head away and feel tears water her sore, red eyes.

"It's got to hurt to heal, honey," Claire soothed with her 'I'm a mother of two with a surrogate third' tone. "And I thought I'd start with the one that would sting the most."

"What? You couldn't warm me up to it?" Another knee-jerk reaction; this of the verbal kind.

Claire raised one sculpted eyebrow in that 'I-know-best' manner which only women who had borne children had the right to possess and express. Cindy had no leg to stand on under that powerful look and promptly crumpled. She did her best to grit her teeth even though she had to relax to allow Claire to do what she was doing, bravely raised her chin, and fought back that nasty hiss when the cotton made contact again. She felt the alcohol wet her lower lip as it sought out the impressive gorge, stinging its way through the split and killing off any and all germs. She forced her eyes to clear when they glistened again. She wasn't sorry for how she ended up in this mess. And there was no way on this earth that she was going to cry. She wasn't going to confuse Claire into thinking she'd made any kind of mistake last night.

For two minutes, painfully longer than their allocated sixty seconds, Cindy kept her gumption and let Claire do her work.

After that, it was all about the cuts on her cheeks, the bruising, the scrapes and cuts on her hands, how painful it was to breathe; each and every obtained injury.

Claire asked her where it hurt repeatedly and Cindy conveyed honesty every time. With one club member pissed off at her, she wasn't about to tip the scales out of her favour, particularly when it was this club member she really needed to talk to.

"You wanna tell me, willingly I might add, how you got this banged up?" Claire asked, gently examining the darkening eye with careful fingertips. "Or you wanna tell me why Lindsay left you in the cells last night, then proceeded to blow my ear drums out in her spit of a rage?"

Cindy's curious gaze widened at that slip of the tongue. She knew it. What's more, Claire knew she knew it; knew more than she was letting on.

Then again, why wouldn't she? Claire was the keeper of everyone's problems, misunderstandings, confusions of all flavours. When you wanted to bang out a hypothesis, or a lead, or the basis for a story, you went to Claire. When you needed to hear the absolute truth about something you were happy not to know about, so clearly involved in the self-denial process, you went to Claire. When you had to expound misplaced rage and clear your head for the sake of your own sanity, you went to Claire.

When you had to confess that you recently discovered, at the most inopportune of moments, at the most agitated of times, that you were desperately, inexplicably and absolutely bonkers-mad in love with a mutual best friend, and you weren't sure what in the hell you were going to do about it or how your other friends would react to it, then you went to Claire.

And in Cindy's case, she being clearly of the last example, you hoped to god Claire didn't kick your ass more black and blue than you already were.

Though given the resounding silence from a question that Cindy knew Claire not only wanted, but expected, an answer to, the possibility of getting that ass kicking was gaining more and more potential every second that went by without her voice spilling all the contents of her jumbled thoughts.

"There might have been a misunderstanding on my part," Cindy murmured, voice hoarse with ninety percent resilience to the sting of her split lip, and ten percent fear of Claire's reaction to the answer.

"I believe the words Lindsay used were stubborn, oblivious, and something about you saying it was a 'reception problem'."

"It was for a good reason," Cindy hastened to defend herself.

"Honey, there's no reason in the world to ignore Lindsay when she's trying to impress upon you-"

The reporter couldn't handle the rebuke anymore than she could handle the disappointment so clear in the M.E's warm and caring gaze. So she cut her off, brave in the action, though wary at the abrupt jarring of Claire's calm tone.

"Trust me, Claire, it was for a good reason. I just… I couldn't help it. I found myself dealing with something I never expected would hit me while…" she trailed off momentarily, gently shaking her head as if to settle the upheaval of her thoughts. Self-directed sarcasm burst into colourful life when Cindy picked back up again, her head down even though her gaze hadn't broken from Claire's. "Any other time. It could have been any other time. But no. I just had to realise the most important thing I've ever realised while simultaneously getting dressed down in a room full of busybody cops and traitorous Homicide Lieutenants."

Rant finished; rewind and take a deep, soothing, and painfully stabbing breath. Yeah, she just couldn't stop forgetting her ribs were functioning on restricted movement.

"You know the cosmos is laughing at me, don't you?"

Rhetorical, she knew Claire knew, but the woman could help but comfort her with an answer and a smile anyway.

"I'm not laughing, sweetheart."

"Yeah, but I don't know if that's a good thing or not." Cindy raised one shoulder carefully, shrugging a one-armed response to compliment her words.

"It's certainly not a bad thing," Claire voiced softly. "What is bad is this bruise you're going to have for the next couple of days. Quite the shiner you'll be sporting. And I'm going to have to wrap those hands of yours."

"I can still type with bandages," Cindy dared on the quick-draw, which drew some chagrined amusement from the woman fixing her up.

"You're two of a kind that way, you know."

"What?"

"Never mind, honey," Claire spoke to herself and quickly turned the spotlight firmly back on all things dogged and crime reporter related. "So what had you distracted enough to zone out on Lindsay in enraged-cop-mode?"

And there it was.

The one thing Cindy knew she had to talk to Claire about was typically that one-in-the-same thing she was absolutely terrified to breathe a word of. Oh yeah, she was all about walking-fucking-contradictions. But so far this morning, minus everything that had gone on upstairs because, in Cindy's mind, that just didn't count, lady luck was slowly but surely getting her ass back in Cindy's corner. And Cindy hoped, with her very soul, that it would help carry her through this next bout in the ring.

Because Cindy Thomas was all about laying down her trump card straight up.

Her red-rimmed doe eyes scrunched together in a look she was positive expressed sheer fucking uncertainty, and, with not a little bit of fear, Cindy tensed to bite down on that bastard of a bullet making a muddle of her insides.

"Do you remember the night in Papa Joe's where, amidst the flowing cocktails and discussion of the Emily Sherman case, I was inducted into what has since then been so emphatically not a club?" All in one breath, rushed, worried, and instantly grabbing one hundred percent of Claire Washburn's curious attention.

"That's not a night I think any of us have forgotten," Claire clarified, taking a moment to stop working on a suddenly fidgeting reporter, and fold her arms against her chest. "I don't think there's a one of us who could picture doing this – what we do – without you, you know? Not anymore."

The smile that brought to Cindy made her feel a little less like she was about to dive head long into the snake-pit. Only a little less, though.

"You said, you know, as your ground rule, that I should keep your secrets and trust you with mine."

"I think I remember saying something about shoes, too," Claire smiled in remembrance.

Cindy lowered her head, teeth desperate to sink straight in her bottom lip if only there wasn't already a fucking gorge running through it. She felt her hands start shaking with the weight of her confession, her breathing hitch, gut churning viciously along with the droplets of sweat reforming at her temples. Claire must have noticed at least one of the many things malfunctioning with her because the M.E's hands were quick to gently cover her own.

"What is it, Cindy?"

It was utter motherly concern that Cindy just couldn't ignore. So much so that she found her voice just blurting it right out there. Her mouth opening of its own volition, vocal chords completely disobeying any order silently screamed from her brain, and her voice, stronger than she thought it should be, the only sound in the office of Claire Washburn speaking of what had kept her in stitches since late last night.

"I'm in love with Lindsay."

Dead. Fucking. Silence.

A tumble weed literally blew through that office in a very western movie way before Cindy found her roiling guts and drummed up that sugar-charged courage to meet Claire Washburn's eyes. And when she did, well… if the universe could just stop with the sucker-punches for a while because really, it was mere agony to breathe right now, let alone handle that kind of blow. Yet that was exactly what she got when teary-eyed warmth and a gleaming happiness reflected right at her from warm pools of brown that had always been laced with genuine motherly affection.

Cindy Thomas: taking stock in the fact Claire was, a) not going to kick her ass and, b) not disappointed in her at all with that confession.

Claire Washburn: astonished and… high-fiving various versions of her pleased imaginary selves because Cindy had finally come round to the party.

Seeing that kind of reaction, feeling it, reveling in it even, gave Cindy Thomas the actual, non-sugar-charged courage to repeat what she had so gracelessly blurted out a full sixty seconds ago.

"I'm in love with Lindsay," she breathed, even, calm. "It dropped on me like an ACME cartoon safe the moment I looked up at Lindsay last night and she vaulted off into her rage-induced rant. And I didn't hear a god damned word she said because… because…"

Sweet fucking Christ, where was a thick, endless and adjective-packed thesaurus when she so obviously needed one to articulate the beauty of the moment, the reality of the situation, the sheer fucking awakening of all her senses as if they'd never seen or known the world before. And that's what made it all the more real to her: that she, Cindy Thomas, lead reporter of all things crime, reputed for her ability to nab the Register's front pages above the crease, someone who shouldn't so easily lose out on words, could be reduced to speechlessness because she was in love.

And Claire Washburn, sage-like in her wisdom, knower of all the little things, catcher of the small gestures, was simply, unequivocally satisfied with Cindy's revelation.

"Because you were too busy comprehending how you could have gone so long without noticing how you felt."

Well, when Claire put it like that, and so much better than anything she could have come up with in that moment, Cindy had little choice but to agree with the elder, far more wiser, woman before her.

"And I can agree with you wholeheartedly: you zoned out for the best of reasons."

Icing for the already gooey cake that was Cindy Thomas.

A shared smile, or half of one for Cindy, was expressed between the two, until a brusque interruption grappled both women's undivided attention to Claire's office door bursting open. Claire's smile only widened at the visitor, eyes cutting between Cindy and the blonde bombshell that looked more bombed the shell-shockingly beautiful at the moment. Cindy, on the other hand, noticed nothing but that same bastard case file that had been waiting on Lindsay's desk last night clenched tightly in the hands of ADA Jill Bernhardt. Club member number three had entered the scene stage left and she looked absolutely not thrilled to see Cindy. Until she actually took a moment to see Cindy… and Cindy's injuries.

A jump and sickening skip in the track brought everything back to song number one.

"A Bar Brawl?! What in the hell were you thinking, Cindy Thomas?!"

At those words, Claire's warm pools of happiness dimmed to darkened anger. All memories, both fond and misty-eyed, from before the untimely interruption, evaporated like the M.E's good humour. Cindy gulped in surprise-mingled fear and began to back away from the double-team.

The cosmos couldn't be so cruel as to destroy her just as she'd discovered her desperate, inexplicable and absolutely bonkers-mad love for Lindsay Boxer. Could it?

Then again, it was apparently laughing at her.

END CHAPTER.

Hopefully, this chapter lives up to the last. Many apologies for being indecently late about posting. Had to replace my laptop and was without story access for far too long.