Caption: M + D. This is what forever looks like.

The topic of forever was a reoccurring one between Mindy and Danny.

Its first mention took place in her office on a Wednesday afternoon. When he entered she was sitting at her desk, quickly swiping her cheeks and covering something with a file.

"Hey," Danny greeted cautiously. He waited a second before asking, "Um, are you crying?"

Mindy thumbed the corners of her eyes. "Okay, that's a little rude," she said, her voice thick, "barging into someone's office and throwing around accusations."

Danny set aside the original reason for his visit, as well as his personal discomfort at the sight of his friend in tears, and took a seat in front of her. Her downtrodden expression tugged at his heart in an unexpected way. "Do you wanna talk about it?"

Mindy bit the corner of her lip and looked downward. "It's nothing."

Danny furrowed his eyebrows just slightly. "Well, it's obviously something. I'm not trying to pry, I just…"

Mindy looked up with trepidation and waited a moment before slipping her hand underneath the file and pulling out a magazine. She tossed it in Danny's direction with a huff. "This came in today. I, um…a while ago my mail was getting mixed up with my crazy neighbor's stuff, so I had some things forwarded here."

Danny peered at the cover of the magazine and immediately understood her sorrow: on the cover was a glowing bride and groom, embracing amongst a sea of multi-colored roses. It had been a few weeks since anyone had referenced her failed engagement to Casey and, until that afternoon, Mindy seemed to be coping pretty well. Now it appeared that the late, unwelcome arrival of a forgotten bridal magazine had pulled her back into a place of despair. He snatched it and began to hastily roll it up.

"Min," he sighed, tucking the offending publication into his lab coat pocket.

"It's not that I miss him or anything," Mindy rushed to explain. "I just hate remembering that my love life is back to square one, you know? I hate starting over."

Danny nodded. He understood all too well.

Mindy sniffled and tucked her hair behind her ears. "I just hate that I'm back in this position where I have to meet a guy and get to know him and if he seems fairly decent, I have to convince him that it's a good idea to spend his life with me. You have all the time in the world when you're younger, but now…it just seems like I'm getting older, the pool of eligible men is getting smaller, and all the while everyone else seems to have their crap together long enough to build happy homes and families and all that stuff that I should be well into by now. I feel like some sort of failure."

She furiously wiped away a fresh tear that tried to roll down the crest of her cheek. Danny spotted the box of tissues at the far corner of her desk and handed them to her. He thought she could have benefited from a hug, but he couldn't quite bring himself to invade her space.

"Mindy, you know that's all crap, right?" Danny asked softly. When she looked like she might have been offended, he immediately backtracked. "I don't mean that your feelings are crap, that's not what I'm saying. I just mean nothing is nearly as hopeless as it seems. You can't base your life around what's going on with everyone else's. Hell, half the time people are lying to you about how happy they are just to save face. And you didn't fail, Min. He failed you."

There was a brief pause as she stared at him softly, touched by his support. Before she could thank him, he continued.

"And you're wrong about having to convince a guy to be with you. I know that I don't have to give you a long list of what makes you a good person-"

"A list would be nice," Mindy interjected quietly, a hint of an impish grin ghosting the corners of her lips. Danny chuckled.

"You're upset, so I'll oblige," he conceded. He thought about it for a moment and with a shrug he continued, "I mean, you already know how smart, funny, kind, and attractive you are, Min; you tell me so every chance you get." Mindy choked out a quick laugh before covering her mouth. Danny gave a half-smile, happy to see just a little improvement in her attitude He ducked his head to make sure that they're eyes met. When they did, he continued. "And all of that's true. You are all of those things. And when you meet that guy you're supposed to be with, he's going to be smart enough to know that he's the one that's going to have to convince you of his worthiness, not the other way around."

Mindy swallowed and gave him a grateful smile. "Do you really believe that?"

"I do."

"Even though you were very quick to announce to a bunch of strangers that you would never, ever marry me?" she challenged light-heartedly.

Danny smirked at the memory. "Well, to be fair, you were trying to frame me for domestic violence at the time."

The pair shared a laugh before Danny added, "But time changes things. I didn't know Mindy Lahiri quite as well then as I do now. The woman I know now is a woman that any man would be extremely lucky to call his wife. I mean that."

He didn't feel a pressing need to clarify that he absolutely meant any man – himself included - at the time, but he did.

They were in the lounge the second time, watching an over-the-top action movie on the tiny screen – something called The Day Mother Nature Did Something Entirely Unrealistic and Mark Wahlberg Was Forced To Be the Hero (or, at least, that's what Danny thought it might as well have been called). They tried changing the channel earlier, but quickly realized that their options were bleak.

"What if that happened here?" Mindy asked suddenly.

Danny, slouched low on the sofa, turned his head towards Mindy in confusion. "You mean, what if we suddenly needed to take shelter away from mile-long cyclone that was somehow made of both snow and fire?"

Mindy shrugged. "Yeah."

"Well, that would never, ever happen, so why even get worked up about it?"

Mindy turned to him with a look of pity. "What was it like, Danny?" she asked phony sympathy. "What was it like to have a childhood with absolutely no imagination?"

"My imagination was fine, thank you," Danny defended.

Mindy turned her body on the couch until she was completely facing Danny, tucking her leg underneath her. "Okay, then imagine that we had a really, really awful blizzard that trapped you and me here. What would you do? Would you adapt or would you suddenly feel thrusted into the hero role and try to evacuate us?"

Danny sighed and crossed his arms as he stared off into the ceiling. This had the potential to be a mind-numbing conversation, but they had nothing better to do. "Okay, so a blizzard has trapped just you and me in this hospital? For how long?"

"Forever," Mindy replied plainly, pushing her glasses off of the bridge of her nose.

He rubbed the side of his face while he contemplated the hypothetical catastrophe. "I mean, if we're gonna be trapped, this is the best place, obviously. An abundance of first aide, backup generators, beds, food, medicine, clean scrubs, workout equipment in physical therepy…we'd be fine."

"True, we'd be fine for a while, but that stuff would eventually run out," Mindy countered.

"I think the blizzard would settle down long before any of that stuff would run out," Danny replied.

Mindy scrunched her mouth as she contemplated his point. "True, I suppose…but what if it didn't, Danny?!"

Danny let out a combination of a groan and a laugh at Mindy's relentlessness. "Okay, I'm not sure I would be qualified enough to develop an evacuation plan, but I could probably do some form of hunting and foraging to make it work here, I guess. I'd make sure we were taken care of as long as possible…or forever, if that were actually the case."

Mindy tilted her head and narrowed her gaze. "Hmmm…I don't know. You don't think we'd kill each other after day three?"

He felt a fleeting flash of disappointment in her lack of confidence in their ability to survive together. Luckily, it was quickly replaced by the desire to tease her. "So you can wrap your mind around a blizzard that never ends, but you can't seem to picture us finding a way to exist together forever, even if it's a matter of survival? Whose imagination is lacking now?"

He would have taken damn fine care of them, he though later that night and for a sizable portion of the next day.

The third instance arrived with a bang of an apartment door against the interior wall as the arguing couple stormed inside.

"Danny, how can you not see that you are having a disproportionate reaction right now?"

Danny tossed his keys on the nearby table before rounding on Mindy. "How is my reaction disproportionate to some guy putting the moves on you all night, despite his knowledge of you being in a relationship with me?"

"He wasn't putting any moves on me," Mindy denied loudly as she slipped of her heels. "He just has a naturally creepy demeanor that makes everything sound super flirty, especially when he's around what he considers an attractive woman."

"That's not helping your case as much as you think it is, Min."

"And even if he was putting any sort of moves on me," Mindy pushed forward, her hands on her hips, "wouldn't I have to respond in a positive way for any of this to even matter? Don't you trust me at all?"

Danny ran a rough hand through his hair. "I trust you. It's not about that. It's about respect. He should have understood that you were involved and left you alone."

"I have a boyfriend, Danny, not freakin' leprosy!" Mindy yelled. "Being in a relationship does not exempt me from innocent conversation with the male species!"

"Conversation? No. Flirting? Fuck yes!"

"I. WAS NOT. FLIRTING!" Mindy bellowed. She took three charged steps toward him. "And you know I wasn't! What the hell is this really about, Danny? Why are you this insecure?!"

Danny's lips pursed and his Adam's Apple bobbed; a sequence, Mindy noted years ago, that would occur prior to him exploding.

"This," he began with a hand gesturing between the two of them, "is new. We may have known each other for a long time, but it's fragile. That's where my insecurity comes from, Mindy, it comes from wanting this so much and not wanting some slick-mouth prick to make things difficult when things are still pretty damn delicate. And I don't know, maybe when we've had years and decades behind us, when you've seen me in my grossest underwear and my thickest glasses and we've argued about you hogging the blanket a thousand time and we've kissed goodnight more than we can physically count, maybe then I won't be so bent out of shape when a guy gets a little flirty with you. For now, though, it bothers me and I'm not about to apologize for that!"

Mindy stood absolutely still, her mouth slightly agape and her breath quiet as to not disturb the atmosphere. She could feel the anger that once occupied the room slowly dissipate until it was replaced with something else altogether. Danny's expression had changed from angry to unsure, like he was in a wide open space and had no idea where to turn for shelter. She didn't want to assault him with too many questions or requests for clarification, but she wanted him to know that she did understand. She finally cleared her throat after much silence.

"I want us to get to that place, too," she responded simply. "That not-so-delicate place."

Danny dropped his hands at his side and caught Mindy's eyes for a moment before giving a subtle nod of his head. She carefully made her way over to him in order to wrap her arms around his waist. He embraced her and silently wished that that guy, and every other guy that ever planned on even looking at her, could see them as they are now. Then they'd get it.

The fourth time came with a whisper as he lay there, gazing at her curled, resting form under his sheets, her bare back gently expanded with her breath. He had developed a fixation with the image of her obsidian hair fanned across his pillow each night, as well as her lingering scent on his sheets long after she had departed. There was something about their dynamic in the parameters of this bed – the way they made love, cuddled, talked, argued, joked, shared, and just clung to each other, literally and figuratively – that absolutely moved him. It was a feeling that overpowered him at the most sporadic of times and at first it scared him, but he had since learned to find a deeper understanding of it. Once he understood it, he came to realize that it had become what fueled his days and made his nights. Once he embraced it, he realized that he may have loved before, but he had never been in love like this. Not even close.

With her back to him, he scooted closer behind her, running his fingers up and down her side. He had found a new home in the deep curves of her body and touching her had become a delicious familiarity. He trailed his hand down her arm until he reached her hand. The soft light of the street lamp crept through the blinds until they illuminated her blanket-clad form with strips of light. He peered over at her bare ring finger, gently running a fingertip over the sacred, currently unobstructed spot between her knuckles. It was an obscure part of her body, the part that would house a ring, that lately he would find himself staring at more than something more classically alluring, like her breasts or her lips.

His hand eventually found its way to her stomach. Hours before, when he fulfilling his earlier promise to kiss her reverently from her lips to her toes, he found himself hovering over her belly longer than he had intended, flooded with the realization that this would one day be the belly that would grow their children. She had made an offhanded comment one time about dreading the day that she would have to fight to get her "pre-baby bod" back, but he noted how her tone sounded more anticipatory than regretful. In that moment he couldn't help but feel a certain amount of premature pride in knowing that he would be the man responsible for all of it, the baby and the "pre-baby bod" battle, though he didn't find the latter to be all that important to him.

Mindy shifted lazily, just enough to subconsciously grab Danny's hand and pull him flush against back. He settled in, wedging a knee between her legs and dropping kisses on her shoulder. At the sound of her exhaling sweetly, he finally felt ready to join her in slumber. With the parting image of her glittering finger and pregnant belly, he leaned closer to her ear and simply whispered, "I can't wait" before finally drifting off.

Two days later, he stopped by a nearby jewelry to get the battery in his favorite watch replaced. He left with a resurrected wrist watch and ring that he could only describe as "hers." He would just hold onto it for a little while.

And now he was fleeing the elevator and charging towards their shared apartment at the end of the hallway. Tonight wasn't supposed to be the night, after a long set of rounds in dirty scrubs, but there was no telling that to his heart, nor his quickly moving feet. He just didn't want to go another moment without knowing for sure.

He arrived at the door and patting himself down in an effort to find his keys. When he couldn't immediately find them (something that would normally freak him out), he made the quick decision to beat down the door. After only two knows Mindy swung open the door, dressed in her pajamas and holding a black garbage bag. Her beauty rendered him almost breathless, despite the utterly confused expression on her face.

"Danny, where are your keys?" She asked, the garbage bag held idly in the air.

"Mrs. Carroll was admitted back into the hospital with complications related to preeclampsia.," he blurted without preamble.

"Post partum?" Mindy replied in shock. "Oh, no! Is she alright?"

"She fine," Danny assured her with a nod of his head. "Total bed rest, bedside commode, it sucks. I visited her on rounds and the poor woman was having difficulty going to the bathroom in the commode and she was making the biggest mess all over the place. But her husband, Doug, was there and he was so good, Min. He was cleaning up the floor and helping her wipe herself without a second thought. There are still some nurses that have trouble dealing with messes like that and he was right there, making sure she wasn't embarrassed and all the while, looking at her like she was the most beautiful woman in the world."

Mindy stood there silently with her eyebrows furrowed, concentrating intently on him. Neither of them made a move to enter the apartment.

"Mindy, I thought the stuff I'd be the most excited about would be vacations and romantic dinners and retiring together, but today I realized what I'm most excited about are all the gross things that you can only experience with someone who is truly a part of you. I'm ready to be the one who wipes the crust from your eyes in the morning and helps you go to the bathroom when you can't go by yourself anymore…to handle your dirty laundry and pick up your feminine hygiene products from the store…to pull your hair out of the drain and wipe your brow when you're giving birth. I have to be the one you turn to for comfort and reassurance not just through the pretty times, but through all the ugly, too."

A sob tore from Mindy's lips and the trash bag lay forgotten on the floor. "Danny-"

He lunged forward and cupped her face just before laying a firm kiss on her warm lips. She grabbed and held on to the hands on her face as she kissed him back. All too briefly, he pulled away to look into her eyes softly.

"Marry me, Mindy," he whispered. "I'm sorry, I know you wanted the Empire State Building and violins and the ring isn't on me –"

"Yes!" she cried, the tears flowing freely.

His eyes grew and the smile was unstoppable. "Yeah?"

She nodded emphatically. He kissed her again, giggling deliriously into her mouth. . "I should have grabbed the ring first."

"I don't care about that right now, Danny!" She grabbed his face and kissed his nose, then his cheeks and his eyelids.

"I love you so much," he breathed, wrapping his arms around her waist and gathering her close. "I'm sorry about the haste, I just…I didn't want to take another step without knowing."

Mindy gave him a glittering smile, one that she had developed once they were truly together. "No, it was perfect. I love you, too."

With one last kiss, Danny bent his knees and secured his arms underneath her bottom. He stood, lifting her up into the air and nudging the door until it was wide open. She wrapped her legs around his waist and allowed him to carry her further into their home. They shared goofy smiles and peppered kisses until Mindy grabbed his face gently.

"Does that mean we're going ring shopping tomorrow?"

Danny shook his head, still smiling, as he carried her into the bedroom. "No need. The ring is in my sock drawer."

"I've been in the same apartment as my own engagement ring this entire time?!"

~ Album complete.

A/N: This feels so freakin' weird.

That was it, guys. I'm happy that it's complete, but I'm a little sad, as well. This is probably my favorite collection out of all the ones I've written, and it was so nice to connect to you all through it.

You will never know how grateful I am for each and every one of you: friends, guests, and lurkers alike. I would have never continued without your unrelenting support. I love you all. This fandom is the absolute best.

I did mention developing one of the selfies (Dearly Beloved) into a full-fledged story, but I'm having trouble with the logistics. Right now it's a toss up, but I don't want to force anything that isn't meant to be.

I will be taking a brief break to read. BJ Novak's book has been in my purse, half-read and neglected. In the interim, I'm happily accepting prompts via PM or you can drop me a line in my ask box on Tumblr (phunkybrewsterspen)! If I think it's doable, then I will give it my best shot (or offer a recommendation for another fic/author, if it's already been done).

Again, thank you so much for your support. I would love to hear from you all one last time, so leave a review if you can! Love you all and wish you all the best!

Hollaatchyagirl,

Phunky