Thank you to those who have reviewed the previous one-shots. This is a three shot (should be a one shot, but it had three clear parts, so they're going up as separate chapters). It does follow on from The Place, but you needn't have read that to understand this - they do stand alone.

Thank you to those people who gave me 'direction'. I'd already written this fic before posting The Call, but it does fit with what most people suggested. I'm toying with doing another case fic (FA centred) that follows on from chapter three of this, but my muse is a little dried up at present, so I'm waiting for some breath taking idea, as I don't want it to be a rewrite of Hotwired. I'm likely to spin out their 'courting' as long as possible, for those that are interested, although at some point a climax will be had (absolutely no pun intended.)

Thank you to Lily Moonlight for the beta.

A/N: Not mine, I do not own, don't sue - I'm saving for a holiday.

Distance Chapter 1

"They do a mean steak here," Danny said, his eyes cutting across the room to where a waitress was serving a customer with the object of Danny's desire.

"I'm not hungry," Flack said, putting down the menu and sinking into the seat. He really, truly wasn't hungry. Even Stella had commented on his non-appetite that afternoon when they had driven out to a call and he had refused stopping for a bagel.

Danny put down the menu in surprise and gave him a distrusting look. "You sick?"

Flack shook his head. "Not as far as I know. I'm just not hungry."

"Flack, in all the time we've been friends I have never known you to not want to eat. Even after you got that big hole in your chest you woke up hungry. You want to tell me what's up?" Danny pushed his glasses further up his nose and peered at him as if analysing a piece of evidence.

"Nothings up," Flack lied. There was plenty up. But nothing he wished to confess, not at the moment and not to Danny, who would waste no time in finding the funny side.

"Is this about Angell?" Danny said, picking up the menu again and acting nonchalantly, his eyes perusing through the meals, only occasionally glancing at Flack.

Flack looked about the diner, wondering how to respond. He did not do personal problems. Girlfriends came and went; they didn't affect his work either by him thinking about them or by him having to take their calls while he was on the job. The two things were kept completely separate. And he never got so caught up in a girl that he couldn't eat. "No. It's nothing to do with Angell."

"So why did you look like you'd lost a dollar and found a dime when you saw her all dolled up leaving work before. In fact, Don, your expression hasn't changed since then," Danny put the menu back down and took a drink of his beer. "I heard that she's seeing someone and I imagine that's pissing you off."

"We're just friends, Danny. It's nothing to do with me who she sees," Flack said, fiddling with his napkin and avoiding eye contact. Truth was, she'd been strange with him for a couple of week; making excuses to not go for coffee, being distant, and he wasn't happy about it. He liked her being around, being able to call her when he got in from a night out, being able to just be with her, all things he found confusing anyway. And now this. Someone had mentioned that another man had been staying at her apartment. She'd been seen dropping him off two morning's ago. Flack, much to his own disgust, was jealous.

"Try convincing someone else of that. You two have spent most night either together or on the phone. You take the same lunch breaks, you take the same locker breaks, you gaze at each other across your desks. If I were you, I'd be pissed," Danny said. "I just can't understand why you weren't, you know…"

"Sleeping together?" Flack finished for him.

"Yeah – which ever way you want to put it. She's hot and she clearly likes you. If it had been me… then boom!"

Flack looked at his friend and smiled knowingly. "Then I learnt from your example of why getting involved with your colleagues is not an exercise out of the Mensa text book. Lindsay speaking to you yet?"

"That's not the point. Most people meet their future partners at the workplace. It's where you spend the majority of your waking hours, so you shouldn't let the fact that you work together put you off, although it's not something to take lightly," Danny said. Flack wondered why he couldn't heed his own advice, although granted Ruben's death had had implications on his mental state.

"If she's seeing someone else, Danny, it's not even on the agenda, is it?" Flack said, giving up on hiding what was bothering him.

Danny shrugged. "Depends."

"On what?"

"How much you're into her and if she really is seeing someone else – could be her brother for all you know," Danny said. "I know what I'm ordering. That." He pointed over to a mixed grill that was being walked passed him.

Flack shook his head, still feeling like he had lost something he wasn't sure he'd had in the first place. "She's been acting funny with me," he said. "Distant. So it'd fit if she had a boyfriend."

"She been anywhere without you in the past few weeks?" Danny said.

Flack shook his head. "Just work and we've been out for drinks. She's done a lot of overtime. I saw her time sheet and I'm surprised she's still standing. Girl's got stamina."

"So she hasn't been anywhere she could have met someone?" Danny said, letting the obvious joke go, which surprised Flack somewhat.

"No, I don't suppose she has. It could be an ex… But, she's told me about them and she wouldn't… anyway, all that's beside the point. We were getting on fine and then she's suddenly started being distant," Flack looked at Danny, pushing the menu away from himself. "I'm really not hungry."

"Man, have you got it bad," Danny said. "You thought that she just might be getting cold feet?"

Flack shrugged. "This is Angell. I don't think she gets cold anything. Also, I have not got it bad. I don't get things 'bad'."

"Sure. So why you suggest coming here then if you're not hungry? Got nothing to do with something you overheard this afternoon about where our favourite female detective was headed this evening?" Danny said, smiling at the waitress as she came over. "Two mixed grills, please. And could my friend here have another beer? He seems to have drunk the first rather quickly."

"I don't know, Danny. Where was Angell headed? I stopped listening to water cooler gossip after kindergarten," Flack said, his tone tired. It hadn't been a good day.

"Funny how she was talking about it right next to your desk while you were there, and the restaurant she mentioned is half a block away," Danny said, taking his napkin and unfolding it.

Flack nodded, unsure of what to say. He knew he'd been caught out red handed. "Can we change the subject? It might help improve my appetite seeing as you ordered two mixed grilled."

Danny looked at him, puzzled. "What do you mean? They were both for me!" Flack rolled his eyes, he really wasn't hungry anyway.

-&-

By the time he left Danny, night time had truly arrived, darkening the city and his thoughts in equal measure. He found himself wandering the streets and avenues, making his way to Angell's apartment, working out believable excuses for turning up there.

He heard voices and laughter as he approached her door, a man's voice. He felt himself feeling choked by strange emotions. He was too truthful to let himself get worked up like this, but he had been scared of approaching her to find out what she was thinking, too scared of losing what had been built between them. He stood at the door and listened, not managing to decipher any words. Courage failed him, and he left, words unsaid, taking the long way home and hoping the night would numb him.

Please review - no blackmailing involved as the next two chapters are already written and I'll post chapter 2 tomorrow and 3 on Monday, but I need some motivation for the current WiP.