Summary: When the past comes back to haunt you, the love and support of people at your side can ease the pain. - DL, with Stella/Lindsay friendship Disclaimer: I don’t own anyone or anything.
Chapter 1: Old Memories
She didn’t know how long she was sitting on the barstool, staring at the glass that was standing in front of her and around which her hands were clenching in a tight grip. Slightly foggy her view was, surely due to the steadily returning tears. The clear, dark liquor was glistering in the dull light of the bar of which she didn’t even know the name. Or the location.She wasn’t there for the alcohol or to get drunk. If so she would have simply cleared a bottle or two at home. Barely she had managed to empty her first glass of whisky so far; too much the lump in her throat was making swallowing impossible.No,she was there for other reasons, for reasons she didn’t even understand.She knew she shouldn’t be there, at this bar, surrounded by strangers that were giving her those looks that made her scared to leave said bar, not knowing what would happen the second she wasn’t in the middle of a crowd anymore.Still being at this place was better than being at home, in her quiet, lonely apartment. She couldn’t bear this loneliness. She couldn’t bear the quiet. It would only make her think and remember. And that was the last she wanted to do now.Thinking. About what had happened earlier that day, in that diner. Or so many years ago, again in a diner. She didn’t want to think about that. Not now. And being at a place like that currently prevented her from thinking. She would rather like to be around other people than those guys who she didn’t even dare to look at. But currently they were a better company than no one. She could have visited a person who actually cared about her. But then she would have had to talk. And she couldn’t talk. Not now.Still she knew this wouldn’t wipe away the pain, the guilt, the anger. Somewhere along the line she would have to go back home. And then it would all rush back. There wouldn’t be loud noises surrounding her, no rude guys hitting on her, no bartenders asking if she wanted a drink, no girly women giggling hysterically. Then everything would be quiet and she would have to think. And feel. Pain. Guilt. Anger. And she wouldn’t be able to escape.Standing outside the bar, Danny triple-checked the address to make sure he had found the right place. Once again he realised he hadn’t read it wrong. He had already gotten a strange feeling when he had tracked down her cell and had seen the address that had shown up. Now said address had led him to a bar; one of those bars he would have never expected her to go to. But possibly it had just been the closest to her place and she hadn’t been picky.Releasing a light sigh, Danny ran a hand through his short hair while he kept on watching drunk people leaving the bar and already drunk people entering it. Insecurity was rising inside him. Insecurity on how to react to Lindsay, how to treat her for the case he got the chance to talk to her.Concern had been what had led him to look for her. After what had happened in the morning, he had barely been able to be away from her side, making sure she was really alright. All he had gotten though were half hearted, painful smiles and her attempts at reassuring him that she was fine. She wasn’t though and he knew it, he could feel it. So badly he had wanted to follow her when she had left work. He had used the time at the lab to call her at home, just to find out she hadn’t arrived there, or didn’t answer her phone. To rule out the former, he had tracked down her phone, just to find her at this bar now.Taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes for a moment, fighting back the steadily increasing insecurity. He couldn’t set up a plan how to help her. He had to follow his instinct, hoping he would find a way to at least get her out of that bar and back home.Quickly he made his way across the street that was still wet from the previous rain, reflecting the city lights. Then he entered the bar as well.Walking through the entrance door, Danny was instantly greeted by a crowd of loud, drunk people, shoving each other around, laughing or yelling at each other. Once again he shook his head. This was the last place he wanted her to be. He scanned the room with his eyes, instinctively checking the bar first.Like he had expected, he found her petite form on one of the stools, bent over the table. For a short moment only his heart made a relieved leap. Then he noticed the way she was glaring down at her glass, with an expression that instantly broke his heart. Without another moment of hesitation, he made his way over to her, determined he wouldn’t let her send him away again.Reaching Lindsay, Danny wasn’t surprised she didn’t even notice his presence. She seemed to be far away with her thoughts, nowhere near the place she actually was at currently. Carefully to not scare her, he climbed on the stool next to her, taking her in for a moment. The look in her eyes was hardly bearable for him. During the weeks and months he knew her now, he had always been impressed by how much her eyes revealed about what she was thinking and feeling. Now those usually sparkling brown eyes were filled with a pain he had barely ever seen before, and it touched him deep inside. So badly he wanted to hold her, wanted to tell her whatever had caused such pain would go away again. He had no idea if she would let him“That’s an usual place for you to be, Montana,” he said then, as softly as possible but the way he managed to startle her anyways caused him to wince. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”“How did you find me?” Lindsay didn’t look at him. Still she stared at the half filled glass. Her voice revealed she wasn’t drunk, or at least didn’t sound like it. It also revealed that his suspicion nothing was fine had been entirely right.“I tracked down your phone,” he answered. “Sounds like I’m a stalker, but I just got the feeling you didn’t feel well and I was concerned.”“I’m fine,” she said, almost whispering. A deep sigh left her lips when she shook her head. “You didn’t have to come here. You’re not responsible for me.”“I’m not, that’s right,” Danny replied. “But maybe I’m here because I care? Because I want to make sure you’re alright? And not getting yourself into trouble?”Lindsay didn’t reply. Instead she kept on staring at her glass, not moving a single inch or bothering to look up at him. He sighed inwardly. There was a wall separating them at the moment that he didn’t know how to tear down or to get over. All he could do was continuing to talk, hoping that he would be able to find the right words.“Listen, I think this place here really isn’t a nice one. Now that I found you, why don’t we go somewhere else?” He didn’t plan on taking her out to any other bar or club. But it would be an advantage if he got her at least out of this one.Lindsay shook her head. “You think I’m stupid?” she asked in her hoarse voice. “I know you want to make me go home. But I don’t want to be there.”“And why not?” he asked. Danny felt the strong urge to reach out to her, to show her any physical support. But the distance she tried to keep between them prevented him from doing so.She laughed dryly. “Why? In that quiet, dark hole? No, thank you. That’s the last place I want to be at now.” Her hands tightened around the glass, her eyes squeezed shut.“So what are your plans then? You want to stay here all night?” Danny wanted to know.Lindsay shrugged barely noticeable. “Maybe some random guy picks me up, who knows.”He winced at just the words, let alone the imagination. He didn’t know if she was being serious and was indeed planning on letting someone hit on her just so she wouldn’t have to be alone at home. Just the possibility was worse enough though and caused his determination to stay at her side to increase."Alright, you’ll come with me now,” he told her simply, getting up.Lindsay groaned when she saw him tossing a couple of bills on the bar before he grabbed her arm gently to pull her with him. Roughly, she tried to free her arm from his grip. “You don’t have to tell me what to do,” she hissed angrily, for the first time since he had arrived looking at him. “I don’t need a babysitter, I won’t do anything stupid.”“Fine, then you can prove that to me with leaving this bar now,” he told her strictly. And before she got a chance to contradict, he guided her through the crowd back towards the exit.It took him little effort to guide the exhausted and frustrated young woman. He managed to get her out of the bar that in his eyes was the last place he wanted to see her at. Greeted by the surprisingly cold breeze, she winced, wrapping her arms around her slim form. In silence he led her away from the crowds over to his car, making sure she wouldn’t escape him and head back. There was a tension radiating from her whole appearance and he couldn’t help the thought that all this pain was caused by more than the events from the morning.Carefully Danny managed to get Lindsay into the car. A moment later he was sitting next to her, not making any attempts at starting the car though. Instead his attention was once again focussed on the young woman next to him, strictly staring out of the front window, not moving a single inch, not even blinking. Her usually sparkling eyes were focussing on nothing particularly. It was one of those moments where he dearly wished to be able to read her mind.Don’t you want to start your car?” she asked in the same low, monotonous voice she had been using before.“I’d rather like to know what’s going on here.” He paused for a moment at the way she tensed at the question. “Is it still because of the shooting this morning? If so, maybe you should finally talk about that to someone. Everyone of us would have a hard time after being involved in a shooting.”Lindsay’s eyes closed at his words. He could only imagine what she was mentally replaying now. That morning she had been in her favourite diner, not far away from the lab. Sitting over a brownie and a cup of coffee, she hadn’t noticed the man stepping through the entrance door. So she also hadn’t noticed the shotgun he was carrying.Until hell broke loose and a bloodcurdling scream had caused her to spin around. This had been the moment when the shooting had started, when bullets had been hitting everything in the room; glass, furniture, walls. People. It was a wonder she hadn’t been hit, just like the waitress. The other only customer, a woman who had been sitting not far away from her, hadn’t had as much luck. She had died before the ambulance had arrived. Despite everything she had tried to rescue her.What should I talk about?” she asked then, opening her eyes again, still refusing to look at him. “That I failed to rescue her? That instead this guy managed to survive even though I shot him into the chest?”“Be glad you didn’t kill him, no matter how much you think he would have deserved it,” Danny told her softly. “And this woman...you couldn’t have done anything for her. He shot her into the head. You could have tried everything and it wouldn’t have worked. She didn’t have a chance.”“She would have had if I had seen him coming,” she whispered. “If I had interfered before he could have even risen his gun.”“But you can’t always spin around whenever someone enters a room for the case the person could have the intention to randomly shoot around him,” he replied.She laughed sadly. “Oh yeah? Tell my friends about that. It’s not like it never happened before.”The undeniable pain Danny could make out in every spoken word was yet another proof for his imagination that something more was wrong, even though what she had to go through earlier that day had been horrible enough. Still he himself could feel shivers running down his spine at the thought that she could have been hit as well. Clearly he could remember how they had arrived at the scene, how he had seen the desperation in her eyes about the fact she hadn’t been able to safe the victim. Since that moment, he and Stella had stayed close at her side, trying to offer her the shoulder to lean on she might need. She had refused to take it, but neither of them was willing to give up. Which had caused him to follow her.“What do you mean with telling your friends about that?” he asked then after being silent for a while.Her hands clenched into tight fists, the knuckles turning white. She was fighting with herself and almost he regretted he had even asked. Then again he knew how painful it was to shut people off and that it didn’t work at all. He needed to make her talk, no matter how much she had to struggle with that.I’ve been involved in a shooting before,” she managed to say then. Once again her eyes squeezed shut tightly. “I’ve been sixteen back then. It’s been the evening before summer vacation and we’ve met at our favourite diner because neither of us wanted to actually go. We’d rather have spend the time together.” A tiny smile lit her face for the whisper of a moment before her expression turned serious again. “I’ve headed to the bathroom for a moment. Just a moment later I could hear the doorbell when someone else entered the diner. The next I could hear were gunshots.”She had to stop. Danny was staring at Lindsay in disbelief at her words. He had expected to hear a painful story and yet she hadn’t even finished it. But he didn’t need to hear more to know what would follow and the thought of that alone was hurting him horribly“I could hear them scream,” she continued then, her voice so quiet he could barely understand her. Her tight fists were shaking, so was her whole body. “Luckily he didn’t find me in that bathroom. I stayed in there until I could hear the doorbell again. Then I left it and I found them. My friends and the waitress. They’ve all been shot.”e again her voice trailed off. The first thick tear had found its way out of her tightly closed eyes, running down her cheek like a glistering pearl. Had there been hesitation before, now Danny didn’t care anymore. Reaching out, he pulled Lindsay into his arms as close as he could in their sitting positions. She didn’t fight back, instead allowed him to hold her, grabbing the front of his jacket tightly while searching for the support she had been trying to avoid all day.“I couldn’t do anything, I couldn’t help them,” she sobbed, finally allowing her tears to flow free. “I don’t understand why I had such a luck and why they didn’t. And now this. Again I have been in this same situation, again I had luck and someone else didn’t. Again I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t safe her. I just couldn’t.”Hearing the strong mix of pain, guilt and desperation in her voice, he tightened his grip around her. Slowly he started to understand. He wished to tell her that she wasn’t to blame for anything that had happened back then, that she couldn’t have done anything different and that she should be glad she had been so lucky. But he knew this wouldn’t help her and currently she wouldn’t believe him either. All he could do was showing her his support. His heart was aching at the story he had just heard. Who would have expected that behind this happy, cheering facade, such a painful secret would be hidden?“I don’t want to go home,” she managed to say then, after crying in his chest for a couple of moments. Lightly she pulled out of his arms until she could face him. Lindsay’s eyes locked with Danny’s and he couldn’t help the light shivers that ran down his spine at the sudden closeness between them. “I don’t want to have to think about this morning, about how it could have gone or what I could have done. Or about them.”Her voice had trailed off into a whisper until she was quiet again, staring him right into the eyes. He didn’t get the chance to think about what to response to her when she pulled him closer and her lips pressed against his. He couldn’t do anything but respond to her kiss, not able to fight back the instinct that led him to do so. So much he was longing for this closeness between them, even though he would never admit he was secretly having a crush on her, wishing to get the chance to kiss her, or do more with her.But this kiss wasn’t what he had imagined it to be like. Deep in there, he could find a true wish of being that close to him and that she was agreeing to those feelings he had towards her. But currently this was overshadowed by pain and desperation. He knew what those kisses that were so deep and rough that they didn’t fail to take his breath away, would lead to if he didn’t make them stop. And he knew they weren’t ready for that. Not now. Not under those circumstances.And so he pulled back, ignoring the disappointment of his longing body. He found her gazing at him with confusion at the interruption and concern which he didn’t want to see in her eyes.“Stella is waiting for me to tell her that you’re fine,” he told her, trying to hide the affection in his voice. “I think you definitely shouldn’t be alone tonight, so I’ll take you to her. I think she won’t mind if you stay at her place for the night.”Gently he released her from his grip. Lindsay nodded lightly, instead of turning her look away still staring at him.“I’m sorry,” she said then, quietly again, but still he got to hear her. Before he could ask what she was apologizing for, she added, “I’m sorry for doing something you didn’t want. I went too far.”“No, you didn’t,” he answered honestly. “This has nothing to do with me not wanting it. I do, otherwise I wouldn’t have kissed you back. But this is not the right time for that.”Her eyes narrowed at his words. “If you think I’m doing that to make myself feel good again...that’s not true.”“You know, I believe you,” he told her softly, hoping he could make his point clear to her. “But let’s wait with that until you feel better again. Just to be sure.”Once again Lindsay stared back at him, thinking about his words. Danny knew she had understood him. The proof for that he got with the nod she made a moment later. Nodding himself, he started the car to take her to yet another person who cared about her enough to be up all night in concern. There was no doubt she needed them at her side, even if she wasn’t willing to admit it. She had confessed she didn’t want to be all by her own though and they would make sure she wouldn’t have to.Preview: Danny takes Lindsay to Stella’s place.