"Some Day, She Might Look Back On This And Laugh", CSI:NY, Lindsay-centric
Title: Some Day, She Might Look Back On This And Laugh
Fandom: CSI:NY
Characters: Lindsay; Danny, Adam
Challenge/Prompt: psych_30 #28 Free Association & fanfic100 002. Middles
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1620
Genre: Gen/het
Summary: Her first words are: “Oh my God, I’m such a slut.”
Author’s Notes: Spoilers for 5x09. I love how Danny and Lindsay are basically canonically turning into bad fanfiction and I don’t care. *snickers* I like the random Adam&Lindsay friendship that appeared as I was writing, though!
Boy, you’d best pray that I bleed real soon
- How’s that thought for you?
- Tori Amos
i.
She’s late.
ii.
Lindsay gives her period a week to arrive, and when it doesn’t she starts to panic a little. Ok. She starts to panic a lot; going to the bathroom becomes terrifying, hope clenching in her stomach until she’s disappointed yet again.
In the end, she bites the bullet and goes to buy herself a pregnancy test.
There are a bewildering array of them; all promising different things, all claiming to be the best, the most reliable. For a moment, her nerve almost gives, and then she tries to work out if she could somehow use the lab; but she thinks it would be a little unethical and besides, then everyone would know.
Finally, she scoops a couple of random tests off the shelf and goes to pay. She can’t bring herself to look at the clerk, and instead takes her time fumbling with her purse, trying not to blush. It shouldn’t be embarrassing, and yet it is; she blames herself for getting into this ridiculous situation, for not being careful and not thinking things through. She wonders if she’s being judged; if the man behind the counter is wondering why she can’t use birth control, if he’s looking for the conspicuously absent wedding ring.
Look, she wants to say, it’s complicated, ok?
iii.
When the blue lines appear and she’s double-checked the instructions, her first words are: “Oh my God, I’m such a slut.”
Then she feels kind of sheepish and curls a guilty palm across her stomach; it’s not her unborn child’s fault that sometimes she can be kind of an idiot and anyway, she sat through all the health classes in high school - first, giggling with her friends, and then when they were dead, alone and sullen - and she’s worked all these cases and she should really fucking know how to use a condom.
She does two more tests to be sure; they’re positive too.
Lindsay sits on her bathroom floor, resting her head against the sink pedestal, and looks at the array of coloured lines on the white sticks spread out in front of her.
“Oh,” she groans, because she’s not ready, she’s not, “Fuck.”
iv.
A couple of days of attempted denial later, she’s brushing her teeth and avoiding her own gaze in the mirror. But it can’t go on like this; she rinses her mouth out and stares at her reflection for a while.
“I’m having my co-worker’s baby,” she says, enunciating each word carefully and loudly. “I’m having my co-worker’s baby.”
No matter how many times she says it (she loses count at twenty-six), she can’t make it seem any more real.
v.
The day she finally books herself an appointment at a clinic - because much as she’d like to pull the covers over her head and pretend that this is not happening, it’s not really an option any more - Danny brushes her arm in the lab.
They’re complicated, you see. They’re not not dating, but neither are they really in a relationship. They’re in some awkward middle ground, and Lindsay thought she was fine with that and whichever destination they were heading to, but now she kind of has a child on the way and she gets the feeling it’s not really going to understand when she eventually sighs and confesses: your daddy and I… well, fuck knows what was really going on there.
His smile is warm and sunny and Lindsay thinks, quick and sharp and sudden: oh God I’m having your baby, and has to excuse herself on some lame pretext so she can run away and vomit.
vi.
Walking home from work, she has some kind of psychotic episode and ducks into Barnes & Noble, where she proceeds to spend about twenty minutes picking up picture books; ones she remembers from her own childhood, and others that just look nice.
Lindsay has the story all ready, in case anyone’s seen her; something about a cousin back in Bozeman, something about a christening gift. But when she leaves the store, no one is looking at her; there’s no Flack with a sardonic smile and a puzzled look in his eyes, or Danny with a: hey Montana, what are you doing?
She feels weirdly like she’s gotten away with something.
When she gets home, Lindsay unpacks the books and spreads them across her couch, and tries to picture reading them to someone small with her eyes and Danny’s nose. Or maybe Danny’s eyes and her curly hair. Or…
Subconsciously, she spreads a careful hand across her stomach, and opens Where The Wild Things Are.
vii.
On the phone to her mom, she attempts to articulate: by the way, how’d you feel about becoming a grandmother? Don’t worry, you’ve still got nearly eight months to learn to knit.
She can’t. She just can’t.
viii.
Waiting for her tests to finish running, Lindsay finds herself caught in the dilemma of whether she wants to raise her child in the noise and dirt of New York or if she should just flee back to Montana now. She’s not sure she wants to raise her child in Montana, though, and she supposes Danny should have a say in all this, and the whole thing is just giving her a migraine.
She realises Adam is watching her from the other side of the lab; with a plunging feeling in her stomach, Lindsay realises that she’s been stroking the curve where her baby is just starting to make itself known. Lindsay tries desperately to think of something to say, but when she looks back Adam is unconcernedly carrying on with his work.
Maybe he hasn’t seen anything. She resolves to be more careful, and is grateful when the machine starts beeping.
ix.
The morning sickness? Is shit.
x.
She’s yawning over a report one morning, trying not to think about her appointment later, when Adam walks in. He’s holding two paper cups of coffee, and offers her a smile as he deposits one on her desk.
“Thanks,” Lindsay says, resigning herself to throwing it away later because she’s pretty sure coffee isn’t going to help the foetus develop.
“That’s ok,” Adam replies, and on his way back out leans down and whispers: “Don’t worry, it’s decaf.”
In that moment, Lindsay realises that he knows.
xi.
Her To Do List mainly consists of tell Danny, closely followed by tell my parents.
The longer she leaves this, the worse it’s going to get, but Lindsay can’t help thinking that if she doesn’t say anything aloud, then maybe it’ll all work out ok anyway. Which is kind of weird, because until now she was fairly certain that any sort of naïveté vanished when she hid in the bathroom of the diner listening to gunshots reverberate off the tiles.
Lindsay is doing her best not to think about that; it’s a little hard, knowing she’s bringing a child into a world where such fucking ugly things can happen.
Crossing another day off her calendar, Lindsay reflects that she really can’t hide this forever.
xii.
“I’m going to hug you,” Adam tells her when they’re alone in the locker room, “Because I don’t think anyone’s hugged you yet.”
Lindsay thinks for a moment about stopping him, and then lets him wrap his arms around her, pressing her face into his shoulder. It’s kind of… nice, putting all this onto someone else for a minute.
“Thanks,” she says after a while, reluctantly letting go.
Adam smiles at her, awkward but amused. “You’re getting pretty big,” he remarks, “I’m surprised no one else has noticed yet.”
Later, when Stella approaches her and asks Lindsay to give up a week of paid holiday to help Adam keep his job, Lindsay does so without hesitation. Besides, she can’t help reflecting that by March she won’t really be in a position to fly anywhere.
Just to be on the safe side, when she’s giving her excuses to Mac, she keeps her coat folded across in front of her stomach; she doesn’t think she can handle anyone else figuring it out before she finally works out how to break it to Danny.
xiii.
Her OB/GYN has a kind smile and warm hands, which Lindsay thinks are the most important things. He’s kind and reassuring, but she probably shouldn’t keep telling him things.
“Have you told the father yet?” he asks, rubbing gloopy ultrasound jelly across her stomach.
Lindsay grimaces at the cold. “Not in so many words.”
“It’s going to get harder and harder to hide,” he reminds her.
Lindsay is about to reply when she sees the little distorted shape on the monitor and her breath catches hard in her chest.
Just for a moment, she forgets about everything else; because none of it really seems to matter any more.
xiv.
Adam’s eyes crinkle a little at the corners when Lindsay shows him the ultrasound with its little grey blob.
“You know,” he begins slowly, handing it back, “If you need someone to come with you, you know, next time, then…”
“Thanks,” Lindsay says, and means it. “But I think by the time I go for my next scan I think Danny should probably know.”
Adam’s fingers catch her shoulder. “Don’t worry,” he says, “I won’t say that I already knew.”
Lindsay smiles at him, though it falls from her face a moment later. “I don’t think that’s going to be the issue,” she says.
“Danny’s a good guy,” Adam assures her.
“I know,” Lindsay almost groans, “That’s kind of the problem.”
xv.
It’s getting ridiculous; she can barely remember what she’s hiding from, but she still can’t bring herself to open her mouth and say those four little words.
(I’m having your baby.)
Fandom: CSI:NY
Characters: Lindsay; Danny, Adam
Challenge/Prompt: psych_30 #28 Free Association & fanfic100 002. Middles
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1620
Genre: Gen/het
Summary: Her first words are: “Oh my God, I’m such a slut.”
Author’s Notes: Spoilers for 5x09. I love how Danny and Lindsay are basically canonically turning into bad fanfiction and I don’t care. *snickers* I like the random Adam&Lindsay friendship that appeared as I was writing, though!
Boy, you’d best pray that I bleed real soon
- How’s that thought for you?
- Tori Amos
i.
She’s late.
ii.
Lindsay gives her period a week to arrive, and when it doesn’t she starts to panic a little. Ok. She starts to panic a lot; going to the bathroom becomes terrifying, hope clenching in her stomach until she’s disappointed yet again.
In the end, she bites the bullet and goes to buy herself a pregnancy test.
There are a bewildering array of them; all promising different things, all claiming to be the best, the most reliable. For a moment, her nerve almost gives, and then she tries to work out if she could somehow use the lab; but she thinks it would be a little unethical and besides, then everyone would know.
Finally, she scoops a couple of random tests off the shelf and goes to pay. She can’t bring herself to look at the clerk, and instead takes her time fumbling with her purse, trying not to blush. It shouldn’t be embarrassing, and yet it is; she blames herself for getting into this ridiculous situation, for not being careful and not thinking things through. She wonders if she’s being judged; if the man behind the counter is wondering why she can’t use birth control, if he’s looking for the conspicuously absent wedding ring.
Look, she wants to say, it’s complicated, ok?
iii.
When the blue lines appear and she’s double-checked the instructions, her first words are: “Oh my God, I’m such a slut.”
Then she feels kind of sheepish and curls a guilty palm across her stomach; it’s not her unborn child’s fault that sometimes she can be kind of an idiot and anyway, she sat through all the health classes in high school - first, giggling with her friends, and then when they were dead, alone and sullen - and she’s worked all these cases and she should really fucking know how to use a condom.
She does two more tests to be sure; they’re positive too.
Lindsay sits on her bathroom floor, resting her head against the sink pedestal, and looks at the array of coloured lines on the white sticks spread out in front of her.
“Oh,” she groans, because she’s not ready, she’s not, “Fuck.”
iv.
A couple of days of attempted denial later, she’s brushing her teeth and avoiding her own gaze in the mirror. But it can’t go on like this; she rinses her mouth out and stares at her reflection for a while.
“I’m having my co-worker’s baby,” she says, enunciating each word carefully and loudly. “I’m having my co-worker’s baby.”
No matter how many times she says it (she loses count at twenty-six), she can’t make it seem any more real.
v.
The day she finally books herself an appointment at a clinic - because much as she’d like to pull the covers over her head and pretend that this is not happening, it’s not really an option any more - Danny brushes her arm in the lab.
They’re complicated, you see. They’re not not dating, but neither are they really in a relationship. They’re in some awkward middle ground, and Lindsay thought she was fine with that and whichever destination they were heading to, but now she kind of has a child on the way and she gets the feeling it’s not really going to understand when she eventually sighs and confesses: your daddy and I… well, fuck knows what was really going on there.
His smile is warm and sunny and Lindsay thinks, quick and sharp and sudden: oh God I’m having your baby, and has to excuse herself on some lame pretext so she can run away and vomit.
vi.
Walking home from work, she has some kind of psychotic episode and ducks into Barnes & Noble, where she proceeds to spend about twenty minutes picking up picture books; ones she remembers from her own childhood, and others that just look nice.
Lindsay has the story all ready, in case anyone’s seen her; something about a cousin back in Bozeman, something about a christening gift. But when she leaves the store, no one is looking at her; there’s no Flack with a sardonic smile and a puzzled look in his eyes, or Danny with a: hey Montana, what are you doing?
She feels weirdly like she’s gotten away with something.
When she gets home, Lindsay unpacks the books and spreads them across her couch, and tries to picture reading them to someone small with her eyes and Danny’s nose. Or maybe Danny’s eyes and her curly hair. Or…
Subconsciously, she spreads a careful hand across her stomach, and opens Where The Wild Things Are.
vii.
On the phone to her mom, she attempts to articulate: by the way, how’d you feel about becoming a grandmother? Don’t worry, you’ve still got nearly eight months to learn to knit.
She can’t. She just can’t.
viii.
Waiting for her tests to finish running, Lindsay finds herself caught in the dilemma of whether she wants to raise her child in the noise and dirt of New York or if she should just flee back to Montana now. She’s not sure she wants to raise her child in Montana, though, and she supposes Danny should have a say in all this, and the whole thing is just giving her a migraine.
She realises Adam is watching her from the other side of the lab; with a plunging feeling in her stomach, Lindsay realises that she’s been stroking the curve where her baby is just starting to make itself known. Lindsay tries desperately to think of something to say, but when she looks back Adam is unconcernedly carrying on with his work.
Maybe he hasn’t seen anything. She resolves to be more careful, and is grateful when the machine starts beeping.
ix.
The morning sickness? Is shit.
x.
She’s yawning over a report one morning, trying not to think about her appointment later, when Adam walks in. He’s holding two paper cups of coffee, and offers her a smile as he deposits one on her desk.
“Thanks,” Lindsay says, resigning herself to throwing it away later because she’s pretty sure coffee isn’t going to help the foetus develop.
“That’s ok,” Adam replies, and on his way back out leans down and whispers: “Don’t worry, it’s decaf.”
In that moment, Lindsay realises that he knows.
xi.
Her To Do List mainly consists of tell Danny, closely followed by tell my parents.
The longer she leaves this, the worse it’s going to get, but Lindsay can’t help thinking that if she doesn’t say anything aloud, then maybe it’ll all work out ok anyway. Which is kind of weird, because until now she was fairly certain that any sort of naïveté vanished when she hid in the bathroom of the diner listening to gunshots reverberate off the tiles.
Lindsay is doing her best not to think about that; it’s a little hard, knowing she’s bringing a child into a world where such fucking ugly things can happen.
Crossing another day off her calendar, Lindsay reflects that she really can’t hide this forever.
xii.
“I’m going to hug you,” Adam tells her when they’re alone in the locker room, “Because I don’t think anyone’s hugged you yet.”
Lindsay thinks for a moment about stopping him, and then lets him wrap his arms around her, pressing her face into his shoulder. It’s kind of… nice, putting all this onto someone else for a minute.
“Thanks,” she says after a while, reluctantly letting go.
Adam smiles at her, awkward but amused. “You’re getting pretty big,” he remarks, “I’m surprised no one else has noticed yet.”
Later, when Stella approaches her and asks Lindsay to give up a week of paid holiday to help Adam keep his job, Lindsay does so without hesitation. Besides, she can’t help reflecting that by March she won’t really be in a position to fly anywhere.
Just to be on the safe side, when she’s giving her excuses to Mac, she keeps her coat folded across in front of her stomach; she doesn’t think she can handle anyone else figuring it out before she finally works out how to break it to Danny.
xiii.
Her OB/GYN has a kind smile and warm hands, which Lindsay thinks are the most important things. He’s kind and reassuring, but she probably shouldn’t keep telling him things.
“Have you told the father yet?” he asks, rubbing gloopy ultrasound jelly across her stomach.
Lindsay grimaces at the cold. “Not in so many words.”
“It’s going to get harder and harder to hide,” he reminds her.
Lindsay is about to reply when she sees the little distorted shape on the monitor and her breath catches hard in her chest.
Just for a moment, she forgets about everything else; because none of it really seems to matter any more.
xiv.
Adam’s eyes crinkle a little at the corners when Lindsay shows him the ultrasound with its little grey blob.
“You know,” he begins slowly, handing it back, “If you need someone to come with you, you know, next time, then…”
“Thanks,” Lindsay says, and means it. “But I think by the time I go for my next scan I think Danny should probably know.”
Adam’s fingers catch her shoulder. “Don’t worry,” he says, “I won’t say that I already knew.”
Lindsay smiles at him, though it falls from her face a moment later. “I don’t think that’s going to be the issue,” she says.
“Danny’s a good guy,” Adam assures her.
“I know,” Lindsay almost groans, “That’s kind of the problem.”
xv.
It’s getting ridiculous; she can barely remember what she’s hiding from, but she still can’t bring herself to open her mouth and say those four little words.
(I’m having your baby.)