SquidgeWorld Archive

Danny stepped out of the ballroom, glancing behind him quickly to make sure that no one was paying attention to him. Confident that he'd slipped out unobserved he headed down the hall for the small den with the fireplace. Two couches sat facing each other with two overstuffed chairs between them.

He sat on the small couch and stared into the fire, enjoying the quiet after the overcrowded ballroom. He looked up when someone sat down next to him and smiled slightly. "Hi Mac. Thought you were dancing."

"Stella decided I'd earned a break and is dancing with Flack now," Mac told him, the smile he reserved only for Danny in place. He took one of Danny's hands in his. "Gave me a chance to track you down."

"You know me and crowds, I just needed a minute," he said, evasively answering Mac's unspoken question. Mac squeezed his hand and he gave a small sigh, leaning into the older man.

Mac took advantage of the privacy of the corner to kiss the top of Danny's head lightly. It was the precinct's annual Christmas party. They'd reserved a large ballroom at a hotel. He'd guess that there were easily five hundred people there, and most of them crammed into that room dancing. And a lot of the cops still had issues with Danny. It had been a rough year. "This crowd makes you uncomfortable," he said, sensing that Danny was still trying to figure out what to say.

Danny tensed slightly and then nodded. "I know it shouldn't. I just feel like they're all staring at me. There's Messer's kid. Killed a cop and lived up to the family's rep." He sighed slightly and then Mac could see him visibly pulling himself back together. "I'm fine. Really." He turned slightly to grin at Mac. "Where are the others?"

"Last I saw Lindsay and Hawkes were dancing and Stella and Flack were at the bar. I think that they're plotting something," he said darkly. Danny laughed slightly at that. Both Stella and Flack had offbeat senses of humor, you add alcohol to the mix and who knew what would come out of it.

A few minutes later Danny pulled himself up so that they were simply sitting side by side. "I suppose we should head back soon."

"Probably," Mac agreed, but he stayed where he was and didn't release Danny's hand that he still held.

"Hi guys," Hawkes greeted a few moments later, making sure to give them a head's up that they were coming over so they weren't startled. Lindsay was in front of them and they sat on the couch that was across from them. They were joined by Stella and Flack a few minutes later who lay claim to the two chairs after closing the door behind them.

"The plotting finished?" Mac asked them. The glance they exchanged before answering worried him slightly.

"What plotting?" Flack asked innocuously.

"Don't know what you're talking about," Stella said sweetly.

"Right," Mac said skeptically. He had the feeling that he should be worried, but he let it drop. Now wasn't the time to worry. Instead he enjoyed having his whole team together, something that didn't happen often enough.

"How did the two of you get together?" Lindsay asked, looking at their intertwined hands. She'd figured out the truth to their relationship when Danny had been trapped in the panic room. Mac had indeed gotten updates every half hour the entire time, which had allowed her to connect that subtle clues. She was proud of her figuring things out; it meant that she was really getting to know the team. She liked and respected Mac and, despite the light tension that often defined their relationship, she genuinely liked Danny too. She had a feeling that he deserved the happiness.

They grinned at each other before Mac answered, "He fell into my arms."

"Literally," Danny laughed.

"And then Mac fell into his," Stella piped up, her own smile daring Mac to contradict her statement.

"Also literally," Mac shrugged.

"Really?" Lindsay giggled at the thought. "You have to tell the story."

"I'll start it " Stella said cheerily. "It was two years ago," she paused as a thought occurred to her. "It was almost exactly two years ago, wasn't it?"
"Two years on Saturday," Danny answered with a nod.

"We'd decided to skip out of the Christmas party that year," she glared at Flack when she heard him mutter 'smart move' before continuing. "We'd just finished a horrific case that afternoon and no one felt up to the mingling and politicking, so instead we went for Chinese. We decided to read our fortunes out loud."

"You decided," Danny corrected her with a cheeky grin.

"Aiden agreed with me that it'd be fun and you all went with it," she pointed out. "Anyway Mac started and his was a bit of an odd one."

"'Soon your true love will be in your arms,' " Mac quoted.

"The rest of us had standard things like 'you're appreciated.' At least, until we got to Danny who had 'Your true love will fall for you soon.' It would have been something to laugh at and forget if not for the fact that Aiden and I knew how they felt about each other. They just didn't know. Two days later we were again all at a crime scene. Well, it wasn't really a crime scene."

"Someone had called in three dead bodies in a warehouse," Hawkes said. "Turns out it was three mannequins, but we were already there before the officer on the scene figured it out."

"Well, Vicaro was never the swiftest guy," Flack admitted.

"He took off immediately while we looked around to make sure that there really was nothing going on."

"You were there too?" Lindsay asked Flack.

"I'd been there when the call came in, so I went along with them," Flack explained. "Vicaro took my presence as an excuse to take off early."

"We're getting off the topic here," Stella said peevishly. "When we were leaving Danny slipped on a patch of ice, fell right into Mac's arms. The look on Mac's face was priceless. Of course the first thing Aiden and I thought of was the fortune cookie. Danny had just gotten his feet under him when Mac slipped too. What followed next was strait out of the movies, with the two of them slipping before Danny managed to prove that he's really earned those muscles and snagged Mac before he could hit the ground."

"And then Danny says to Mac 'Looks like we're falling for each other,' " Flack said, laughing. "It was horrible."

"That's painful " Lindsay laughed.
"Hey, I was suffering from a concussion at the time," Danny protested.

"You had a concussion?" Lindsay asked, confused.

"I - um - had fallen earlier too," he admitted sheepishly.

"He'd just forgotten to tell anybody," Mac said dryly, with a look that made it clear that they'd had a discussion about that.

"Aiden and I were nearly hysterical. Their fortunes were coming true. Hawkes was looking at us like we were all lunatics."

"I wasn't quite up to speed on the whole Danny's in love with Mac, Mac loves Danny thing," the former ME explained. "I wouldn't be figuring that out for another hour or so."

"After that we made our way carefully back to the car and went back to the lab. It was Christmas Eve, none of us wanted to work late either. Aiden and I were already plotting how to use this to our advantage," Stella admitted with a grin. "Hawkes, as it turned out, was going to do most of the work for us."

"I found Danny in the bathroom throwing up," Hawkes said, picking up his part of the story. "Being the excellent doctor that I am, I knew something was wrong. Once I threatened to go to Mac, he admitted that he'd smacked his head against the wall of the building earlier that afternoon. It didn't take long to determine that he had a concussion. He said he was fine, but there was no way that I was going to let him go home alone. "Fortunately everyone was gathered in the hall just outside the locker room. Aiden took one look at him and knew something was wrong."

"Not that Mac was far behind," Stella said. "He was just still caught off guard by the fact that we were encouraging to make a move on Danny."

Mac snorted. "That's not quite how you phrased it," he reminded her.

Stella's wide grin caused Lindsay to wonder just what the other woman had said. "All that matters is that Aiden asked Danny what was wrong with him and Hawkes answered that he had a concussion before he could say anything. The look of concern on your face is really what gave you away, you know."

"I just happened to say that I didn't think Danny should be alone that night, since he'd flat out refused to go to the emergency room," Hawkes told Lindsay before Mac and Stella could continue sniping at each other. "Stella volunteered Mac to keep watch on him."

"The look of panic on Danny's face was funnier than Mac's obvious concern," Flack chuckled. "You could tell that they were both feeling trapped."

"Yeah, you didn't help things by agreeing with her," Danny glared at him.

Flack shrugged, unashamed. "I thought it might be the push that the two of you needed."

"It worked too," Hawkes pointed out.

"They reluctantly agreed. Mac bolted for his office and Danny to the locker room. Aiden and I decided to mix things up, she went after Mac and I went after Danny."

"Hawkes and I just laughed and left the craziness to the crazies," Flack said. "We were afraid it might be contagious."

Stella made a face at him before continuing. "I'm sure you've figured out by now how easy it is to tell when Danny is truly panicked. All of the jitteriness that defines him when he's agitated disappears and he just stops. He barely looked up when I sat down next to him."

"I was terrified," Danny admitted with a faint grin. "I'd just used the lamest pick up line early on my boss, who hadn't shown any interest in like that. And Aiden had been goin' on and on about those damn fortunes."

"Aiden, doing a remarkable impression of Stella, told me to get my 'head out of my ass,'" Mac quoted with a wry grin. "I tried protesting that there were reading into things, that there was nothing going on, his family could keep an eye on him since they'd be seeing him the next day, and that Danny didn't think about me that way. Aiden flat out laughed at the last one and corrected me on my misconceptions. She gave me a lecture informing me that Danny would be staying at my place that night and that I would be making sure that he didn't come into work the next day. I hadn't realized until then that Danny didn't have any plans for Christmas."

"The girls practically shoved us out the door at five," Danny picked up. "We get to the parking lot and there are Flack and Hawkes waiting to make sure we followed orders. Just as I'm getting in Mac's car, Flack calls out 'Have a good time boys.'"

"You didn't " Lindsay laughed.

Flack nodded, laughing. "They both had these deer in the headlights looks on their face. By then it was a permanent fixture for the day. I don't think either one of them could quite figure out what had happened in the last couple of hours."

"Everything was snowballing," Mac agreed. "Neither of us was quite sure what had happened."

"So right then, you still hadn't admitted your feelings to each other, but Stella and Aiden had at least implied that they might be returned, and you were about to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas together?"
"Yeah."

"So then what happened?"

"If you hadn't interrupted us, we'd have already gotten there," Danny teased. She stuck her tongue out at him and he continued the story. "Mac's a Marine to the core. Every hour on the hour he'd ask me questions, what's my name, what's his name, what year is it, etc. When he woke me at three, I'd been dreaming and didn't quite realize where I was. I kissed him."

"And?"

"And what? That's it."

"Danny " she whined.

"He kissed me back. It was several minutes before I realized that I wasn't dreaming. By then any mistaken beliefs we'd had, had been corrected. Best Christmas gift I've ever gotten."

"And you've been together happily ever since?" Lindsay inquired?

Danny's eyes clouded slightly as he thought about the bumps and snags they'd hit, especially over the last year. He hadn't been sure they'd make it through the spring, but they had. He felt Mac squeeze his hand and he squeezed back.

Mac kissed Danny's temple. "Pretty much."

"I love it," she sighed with a smile.

"You're a sap Montana," Danny teased.

"I'm romantic," she said haughtily, and the others chuckled.

"Why don't we get out of here?" Stella suggested. "Get dessert somewhere before heading home."

"Sounds good to me," Flack agreed, seconded by Hawkes.

"Grab your coats. My treat," Mac offered and watched his team file out. "I love you Danny," he said, wrapping his arms around the younger man, taking advantage of the moment they had before they had to join the rest of the world again.

"I love you too Mac," he assured him with a kiss. A brief squeeze and they headed after their friends.