(no subject)

[helsinkibaby]

demon_faith? Not sure when you're heading off, but your ficlet is ready to be beta-ed... should be up tomorrow night. Slightly over 500 words, but I have a feeling you'll forgive me.

michellek? Backup fic in the same place. And don't I have issues with you on that one! {glares}

And since I'm not posting any other fic, and maggis likes to have these where she can find them easily, this is the Without a Trace Danny-fic that I wrote for medie for her birthday. Takes up where Stumble finished, and is called

Title: Fall
Rating: PG13
Pairing: Danny/OFC
Spoilers: Up to episode 2X17, Gung-Ho to be safe

>*<*>*<

With the benefit of hindsight, Danny knows that he fell for her the first time that he saw her; sitting on a bench on the NYU campus, during an Indian summer, freshman year. He was enjoying the buzz of a new city, new name, new life, just coasting along, thinking of nothing in particular, when she stopped him in his tracks.

It wasn’t that she was particularly good-looking, though later, he would come to appreciate those deep brown eyes of hers, would be able to lose himself in them quite successfully; just like he would revel in running his fingers through those long dark strands of hair.

That day however, that first day, what made him notice her was the enormous scowl on her face.

It had piqued his curiosity, so he’d gone over to her, uttered what he knew even at the time was one of the corniest lines in history.

“I suppose you’ve already been told that you’re far too lovely to be frowning so fiercely?”

He’d been all ready to have her ire turned on him, to say nothing of the enormous book in her lap being flung at him, but wonder of wonders, she’d looked up at him, frown morphing into a sheepish smile, which had immediately been followed with a laugh. “Ulysses,” she said, holding up the book by way of explanation, her tone one usually reserved especially for words with four letters. “I’m wondering if I need to read it backwards for it to make sense.”

He’d shrugged. “I wouldn’t have a clue,” he’d told her simply. “Though it probably couldn’t hurt…”

She’d looked down at the book again, pursing her lips in a distinctly rueful expression. “Maybe every second word…” she muttered, more to herself than to him, he thought, and he’d heard himself speaking before he even realised what he was going to say.

“Or you could forget about it all together… let me buy you a cup of coffee.”

Her head had snapped up, her cheeks flushing. “You don’t waste any time, do you?” she’d asked, another surprised laugh preceding her words, and he hadn’t replied, didn’t think he needed to. “You gonna tell me your name first?” she continued, but she was standing, gathering her books, and when she’d turned to him, he held his hand out to her.

“Danny Taylor,” he said, his new name still strange on his tongue, sounding far better coming from her lips.

“Nice to meet you Danny Taylor,” she’d said, the palm of her hand warm against his. “I’m Natalie… Natalie Masters.”

He would often think about those first few words, her uncannily accurate observation that he wasn’t one for wasting time. He’d lost too much, come too far, to be anything but aware of the vagaries of fate, was keenly aware that you had to go after what you wanted. So that cup of coffee had lead to a movie that night, a dinner the night after that, a dorm party on the third.

By the next week, they were officially dating.

By the next month, they were spending every spare minute together, even some that weren’t spare, and later that year, when she had to go back to California for Christmas break, it had felt like the end of the world.

He’d known it was quick, had known that they were young, had heard all the cautionary tales that everyone was telling them, that it would never last. He’d heard them all, but he hadn’t cared, because he’d fallen for her, and she’d fallen for him. They were in it for the long haul; nothing was going to come between them.

He’d taken care of that all on his own.

On the surface, things had been fine, idyllic even. Upon graduating from college, he’d told her that he didn’t want to lose her, wanted to spend the rest of his life with her, and when he proposed, she accepted with tears running down her face. The one thing she’d asked of him, the promise he’d made to her, was that he’d cut down on his drinking.

He’d tried.

But he’d failed.

And he hadn’t known how bad things were until the day that he woke up on their couch to see a note in her handwriting propped up against a half-empty bottle of Jack Daniel’s. “I’m sorry,” it had read. “I can’t do this anymore.”

Her engagement ring was beside it, the diamond he’d worked so hard to pay for winking in the light, taunting him, mocking him.

That was the day that he’d last had a drink, and he’d sworn to himself that if he got the chance to make it up to her, he wouldn’t let her down again. He’d reckoned without her friends, the veil of silence they put up around her. She didn’t want to hear from him they said, wanted a clean break. Her father, when he’d called California, had threatened him with the police if he ever tried to contact her again, and gradually, he’d come to accept that it was over. He’d moved on with his life, in body if not in soul, trained with the FBI, got a job in the Missing Person’s Unit. He used to wonder if she was the reason for that particular interest, if he’s living his dream vicariously through other people. Then he stopped, because the job was enough, in and of itself.

There were entire weeks where he wouldn’t think of her at all.

Then a few weeks ago, he was walking down the street in a city of millions and saw a familiar dark head disappearing into a bookstore.

He’d tried to tell himself that he was seeing things, that he was tired from a stressful case, that he just needed a good night’s sleep. Those rational thoughts hadn’t stopped him from crossing the street, nearly getting run over twice in the process, but it had all been worth it when he’d meandered through the stacks and found her in front of a display of Irish writers.

“Finally given up on Joyce, huh?” he asked, and she’d jumped a mile, her face draining of all colour when she’d seen him there. Her mouth had opened, then closed again, clearly lost for words, and he took a deep breath himself, let it out slowly. “You look good,” he told her.

His words snapped her out of her trance and she swallowed hard, reaching up to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. She used her left hand to do so, and he couldn’t help but notice that her ring finger was bare, just like he couldn’t help the leap of his heart when he noticed. “You too,” she replied, her voice a hair above a whisper.

They stood there a moment longer in silence, then he looked around him at the books, then back to her. “You want to go somewhere?” he asked. “Get a cup of coffee?”

It was more or less what he’d said to her on their first meeting, and he saw the acknowledgement in her eyes, in the flash of a sad smile that crossed her lips. “I’d like that.”

They found a coffee shop nearby, someplace quiet, with only a few other customers, a place where they could talk, catch up. He learned that she’d been based in California until a few months previous, was working as an editor of children’s books now. She told him that she wasn’t married, words that had had him hiding his smile in his cup of coffee, that her parents and siblings were all alive and well, and, she added with grim amusement, holding a considerable grudge against him.

He told her a little about his job, adding that he was sober, but she’d already known that, and it had taken him precious little time to work out how. “Polly?” he guessed, and she inclined her head in acknowledgement.

“Polly,” she confirmed, and this time, Danny didn’t even try to hide his smile. Polly, who had been her room-mate in college, Polly who had been one of her few friends who didn’t blank him after their break-up, Polly who invited him to spend the holidays with her family so that he wouldn’t be alone.

“I had no idea,” he murmured, and one of her shoulders rose and fell in a shrug.

“That was the point,” she said, a verbal jab if ever he’d heard one, but he didn’t comment on it. After all he’d put her through, he figured he deserved that.

Still though, the fact that she knew that he was sober, had been sober for years, that she was yet to run away screaming from him gave him the impetus to ask his next question. “If Polly’s been talking to you…” he began, “Then you know how long I’ve been sober… you know what my life is like, that I’m not just spinning you a line here…”

She was nodding slowly. “Yeah,” she whispered, dark eyes meeting his. “I know that.”

“Then will you let me take you out sometime… for another cup of coffee?”

Holding his breath, he waited for the doubt to vanish from her eyes, for her to stop biting her lower lip, a part of him sure that she was going to stand up, disappear from his life all over again.

Then she looked up at him, eyes clear, nodded once, and that had been enough to have him falling for her all over again.

He’d known it at the time, just like he’d known it every time since he’d seen her since then, every time that they’d shared coffee, that she’d told him about the latest book she was working on, that he’d told her about the latest case he had. He’d known it again last night, when, not too long off a plane from Iraq, having been held hostage by a gun-toting ex-soldier, he’d appeared at her door, fallen into her arms, onto her living room carpet in a tangle of arms and legs, falling into her and letting himself get lost.

And now, they lie in bed together and she turns in his arms, muttering “Good morning,” as she raises her lips to his, as he tangles his fingers in her long dark hair (and how he’s missed that, and it feels even better than he remembers) he knows he’s falling for her all over again.

Just like he knows that, this time, he’s not going to let her go.
>*<*>*<

Speaking of the lady herself - medie, your generator of doom? I have one of my own that my sister made for me, and both are completely addictive... please stop reminding me that they exist... every time I see a pairing where I know both names, I get a grey hair!