authors note: this is taking place before not what it looks like. it is similar to my other story The Ball in a way, but it has nothing to do with my other story.
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Danny Messer walks throught the glass doors of the crime lab. His eyes fall upon his co-worker, and best girl friend (friend thats a girl) Lindsay Monroe, or as he calls her..."Montana!" Danny shouts from across the room. No one else seems to look up because they all know the Danny Messer is the only person who calls Lindsay anything other then Lindsay.

Lindsay waits for Danny to come up next to her before saying,"Hey Cowboy, so the prints from our vic's...."
Lindsay didn't get to finish her sentence because just then Mac Taylor, their boss, enters and says,

"Danny, Lindsay, i'm going to have Hawkes take this one. Can you two meet me in my office in ten minutes?"
"Sure" Danny replies. Lindsay just nods, prints out the results, and goes to find Sheldon. As she leaves Danny watches her go. For danny it was love at, well, second sight.

When Lindsay had just joined the NY crime lab she was at the zoo working on a case with Mac and himself. When Mac told him a new detective was coming in from Bozeman, Montana, he had made up his mind to give the the country hillbilly a hard time here in the city, afterall she was replacing his then best friend, Aiden. Danny had expected the new girl to come wearing, saggy overalls two sizes too big, no shoes just some dirty big feet, super straight straw colored hair in two messy braids, buck teeth, and a goofy accent. boy was he suprised when a tiny little lady, with big chocolate brown eyes, light brown hair, a sparkling smile, and a warm cheerful voice came instead. Lindsay Monroe was the most beautiful women he has ever seen. One thing was the same as he had thought however, she did talk funny, well not funny but different. So danny Messer decided to focus on her diferency, and tell her to call Mac sir. Mac hates that! He very quickly got used to her accent and the next time he saw her he tried to be nice. Lindsay was a country girl, no denying that she carried around a pocket knife and talked about bears. This is when Danny began the nickname Montana. Soon enough Danny Messer was under Lindsay's spell.

"Dannyyyy....Danny Messer...MESSER!!!!!!" Lindsay shouts at him, only about four inches are seperating them.

"AHHHH.....oh, sorry Linds I totally spaced." he manages to say, "You scared the bjezuz out of me"

"Sorry, but you wern't listening to me.", Lindsay explains, "Mac said he needs us in his office, come on!"

Danny follows lindsay into Macs office, they take a seat in his comfy chairs and listen to their assignmaent. "We got got a call, a DB on a ship in the middle of the East River the anchors stuck in the mud so we are going to have to go to it."

The three of them, Danny, Lindsay, and Mac, get into the big white csi trucks and travel all the way to the shore. They then leap into a small motor boat and travel by water the rest of the way.

"Oh my!" Lindsay gasps. Then ship they had arrived at looked exactly like the "Jolly Roger" from peter pan. "This isn't your everyday tour boat" she continues.

The 3 detectives pull their small craft up alongside the larger vessel. The rope ladder hangs to their left, closest to mac, Mac takes a long rope and ties it to the bow of their speed boat. Mac then climbs aboard the pirate ship and ties the rope to the other ship. Lindsay climbs up next, followed by danny. Then as Danny is nearing the top rungs of the ladder Lindsay and Danny hear a ripping noise. Not a moment too soon Lindsay grabs ahold of dannys hand and the rope ladder falls into the river.

"MAC!!!!" Lindsay screams. As mac rushes over and helps pull Danny onto the boat.

"You 2 okay?" Mac says in his stern marine voice. They both just nod, too shaken by the experience to trust their voices. Mac turns and starts too take a look around the ship.

Lindsay lets out along breath. "Thanks Lindsay" Danny says sincerely. Lindsay turns to look at him, his eyes a sparkling blue, full of mischief, sincerity, but mostly love. This did not go unnoticed by Lindsay. Lindsay had the same feelings for danny as he had for her, but she didn't know that. She tells her the love in his eyes was just her imagination.

"Don't mention it." she smiles, he smiles, that moment seems to last forever.

"Lets get processin'" He says. Danny holds out his hand to help Lindsay up, she excepts. They have been processing for about an hour and they are not nearly done. The team then hears a roaring sound. Stella Bonasera pulls up next to the pirate ship in a sexy speed boat and tells mac the got another call. Stella throwns up a new rope ladder. Danny secures it. Mac climbs down leaving Danny and Lindsay to finish up.

"I'm going to go check the captain's quarters," Lindsay tells danny, "Its definetly our primary crime scene." Lindsay walks into the small office-like space. The floor is completly covered with shards of glass, it indicates signs of a struggle.

"Kay, Im gunna look up by the navigational center" he replies. Ten minutes later a gag is put over danny's mouth, and his hands are tied. A man in a pirate suit is holding him upright, while another is speaking in a forgien accent that danny doesn't recognize.

"Is anyone else on this ship?!" one demands, as the second one pulls off dannys gag.

"No" Danny lies, "No one else is onboard."

The first pirate, the one with the eye patch, gathers all trace danny had been collecting for the past ten minutes. Danny's heart stops beating because "sir eye patch tells "mr. peg leg", the one holding danny, they need to go retrieve the hidden murder weapon and the body. The 2 pirates and thier prisoner are about halfway down the steps when they hear;

"Danny, I just found the murder weapon!" Lindsay calls in a sing-song voice, unaware of the danger around the corner.

"Oh my oh my", Sir eye patch teases,"looks, like Detective Messer here lied to us and didn't tell us about his litte girlfriend."

"I wish." he thinks to himself.

Lindsay hears a creeeeaaaaakk coming from the floorboards behind her. She turns around in just enough time to see danny bound and gagged, and jump out of the way of Sir eye patch lunging at her. She lands hard on the glass-covered floor. She cut here right cheek in the process. When she quickly returns to her feet, Sir eye patch is just starting to get up. Danny watches helplessly from just otside the door as Eye patch then grabs Lindsay's left wrist hard, they hear a loud crack, then Montana, no, his Montana, let out a high pitched scream of pain. By this time Sir eye patch is on his feet. Lindsay then kicks him hard in the stomach. She then reaches down to grab her gun that fell during the struggle, Sir eye patch was much, much, stronger then lindsay, maybe even stronger then danny. As lindsay gets her gun into her right hand. Sir eye patch had lifted lindsay off the ground and slams her against the bookshelf, the small ship in a bottle that was perched on top of that shelf. It bounces out of its stand and breaks, a large shard of it falls and cuts lindsays left temple, right next to her eye.

Danny winces as the blood starts to pour out of her cheek and temple.

"No one can save your little girlfriend now!" mr. peg leg says out loud.

Sir eye patch curls his rough, dry fingers all the way around Lindsay's small wrists. She yelps when he jerks her broken wrist behind her back, along with the right. He proceeds to tie them together with a small peice of rope that was a part of the crime scene. He lifts Lindsay up by her waist and carries her to the bow of the ship.

Sir eye patch sets Lindsay down about five feet away from danny. Her eyes usually so warm, and happy; were now wide open, filled with fear and confusion.

"Well, now that all of us are together I would like to introduce myself, I am Perry Wilkinson, this is my right-hand man, Connor Low."
Sir eye patch tells their 2 captives.

Brrrrrrrrriiinnnngggggggg! Brrrrrrriiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnngggggggggg! Connor Low grabs Danny's phone. Mac's name was displayed on the screen. Perry snached the ringing cell phone from Connor's hand.

"Tell your boss that you're fine and it is just taking longer then expected, say anything else and your girlfriend hear dies" Perry says to Danny. Connor unties Dannys gag, and holds the phone up to his ear. Halfway through the conversation, Perry can tell that Danny is thinking about saying somthing he is not suposed to. Perry bends down and pulls a small, but sharp knife out of his boot. While holding on to lindsay tied hands, he rests the weapon on lindsay'sside and slowly pushes the point into her side, far enough into her side that it made a small puncture wound, and blood started to drip out. Lindsay let out a muffled scream. Danny, not wanting to hurt Lindsay anymore, kept quiet. He hung up the phone.

"See, that wasn't so hard was it?" Perry askes danny.

"Now, mr. messer. Can I call you Danny?", not waiting for an answer Perry contiued, "Danny, you are pretty close with Mac Taylor aren't you? Wel-"

Danny really wasn't paying any attention to what Perry was saying because he was to busy working the rope that was holding his hands together. He felt the rope thin out and he looked over at Lindsay. He felt awful, she was covered in blood, she had deep cuts on her right cheek, and directly next to her left eye. Her left wrist was broken, he had heard it break. Danny promised himself, after all this was over, he would tell lindsay how he felt about her.

The rope snapped. Danny swiftly spun around and punched Connor Low square in the face. Dodged one of Connors blows and knocked him unconcious. As danny turns to point his gun at Perry, Perry kicks danny's gun hard and it flies out of his hand and into the East River. Perry was holding lindsay directly in front of him. Danny looked into her eyes, before he took a step toward her. He was going to save Lindsay even if it was the last thing he ever did.

"Take one more step", Perry told him,"and she dies. And you Mr. Messer will see the light leave her pretty brown eyes, you'll see her fall to the floor, and best of all you will know that it was all your fault."

Danny stopped. That was the worst mental picture he had ever had in his life. Perry placed the small knife back on her bleeding side.

"Alright, alright. Perry, listen man just let her go and i'll give you whatever you want kayy?" Danny asked, his accent thick.

"Well Danny, what I want is to see you suffer, like how I suffered, you were the one that found the evidence that convicted my father. He was sentanced to life in prison, you took away my dad's life. So now that i found somone you care about",Perry explained while gesturing to Lindsay,"I can take away their life." Danny shivered.

"She is very pretty, I can see why you like her so much." Perry, goes on. Danny blushes, despite the circumstances. He secretly, looked over to Lindsay, she was also looking down and blushing. He needs to save her. Danny takes another step forward...

It was at this point that Danny knew that he loved Lindsay, because it was at this point that he thaught he had lost her, because at this point; Perry stabbed Lindsay in the side, not deep enough to kill her (though Danny didn't know this), then Perry hit her over the head with the handle of the knife, hard enough for her to fall limp, then Perry lifted her up and threw her over the side of the ship. Danny raced to he edge and dived in after her.

The minutes ticked by slowly, oh so slowly... Danny opened his eyes in the murky black water. His eyes scaned the black abyss desperatley, looking for any sign of his Montana. Finally he saw her gold braclet, the one he knew she never took off, sparkle before it dissapeared from veiw. Danny swam as fast as he could and finally saw Lindsay floating to the bottem of the east river. He saw a few bubbles escape from her closed lips, her perfect lips. Danny felt as though he could fly. because those bubbles proved Lindsay was alive. He swam to her rescue, Perry must have hit her pretty hard, because even though she was completely submurged in a freezing river she still didn't wake. Danny reached down and shuttered, he could see a small bit of bone protruding from her left wrist, her cheek and temple still had small traces of blood mixing into the water, and the stab wound was staining the river's current a dark maroon color. Danny placed her small, bound hands around his neck, as he held her small frame to his chest, and glided towards the surface.

The fresh air woke Lindsay from her little, or not so little, KO. She let out a small cough, then, without opening her eyes, murmered "Danny... where's Danny." Before resting her head on his muscular chest and falling silent again.

"Oh my God!!!!" stella screamed from the top of the ship, "Mac come quick!"

Danny saw stella and mac lean over the side of the great vessel. He turned and saw Flack come towards them in a life raft.Danny lifted Lindsay up by the waist and handed her off to Flack, who proceeded to cover Lindsays stab wound with his hand. Danny clammered aboud the inflatable and took over, while Flack pulled them in with the rope that was attached to the larger pirate ship. Flack lifted Lindsay up, about to throw her over his should to carry her up the ladder when Danny told him that he would do it.

Flack was Danny's best friend, and although Danny never confessed to it, Flack knew he was crazy about "Monroe", his nickname for the little montanan.

Flack consented, and Danny gently placed Lindsay over his shoulder. Danny carfully climbed the ladder again, followed closly by Don Flack.

When the two, or should i say three, reached the top Mac and Stella exploded into questionss, and conceerns aimed directly to danny. They soon refocused on Lindsay, after seeing her condition. After a few seconds, Lindsays long lashes finally opened, revealing the most beautiful sight Danny had ever seen, her big, beautiful, chocolate-brown eyes.

"Oh my gosh Danny! Are you okay?" Lindsay almost shouted "Why are you hurt?!", she continued, gesturing to his black eye, then after noticing her condition, "Why am I hurt? Ouch! What happened?" After a long string of questions from lindsay, and a small chuckle from everyone else. Danny cut the rope that bound his Montana's hand, it was accompanied with a scream from Lindsay when her injured wrist was moved.

"Oh my God!" Stella said for the second time in the past ten minutes. Stella, Mac, and Flack had then noticed the small bone visable from her wrist. Soon a puddle of blood was formed around the small group. The knife wound in Lindsay's sige had begun to bleed profusly again. Danny, along with everyone else knew she would soon lose conciousness from her blood loss.

"Lindsay!!" Danny shouts, as her eyes flutter closed.

"We need EMS over here stat." Mac shouts.

EMS rushes Lindsay over to the hospital. Danny rushes after her before he is stopped by Don.

"Lindsay..." He says one more time. This time it is barely over a whisper. After Danny is checked out by EMS. He races off the ship and exceeds the speed limit trying to reach the hospital. While back on the ship...

"He really loves her, doesn't he." Mac says while gathering the red stained peices of glass he found in the Captains Quarters.

"You have no idea", Flack answers,"just last night he came to my place to watch the Met's game. He talked about Monroe the entire 2nd and 3rd innings. And when I tried to get him to admit his litt- i mean big crush, he insisted that he had no idea what i was talking about."Sella laughed.

"Guys guess what i just found!" She called from the upper deck. The two men looked and saw her point at a security camera.



"Lindsay Monroe's room, please?" Danny asked the nurse.

"Oh, she just came in, umm, room 248." the nurse replied promptly.

"Thank you." He spat before sprinting to the elevator. He pushed the button exactly,37 times, before running to the stairs and taking them 3 at a time. He finally arrived at room 248, released a large sigh of relief and laughed out loud at the sight in front of him, he peered through the window and saw Lindsay Monroe,sitting criss-cross-applsauce in the hospital bed. Trying as hard as she could to reach her purse that was on a chair a few feet from her bed. Finally after realizing she would never reach it, she looked aroud to make sure no one was looking before she placed her feet on the ground. Her eyes widened, and she rushed back into her bed at the sound of the door opening.

"Good to see you back to your old, mischievious, self Montana!" an all too farmiliar accent chuckled, "Now what was in your purse that was so important?" Danny handed the bag to her.

"Daniel Messer you scared the ba-jesus out of me!" she whisper screams, "and if you must know, these are whats important." She grabs a translucent purple book out of her purse. Danny walks over to her side and watches her open the small book. inside was 50 pages full of every kind of sticker, anyone could ever imagine; Scooby-Doo, Hello Kitty, Spongebob, Ladybugs, and much to Danny's dissmay, Speed racer.

Danny supresses a laugh and watches as she peels a couple out of the book, and place them on the small, pink, cast on her left wrist. She had stiches along her right cheek, and he guessed her left side was covered in gauze.

Lindsay put the book back in her bag, and turned to Danny. She gently traced the small cut over his right eye, and whispered, "I'm sorry, Danny."

His mouth dropped open, "Wht in the world are you sorry for?!" he sounded almost angry, "You have nothing to be sorry about."

"I'm the one that should have notice that you were too silent, I should've known somthing was wrong!" She sobbed, "I could have come and helped you on the upper deck." A tear slide down her cheek. Danny wiped it away with his thumb.

Danny's eyes filled with tears, "Lindsay, I am completly sorry. The reason you are here, is because of me. I am the reason you were stabbed, I am the reason you almost drowned, I am the reason that you-"

"are alive!" she finished, "Danny you had no idea that guy had a knife, you are not the one that tied me up and threw me overboard! You, Danny, you are the one that saved me from death, I owe you my life!" The tears were cascading down here rosy cheeks. Danny then sat on the end of her bed, looked her in the eyes and said;

"Lindsay, you saved me from falling into the river this morning."

"But Danny, you would have survived that."She stated.

"How do you know, i could have hit my head on the way down." He replied.

Lindsay rolled he tear stained eyes.

"Lindsay, it is my fault that you are in the hospital, wether you want to believe it or not, and i promise on my life, that nothing like this will ever, ever, happen to you again." His eyes were so sincere, lindsay had to look away.

Lindsay wiped away her tears. then turned to danny and hugged him. If only he knew how she truly felt about him.

Danny had ment every word he said, he saw turn turn back to him, he hugged her, if only she knew how he truly felt about her.