Hi guys, sorry this is really late. I've been super busy recently and my teaching placement is slowly killing me. Life is pretty shitty right now and I've kind of made myself a little ill over it. Hence the silence and tumbleweed you've been finding on my page and with my updates. I have about 2 more weeks of hell and then I'm 'free'... and then it'll be time for me to gain my confidence/energy back... so expect all sorts of things from me then :)

So with this being said, this story may not be my best. I had a different vision for it... but the things I wanted to say wouldn't transfer onto paper very well... so it's just one of those things. With a nod to Hell's Kitchen, I couldn't ignore the link between that and the line I quote from Danny in Snow Day... hence the idea/motivation for this one. Hope you guys enjoy. When I'm free from hell of placement, I'll write you some more lovely stories if you fancy it? :)

You two humps from Clinton just hijacked a crime scene clean up; makes me believe that when they went to gentrify Hell's Kitchen, they got rid of all the smart, tough guys.

As the memory passed through Danny's mind, he felt a surge of pain in his wrist and fingers; although the physical scars had done their best in healing, he sometimes felt that some of the emotional scars from that day still hadn't healed fully. Growing up in New York in the seventies and eighties had given him a good idea just what it was the characters in Hell's Kitchen were capable of. And even though encounters with those organised crime families were few and far between now; when he had to work those kind of cases, his fractured wrist and broken fingers reminded him of that day he'd spent in the warehouse with Adam… wondering if he was going to get out alive.

He glanced over to his wife who was mindlessly preparing their dinner. He could see from her face that she was deep in thought over something, which gave him the opportunity to just absorb her. Although the day in the warehouse was one of the worst days of his life… the night before had been one of his best. He hadn't realised it at the time but he had definitely made the right choice in deciding to take Lindsay's shift that day. He couldn't have left her to go to work all by herself, just based on the way she curled herself into him and tangled herself around him, he'd felt a strange sense of protectiveness that day and something had told him to take her shift. He knew that everything happened for a reason… and that day, he was definitely supposed to take those beatings for her. With each smack and punch he'd taken, he'd used it as motivation to power through, knowing that at the very least, it Lindsay wasn't getting treated in this way. He'd known her body from worshipping it the night before, and as the fists and guns collided with his body, he remembered thinking that her tiny frame wouldn't have taken the force. He couldn't even stomach the thought of what the outcome could have been had it been Lindsay in the warehouse.

His eyes softened as he focused on her face; although she had a few more laugh lines around her eyes, and her hair had changed over the years… she was still the same fresh faced girl from Montana that he'd met all those years ago at the Zoo.

"Any particular reason why you're in a trance staring at me?" Her playful voice broke his thought process.

"I'm just thinkin'," he said as he pulled himself up onto the counter next to the stove.

"Penny for your thoughts?"

"Just… appreciatin' you'." He explained vaguely.

"For a change," she mused as she leant towards him and pressed a kiss to his cheek. "Hey, I've been meaning to talk to you about Lucy's birthday party; I've been thinking that-"

"Do you ever wonder what would have happened if I hadn't taken your shift that day?"

Smiling softly, Lindsay took her husband's hand and rubbed it in her smaller one. She stood on her tiptoes and pressed a kiss to his cheek. Realistically, she should have known that he wasn't quite finished yet; she made a mental note to store away her conversation about Lucy's birthday party for another day. "You'd have saved me; I can just see you as my Knight in shining armour and all that good stuff. I know for a fact you wouldn't have just stood there waiting for something to happen like I did. Whether it would have been a good or bad thing is a different story... you definitely would have been in there saving me though."

Looking at the creased lines of worry on her husband's face, she sighed as she realised her answer hadn't been the one he wanted. "What's this all about?" she asked him softly.

"Do you think if I hadn't taken your shift, would we have still gotten together?"

"Today got to you a little, didn't it?" she asked softly. "The whole Hell's Kitchen thing... your mind has been working overtime."

"Would we?" he pressed.

"Why wouldn't we?"

He shrugged and let out a troubled sigh. "I just have to wonder… it, I mean… I…"

"Look Danny," Lindsay said softly. "In my mind, even though I didn't want to get too attached, I was already thinking about a relationship; you were everything I wanted -we both knew that from pretty early on I think. Regardless of who was in there that day, nothing would have changed the night before."

He leant across the distance between the two of them and pressed a soft kiss to her temple. "I love you, you know that?"

"I love you too," she smiled softly before cupping his cheek, stroking his cheek affectionately with the pad of her thumb. "You know, with everything that happened back then, I don't think we ever talked about why you actually took my shift," she said softly. "Or that night for that matter."

"Back then we really didn't talk about the things we probably should have," he said. Danny pulled her towards him so that she was stood in-between his legs. "What would ya wanna talk about?"

"How you felt when you realised where you were… and who you were with."

"How did I feel?" he asked. "Well initially I felt the brass band playing an encore in my head."

She laughed heartily as she tangled her fingers through his. "Yeah, the kamikazes probably weren't the best idea in the world."

"Seemed it at the time though," he quipped.

Her eyes told him she agreed with him. "What did you think when you realised it was me tangled in that ridiculously small blanket with you?"

"I knew that things wouldn't ever be the same again." He replied more or less instantly, as if he'd had the answer ready for quite some time. "And to be completely honest, I was glad. You were beautiful and I remember just staring at you for a few minutes... I couldn't believe that it was you."

"So you prodded my nose to make sure it was me? Jerk." She teased.

"It proved effective," he teased. "I mean it got me what I wanted."

"What was that?"

"A smile that changed my life." He replied, again instantly.

Flashing that same smile in his direction, Lindsay licked her lips as she internalised his answer. "What on earth are you talking about?" she giggled. "How can a smile change your life, goofball?"

"Simple, honey… It told me that you were happy to be wrapped up in my arms. It told me that you didn't regret comin' over and it told me that you were quite happy with the, albeit slightly drunken decision that we'd made together. I wasn't sure whether it would work out, or whether it was something that was just going to be a good thing while it lasted… but I was definitely happy about it; and I definitely couldn't imagine being anywhere else in the world in that moment."

She leant forwards and pressed a kiss to his lips. "You've certainly got yourself a way with words, Mr. Messer." She paused for a moment, before pursing her lips together. "Listen, you know when I told you about me dreaming that you'd gone and left a note?" she began. "You said something about it being your place… did you mean your apartment, or did you mean something different?" she asked with raised eyebrows.

"At the time? I genuinely meant my apartment… but looking back now, I think I subconsciously meant something else."

"Good answer," she giggled. "It was a good night, wasn't it?"

"Best night I'd had in a hell of a long time," he smirked. "There was a few that followed too."

She wiggled her eyebrows playfully. "It was a long time in coming, wasn't it?"

Danny sniggered in response to her choice of words which landed him with a thwack to his arm.

"Smartass!" she implored. "You've got such a dirty mind."

"I learnt from the best. You may look innocent, baby… but I think we both know that looks can be deceiving, right?"

A moment of silence passed where she just stood in-between his legs and let her eyes absorb him and in that moment, he could see her eyes light up. She turned the stove off, grabbed his hand and pulled him from the counter top.

"Where are we going?" he laughed as he followed her through their apartment.

"The bedroom," she whispered. "Suddenly I'm not so hungry anymore."

"But why? I'm hungry…"

"Why?" she stopped in the middle of the hallway and raised her eyebrows suggestively. She tugged his white dress-shirt over his head and dropped it on the floor. "I'll let you figure that one out yourself." She placed a hand on his stomach to steady herself and pressed a lingering kiss to his cheek.

And surprisingly enough, in that moment Danny forgot about his rumbling stomach. In one swift movement, he scooped his wife up, and with her giggles filling the sound of their apartment, he kicked their bedroom door shut.

"Baby, look! I'm a rockstar."

Danny looked up from his bowl of cereal and shook his head as he watched as Lindsay held his battered guitar from his college years upside down. She was pretending to strum it and had somehow managed to position herself right in front of the TV and even though he rolled his eyes at her antics, he couldn't help the smile on his face.

"I thought you were starving to death." He pointed out to her at the box of cereal that sat on their coffee table, untouched by her. "Will you sit down and eat already? It's eleven-thirty. We don't have time for your realisations that you missed your true calling in life right now."

Shrugging, Lindsay continued her 'rock show' in front of the TV, mimicking the times she'd watched Danny in awe. Although she wasn't making any noise with the guitar, in fear of waking up their sleeping daughter, Lindsay's giggles was music to his ears.

"It's alright, I didn't wanna watch the game anyway," he scoffed playfully at her lack of response. "I'd rather watch you any day."

"Good answer," she giggled as she finally set the guitar down on it's stand and admired it from where she stood. While she had her back to him he took the opportunity to let his eyes absorb the image of her. It wasn't often she did it, but she was currently dressed in his gym socks, the button down shirt he'd been wearing earlier and a pair of his boxers. She'd always, always been one for wearing her own pyjamas and when they were dating she'd always have something to sleep in stashed away at his apartment… but every now and then she'd take his shirt and slip it over her head before fastening just a few buttons. And every time she did it, Danny could feel his insides tighten.

"Tired?"

"Huh?" He blinked away from where his eyes had fixated on her and shook his head. "What?"

"Are you tired?"

"No, why?"

"Because you're staring, you usually do that when you're tired."

"Well, I've got another reason to stare right now."

Lindsay could feel herself blushing as she made her way to the chair he was sat in. She winked at him playfully before lowering herself onto his lap. Wrapping her arms around his neck, and being especially mindful of his bowl of cereal, she snuggled into his body. He leant forward and placed his bowl on the floor and grabbed the blanket that had been discarded on the floor from earlier. He pulled it over them and offered her a smile before wrapping his arms around her tightly.

She took his hand, the one that still had scars from his battering in the warehouse, and she softly traced her fingertips over the scarred skin.

"What you doin'?" he narrowed his eyes.

"Nothing," she replied softly. "Just… just appreciating the little things about you."

"Oh yeah?" he chuckled. "Like what, all my battle scars?"

"Kind of," she whispered as she brought his fingers to her lips and kissed them. "You're always saving me," she said. "And I don't think you know how much I love you for doing that."

"Saving you?"

"Yeah," she nodded. "All of the times you've been there for me when I needed you. You're always there, no matter what and I'm just really lucky to have you, and I want you to know how much I love you."

"I know you do," he said softly as he pressed a kiss to her temple. "I know that I wasn't always the best boyfriend, so I knew that as your husband, I had some serious making up to do. I wasn't going to mess this up… so far I've done pretty good if I do say so myself. I promised you that I'd protect you when I married you… I take what I said that day pretty seriously." He paused briefly before smiling at her. "It's what I'm here for."

"You were protecting me before we got married," she reminded him.

"Call it intuition." He winked at her. "Sometimes you just know."

She smiled and nestled her head against his chest and listened to the steady, rhythmic sound of his heart-beat. "Sometimes you just know," she agreed.

Thanks for reading, hope you guys enjoyed! :) Would love to know what you thought.