[for Mindy]

[so_catholic]

It’s nearing 6pm and thanks to a surprisingly discreet Amelia, Danny knows Mindy isn’t scheduled to be at the hospital tonight. So aside from a couple of sentences in the break room, that would mean they had gone a whole day without speaking to each other, even at work, and knowing that gives him an uneasy feeling that he can’t shake off.

It’s amazing how quickly Mindy can move when she really wants to. Danny’s been busying himself with paperwork for the past half hour, waiting for the sound of her office door closing, and as soon as he hears it, he’s up and out of his chair, satchel slung across his chest. He’s surprised that he gets out only just in time to catch a glimpse of her leaving the lobby. Usually she stops to regale the entire practice with stories from her day – the patient who she’s 99.9% confident will take her advice and name their son Thor, the injustice of receiving her lunch delivery addressed to Mr Lahiri simply because she’d ordered the 16oz steak, picketing Dr Fowler to change their wifi password to something she finds easier to remember (what’s wrong with taylor4harry4ever?! It has NUMBERS, Danny!) or her futile attempts to sell on whatever weird object she couldn’t say no to at the latest flea market she never meant to go to.

He misses it, all of it, and it’s why he races after her, calling out before she can disappear.

“Hey, hold the elevator.”

Comments

[beyoncepadthai]

"I actually do have a snack, singular," Mindy says, but it's the usual Kit Kat she keeps in her purse and clearly not enough to fuel her for any kind of long stint stuck in an elevator. "And I actually didn't have a date tonight, while I'm confessing things. I don't know why I told you I did."

[so_catholic]

Danny's smile grows with amusement and for a second it dimples both his cheeks. "One? That's it? Just one?" If he'd needed any more proof that Mindy isn't behind this, he's just gotten it.

"I get it. I'm not actually recycling tonight," he admits, his voice smoother, less clipped. "I'm just gonna drink and draw a few plans of my apartment and figure out the optimum refuse storage system for the space I've got. Recycling sounded more exciting though, so I let you think I was doing that. But that's not til Thursday. Friday for glass. Which is really dumb because then I've got all my bottles from the weekend lying around for the rest of the week." He sucks in a slow, deep and steadying breath. "What I'm trying to say, Min, is it's okay." And waves a dismissive hand. "I've sent in a letter of complaint already."

[beyoncepadthai]

That sounds so mind-numbingly boring that Mindy wants to groan out loud, but she manages to internalise it because for whatever reason, even stuck in a goddamn elevator, things are okay with Danny right now and that counts for a lot.

There's still a strangeness to his calling her Min, but it's a nice strangeness. A strangeness that makes her smile in turn. "Thank you, Danny," she says, light but sincere. "I can always count on you to set the system straight. Do... you want half of my Kit Kat?"

[so_catholic]

Danny's almost expecting Mindy to throw her hands in the air and call him the lamest thing since whole foods, so when she smiles instead, it catches him by surprise.

"Woah." It's a nice moment, one he's hoping will stick around, and not just because it feels good to have been the one that put the smile on her face. "Are you feeling okay?" It's asked in jest, his eyes glinting.

[beyoncepadthai]

"Do not mock me, or I will have to revoke my spur of the moment generosity," Mindy tells Danny with a gentle roll of her eyes, though she fishes through her purse for the candy bar anyway. People mock her insistence on carrying around emergency sustenance, but this isn't her first time stuck in an elevator. "God, Danny, what if we die in here?"

[so_catholic]

"Okay," Danny concedes, pushing away from the doors and unzipping his jacket to cool down. "That's unlikely. It's barely been ten minutes." Despite his comment, he gives his shoulders a roll and stretches his neck from side to side to fend off the onset of restlessness. "Just relax."

[beyoncepadthai]

"Ten minutes and no one's come looking for us," Mindy echoes dramatically, fiddling with the corners of the wrapper of her candy bar but telling herself she can't open it, not yet. "We could be stuck here all night. I only have so much celebrity trivia I can entertain you with. You know that, right?"

[so_catholic]

Danny stops mid-stretch, giving Mindy a look like he's just seen her turn on the heating in the winter.

"Your mouth said entertain but my ears heard torture. See how weird that is? I'm good on the trivia, thanks. Maybe we can just..." He flicks a hand between their bodies half a dozen times, lifting a shoulder suggestively. "You know..."

[beyoncepadthai]

"Are you asking me if I want to have sex in an elevator?!" Mindy demands, though maybe less mortified than she should be. It's a little too candid for Danny the Catholic prude, he has to be talking about something else, but still. That's how it sounds. How it seems.

[so_catholic]

"What?! No! No. No." Danny's shaking his head so much he starts to feel a little dizzy, some of the color draining from his face. He slices a hand in front of Mindy for emphasis, his volume dropping dramatically to a frantic whisper as if he's worried they'll be overheard. "No! Talk. I was talking about us talking. I would never have sex with you in an elevator."

[beyoncepadthai]

"Why wouldn't you have sex with me in an elevator?!" Mindy yells in contrast to his whisper, not caring who overhears. At least they'll have more of a chance of a rescue, that way.

And maybe it's stupid to be offended about a hypothetical, but the stuck in an elevator fantasy is one of the hottest ones there is, so Danny's automatic dismissal of it hurts just a little bit. That and the fact he looks physically sick.

[so_catholic]

"Keep, keep it--" Despite his flapping at her to lower her voice, Danny knows a lost battle when he sees one. The entire atmosphere has shifted in what feels like nanoseconds and he rubs the back of his wrist over his forehead, sweat already forming.

"Why are you yelling?! I'm right in front of you, Mindy!" It might be a hypocritical thing to say given Danny's own lack of volume control at times but it's a more appealing alternative than trying to answer her question.

[beyoncepadthai]

"I'm yelling at you because I'm offended," Mindy says, lowering her voice for his sake though it's to a hiss. And okay, maybe she's a little embarrassed that she assumed he was asking her for sex, but the last thing she's going to do is admit that. "Is that what you wanted to talk about? How much you don't want to sleep with me?"

[so_catholic]

Confused beyond words unfortunately isn't a unique experience when it comes to Mindy. Danny can't work out which part she's offended by - she'd yelled when she'd assumed he was asking for sex and she'd yelled when he'd told her he wasn't. Usually he refuses to follow directions but if a Mindy Lahiri instruction manual existed, Danny may be forced to read it.

"No--what? I didn't bring up--I didn't even mention sex. That was all you." His eyes travel away, trying to work out what he's supposed to say to make it better. His attempt isn't exactly great. "It wouldn't be awful?"

[beyoncepadthai]

"You totally implied sex with your hands, Danny," Mindy says, although it's with less fight than she might otherwise have offered. Deciding she doesn't care what Danny says about the filth of the floor, she crouches down and puts her head in her hands, praying for an end to the elevator of awkwardness. Of course he doesn't want to have sex with her. He's even taken to calling a break on their so-called friendship.

[so_catholic]

"I said it wouldn't be awful, that helps, right?" For a few minutes things had been looking up, almost feeling kind of normal, and then this, another bump in the road. Danny's taking off his jacket as he speaks, watching Mindy closely. "I thought we could talk. Like old times."

He lays out the jacket on the floor, inside facing up, then nudges Mindy's shoulder since she won't even look at him. "If you gotta sit, sit on that. Maybe it wouldn't be like old times for you because you've been here so long but we used to, me and original Mindy."

[beyoncepadthai]

"I'm pretty sure I'm still her," Mindy says, softening, sitting on top of the jacket and gesturing that he do the same. A lot must have changed between her arrival and his. She can't imagine a Danny back then who wanted to talk to her much at all. "What do you want to talk about, anyway?"

[so_catholic]

Danny's perfectly happy to stand but who knows when another olive branch will be offered. So he sits, clearing his throat a couple of times as he shifts to get comfortable.

"I...don't know, actually." The irony isn't lost on him. "Usually you do most of the talking and I listen." He stretches out his legs, hooking his ankles. He's missed that the most. "Just talk to me. Tell me about the past year. Tell me why there's no hot date waiting to cook you dinner in his apartment tonight."

[beyoncepadthai]

"I think that's a question for the men of Darrow," Mindy says, unable to stop herself before she rests her head on his shoulder. It's just easy. She sighs for a moment, thinking of all the things she could tell him. All of the people she's met. Those who have vanished into the interdimensional abyss. Instead, she goes for something he, of all people, should understand. "I had a patient lose a baby during a delivery the other day. First one in a while."

[so_catholic]

Danny can't prevent the way he tenses up when he feels her head on his shoulder but he does make a concerted effort to hide it. The deep breath he sucks in helps, until he realizes he hasn't let it go after Mindy tells him about her patient.

Hearing something terrible and knowing he hadn't been in Darrow for her is one thing. It happening when he's there and still not knowing is another. He could tell her he's sorry, that he hadn't known, why hadn't she told him, but it's selfish and he knows from experience that none of that will make a difference.

He presses a long kiss to the top of her head instead, already quiet words muffled by her hair. "Are you okay?"

[beyoncepadthai]

The gesture surprises Mindy, but not in a way that she wants to recoil from. It's just more evidence of the roller coaster nature of their friendship, that they can be at each other's throats one second and then entirely tender the next. Sometimes it gives her whiplash, but she appreciates it right now.

"You're really bad at being professional," Mindy says, though it's light, not in the least bit regretful of the moment. She sighs and shifts just slightly, wondering if it's better or worse for her to have brought all of this up. She's good at pushing down. Acting like nothing bothers her at all, that her job is all quirk and fun. "Yeah, I'm okay. I mean, it happens. They prepare us for it happening. It's just... a lot harder to deal with in practice, y'know?"

[so_catholic]

Danny hasn't lost a child in a long time but that doesn't mean it couldn't happen to him tomorrow or the day after or the day after that. There's only so much science can do to overcome mother nature, even when the best of physicians is in control. And he counts Mindy among the best. He couldn't work with her if he didn't.

He turns his head back, lowering his chin to his chest. Mindy's hair tickles his neck and he resigns himself to the fact that his shirt will be taking the smell of her home with him. "It is what it is," he eventually offers on an exhale.

[beyoncepadthai]

"Yeah, I guess so," Mindy swallows, straightening up just a little but still leaning against him because she can't seem to not. It's not something she wants to dwell on, the way it had felt to tell a mother that her child hadn't managed to take its first breath, and so she manages a tight smile and looks back over to Danny once she's sort of pulled herself together. "So, things with Amanda...?"

[so_catholic]

As an OBGYN, it's all too easy to overlook the quiet wins every day – a healthy baby, a clear pap test, a benign cyst or lump. The losses are echoic though, running deep and causing sleepless nights. He understands Mindy well enough to know that 'I'm okay' actually means 'I will be okay' and he doesn't believe dwelling on it will help her get there.

Letting her into his orbit rather than shutting her out completely might. He doesn't think that through arrogance. Mindy's just the type of person who thrives on sharing and being shared with, so instead of shaking his head and reminding her they're supposed to be talking about her, he lets it loll back against the wall and gives her a look of excruciating pain.

"I've had my cellphone on silent mode for the past two days. She's...keen." He digs out his phone, which blinks at him – five new messages - and holds it out for Mindy to take. He can guess what they say without needing to read them - an entirely inane update about what's happened in the past half hour of her life.

[beyoncepadthai]

"Whoa, stalker much?" Mindy comments, taking his phone and reading the messages with a look of sheer disgust on her face. She's grateful for the distraction from what she's just told Danny, but even more grateful that he's still here. Even if he doesn't have much choice in the matter. Even if he's probably hoping that they're pulled out of their elevator moment right now so he can go back to his recycling... thing. "Danny, she has a cat. She has sent you several pictures of her cat. That should have been a sign to run for the hills immediately. You know that, right? No sane person likes cats."

She sighs and hands it back, then gives him a look. "You can't just ignore her, though, you know. You have to break it off or she'll be wanting to adopt a new furbaby together before you know it."