[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'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."

[so_catholic]

"She has three," Danny comments softly, his tone nothing to do with fond memories of Amanda and everything to do with watching Mindy's face as she scrolls through the texts. There's a sudden flicker of hope that she might get carried away in her curiosity and look back at old messages between him and her in New York. The only things that had changed when he arrived in the city were his number and the service, everything else remained - photos, conversations with people back home, just enough to keep him sane.

"I have broken it off with her. This is post-break up," he insists, taking the phone back and resting it in his lap . Okay, so what he'd actually done was ditch her at dinner a few nights ago, go to a bar to drink, and reel Mindy's very unpregnant pal into his giant charade. "Me, your friend, all the wailing and the panting. That counts as a break-up. She's just...y'know, she's slow at realizing." Hence the radio silence. An enduring tip from Peter Prentice.

[beyoncepadthai]

"Abandoning her to go deliver Elle's not!baby doesn't count as a breakup, Danny!" Mindy insists. She'd kind of wished that Elle had slapped him over that. There was no way that she looked pregnant. Not with all of that pilate crap she does and can't seem to convince Mindy to do. And never will. "You have to tell her it's over. God, do I have to do everything for you?"

She grabs the phone back, opening the message app and looking at him menacingly.

[so_catholic]

"Mindy," Danny warns, trying unsuccessfully to bat away her thieving hands before she even gets them on his cell. "Mindy! That is private property. A man's cellular telephone is a very private thing," he maintains firmly, his previous hope evaporating now he's faced with the real possibility that she might actually see something she shouldn't. His insistence climbs up a notch or two, hands groping for the device as he tries to get a look at what screen her prying eyes are on. "Mindy, I mean it--"

Fumbling fingers have swapped out the message app with the music one and now the unmistakable R&B rap intro to 'Try Again' begins to fill the elevator.

Danny gapes. That is so much worse.

[beyoncepadthai]

"Danny!" Mindy exclaims, eyes going wide and mouth broadening into a grin because oh, my god, so this is what he's been hiding all this time. Admittedly, it's a little dated, but it's still one of her favorite songs. "Are you kidding me? Are you trying to make me dance? Because this is the best song to dance to, you know."

She wrestles for the phone again, but only to turn the volume up.

[so_catholic]

"Don't dance, okay," Danny says quickly with a hand on her shoulder. "Just be normal." By that he means be subdued and understated, which is normal for him but an alien concept when it comes to Mindy. With the volume turned up, he can't even pretend to ignore the song anymore, and when the first verse kicks in he presses his thumb and fingers into his eyes and tries to forget every memory that's come flooding back.

[beyoncepadthai]

"Be normal? What does that even mean?" Mindy asks, though she ends up handing back his phone anyway, managing to hold back from dancing entirely but still rocking and back slightly to the familiar beat while it lasts. Even for Danny, this is an overreaction. Mindy's thrilled that he has an Aaliyah song on his phone, this makes no sense. "Do you have, like, 2000s R&B related PTSD?"

[so_catholic]

"It means don't make a big deal of it. Let it go." When Mindy eventually returns the phone, Danny switches the track immediately, less concerned with what plays next than he is with changing the conversation.

Bruce. Perfect. There's nothing like The Boss to turn a bad day good. "You can dance to this instead," he says, lowering the volume so that it's no louder than background music. He's not against the idea of Mindy dancing. Far from it.

[beyoncepadthai]

"You can't dance to Springsteen," Mindy laments. Or at least she can't. She'll never understand Danny's old man taste in music, but it is something she's come to suffer in silence by now. Almost. She still does sigh. "Do you think they're leaving us here on purpose? No way it takes this long to rescue the two of us."

[so_catholic]

"It's got dancing in the title of the song," Danny points out wryly, giving Mindy a look. He's pretty sure she could find a reason to dance even without one beat of music and she's just vetoing the concept because it's not from this millennium. "Like a trap?" He doesn't sound convinced but he does realize in that moment that neither of them have thought to ring someone for help. "Dr Fowler was wearing his lab coat inside out for half the day. You think he could set this up?"

[beyoncepadthai]

"He's like a thousand years old, Danny, I doubt that he has the wits about him to manage that," Mindy says with a shake of her head and, come to think of it, it doesn't bode well that he's doctoring around, still, if that's what she thinks. But anyway. That's an issue for another day. "I also doubt that he cares about us one way or another enough to have done that."

[so_catholic]

"Bruce is sixty four if he's a day--oh." Danny swallows the rest of his defense when he realizes Mindy's talking about Dr Fowler, lowering the finger he had pointed menacingly. "Yeah, he doesn't care. He still calls me Nathaniel."

[beyoncepadthai]

"He called me Mina the other day," Mindy shrugs. Better than Malfoy's Mandy, she guesses. Maybe. It doesn't bother her too much. He's a pretty good doctor, well known for his work, but she can tell that the women of Darrow are grateful for having some younger OBGYNs. "I guess we'll find out who's behind this when they finally pull us out. What else is there to talk about?"