TITLE: Temporary Girlfriend (12/20)
PAIRING: Lindsay/Cindy
DISCLAIMER: Women’s Murder Club does not belong to me. The characters do not belong to me. They are the property of James Patterson, 20th Century Fox Television and ABC. I have no problems with that as long as I can borrow them for short bursts and use them in pursuit of my own enjoyment. I am not trying to infringe. Though, I don’t know why anyone has a problem with fan fic. After all, it really is a compliment. If anyone wants to write fan fiction about my book, feel free.

(Cindy’s POV)

“You saw The Magic tour? Live? Not like Live at Wembley Stadium on DVD?”

“Live, as in, in person. Three times.”

There was a bit of braggart pride to Lindsay’s voice. It was strangely sexy.

“What were you, like, five?” Cindy ribbed.

“I was fourteen,” Lindsay responded matter-of-factly with that sidelong glance Cindy had gotten rather used to getting from her. Then, Lindsay looked away again, her voice noticeably softening. “My mom was… sad… after my dad left, so that summer, she took me to Europe and that’s what we did.”

“That’s cool,” Cindy replied gently, thrilled when Lindsay smiled a little. “So then, really, you’ve been supporting the gay community for some time now.”

“You could say that. Of course, back then the whole gayness factor was a little more on the down low.”

“How down low could it be? They chose the name Queen.”

“Maybe I was just young” Lindsay muttered.

“I think I was a toddler during that tour.”

“Oh my God,” Lindsay sounded relatively traumatized.

“I’m kidding Linds,” Cindy laughed. “Do the math.”

“It’s two o’clock in the morning. I’m not doing any math. I don’t even like to do math in the middle of the afternoon.”

“I actually was five,” Cindy enlightened her.

Lindsay groaned in earnest at that truth.

Cindy watched her, chuckling at her display, and took stock of the situation. They’d been inside now for almost half an hour. They hadn’t passed anyone in the halls for at least ten minutes. There was absolutely no threat as far as the eye could see. And yet… Lindsay was still holding her hand. For no reason that could be easily established. Though Cindy had her fair share of hopeful thoughts on the subject.

She couldn’t help glancing down at their intertwined digits with a touch of fascination, before glancing up at Lindsay.

“Why don’t we ever talk about stuff like this?” she asked before she could stop the words.

“Queen?” Lindsay asked in return, clearly confused.

“No. Us,” Cindy clarified, then realized how easily that might be misconstrued. “Or rather ourselves. You know, your mom, my dad, the family we do have left. Personal stuff.”

“We do.”

“We do?”

“I’m sure we do.”

“I’m not so sure we do.”

Lindsay’s look of sincere bafflement almost made Cindy want to drop the subject, but she couldn’t. It was too important.

“Who’s my favorite band?” Cindy asked as example. “I’ll give you a hint. It’s not Queen.”

Lindsay just looked at her, then dropped her eyes to the floor. She didn’t know. Of course she didn’t know. But then, Cindy knew that before she asked. So, why did it still sting?,?span>

“Okay, how about my favorite food? Color? What are my thoughts on religion? Politics?”

“I know a few of those,” Lindsay threw out, clearly determined to prove her wrong.

“How about an easy one? What’s my degree in?”

“I’m guessing it’s not journalism or you wouldn’t be asking,” Lindsay responded, the stubbornness quickly turning to acceptance.

“See.”

“I guess we’re always thinking about other people’s lives when we’re together.”

“I guess so. It’s sad,” Cindy sighed. “It’s like everything’s built around… I mean, we are friends, but…”

She couldn’t finish. It sucked far too much.

“Cindy,” Lindsay prompted, stopping and turning to face her.

Cindy looked over. For this one moment, Lindsay appeared unusually open.

“Sometimes I feel like I barely know you, and like you barely know me,” Cindy admitted.

It was a while before Lindsay responded at all. Cindy was starting to wonder if maybe she’d put too much of herself out there, sounded too needy.

“Okay, so then…,” Lindsay finally said, turning to walk again, the hand still holding Cindy’s pulling her along. “Who’s your favorite band?”

When she peeked over at Lindsay, Lindsay smiled at her. Leave it to Lindsay to simplify the whole situation.

So, Cindy answered the question. And, for the next hour and a half, they talked through their patrol, quietly so as to not disturb the people who had actually made it to bed. She told Lindsay her favorite band, food, color, treading more lightly on religion and politics. And when she told Lindsay her degree was in sociology, she was surprised when Lindsay responded that hers was too. Cindy had used that opportunity to turn it around on Lindsay, and Lindsay gave back a hundred percent until Cindy felt like she actually had some idea about the inner workings of the inspector. Somewhere on the sixth floor, it started feeling more like a date than a stakeout, and, at some point in the midst of their conversation, it became very apparent to Cindy that it was possible to fall considerably harder for someone in one late night walk around a large luxury hotel.

It was in the middle of Lindsay’s gripping, stomach-churning, story about her part in causing a friend to bite a hole through her tongue by accidentally hitting her in the mouth with a Frisbee that they heard the noises in the stairwell.

Before Lindsay had the chance to send her back to the room or tell her to wait there, Cindy clung tighter to Lindsay’s hand, and grabbed onto her arm with the other hand, sliding in closer. Lindsay glanced back with a look that said she knew exactly what Cindy was doing, but instead of sending her packing, she just moved to the door at the end of the hall, silently pushing it open.

They moved down the stairs slowly, and the nearer to the source of the sound they got, the more obvious it became that there was no danger, unless the person on the receiving end found danger a turn on. Yet, curiosity clearly had the best of both of them, because Lindsay’s feet didn’t stop moving any more than her own did.

When they came around the end of the stairs, the otherwise occupied couple didn’t even notice them. They just kept doing what they were doing.

Right up against the stairwell wall.

In plain site.

Loudly.

Cindy suddenly became very aware of where Lindsay’s hand was resting against her body and took a big step backward.

“We should probably…” Lindsay whispered back to her, motioning with her head back up the stairs.

Cindy was frankly surprised that Lindsay wasn’t whipping out her cuffs and making arrests for lewd conduct or some other stuffy, ridiculous charge. She seemed to keep a never-ending supply of them in her arsenal to pull out at a moment’s notice. But she wasn’t about to look a gift horse. She turned and pulled Lindsay back up the stairs, went back through the door, and came to a stop in the hallway. As soon as she turned to Lindsay, they both burst into laughter.

“That was the best show we’ve seen all night,” Lindsay said.

“They really should be proud,” Cindy returned.

“So, you wanna go to bed?” Lindsay asked, and Cindy found herself sobering very quickly, as Lindsay seemed to suddenly grasp what she’d just said. “I meant, it’s late… and we’ve done the rounds… not…”

She motioned toward the door to the stairwell, then quickly reigned the hand back in when she realized what it was alluding to.

Was Lindsay actually blushing? Cindy didn’t realize that she had the capacity for that.

“I know what you meant,” she rescued Lindsay. Though she kind of wanted to pretend that she didn’t and see where it would take them.

Lindsay finally released her hand and it felt like emphasis that she really did just mean sleep.

Cindy tried not to openly pout.

So, it wasn’t exactly her dream come to life. How could she complain? There were far worse things than sleeping with Lindsay.