PAIRING: Lindsay/Cindy – duh
SUMMARY: Lindsay and Cindy celebrate their anniversary. But which one?
NOTES: The is a sequel to House Arrest… as requested. For Nikky and anyone else who wanted, but was too shy to ask. Couldn’t relegate it to a one-shot though. I love this Lindsay and Cindy too much!
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. (Well, not anymore. Jackasses.) 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.

December 29th (Cindy’s POV)

It wasn’t quite morning. But it wasn’t quite night either. When Cindy opened her eyes just a few hours after closing them, there was enough early daylight eking through the closed curtains that her surroundings weren’t totally lost to darkness.

Stirring on her stomach, her head turned out in the direction of the empty room, she could feel Lindsay’s presence immediately behind her, close enough that one roll would bring her into the secure confines of Lindsay’s arms. Listening to the deep, steady sound of Lindsay’s breathing, Cindy was tempted to make that very movement and let the gentle rhythm lull her back into sleep. But one singular thought kept her from submitting to the peaceful call.

Gradually, almost as if afraid of what she might find when she did, Cindy eased her hand out from where it had settled beneath her pillow, stifling a gasp when her fingers emerged and the ring sparkled up at her. Unconsciously, her right hand moved over to straighten the band, her fingertips as amazed to find that it was actually tangible as her eyes had been to find it actually existed. Time passed, quite a bit of it she suspected, and Cindy simply couldn’t quit staring. Obsessed as she was with the shiny object, it wouldn’t have been much of a shock if she found out that somewhere deep back in her family line someone had gotten really freaky with a raccoon.

“Did you think I took it back in the night?” Lindsay’s quiet, sleep-rough voice queried.

Not particularly surprised at being caught, Cindy turned her head to discover dark, barely open eyes penetrating her. “Just making sure I hadn’t dreamed the whole thing,” she admitted softly.

Lindsay eased into a slow smile, the dimple on her exposed cheek appearing as little more than shadow. In honor of all the times that she had ached to touch that particular feature before it was appropriate, Cindy reached over and ran her fingers down Lindsay’s face, the pad of her thumb dipping into the hollow. “Linds…” she breathed quietly, almost in spite of herself.

“Yeah?” Lindsay responded almost too quickly.

Feeling suddenly on the spot, and suffering a severe case of performance anxiety, Cindy dropped her eyes to the bed between them.

“Come on,” Lindsay husked, settling a warm hand on Cindy’s lower back. “I didn’t get a pass.”

Taking a deep breath, Cindy let it out on a sigh as she looked up again. Lindsay did have a point. At her bidding, Lindsay had opened up and endured extreme vulnerability like a champ. The least she could do was attempt to walk the same path of fire. Damn her overdeveloped belief in justice and fairness.

All of those years spent in English and Journalism classes, and somehow words had never felt so important. The only reassurance was the knowledge that it would take a truly tragic mess of them to scare Lindsay away now. Random, uncontrollable babbling would just provide Lindsay with a source of profound amusement for the next several months. And there were worse things than amusing Lindsay.

“When I was staying at your apartment,” Cindy began, before deciding that her intro lacked zing. “Shackled, enslaved, and abandoned,” she added, smiling as she drew a low chuckle out of Lindsay. Holding Lindsay’s attentive eyes with her own, Cindy’s expression sobered. “I realized that you weren’t invincible,” she quietly revealed. “I think I was sort of secretly holding out a belief that you were.” She swallowed, running her fingers through Lindsay’s tangled hair. “I thought about the fact that you could be gone just like anybody else, and then I thought about what that would mean to me. I admitted to myself, and to Martha,” she laughed a little in remembrance, “that I was in love with you. But I knew before then. Not at The Register. Then, I just knew that you were… incredible. By the time you slapped those cuffs on me that night, I was completely enamored. I just… I just wanted to be close to you. I don’t think I ever actually believed that you could possibly-”

“How could I not?” Lindsay didn’t let her finish. Her free hand raised up to ghost fingers over Cindy’s cheek. “How could I not?”

And the way that those now incredibly expressive eyes were looking up at her, Cindy couldn’t feel anything but worthy… and completely overwhelmed.

The inches of space between them suddenly felt like miles, and Cindy eliminated it with one scoot. Leaning down, her lips met Lindsay’s in a long, slow kiss before she settled against Lindsay’s side, her head coming to rest on a strong, thin shoulder. She pulled the blankets up around them, and her hand still outside the covers, Cindy didn’t fight the urge to lift it into the air and gaze at the ring again. The raccoon in her simply refused to let it go.

“I’m sorry about the proposal,” Lindsay murmured against her hair. “I didn’t get everything exactly the way that I wanted it.”

Cindy couldn’t suppress her chuckle at that. “I can see how you would be disappointed. You didn’t enlist congress, the national guard or the A-Team.”

But Lindsay had gone to just about every other length. For her. Even knowing very well that she was conscious, it really did still feel like a dream. When Lindsay’s body shook from laughter beneath her, Cindy held tighter. Sometimes it all still felt like a dream to her.

“Do Jill and Claire know?” she asked.

“No way,” Lindsay countered. “I love them dearly, but I knew I couldn’t trust them not to spoil this.”

“What about my Mom?”

“I suspect she suspects. She’s got this uncanny way of knowing everything without being told. Apparently it’s genetic,” Lindsay sounded rather humored with herself before yawning. “Jacobi knows. He kept your ring for me from time to time.”

Aha. So that’s why she hadn’t found it during her regular pre-Christmas sweeps of the apartment. Not that she wasn’t grateful she hadn’t ended up spoiling Lindsay’s surprise.

“That was sweet of him,” she said, catching Lindsay’s yawn.

“Except every time he got mad at me, he threatened to hock it for a harmonica and one of those singing fish.”

Cindy laughed softly and glanced toward the glow coming in around the edges of the window. Her perfect day, it seemed, was coming to an end. But the end of this particular day was just a new kind of beginning. Her eyes drawn back to the ring, sudden realization struck her right in the eye. For what had to be the first time in her life, Cindy smiled genuinely at having been bested.

“You win,” she lazily admitted.

The small noise Lindsay made before she responded told Cindy she was halfway back to sleep.

“At what?”

Cindy pushed up onto her elbow and looked down into Lindsay’s rather drowsy face. “This was a hell of a way to get your preferred anniversary date.”

Lindsay laughed with abandon and pulled Cindy back down for a brief kiss. When they parted, Cindy returned to her place and felt both of Lindsay’s arms close around her. On her way back to sleep, Cindy drifted through a series of sporadic thoughts, like it didn’t really matter which day became their day, as long as they had one, like Lindsay was unapologetically crazy about her, and, like, she needn’t worry, because whatever disagreements came to pass between them in the future, losing to Lindsay, apparently, was an awful lot like winning.