Chapter Text
Mindy couldn’t help but smile to herself as she pored over her files, not really seeing what she was reading. She touched her mouth unconsciously, thinking about Danny’s kiss good-bye this morning just before they’d gotten off the subway. They’d started this little routine of a last stolen kiss each morning. One last moment of togetherness before they once again cloaked themselves in the pretense of ‘just friends and colleagues’ that they still wore for the rest of the world, and their office mates in particular. Mindy would be lying if she said she didn’t find the subterfuge tiresome, but she was so happy with Danny that she didn’t dwell on it. If Danny was more comfortable not sharing their relationship with their colleagues right now, she could deal with it for a little longer.
She shook herself a little to clear her head, and refocus her attention on work. She would definitely not think about Danny’s lips. That way madness lay. Definitely not thinking about how nice his ass had looked in his pants this morning. Nope. Definitely not thinking about that. Or about how his voice had that sexy, gravelly sound, especially in the morning. Mindy groaned to herself and plopped her head on her desk with a thump. At that exact moment there was a quick knock on the door and Danny poked his head in her office.
“Hey Min. You wanna get…lunch?” Danny trailed off, taking in the sight of Mindy slumped over her desk. “Um, are you okay?” Danny hurried forward in to the office, closing the door behind him.
“No,” came the muffled reply, “I’m horny and I can’t get any work done,” Mindy moaned piteously. She raised her head and looked imploringly at him. “You could help me you know,” she said, biting her lip.
Danny chuckled and crossed his arms, giving her a crooked smile, “Could I now?”
Mindy got up and came around her desk, snaking her arms around Danny’s waist and sliding them down to grip his ass and pulling him closer. She leaned in, ghosting her lips up the side of his neck, and whispered in his ear, “Please Danny? My clit is so hard for you. It would only take a minute. Please?” she pleaded with him softly.
Danny had felt himself stir the minute he’d felt her breath on his neck, and her whispered plea for him to get her off had made him rock hard almost instantly. So with her last whispered ‘please’ he grabbed her and pushed her firmly against the wall of her office. A quick tug up on her skirt (God bless Mindy and her miniskirts) and his hand was inside her panties, probing gently. When his fingers felt her wet heat, and found the hardened nub of her clit, he groaned loudly. “God baby, you’re so wet,”
“I can’t help it Danny,” Mindy replied, panting a little as Danny’s fingers moved rhythmically against her, “I was thinking about you all morning. Oh God Danny, right there!” Mindy cried, trying, and failing, to keep her voice down. Danny slid his free hand low on her belly, pushing gently as he increased the rhythm of his fingers on Mindy’s clit. She was moaning loudly now, and he could feel her body tensing as the pressure of her orgasm built. He crashed his lips against hers when she started to buck against his hand, taking her cries in his mouth as she came with a loud, “FUUUUCCKKK Danny, oh my god.”
As Mindy’s heart rate slowed and her breathing returned to normal, she laid her head against the wall of her office. “God. We are going to have to get me a gag or something.”
Danny’s low chuckle vibrated against her neck. “You are pretty terrible at being quiet,” he agreed. He slipped his hand gently out of Mindy’s panties and rested it lightly on her hip. “I like it though.”
Mindy straightened her skirt, smoothed her hair with her hand, smiled brilliantly at Danny and announced, “So…lunch?”
Danny was still leaning against the wall, flushed and breathing a little heavily. “Um…I’m going to need a couple minutes to recover here Min.” Mindy grinned wickedly and in one deft move undid the top button of his pants and snaked her hand inside to palm his cock.
“Give me some credit babe. I say one minute max.”
***
Mindy fiddled with her paper plate and Danny looked quizzically up at her, his slice of pizza halfway to his mouth. “You okay Min? You’ve hardly touched your pizza.”
“Um, yeah. I’m okay. I think maybe that pop-tart I ate from my desk this morning was a little old? It was past its best before date, but I mean, those things have a radioactive half-life of, like, a thousand years, so I figured it would be okay,” she replied a little glumly. Her stomach growled at her like a deranged jungle cat, but every time she picked up her pizza the smell of garlic that assaulted her nose made her gag a little. She silently vowed to only eat boxed pastries fresh off the grocery store shelves. “I’ll just sit here and watch you eat your lunch, slowly starving to death,” she sighed dramatically.
Danny rolled his eyes and dropped the remains of his pizza on his plate. “Come on. I’ll take you to that ice cream place you like around the corner.” He clasped his warm hand in hers and pulled her to her feet, half dragging Mindy towards the entrance.
“Don’t taunt me Danny. You know I’m not allowed back there after that incident on my birthday. Which is so unfair because butterscotch chips are not the same as toffee bits and you’d think that someone whose name tag labelled her an “ice cream artisan” would know the difference,” Mindy grumbled as they emerged on to the street.
“I’ll go in and get it for you. Do you want the salted caramel ice cream or the one with the peanut butter cups?” Danny asked.
“One scoop of each. And remember Danny – TOFFEE BITS. Butterscotch chips are the work of the devil. And don’t let that witch put any fruit near my ice cream!” Mindy called after Danny as he made his way through the door of the shop.
When Danny emerged, ice cream in hand, he was greeted by what he always thought of as Mindy’s sunbeam smile. He had, unintentionally, developed a small mental catalogue of Mindy’s smiles: the forced one, for when she was enduring something awkward or nerve-wracking, that wavered a bit at the corners of her mouth; the sleepy one, with closed eyes, that he only saw first thing in the morning; the warm one, that appled her cheeks and crinkled her eyes, for when she was listening to someone she liked; and this one; 100 megawatts that lit her whole face, joyful and uncomplicated, for moments of unguarded happiness. He loved this smile best, and it always made him smile back. With a quick glance around them he leaned over and kissed her softly on the cheek before they made their way together down the sidewalk back to the office.
***
“Remind me again how I ended up throwing a party at my apartment tonight?” Mindy grumbled to Danny, flipping through the file on her desk with unnecessary vehemence.
“Because you didn’t just come and ask me to stay with you when you got broken in to,” Danny chastised. “So now we need this whole party charade so I can come over.”
“But Danny I’m so tired. I almost fell asleep during Mrs. Anderson’s delivery this morning. Do you know how awkward it is to explain why you’re nodding off with your head between a woman’s legs? Wait – don’t answer that” Mindy held her palm up to him. “I just want to home and sip melted ice cream through a straw and fall asleep on you while you watch the nature channel,” she whined.
Danny tucked a stray hair behind her ear, “I’m sorry Min. We’ll try to get everyone out as early as we can. Maybe you can fake a family emergency or something?”
“I already used that to get out of that on-call shift two weeks ago so we could go to that documentary film festival you wanted to go to. I still haven’t forgiven you for that, by the way. Anyway, I may be a half-assed Hindu, but I know what karma is and I don’t need mine bitch-slapping me in to next week. No lies about family emergencies!” Mindy finished firmly.
“Okay babe. Whatever you say,” Danny replied, leaning over to kiss the top of her head. “I’ll see you tonight.”
***
Mindy didn’t think she’d ever felt this tired. She dragged herself in the door, dropping her bag and flopping face first on her couch. What the hell was wrong with her? She’d slept for 9 hours last night, and still felt like she’d been hit by a truck. As she lay with her face pressed against her couch cushions she admitted to herself that it might be time to see her doctor. Like every medical professional she knew she was terrible about going to the doctor, but for 2 weeks she’d been tired, and her appetite had been crazy. One minute she was turning up her nose at some of her favourite foods, and the next she was bowling over school children in her desperation to get to the ice cream case at the market. Mindy was still working up the energy to call her doctor when her phone rang.
She didn’t even have it to her ear before Peter’s nasal voice invaded her senses, “You and Danny are idiots. Why is this party happening?”
“God I don’t know,” Mindy groaned. “It just kind of snowballed.” She sighed dramatically. “You’re right though. We are idiots. I am so fucking tired right now a party is the last thing I want. If I set my apartment on fire I wouldn’t have to have the party,” she mused thoughtfully.
“Don’t start a fire. You’ll end up burning yourself alive,” Peter warned. “Why are you so tired anyway?”
“Uhg, I don’t know. I think I’m sick. I just want to sleep 12 hours a day and my appetite is totally whacked. Starving one second. Want to vomit the next. It’s so annoying,” Mindy complained. There was only silence on the phone. “Peter? Are you there?”
“Mindy are you absolutely sure you’re a doctor? Like, an OB-GYN who delivers babies and shit?” Peter demanded.
“Don’t be an idiot Peter. What are you talking about? I’m too tired for this.” Mindy whined.
“Mindy for shit’s sake when was the last time you had your period?”
“OH FUCK”
***
Mindy sat surrounded by the three positive pregnancy tests and dialed Peter’s number in a panic.
“Fuck Peter, pick up pick up pick up,” she murmured desperately.
“Yello,” a slightly tinny version of Peter’s voice came across the line.
“Peter what the fuck am I going to do?” Mindy began , words tumbling from her at a frantic pace. “I’m pacing around my apartment in my underwear, surrounded by things that I’ve peed on and I’m going to have a baby and Danny and I have only been together for a few months and he is going to FREAK OUT when I tell him and I have to get through this ridiculous party WHERE I CAN NOT DRINK and WHAT AM I GOING TO DO?” Mindy gasped finally.
“Jesus Mindy, down girl!” Peter admonished. “First, and I never wanted to say this to a woman, but you need to put some clothes on. Also throw out the pee sticks. Those are not party favours. People are going to be at your door in a very short period of time. Morgan’s on his way now because he wanted you to see his outfit before the others arrive.” Mindy moaned pitifully at this, to which Peter responded, “Get it together Lahiri. You can do this. You just have to get through this party. Then you and Danny can have a cozy heart to heart, and he will grumble his undying love to you and your unborn child, and you can have slammin,’ pregnancy hormone-fueled sex till the sun comes up. Now go put on a hot dress and I’ll be there in an hour.”
***
Mindy thought she’d been handling the party pretty well up until that moment. Danny had managed to sneak a quick kiss on the cheek when he’d arrived, and Peter had actually been pretty great, checking on her every once and a while to, in his words, “make sure she didn’t go crazy preggo and eat her way through all the hors d’oeuvres.” But when she heard the unfamiliar female voice sing-song an enthusiastic, “Hi Danny!” and turned to see Brooke wrap her arms around Danny in greeting, she felt her mask slip a little. She hadn’t taken more than a step towards them when Peter swooped in and grabbed her firmly by the waist, guiding her towards her bedroom door. Once they were inside, Mindy turned on Peter.
“What are you doing?” she demanded.
“I sensed a disturbance in the force okay?” Peter replied. “Were you or were you not just about to beat the holy hell out of that poor, fragile, little drug rep with her arms around your man?”
“I was going to rip her arms off and beat her with the bloody stumps,” Mindy grumbled. “What is she DOING HERE PETER? This is my house. What. The. Hell?” Mindy was verging on hysteria.
“Whoa there Fatal Attraction, Brooke’s here because Jeremy invited her, and Danny pussied out and didn’t explain your guys’ whole sitch, so she came thinking she and Danny were going to get to bump uglies again.” Peter finished in satisfaction.
Mindy goggled at him. “What the fuck Peter? Was supposed to make me feel better?” She began flailing at him, “YOU ARE NOT HELPING!”
“Ack! Stop! I’m remarkably fragile for my size!” Peter shouted, fending off Mindy’s flurry of blows with his forearms. “Stop hitting me! I WILL GO GET YOU WHATEVER FOOD ITEM YOU WANT JUST STOP HITTING ME!”
Mindy reluctantly stopped beating him, and stood panting slightly with her hands on her hips, “All the meatballs Peter! I want all of them! And the plate of cake pops Betsy brought. AND a full report of what that skinny hussy is doing to Danny,” Mindy finished, pouting a little.
“Okay,” Peter agreed, “but you? You do not leave this room.”
Mindy sighed and flopped on to the bed, “FINE. But hurry back.”
***
Danny could not recall a time when he’d felt more uncomfortable. He often struggled in social settings; feeling the weight of what he perceived as his own awkwardness resting heavily on him. Mindy’s presence amplified his struggle, as he waged an internal war between surrendering to the warm feelings she created in him and his desire to simply be with her, and his deeply held belief that nothing this good could ever last.
He could kill Jeremy for inviting Brooke. Though none of this was her fault, her touch felt like sandpaper to him, and with every “accidental” brush of her hand he grew more and more desperate for escape. He could feel Mindy’s glances at them, and reciprocated with looks of his own. What the hell was happening with her and Peter tonight, anyway? He had barely left her side, and Danny felt a surge of jealousy every time Peter touched her. He knew he had no right, given Brooke’s arm currently hooked through his, her other hand tugging playfully at his tie.
All wrong. Everything about this felt all wrong.
***
After the meatballs, cake pops, and some cajoling from Peter, Mindy emerged from the bedroom to rejoin the party. She was trying desperately to ignore the cold knot of fury building in her belly, watching Brooke flirt with Danny. In fairness Danny looked desperately uncomfortable, glancing over at Mindy helplessly at first, then with confusion as he noticed Peter sticking close to her, his arm occasionally slipping around Mindy’s waist, or his head leaning towards hers as he murmured something in her ear. At this point though she really couldn’t bring herself to care what Danny thought about her and Peter. This party had officially morphed in to some strange personal hell, and there were moments where Peter’s small reassurances were the only thing keeping her from flying in to a million pieces.
So when Beverly set off the fire alarm demonstrating her ability to throw flaming knives (she’d brought her own target to demonstrate on, at least) Mindy had felt an enormous sense of relief. She ushered people hastily out the door, pausing to give Peter a quick hug and a “thank you for getting me through this” whispered in his ear, before closing the door and leaning against it wearily. She needed so much to talk to Danny, and they were finally alone.
***
When Danny had been giving her his ‘you’re my best friend speech.’ That was the point where the feeling of dread had begun to build, and now she was alone in her apartment, the fear and the sadness pressing on her chest until she struggled to breathe.
For the first time in her life she literally had no idea what she was going to do. She was pregnant, and the father of her baby and probable love of her life had just dumped her. For every argument Danny had made for why they needed to end things, Mindy had made a counter argument. She had told him all the things she knew could be true for them; all the ways that they could work. But it hadn't mattered, and she hadn't told him the one thing she knew would make him stay.
What she thought of as the smarter, stronger part of herself was glad she hadn’t been able to tell Danny about the baby before he’d started the speech that ended the two of them. He would have stayed with her for all the wrong reasons; because he was honourable, and he would do the ‘right thing,’ and she would never have known that was why he was really with her. And she knew she deserved more than that. But the smaller, terrified part of her wondered if it would be so bad for the man you loved to stay with you and your child, even if he wasn’t there for the reasons you though he was.
No. She wouldn’t think like that. She swiped angrily at the tears streaming down her face. She didn’t want Danny to be with her out of pity, or a sense of obligation. But she certainly did want him. Part of her was so ANGRY at Danny for kissing her in the first place; for starting something wonderful that was ending like this.
But mostly she was scared, and sad, and she didn’t know what to do.