Disclaimer: I don't own, just borrowing (again).

AN: This was one of those plot bunnies that I couldn't get out of my head until I wrote it out. Hopefully you all enjoy! (I'm starting to wonder if I'm going to be able to write any CSI:NY fics once the new season starts since all of mine seem to revolve around Flack's time in the hospital. ;)

"HA!"

"Oh, you've got to be kidding me," Flack exclaimed in disgust.

Lindsay started cracking up as Danny stood and started doing a victory dance. Hawkes rolled his eyes. "I don't see why you're celebrating, Danny. You're still only a couple points from hitting one hundred and losing."

"Doesn't matter," Danny insisted as he sat back down in triumph. "I told you I would shoot the moon and I did." He put out his hand towards the dark haired detective to his left. "Pay up, Flack."

Now it was Don's turn to roll his eyes. "Where exactly do you think I'm hiding my wallet, genius?"

Lindsay eyed his hospital gown. "I don't think I want to know the answer to that question." That set them all off again. Their game of hearts had taken twice as long as a normal game because they were constantly making each other laugh.

Flack put a hand on his chest over his wound. "You guys really need to stop doing that."

Lindsay immediately sobered up. "Are you okay? Do you need me to get a nurse?"

Don waved her concern off. "No, I was just kidding, it's nowhere near that bad. In fact, I'm annoyed they haven't let me out of here yet. I've been feeling pretty good for a few days now."

"They just want to make sure," Hawkes reminded him. "Besides, I would think you wouldn't mind staying around a little longer considering that nurse you have."

Flack grinned at that. "Yeah, Libby is great, but it would be nice to do more than flirt with her while she takes my temperature, you know?"

"I can see how that might crimp your style a bit," Danny commiserated as he shuffled and dealt the next hand.

Don tried not to smile as he took the Queen, King, and Ace of spades from his hand and passed them to his right. "It was my chest that was hurt, Messer, not my style."

Lindsay stuck her finger in her mouth and made a gagging noise. "Do they ever stop with this nonsense?" she asked Sheldon.

"Not as far as I know," the former medical examiner told her.

"You're hilarious, Montana. You and Hawkes should be comedians," Danny said sarcastically before giving his best friend a glare for the cards he had passed and Don grinned back unrepentantly. It didn't take long for the inevitable to happen and Danny ended up with well over one hundred points.

"Well, I think we all saw that one coming," Flack said as Lindsay added up the last round of points.

"So the final results are," Lindsay broke in before Danny and Flack could go off on one of their tangents, "Danny is obviously last, then Flack with 77, Sheldon with 42, and I finished with 39."

"I was this close to beating you," Hawkes said and then looked at his watch. "Whoops, we better head out Lindsay, or we're going to be late for our shift."

Lindsay glanced at her own watch. "Crap, you're right." The two CSIs quickly grabbed their jackets and said their goodbyes before leaving the room.

"You're not on shift tonight?" Flack asked his remaining friend.

"Naw, it's my night off," Danny told him as he stretched out and put his feet up on the chair Lindsay had been occupying.

"You don't have to stay here if you've got a hot date or whatever," Flack tried to say nonchalantly while he mindlessly shuffled the deck of cards.

"No hot date to miss. Trying to kick me out, Flack?" Danny teased.

"No, not at all." Don shifted slightly in his bed and sighed. "I just feel bad sometimes about taking up so much of your guys' time. It's bad enough that you and Lindsay and Hawkes give up your social lives for me, but Mac and Stella must not be getting much sleep these days."

Danny raised an eyebrow. "What do ya mean by that?"

Flack shrugged. "It seems like every night one or the other is here."

"Really? How come I rarely see them then?"

Flack waved a hand. "They don't come early in the evening like you guys. They're here in the middle of the night, like they're watching over me." He fiddled with the cards for a minute before continuing. "One of them is always there when…if I wake up in the middle of the night."

Danny looked away and rested his eyes on the blank television screen. The two of them didn't often have conversations like this and when they did they were usually roaring drunk. He didn't look at the other man knowing how hard it probably was to talk about this stuff, but he also knew that his friend needed to talk and so he asked, "Are you having nightmares, Don?"

There was silence for a few moments. "Yeah." He half-laughed in a way that made it obvious he didn't think anything was funny. "I don't know why I should since I was out of it for most of the time. Maybe I shouldn't have insisted on seeing those crime scene photos." He noticed the other detective wince. "Don't feel bad about bringing them to me, Danny. I asked you to. Besides, I would've probably watched the news coverage anyway."

Danny almost took that opening to make things lighter by asking about the interviews Don had done at the request of people in the NYPD who wanted the good publicity but figured he should get Flack to open up a little more. "What happens in the nightmares?"

The other man shrugged. "Mostly I see the explosion in slow motion. Sometimes other people I know are caught in it. I think the night I had one about my own funeral was when Stella woke me up and I sobbed in her arms like a freaking baby."

"Hey, guys can cry. At least that's what women keep telling me."

Don snorted, but knew that his friend was half serious considering the tears he had cried over his brother's condition. "Yeah, well, I don't know which is worse, crying to Stella or having Mac pull out of me all of my fears after I wake up from one."

Danny finally looked back at his friend. "Like what kind of fears?"

Flack ran a hand down his face. "Like the fear during the explosion that I wasn't going to make it. The fear that there was something else I could have done to clear the building faster and get everyone out of there. The fear that no matter how good I feel I'm never going to be able to go back out in the field. That even if I do get back in the field I won't be able to do my job as well as I used to."

Danny took his feet off the other chair, turned towards the bed and put his arms on his knees. "You're going to return to the job and be just as good if not better, Don."

"You can't know that," Flack said.

"It's like…" Danny struggled to find an appropriate metaphor and his eyes fell on the deck of cards on Don's tray table. "It's like trying to shoot the moon. No, really," he insisted as Flack gave him a disbelieving look. "Shooting the moon is a risky proposition. It's hard to do and the other players may actively try to keep you from it, but when you manage it, when you actually pull it off, it feels great. It may not matter in the long run, but it's still great in that moment. And if you play it safe, you might win but where's the fun in that?" He took off his glasses and pinched his nose between his eyes before putting them back on and looking back at his friend. "You could play it safe and leave the force or get transferred to a permanent desk job, but you won't be happy, Flack. You'll always be asking yourself, could I have made it back? Could I have still been a great detective? Sure, there might be obstacles along your path back, but you have to know we're all pulling for you and have faith in your abilities."

Don blinked to keep the tears back. Crying in front of Stella was one thing, crying in front of Messer was a whole other ballgame. "Thanks, man," he said, then decided to turn the tables bit. "Though it's a little odd, you giving me a lecture on shooting the moon when you still haven't asked Lindsay out."

Danny groaned and leaned back. "Montana and I are a completely different situation."

"Not in terms of how the situation should be handled."

The lighter-haired detective rubbed his eyes behind his glasses. "She deserves a lot better than me. You know my history, Flack."

"And after the thing with Louie she does too and I don't see her running. In fact you two seem practically joined at the hip lately," Don shot back.

"I don't know what to do," Danny admitted. "I want to ask her out and end this agony of not knowing, but I'm scared to death that she'll say no, that I've just been imagining that she feels the same way I do."

Don was silent for a minute. He had known Danny liked the country girl from Montana, but he hadn't quite realized how serious it was until just now. "Tell you what," he said to his longtime friend. "You promise to ask Lindsay out and I'll promise to work my butt off in physical therapy and do what I need to do to get back in the field. It'll be scary for both of us, but we can always get completely wasted if one or the both of us goes bust." He looked around at his room and all the medical equipment. "Or at least we can once I get out of here and off the meds they have me on."

Danny eyed his friend and thought about the proposition. He really did want to ask Lindsay out, so maybe this was the push he needed. If she said no, then he could just get drunk with Flack and then move on. It would suck big time, but at least he would know. And if she said yes…if she said yes he knew his life would never be the same.

He grabbed the water pitcher off the bedside table and poured some into two glasses and then handed one to Flack. "I think this deserves a toast and this is the best we got."

Flack smiled and held out his paper cup to touch it with Danny's. "To getting past our fears and shooting the moon."

Danny returned the smile. "To shootin' the moon," he agreed before they both drained their drinks.