Disclaimer: I do not own CSI NY nor any of its characters.

This is another edition to my set of stories to do with the Messer Family that I made up. Once again, it can be read as a stand alone. But there are others. Ie, Second Chances, and I will always protect you.

Anyway, on to the story. Hope you like it.

Let me know.

Walking through the busy shopping centre with your hand entwined with your wifes, your other hand grasping the reigns of your five year old daughter, you listen to the chattering of your son, Thomas, who is walking infront of you. He's talking excitedly about the new game station he's going to get off Santa, because his friend Billy got one for his birthday.

And that's why you're out.

You and Lindsay decided that in order to suss out what Santa needed to bring this year, you should take your children to the shopping centre so that, sneakily, they could tell you. And then you, of course, would pass the information on to Santa himself. You feel Lindsay tug to the left slightly and you notice that there is a sale on in a shop. Finding her eyes you shake your head and she glares at you, wrinkling her mouth into a silly grimace. Chuckling, you pull her into you and remove your hand from hers in order to place it around her waist, holding her close to you. Lifting your head up, you call to your son.

"Tom, buddy, you know your birthday's not long after Christmas, you started thinking about a party yet? You know it's a big one now, double figures."

You raise your eyebrows to him and he rolls his and you feel your wife snigger next to you. You know she can see him transforming before your eyes, just as well as you can. He is well into boyhood now, and will soon leave this phase and become a teenager. Leaving you and your days of spending quality, peaceful, fun times with your children in the dusty past. Turning down to look at your daughter you smile as you see her curly brown locks bouncing underneath her red ribbon, smudged with dirt. Feeling your gaze upon her, she turns and gazes up at you, her beautiful pacific blue eyes, piercing yours. And then she smiles, a toothy, cheeky grin which makes you ruffle her hair a little.

"Oh wow! Mom! Come look at this!" Tom's shout echo's throughout the shopping centre and you loosen your grip on your soulmate so that she can run off to stare in a shop window with your eldest. You watch her, feigning excitement at the toy that Tom is pointing at eagerly, bouncing on the balls of his feet. She's bending, crouching so that she is smaller than him and he turns and looks down at her. You see his mouth move, faster than ever before, and you know he is telling her of some friend from school who most probably has this toy, or the old version, and how he got it, what it does, and what it doesnt do.

But then your attention is pulled away by the small figure tugging on the reign that holds the two of you together. Letting her now lead you, you follow your daughter as she too takes you backwards to a window you passed a few moments ago. Staring up at you she points at the pastel pink ballet shoes in the window. And you copy Lindsay, bending to your daughters level you stare at the shoes as if they are precious gold, and listen to Evelyn ramble.

"Daddy, these are proper ballet shoes. Like the ones the big girls at class wear, not like my silly black pumps Mommy makes me wear." And then she turns to look at you, turning that sweet, cherub like face to yours. Tilting her head to the side she whispers. "If I'm going to be a real dancer, I need these shoes Daddy. May I have them?"

You want to laugh. You want to roll around on the floor with laughter because you can see, how, in ten years she will be able to wrap you around her finger, just as she was doing now. This sickly, sweet charm that your daughter posessed, you were frequently told she had inherited from you. But you disagreed. This charm that would make you go to the ends of the earth was only paralleld in another, and that was your wife. Lindsay.

Obviously your son meant the world to you, and you would go the ends of the earth for him without a blink of an eyelash. But you could say no to him. You could tell him off. But with this girl holding a lock on your heart you knew you would forever be her slave.

Ever since the moment she was placed in your sweating arms, you had known you were a gonner. Like never before. Her dark hair rumpled on her perfectly shaped head, her rosebud mouth, already pouting. Her fingers already stretching out for you and for anything she could grasp onto. And then she opened her eyes and you felt a tear slip from your eyes, carefully wiping it away you had watched your daughter blink, becoming acustomed to the bright light as her blue eyes constricted.

That was five years ago now, and you can still feel that overwhelming sense of loss that you had felt on that day. Yes, you had felt overwhelmed at your sons birth. You had felt a great sense of achievement, a miraculous love filled your every being. And you had sobbed, like a baby when he was given to you. But with Evelyn you knew she was your little girl. And though you had never believed people before. People who said that the bond between a father and daughter was heavenly special. Unbreakable by nothing. When she was given to you, you knew they hadn't been lying.

Turning to your daughter now, you open your mouth and begin to nod as you speak. "Evie..."

But then you hear five bullets ring out from behind you.

You hear the screams of hundreds of people.

You feel the warm trickle of blood flow down your arm.

And finally, you hear a small, terrified whisper. "Daddy?"