Disclaimer: I checked the whole house, but no Mac in my cupboard, no Stella behind the sofa,no Hammerback in the fridge, no Montana under the stairs and.. sad, sad, sad... no Danny under my bed. ;o) So I´m afraid I´ve to say...
I own nothing connected to CSI:NY
A/N:I´m not quiet sure about the rating, so I made it T to be save. Please read and review! Thanks!
1.
Danny returned to the car while rubbing his hands together, because of the cold weather that had settled around New York City. It was only the first week of September, fall seemed to come very early this year.
"I think were done here, Mac."
Mac nodded yes and both men climbed into their car. Once inside the warmth, both allowed themself a short pause. Danny was thinking about their current case. Nothing really spectacular, just a well known dealer stabed behind the bins of a diner. Probably nothing more than a deal gone wrong. Mac, on the other hand, was thinking about something different, which was totally uncommon. If anyone was the living definition of the word focused, it was Mac Taylor.
But something had caught his eyes. Something a little bit further down the road, barely visible, but Mac knew perfectly that it was there. Or, to say it better, not there anymore.
His thoughts went back, to the various things that had happened in the last months.
First they had nearly lost Danny to a haunting ghost named Tanglewood. What if theyd tried and gotten after him? Perhaps, if his brother hadnt risked his life, to keep him out of harm..
He could have ended up innocently behind bars.
He had been waiting, day after day, waiting for Danny to break down. After what had happened, after that Tanglewood-case and after the things that had happened later as well. That day had never come.
Mac realized that he was a kind of proud. Danny had improved so much over the last year or two.
Then it was Stella. Well, Stella, shed always been someone very special to him. But hed always told himself, that it was more in a friendly than in a fallen for way. She would never stop to amaze him. From her file, hed learned, that shed grown up in an orphanage, which seemed to be a very loveless way to grow up, in his eyes. Yet, he knew nobody who was so caring and willing to give love to someone else. And vice versa she deserved to be loved. When shed started to see Frankie, Mac had felt strange, and it had taken him a while to realize that he was jealous. Plain and simple. She suffered so much through the hands of someone how was meant to love her..
Hed lost Claire and he was sure nobody would ever take her place. But after hed nearly lost Stella, too, hed realized that somebody had already taken her place.
Hed told Claire once, to move on, if something would happen to him, and somehow he was sure, that she would have wanted him to do the same thing.
Claire would always be his wife, he would always love her. But he was in love with Stella as well.
Perhaps this could be called a happy end to that Frankie story.
There hadnt been a happy end for Aiden. Beautiful and smart Aiden. Mac had always thought, that if he had to fire someone from his team, because he or she had behaved wrong, it would have been someone else.
But to fire her, had been easy, compared to see her broken and burned body.
After that, his nightmares had begun. They had haunted him every night. Sometimes it was Stella, than Danny, or Don, Hawkes or Lindsay, but the dream was always quiet the same. One of them was in gravely danger, and he unable to help.
And than, as if a bad dream had come true, Don had been hurt in that explosion. But hed gotten him out of that building, Don had been bad, but in the end hed managed to survive.
The day Don awoke again in the hospital, the nightmares had stoped.
Mac moved his head, so he could see Danny. Danny sat quietly beside him and was starring into the dark, thinking.
Mac remembered the night at the hospital. The night Danny and Lindsay had left together. They seemed to get along quiet well. Mac was glad about that, because hed feared that Danny would gave her a rough start, because she came to replace Aiden. But there had been times, when hed thought, that there was perhaps more than just friendship between them.
Well, lately they appeared to be more like cat and dog. Mostly they were busy to avoid each other, and Mac wondered what might had happen.
It had started when Lindsay had done that undercover job. Danny had been furious about it. Mac remembered well, how he stood in front of him und shouted things at him, you shouldnt shout at your boss. Mac had remained calm. Hes in love, hed thought, hes in love and probably doesnt know it at all.
To be honest, they had nearly lost Linds that day, which left only Hawkes. That thought gave Mac goosebumbs all over.
"Danny?"
"Yes?"
"Whats up with you and her?"
"Her?"
"Lindsay."
"Nothing Mac, nothing at all."
"It looks like a lot to me."
Danny gave a sigh,
"Shes just so pigheaded."
Mac gave a little smile.
"Says who?!"
Danny looked a bit insulted about this and after a while Mac went on.
"That night, when Flack was in the ICU, you looked pretty close."
"Drove her home."
It was barely a mumble.
"The whole summer, I was thinking, that the two of you were probably dating. But then, suddely it was cold like artic winter between you."
Danny gave another sigh. Mac knows. Sure, Mac always knows...
So why not come clear with everything.
"That night, after Don was injured, I drove her home. We ordered some pasta, we talked, we were afraid, crying, comforting each other. The next thing I know is, that we had sex. After this, we had a couple of hard and heavy days, but in the end, we talked in out and decided to give it a try.
It all went well, I´ve never felt something like this in my life. This wasnt about fun and sex, this was the closest thing to love, I´ve ever felt. Perhaps it was love. Some nights, we sat on the roof of her building, cuddled up in an old woolen blanket she brought from Montana. I swear that thing stinks like a whole herd of horses. Hell, I´m missing that smell."
He fell silent and after a while Mac decided to ask him.
"What happend?"
"I begged her, Mac. I´ve never begged anyone for anything. I begged her not to do this, not to go and risk her life. Shes all I could lost. But she never cared, she went in there and she nearly got herself killed. We went home together, but I couldnt sleep. I was thinking and in the end I knew that I couldnt do this anymore. I broke up with her that morning."
Mac simply started the engine and pulled out into the traffic.
Danny sat quiet and puzzeled in the passenger seat.
Almost a mile down the road, Mac stoped the car again.
Right in front of them was a wide open space. There were signs of construction here and there, but within all those skyscapers and other tall buildings, the space still looked empty.
Probably, thought Danny, it will always be a kind of empty. Even if theyll build something higher and bigger on it.
"I met Claire," began Mac and pulled Danny from his thoughts," when I was still in the Army. I was on vacation, home in Chicago, with my parents. One night I went to town, with some friends. There she was, standing in a hot, crowded and sticky bar. Still she was the most beautiful woman I´ve ever seen. We dated after this, but it was never really serious to me. I was abroad almost the whole time und I was telling myself, that she would do better without me. I was born to serve my country and she didnt deserved to stay at home, waiting for the day, when they would send me home in a box.
Like this it went for almost five years. Than the bombing in Beirut took place und everything changed.
She called my that night, God knows how she got a line, und we talked and talked..
Suddenly I realized what a fool I´d been. She was the love of my life, and there was I, to blind to see.
So after, I got home, I quited the Army and became a plain officer, later a CSI. Then we got the chance to move to New York. Shed always loved this city, ever since I took her here for christmas shopping the year we got married. Little did I know, that this city would kill her one day."
He paused, his eyes wandered off towards Ground Zero.
"But, Danny, you know what hurts the most? I wish I hadnt wasted five years. Five years nobody will ever be able to return to me."
He looked up and for the first time ever Danny saw something like tears in his eyes.
"Talk to her, Danny. Dont let her go. This might look like the easy way now. But believe me, youll regret it one day."