Title: After the Day
Author: Bekah26
Rating: PG
Pairing: Danny/Mac/Don
Disclaimer: I don't own anything to do with CSI NY or Danny, Mac, or Don. No infringement or copyright intended, all characters belong to Anthony Zuiker, Jerry Bruckheimer television, CBS, and Alliance Atlantis. I am receiving nothing for doing this.
Content Warning: spoilers for Snow Day and slight leanings towards slash.
Summary: Don thinks on the changes after That day.
Things had changed since that day and he couldn't help but wonder what had happened to ruin things between them.
Especially between Mac and Danny.
Then, Don had been too strung out and focused on the job to concentrate on the way Danny looked; he'd been overwhelmed by wanting to make contact with the lab, securing the scene, and dealing with the higher ups on the hostage situation.
Now he remembers Danny's fingers, agonizing curled, even as he clutched his side and leaned on Lindsey.
(and the blood on him, covering him, oh god, why does this keep happening to us)
He remembers the way Mac walked out after the lab exploded-he'll never enjoy the sound of shattering glass, never-and the way he strode straight to Peyton, barely looking at any of them, not asking about Danny.
(which is wrong, why didn't you ask Mac, why didn't you look at me)
Later is now and he sees the changes and aches. He knows
(even though he himself is guilty)
that Mac never did see Danny that day but doesn't know if Mac visited Adam in the hospital either.
When Danny returned to the lab and was so cordial to them both, nothing out of place, but Don could see him talking and hanging with Lindsey and Adam and Hawkes and Stella, and damned himself for the jealousy that was his own fault
(where were you Don, when he was lying in that bed, in pain, who was there to ease his nightmares and give him new focus?)
and sees at times in Mac's eyes a flicker of something, regret or wistfulness, as he looks on what he lost
(admit it, what you both lost, what you both discarded)
and when their eyes meet they have to bury it
(like Aiden and Louie)
lest it tear them further apart.
Don sees the changes and aches, because reading over Danny's statement he knows what they could have lost.
Until one night
(Danny becoming so reckless, damaged, and what are we doing)
when he walks into the lab and sees Mac still in his office when he would have expected him to be gone with Peyton. And it's time to talk, Don's decided, and time Mac faced a few things about the three of them
(connected, now and always)
Because he knows that these changes need to be fought against and because-
He won't let them go again.