Author's Note: This has been swarming through my head for a couple of weeks now. I must have started it a thousand times in the past two weeks, but it never worked out the way I wanted it, too. I like the way this chapter came out, though, and I hope you guys do, too. I will update again, I just don't know when- we're in the process of getting ready to move in a couple of weeks, and I've moved enough in my life to know how crazy life can get during that time. Enjoy! -Jess

Disclaimer: I don't own CSI:NY or any characters you might recognize... Casey, on the other hand, is mine.

Chapter One

Twenty Years Ago...

"Damn you, Nick Campbell!" Even upstairs in her bedroom with every one of her half a dozen music boxes going, four-year-old Casey could hear her parents' latest fight. It seemed to her that's all they did anymore; she couldn't remember a time when they'd been a happy, loving family like the Flacks next door. She loved to go over to her best friend Samantha Flack's house. Sam's mommy and daddy loved each other- and they loved Sam and her brothers, Don and Tommy. Casey was pretty sure her mommy and daddy wished she'd never been born- they screamed it at the top of their lungs just about every time they fought. She was a mistake- and she'd known it for as long as she could remember.

With a sigh, she pushed back a lock of hair that was more orange than red and lifted the window open. She knew she wasn't supposed to go outside after dark because it wasn't safe- and she wasn't supposed to climb trees because her mommy said it wasn't lady-like, whatever that meant- but she was tired and just wanted to go to sleep. W hen she heard another plate break against a wall downstairs, she knew getting any sleep in her own bed that night was out of the picture.

More often than not lately, she crept over to Sam's house anyway to sleep at night. She thought that maybe her uncle Donald- Sam's dad wasn't really Casey's uncle but he'd told her a while ago that she could call him that- and maybe even her aunt Maggie, Sam's mom, knew that she'd crawl in through the bedroom window Sam had started leaving open for her a few months earlier and cry herself to sleep in Sam's bed, but they didn't say anything about it. Most days, she slipped back out the window when the sun came up, before Aunt Maggie knocked on Sam's door- but one day, she'd slept in and she was sure Maggie had seen her climbing back through her own window.

She climbed out the window and pulled it most of the way down, the same as she'd been doing for months now, and made her way carefully across the tree to Sam's bedroom window, only to find that it was closed. Sam must have forgotten to open it before she went to bed. Casey didn't want to go home and listen to her parents fighting, so she crept over another couple of branches until she was outside Don's bedroom and noticed that, thankfully, he'd left his window open- Casey knew Don almost never closed his window at night, and she'd always been very careful to be be extremely quiet as she made her way across the tree, never wanting to wake him up.

She silently crawled over the window sill and placed her sock-clad feet on Don's carpeted floor. She'd sneak across the room and down the hall to Sam's, quiet as a mouse, and Don would never know she'd been in there.

From his bed, eight-year-old Don Flack watched Casey tip-toe across his floor, wondering what the heck she was up to. Casey had made it her mission in life, it seemed, to make him absolutely miserable. She followed him everywhere, like a lost little puppy, and she'd always look up at him with those big brown eyes that he couldn't say no to- and she knew it, too. He knew she'd heard his brother Tommy talking the other day with his friend Joey about how Joey's sister had put their mom's make-up on him while he'd been asleep; he'd been terrified ever since he'd caught the devilish gleam in Casey's eyes that day that she was going to try and pull something like that on him.

But Casey didn't go anywhere near his bed; instead, she peeked at him one more time to make sure he was asleep- he was grateful he'd been smart enough to keep his eyes mostly closed as he watched her- and reached for his doorknob. He probably should have let her just sneak out, he was sure, but he was too curious now to go back to sleep without knowing what had brought her there- besides that, he knew he had to have a serious talk with her about climbing the big oak between their houses, especially when it was so dark outside and she couldn't see. She could have fallen and hurt herself, he thought to himself with a weary sigh.

"What are you doing, pest?" He could tell his question startled her- she jerked her hand away from the doorknob as though she'd been burned and spun on her heel to look at him- but his softly spoken question hadn't scared her.

Casey crossed her arms defiantly across her chest and marched across the room, wishing she hadn't woken the oldest Flack sibling up because she knew she'd have to explain what she was doing there, and she didn't want to have to do that. She gave him her very best glare, and Don bit back a grin- now was not the time to pick on her.

"I asked you a question, Casey," he said as he sat up and looked down at her. He gave her the same you-better-answer-my-question-now look his dad gave him and his brother and sister whenever they did something wrong- his mom called it his dad's cop-look. He and Tommy and Sam always caved when their dad looked at them like that- and Tommy and Sam always caved when Don gave them the look, too- but Casey wasn't the least bit intimidated by him. He supposed he shouldn't be terribly surprised by that rather irritating fact, since Casey seemed to be pretty much fearless, but it annoyed him nevertheless.

The four-year-old ended the staring contest by bowing her head and pretending to find great interest in his carpet as she replied, "Sam forgotted to open her window 'fore she went to sleep."

Don narrowed his eyes at the statement- clearly, sneaking into Sam's bedroom at night was a regular occurrence. How had he missed that? "So you climbed though mine instead," Don said as he brushed a hand through his dark brown hair. "You shouldn't climb that tree at night, you know, pest," he told her in a stern voice before he stood and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. It surprised him when he realized she was trembling- and it wasn't cold, so he knew that couldn't be the reason. "Why do you climb into Sam's room?"

Casey slowly raised her head and met his gaze- what he saw there broke his eight-year-old heart. The little girl in front of him might be the biggest pain he'd ever met, but no little girl should look so lost and sad. "Mommy and Daddy are fighting 'bout the biggest mistake they ever made again," she told him quietly, and he knew she was quoting them.

He felt his stomach tie itself in knots and knew the answer even as he asked, "What's that?" He hoped he was wrong. His mom and dad fought sometimes, but he'd never once heard them say that any of their kids were mistakes, and he knew neither one of them ever would.

"Me," Casey replied sadly as she slipped out from under his arm and moved quickly across his bedroom floor to his door. He caught up with her a second later, just as she was pulling it open, and wrapped his arms around her in a hug.

"You're not a mistake, Casey- don't ever let anyone tell you different." And with that, he walked her the few steps down the hall to his little sister's room- the room that, from that moment on, he would always think of as being shared by his two little sisters.

From that night on, for the next nine years, on the rare occasion that Sam forgot to open her bedroom window before she fell asleep, Casey would slip in through Don's instead, smile at him when he popped his eyes open to look at her, and creep across his room and out his door, down the hall to Sam's room. Every now and then, he'd whisper to her as she walked out his door, just before she pulled it shut, and tell her she wasn't a mistake- and never to let anyone tell her different.