Post 'Run Silent, Run Deep'. Danny-centric, with a side of what could be interpreted as Danny/Lindsay and a bit of Danny-Mac friendship.
AN: This is my first CSI:NY fic, and I haven't been watching for too terribly long. I've tried to find out as much as I could about Danny's background but I know I've missed some stuff. I'm sorry.
It's a small funeral. Dad, Mommy, the priest, me -- and Montana surprised me by showing up with some flowers and a sympathetic smile. Flack woulda come, I think, but for a court date he couldn't get changed. The gravedigger stands off to the side, leaning on his shovel and smoking, looking like my brother is just the latest in a long string of jobs. I wonder if that's what I look like at a crime scene.
The gravedigger drops his butt onto some poor soul's last resting place. The sight of that cigarette brings to mind images of Louie that I'd rather not think about. I got over being angry at him pretty quick; when your brother's lying half-dead in a coma, there's not a lot oftime for being angry. I'm still angry, because being angry is a lot easier than being sad and scared and guilty, but not at Louie. I'm angry at the bastards who did this to him, the 'friends' who don't bother to show up at his funeral because they're the ones that put him in that grave. I'm angry at myself, too, for not trusting my brother fifteen years ago, for hating him all this time, for letting him die.
I don't cry. My throat is a little tight and my nose itches, but I do not shed a tear. I lost my brother a long time ago. What I've lost now is the chance to apologize and maybe patch things up between us (although I wonder if it mighta been too late anyways), but I've cried my freaking eyes out for the past week over that. There is not a drop of salt water left in my body.
There's a small chorus of "amen"s and I realize the priest has finished. The funeral is over. Dad gives the casket one long, final look before leading Mommy, bawling, toward the car. The priest bums a smoke from the gravedigger, who's itching for us to leave so he can get on with his work. Montana lays the flowers she brought next to the headstone, one of those new flat ones they can run right over with a lawnmower. She gives me a funny look, sympathy? pity? regret, kinda pats me on the arm, and walks to her car. It's just me now, alone with my brother's coffin.
Apparently there is a drop of salt water left in my body, more than one. They start leaking out as I stand there, realizing that I will never see my brother again. The finality in that wooden box I can't wrap my head around. Much as I've hated Louie these past fifteen years, some part of me always knew he'd be there for me if I really needed him. And when I do, when he is, it gets him killed.
I take off my glasses and rub my hand across my eyes, trying to clear them. The gravedigger is giving me not-very-subtle hints that he wants me outta here. I lift my head, looking at the other graves, the grass growing over, the dying flowers and the little flags people have put around. Everything's blurry, my glasses are dangling from my hand, but I don't have the will to put them back on. A smudge of blue-black shadow detaches itself from the green blobs of the trees surrounding the small cemetery. There's something familiar about the way that smudge moves as it walks away and I wonder how long he's been here watching me, supporting me.