Title: A walk in the park

Chapter: 1 - Understanding

Author: Ceindreadh

Fandom: CSI NY

Characters/Pairing: Flack/Stella

Rating: FRT/PG-15

Summary: Flack likes having lunch in the park with Stella

Notes: Part 1 of a WIP, but works as a standalone piece i.e. no cliffhanger.

Warnings: Spoilers for S4 ep 3 You only die once, S2 finale.

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the CSI NY characters, I'm only borrowing them, and I promise to return them in minty fresh condition when I'm finished.

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Even though she was enjoying herself, sitting, eating hot dogs in the park with Flack, Stella couldn't help but keep glancing at her watch.

"You got some place else to be?" asked Don, a grin on his face as he bit deeply into his hotdog.

"Just some test results," said Stella. "I really should get back to the lab soon, see if anything's showing up."

Don put his hand over his heart with a mock wounded expression on his face. "Stood up for a machine that makes beeping noises, man that's a bruise to the ego!"

"Hey, I agreed to leave the lab and have lunch with you," retorted Stella. "I don't do that for just anybody." She smiled at him.

"I should hope not," Don leaned in a bit closer to Stella and lowered his voice, "Cause I like being the only guy who takes your mind off all that." He tried to kiss her on the cheek, but she pulled away.

"Don, there's people around," said Stella, sliding just a little further away on the bench.

Don hung his head for a few seconds, sighing, before raising it and looking at Stella. "It's just a kiss, Stel. Two adults, having a hot dog and a kiss in the park. Not like I'm ripping your clothes off and doing you here on the bench!" He paused for a few seconds before adding, "Course I'm not saying I don't want to, but it's a bit chilly this time of year."

"That's not the point. Do you know how many cops pass through this park each day? On or off duty, somebody we know could see us."

"So?" Don shrugged, "Big deal. So somebody sees us. What they gonna do? Hell, they'll just be so jealous that it's me sitting here kissing you and not them." Her insistence on secrecy was one of the few things that annoyed Don about Stella. On one level he could understand it. Her last relationship had become fodder for gossip inside the Precinct and the Lab. Hardly surprising since she'd gone and shot the bastard and ended up as a case file herself for a bit. But it bugged him sometimes, having to pretend that him and Stella weren't a couple. "And if they tell on youze to Mac, well so what. It's not like you're my supervisor or nothin."

"You know how Mac feels about the security of the lab. If he thought we were compromising it by being involved…"

"Well we're not. You do your job, I do mine, and what we do on our own time is nobody's business. Besides," Don crammed the last remnants of the hot dog into his mouth and chewed noisily before swallowing it, "…'sides, it's just like when he was hooked up with Peyton. Didn't see him fretting over compromising the lab's integrity then!"

"That's different," said Stella, frowning. "He's the boss."

"So? Don't give him the right to come down on you for having a personal life." Don saw the look on Stella's face and sighed inwardly. "Okay, okay, I promise I'm not gonna kiss you where anybody could see us, not until youze are ready to go public. Okay?"

"Okay," said Stella.

Don leaned in and said, "Of course, when youze and me are alone at my place and the curtains are closed, I fully intend to kiss you everywhere!" He lowered his voice and whispered in her ear just exactly what else he was planning to do to her, and was rewarded with a light blush that appeared on her cheeks.

"Don Flack!" said Stella, equally amused and embarrassed by what he was saying her. Glancing at her watch, she cursed involuntarily, knowing that the brief time she had allotted herself for lunch was coming to an end. "We should go," she said reluctantly, half pulling away and gathering up the wrappings from their lunch.

"One of these days I'm gonna make you take a proper lunch break," grumbled Don good-naturedly. "Give you time to digest it properly."

Stella patted him on the hand, "One of these days we'll finally catch up with our caseload and I'll have time for proper breaks."

Don caught her hand in his, "One of these days you'll tell Mac that you and me been seeing each other so we don't have to keep misleading him. I mean, I get that you don't want nobody gossiping about us, but Mac's as tight lipped as a Priest taking confessions."

"I know," acknowledged Stella. She took a deep breath before replying, "And I will tell him about us…just not today…it's not the right time." She stood up and looked at her watch again.

"Okay," said Don, a smile on his face. He knew that Stella was a woman of her word. She'd said she was going to tell Mac, that meant she would. It wasn't that it was specifically any of Mac's business, but Don just felt bad about being less than honest with him. Not that he out and out lied or nothing, but lying by omission was still technically lying, at least according to his parish Priest when he was growing up. Of course having sexual relations with a woman outside of marriage was a total sin as well, but Don had no intention of giving up that sin, no way. Leastways not when there was a woman like Stella in the picture.

She was so different from any of the women Don had previously hooked up with. Her and his previous girlfriend, were like chalk and cheese. Don's face clouded as he thought about Devon. It had started off so well with them. He'd been the 'man of the match' at a charity hockey game. She had been presenting the award – courtesy of a sizeable donation from her father. They'd hooked up afterwards and only a badly timed robbery had interrupted their 'very important' third date. He should have known from her reaction to the incident that she and he moved in totally different worlds. Chicks from Don's world didn't get turned on by the thought of their home being violated, and Don knew he should have gone with his instincts and backed off. But he'd been thinking with the wrong part of his body and he'd gone back for a fourth date to pick up where they'd left off. And things had been going great, clothing was flying everywhere, they were sprawled on the bed and then boom…Devon's hand had brushed against the scar on his belly and it'd been like bucket a water had been chucked on her.

Oh she'd tried to cover it up, tried not to flinch as her hands brushed against the rough patches of skin. They'd gotten down to business and she'd even seemed to be enjoying it, but every now and then she'd seem to pull away a bit, shifting position just enough so as to avoid making contact with the once damaged flesh. Don had been too caught up in the moment to realize exactly what she was doing until afterwards.

The next morning Devon had brought up the subject of plastic surgery, telling him she knew of a wonderful Doctor who could practically work miracles with scars and blemishes. That had been the last time Don had seen her. It hadn't been the way she'd offered to pay for it that had been the issue, he'd known from the start that she was loaded and what she did with her cash was her own business. No, it had been the way that she'd felt that any sort of physical flaw or imperfection had to be erased.

Don wasn't self conscious about his scars…not now anyway…they were part of who he was. He'd earned them in the line of duty, paid for them with his blood, and while there's times he wished he'd never gone through the whole ordeal, times he wished he could blot out the memories of the pain and the fear, he knows that they're a part of him, part of what's made him who he is today. The scars are a visible reminder to him and to just wipe them away as if it had never happened feels to him like a betrayal of all he's been through.

"Penny for your thoughts," said Stella as Don stood up from the bench.

He smiles at her, knowing that she's never recoiled in horror from the scars. True, she'd seen them in bloody detail in the photos from his case file, long before she ever got to see them in the flesh so to speak. But Don knows Stella, he knows she's no Devon, and he knows that she understands him, understands why his scars are a part of him. He knows that she's carrying her own scars, although most of hers are on the inside, but they're a part of her and he understands them and he understands her, and she understands him. And he knows that sooner or later she'll understand that there's no reason for them to hide themselves from the world, but he can live with the waiting because he knows that they're not hiding from each other.

"Penny for your thoughts," said Stella.

"I was thinking of you."

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Ceindreadh