Title: Heaven was needing a hero

Author: Jeannie

Rating: T for language and themes in later chapters and because I like that rating :P

Summary: When a member of the team is attacked and gravely injured the rest of the group must rally around to find the attacker, whilst trying to solve a murder. How will they react now that one of their own is in hospital?

Disclaimer: I do not own anything to do with the CSI franchise, no matter how much I wish I did. And this is not made for profit but rather for enjoyment.

Author's Note: This is my first CSI:NY fanfic, so I hope it's okay. I'd like to thank LollyLovesAngua for being my beta for the first two chapters, which are currently written. She's been great and has improved my story a lot. Hopefully you'll enjoy it, and please let me know what you think, I love getting reviews hint :D Anyway enjoy, and I'll try to keep posting regular but no promises what with school work piling up.

Yet another call to action could be heard across the station as a dead body was located, Detective Flack pushed himself away from his desk and the already late paperwork before moving towards the door. Anything to get him away from his desk was good by him, so he might as well go and check out this latest vic. Blue eyes glanced at the watch on his wrist, 5am, now that was too early to be starting work! He hadn't managed to get home yet, but he was still on a buzz from finding the culprit of the last murder he'd investigated. Nothing gave you more satisfaction then finally getting the right guy after all those weeks of trying and sifting through evidence. Granted he hadn't done much sifting, he left that up to the CSIs after all he was more the 'muscle' when it came to arrests.

He hurried to the nearest police car opened the door and jumped in, the officer driving began to move the car off before Flack had even managed to get the door of the car closed. Honestly, talk about over excited! He slammed the door just before they emerged onto the busy Manhattan roads, and managed to buckle up, just in case this guy decided to do any strange and wonderful stunts whilst weaving in and out of the early morning traffic.

Flack often found it amusing when non-residents of New York were surprised at the fact that there was nearly always traffic on the roads, no matter what the time. You could walk down the street at 2 in the morning and you'd be greeted by the familiar sounds of beeping horns, and the sight of hundreds of yellow taxis as they whisked around the city looking for their next people to transport home.

The officer was a fairly decent driver and he didn't let his obvious enthusiasm for being called out get in the way of safe driving. After about five minutes of screaming sirens they arrived at the scene, Don hurried out of the car giving a small word of thanks before he walked towards the crime scene. It was hidden down a normally dark alley, which was now filled with light from the police officers torches as they tried to pick their way through the scene without disturbing any potential evidence. The few officers who were already there were just starting to put police tape around the scene, and thankfully due to the time there wasn't a huge crowd gathering to stare at the body. Sometimes Flack thought that people were drawn towards the crime scenes, but he had no idea why except maybe the human race was an extremely malicious lot and liked nothing better then gawping at corpses on the street.

"What've we got?" He asked one of the officers nearest him as he reached the body, glancing down and feeling the familiar sensation of nausea assault him. He'd never get used to seeing corpses especially ones so young, he could already guess the age of this one the kid looked in his early twenties. Inwardly the detective sighed, that was too young to die, he had so much to live for and he ended up being cut down by some psycho on the war path.

"Caucasian male, aged unknown but I'm guessing he's about 20-21, he was found by that young lady on her way home," The officer pointed beyond the police tape where a young brunette was stood tears falling from her eyes. A female police officer was stood with her, getting more information and trying to calm her down until the ambulance arrived.

"Robbery?" He glanced around the street; there were a few indicators that there had been a struggle so it could be possible that this had been a robbery gone wrong. Maybe he put up too good a fight and his attacker had grabbed something and killed him.

"I don't think so; he's still got his wallet in his pocket."

"Any ID?"

"Yeah, he's got a few cards and they've all got the name 'Joshua Hopkinson'." An evidence bag was withdrawn out of thin air it seemed, the officer opened it and withdrew the wallet. His gloved hands opened it up and Flack could see several pictures stuffed together, he could recognise their vic almost immediately and no doubt the other people were either his friends or relatives. The male before him withdrew several cards and showed them to him, they all had the same name which was helpful but now they needed to get in touch with the family.

"Any clues as to next of kin?" The cards were placed back in the wallet, which was then dropped back in the evidence bag ready for the CSIs to collect.

"Not yet."

"Okay, thanks." The officer nodded at him before he moved off towards the young woman who was still crying, in the distance Flack could hear more sirens which would hopefully prove to be the ambulance arriving to look after the female. Blue eyes watched the civilian and the female officer, waiting to see what the girl knew. He didn't want to go barging in there and ask her himself, after all if the female officer had built up a bond with the girl then it was unlikely he'd help by going in and acting like his usual sarcastic self. Finally the female officer turned and began to walk towards him, once she reached him he raised his eyebrows slightly inviting her to tell him exactly what the female had seen.

"She says she didn't see anything, she was walking home from a club and she decided to take this shortcut home. She was passing through here about half an hour ago and she says that she tripped over the body, she didn't know what it was at first but when she stood up she saw what it was and rang the police."

"Which club?" Flack asked, reaching into his pocket for a small notebook. He wanted to make sure that he checked out this club, just in case their vic had gone there earlier. He knew it was a long shot, but he needed something to go on.

"Um, Club 215. It's on West 28th Street, between 7th and 8th Avenues." The detective had to stop himself from laughing; did she really think that he hadn't been to pretty much every club in this city? Half of the barmen knew him on first name terms, although most of the time that was because he was investigating some incident but he did have a decent social life.

"Okay, so she's sure she didn't see or hear anything?"

"She says she didn't see or hear a thing."

"What's her name?"

"Kiera Darton"

"Thanks." He scribbled down the information in his pretty much illegible scrawl as the officer moved off, now at least they had something to go on. They'd have to pull the girl back in to make a statement, but for now she needed to get checked out and calmed down by an ambulance crew. He, for one, wasn't going to deal with a hysterical twenty-something female!

Don turned as he heard the sound of a car pull up not far behind him, and he was greeted by the sight of Stella Bonasera and Sheldon Hawkes hurrying out of their vehicle and towards the scene. He walked towards the Crime Scene tape, lifting it up so that they could both pass beneath it.

"What have we got Flack?" Stella asked the minute she had got past the tape, and the detective couldn't help a small smile cross his face. That was Stella all over eager to get on with the job, and she tended to ask exactly the same questions he did when he first arrived…now was that a good thing?

"Young Caucasian male, approximately 21 years old. He was found by that young lady over there about half an hour ago, she says she didn't hear or see a thing."

"We got an ID?" Hawkes asked as the three of them moved closer to the body,

"Yeah, the cards in the wallet are registered to a 'Joshua Hopkinson'." Don held out the evidence bag containing the wallet and let Hawkes take it from him. Finally they reached the body and the two CSIs began to process the scene, Flack watched in silent amusement as they scurried around picking up anything that could possible be evidence. He'd never be able to cope with their job, not only did they spend way too much time in those labs of theirs but they also had to spend way too much time around the dead. He preferred spending his time with the living, and he liked the living to be of the female variety.

"Calling all available officers, we several reports of a disturbance at 217 and Broadway, Apartment 69 gunshots heard, possible officer involved. I repeat reports of a disturbance at 217 and Broadway, Apartment 69 possible officer involved." Don sighed slightly as the radio blared into life, he'd love for just one day to go smoothly and quietly…but then again he'd got into the wrong career path if he wanted nice and peaceful days, although granted one murder couldn't really be seen as peaceful.

At the mention of gunshots he picked up his radio wanting to swiftly call in and let them know that he'd take a few officers to look around, but he was suddenly stopped by Stella's anxious face looking up at him. He sent her a curious look his hand inches from his radio,

"That's Mac's place." She said simply, but at those three words Flack felt a knot begin to develop in his stomach. He knew that if there'd been trouble at Mac's place then the guy was more than capable of defending himself, after all he was an expert with pretty much every weapon known to man but they needed to get there quickly.

"I'll check it out." He said, turning away from the crime scene and heading back towards the police car he'd arrived in.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

The second Stella had heard the apartment number over the radio she'd felt her blood freeze in her veins. When she'd finally become friends with Mac they'd spent time at one another's apartments trying to suss one another out, so they both knew the others address off by heart. He was the only guy she'd given her address to, because she knew she could trust him and if anything happened he'd be there like a shot.

She watched as Flack walked away, talking into his radio as he went letting them know he was on the case. She desperately wanted to go with him, just to make sure that Mac was all right but she was needed here and she couldn't work when her mind was off worrying about something else. With a deep breath she struggled to put her fears aside, and instead began to examine the body before her. Flack was right he could only be in his early twenties, and from the smell on his clothes he'd been in a bar or club at some time that night.

As Hawkes pulled out the camera to begin processing the scene Stella moved around the scene, checking for signs of a struggle and to see if anyone had moved something between the time of the murder and the current point in time. There had evidently been a struggle; some trashcans had been knocked over their contents spilling into the alley. Nothing seemed to be missing from the surrounding area, but there had definitely been a fight so no doubt the vic would have some DNA from the killer either on his clothing or somewhere on his body.

Out of the corner of her eye she could see the flashes of light coming from Sheldon's camera as he took pictures of the vic and the surrounding area. They always needed to be thorough in their investigation, because you never knew what tiny thing could potentially be the biggest breakthrough in a case.

After a few minutes the necessary photos had been taken and they were ready to begin their examination. Hawkes already had the wallet so it didn't look like robbery had been the motive, so they just had to figure out what it could be. First Stella checked in his pockets, trying to find something like a cell phone that they could use to identify this man's next of kin. She found a deep pocket on the male's right trouser leg and managed to pull out the phone that was concealed within, once this was found she placed it straight in an evidence bag. They could get any numbers off the cell at the lab later.

"Looks like he was stabbed several times," Sheldon said, pointing to the three large holes on the male's light blue shirt through which blood was still seeping. "And we've got defensive wounds." He pulled up the body's arm to reveal a few long scratches; it seemed that he'd definitely been trying to defend himself from the attacker.

"There's some bruising to the knuckles, so this guy laid a few punches on our perp." Stella said, staring at the knuckles on both of the vic's hands. If he'd managed to cause enough damage to his attacker then that could make their job a bit easier, it was much better trying to spot a perp with a broken jaw then someone with a tiny scratch on their nose.

"This looks like it was definitely where our murder took place," She glanced around the alley once more, the killer didn't seem to have left anything behind on the body so they'd have to do a sweep of the place to check for blood or prints. As she looked back at the body something caught her eye, she picked up the male's hand once more holding her torch closer to the fingernails. "That looks like blood and possibly some skin under the fingernails." She said, scraping at the substance before bagging it up ready to be processed back at the lab. Hopefully they could use this to try and identify the attacker.

The processing continued for a while longer before the body was able to be transferred to the mortuary, they had retrieved little from the surrounding area, no prints but they had recovered some other blood. They bagged up all the evidence and readied themselves to return to the lab; it was only then that Stella allowed her mind to wander back to Mac.