Title: Snapshots (Through Time)
Disclaimer: Yeah, none of the characters belongs to me – sad as it is I know:( - except a couple of my own wee single character that I made up, the rest all belongs to the wonderful world that is CSI: NY an it's creators.
Most of the photos are, in fact, real photos and if you're interested or intrigued or whatever, I'll try put them up and link you to them if you so desire to clap your eyes on them ;)
A/N: Bold type is used for memories
Summary: "First thing I learned on this job; anyone can do anything to anybody." – Danny Messer. (1x16)
Every so often, an envelope will arrive. It always contains the same thing. Pictures of her.
And he is always grateful. Because it is how he makes sure she is safe, that she is healthy and happy. It is the one thing that justifies why he does what he does. And nothing could be more important than that.
"When I saw you I fell in love, and you smiled because you knew." – William Shakespeare
Every so often, an envelope will arrive for him. It always contains the same thing. Pictures of her.
Depending on the occasion, there will be writing on the back, detailing what was going on when the moment was captured. Other times, there is nothing penned, just the images themselves. He likes these best. It is with these that he can actually see her for her; with all the little traits that are only ever visible when no one else is around.
It is with these that he learns about her life.
X
Over the years he has built up a rather large collection. He has them categorized in albums by age and occasion, with the select few making their way into a frame here or there.
And in her own way, she has left her imprint on his apartment, and his life.
He subconsciously mirrors her actions at times.
Once, after a photo had arrived showing her sitting out on the porch, legs lying half-hazardly over the steps below, a tall orange-and-red-striped glass held in her small hands as she drank from the two straws inside; he had made a point to use two straws instead of one, without even realising it. This went on for over a week, before Flack pointed it out and questioned him over it. He stopped when he couldn't think of a valid reason to give.
However, the pattern continued.
X
A few weeks later, more arrived. There was one in particular that at first he thought had been put in by accident, but when he realised he could identify her straight away without seeing anything but the multi-coloured striped and spotted socks adorning her legs, he knew it wasn't a mistake.
What followed was him wearing mismatched socks everyday for nearly a month, before Aiden asked him about it in the locker-room one afternoon. He stopped when he couldn't think of a valid reason to give.
x
The photo of her first day of school, an important day; he recognised it instantly. She was wearing a black pinafore dress that went to her mid-thigh with a white top underneath, the sleeves of which were creased just past tanned elbows, gray socks peeking out above black polished boots, a black beret with white spots positioned fashionably atop blonde curls. She was looking off to the side, her toes pointed inward towards each other, and her hand was raised to her mouth as she chewed on her thumbnail.
He picked up the habit soon after. Stella casually told him he'd have no fingers left if he kept biting them the way he was and asked him why he did it, inquiring if nervousness was behind it. He stopped when he couldn't think of a valid reason to give.
He still does it at times.
x
There's one of her on holiday somewhere he can't remember, though if he looked he'd soon find out. Her blonde hair is lighter than ever, and it's straight too, which is something else. She's got on gray shorts that reach her knees and a white shirt that has frills in lines down the front and cuts in a v-shape, and on top a white stone-colored light jacket that's too big for her; its large cuffs cover half of the tanned skin of her hands. Hands in which she holds a thick scaly reptile. It's curled round her neck, as one hand is hooked beneath some part near the end of its body, keeping it up, and the other holding what he presumes is the 'neck', her thumb straight and curved slightly as if she was caressing its skin.
Admittedly, he had a slight moment of sheer panic when he first clapped eyes on it.
Then he saw her face; her eyes cast downward as she watched it closely, the small curve of her lips, the utter look of calm about her.
Not four days later, he wandered into a 'pet shop' and was all ready to purchase the exact same kind of snake, when Aiden suddenly appeared and demanded to know "what the Hell" he was doing. He stopped when he couldn't think of a valid reason to give.
x
His first day off in weeks; a day usually spent pigging out in front of a game or lounging around the house or doing some chore or other that needs doing, before meeting up with Flack or one of the others for a beer and a game of pool; he decided to paint his kitchen. It was an idea he seemed to come up with totally out of the blue, but he didn't regret it. Not even when Flack appeared at his door, having waited over an hour for him, and his clothes were still splattered with light-blue paint speckles.
When the blue-eyed Detective threw his question out there, he opened his mouth to answer, but stopped when he couldn't think of a valid reason to give. Instead he just gave him a half-shrug and a rueful smile and went to get changed.
Lying on top of an end table in the hall, a photo was half-concealed by the torn edges of a white envelope encasing it. It had arrived two days earlier, showing her sitting at a table with a notebook before her, pencil in the mouth as she chewed on it, a look of concentration creasing her features. The wall behind her was sky-blue.
X
And this has slowly become the norm for him. A simple white envelope will arrive, he'll rip open the seal, and a slow stream of laminated images will fall into his awaiting palm. He'll spend some time poring over them, flipping each over in turn to let his eyes churn over the words written there, before scanning the pictures once more. Then he will walk into his bedroom and pull the appropriate folder from its place on the top shelf of his closet, and he will spend the next twenty minutes or so slotting the photos into place.
Occasionally there is a photo that has captured a moment perfectly, and he can spot these instantly. He has a number of simple frames stacked next to the albums, just in case. He slides the picture in, attaches the back on once more, and takes a minute to inspect the image again. Then he tucks it away, along with the rest. For safe keeping.
The photos are all he ever receives from them. Never her.
He sends her a card on her birthday, and a present. Always. He does the same at Christmas.
He never sends any photos of his own. Maybe one day he will. But for now, he is simply content to wait for the envelopes to arrive and give him a little extra piece to add to his image of her life.
X
Aiden finds them when she's going through his stuff, helping him get it all sorted before he moves apartment. She has to go up on tiptoe to reach the albums, and naturally curious, she grasps a hold of one. But it's like a domino effect, and sure enough, less than a minute later, the whole shelf has collapsed on top of her.
He finds her like that; standing in the middle of his closet, a complete look of amazement on her face; the plank of wood leaning precariously on one edge against the wall, the floor littered with heavy books, broken glass frames, and a scattering of glossy images around her feet.
He's cleaning a small cut in her hand when she finally asks him about them. All the photos, the frames, the albums.
"Who is she?" Aiden asks.
He smiles, small and enigmatic. "Alice," he answers; the valid reason he was looking for all along.
X
It's less than a month later, as he is rifling through a maze of cardboard boxes, when it arrives.
A young deliveryman stands in his open doorway, a white envelope in his hands; but it's bigger and fatter than the others have ever been. He signs for it, thanks the man, and turns to walk back into his living room; not bothering to ask himself how they've found him when he hasn't managed to send his new address yet. He places the package on the coffee table, and sits down on the sofa facing it, his eyes never wavering from its presence before him.
He watches it for another moment, intrigued, but then curiosity takes over and he reaches forward, tearing the seal away, and thrusting his hand inside. His fingers come in contact with something hard and grasping hold of it, he pulls.
What he sees brings a smile to his face instantly.
He looks down at it, and he bites his lip as he senses his eyes getting wet.
She's smiling, shyly; but to him it's wider and brighter than he's ever seen her smile before; like she's smiling at him.
Her hands as stuffed in the pockets of her rustic black top, pulling it downward over her red sports pants. It's zipped up far enough that the two ends of the green stalk of the pink flower across her chest are joined, but not so far that he can't make out the round-necked collar of her yellow T-shirt and the tiniest part of its design. Her fringe is sparse across the middle of her forehead, falling to the sides as her head is dipped slightly, and her loose blonde curls are half-hidden with the hood pulled up over her head.
She's standing in front of a fence, and he notes how little she's grown since the last photo here, taken in the field behind where she's posing, though now she can reach the second wooden bar – if barely.
He recognises the top, a wistful smile flittering across his lips at the sight, of course he does. He bought it for her. A sixth birthday present, for two days prior.
Two days prior; when he had apprehended the man wanted in connection with the murder of a young woman, a single mother of one, Karen Clarke. It was a cold case; the first he'd ever worked on under the ever-watchful eye of Detective Mac Taylor, and what he had seen that day had never left him.
It had thrown him beyond belief when he'd first set eyes on the crime-scene. It was brutal.
Then suddenly, a cry reached his ears, a sound that haunted his dreams for weeks, nay months, after. A harrowing scream from such small lips, those of a baby whose age was still in mere months, and one that pierced his very soul.
He made to investigate and found someone still to be present in the apartment, but before he could do anything bar shout, "Freeze! NYPD!" a bundle was dropped, and he had already made his decision.
The suspect got away, even with backup tailing after him, and he was left holding a baby in his arms.
He took it upon himself to make sure her next-of-kin were informed and actually stayed with her in place of Social Services as her grandparents made their way to the station, after identifying the body of their only child. As soon as they got there, they thanked him profusely for "all the trouble he must have gone to" while awaiting their arrival, and he promised them he would find out who had killed their daughter.
They had both nodded at him, thanked him again; and as she looked at him with those big blue eyes, held protectively in her grandmother's arms, her grandfather promised him that she would grow up knowing about the man who had saved her life.
They had made their decision. Their granddaughter's life was worth infinitely more than that of the man who had murdered their daughter, no matter how much it would mean to them to have him brought to justice. She was more important now; their daughter had made sure of that when she had sacrificed her life for her daughter's.
But the man he apprehended?
The man who had beaten her within an inch of her life, raped her, and then stabbed her to death?
He was Karen Clarke's best friend.
He was the father of her child.
The photo is larger than the normal 6x4 ones he usually receives. It's been enlarged, and set in a dark wooden frame with a wide off-white mount surrounding it.
In truth it looks absolutely stunning.
The photo itself; the look on her face, the small smile curving her lips, the top; it is enough for him alone, but there's an added bonus – as there always is with these types of gifts.
A large rectangle has been cut out in the centre of the base, below the photo.
And in the large, scraggly print of a child, that you can't help but find endearing, are the words:
Thank You
He lifts the frame up, still smiling, and shakes his head in slight disbelief. His fingers run over something rough at the back of the picture, and he move it round, balancing it on his hip as he looks at the offending item. He tears the tape off, and lays the frame flat on his thighs as he brings his discovery closer.
It is a single piece of paper from a notepad, but there's writing across it that he places immediately as that of the sender of his envelopes, the slight slant and intricate loops of the lettering so familiar now.
It reads:
Detective Messer,
You made us a promise the day we met, to find the man responsible for taking our daughter away. You have done just that, and my husband and I cannot thank you enough for this. It is a deed for which we will never be able to repay you, though we have since tried to, in our own way.
We also made a promise that day.
My husband told you that our granddaughter would grow up knowing about the man who saved her life.
You have become her hero, Detective; her Guardian Angel here on Earth.
I think she sensed it from the moment you first held her in your arms.
Thank you for keeping Alice in your thoughts, I have no doubt my daughter will repay you one day from her own place in this world for watching over her.
Yours Sincerely
Nancy Clarke
He flips the paper up with his finger, and actually lets out a brief laugh at what greeted him. There are two photos attached to the note, but they're different from any he's received so far.
The first is of her; sitting at a light oak table, hunched over a scrapbook that he can see holds picture upon picture of him. She is leaning forward on her knees, her loose blonde curls falling down to cover her face and obstruct the camera's view of her, but he can see the twinkle of blue and the wide grin that accompanies it.
The smile is still spread widely across his face when he lifts the photo up to reveal the other beneath it.
This one takes his breath away actually. He didn't even know it existed, actually. Not till just then, anyway.
It's of him, and her, at the station. He has no idea when it was taken, but it must've been before he even met either of her grandparents because he moved her from one protective set of arms to another within sight of them.
He's holding her in his arms, and his head is dipped, a wistful smile across his lips, his eyes shimmering in the light.
And truly, it takes his breath away.
The miniature fingers of her right hand are clasped tightly round two of his left ones, her eyes shut, and a peaceful expression is set upon her features, a smile gracefully spread across her tiny pink lips.
She looks, in a word, safe.
And he wonders if maybe her grandmother is right, if maybe she did sense him from the moment he held her in his arms, that he was her savior. That maybe he can be her Guardian Angel here on Earth.
He isn't quite sure if he can describe how it makes him feel; but the swell of his heart tells him all he needs to know.
He has done the right thing.
x
The photos keep coming; the envelopes always the same, but none are ever quite like that one.
x
It's been a while since he's received any white envelopes, but his thoughts aren't on that at the moment. Aiden has just died, and his mind's all in disarray. He's supposed to be meeting the others for drinks and toast to her life, but he doesn't know if he can. He's such a mess right now, and he honestly doesn't know if he wants to do it all anymore. Doesn't know if he wants to go on, doesn't know if he wants to be a cop, doesn't know if he wants to be a CSI. Doesn't know anything.
And he's looking at the photo of him and Aiden that sits on his TV, thinking about everything and nothing, when the phone rings. He tears his eyes away, and lifts the phone from its cradle.
"Hello?" he says, distracted, his blue orbs having found that photo again of his best friend; his dead friend.
"'Tective Messer?" asks the other.
He prepares to answer an affirmative with a slight sigh, when he is stopped.
"It's Alice."
It is all worth it.
This is his proof.
She is his proof.
The End.
Thanks for reading, please let me know what you think.
This as just a random idea that came to me a while ago as I was re-watching S1, but as per many of my idea it just got pushed to the back of my mind 'cos I simply didn't run with it and type any of it up. It came to me today, and I actually only intended to write the summary, like I do with my other ideas in case I go back to them, and I started typing, and ... yeah, here's the final result.
It's a bit random, and I've tried reading over it a couple of times, but I'll double-check it for grammatical errors and whatnot again tomorrow with fresher eyes :)
Thanks again for reading, and please leave me a wee review – Con.Crit. is always good too, helps us all improve :D
Steph
xxx