Chapter 2.

After they'd sat together for a while, in their shared and personal shock and grief over the sudden loss of their friend, Mac said,

'I'm going to find out where Danny is and see if I can get him out of here. We need to get Lindsay to the morgue. Can you call Sid and get him over here? I think Danny might feel better about letting Lindsay's body be released if Sid personally escorts her to the morgue. Then when Don gets here, I need you to start talking to the nurses who saw Lindsay when she came in, and the doctor who pronounced her if you can get hold of them. Have Don see if he can track down the paramedics or at least get contact details for them, maybe they can help fill in some detail about the scene. Tomorrow, we'll canvas the area and see if we can get security footage from cameras for the businesses there.'

As he spoke, Mac pushed his shock to the back of his mind, very carefully not thinking about the last time he'd seen Lindsay. Not thinking about how she'd been pregnant, and how excited she and Danny had been. That could come later, when he was alone with Christine. But Jo and the others, and most of all Danny, needed him to keep it together and find whoever was responsible for Lindsay's death.

Jo nodded.

'You got it, Mac,' she said. She squeezed his arm gently.

'We'll get through this, right?'

'Right.' Mac said.

Jo headed outside to wait for Don. Before going to the reception desk to find out where Danny and Lindsay were, Mac used one of the public phones to call his own apartment.

Christine answered.

'It's me,' he said.

'Mac. Is it really true?'

'Yes. I don't have any idea what happened yet. I just wanted to call to check on you guys.'

'I'm just worried about you, but I'm fine. Lucy's sleeping. What do you want me to tell her if she wakes up?'

Mac sighed, rubbed a hand over his eyes.

'Tell her...tell her there was an accident, and her Daddy will be with her soon. I want to get Danny away from here as soon as I can.'

'Bring him here, let him sleep in the spare room with Lucy for tonight,' Christine suggested, 'Do you want me to stay when you guys get back?'

'Yes,' Mac said without hesitation.

'I will, then. God, poor Danny. And poor Lucy.'

'I know. I hate this. I...I don't know what to say to him, Christine.'

'You'll know what to say when it comes to it,' she assured him, 'More than anyone else, you understand what he's going through.'

'I better go,' he said, 'I love you, Christine.'

'I love you too, Mac. Come home as soon as you can.'

'I will,' he said.

After hanging up, he went to find someone to take him to Danny and Lindsay. A young security guard escorted him to a private room.

'The poor guy's been in there since the docs pronounced his wife dead,' he said, 'The nurses need that room. I'm not trying to be a jerk, and given who they are, I'm willing to allow a little leeway, but if he doesn't leave soon...'

'I know,' Mac said, 'It's okay. You're just doing your job. It's not good for Danny to be here, and I'm going to get him out of here as soon as I can. Thanks for allowing him a little space.'

The security guard nodded.

'Anything I can do to help. We get a lot of cops through here for a lot of reasons. Was gonna be one myself but the wife didn't like the hours, or the risk. So, here I am. Nights like this, I can see her point.'

Mac nodded, and thanked the man again, just as his radio crackled and a voice came over asking for assistance back in the E.R. with a 'volatile patient'.

'Probably another drunk,' the guard grumbled, and left Mac outside the door.

Mac closed his eyes, took a breath, then opened his eyes and pushed the door open.

The room was a typical hospital room in many respects - from the institutional green of the floor, walls, bed curtain and covers, to the all-too-familiar antiseptic smell. But there were no beeping or whirring of life-maintaining machines.

Danny was sat on a chair by the bed, holding Lindsay's hand. Mac, for now, didn't let himself look at Lindsay's still form, not properly. Images flew through his mind.

Lindsay, so nervous that first day, calling him 'sir'. Lindsay, convincing him to bite into an onion. Lindsay and Danny getting married. Lindsay holding Lucy the day she was born in the hospital, her and Danny asking him to be godfather. His bet with Christine that Lindsay was pregnant again, and the look on Lindsay's face when she confirmed it. Mac couldn't believe that Lindsay, full of life, funny, tough, smart Lindsay who drove him nuts with her lengthy explanations and impressed him with the utterly weird facts and evidence she could come up with, was dead.

Danny was rigid in his seat, his head way down, his eyes fixed on his wife, murmuring her name over and over again, in an utterly hopeless, broken tone that struck a deep and painful chord in Mac. He remembered that utter despair and disbelief and helplessness from when he'd finally been forced to acknowledge there was no chance of finding Claire alive. That there would likely be no chance to even recover her body. He closed his eyes against the rush of remembered pain, forced it back.

'Danny,' he said. His voice was barely audible, and Danny hardly seemed to be in the room with him, so focussed was he on his wife, but at the sound of Mac's voice, his head whipped around. If seeing Danny from behind had been bad, the look on the younger man's face was a thousand times worse. Mac inhaled sharply, and again it was almost like looking into some horrendous mirror and seeing himself over ten years ago. Danny's eyes were wild with shock and disbelief, and fear.

'Mac...Mac...she's...she's... gone. Someone...she...the car came out of nowhere, it was so fast...they said she...she's dead, Mac. Can you...can you fix it?'

Mac's heart thudded in his chest. He simply shook his head at Danny's child-like, impossible, request.

Danny nodded, hard and fast, several times.

'No, you can't. I shouldn't have asked you that. No one can fix it. No one. I...Mac, I don't...how do I...what am I supposed to do? What am I gonna tell her dad? What am I going to tell Lucy?'

Mac wordlessly crossed the room. He leant down and wrapped his arms around Danny's shoulders. Danny let out a kind of strangled sob and wrapped his free arm around Mac in a desperately tight grip, his other hand holding Lindsay's still, as though he couldn't bring himself to let her go. Mac felt Danny's body shake violently against him, felt his tears soak through his shirt. He tightened his arms around him, and just held him.

He didn't know how long they stayed like that, but eventually Danny pulled away, wiping at his face with the sleeve of his sweater, which Mac now noticed was stained with dried blood that must be Lindsay's. He winced at the thought, and pushed it away.

'Sorry, Mac,' Danny murmured, 'sorry. I didn't mean to...'

'You have nothing to be sorry for, Danny.'

Danny nodded.

'You gonna tell me it's all gonna 'be okay'?' he asked, looking away from Mac, back at Lindsay.

'No,' Mac said, 'I'm not. It's not going to be okay, Danny. It's going to be fucking awful. But we're going to get you through this, and Lucy, too.'

Danny bowed his head momentarily at the mention of Lucy, and then looked up at Mac. Again, Mac was struck by the almost child-like dependence in his expression.

'You promise?' he asked.

'I promise.' Mac said.

'And we're going to get the bastard who did this?'

'Absolutely.'

'What do I do now?'

'You need to come with me, Danny.'

'No, no, no, no. Can't leave her. Can't leave her all alone. No. Not here.'

Mac rested his hand on Danny's shoulder, squeezed.

'Danny, it's just for a little while. Lindsay needs to be taken care of, and right now, we need Sid to do that.'

'But she needs me!'

'Lucy needs you, Danny. Lindsay would want you to take care of her, wouldn't she?'

Danny nodded, sniffed loudly.

'Yeah. I want...I want to see Lucy. I just...I want to be with her.'

'Then let's go. She's at my place, and you guys are going to stay with Christine and I for as long as you need.' Mac said.

Danny nodded, and slowly let go of Lindsay's hand. There was a knock on the door, and Sid entered. The medical examiner's shoulders were slumped in shock and grief, but when his eyes came to rest on Danny and Lindsay, he visibly straightened himself. He crossed the room, and nodded at Mac, then focused on Danny.

'I'm so sorry, Danny,' he said softly, 'I can't even begin to really express how awful this is, so I'm going to do the only thing that I can - I'm going to take care of...' he swallowed, and Mac reached out, placing a hand on his shoulder. Sid shot him a grateful look, then looked back at Danny, 'Lindsay. I'm going to look after her now. Will you let me do that?'

Danny looked at Lindsay for a long moment, then sagged against Mac, and nodded.

'Okay. I...I'm glad it's you, Sid.'

Sid nodded.

Danny leaned down and kissed Lindsay's forehead.

'I...I gotta go now, sweetheart,' he said, and Mac winced at the roughness of his voice, he knew those words must feel like broken glass scraping and scratching their way up Danny's throat and out of his mouth, 'But it's gonna be okay. I'm gonna look after Lucy, and Sid's going to take care of you now. And...I...I love you, Linds. God, I love you. I hope you know that.'

Danny turned to Mac.

'I need to see my little girl now,' he said.

'I'll take you to her right now,' Mac said.

They drove in silence to Mac's place. Danny slumped in his seat, his eyes closed, shuddering occasionally. Despite knowing the importance of getting information from Danny about whatever had happened, Mac had no intention of raising that just yet. Jo and Don should be able to get at least a few basics from various hospital staff that night, and he knew Danny was in no state to give any kind of coherent information right now.

He pulled up outside his building, switched off the engine, and lightly rested a hand on Danny's shoulder.

'We're here,' he said.

Danny nodded mutely, and followed Mac out of the car, into the building, and up in the elevator to his floor. Mac let them in to his apartment, and Christine was waiting. She came straight to Mac and hugged him fierce and tight briefly, before turning to Danny, and offering him a quick hug to which Danny responded mechanically.

'Lucy's in the spare room. You should be able to fit in the bed with her, or we have blankets if you want to sleep on the floor.'

'In the bed is fine. She asleep?'

'Yes.'

'Thanks, Christine. Thanks, Mac,' Danny said, genuine gratitude in his voice now. He hurried to the spare room and closed the door behind him. Mac watched, and when the door closed, allowed himself to slump back against the wall and slowly slide down it, suddenly utterly exhausted and spent. Christine was at his side before he'd even finished the slide down the wall, her arms around him, tight and sure. He dropped his head on to her shoulder and held her just as tight, pulling her to him. He finally allowed the tears to come, utterly unashamed to let this happen, and he was aware of Christine quietly crying as well.

He wasn't aware of how long they sat there like that until Christine said,

'I made some coffee. Do you want some, or do you just want to go to bed?'

Mac shook his head.

'Don't want to sleep,' he said, despite his exhaustion. He doubted any of them would sleep much, if at all, tonight, except for Lucy, thank God.

Christine nodded.

'Coffee, then. Come on,'

They stood together, and headed into the kitchen.

Just as Christine was pouring her own cup, there was a light knock at the door.

Mac opened it to find Don and Jo outside, both looking as devastated and shattered as he felt. He could tell Don had been crying as well as Jo.

'We're done at the hospital. Thought we'd come here. Jo said Danny and Lucy are here. You mind a couple more guests?' Don asked.

Mac managed a small smile.

'Of course not. Head for the kitchen, Christine's making coffee.'

Half an hour later, there was a second knock, and Mac opened it to find Adam. Adam looked at Mac helplessly, and Mac pulled him into a quick hug before letting him in and indicating he join the others. Fifteen minutes later, Hawkes showed up, and last of all, an hour after that, came Sid. Christine made hot drinks for them all, coffee for Mac, herself, Don, and Adam, and tea for Jo and Sid. She offered round a peach cobbler she'd recently made as well. Mac shot a quick, grateful smile at her as she served people, and she smiled back. She announced, in a tone that brooked no argument, that everyone would be staying right here for tonight, and enlisted Jo in a quick search for spare blankets. Mac's apartment wasn't all that big, but somehow they all found room, and they all spent that long, desolate night in the only place that seemed right, in Mac's home, together in the face of Lindsay's impossible absence.

Note:

Yikes, guys. Major apologies to all who liked, reviewed, and followed this story from Chapter 1. I hit writer's block with this one for a while, and got distracted by real life and other fics. So major thanks to anyone who reads this, and I hope you enjoyed it. I think it's moved back on to the front burner of my mind, creatively speaking, so I'm hoping to have more in the new year. I have 10 days off work for Christmas, so once the Yuletide insanity is over, I'm hoping to get in some good plotting and writing time. Thanks again. All comments and reviews and likes and follows are very much appreciated. Awesome Mac-hugs to you all.