Author note: thank you so much to everyone that has reviewed this story so far, your input and encouragement means a lot to me. I do apologise for the glacial rate at which I'm writing this, I've had a busy few months. Hopefully some of you will put up with my slow updates. Any comments/criticism of the characterisation would be helpful (as I've never written CSI:NY before). Hope you all enjoy this, its once again in Danny's POV, except the last bit, but it's clearly labelled.

Please review, reviews are the tickle-fights of fanfiction, you say 'stop!' but you never mean it!

I was busy when Mac knocked on my door a week later, so it took me a while to answer. I assumed that that's why he was frowning as I opened it, "Hey Mac, what's up? Come on in."

He stepped inside still looking around curiously.

"Erm, Mac?"

"Oh. Er..." Mac shook his head as if clearing away cobwebs, "What were you doing before you came to the door, I could hear some very strange noises?"

I suddenly realised why he had been confused, "High pitched?"

Mac nodded and I grinned and beckoned him towards Lucy's bedroom.

She sat rocking happily with he fist in her mouth, drooling copiously. When she noticed I'd returned, she squeaked, giggled and wrapped her podgy little arms around her stomach.

"Hi Lucy." Mac smile affectionately at her before returning to face me, "so it was Lucy I could hear? What were you doing to her?" Mac looked at me curiously and back at Lucy who again giggled with a look of mischief on her face that wouldn't have looked out of place on her mother's.

I shrugged and answered, "Tickle fight."

Mac's face broke into a smile, although he tried to look serious and stern as he asked, "Isn't it cheating slightly when she can't fight back?"

"You would think so, but she started it!"

Mac frowned and opened his mouth to ask further but stopped as Lucy giggled at his rapidly changing expressions.

I leant into the cot, picked her up and explained, "I was watching the Mets match last night and she was on the floor playing with her blocks until she decided my feet were more fun!"

Mac laughed now and tickled Lucy's chin as she beamed at him.

I shifted her onto my hip and asked, "So... social visit or"

"Oh, right." Mac looked as if he had forgotten where he was, never mind why. I could see written plain on his face the strain he had been under with Lindsay's absence. He was silent a few moments longer, during which he played with Lucy's fingers. In the end it was to her he addressed his words, "You should be getting your mom back soon."

I saw her face crumple, and I wrapped her into a hug. Some combination of the tone of Mac's voice and the word 'mom' had resonated with her understanding of Lindsay being gone. She snuggled fiercely into my shoulder, seemingly trying not to cry. "Nice one Mac."

"Sorry." He looked awkward as I shushed and comforted Lucy, before I spoke again.

"So? You have news?"

"Yes. Or more to the point Adam does. He thinks he's perfected his tracking programme, it certainly worked on his and Hawkes' phones."

I struggled to catch my breath and was only brought out of my shock by Lucy wriggling in my grip. It seems she'd decided to forgive Mac and wanted to be held by him. I handed her over to him and sat down heavily on the rocking chair, almost knocking myself out in the process. I looked up at Mac and whispered, "He can find her?"

Mac smiled down at Lucy, who appeared to be trying to climb up him, before meeting my eyes "He can trace where her phone has been since she's been missing, it isn't a quick process as he has to trawl through the historic data, but the programme he's written speeds it up considerably. So if we can find where her phone has been, since we know she was with her phone two weeks ago..."

I sighed out a breath I didn't realise I'd been holding. "When will we know?"

"The programme takes at least 24 hours to run, longer if there are multiple locations."

I felt like a balloon was inflating in my chest, I tried so hard to stop it. I knew that although this was good news that there were no guarantees. There was still every chance we would find her body rather than... I pulled myself from that train of thought, remembering what Flack had said to me just the other day, 'You're not giving up now, she'd kick your ass for that!'

Mac was looking at me steadily, patiently waiting for me to recover my voice.

I cleared my throat, which had become swollen with a painful mixture of hope and fear, "You'll let me know..."

Mac cut me off, "As soon as we know. I promise."

I nodded, incapable of further speech. Mac kissed Lucy on the forehead and deposited her back in her cot, much to her displeasure, and quietly let himself out of the apartment. I sat in the quiet for a while wondering where Lindsay was now, and whether she knew they were still looking and getting closer.

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Lindsay's POV

As I became conscious again I hoped with all my soul that today would be one of the days he didn't come to see me. There were about as many days that he came as ones where he didn't. I think of them as 'days' but I suppose I don't really know, I've long since lost track of time and with only minimal lighting in my 'cell' the distinction between night and day has blurred. I simply slept when I could, and I seemed all the more tired in the recent days. I know why, malnutrition and dehydration were weakening me, almost to the point of no return. With this in mind I chastised myself for praying for a day with no visit, because a day without a visit was a day without water. Sometimes he even brought food for me, but whatever he brought for me he never left without inflicting some degree of pain to my already battered body. He always beat me, on every visit, despite the fact that I'd stopped fighting him a long time ago. I had hoped that resisting the urge to fight him would mean I would be freed sooner rather than later, but now... Well now I just spend my time thinking of Danny and Lucy. I try to stick to the good memories I have, and not dwell on the things I'll never see. I had no way of knowing how long I'd been held in this dark cold pit, but it seemed to me that day by day the room was getting colder, 'Perhaps,' I thought to myself, 'Fall is ending and changing to Winter.' I tried to put out of my mind the idea of how different Lucy was likely to be if I ever saw her again. I paused before muttering, "when, not if..."

I was dragged from my musing by a scraping sound by the door, the sound of a lock being removed. I shuffled backwards against the cold, wet stone and tried to make myself as small as possible. Not that it helped, but I couldn't stop myself from going through the motions of self-preservation. The door swung open and I was momentarily blinded by the bright light of the corridor and I shuddered as I heard the, although now familiar still, cruel voice announce, "We're going to have visitors soon, let's make you look your best."

I looked up with my last ounce of curiosity, just in time to receive a blow straight to my nose. I felt the next two blows before the world went grey and fuzzy, and slid sideways into blackness.

Please review, reviews are the tickle-fights of fanfiction, you say 'stop!' but you never mean it!