A/N – This chapter is dedicated to all followers, favouriters and especially reviewers of this story. I had the most awful amount of trouble writing this chapter and it's ended up being my favourite one.
I should also say this story is set after season 9, like my other one, but I thought you probably would have got that as there was mention of episode 9x06 in the prologue.
Detective Flack and Detective Messer raced out of the house as soon as their freedom was granted. The bright sunlight hit their faces, blinding them so much that they had to squeeze their eyes closed against the glare. The intense heat of the day swept over them and they felt their bodies thawing from the icy coldness of the house. They were running so fast they almost plummeted down the steps and were in the process of sprinting away when they both slammed into something hard and fell to the ground in a tangle of limbs.
"Ow!"
"Arrgh..."
"Get off me!"
"My face!"
"What the hell?"
"God!"
"Move!"
"My foot!"
"Fuck!"
"You idiot!"
"Let go!"
"That's me!"
"Shit!"
"Ouch!"
"Son of a bitch!"
"My knee!"
"Stop it!"
"Urgh!"
"Oof!"
"Help!"
"My sunburn!"
"My stings!"
Danny stopped struggling as two words echoed round his head and recalled some vague notion of earlier that day. Sunburn...stings... Adam and Hawkes! It was Adam and Hawkes! He opened his eyes and blinked against the bright light of the late afternoon. As they slowly adjusted to it he became aware that he was sat on the dusty ground in a tangle of limbs with three other men, each of them clutching a different part of their anatomy. He, himself, was cradling his knee to his chest, hands rubbing over it soothingly. Flack was huddled over, holding his foot between his hands while he blinked against the sunlight. Hawkes was steadily climbing to his feet, hands scratching over his face, no doubt making his stings far worse than better. Adam was sitting with his back against the Avalanche, wafting air towards his face with his hands, trying to cool it down, tears in his eyes.
"Hawkes! Adam!" Danny gasped in disbelief.
"What?" Flack gawped as he blinked his eyes open and stared at the two men, still trying to get used to the light. "Hawkes and Adam?"
"Yes, Hawkes and Adam!" Danny replied, his mouth slightly open.
"Are they real?" Flack whispered to him.
"I don't know. They look real."
"Hawkes and Adam," Flack repeated incredulously.
"Yes. Hawkes and Adam," Hawkes stated loudly, astonished at the strange behaviour of the two men.
"What's up with you guys? Why are you acting so strange?" Adam squeaked as he clambered to his feet and leant against the Avalanche.
"Mess, why do they have a car with them?" Flack choked as he stared at it in horror, still not convinced that Hawkes and Adam were at all real.
"I don't know, Flack," Danny replied as he slowly got to his feet, ignoring the protestations of his aching knee.
"I get it," Adam said, laughing nervously. "This one of those weird jokes you guys always have going on that no-one else ever gets, am I right?"
"Not one of those," groaned Hawkes as he eyed the two detectives suspiciously.
"I don't think they're real," Flack stated, still sat on the ground holding his foot.
"Why not?" asked Danny, turning to look at Flack.
"They don't look very real," Flack shrugged.
Danny turned back to the other men and glanced over them. "I agree," he finally said.
"We should leave before they try to eat us," Flack stated wisely as he started getting to his feet.
"You know, we can hear you," Hawkes interrupted, glancing at Adam in disbelief.
Danny and Flack both swallowed nervously and glanced at each other before Flack cursed rather loudly and fell back down to the ground. His foot was hurting too much to put any weight on it. So much for leaving before he was eaten again. Immediately the fake Hawkes was by his side and trying to examine his foot.
"Get away from me," squealed Flack as he scrambled backwards over the gravel using his arms and good foot to escape.
"Hold still, will you?" Hawkes said crossly and grabbed hold of Flack to stop him from escaping. The detective tried to fight back but no longer had the strength in him and relaxed limply into Hawkes' grip.
"There, now let me examine you," Hawkes said calmly.
"Oh no you don't!" came a cry from behind him and the next minute Danny had thrown himself on top of Hawkes and was wrestling him to the ground.
"Get off me!" shouted Hawkes breathlessly as he felt Danny sit on him.
"Guys, what is going on?" Adam asked as he stepped nearer but still kept a good deal of distance between himself and the three other men.
"You're going to eat us," Flack stated matter-of-factly.
"No offence, man, but I'd rather have a burger or a steak than your scrawny ass," Hawkes' voice grumbled from underneath Danny.
"Why would we eat you?" Adam asked in confusion.
"Oh I don't know...maybe because that's what everything else around here seems to want to do... perhaps I just taste nice," Flack muttered sarcastically.
"Danny, do you think you could get off me? I can't breathe," Hawkes' voice complained.
"Don't get off him, Mess," Flack quickly said.
"No can do, I'm afraid," Danny replied to Hawkes.
"Um, okay guys, haha very funny," Adam laughed apprehensively. "But we should really be going now."
"Yeah. Like I'm going anywhere with you," Flack snorted.
Adam looked at everyone nervously and then laughed again. "I never get your jokes," he frowned.
"Why are you sitting on me?" Hawkes' voice moaned.
"Because you're not really Hawkes and Adam is not really Adam," Danny replied logically.
"And the Avalanche is not the Avalanche because you can't get a car down here," Flack added.
"Course you can, just down the driveway," Adam said timidly, pointing to it.
Flack and Danny followed in the direction of his finger and stared in horror as the saw a clear driveway disappearing between the trees in the direction of the entrance. They stared at each other for a moment and then started to take in their surroundings. The house was just the same, in an identical state of dilapidation as when they had first come across it earlier that day. But the garden...the garden was a mess. It was in an absolutely abysmal state, grass so long that a lawnmower would no longer be able to cut it, weeds climbing out of the bedding, and further back that never ending barrage of undergrowth and trees could quite clearly be seen, gone were the rhododendrons. Flack's mouth dropped open as he stared in amazement at how rundown the garden was, looking round in a big circle until his eyes once more fell on the driveway. It was by no means neat or well cleared, but it was possible to drive along it, and that was the point.
"Mess..." he choked.
"Yeah?" Danny whispered back.
"How's this possible?" Flack asked.
"I dunno."
"I'm confused."
"Me too."
"It's the witch, she's playing tricks on us again," Flack murmured worriedly.
"I'm sorry, did you just say witch?" Hawkes' voice scoffed incredulously while Adam started sniggering.
Flack didn't reply, he was still too busy gawping at his surroundings.
"Flack, I think we might have made a mistake," Danny finally said, shifting his weight off the doctor and onto the ground next to him.
"Well it's about time," Hawkes grumbled as he rolled over and sat up. He was covered in dust from the ground.
"Sorry," Danny said embarrassedly, "we just had to check it was you."
"What do you mean, 'if it was me'? Of course it's me. You really think if someone was pretending to be me they'd give themselves wasp stings? Or give Adam sunburn?" Hawkes scoffed.
Danny blushed and looked over at Flack who was busy examining a weed that had grown up through the gravel next to where he was sat. He seemed captivated by whether it was real or not.
"What on Earth have you two been doing?" Hawkes asked.
"Ummm...we..." Danny looked round hopelessly at Flack who was still sat on the ground, holding his foot in one hand and the weed in another and just staring blankly out at the garden. Danny realised he was going to get no help from him. "We were investigating," he finally said.
"Investigating?" Hawkes frowned as he stood up and began dusting himself off. "Who?"
"Oh, right," Danny said, shaking his head and trying to order his thoughts in a cohesive manner. "Denzel Caudwell and his mom, Elizabeth. We've been questioning her inside."
He looked proudly over at Adam and Hawkes, rather pleased with himself that he'd remembered why they'd been at the house of horrors in the first place.
"Denzel and Elizabeth Caudwell?" Adam asked, swapping a look with Hawkes.
"Yeah?" Danny's smile faltered as he saw the look between the two men.
"Danny... Mac and Jo arrested the both of them hours ago back in the city. They were holed up in a motel, Elizabeth had a bank card which she used to pay for it and that's how we traced them."
"What?" Flack interrupted, finally taking note of the conversation, he looked rather faint.
"I'm sorry, you found Denzel and Elizabeth Caudwell?" Danny asked, completely baffled by what was going on.
"Yeah. They're both down in lock up now. I watched Mac and Jo questioning them and Denzel admitted murdering the victim and Elizabeth was trying to help him to escape," Hawkes informed them.
"They weren't the brightest," added Adam, laughing slightly.
Both detectives looked grave and Flack's face had gone eerily grey with this latest piece of news.
"I don't feel so great..." he finally moaned.
Hawkes was beside him in a second, examining his face and looking him over. "Will you let me take a look at you now?" he asked.
Flack nodded in response and Hawkes started busily examining him.
"So what happened to you?" asked Adam, looking over Danny and Flack. "Why's he only got one shoe on and covered in bites and why are you wearing that weird suit and have blood on your face?"
"Oh," Danny frowned. He suddenly realised just how ridiculous his story would sound now that Denzel and Elizabeth Caudwell had been caught and were safe in lockup. "Well... actually...we're okay really. We just...um...got into a spot of bother...but we're fine now... really."
"Fine? You look stupid," Adam muttered.
"Yeah, thanks for that, Adam," Danny said sarcastically. God, Flack was rubbing off on him.
"Do we need to send some unis out here?" asked Hawkes while he worked.
"Nah," Danny quickly said. "We, umm, just got a bit lost in that old house and I fell down and some wild animals attacked Flack. We...errr...yeah...we stumbled upon their den and they got pissed...so we, umm...we ran away...and that's why we were running out of the house when you arrived."
Hawkes paused and eyed him suspiciously, as did Adam. "So why did you say you were questioning the suspect?" the latter asked.
"Did I?" Danny feigned surprise. "You must have misunderstood, I just said we were supposed to, that's why we were here."
"You do realise you've been out of contact for nearly five hours?" Hawkes interrupted. "We tried calling, emailing but got no response. Mac was going crazy so Adam traced Flack's phone and we came to find out what was going on."
"Yeah...like I said, we got lost," mumbled Danny, not quite meeting his eye.
"But the witch..." Flack murmured from the ground and all three men looked at him.
"Ignore him, he's just tired," Danny quickly said, moving over to sit beside Flack and slapping him on the back. The detective jumped violently.
"So you spent five hours in a house no-one lives in anymore because you got lost?" Hawkes said incredulously.
"No-one lives here?" Danny frowned, ignoring the question. "Are you sure?"
"Yep," Adam nodded. "Not since Denzel's grandmother died."
"W...w...what?" Flack asked in a whisper.
"During the interrogation Mac asked Denzel why he didn't come up here and he started acting weird, said something ridiculous about the house being haunted or some such nonsense," Hawkes explained.
"Yeah...total nonsense," Danny nodded, his eyes wide in shock.
"He said after his father disappeared his grandma became a total recluse, never going out and then he heard she'd died and came up here with his mom but said the place was haunted. I mean, I know I said I believed in ghosts but some people are just thick," Hawkes laughed.
"His father disappeared?" Flack murmured, more to himself than anyone else.
"Yeah, it was weird. We had a mugshot of him from like forty years ago and he looked really like you, Danny."
"What?" squeaked Flack, staring wide-eyed between Danny and Hawkes.
"What was his name?" asked Danny faintly.
"Oh, Denzel. Yeah, he was Denzel Senior and the guy we've got down in lock-up is Denzel Junior."
"And Denzel Jr.'s mother is called Elizabeth?" asked Danny, trying desperately to understand what was going on.
"Yes and no. She was originally called Harriet Galenski but after she married Denzel Caudwell Sr., he forced her to change her name to Elizabeth to honour his mother. According to the pair in lock up, Denzel Sr. had this really weird relationship with his mother," Hawkes told them.
"So...let me get this straight," Danny stammered. "No-one lived in this house except the grandma, Elizabeth, who became a recluse after her son, Denzel, who looked like me, disappeared and then she died and no-one ever found the son?"
Adam and Hawkes frowned at him.
"Well yeah, but that's not really the case. It's Denzel Jr. who killed the girl and we caught him. I mean, his fingerprints were all over the crimescene and then we got a confession," Adam said.
"Not to mention his mother Elizabeth who tried to hide him from us," Hawkes added.
"Danno, I don't understand," Flack finally said, having listened to the explanations.
"Neither do I, Flack," Danny replied. "Neither do I."
"Anyway that's enough talking," Hawkes said taking charge. "You two need to get checked over at a hospital. Your foot looks infected and who knows about you," he said nodding first to Flack and then at Danny.
"I don't think I can walk," Flack stated sadly as he looked at his foot.
"I'll help you, buddy," Danny smiled cheerily.
"Thanks, Mess," Flack returned the smile.
"I don't think you're in any condition to do that," Hawkes said severely eyeing his fellow CSI.
"Hey!" Adam suddenly interrupted. All three men stared at him but Adam ignored them, his eyes focused on something over Flack's shoulder on the steps to the house. "I think you have a stalker."
Flack blinked up at him in fear and then slowly turned around, dread filling his stomach at what he might see. There, on the steps to the house was a small, fluffy, sandy-coloured bunny with the bluest eyes that they'd ever seen.
"Robert!" screamed Flack in delight and pushed himself backwards towards the bunny and reached out towards it. The sandy rabbit hopped down the steps towards him and bounced into his open arms where Flack sat cradling it happily against his chest.
"That dude so needs to get himself a girl," Hawkes muttered in disbelief while the other two nodded.
"More than you know," Danny replied knowingly.
"Come on Flack, let's get out of here, you need to see a doctor," Hawkes shouted as he went over to help up the lanky detective.
Adam placed a strong arm under Danny's and lifted him to his feet where he balanced on his slightly better leg.
"You guys better go in the Avalanche," Adam suggested. "One of us can take your car," he said to Flack.
Flack stopped petting the bunny and looked up. "What?"
"Adam if you take Flack's car, I'll drive these two to the hospital," Hawkes agreed.
"No-one is driving my car," Flack stated.
"Come on, Flack, you can't very well drive it now can you?" Danny moaned. He wanted to get out of there.
Flack frowned and looked down at his foot. "I'll be okay," he grumbled.
"No chance," Hawkes stated severely. "You'll go in the Avalanche with Danny and me and Adam will take your car back to the city.
"Fine," Flack muttered but he wasn't happy. He was only agreeing so they could all leave the house and get back home.
"Are you taking that rabbit with you?" asked Hawkes.
"Of course I'm taking Robert," Flack replied as if Hawkes was stupid.
"You can't just steal people's pets, Flack," Adam said timidly.
"I'm not, he's mine," Flack stated as he hobbled over to the car with Hawkes' help.
"Don't you have a dog?" asked Danny, staring at the rabbit.
"Nah, I gave her to a neighbour. Didn't really have the time to walk her," Flack stated.
"And you're gonna have time to look after a rabbit?" Danny asked.
Flack frowned again. "Maybe Lucy would like..."
"No way!" Danny shook his head. "There's no way in hell I'm cleaning out a rabbit cage, it would stink. That's on you, buddy."
Flack shrugged and started to climb into the Avalanche. "Fine," he said smiling.
"You can't take it with you to the hospital," Hawkes pointed out.
"I'll leave him in the car," Flack suggested.
"And have Mac kill you?" Danny replied.
"I could drop him off at your apartment on my way back to the lab?" suggested Adam.
Flack sighed and stroked a hand over Robert's back. "Fine," he grumped, reluctantly handing the rabbit over to Adam. "But take care of him!" Flack warned.
Adam exchanged a look with the other two men and they all smirked. Big, bad Detective Flack had fallen in love with a cuddly, little bunny rabbit.
Flack sat on a hospital bed dangling his legs over the side of it, his foot wrapped up tightly in a white bandage. All his bites were covered in some sort of nasty cream that made them sting and his hospital gown itched against them. The doctor had informed him that he'd cracked three ribs and that he'd have to take it easy for the next month or so if they were to heal correctly. The doctor had then examined his hand and forearm with great interest as they were still glowing green from the plant drool that had landed on them. He'd been unable to come up with an explanation for it and could only suggest that it would go away eventually by itself. Flack had grumbled that he'd look stupid with glowing green drool over his arm for the next however-long-it-would-be but there wasn't much he could do about it. He'd been waiting in the hospital now for well over an hour and had not seen Danny once since they'd been taken away to be examined. He was grumpy, tired and wanted to get back home and collapse into his bed and not wake up for at least three days. Mac had rung and ordered both he and Danny back to the lab for a briefing as soon as they were discharged so there was no hope of that. On the plus side, Adam had also rung and confirmed he'd got back to the city and that Robert was now safe in Flack's apartment. Flack looked up as he heard the curtain being drawn back and grinned as Danny hobbled in on crutches and wearing an identical hospital gown.
"These old things again," the CSI joked, plonking himself down on a nearby chair.
"Join the club," Flack muttered and rolled his eyes, nodding his head towards his own pair that were balanced against the end of the bed.
Danny giggled and then smiled happily. It was nice to be safe and back in the city, alive and well.
"So what'd they say to you?" he asked Flack.
"Three cracked ribs, none of my bites were poisonous but I gotta rub cream on them all three times a day to stop infection. How the hell I'm gonna manage that I don't know. And my foot got infected and is kinda gross, you should have seen all the pus that came out of it. It has to stay like this for the next six weeks. Hello desk duty, goodbye life," he grumped.
Danny chuckled at him. "Join the club. My knee won't be healed for a good six weeks either but the good news is that my head injury was superficial, no concussion and there was no sign of any snake poison in me."
"And the bird scratches?"
"They'll heal with time. Nothing too strenuous for the next few weeks though."
Flack nodded understandingly and sighed despondently at the thought of spending the next few weeks behind a desk. It was alright for Danny he could still get on with all that science stuff he loved so much but he, well, he had nothing to do but push papers round his desk.
"They give you any idea when we can get out of here?" Danny asked.
"Nope," Flack mumbled.
Danny nodded and looked around. Flack's cubicle was just as dull as his own had been.
"Did we imagine it all?" Flack finally asked after quite some time of silence.
Danny thought he looked worried. "I dunno...I mean, we can't have done...we've got the scars to prove it," he replied gesturing to their injuries.
Flack looked unconvinced about whether or not it was real. "But Hawkes said Mac caught Denzel Caudwell and his mom, Elizabeth. He said that the only people who lived in that house were the grandmother, also Elizabeth, who died and her son, Denzel Sr., who disappeared."
Danny fidgeted for a moment before voicing his concerns. "So you think we met the dead grandmother and the reason her son had disappeared was cos he died and she stuffed him or something?"
Flack shrugged and looked confused. "It sounds so stupid now we're back in the city, but what other explanation can there be?"
"So we're going with ghosts?" Danny asked incredulously.
"It sounds a hell of a lot better than a witch, an alive house, a stuffed son and a bunch of crazy plants and animals."
Danny nodded in agreement. "What about those stuffed people? You think they were real or we imagined them?"
Flack frowned as he thought about it. "I don't know. They could have been there from when Elizabeth Caudwell was alive. I'm gonna use my desk time to check out missing persons."
"Good idea," Danny nodded.
"What do we tell Mac though?" Flack asked worriedly.
"That we drove up to find the house, where there was no signal, but it took us ages cos we got lost. Then when we finally got there it took us ages to explore the house, I fell over, hurt my knee and had to change into some clothes I found cos I got wet. You got chased by a load of wild animals that attacked you and stole your shoe. Simple."
Flack stared at Danny in disbelief. "So basically we're blaming my driving?"
Danny rolled his eyes and smirked. "Shut up," he laughed.
"There's not a chance in hell he's going to believe us is there?" Flack asked seriously.
"Nope," Danny replied. He and Flack exchanged smiles.
"At least the killer was caught and the case is closed," Flack mused.
The two men sat in a comfortable, relaxed silence mulling over the day's events and if what they'd experienced had truly happened. If it wasn't for their injuries they'd both have thought they'd dreamt it. Maybe it had been a dream, maybe there had been a gas leak in the house and they'd imagined everything, hurting themselves in the process of being high on the gas. Whatever it was, the real tale that they remembered seemed ridiculous now they were back in the city.
"Flack?"
"Hmm?"
"We gonna talk about what happened back there?" Danny asked quietly.
Flack blinked and looked at Danny. The CSI was staring solemnly back at him and Flack knew exactly to what Danny was referring.
"I dunno, Mess," Flack shrugged as casually as he could.
"You gave up on me a bit back there," Danny said softly.
"Guess so," Flack muttered.
"You really wanted to die?"
"Not really. You were right, it was probably just all the emotion of what was going on..." Flack excused.
"Don..." Danny stated severely. "I'm your best friend, you can tell me anything."
Flack sighed and looked down at his hands. He began to fiddle with them nervously.
"I just miss her, that's all."
Danny nodded in sympathy. "I know you do. I still miss Louie. Linds still misses her girlfriends, Mac still misses Claire."
"I guess it's just normal then," Flack replied.
"You still think you deserve to die?" Danny asked carefully.
Flack blinked and smiled but he didn't look up. Danny eyed him cautiously, he didn't want to upset his already overwrought friend but he was still worried. He'd had no idea Flack had been feeling like this at all until today.
"I think I deserve some sort of retribution for killing a defenceless man," Flack murmured.
Danny swallowed and closed his eyes for a moment. He wasn't entirely sure what to say. He'd known about Flack killing Simon Cade from the moment he'd met him on the stairs just moments after it had happened. They'd never spoken of it, he'd got the impression Flack had never wanted to and if he was honest that had suited him just fine. He'd been busy with regaining the use of his legs and with Lucy growing up, and then the stuff with Shane Casey had happened. After that he was working towards his sergeant's exam and once he'd passed he barely saw Flack. After that it had seemed so far in the past that he'd never brought it up and neither had Flack.
"I would have done the same," Danny said quietly, watching Flack as he spoke.
"What?" Flack choked as he looked up at Danny.
"If someone killed Linds...or Luce. I'd kill them. No matter who they were. I know I would."
Flack smiled unconvincingly. "You don't know that, Danno."
"Yes I do," Danny said forcefully. "Without a doubt."
He stood and pulled up his crutches before hobbling over to Flack and standing in front of him.
"You will always be my brother, Flack. After my Ma, you're the closet thing I have to a relative."
Flack nodded and looked down but didn't speak. Danny had the impression he might be too overcome with emotion.
"And I will always be here for you, as I hope you would be for me?"
"Course I would," Flack said quietly.
"And you gotta problem, you tell me, okay? You lean on me, no matter what's going on in my life."
Flack nodded his head.
"You ever feel like what you said back in that house you come straight to me. Any time, any day, any place. You got that?"
Once again Flack nodded.
"Cos if you weren't around then who would be godfather to my son?"
Flack stared up at Danny, his eyes wide in surprise. "Son?" he choked.
"Yep," smiled Danny.
"And you want me..."
"There's no-one else I'd rather have."
Flack sniffed trying to blink away his tears and then he dropped his head once more, unable to say anything. He simply nodded his head in joy at what Danny had asked of him.
"I love you, Don," Danny said sincerely.
Flack looked up with tears in his eyes. "I love you too, Danno."
Danny couldn't do much on his crutches but he didn't need to. Flack wrapped his arms around the smaller man and hugged him close.
"Thank you," he murmured.
"Anytime, Flack," Danny replied.
"Hmmm..." Flack hummed.
"Hmmm?" Danny questioned.
"My bites hurt..."
"Well then let go, you idiot!" Danny laughed.
"Worth the pain," smiled Flack.
"Come on, bud," Danny replied, moving himself away from Flack so he wouldn't be touching his skin. "We gotta keep some degree of masculinity."
He hobbled back over to his chair and sat down, sighing happily. Things were once more right with the world.
Flack coughed.
"What's up?" Danny asked.
"Well I was just thinking..." Flack smiled.
"What about?"
"Oh... just then when you mentioned masculinity..."
"Yeah?"
"Well... about those extra few inches you said I had on you..."
Danny sighed in exasperation. Maybe things were once more right with the world, but he'd forgotten that meant Flack's usual wit was back in full force.
"I meant height!" he exclaimed.
"Whatever, Mess!" Flack giggled.
A/N - Just an epilogue left to go of about 2,000 words. But I am working on 3 other stories atm.
