Disclaimer: CSI NY and its characters belong solely to CBS and Jerry Bruckheimer. Only the original character Morgan Messer is mine.

Spoilers/Ep. references: #1.13 - "Tanglewood", #1.21 - "On The Job", #1.22 - "The Closer"

Sorry for the long wait! Had quite a case of writer's block...hehe. Hence the less-than satisfactory chapter. Ugh. Anyways, hope you readers will like it, and please leave a few words of comments when you're done. Thanks!

-Eleven-

"I'll go up on my own," Morgan said after Flack had pulled up outside her apartment building. "Thanks for the ride."

However, being the gentleman that he is, Flack insisted on walking her up so Morgan had no choice but to agree.

"Fine, but only up to the lift landing of my floor, okay?"

He seemed puzzled as to why she was acting a little secretive—after all, this wasn't a date. "Danny doesn't know?"

"I take your silence as a yes."

"Yeah, we aren't really back on talking terms yet. Besides, I'm not sure how he would react to it."

"He'd freak even if you went out with a platonic male friend?"

Morgan rolled her eyes and answered, "Yeah. Don't remind me about that. Ugh."

Flack chuckled. "Bad experience huh?"

"The guy walks me up to the apartment after a dinner; Danny opens the door, shoves him inside and starts to grill him as if he were my boyfriend. What do you think?" Morgan said indignantly. "I was so embarrassed that it took me a week before I talked to my friend again."

"Are you still friends?" Flack asked. "Yep, but now when he drives me home, he drops me off outside the building and drives off promptly."

Both of them chuckled as there was an understanding of what Morgan's remark meant.

"Um, thanks for the movie treat," Flack said nervously as they rode the elevator up to Morgan's floor. He'd offered to pay, but she wouldn't let him, stressing that it was a treat to thank him for helping Danny out. In fact, they almost caused a tiny commotion arguing over who should pay for the tickets a while earlier. The elevator doors flew open just as Morgan replied, "No problem."

"Um, you can go now," she added, her hands waving in a gesture that said "Go, go!" Morgan smiled sheepishly as Flack laughed quietly at the memory of her bad experience. "Okay, see you at work."

"Yep. Oh, it's late now so drive carefully, okay?"

Even though it was only an innocent show of concern for a friend-cum-colleague on Morgan's part, it kept Flack smiling for the 15-20 second elevator ride and also throughout the half hour drive back to his own apartment.

XXX

Danny had been home for the past hour or so and was eating his usual microwave dinner in front of the television when he heard the sound of keys rattling outside the front door. He promptly got up and opened the door for Morgan. They smiled awkwardly at each other and Morgan inched past her brother to go to her room. "Late night at work?" Danny asked, and Morgan's immediate reaction was to answer yes.

He cleared his throat discreetly and Morgan knew that she'd been busted. "I went by the AV lab on my way out to see if you needed a ride, but someone told me that you'd left already," Danny said.

"Okay, fine. I was out—with a friend." Morgan did not know why she felt she had to keep it from Danny that she went out with Flack, but she did.

"Oh," he answered as Morgan stopped at the kitchen to grab a bottle of water. Just as she took a big sip, Danny continued, "Flack?" which made her spit out the water in surprise.

"How did you know!"

"I kinda overheard, um, Aiden talking."

"To me?" Danny had already returned to his dinner, eyes transfixed on the television. Morgan took this as a sign that he did not want to confirm nor deny it—which meant that it was possible that he'd either heard Aiden talking to her, or talking to someone else. This wasn't important at that point though, because Morgan was concerned about something else—Danny's reaction—or rather the lack of it.

"Aren't you gonna freak that I went out with a guy?" she asked.

"Well, should I have something to worry about when you're out with Flack?" Danny answered without taking his eyes off the television screen for even a single moment. He then surprised Morgan by flashing a small smile. "Guess we're talking again."

Morgan glared at her brother without answering his question and walked into her room.

"You didn't answer my question!" Danny called out.

Morgan stepped out of the bathroom after a shower and heard sounds coming from the television, indicating that Danny was still there in the living room. She walked over to the sofa and sat down, while drying her wet hair with a towel at the same time. "Late night movie?" she asked nonchalantly and her brother nodded without glancing at her.

"I thought we're back on talking terms already?"

"I guess." Danny replied in that same nonchalant tone Morgan had used earlier. A mischievous glint shone in her eyes and she flicked her still-very wet hair at Danny, who tried to dodge the water droplets to no avail.

"I hate it when you do that."

"Now we're talking!" Morgan grinned, and it seemed to be infectious because Danny smiled a big smile for the first time in a few days—he hadn't smiled much since the shootout happened.

"And, I got you to smile." Another sign that things were finally okay between them was when Danny reached out a hand and ruffled her hair as usual.

"By the way, you didn't answer my question." Danny suddenly asked, and Morgan contemplated ignoring the issue but knew that he would not give up that easily.

"Flack's a nice guy, so you don't have to worry that he'll do anything inappropriate, okay?"

"Does that mean you'll be going out with him again in future?" Danny shot back, and Morgan was surprised to hear him say that, because she hadn't realized that what she said had implied so.

"I…I…I don't know." She replied offhandedly, but her stuttering somewhat gave her away and Danny's new-found smile turned into a frown. "Why? Do you have a problem with that?"

He didn't answer, and averted his eyes back to the television. Frustrated with his behavior, Morgan cried out, "Oh, come on! The movie's not even interesting, why bother pretending!"

"Fine. I admit I do have a tiny, little problem with that."

"What! Isn't Flack one of your good friends?"

"Yeah, but he's a cop."

"So are you."

"No, I'm a CSI."

"You carry a NYPD badge, and a gun. Not that much of a difference."

Danny took a deep breath and exhaled deeply, but did not shoot back a reply at Morgan.

"Oh, I get it. You're afraid that if I end up dating Flack, and something—touch wood—bad might happen to both of you and I'll be left alone?" Morgan said, her tone going softer as she reached the end of her sentence. "Yeah, somethin' like that," was all Danny answered.

"Does that mean that you plan to remain single until you retire from your job? Since you probably wouldn't wanna risk the same thing happening to your other half in future."

"You know what happened just the other day. I could've gotten away with injuries much worse than a bleedin' forehead."

"Danny," Morgan reached over and held his hand gently, "What happened that day wasn't your fault. You didn't kill that cop."

"Besides, I think if a woman really loves you, she would be willing to take the risk of losing you, rather than having not known you at all."

With that, Morgan gave Danny a little nudge and stood up to return to her room. "Don't stay up too late, okay?" she called out just as she entered her room.

'You almost lost me once already; I can't let anything happen to myself again. Don's a good friend, I know I can trust him to treat you well, but I don't want you to risk losing him in the line of duty. We've lost our mother, and our father is just the same, lost to us as we are to him. I can't let you go through the pain of losing someone close to you anymore than you already have.'

Danny wanted to say all this to his little sister, but the words never did find their way out of his mouth. He didn't know if Morgan and Flack's friendship was going to develop into anything romantic, but if it really came to that, he wanted Morgan to be sure that she was willing to take the risk that comes with the job. If she was not sure, he'd rather she give up the relationship, than to get her heart broken without any warning.

"Sassone, I don't care if you kill me. I want out, now."

"Kill you? Oh no, I wouldn't do that. 'Cuz your little sister would be left all alone, and you wouldn't want that, do you?"

"Don't you dare touch her! I'll fight you if I have to."

"Fight me? Who do you think you are, Messer? I decide what to do with you, not the other way around!"

"What must I do before you'll let me out? I'll agree to anything. Just promise never to lay a finger on my sister, or I'll kill you."

"Easy. No one has ever left the Tanglewood gang—alive, that is."

"You wanna challenge me to a fight?"

"Me? Nooo. It's gonna be the rest of us—against you. If you can get out of it alive, you're out."

Danny was obviously on the losing end, but he desperately wanted to get out of the gang, he'd agree to any condition Sonny Sassone laid out—even if it meant his life. He'd rather die trying to get out of the gang than to die in a gang fight, or in jail. If he really did die, he would have Morgan know that he died doing the right thing—at least she'd be able to live with the knowledge that he was not a criminal, just a kid who took a wrong step but realized his folly quickly and tried to make things right. He wanted out. Even if that turned out to be the very last thing he would do.

It was a tough fight; it was obvious that Sonny Sassone never intended Danny to leave the gang alive. But Danny held on--even when he felt like giving up—for Morgan. "She needs me, I have to hang on!" He repeated this in his mind over and over to keep him going, even when his strength had run out, and all he could do was to stay conscious while the gang tried to beat him to death. If he could only stay conscious, then there'd be hope of seeing Morgan grow up into an adult, a beautiful woman worthy of only the best. Just as he thought that the beating would never end, Sassone yelled for his gang to stop. They dragged him into a car and drove off, only to throw him out of the car by the roadside in a secluded area.

"Let's go. He won't be alive for long."

Sassone was confident that Danny would never be able to survive such a brutal beating—he was wrong. Danny's will to live was strong, he held on in the faith that he would be able to live a normal life with Morgan after all this was over. Never would Sassone expect that not only Danny survived, he even became a law enforcer—a CSI, at that.

The gang left him for dead on a quiet road. Lying on the rough asphalt ground, bleeding everywhere, he tried to drag himself up to his feet. There was only one person he could call for help now, and if he could only hang on long enough to find a phone—Sassone had taken his wallet and other belongings away, hoping to disguise the beating as a robbery, perhaps—he could call that person for help.

XXX

"Danny, we've got a case. Guy found dead in his car at the stadium." Aiden poked her head into the break room where Danny was just about to have a cup of coffee, and then they headed out to the entrance to meet up with Stella, who was coming back from the morgue.

"I thought you had a case this morning?" Danny asked.

"Classified as an accident. Case closed!" Stella and Mac had just returned to the lab after investigating a case where a woman was run over by a truck, clad in only her underwear. They suspected foul play at first, but Dr. Hawkes' autopsy results disproved that.

Baseball season was in, and the man found dead in his car was a fan from Boston who had come down to New York City in support of his home team. Unfortunately, while Boston won the match against New York, Gilbert Novotny. ended up dead shortly after the match ended. "Boston fan in the Bronx. He's very brave," Stella commented, to which Danny replied, "He's stupid, very stupid. Boston's tough, New York better get it together," The three investigators shared a laugh before getting down to work proper. It was going to be a long day for Danny. What a day for him to relive his memories of the times when he used to play baseball, when he'd just had a dream the night before which made him recall the events leading up to his exit from the Tanglewood gang. Although Danny had gotten his wish of leaving the gang, the consequence was that he could not play baseball again, due to the injuries he'd sustained on his wrist, among other places in his body.

"How does a potential shortstop become a crime scene investigator?" Aiden had asked while they were walking down the steps of the stadium seating area to get to where the victim was last seen alive.

"That's really easy. You get into a fight, break your wrist and then graduate from the police academy top of my class," Danny's reply seemed a little vague, but Aiden thought little or nothing of it as she replied, "You're dangerous, Danny Messer," in the light-hearted tone she always used when the two of them were talking.

"Very dangerous." Danny added, and the both of them chuckled.

XXX

"Where's Morgan?" Danny asked when he stepped into the AV lab the next day and saw Aiden at the computer, analyzing footage from the baseball game again—instead of his sister.

"Oh, she left work early. I heard she was busy working on some surveillance footage from Thacker's case all day and managed to give them a lead to work on,"

Aiden was going through the footage for the second time in two days; the first time was to establish a connection between the victim Gilbert and Margo Trent; whose hair had been found stuck to a baseball found in his car. Incidentally, Trent was the woman run over by a truck in the case that Stella had handled earlier. This time around, they were trying to find someone who could've possessed the strength that dealt Gilbert the blow that claimed his life. Danny was applying an ice pack on his shoulder which was aching from all the pitching he had done earlier—Mac had roped him in to try and determine the strength and speed a baseball could pack in order to make a hole in the door. The reason for this is because a search of Margo Trent's apartment turned up a baseball, which someone apparently threw so hard, it caused a hole in the bathroom door.

Even though his shoulders and arms hurt like hell, his wrist injury, luckily, was not aggravated. Danny was only hurting all over due to the lack of practice, since he hadn't pitched ball for a few years now, starting from the time he'd entered the police academy. Just then, his cell phone rang, and he winced a little while he reached into his pocket to retrieve it.

"Danny! Are you okay?" came a voice through the earpiece of the phone. It was Morgan, who had obviously heard about his little pitching exercise.

"I'm fine, except for an aching shoulder. Don't worry."

"What about your wrist? You could've injured it again!"

"Since when did we switch places with all the nagging? I'm fine. Go home and take a rest, you've had a long day."

"Okay, if you say so. Just don't expect me to give you a massage when you get back."

With that, Morgan hung up. She tended to forgo the obligatory goodbye greeting when she was not happy with something people said over the phone. Probably one of her many quirks, Danny thought to himself. She may have sounded harsh, but Morgan rarely kept her word. Usually, she'd end up doing what she said she wouldn't do, like doing the dishes, helping him with his work at times, etc.

Danny smiled to himself a little, knowing that chances are, he'd be able to get a massage from his sister when he got home, even though she just pretty much swore not to give him one just moments before.

"Hey, I've got something!" Aiden cried out, and Danny turned his attention back to the case.

I had to "think tough" again for the flashback part, hope it was okay. Man, I am so bad at talking tough. LOL! Thanks again for reading and please keep checking back for more!