A/N Well, aren't you all lucky! Two chapters in one day! I hope you all enjoy!

XXX CSI: NY XXX CSI:NY XXX CSI:NY XXX CSI: NY XXX CSI:NY XXX CSI:NY

"What do you have for us, Flack?" Lindsay asked as she and Sheldon ducked under the crime scene tape and approached the homicide detective in the hotel corridor.

Don finished barking out instructions to two uniformed officers, then turned his attention to the two CSI's. "Welcome back, Monroe," he offered with a warm smile. "You deliberately pick a full moon for your first shift?"

"Luck of the draw," she sighed.

"Well, you've been missed. Hard to believe it's only been eight weeks you've been out."

"Ix-nay," hushed Sheldon.

Flack furrowed his brow. "What?"

"No, I'm fine, Shel. I can do this," said Lindsay, her tone full of determination. "What are you doing here anyway, Flack? I thought you were on days this week."

"I am, but there's a heat wave and it appears half the squad's out on holidays. So, yours truly got the call – four hours early. Noelle was not impressed."

Lindsay laughed softly. "So, this is the vic obviously. What happened?"

Don pulled out his notebook. "Uh, Lara Milano, twenty-seven. Checked in two days ago, here from Ohio for a conference being held here at the hotel. One of the other guests found her when they came up to their room an hour ago."

Sheldon crouched down beside the body of the young woman, clad only in a tank top and underwear. "Throat was slashed. Bled out almost immediately."

"Anyone hear anything?" Lindsay asked Don.

"Of course not. That would make us inconsequential, wouldn't it?" he deadpanned.

"Well, there are no defensive wounds, no signs of struggle. And from the blood trail coming from her room, she was killed inside. Probably recognized her killer, let him in. He then came out, and she tried to get help but collapsed just outside the door. She would not have been able to even call out," Sheldon hypothesized.

"Did she know anyone here in the city?" Lindsay inquired further.

"Don't have any of those details yet. Now that you guys are here, I'll go see what else I can find out and let you do your thing," Don suggested.

"I've got the room, Hawkes. You take the body?"

Sheldon nodded.

Once Lindsay had taken her kit inside the hotel room, Flack looked at Sheldon inquisitively. "What was that about earlier, with the twins?"

"Oh, well, she called Danny five times on the way over here to make sure they were fine. I don't think she's convinced he can handle them for an entire shift on his own."

Don smirked. "Ah. A little separation anxiety."

"Mom more than babies."

Don nodded.

"So, you were at Noelle's?" Hawkes inquired with raised eyebrows. "Things are going well, I take it."

"Good observation, Doc."

"So, when do I get to meet her?"

"Soon. Let's grab drinks at Sullivan's sometime this week."

"Sounds like a plan."

"Good. Well, I'll let you science geeks do your thing and see what I can find out." Leaving Hawkes, he walked over to the open hotel room door. He rapped softly. "Hey, Linds, you want any coffee or somethin'? Maybe some Prozac?" he teased her.

She glanced over her shoulder from where she was photographing a blood pool. "Ha ha, very funny, Flack."

"Liv and Matt will be fine. Dan, well, he's another story. Seriously, though, I'll grab you a coffee, huh? Or maybe some tea? It's gonna be a long morning."

Her expression softened. "Thanks."

He went to leave, but then stopped in his tracks. He walked into the room, careful not to step on any of the blood trail, and stepped up beside her. "Oh, one more thing. Hand over the cell."

"What?"

"C'mon. If Mac needs anything, he can call Hawkes. You're just going to use that thing to keep calling Danny. Hand it over."

She scowled.

"It's four in the morning, Linds. Nothing's gonna happen at home. But if you keep calling to check up on 'em, you're gonna drive everyone, including Hawkes and me, nuts. Give it up."

"You're being ridiculous."

He raised his eyebrows at her, trying to squelch the amused grin that was tugging at his lips.

Realizing he was not going to let this go, she grudgingly reached into her pocket and pulled out her cell phone and handed it to Don. "You're bossy," she muttered. "No wonder it took you so long to get a girlfriend. And don't think I won't tell Noelle about this."

His laughter followed him outside and on his way back down to the lobby.

Finished with his interviews and canvassing of the area a couple of hours later, Don was heading back up the stairwell to check in with the CSI's when a strange ring tone filled the air. He furrowed his brow as he pulled out his cell. Quickly realizing it was Lindsay's and not his that was ringing, he laughed and answered without glancing at the call display. "Jeez, Messer, you really are helpless, aren't ya? She hasn't even been on duty six hours yet."

"Don?"

He narrowed his eyes. "Noli?"

"Is something wrong with Lindsay? Is that why you've got her phone?"

"Uh, no, no, she's fine. What're you doin', callin' Monroe this early in the morning?"

"I was up. I remembered it was her first shift back, so I thought I'd just see how she was doing. I know what it's like, that first day,"

"You're too nice to be a New Yorker, you realize that," he teased her.

"You're just too cynical. She doing okay?"

"Now. But she called Danny five times on her way to the scene apparently. I confiscated her phone."

"It's natural, Don. I called Jennie about ten times."

He hesitated for a moment. "You up because you're worried about breakfast with your folks?"

"Maybe. I never really got back to sleep after you left."

"Sweetheart, I could go with you."

"No, I need to do this myself. And I owe them a heads-up about you. But thank you."

"I love you, all right? I'll be thinkin' about you."

"Thanks. Tell Lindsay to call me if she needs anything or wants to talk, okay?"

"Will do. And you call me when you get home, okay? Let me know how things went."

"And what number should I call?" she kidded.

"Cute. Later, doll."

Three hours later, Noelle was apprehensively standing on the front porch of her parents' home, one hand holding Katie's, the other fidgeting with the Jerusalem Cross she wore around her neck. She kept telling herself that it in the end, she was delivering good news. But knowing everything that she was going to be bringing up to get there made her hesitate. She wished Don was with her, but she knew that was something she had to do by herself.

"There are two of my favourite girls," Jack Hansen smiled as Noelle and her daughter finally walked in through the front door of the house.

"Morning, Daddy," Noelle replied, accepting a kiss to her cheek.

"How's my little chief?" he asked his granddaughter, crouching down in front of her and poking her nose. "Does Grandpa get a hug?"

Katie hugged her grandfather eagerly with a giggle.

"Ah, that's my girl." He kissed her cheek, then stood back up and appraised his daughter. "You look good, chief."

Noelle smiled. She gave her father a hug as her mother joined them in the entryway. "Hi, Mom."

"Good morning, honey. And there's my beautiful grandbaby. Katie, I think you've grown another inch." Sarah Hansen bent down and picked her granddaughter up. "Well, your father has been whisking up his prized pancake mix, so why don't we all go into the kitchen."

Sarah was a stout and beautiful woman of sixty-three. The years had been kind, her greying hair looking more blonde, her deep brown eyes warm. Her husband had a good five or six inches on her, his previously blonde hair now white, his frame still lean.

Settled in the kitchen, Noelle watched affectionately as her parents worked in tandem to fix breakfast. She held Katie on her knee, listening as the little girl babbled on in a language only she understood, occasionally the words she had been learning sliding through. Noelle felt a sudden surge of strength as the picture in front of her was evidence that things really did work out the way they were supposed to.

"So, uh, yeah, I've been seeing someone," she blurted out.

"You mentioned that," her mother replied as she set a pitcher of syrup down on the table. "I take it things are going well by the look on your face."

Noelle could not help the grin that played on her lips. "Yeah, they are. He's amazing."

"We'd like to meet him," her father piped in, glancing over his shoulder after her poured batter onto the grill.

"I'd like that, too."

"What does he do, sweetheart?" he mother inquired.

"Well, uh – Don, he – He's a homicide detective." She took a sip of the coffee her mother had placed in front of her. "He's third generation NYPD. His dad was a homicide detective, too, at the time he retired. But a long time ago, he was a beat cop out of the 2-5." She took a deep breath. "The, uh – The man I've been dating, his name is Donald Flack, Jr. He's the son of the officer that worked your case, Mom."

At the revelation, both of her parents abandoned the tasks at hand and looked at their daughter.

"Small world, huh?" she laughed nervously.

Her mother moved over to the table and sat down.

"You okay, Mom?"

"Yes, I'm fine, honey. It's just been a while since I've heard Office Flack's name."

"I knew this was going to come as a bit of a shock." She looked down at her daughter, who was paging through a picture book oblivious to the situation surrounding her, before glancing back at her parents. "But Don's a really good man. He's so great with Katie, and she adores him."

"And he makes you happy," her mother observed.

Jack flipped the pancakes over, then turned and leaned against the counter. "His father was a man of integrity. I'm not surprised he is a good man, too. And as long as he treats you right and makes you happy, that's all that matters to us."

"He does. And I want you guys to meet him." She took a deep breath, relieved. Though, she was not quite sure how to broach the other issue she had. She decided to let them absorb this first admission first, and wait until her dad was not standing in front of an appliance with the capability of scalding him.

However, once Katie was settled in her highchair, and her parents were digging into the meal, Noelle found she could not eat, despite the fact that her favourite breakfast was sitting in front of her. Her stomach was in knots.

"Noelle, honey, is something wrong?" her father asked, setting down his fork and studying his daughter.

"No, nothing's wrong. I just – I don't know how to get into this." She furrowed her brow.

"You know you can talk to us about anything, sweetheart," her mother assured her.

Noelle pushed her plate away and sat back in her chair. "I never knew the name of the cop who testified that day in the courtroom. I didn't figure out who Don was until I saw a picture of his family a couple weeks ago. I recognized his father and it was then that I made the connection. And it – Well, it brought up a lot of stuff for me. But it wasn't just that. The whole process to adopt Katie, you know…I love her more than anything, this person that I have no biological link to. But there's always questions. I know she's going to have lots of them as she grows up. And I just – I've had some questions of my own for a long time." She had been fidgeting with her napkin, nearly shredding it, and she finally just released it, lifting her gaze to meet those of her parents.

Sarah had tears in her eyes.

Jack reached over and took his wife's hand. Neither of them needed Noelle to spell this out for them. They knew what she was talking about. They had been carrying this around themselves her entire life, and waiting to have this conversation since she first heard about the rape. "Noelle, we never meant to keep anything from you."

"I know that, Dad. And I didn't bring any of this up to place blame or anything. I understand more than you know about the choices you have to make as a parent, and the desperate need to protect your child." She bit her lip. "And this has never had anything to do with my love for you, Daddy. But I just had to know."

"You're speaking in the past tense," Jack observed a little warily.

"I took a DNA test. Don has a friend at the Crime Lab, and there's a way to run a DNA sample against what's in the system to see if there's a relational match. If I was William Alton's biological daughter, there would have been a match. There wasn't." She reached over and put her hand over the intertwined fingers of her parents. "I'm your daughter, Daddy. In every way. We don't have to wonder anymore. There's no question."

"Oh, God. Thank God," Sarah sighed, releasing a breath she had not even realized she had been holding.

When her father did not say anything, Noelle furrowed her brow. "I'm sorry I didn't come to you guys first. I just – If it had gone the other way, I'm not sure what I would have done. But I just – I had to know."

"We were afraid to find out," Jack finally said quietly.

"I know, Daddy. But now we know. And maybe now, finally, William Alton's hold over this family will disappear."

Jack shook his head slightly. "Noelle, we know we should have talked to you about this a long time ago. You should not have had to carry this around all by yourself for all these years."

"If this family is guilty of anything, it's being overprotective. I think I was trying to protect you as much as you were me. And poor Mark was somewhere in the middle. But maybe we can just let it rest now," she said, full of hope. "Things are as good as they've ever been for all of us. And I really can't wait for you to meet Donnie. You'll see that he really is a wonderful man."

It was hours later before Don was able to pick up the message Noelle had left on his cell phone, having been stuck in interrogation for four hours with a possible suspect that in the end they had to let go. His frustration with the case was eased as soon as he heard her voice: "Hey, baby, it's me. I guess you're out catching the bad guys. I just wanted to tell you that things went well with my parents and everything's good. And since you made most of this happen, I just wanted to say thank you. And I love you. Call me when you get a chance. Love you. Bye."

"Give me my phone back or I'll wipe that smirk right off your face," Lindsay ordered with a scowl as she caught up with him the corridor.

Don chuckled, pulling her cell from his suit jacket pocket and handing it over. "You out of here?"

"I was supposed to be out of here two hours ago," she sighed. She looked at her phone to see there were no missed calls nor waiting messages and furrowed her brow.

"Give Messer a little credit, Linds. He loves those kids. They'll be in one piece when you get home."

She hated to admit it, but she knew he was right. Despite her yearning to get back to work and out in the field, there was a part of her that wanted to believe her family could not get on without her while she did it. The realization that they could was difficult for a control freak like her to handle. "I take it that was Noelle on the phone," she observed, changing the subject.

"That obvious, huh?"

She smiled then. "Yeah, you look different when you're around her or thinking about her. She's good for you."

"That she is. Give Liv and Matteo a kiss from their Uncle Don, huh? I got a case to break."

Whistling, Don headed back to the pit, while Lindsay shook her head a little incredulously before she made tracks and left her first day back to work behind her.