Disclaimer: No infringement of copyright is intended. All characters originated with CSI:NY. Poetry not otherwise referenced is original.

A/N: As always, thanks to the people who review, the people who read, and the many wonderful people who listen to my endless doubts and worries about this story.

Spoiler Alert: Spoilers for Seasons 2 & 3, up to and including "Silent Night".

To the Bone

Each conversation, you slice a little closer –

Paring away the comfortable layer

Of insulation I work so hard to maintain.

A nick here, another there,

The slow inconsequential bleeding

Of all the ways I protect myself from

The too strong glare of scrutiny,

The flare of too public study.

A pound of flesh does not satisfy you;

You collect the scraps in one test tube,

The blood in another:

Add compounds at will, mix and

Wait

To see what happens.

You grow full of confidence and knowledge

And I fade

Into

Insubstantial

Disembodied

Film

SMT2007

Chapter 37: Inspirited

To: Aisha Blanco

From: Adam Ross

Subject: Coffee

Hi – yeah, my hand is fine, don't worry. The ice did the trick no problem. I had a really nice time talking with you tonight. I thought it might be weird, you know? But it felt good. I can't believe you are into Second Life though. Lame, A, very lame.

So, what do you think? Dinner tomorrow? My treat – your choice.

Just remember I'm a civil servant, okay? Not a computer programmer for a hotshot publicity firm? I'm willing to spring for a great dinner, but I still have to pay my rent!

A

Adam hit send just as his IM alert beeped. He clicked on Aisha's picture and laughed when he read her status: Aisha is crawling out of her skin: if found, please return.

Hey there he typed.

Dinner tomorrow – some place intimate? I promise to keep the rent check safe. You might need to scrounge food for the month, of course appeared on-screen.

Happily, Adam settled down to the second part of his first date.

-CSI:NY-CSI:NY-CSI:NY-CSI:NY-CSI:NY

"Come on, Danny. Are you going to tell me you've never checked someone out when you shouldn't have? You've never used all that stuff you know to find out more than you should?" Nikki had watched him shrewdly as the colour rose in his cheeks, adding more sugar to her coffee before digging in enthusiastically to the piece of apple pie smothered in ice cream the gum-snapping teenager had placed in front of her.

He had shaken his head anyway. Checking out what had happened to Lindsay in Montana was not the same thing – he and the team had been helping her. If anything, they had been checking out the Bozeman Police Department, and he thought with a pained grimace he wished they had done a more thorough job of it.

"Not for personal gain, Nikki, I can't. Especially not for someone in the family. But," he had raised his hand in anticipation of her protest, "I can give you a name. He's an ex-cop, used to partner a friend of mine. He's a good guy – a good cop. Gone private now – does mostly security work. He should be able to do a decent background check – find out enough for you to know whether you need something deeper or not." He had waited patiently for the sullen nod he had known was coming – Nikki really couldn't have expected anything more if she had been thinking about it.

She had grudgingly taken the piece of paper with Gavin Moran's name and number on it. They had chatted casually about family and people from the neighbourhood for a few minutes before Danny had pushed himself out of the booth.

"Look, Nik, I gotta go. It was good seeing you again. I hope … I hope this guy is one of the good ones. I mean, you deserve that. You deserve to be happy."

He had grabbed the bill, then turned back, "Nikki? Do you remember Rosa Fiorelli?"

After a moment's thought, Nikki had nodded, "Vaguely. She disappeared when we were about 15, didn't she? She was two, three years older? Louie's age? I was in school with her younger sister, Kat."

"You ever hear what happened to her?"

"Naw. She just disappeared. It important?"

"Don't know. Maybe." Danny had shrugged and gone to the till to take care of the cheque.

He knew, even without Mother Stella's voice now ringing in his head, that he should have just gone back to Lindsay's apartment, where she would be waiting, silent, worried. But when he had walked out of the diner, his feet had automatically turned down the street to a certain alley behind a neighbourhood store where a quick youngster could make a few bucks no one would know about as long as he could keep his trap shut. Then down another street until finally he was standing at the corner lot where most of his childhood had been spent and wasted.

Here he had learned his reflexes were unusually strong. Here he had learned that friends were nothing compared to team-mates. Here he had learned no one cared who your father was, or wasn't, as long as you could catch the ball and throw it accurately enough often enough to ensure a win every time.

Here he had lost his virginity under the rickety bleachers – the taste of beer and blood from biting his tongue still linked to the smell of dry rot and garbage and sex. Here he had held the dying body of his first, perhaps only friend from the neighbourhood, shot by an idiot boy trying to be cool.

There was no excuse, Danny thought tiredly, no issue to face or feud to answer to. Not even any real anger or hatred to face off against. Just a bunch of stupid boys playing at wiseguys and ending up with two dead and three in jail for life. A split second decision: a lifetime of regret.

Summed up the life most of them had led, really.

His feet had carried him on without thought to his parents' place. He had stood in the shadows across the street, watching his mother's silhouette move against the curtains – back and forth, back and forth – until he was reminded of a tiger in its cage, driven mad by loneliness and seclusion, by the unbearable weight of the sameness of day-to-day living.

He had stared up at the apartment he had grown up in, a little shocked by the knowledge that had flooded him. He knew, had always known, his mother was unhappy. Could it be that she was really more than that? Had she been suffering from depression or some other mental illness?

And would that make his memories of childhood easier to bear? Or immeasurably harder?

Memories of the caged tiger had led his thoughts inexorably to Lindsay. And when he had finally moved, stiff and cold to the marrow, he had realized he did not have his phone and could do nothing to ease the worry he knew she would now be wrapped in.

He glanced a little guiltily at the bedroom where Lindsay was still sleeping peacefully. She had not said a word the night before when he had stumbled in the door, shaking with cold, and, he was chagrined to admit, exhaustion. She had simply hugged him fiercely and disappeared into the kitchen to start a pot of coffee. He had not even known she had been on the phone to Stella until Stel had tackled him that morning at the diner. He hadn't known about Stella bullying Lindsay into talking with Flack's friend Tony Reagan. He had only heard about that after texting Flack early and asking to meet at the gym.

Having come full circle in his thinking, Danny returned to his list, a slight frown on his face. Reagan? Why did that ring a bell? Something to do with Nikki. He closed his eyes and thought back to the conversation of the night before, bringing his trained memory to the task, consciously seeking out and bringing smells and colours to mind, then tuning in to Nikki's voice.

"You'll like him, Dan. He's sweet. And clever! He was at seminary for a while, long enough to get his teacher's certificate, but he was never meant for the priesthood. It would a crime against nature to for a man that fine to waste himself in the church." Danny could hear Nikki's salacious laugh. He could hear the jukebox, Sinatra crooning about wishes coming true and Trevi fountain.

His eyes were still closed when Lindsay cleared her throat.

"Danny? You okay?"

His eyes flew open and he said, "Seph Reagan."

Lindsay blinked, "Sorry?"

He shrugged and stretched out a hand to pull her closer. "A name I was trying to remember. Why are you awake?" His arms wrapped around her as he snuggled her body tight between his legs.

"I got cold." Her arms went around his neck and she dropped a kiss on his upturned face. "You okay?"

"Of course. I just couldn't sleep. I didn't mean to disturb you – you had a lot of sleeping to catch up on." He ran a gentle hand up her back, pulling her onto his lap.

She sighed, and relaxed a little, trying not to hurt him by putting any weight against him. "I'm good. No dreams."

"Not even of me? I'm hurt, Montana," he teased, treasuring the smile she bestowed like a prize for good behaviour.

"Do you need me to move? I'm not sure there's room enough for you, me, and your ego in the same chair," she teased, laughing as he rolled his eyes at her.

"What's this?" She caught sight of the paper he had been writing on, and pulled it over, curiously.

He moved as if to stop her, but stopped as a trace of hurt crossed her face. With a deep breath, he wrote in "Seph Reagan" next to Nikki's name, then drew a line and wrote "Father Tony?" He picked the paper up and handed it to her.

Lindsay, engrossed in the web of names and connections, moved to a chair next to Danny. His disappointment at the loss of contact was lessened somewhat by her look of concentration, the same look he had watched for months in the lab, the same intensity he had fallen in love with.

"Danny, this is your uncle and cousin, right?" Her finger traced the line between the names. He nodded. "And who is this?" Her finger stopped on the name Danny had just written in.

"Nikki's new boyfriend. Gino isn't happy, which is no big surprise. He hasn't liked any of her revolving boyfriends. Nikki is a little unsure too – she asked me to check him out."

Lindsay looked up, worry in her wide eyes. "Danny, you aren't going to, are you? I don't think Mac would like it. In fact, I'm sure he wouldn't…"

Danny interrupted before she began hyper-ventilating. "Linds, I haven't compromised the integrity of the lab since …" he paused when she opened her mouth, "Okay, since Hawkes was framed by Shane Casey. But that was completely justified, especially since I was right, and I just … bent … the rules a little," he said, with a slight frown at her smile.

"Oh-kay," she said, drawling it out with a hint of laughing doubt in her voice.

With a sniff, Danny looked at his web of connections again, then glanced at the clock on the kitchen wall. "Two am?" he said in shock. "Geez, Montana, you should be sleeping." His body was rocked with a sudden, head-splitting yawn.

Lindsay stood up and this time made no attempt to hide the laugh. "Why don't you come with me, make sure I get some sleep?" She pulled him up out of the chair and moved very close to him, raising her face to his, her breath fanning across his face, "Eventually?"

-CSI:NY-CSI:NY-CSI:NY-CSI:NY-CSI:NY

Stella was sitting on a bench outside the hospice, huddled in her warm coat as spring and winter battled it out on the New York streets: the residual warmth of the day quickly cooled by blustery wind seeking out exposed flesh. She had seen Dora Flack arrive with a tall dark woman who could only be one of Flack's sisters supporting her tenderly. She had waited patiently, almost unthinkingly, not worrying about the passage of time or the stares of passers-by. She had simply sat and waited for what was going to happen next. For once, she had given up control.

It could have been half an hour, it could have been two hours, before Flack stumbled out the door of the hospice, sitting heavily down on the concrete stairs of the building and resting his head on his knees for just a moment – just one deep breath's worth. Then he scrubbed his hands briskly over his face and looked up, across the street, straight into Stella's deep green eyes. She stayed where she was, not sure her legs would hold her up.

She could see him breathe deeply again, then push himself to his feet. Slowly he walked across the street. Slowly he sat beside her. Slowly his hand reached for hers, clutching it like a lifeline when she wrapped her fingers in his.

She leaned her head on his shoulder, waiting until his laboured breathing calmed. Finally, he spoke, "He's sleeping. My mother and my sister Marie are sitting with him."

She nodded silently.

"I never thought about it, you know? He seemed indestructible. And now I have a list of the hymns he wants at his funeral to give to Tony. Fucking hymns, Stel. Abide with Me and Be Thou My Vision." His voice broke on a quickly swallowed sob. He rubbed his free hand over his face. "Remember when those stupid reporters put me on TV? Few weeks ago?"

Stella squeezed his hand. Less than a few weeks ago, actually – time was weirdly compressed and lengthened these days. "Super-Cop." The picture with the little boy Flack had rescued, the memory of which still squeezed her heart.

Flack snorted in disgust. "Yeah, and didn't he ride me for that one! Remember what Mac said about the shots of my dad?"

"That stock pictures and footage of well-known personalities are archived for obituary purposes."

"He went into hospital the day before we picked Dan and Linds up from the airport."

Stella tried to hold them in, but the tears defeated her, forcing their way out under her eyelashes. She bit her lip; tears were not her prerogative.

"Shit, Stella." Leaning forward, head in his hands, Flack finally gave in to his own rage and grief, and Stella held him through the wrenching awkward tears of a man unused to crying.

When he could breathe again, when he could stop the shaking, when he could sit up, she cupped his face in her hands and kissed him on the mouth. "Let's go talk to Tony, Don."

It was his turn to silently nod. It was time.