Hello my glorious readers, once again, thanks for the feedback, keep it coming, and I still don't own csi ny and any related…stuff, but the original characters are mine, all mine! Once again (again)warning for violence, swearing, the usual. I'm not sure if Danny is supposed to be Italian American because I don't know if the name Messer is Italian but based on what we know of the character, I'm saying he is.

R+R.xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Flack strode through the lab, or tried to. The atmosphere was subdued to say the least, with one officer dead and another missing, the CSI's and cops where far from upbeat.

No one made small talk, every utterance had purpose carried a meaning relevant to the case. In one lab, Aiden and Stella scoured Sylvester's clothes for any kind of evidence that might lead them to Danny. Mac was sitting near them reading through Vince Pencamo's criminal record to try and find any clues that would corroborate whatever trace Aiden and Stella picked up.

Flack joined them, settling carefully into a chair "You should be at home" Mac told him, barely looking up.

"Yeah, well" Flack shrugged on his good side.

"Okay" Mac put his file down "How in the hell did this happen?"

"Murphy and Tia collected everybody's statements and put this together" Flack pulled a folded sheath of paper from his inside pocket. " We also got the surveillance footage from the hospital so what I've figured is; at about 12:30 pm, just as Danny was dressing to leave, our guy Vince and his chunky buddy who we still know only as Boxer, pulled into the parking garage under the hospital. They got in by claiming that they where here to visit a sick aunt on the OAP ward. At about the same time, our friend Sylvester Schiabetta walked into the ER and asked where recovering patients would be sent. Since he didn't ask for Danny specifically, no body tried to stop him from getting the elevator up to the fourth floor. While he rode up, Vince and Boxer climbed up the stairs and waited for Sly on the landing by the door.

"Sly acted like he was trying to find a particular room and just wasn't sure where he should be going, but with the amount of cops hanging out outside Danny's room it was fairly obvious where he needed to go. Jackson Mayhew was in Danny's room helping Danny with his sneakers because Danny couldn't bend over too good" he paused briefly, moving his injured arm "Jackson was gonna escort Danny down to my car too so we could take him to the safe house. Jackson wasn't on duty; today had been his day off. He had offered to stay with Danny in the safe house today because his wife took their kid to visit her mother, and 'cause he and Danny are friends anyway. Jackson had walked out of the room and turned around, I assume to say something to Danny, which is when Sly stepped up and shot him point blank in the head. As soon as Jackson was down, Sly grabbed a hold of Danny and used him as a shield while he headed for the stairs. This whole thing came out of no where so none of the cops could react in time and by the time they could get their guns up, Sly was hiding behind Danny" he stopped again, actually having to grit his teeth as a wave of pain gripped him.

"Flack, are you okay!" Aiden asked, taking a half step toward him.

"Yeah, it just…itches" he lied slightly.

"It was about a minute later that me and you got to the floor Mac, and we chased 'em, and you know the rest" Flack finished.

Mac nodded and picked up the file. "Well, I don't like to say when I don't have something to compare it to, but the jacket we saw Vince wearing, the black leather one, I'm very sure that it's the same jacket that the scrap of leather under Danny's nail came from"

" And I've already compared the shoe prints from both the original scene and the photo of the bruise on Danny to Sylvester's shoe's that we got here, they're a match, Sly's going to prison for a loooong time "Aiden stated, pursing her lips as she leant back over the blood stained shirt.

"Did you get anything off've the clothes yet?" Flack asked.

"Some stuff that ties him to the original scene and victim, and some other stuff that'll probably be perfect in context, we just don't have the context to put it in" Stella told him.

"How do you mean?"

"Well we have some dirt from his shoes that I can see just by looking doesn't come from the original scene, it's a different colour, texture. And there's other stuff that I still need to get back from trace before I can even say what it is" Stella said.

"And there's this" Aiden announced as she stood up straight, a pair of tweezers held in her right hand. "Its some kind of fibre…it could be from rope…" she sniffed it "Believe it or not, it smells" she frowned. The 'fibre was actually a few fibres tangled together. It had been tangled around a button of the shirt.

"It smells?" Mac stepped beside her, matching her frown "Of what!"

"Of…salt and…is that fish…and oil, motor oil? It could be off a boat, I think it's been used to tie off a boat…" Aiden looked questioningly at Mac.

"You can tell that by smelling it!" Flack asked doubtfully, a sudden wave of pain making him grit his teeth again so that the question came out more aggressively than he intended.

"What, I know how salt, and fish, and oil smell, and when I smell them together I think 'boat'" Aiden snapped defensively.

"Hey I wasn't doubting you Aid but don't you need all that…spectro analysis stuff to figure out what it all is?" Flack shot back.

"We do need to do a proper analysis to be sure but she's right Flack, I think this came from a boat too" Mac said, his voice low and calming.

"Okay…so get the analysis done and make it official and since I'm not technically on duty and therefore cant go out in the field and smack people around until they tell me what I want to know" he took a breath " I'm gonna read through Vince's and Sylvester's files and see if either have had anything to do with a boat" Flack sighed.

As Aiden left with her sample, Mac and Stella followed to check on how far the lab techs had gotten with the other evidence that had been collected both from Danny's room in the hospital and the parking garage.

Flack sat down with the files. "Boats" he mused as he opened the file "boats, boats, stinkin'boats"

"You gotta be kidding me" Danny deadpanned as Chuck actually helped him out of the backseat of the jeep which he had been riding in for well over an hour. "Vince it's a boat? You got a running theme?" he asked.

"It's just somewhere where we won't be bothered" Vince assured him.

"Bothered? Why, what are we doin?" Danny asked, hoping he could stall them for as long as possible. He pulled a new pair of glasses form his pocket and checked to see if they where broken. They seemed to be okay, so he slipped them on gently.

"We're just gonna…reminisce" Vince grinned.

Danny shivered. He wore jeans, sneakers and a t-shirt under what was now a blood spattered hooded sweater and it had started snowing again. Plus, ever since he went in to the water at the original scene he had yet to feel truly warm, a side effect of immersion in almost freezing water which the doctor had assured him would wear off in time.

He had blood on his face too. He could feel it, dry and itchy on his skin. His ribs hurt, his arm hurt, his head really hurt and he could feel that funny heaviness again on one side of his head. It wasn't as bad as it had been back on that rickety dock, but something was wrong, he could tell.

"Hey Vince, I'm not really in the mood for reminiscing" Danny called, probing his head with one hand. His hand shook as he touched his own head, and he had a sudden strong visual recollection of Jackson Mayhew smiling at him at split second before Sylvester put a bullet in his brain. Danny remembered blinking as Jackson's blood splattered all over hi face, total shock freezing him long enough for Sly to move in and grab Danny.

He could feel a cut, a deep one, and his hand came away bloody. He realised that a lot more of the blood on his face and sweater was actually his than he had thought.

"I don't really care what you feel like Danny" Vince said with that same cheerful grin, "We're going on the boat, we're going to reminisce" he stepped up to Danny, grabbed the collar of Danny's sweater.

Danny staggered a little as he was dragged. Some childhood instinct kicked in and he ducked this way and twisted that way and his collar slid from Vince's hand easily. He took a step back out of Vince's reach, looking down at the floor but turning his eyes up to watch Vince's reaction. The move came right out of the part of his memory Danny had labelled 'cute kid escapes'. It was one of a million manoeuvres Danny had employed as a kid growing up in New York to get out of any number of bad situations. They could include being dragged to the principal's office for slugging a classmate, usually Vince, or Danny's dad dragging him back to the apartment after finding him hanging out with Dino and Howard. Dad may have been into all that but he didn't like the two kids who got a kick out of the tiny blonde kid who wasn't afraid of anything.

The moves where most useful when rival gang members decided that they wanted to make an example of a Tanglewood boy, and not knowing that Danny wasn't a fully-fledged member, they often picked on him. If there where enough of them, they could hurt him pretty badly, and he had spent more than one night in hospital thanks to his affiliation with the gang. But a lot of the time, the thugs would underestimate him. They would be dragging him along to some alley somewhere to kick his ass and he would twist out of their grip. Sometimes he just cut and ran. But sometimes, if the mood took him, he would stand and watch them the way he did now with Vince. He knew how useful it was being an under sized little blonde kid with huge blue eyes. Plus he could cry on cue. On more than one occasion he had fooled some Peckham bay heavy into feeling guilty about trying to beat up a little kid. Then when they moved close enough to apologise he would jump on them, fists flying. Then later on after the cops where called he would play the cute card again and they would take pity on the poor little boy who got jumped by the cruel bullies.

He doubted crying would help him now, but he knew how harmless he looked standing alone in the snow. "What's that, 'Messer's patented escapes number five?'" Vince asked, turning to face Danny full on.

"It's a habit man, I don't like being dragged around like a five year old" Danny explained, glancing around out of the corners of his eyes. They where near to the commercial docks, on the outskirts. There where one or two warehouses in the immediate vicinity but Danny could see them from where he stood and they looked derelict. He tilted his head slightly and saw a distant parking lot, half filled with cars. It looked to be the parking space for a massive warehouse, beside which some kind of a tanker was docked. Danny tried to calculate the distance between his current location and the dock, which would undoubtedly be packed with people. His workings came up with a simple answer 'too far'.

He stepped back again. He knew they had guns, but he had to wonder if they would be prepared to shoot at him if he ran.

Vince was watching him carefully. "Don't try it Danny," he warned, "You might be fast but you're not that fast"

Danny glanced briefly at Vince then back at the lot. "I could put money on it that you won't make it Danny!" Vince said.

He didn't move closer, nor did Chuck. They both watched him. Vince had told Chuck about Messer after they had found out he was still alive, told him what to watch for if Danny wasn't being held.

"You wont shoot me Vince, I know you wont, you shoot me and everybody in that dock is gonna come lookin" Danny said quietly, his voice almost distracted. He was mentally checking himself, minutely moving each muscle, tensing and un-tensing to see where the pain was. His legs where sore and he knew they where bruised but that wouldn't impede him if he ran. His ribs where painful enough to cause him problems, but he knew he had run farther and faster with worse injuries before. His head worried him. There was a faint ringing in his ear now, and without touching the cut he knew he was still bleeding. There was a tingling feeling accompanying the heaviness, running up and down his neck as if someone where touching him with a feather.

"Maybe I don't care if people come lookin, huh Messer? You ever think about that? I want to mess you up anyway, killin you now wouldn't be as fun but it'll be the same outcome as if we got to…reminisce" Vince sneered.

"Well shit Vince if you're gonna kill me anyway then what have I got to lose" Danny half smiled.

"Don't you run Danny boy, don't you dare!" Vince snapped.

Danny awarded himself a smile. Then he ran, bolted from a standing start to a full on sprint in one fluid movement that Vince only saw because he knew what to look for.

Chuck missed it completely and yelled "Hey!" as Danny made a beeline for the lot.

They chased him, following his exact route across the broken, cracked tarmac but they still stumbled over the warped ground.

Danny was sweating, more from the pain in his ribs than anything else. He could taste the metallic tang of blood in his mouth, and every time his foot hit the floor he felt the impact on the wounded side of his head.

He clenched his teeth together and ducked his head, racing forward. He could here Vince behind him, yelling at him to stop. "Don't make me shoot you!" Vince shouted, but Danny knew him to be bluffing.

He risked a quick glance behind and was surprised to see Chuck steadily gaining on him. As he neared the lot he could see that a new looking chain link fence that was easily 12 feet tall surrounded it. 'This is like bein back at the ball parks when a brawl breaks out' he thought to himself as he got within two feet of the gate and jumped forward, hitting the gate 3 feet of the ground. His ribs and broken wrist screamed in response and the wave of pain almost made him black out. He forced his fingers to grip the links of the fence and dug the toes of his sneakers into the gaps, thanking God and not for the first time that he had small feet. He began to climb, every movement eliciting an angry protest from his ribs and wrist as he hoisted himself up. He was gasping hard, the taste of blood in his mouth stronger than before. Sweat poured down his face, mingling with the blood and stinging his eyes. He couldn't believe how hard this was. In his battered condition he understood what it was like to be physically unfit and made a promise to the god of gyms that he would never skip a gym date with Tia again if he could just make it over the fence. He reached up and felt air, and realised he had reached the top. He pulled himself up to the top of the fence and paused there, meaning to get his breath back, but the dizziness that had been pulling at him as he climbed the fence took the opportunity and washed over him in a wave. He tipped sideways and fell the full twelve feet to the other side of the gate. He landed on his back, performing a minor miracle by holding his own head high enough to keep it from smacking against the floor too hard but it still hit, and it still hurt.

All the air whooshed out of him and he lay on his back, totally unable to breathe for what felt like an eternity. Then his body's survival instincts kicked in to play and he breathed in, rolling onto his side and up onto his feet before he had even finished drawing air into his lungs. He was staggering, bumping into cars as he tried to run and breathe at the same time, and now he actually was spitting up blood. He could feel something rattling in his chest and every drawn in breath felt like sucking pins into his throat and chest.

He heard some one hit the fence behind him and half turned to see Chuck struggling to get a toe hold on the fence. Danny cursed, wanting to cry in frustration.

"You take your time Messer "Chuck laughed "I'll be there in a second"

Danny gave Chuck the one finger salute, then turned and kicked the nearest car. His foot connected with the hood with a satisfying thump and almost immediately the car's alarm screeched to life.

Danny staggered over to another car and repeated the process, snickering a little wildly to himself. He was far from clearheaded, but he knew that the car alarms would draw people's attention.

"Give it up Messer!" Vince yelled as he reached the fence "No ones gonna come help a little runt like you!"

"Fuck you Vince!" Danny shouted back hoarsely, "You and your pet gorilla!"

He kicked another car and another wave of dizziness staggered him, landing him on his butt.

He sat for a second, panting, wondering if he three cars at the far end of the lot was enough and if he could just lay down here and sleep for a while. The heavy feeling in his head was growing and he was having a hard time keeping track of what he was actually supposed to be doing. He frowned at his own hands and struggled to his feet slowly. Something in his jeans pockets dug into his leg as he stood, and he dug his hand into his pocket. He looked back to see that Vince and Chuck had cleared the fence and where moving toward him slowly.

Danny remembered why he was in the lot and kicked the car nearest to him, running away as he pulled his hand free of his pocket. What he held in his hand almost made him stop dead in his tracks. It was a cell phone. It was ultra thin, compact…Jackson had given it to Danny a minute before he died. It was an emergency replacement, one with specially adjusted range so he could use it across long distances. He had been given it because he was going to a safe house and…he couldn't remember the rest but it wasn't important, he had a phone.

He wanted to cry again, with joy this time. He ran toward the other end of the lot, where the majority of the cars where parked, flipping the phone open and turning it on. It beeped as it started up and he crouched amongst the denser collection of cars. He scrolled through the numbers in the phone, almost laughing out loud as he found Mac's, Aiden's, Stella's and Flack's cell phone numbers. He said a prayer of thanks to Jackson Mayhew for thinking ahead and pressed dial on Flacks number.

Don Flack rubbed at his eyes as he scoured the files, trying to find anything to add to what he already knew. He had found evidence that Vince could have access to a boat as he and a friend who had since been sent to prison for drug trafficking, had purchased a boat together six years ago. But Flack couldn't find out where the boat should be docked. There was no record of it having a slip at any of the commercial docks around the city, which could mean that it was illegally docked somewhere, but the question was where.

Flack slipped his wounded arm out of the sling and slowly rotated his shoulder, sighing with relief as the joint popped and the ache that had been slowly building began to recede. He sat up straight in his stool feeling his spine pop and he allowed himself a smile at how much better he felt for moving around.

His eyes itched and he closed them, gently rubbing the lids to try and moisten his dry eyes. He looked around the lab. It was too uncomfortable, and he wanted to get some coffee, so he gathered up the files and headed for the break room, setting the files on the table as he began to brew a strong pot of coffee, adding enough coffee to the water that he would be able to chew the finished product. He stood over the table, gazing down at the sheets of paper, willing them to tell him something he could use. Nothing jumped out at him and as he turned to raid the fridge, his cell phone rang at his hip, making him jump and grab at it to kill the shrill tone.

"Flack" he said wearily by way of greeting.

"Flack! It's me man, it's Danny" Danny Messer hissed into the phone.

"Danny!" Flack yelled, running out into the main labs to find Mac "Danny where are you man!" He asked.

"I'm near the water, the docks, there's a tanker, I set off the alarms, I'm hurt Flack" Danny babbled. His voice sounded strained, and Flack could hear his teeth clacking together as he spoke.

"Danny, where's Vince, and the big guy, are they nearby?" Flack asked, spotting Mac hunched over a microscope in one of the glass walled labs.

"They're right behind me Flack, I'm in trouble, my head…I'm cold" The young CSI replied.

Flack banged on the window of the lab and pointed at his phone as Mac looked up at him. "Danny, please, look around you, you have to give me something I can go on okay, so I can come and find you!" He said firmly.

There was a long pause during which Mac emerged from the lab, frowning. "It's Danny" Flack explained and Mac immediately stepped closer, his face a picture of concern.

"Danny? DANNY!" Flack barked into the phone. He heard a gasp on the other end.

"I…sorry Flack…I'm having kind of a hard time staying with it…uh, I can't see anything like a landmark, but the tanker…it's Italian, it's called the 'Buon Segno', ha, the Good Sign" He paused, coughing wretchedly down the phone.

Flack squeezed his hand into a fist, feeling his knuckles pop "Christ Danny, what'd they do to you?" Flack hissed angrily into the phone.

"Believe it or not, nothing yet, we got out of the car and I ran like the wind for civilisation, there's a busy dock here. Not that any one working her is concerned enough to check on their cars when the alarm goes off" Danny rasped "I hope they get all smashed up, serve these jag offs right for not paying attention. And savin my ass" he added a little sadly.

"Don't worry man, we'll find you" Flack reassured his friend.

"Look, I don't wanna be melodramatic Don but uh, I'm not feeling so hot…my head is kinda comin and goin…I'm coughin up…a lot more blood than what I'd call safe..And I'm freezing my ass off" Danny told the detective.

Mac took the phone as Flack ducked into a nearby lab and began explaining to a tech that he wanted to track an Italian tanker docked in New York.

"Danny, it's Mac, hang on okay, Flack's just trying to find the tanker now, we'll get to you as soon as we can"

"We were driving for over an hour Mac" Danny informed him.

"Where are you right now?" Mac asked.

"As I speak to you I'm crouched down between two cars. The snow is real bad now, I think I might be able to get into the warehouse if I stay low" Danny told his boss.

"Be careful Danny, we know they're willing to kill" Mac warned him.

"Yeah Mac, I kinda noticed" Danny snapped a little impatiently.

Mac tried to think of something to say to comfort the young CSI, but nothing seemed appropriate given the situation.

"Okay, I'm movin now" Danny whispered.

Mac stared at Don Flack as he hovered over the nervous lab tech's shoulder. The tech hit a button and Flack turned to the printer, grabbing the sheet of paper as it was ejected and jogging back over to Mac.

He handed Mac the sheet. "Its on the other side of town, if we leave now, I can get us there in forty minutes." Flack told him as he swept past.

He yelled out loud for Aiden and Stella who came as soon as they where called. "What the hell!" Aiden asked as Flack ran by them.

"We found him" Mac told them, still holding the phone to his ear.

He could hear heavy breathing on Danny's end as Danny moved between the cars.

"I'm gonna…go inside" Danny panted "See if there's anyone around"

"Alright Danny, we're coming now, we'll be there" Mac said.

"Hey, take your time, I'm fine" Danny joked and Mac shot Stella a dark look as they climbed into the jeep.

"What's wrong?" she asked him.

"Danny told us that his head was troubling him, now he's kinda swinging in and out of it. The doctor in he hospital made a lot of noise about Danny takin it easy and coming back in if he even thought abut his head feeling wired, the only reason he let him leave today was because we convinced him Danny wasn't safe. Plus Danny threatened to annoy the hell out of everybody if he was made to stay" Mac told her.

"We gotta get to him" he stated.

"We're gonna" Flack announced as he stamped on the accelerator.

Danny cursed quietly as he stepped into the warehouse through a small side door. There where some massive containers on the far side of the warehouse. He could just make out the sounds of voices coming from the other side and realised that the people working at the dock must have been on the far side of the containers. If he could get through them he would be okay. But he was having trouble walking straight now, and he needed to lean on the wall to stay upright. If he did that all the way around Vince and Chuck would be on him in seconds. The sudden flurry of snow had helped him escape them in the lot, but they wouldn't stay out there forever. But if he had to walk out across the open space, he want sure he would be able to keep his balance well enough to make it across. "Uh Mac, I may have hit a snag" he told the phone.

"How so?"

Danny explained about the wall, his bad balance, the proximity of Vince and Chuck.

"Can't you hide yourself in the side of the space you're in?" Mac asked him.

"No, its almost open space out here" Danny said. He was hit by another wave of dizziness and nausea and placed his hand over the speaker of the phone as he swallowed the urge to be sick. He heard a noise and realised that it was his own voice, that he was making high pained noises as he stood hunched by the door.

He could hear Mac shouting through the phone and he raised it to his ear again. "I'm here. I just felt a little sick is all, didn't wanna puke on the phone" he half lied.

He pushed off the wall and took a few shaky steps forward, pausing to see what happened. He wobbled a little on his feet, but managed to stay upright and walked farther forward. "Mac I think I can make it" he whispered into the phone.

He walked for ward, moving as fast as he dared. Mac talked to him on the phone, constantly updating him on how close they where. "Ten more minutes Danny, hold on" he was saying.

Danny looked around and realised he was over halfway cross the room. As he looked up he saw someone step out from between the containers and his knees gave out. "Sir, my name is Danny Messer, I'm with the police, I need your help, there are men following me who will kill me if you don't get me out of here" Danny had to force his voice to be calm as the man hurried over, concern etched over his weather beaten features.

"Holy shit kid what the hell happened! Your okay now, you're safe, come one with me I'll call an ambulance or something" The guy said, taking Danny gently by the arm and helping him to his feet. He carried a baseball bat, an old wooden slugger in one hand and wore a fluorescent jacket with the word security written over the breast pocket.

"Thank you" Danny started to whisper.

"Shh, come one now, lets get you out of here" the elderly man started to turn, pulling Danny with him.

The mans eye disappeared in a cloud of red a millisecond before the gun shot rang out and he fell to the floor, dragging Danny down with him.

"Shit! No, shit, Vince why'd you do that you didn't have to do that" Danny screamed as Vince strode forward into the open space with Chuck trailing close behind

"See what you do Messer? Everyone you go near gets hurt, you're just bad luck" Vince smiled.

Danny stared down at the dead man who had tried to help him. His remaining eye was fixed on some point past Danny's shoulder. His blood was already spreading in a pool, fanning around his head like a demented halo.

"What the fuck Vince, he didn't even see you, you coulda let him walk away" He growled, biting back tears of frustration. "He never did nothin', he was just some old guy. What the fuck is wrong with you Vince? What's always been wrong with you, why are you such a psycho fuck!" he yelled.

"What, did you expect me to see this guy helping you and have a change of heart? To learn, I don't know, a valuable lesson, to discover that under my hard outer shell I'm really all gooey and kind inside?" Vince scoffed disdainfully. "Don't you remember what we learned growin' up Danny? About people?"

"People are bastard coated bastards with a bastard filling" Danny quoted from memory, his hoarse voice betraying his exhaustion. "You know what else Vince?" he asked, feeling light headed again.

"What Messer?" Vince crouched across from the kneeling Danny.

Danny looked from the dead mans face into Vince's eyes. He smiled, a bright enough smile that Vince drew back just a little, disconcerted by Danny's apparent happiness.

"Your mother is a whore" Danny said laughing hysterically "and your father owes her money"

Vince smiled grimly and reached across, grabbing Danny by the back of the neck and pulling him close. "You'll regret that Messer, right up until the moment I put a knife in you, you will regret ever having crossed me"

"Why do you hate me so much?" Danny hissed into Vince's face from inches away.

"Why? I just don't like your face Messer" Vince replied.

"Your mother never seemed to mind, of course she was so desperate for money who was she to complain really?" Danny laughed again "Bitch woulda done Quasimodo, he paid her enough".

Vince shoved Danny backwards, swinging with a casual right hook that hit exactly the wrong pat of Danny's head. He dint even cry out as he half slumped to the side, reaching out with his good hands to catch himself.

"You know what? I'm so sick of you that I don't even want to mess with you anymore. I'm just gonna do you now. Its not as if you're gonna get out of this alive, look at you, coughin up blood all over yourself. Plus I'm pretty sure you have permanent brain damage. I'd be putting you out of your misery really" he said, standing up straight and raising his gun.

He looked down at Danny. The smaller man was shivering, visibly so. His skin was almost grey, one side of his face was a mask of blood, his blonde hair dyed red, his blue eyes where bright, almost feverish. With every breath, more blood misted onto his half blue lips. Danny looked like death personified. Vince shook his head, tutting in disgust and smirked at Chuck, taking his eyes off Danny for a second.

Danny rose up like an avenging angel, the dead guards baseball bat gripped in his hands. He swung it at Vince's wrist, hearing the bone crack as the bat connected. Vince shrieked, the gun dropping form his hand as he staggered backwards. Danny dropped into a batters crouch as Chuck ran at him, swing again, visualising the bat ending its arc on the other side of Chuck's head. Chuck turned at the last second ant the Bat only caught him a glancing blow but he went down.

Danny span back to see Vince pick up the gun with his good hand and raise it to aim at Danny's chest. He was out of reach for the bat. Danny froze, realising that there was absolutely no possible escape. And then a bullet hit Vince in the shoulder, one in the chest and another hit him square in the neck and he slumped to the floor. Danny looked over to the containers. Don Flack, Stella Bonasera, Mac Taylor and Aiden Burns stood in a half circle, their guns all trained firmly on Vince.

Whatever adrenalin-fuelled rush had given Danny the strength to wield the bat failed him, and as paramedics streamed into the warehouse, having followed Flacks car, he dropped to the floor.

Immediately the other group was at his side. He lay on his back gaping in air but his chest was painfully tight. He coughed up more blood and stared at the ceiling as the pain and pressure that head been building in his head reached a critical level and darkness rolled over him in a wave that he almost welcomed.

As Mac watched, Danny's entire body seized. His back arched as his hands clawed at the ground and his eyes rolled back in his head. Danny didn't seem to be able to breath and the paramedics rushed over to him as Flack and the CSI's cried out for help in unison.

"He's seizing!" One of the medics yelled, kneeling beside Danny and pulling something from his kit.

Aiden pressed one hand to her mouth, squeezing hard enough that she knew she would be bruised later. Stella and Mac stood and stepped back as the second medic ran in with the stretcher. Flack stood in front of Aiden, using his body to block her view as Danny's clawing fingers began to bleed.

She stepped around him as one of the medics stuck a needle in Danny's arm.

"What are you doing?" she asked, he voice thick with tears "Help him!"

Tia sat beside the bed, her long leg stretched out in front of her as she watched Danny's chest rise and fall slowly in time with the hiss of the ventilator.

There was a small couch in the room in which Aiden and Stella dozed. Mac, Murphy and Don had been sent to get food for everyone who had moved into Danny's room to keep vigil over the unconscious CSI.

The doctor had told Mac and Mac had old them all about Danny's condition. Apparently it had been hours before he had stopped having seizures. A CAT scan had revealed massive swelling and bleeding on Danny's brain. The had given in medicine to counteract the ill effects if this, to stop the bleeding and swelling, but it was a case of waiting to see if it would be successful. Danny had had punctured lungs, which he had needed surgery to repair. The doctor had used the words 'potential permanent brain damage' in a single sentence and Flack had needed to be physically restrained form going to Sylvester's hospital room and doing something permanent to him.

Tia had gotten to the hospital in record time upon hearing that Danny had been brought in and any attempts by a dispatcher to send calls Tia's way had been quietly but viciously dismissed. She had been sitting at Danny's bedside almost constantly for four days now. She had left him once, on the second day to go to her own apartment to pack a bag with fresh clothes and under wear for herself. She had keys to Danny's apartment so she had let herself in to put a bag together for him as well, packing some of his belongings, books and a sketch pad she knew he liked as well, in case he had to stay a while after he woke up. Tia had no doubt what so ever that he would wake up, and told any one who tried to offer condolences so.

She stood, towering over the bed and her fallen friend. Sitting on the bed she reached out and swept the same forelock of hair off his forehead that she had done almost a week ago. She remembered he had woken up immediately after and watched him expectantly. He didn't wake up. "Come on blondie, we've missed out on so many runs…you don't wake up now and me and you are gonna get all kinds of fat" she spoke quietly "And you've met my momma so you know what I'll look like with a big giant ass and I think its safe to say that it aint pretty" she chuckled.

"okay, open your eyes or I'll crush you with the giant ass I'm gonna get!" she picked up his hand from where it lay on the bed, holding it in her own. " Danny, I will not lose my best friend to some skinny ass Italian guy who was stupid enough to let you near a baseball bat, I'm just not. If I have to call my mother in here to get your lazy ass out of bed, I wont hesitate to do it and you know it" she said, her voice growing louder.

Stella came to stand on the other side of the bed, gazing down at the younger CSI. She didn't quite have Tia's unwavering faith, she had been there when Danny seized so strongly that he broke three of his own fingers and cut the ends of his fingers so deeply he needed stitches in every one.

She touched his other wrist, re set in a new cast after the first one had to be cut off to put an IV drip in his arm.

"Tia, why don't you go home and sleep, we can watch him" she told the willowy cop.

"Because I want to be here when he wakes up" Tia said softly, her eyes never leaving Danny's face.

"Tia…the doctor said that he might not wake up" Stella started to say, hating to admit it, but Tia raised a hand to silence her.

Stella looked down at Danny and felt her eyes grow hot with tears as she saw him blinking groggily awake, the hand Tia held closing around hers as he fought to concentrate.

"See "Tia told Stella as Danny's eyes began to clear "I told you"

And that, as they say, is that. Thanks for all the reviews and support, they've been a great help. If u want me to do a sequel, do more with Tia then le me know because I would love to write it if I knew people would read it it.

Thanks again, loves and hugs, noodlepie.xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx