Run It, a csi: new york fanfic

Disclaimer: Nothing is mine, etc etc.

A/N: I write in an AU where Flack and Lindsey are together…because they should be.

Beep

"Lindsay, its Ben. I hope this is the right number, I know you said call your cell vs. home, but I might have gotten them reversed. Anyway, I wanted thank you again for last night. What you gave me was a gift and I can go on from here a much happier man. I leave to go back to Bozeman today, but will give you a call next time I'm in NY and please do the same next time you come home. I just have to say it again Lindsay, you are amazing."

Flack hit the save button on the answering machine in the apartment he and Lindsay shared. What the hell was that? She had told him she was having dinner with an old college friend the previous night, she had even said that back in the day they dated once or twice. The guy was here on business, and though she was really unenthused about catching up with him, he had called and asked her several times to meet him and she eventually agreed.

Don and Lindsey had been working different shifts and he was alone in the apartment. And the end of his long shift filled with crime and the dark side of humanity all he wanted to do was shower and sleep but that message was eating at him. What kind of gift? Yes she was amazing, but why was it this Ben guy's place to say so. Flack's senses were already heightened, his mind on high alert from being on the job and the message was revving his suspicion. When he finally decided to at least try to lay down and get some sleep, he pulled back the covers and he froze. There was a small puddle-like stain in the middle of their bed, somewhere around where the middle of Flack's back would be. It was out of place. He himself had put fresh sheets on the bed two days ago and due to the conflicting schedules he and Lindsay hadn't been together in it since.

Now what the hell was this all about? Despite himself Flack began to rage. In his own bed? Had she screwed another guy in their own bed? This was ridiculous. He was fuming. He decided to forgo the sleep and have a beer. He turned on the TV but couldn't focus so he shut it off again. He was obsessing on the message and that stain. Surely Lindsay would have an explanation, but didn't they all have explanations? He spent his day listening to and not believing alibis. They had been together for months and things all-in-all were beyond sensational. They had amazing sex – frequently, they almost never quarreled. She had said that she loved him. She never pushed him for more of a commitment. Even a few times she seemed to shy away from it. She hesitated to meet his family. The sting of her own family situation was too raw, she would just whisper that she couldn't when he invited her to his family events. He accepted that. He loved her. She could take her time with whatever she needed. But maybe now the pieces were coming together. Maybe she was keeping a distance for other reasons.

By now he had had more than the one beer. There was a way to get to the truth without having to ask her about it and hearing what may or may not be a believable response – the evidence. His course of action fixed, he grabbed the scissors and headed back into the bedroom. He began cutting the offending stain into a more discrete swatch and in the process he discovered something else as well. A small tightly wound hair. It looked like a small perfect spring and it wasn't far from the stain. He had watched Lindsay as she processed scenes enough to know that he need to be very careful as the DNA is in the hair follicle not the hair itself. He carefully pulled the hair from the sheet and deposited it in an envelope he had taken from the desk.

He hid the rest of the now damaged sheet set and replaced them with a fresh pair. And he finally got some sleep. It was to be one of those days when he and Lindsay only had an hour and half or so with each other before shifts, but he had set the alarm and phoned to tell her he was called in early. He had thought things might appear differently after some sleep and in the fresh new light of day. But they didn't. Lindsay had betrayed

him and he needed to prove it.

"Danny." He called down the hall to his friend.

"Hey Flack." Danny turned holding his coffee.

"I need a favor."

"Anything for a friend."

"You sure? This is an 'anything for a friend' kind of a situation." Flack said seriously.

Messer furrowed his brow and pushed his glasses back up on his nose.

"You in trouble?" Danny asked.

"Not so much. Just….well…"

"Spit it out Flack."

"I need you to run some samples. Prove they don't belong to me or Lindsay."

"Lindsay in trouble?" Danny didn't like the sound of that, she was his partner.

"Not like official trouble or anything like that. I just need it."

Danny inhaled and exhaled. "What have you got?"

Flack pulled his swatch of cut bed sheet and envelope with the single coiled hair from his jacket pocket.

"This your sheet?" Danny asked.

Flack nodded.

"You think Lindsay is cheating on you, in your own bed, and you want me to run samples to prove it."

Flack was stone faced, and nodded again.

"Listen to me Flack. The woman has no time to cheat on you. She's a machine, she works her virtually around the clock, and when she's not here, she's with you."

Flack was grave, "Messer, she's not here now, and she's not with me. I need this." Flack's blue eyes were ice as they met his friend's.

"Flack, she loves you. Loves you with a capital L. You guys are one of the couples that the rest of us poor saps look at and an hope to be someday. She is devoted to you. She can be processing a DB, surrounded by death, and murder, and decomp, and you show up on the scene and she lights up like a Christmas tree. She loves you Don. She ain't cheatin on you."

"I believe I have evidence to the contrary." Flack said looking down at his friend.

"Then ask her about it? You ask her about it?"

"And what? What is she gonna say? Yes? You and I both know what people say and what the evidence tells you can be very very different things. I'm asking you as a friend, run the samples."

"Don, you do this, you can't go back. You do this, and one way or the other, you're that guys who didn't trust his girlfriend enough to have a conversation with her, and instead made Swiss cheese of his sheets. If she ever finds out about this, you are gonna have a problem."

"Are you gonna run the samples?" Flack showed no reaction to his friend's comments.

Danny shook his head. "You ask me as your friend, yeah I'll do it for you. But I go on record with you, you are making a mistake my friend."

Flack met his eyes, nodded in acknowledgment, bit back a self-satisfied grin that he got what he wanted and turned and walked away.

About half way though his shift, Danny passed Flack in the hall and handed him an envelope.

"Hey, I'm off to a scene, was about to leave this in your locker."

"Thanks."

"Don't thank me. I don't want any more to do with any of this."

Flack took the envelope to the locker room. He sighed. Danny was right, he couldn't go back now. He felt that inside, part of him must be bleeding this all hurt so much. There was no way to win here. Either Lindsay was cheating on him and she had betrayed him, or he had falsely accused her of it, to Danny, and to himself, and he had betrayed her. He sighed and ran his hands through his hair. He was clenching and unclenching his fist.

"Ah, screw it," he whispered opening the envelope. There were graphs and charts, a DNA profile and a note from Danny.

The hair and the saliva are a match for each other. Black male with no criminal history.

Flack only realized he had been holding his breath when he let it out in a slow sigh.

He was jolted out of his own wash of emotions and thoughts when his phone rang, caller ID told him it was his own home calling.

"Hey" he answered. Only one word but it was cold and clipped.

"Hey, you OK?" Lindsay asked warmly.

"Yeah. Fine."

"I was just calling to see if you would be home late tonight. I was going to make dinner but I will wait for you if you have work."

"I might be a little late," he said mentally trying to figure out to get off work early.

"Ok, babe. I'll plan for around 7, can you pick up orange juice on your way home?"

Was that whispering he heard in the background?

"Yeah." He said absently.

"Ok, see you later then. Love you."

"I gotta go." He said and snapped his phone shut.

He arrived home at 4:40 in the afternoon, an hour before his shift even ended and more than two before she expected him. The first thing he noticed was that his apartment door was open to the hallway. When he approached he heard hushed voices. When he stood in his doorway he saw two teenage boys from the neighborhood, Michael and Kenny sitting at his dining table with their school books and notebooks open. Lindsay had helped a bunch of them with their science projects and he knew the kids from basketball in the courtyard. Sitting on his couch was Nadine, one of the girls from the building who was also on the Science fair team that Lindsay advised. Nadine had gone through a tough time lately and Lindsay was there for her. Flack had heard all of it as the girl had sat on their couch sobbing for Lindsay to help. But he didn't see Lindsay and their bedroom door was closed. Behind the door he could hear sweeping soft classical music. These were not all the kids from the neighborhood. More than a few were not here including a few black males. He hadn't thought of them until now.

He took a half step in the door.

"Hey Flack. You're not supposed to be home for a while. Lindsay's gonna be pissed, her dinner's all timed out, you know she ain't the best cook." Kenny said smiling.

"Where is she?" Flack demanded in a less than civil tone.

No one had time to answer and they were all beginning to gesture to the kitchen behind him out of his sight when he stormed through the apartment and practically burst through his own bedroom door, and then he froze as the chill went through him.

Laying in the middle of his bed, a tiny form, sucking on a pacifier, Nadine's infant son - a black male with no criminal history. He swallowed hard. The baby stirred at the rough entrance and began wailing. Lindsay came from behind Flack and scooped up the baby.

"Lyndon, Lyndon. Poor sleeping baby. You're OK sweetie" She cooed and began bouncing him. She walked around to just in front of Flack.

"You OK?" She asked her brow furrowed. She hadn't figured it out yet.

He made no reply but to look into her eyes. He had failed her.

Lindsay brought baby to his mother on the couch.

"You guys mind leaving a little early?" She asked the kids tentatively. She knew only that Flack wasn't himself and she wanted the kids out of the apartment. Cop stuff was cop stuff and if he was dealing with something from the shift she didn't want the kids to see it.

She let them come to their apartment and do homework when she was off days and Flack was on. She liked the company. She knew he had concerns about her having the kids in the apartment when she was alone. He had told her parents could think something inappropriate was going on and they might accuse her of something someday. She appreciated that his mind could sometimes run to the cynical as it protected her. She hadn't stopped having the kids over, she just always left the door open so no one could be suspicious of what might be going on in there. They could just see all she doing was helping with homework and giving the latch key crowd an alternative to the street to hang out.

As the kids left, Flack sank onto the couch. The knot of self-loathing and disgust rising and tightening in his stomach.

"What's going on?" She asked softly, sitting next to him, rubbing one hand across his shoulders. Her touch was gentle and sweet. It would have warmed him if he didn't feel utterly undeserving of it.

The way he burst in, he needed to find her urgently, as if maybe she were in danger, or…he interrupted her thoughts.

"There was a message, from that Ben guy." He said looking at the ground.

"What? I didn't hear it." She continued to rub his shoulders and face him but he wouldn't look at her.

He motioned to the machine, she stood and walked to it, playing the old messages until she found it.

"Don. I told you I was having dinner with him. He was an old friend." She sat back down next to him but didn't touch him.

"Its more than a message from an old friend." He blinked. He knew there was more.

She sighed. "Look its personal. To him, to me. And its something I wanted to keep from you because you can get protective."

He finally looked at her. He was eyeing her with the same suspicion and dread he had been feeling all day. She caught his gaze, and solemnly continued.

"He's in AA. He's doing the steps. He wanted to talk about some stupid stuff that happened when we were in college. He got drunk, physical, a little pushy, a little violent…." She broke off. She swallowed but continued looking Flack in the eye.

"I was training to be a cop. I was able to defend myself again a drunk frat guy. We had been really great friends, but after that we never really spoke again. Now, its one of those things that he needed to move past in order to get on with his recovery. He said it's the worst thing he ever did while drinking and he came to apologize."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"Don, the second A is for Anonymous. Its his business he's looking to put it behind him. And you," her eyes narrowed and she head cocked slightly to the side. "I was afraid of your reaction to something that happened a long time ago. You might want me to look into pressing charges for assault, or you might want to talk to him yourself and put the fear of Flack in him because he had hurt me once upon a time."

He gave her a tight smile. She knew him, of course he would.

"The gift?" he asked although he knew she owed him nothing in the way of an explanation.

"Forgiveness I guess. That's all I gave him. But Don I told you I was having dinner with him. I didn't lie to you. I didn't hide that, and that's all there was. And even the message said he was leaving. So why did you charge in here thinking there was something going on right now."

He might as well lay it all on the table.

"I found a puddle, a drool stain on our sheets in a place it didn't belong, along with a hair that Danny said belonged to a black male."

"Danny?" She asked, her eyes wide.

He looked away. This was going to get worse.

"I had him run DNA on the sheet and the hair."

Her eyebrows raised and her blood pressure increased. She could feel her heart pounding in her throat and her stomach dropped. Flack was pulling the safety and security of their happy life in NY out from under her. She couldn't believe what he was saying.

"You had Danny run DNA on our sheets?" She said in a hoarse whisper.

"Yeah." He was studying the floor.

"And it came back to Lyndon?" She looked at his profile for answers.

"Yeah, but I didn't know it was Lyndon then, just an unidentified black male."

"So….So you were thinking I cheated on you." She bit her lip and looked away from him. "Did you think Ben Hartfield from Bozeman Montana was black?"

"No." He didn't look up.

"So two men. Ben and an unidentified black man."

He knew what she was doing. She was running the interrogation. They had done it side by side dozens of time. Sometimes you don't need the guilty party to make a confession, you just run the scenario in front of them and they don't deny it, so you know what's true.

"So you're thinking I'm sleeping with both of them, and you. I guess I keep you around because I am so much of a whore I need something on my calendar to fill in the blanks." He flinched at her description of his suspicion, but he said nothing. He was mostly frightened by the calm in her voice. She wasn't yelling, she was speaking in cool even tones. He had heard it when she was questioning suspects about things that would make a saint scream. When you were working a perp, you didn't let them see your emotion, you held it in check. The perp wasn't worth it. He couldn't look at her. She was saying these things that she was pulling from his head and they looked even more grotesque in the light of day.

She slowly exhaled, rubbing her forehead with the heel of one hand.

"Because I guess I must not love you Don. For me to do these things, to betray you like this more than once, more than one man, and here in the bed we share. Nothing I've said I feel for you is true. I'm just some kind of a heartless slut who is lying to you, and cheating on you with no real concern for how that would hurt you." Her tone still barely above a whisper.

He made no answer.

"This is what you've been thinking." She wasn't asking him. She was running it. She was telling him what she knew.

He still made no reply. What could he say? He had no defense. He was ashamed for not believing in her, when she herself had never given him any reason to doubt, she herself had only ever given him her love and herself.

She rose from the couch. "I have to get ready for work," She said four hours before her shift began.

Danny was surprised to see her sitting at her desk hours early.

"Hey" he said.

"Hey," she answered quietly. "Can I show you something?" He came around the desk to where she was sitting.

"This is Nadine." She showed him a snapshot of beautiful young black teen. "She lives the floor below Flack and I. I was helping her with a science project and I kind of put two and two together and figured out she was pregnant. Fairly far along, but she hadn't told her parents, scared of their reaction, you know." She looked Danny in the eyes.

Danny nodded. She continued, "I helped her tell her Mom. I started going with her to Doctor appointments when I could. I was there where she delivered. She actually named him 'Lyndon' after me she said." Lindsay smiled a little, she did love that baby. She flashed another picture of a tiny adorable black infant.

"But even after the baby came, Nadine's in high school, her Mom works all the time, she's alone with this baby. So I watch him sometimes. Nadine will come work on homework and I play with Lyndon. I help her with math and science, whatever - and take the baby off her hands so she can concentrate." She trailed off. She turned slightly to face Danny while looking directly in his eyes. Her tones were icy and firm.

"When the baby falls asleep, I put him in our bed until Nadine goes home. In the middle of the bed, pillows on all sides so he doesn't fall off." She paused for emphasis, "And he drools there."

Danny blinked slowly. Understanding everything she was saying and implying without saying. She knew he had run the samples. She had not cheated on Flack, and now she and Flack were likely through.

"Montana, I didn't …" she cut him off.

"Danny, I'm not mad at you, and I am not defending myself to you. I just wanted you to know about Lyndon. In case you had any questions about the kind of person you work next to everyday. Now you know about the other male in my bed, and I never want to talk about this again." With that she rose and left.

He was left shaking his head. He knew exactly what kind of person she was, the kind any man would be lucky to have and Flack was blowing it.

She worked a double to avoid him and only went home when she was sure he had clocked in for his shift.

He had left flowers in a vase on the table with a note.

Lindsay,

I'm so sorry. I was a jerk, I know it. I love you. Please forgive me.

You're the best thing that ever happened to me and sometimes I still have trouble believing you, beautiful sweet you, could love a guy like me. I hope like hell you still do. I'm sorry.

I love you,

Don

She couldn't speak to him, respond to him. She only felt hollow. He was all she had and she trusted him implicitly, with her life, and with her love, everyday. The fact that he didn't feel the same way, and could think those things about her was a crushing blow and she didn't know how to put it back together again. She only knew that right now it was broken. How could he not see that she loved him? After everything that she had told him, everything that they had shared. All the confidences, all the secret pains, all the hope for the better somedays. She knew she only had to avoid him for another day, and then he was going to his Mom's birthday party in Queens at his sisters. She had never been there, and never met another Flack other than Don himself. It was easier to just know him, love him, in a vacuum. They shared work and friends. If she knew and loved his family too it would be too much of him. Too much to heal if he ended up gone someday. It was better to love him on his own, as an island. Even now in this she knew she built a wall in front him. She didn't let him in to know and feel and hear her pain at his suspicions. She didn't yell it at him or spell it out for him. She ran it and assumed he would fill in the blanks. She couldn't let him see her angry, enraged, out of control.

She would leave again for her shift before he returned from his. It was effort that they were able to find time to spend together, avoiding each other was easy. She worked another double to keep from being home at all when he was home. She didn't know how to face him.

The shift was tough. Death and pain and people losing people they loved. Mac was driving her back from a scene, she was in the passenger seat. Mac seemed to sense there was trouble between her and Flack, but Lindsay never let it effect the job. In fact it made her throw herself into it more deeply. But she was wearing herself thin and Mac could see it. She leaned her head back in the seat and closed her eyes. As they bobbed along the city streets she thought of being in the car with Flack. When they just started getting close, when he had gone home with her to Montana, when he took her to different places in the city and even Long Island to show her New York. She recalled the warmth and completeness she felt just sitting next to him in a car. She opened her eyes and turned to Mac and back to the road in front of her. She knew she loved Flack and he was the one she wanted to build a life with. Maybe now was the time to stop holding back a reserve. Maybe she should stop whatever self-preservation she wielded against him and she should let him in completely. She should scream at him when she was angry and she should open herself to sharing his life outside of their apartment and work, and meet his family. Maybe by not doing so she had let a little bit of doubt in for him to build on with the fear and the edge that builds doing this job every day. But this job showed her life was too short to be pissed off at the only person you can't stop thinking about.

Don awoke on his day off and wasn't surprised to see Lindsay wasn't in bed with him. He ached inside at the sight of her side of the bed cold and empty. He showered and changed into a pair of jeans, a button-down shirt and tan suit jacket for his Mom's birthday. He walked out into the living room to see Lindsey sitting on the couch tying a bow on a gift. She looked beautiful -fresh and clean. She was wearing a full white skirt with a blue flower pattern around the hem and a matching blue sleeveless top with light blue sandals.

He walked into the room and stood next to the coffee table where she was wrapping.

"Hey." He said moved almost to tears that she was even here with him.

She met his eyes but didn't move to get up. "Hey." She replied softly. He looked so good to her. He was dressed to see his Mom on her birthday, crisp and clean and wholesome.

He crouched and knelt on the ground in front if her. He put his hands on her arms. She didn't recoil or pull away, he took at as a good sign.

"Baby, I'm so sorry…"

She cut him off, shaking her. She was biting her lip and he could see tears in her eyes.

"Don I don't want to fight about it or rehash it. But you've got to know I love you more than anything in this world, and I would never never hurt you." She inhaled and he heard the quiver in her voice. "It hurts because you seem to not know that you are the only man in the world for me. The only one I want to be with, ever." A single tear ran down her cheek.

His jaw was tight and his eyebrow creased. She was amazing. She should have reemed him out, railed against him for not trusting her. But instead she seemed to be opening herself more to him. He was angry with himself enough for both of them.

"I love you Lindsay."

She nodded, looking him firmly in the eye. "Don, do you know that I love you too?" She asked. It wasn't rhetorical, her face asked the question with sincerity and a deep concern.

"I guess I thought you did, but was always afraid maybe you didn't. Maybe you knew like I do that you're too good for me." He was holding back his own tears. "But I do Lindsey I do know."

He leaned in and hugged her. He felt relief and joy and whole again holding her in his arms. They remained like that for a few minutes. He whispered into her ear "I don't want to push it, but are you coming to see my Ma?"

She chuckled in spite of herself.

"I figured I should." She said into his shoulder.

"Yes. You should." He said and then kissed her neck.