A/N: Yay! I finally updated, and am very very exhausted, it's late. The story is drawing to an end, aren't you all glad:P Warning though, this is not the most fantastic chapter ever.

Enjoy!

Space

Is the space we talk about really space? It is always filled with something. The space between you and me is filled with particles, sounds, buildings and trees. Outer space is filled with vacuum and constellations. There is a certain magic in the concept of space. Whether it contained awkward silences, comforting glances and touches, it provides sufficient emptiness such that any little thing holds significance.

Lindsay led Hopie to the break room and sat with her on the couch. The crying in the morning and walking had tired the four year old enough to make her fall asleep almost immediately. Lindsay took the opportunity to call Stella. She was in the midst of reciting whatever she had found out from Hopie when Danny and Mac entered for cups of coffee.

Mac raised an eyebrow at her when the call ended. "Who's the kid?"

"Victim's daughter," who is cutting the circulation off my legs. "Can someone watch her for me? I need to go to the locker room." Lindsay asked.

"Danny will watch her." Mac instructed, "I'm going to do some paperwork."

As Danny choked on coffee, Lindsay lifted Hopie's head gently off her lap and fled, grinning wildly.

She had thought that it was no harm leaving Hopie with Danny for a few extra minutes and decided to look for Stella. She found her in the trace lab scrutinizing at shoe prints.

"Hey, we need to talk to Mrs Hennessy, and find out more about Hopie's mother's boyfriend. And maybe Hopie's father." Lindsay said.

Stella stood back from the table and sighed. "I know. I already called Mrs Hennessy, who's name is Alice, by the way. And she said she took Hope for ice cream, but it was more for herself when she saw her neighbor floating in a tub of blood. She let Hope spend the night with her."

"We've already established that the bad man Hopie was talking about is the killer. The only problem is I can't get a solid description of his looks out of her. She said that he hardly came before her bedtime, and that her mother would make sure she went to bed before the left or anything." Lindsay leaned against the table, "You know, this case is actually rather straightforward. We just need to ID the guy."

Stella nodded in agreement, "DNA results should be in some time later. Where's the kid?"

"With Danny," she caught the sparkle in Stella's eyes, "she's napping." The growing smirk on Stella's face made her go defensive, "I didn't ask him to baby-sit, Mac made him." Lindsay left the lab in haste, blushing in annoyance.

She found Danny staring at Hopie with a petulant look on his face. "Very nice, Montana, you've been gone for half an hour. I'm a CSI, not a baby sitter."

She chose to ignore him. "Hopie, it's time to go home." Lindsay brushed the hair out of Hopie's face and picked the child up.

"Am I invisible too?"

"Stop being snarky," Lindsay muttered and sighed when Hopie latched onto her.

"Momma?" A sleep laden voice mumbled.

Lindsay glared at Danny, who had let out a laugh. "No, you're staying at Mrs Hennessy's tonight, sweetie."

"Why?"

"Hopie, you have to stop asking that question."

"Why?" Hopie whined and pressed her face into Lindsay's shoulder. A growl escaped her lips as Danny started chuckling. She felt as though she was taking care of two impossible children. When Flack entered the break room, Lindsay let out a sigh of relief.

"Good, Flack, please take her back. Now."

"Fine, but you owe me. Do you know how many 'why' questions she asked me on the way here?"

"I have a fairly good idea," Lindsay replied, "C'mon, Hopie, go with Mr. Flack."

"Why?" Such a simple but vexing question.

"Don't you want to go home?"

"No." Her grip on Lindsay tightened. Lindsay gave the two men in the room a very pained expression but they both shrugged.

"Technically, she's not going home. She's going to a neighbor's." Danny pointed out.

Thanks for your help, Captain Obvious. Lindsay tried a new approach, "Okay, Hopie, I'll carry you down. But you're going to Mrs Hennessy's with Mr. Flack. If you are good, he'll let you play with the sirens. And you can play hide and seek with Peter the whole night." She caught sight of Flack making a face in the corner of her eye and smiled.

When Hopie's feet were finally on the floor and about to move into the cruiser, she let out a loud cry. The adults stared at her. "Where's my toy!"

Lindsay rolled her eyes and turned back. Great, she thought, now I have to make another trip to the break room to retrieve her crummy McDonald Happy Meal toy. It was a shock when Danny stopped her and pulled the toy out of his pant pocket. "Danny! Give it back!" Both Flack and Lindsay yelled simultaneously, their tempers short after spending too much time with the kid. After a very disgruntled Hopie snatched the toy out of Danny's hand and climbed into the cruiser next to Flack, Lindsay shut the car door. She did feel very appreciated despite her thorough irritation when Hopie reached for her and smacked her lips against her cheek. Lindsay waved back when Hopie hollered, "Bye, Miss Lindsay!" at the top of her voice out of the cruiser's window.

As they made their way back into the lab, Lindsay smacked Danny's arm and asked, "How old are you, Danny?"

"Older than you, why?" He grinned stupidly, silently wondering where the conversation was headed.

"Why the hell did you have to take her toy?"

Danny laughed, "Hey, she dropped it on the break room floor. Would you much prefer if I hadn't taken it and you'd have to troop upstairs just to retrieve it so she would go home?"

"No," but she refused to lose the battle, "I would have preferred if you had returned it before I even had to think about making that trip."

"As much as I'm enjoying this meaningless banter, love, my shift is over and I want to go home and sleep." Danny said and stepped out of the elevator, waving nonchalantly.

Lindsay gulped in a mixture of anger and nervousness. It was not meaningless, she comforted herself. What was it about the way he called her 'love' that made her tremble inside? Then it struck her, why had he even followed them down to the car park in the first place? She ran a hand over her face, as if to wipe off the silly grin that had taken siege of her body. Why did he have to be so obnoxious and sweet at the same time?

Stella was reading through the DNA lab report when Lindsay walked through the door. "I found the boyfriend. He's been charged with assault twice in the past year."

Lindsay nodded and collapsed into a chair. "Can we get a warrant?"

"Yeah."

"Anything I can process?"

"Not really," Stella sat in the chair opposite her, "All we have to do is convince this Steven Berger guy to confess. Where's Hopie? Still with Danny?"

"No," Lindsay responded emphatically, "Flack sent her to Alice Hennessy's house."

"How are you, Lindsay?" Stella asked, concerned, but calmly.

This team was close knitted. Sometimes Lindsay enjoyed that tightness, but sometimes, like now, she wished there were wide open spaces instead. She wished that CSIs and little children could stop asking why when she didn't have the answers. Lindsay also wished she could muster the courage to ask why, and get the answer she so desperately wanted to hear.

"I'm fine, just not entirely glad with the way the universe works." She agilely dodged the real issue in question, "I think I should call social services now."

Stella nodded, "You handled Hopie really well." Lindsay smiled, acknowledging the subtle complement, and left the lab.

Danny walked past Lindsay's locker and couldn't help the way his lips curled into a smile. He tore a piece of paper from his notepad and scribbled a few words. Still sporting a smile almost as wide as the Cheshire cat's from Alice in Wonderland, he slipped the note through the gap of her locker door. He just loved invading her personal space.

Lindsay snapped her cell phone cover shut, content with her effort for the day. The case was more or less solved, Hopie was safe with Mrs Hennessy, and social services was going to find her a good home. She headed home, alone. Despite the cramped insides of the train she was on and the jostles she had received by other passengers, Lindsay, for the first time in days, felt like she had enough power to do something. Something, for someone else. Instead of being pushed and forced down the well crafted canals of Fate. There was no Danny, no Stella, or for that matter Hopie, to ask her for answers she did not have or did not want to share. Lindsay stretched a leg out while seating on the hard plastic chair in the train, apologizing when her foot brushed past a man standing in front of her. She had to smile at the irony. Even though the subway couldn't offer the physical wide open spaces she could find in the vast grasslands of Montana, it offered her solitude.

Space by itself, and time by itself, are doomed to fade away into mere shadows, and only a kind union of the two will preserve an independent reality.
- Albert Einstein

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If anyone has suggestions for the big ending that'd be even better.