Okay, this is Strangers on a Train, i want to thank Melissa, my delightful beta writer for all her superb additions to the story, i dont own any of the csi gang, alas, and warnings for violence and possible language and such like.

The story is based on a comment made by Flack in an ep, where Danny remakrked he didt know his neighbours very weel and Flack told him he should in case he ever goes missing. Me and Stealth Dragon built on the ideas this presented and this is the short first chapter of that story!

Please R and R, i'll update as soon as i possibly can but since i just started university i'm a wee bit busy so forgive any delays, please! Enjoy.xxxxx


Danny Messer sighed contentedly as he shrugged into his jacket and rolled his neck to work out the kinks he had gained from sitting hunched over a desk - for at least five straight hours - completing the paper work on the Jane Hutchinson sexual assault case. It had been worth it; the evidence against Jane's attacker had been hard to come by but the paper work documented exactly what had been found, and where and how it tied Jane's ex boyfriend to the scene.

"You sound tired" Stella Bonasera stated as she strode into the room and over to her own locker, pulling her badge and gun off her belt and laying them down beside her on the bench.

"I am, but I got the day off tomorrow, plus the whole day planned out," Danny's mouth twitched on the verge of a smile, his blue eyes flashing behind rimless glasses "Mostly, I'm gonna sleep." He grinned the Cheshire cat grin he was known for and Stella couldn't help but smile back. Even as tired as she was that mischievous grin was infectious.

"Sounds like heaven," she admitted as Danny pulled a woolly black hat on over his dirty blonde hair "Be careful driving home, the weather report said there's gonna be another six inches of snow before midnight." She watched as he clipped his badge back onto his belt, followed by his cell phone, then his gun. "Is that in order of importance?" she asked him as he adjusted his coat to sit over the collection of items.

Danny looked down at his belt. " I guess I don't think about it, it's just how I always do it. Guess I'm a cop before I'm a shooter huh?" he chuckled as he looked up at her.

Stella smiled "I guess…have a good day tomorrow, we'll try and hold the fort down without you"

Danny raised an eyebrow jokingly "It'll be hard but just keep telling yourself I'll be back and you might be okay."

"Well you know we'll call you if we get desperate" Stella smirked as Danny walked out. " Bye"

"Bye Stel," Danny called back.

Mac Taylor strode into the room carrying a mug of coffee, and sat down heavily on the bench "He deserves a day off," he said of Danny, " he works way too hard sometimes." He quietly laughed, considering his phrasing too much of an understatement.

"He's dedicated, some people just are…you might even call them obsessive." Stella looked pointedly at Mac.

Mac laughed again and sipped the coffee. " He better not waste the day off I gave him, he's too good at his job for me to give him many days off as it is, so this is his last for a while." He grinned evilly and raised an eye brow at Stella.

" He'd probably agree with you if you told him that"

" Good, I like to know my people are confident, " Mac continued to smirk " So what are you doing right now?" Mac gave Stella a look she couldn't read.

" I was planning on going home to sleep…why?" she asked suspiciously.

" I need some help documenting some stuff is all, but if you're heading home for sleep…" he trailed off.

Stella sighed. " Fine, fine, I'll help," she snapped good naturedly. " But you have to buy me coffee later"

NYNYNY

Danny side stepped out of the way as the door to his building swung open sharply, narrowly missing hitting him in the face.

"Don't mind me" he muttered under his breath as the offenders, a couple arm in arm, staggered past him drunkenly.

Danny paused to make sure the various bags he was carrying were not going to fall, then caught the door with his foot and ducked in out of the cold and thickly falling snow

He paused again in the warm lobby to let the heated air give him back some of what the snow had stolen away. He hefted three large grocery bags, the back pack he used to carry his stuff to and from work, and the brown paper bags holding the makings of his dinner for the night and his food for the next day. As he walked toward the elevator, Danny ran through a mental check-list of the things he would use his free day for to get sorted out. 'Pay the bills, clean the bathroom, put that bookshelf together at last, start that book Hawkes let me borrow, defrost the fridge? No I need a weekend for that, check out that noise in the linen closet...' he rattled off. He stood by the elevator, letting a large, heavyset man press the button.

"Oh man, what a night!" A voice behind Danny said.

He half turned and smiled at the couple standing behind him who grinned back politely.

"It's gonna get worse," he said to them, sharing what Stella had told him.

"Oh?" the woman, who looked to be about forty, replied in alarm, "I hope not, or we'll all be snowed in!" She chuckled.

Danny nodded and went back to running through his list in his head.

The man standing near him who had pressed the button for the lift was swaying slightly, and as his arc brought him close to Danny, the CSI wrinkled his nose at the strong smell of whisky. He took a side step away as the smell brought back an odd feeling, a wave of nausea, not at the smell but at the dredges of memory the scent churned up.

Danny looked up at the man and suddenly felt very small. He shot a look at the clock hung on the wall over the lift. The guy was drunk at ten thirty at night. Danny shook his head in disgust as the elevator door 'binged' and slid open.

El Borracho, as Danny labelled him in his head, thanking his co worker and friend Aiden Burn for the Spanish phrase meaning 'drunk' staggered into the box. Danny reluctantly followed him, the older couple following Danny. El Borracho, Danny was dismayed to see, hit the button for Danny's floor.

"Could you hit two please?" The woman asked Danny from behind and to his right.

Danny grimaced and lifted a laden arm. "My hands are too full, I'm sorry."

The woman sighed and leaned around Danny to push the button, shooting him a less than friendly look. "My hands are full," Danny repeated a little too defensively as the woman shook her head.

Drunk guy lost his balance and stumbled into Danny as the lift lurched and began to rise, knocking one of Danny's bags from his hand. There was a smashing sound and a smell of spices. Danny sighed as he realised the sauce he had bought to go on his chicken had spilled. " Son of a bitch!" Danny spat automatically, crouching awkwardly to try and pick up the bag.

"What'd you say?" the drunkard growled, his speech slurring his words together.

"How can you be drunk this early?" Danny glared up at the guy. " It's ten thirty and you're wasted. What the hell?" Danny shook his head.

"You don't talk to me like that you little punk, you show me some damn respect!" the guy slurred.

"What? Go home and drink some coffee," Danny said dismissively, managing to pick the bag up.

"I told you," the drunkard grabbed Danny's upper arm, dragging Danny forward roughly, close enough that Danny gagged on the whisky smell of his breath. Once again Danny felt small and afraid and he didn't know why.

"Take your hand off've me. Now," Danny growled very quietly, letting some of that vicious hard-edge that quelled dangerous suspects and kept them from trying to take him on seep into his eyes and his voice.

The guy let go, but didn't move back or even appear abashed, standing barely inches away. " You show me respect or I'll kick your ass," The guy breathed.

"Go sober up, then get help," Danny stated flatly.

The lift stopped and the doors hissed open. Danny stepped away from the drunk, remembering the couple who had been riding the elevator with them.

The woman shot Danny a dirty look as her husband pulled her through the doors, and Danny raised a dismissive eyebrow at her, resisting the urge to call her a nasty name. He was pissed but he wouldn't take it out on the woman just because she was stuck up.

The lift lurched again and Danny stood quietly, watching EB out of the corner of his eye, some deep, hidden instinct telling him not to move again until he was sure the guy was distracted. The guy had thick brown hair, grown slightly long and tangled as though it hadn't been combed in a while. He had probably been a sportsman once, his broad shoulders and muscle running to fat physique speaking of maybe a football player, Danny wasn't sure. He could see that the man had been handsome once also, but too many hardships, too much drinking, had turned his blue eyes blood shot, creased his face prematurely. They reached their floor and the drunk staggered out into the corridor, digging into his jean pocket for keys. Danny followed carefully and was yet again dismayed to see the drunk reaching the door directly across from Danny's. Danny shifted the bags around and found his own keys, unlocking his door as quickly as he could. Behind him, EB gave up trying to unlock the door and just started banging the flat of his hand against it.

Danny actually paused and tried to figure out how he had never heard the inebriated jackass coming in before, then shook his head and let himself into his apartment. He kicked the door closed behind him and looked around the place he called home. He realised, as he set the grocery bags down, that he didn't really live in his apartment; it was just some where he came back to. He had added very few personal touches to the place in the two and a half years he had lived there, not because he didn't like to, but because he simply hadn't had the time. His apartment seemed cold, unlived in, not like a home at all.

"Shit," he stated softly, and with feeling as he realised how sad it was that he had been so tied to the job that he didn't even like coming home at the end of the day.

He shrugged out of his coat, automatically walking to the bedroom where he took his badge, gun and phone off his belt and laid them on the dresser. He changed from his work clothes into a pair of comfy jeans and black t-shirt over a long sleeved sweater, slipping a pair of battered old sneakers onto his feet, and wondering briefly why even when he was at home with nowhere to go he wore his shoes. One of his co workers - Aiden, Flack, he couldn't remember now - had commented to him once that he always seemed on alert, ready to run somewhere. And he had realised they were right that same night when he had gone home, changed into pyjama bottoms and nothing else, and slipped a pair of sneakers on while he sat and read a book.

Danny shrugged indifferently, walking over to the table. As he unpacked his groceries he could hear Drunk Guy still hammering on his own door and sighed again. Danny took a beer from out of his fridge and popped the cap off, taking a small sip as he worked. Danny lifted the broken jar out of the bag he had dropped and nodded his head briefly as he saw it was not so badly broken that he couldn't use the remaining sauce. The jar was oily, and as Danny lifted his beer bottle the neck slipped through his fingers and the bottle fell back to the table, beer frothing and flowing out, spilling onto the table and floor. Danny cursed and grabbed a nearby dish cloth, mopping up the beer even as it dripped. He moved the bottle over to the sink and poured the remains away, running the cloth under a tap to rinse out the beer. The kitchen reeked of beer and Danny debated whether he should open another or simply do with out. He chose the latter and began to pack away the groceries except those he would need to cook his dinner with, pausing only when he heard the hammering from across the hall stop.

El Borracho mumbled something, then the door closed with a solid bang and Danny went back to work.

Forty minutes later his kitchen still reeked of beer, but it also reeked of grilled chicken and spices too. Danny was loading his dishwasher, half listening to the T.V he had turned on in the living room, tuned in to some Kevin Costner film about a fading old baseball star and his cocky young rival.

Danny heard a thump, and a faint crash, and frowned, walking into the living room to stare at the screen in case the noise had come from there. The scene didn't seem to match the noises Danny had heard. He hit mute and listened again. There was a series of thumps and another crash, and Danny realised with a sinking feeling that the Drunk from the elevator was beating the crap out of some one in his apartment. Danny dropped the remote and moved for his door, running full tilt and throwing it open, then colliding with the door across the way. He hammered on El Borracho's door and feverishly hoped that whoever was trapped inside with the hulking man was hanging in there.