Woebegone

AN: This is officially the longest one-shot CSI fic I've ever written. It's taken me a few weeks for me to write, on and off. I started it shortly after seeing the season finale, and finished it last night. I've never written any indepth character pieces for Mac before, and I haven't done huge amounts on Danny, either. Honestly, I don't know why my muse dragged me towards them or why I started hearing their voices in my head, but there you go. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: Don't own the characters, not making any money, blah, blah, blah.

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Danny sat down next to Mac, and offered him a beer.

"Figured you'd need one of these."

Mac took the bottle, feeling cool glass sweating under his fingertips. He rubbed his eyes, and glanced at his watch. "Ah… what time is it?"

Danny glanced at his watch, "it's just gone three."

"In the morning?"

"That's about the size of it."

Mac groaned and tipped his head back, "God."

"So I thought, since you seem to be pretty bent on the whole silent visual thing," Danny shrugged, "you didn't need to do it alone."

Mac managed a week smile, "thanks, Danny."
Danny shrugged, "hey, you did the same for me."

Mac nodded, silently. Still too fresh in his mind were visions of the three long, stormy nights he'd sat up with Danny next to Lou Messer's bed, watching, waiting, pacing, drinking coffee and alcohol in equal quantities. Stella would dip in to take over in the small hours of the morning. Flack would turn up around six AM to cart Danny home. Lindsay would stand guard at his apartment door to make sure he didn't try to get up. Add that particular endless routine to the crash and burn of Stella's last relationship… the past month had been one too full of hospitals, disinfectant, blood and the endless clicking and beeping of heart monitors and respirators.

Danny raised his beer bottle, "here's to… ah… to Don Flack. A friend in need."

"A friend in need," Mac clinked his bottle to Danny's and downed a mouthful. "Here's to modern medicine. Hospitals. Quick recoveries. Trauma wards. Bomb squads."

"Doctors, nurses and surgeons everywhere," Danny nodded, "DNA analysts."
Mac smirked, "Here's to all CSIs."

"Here's to Lindsay," Danny held up his bottle, "Stella, Hawkes and, uh… you."

"And you," Mac tipped his beer at his colleague and grinned.

"Alright then," Danny took a swig, "here's to Danny Messer, and his fucked up life."

"To all our fucked up lives," Mac agreed.

"To just generally being fucked up," Danny managed bitter grin. "To pasts, to regrets, to troubled waters under bridges and shit happening. To our sorrows making us who we are today, however screwed up."

"To sorrows and regrets," Mac agreed, sombrely, taking another swig.

They sat in silence for a few minutes more, as the sound of Flack's heart-monitor filled the room, and his raspy breathing sank through the atmosphere. Danny contemplated the deep green of his bottle, peering through condensation at the liquid swirling beyond it. With listless fingers he began to pick away the label. He closed his eyes and swallowed another mouthful of bitter alcohol. He'd never gone much for bottled beer – it was cheap and only tasted good when it was too chilled to actually taste what was in it. But today he needed the distraction.

"I think I'm woebegone, Mac," Danny spoke, softly.

Mac glanced at him, frowning at the slightly odd use of language, "what do you mean?"

"I mean I'm woebegone," Danny scrubbed his eyes with the heals of his palms, "I'm worn down – too much. So much. All the shit in the world seems to have happened this last month. I'm not depressed… just... woebegone. I looked it up. Seemed about the only word in the dictionary that came close."

Mac paused, allowing Danny to examine his own words before he himself considered what he should say. In the end, there was little else he could say. "Tell me about it."

Danny shook his head, bit his lip, then started unable to bare the weight of his own silence, "You get to thinking though, you know?"

Mac glanced at him, "thinking about what?"

"The past," Danny shrugged, "stuff you did right. Stuff you did wrong. Mostly stuff you did wrong – the stuff you wish you could change. Times like this – this last month. Lou… Stella… Aiden… now Flack… God, you have to start thinking it over, don't you?"

"I guess," Mac replied, softly. Stella's hands covered in blood, her face cut and bruised, body limp as he tried to rouse her, drifted unbidden back into his mind and he shook the image away, like the remnants of a half-forgotten nightmare – accept, of course, that this had been real.

"I keep thinking…" Danny ran a hand through his hair distractedly, "I keep thinking about all the stuff I regret. It's driving me nuts, you know? I just… I can't stop second guessing myself."

"Well that's a quick way to get yourself sectioned," Mac remarked, mildly.

Danny managed a short, bitter laugh and went back to staring at his beer. Mac listened to Flack's respirator ticking over and shook his head.

"So what do you regret, Danny?"

"What?"

"It seems to me the only way to bleed the poison off the memories is to talk them out," Mac shrugged, "that's how it always worked for me, anyway."

Danny smiled wanly. He took off his glasses and palmed his eyes, "how long have you got, Mac?"

"Well, I've been here six hours… I don't suppose a few more will hurt," Mac shrugged again and took another sip of beer, "tell you what – let's take it in turns. You tell me one thing you regret, I'll tell you one thing I regret."

Danny put his glasses back on, shunting them deftly into place on his nose with a well-practised thumb, the movement almost involuntary, reflexive. He picked away the label on his beer bottle, peeled the flimsy paper, saturated with condensation, away from the glass and crushed it to pulp in his fist. Opening his fingers again, he contemplated the mushy remains of the paper, the ink from it running and staining his skin blue, then spoke, still peering at his hands.

"I wish I hadn't been such an asshole to Lou."

"I know." Mac watched his younger colleague. Danny glanced at him expectantly and Mac looked away again, racking his brains for something suitable, "I regret… not decking Stella's boyfriend while I had the chance."

Danny grinned, the first expression of genuine amusement Mac had seen on him in some weeks. He tapped his bottle to Mac's and took a swig, "I'll drink to that."

"What else?" Mac asked, after another few moments of silence.

"Me?" Danny shrugged, "Jeez… I regret… kicking the crap out of some seventh grader when I was in tenth 'cause he looked at me funny."

Mac smirked, "kids are cruel, Danny."

"Yeah, but I was a bastard," Danny took a swig of beer and grimaced, "kid was half the size of me."

"Who was he?"

"I don't even remember his name. I don't think I even knew his name."

"You're not that person anymore, Danny," Mac assured him, gently.

Danny shook his head, "I'm not?"

"You're an officer of the law, Danny – of course you're not that kid anymore," Mac gave him a nudge. "Would you go after any guy who looked at you cock-eyed?"

"…no…"

"Well then."

Danny, however, still looked unconvinced. He was, Mac knew, stubborn as hell when it came to self-doubt and loathing. The man had serious issues, and if he hadn't had them four weeks ago, he certainly had them now.

"I regret," Mac began, more as a distraction than anything else, "not… not making Flack pay me back those ten dollars he still owes me sooner."
Danny laughed, softly. "I regret there being psychotic marine wannabes around who bomb buildings just to test our responses."

"Who doesn't?"

There was another, dragging silence. Mac turned his eyes towards the ceiling, realising with a heavy heart that if he was going to get Danny to truly open up about some of the stuff he was having to deal with at the moment then he was going to have to open up too.

"I regret… not telling Clare I loved her, the morning of 9/11."

Danny nodded, sombrely, staring at his beer bottle. He sighed heavily, "I wish… I wish I'd tried to see more of Aiden."

Ah. "Me too," Mac confessed, quietly. "But you saw her pretty often, didn't you?"

Danny shrugged, still refusing to look at Mac, "every couple of weeks, I guess. But… I mean, I knew something was up, Mac. I knew she was… she was up to something. She never told me what, but I could see it… Aiden could get a look in her eyes sometimes, you know? That look when she was about to do something stupid. Something really… Aiden-ish. She got it right before she got herself fired, she had it again the last time I saw her… I could see that look but I didn't want to believe… now she's dead."

"I don't think you would have been able to talk her out of it, even if you'd known, Danny," Mac pointed out, reasonably.

"If I'd asked her – If I'd gotten it out of her – if I'd even bothered to stop and think about what she might actually be doing I would have kept a closer eye on her!" Danny yanked off his glasses again and began cleaning them furiously with his shirt sleeve, "If I'd just been there more often… I missed her so bad, Mac, when she went… and I almost… I couldn't bare seeing her, you know? I missed her so bad. Now I can't see her ever again, Mac. I'll never see her again. I'll… she'll never whack me over the head when I say something stupid – she'll never laugh – she'll never come knocking on my door at ten at night with pizza and beer and – and… she'll never… Damn it, Mac, I just wish…"

Mac nodded mutely. He didn't trust himself to open his mouth. Danny's words had brought back a painful stab of horrible regret, not just for Aiden, but for Clare – for everyone he'd ever lost. It was the one truly incomprehensible, wretched thing about death – it's cruel, insurmountable finality. Aiden would never be seen again. He would never wake to find Clare asleep beside him again. His mother would never smile at him again. The world would never be the same again. How did a person comprehend that kind of irreparable change and not go insane?

"Everybody wishes, Danny," he began, after a moment, "we just have to learn how to let go."

"Let me know how that's done someday, will ya?" Danny smirked, the expression bitter, and shook his head. "You know what's almost worse is that I think I miss Aiden more than I miss Lou… I just… knew her so well and I didn't… I mean, these days I hardly know Lou at all, you know?"

"He's still alive, Danny," Mac reminded him.

"Just," Danny looked grim, "I don't know whether he'll pull through, Mac. Doctor's say he's… he's getting stronger but… with all the infections going round and… they still can't say he'll make it."

"Let's just… presume he's going to until otherwise informed," Mac said, "I think that might be better for your psyche, anyway."

Danny's lips twitched. He had fixed his gaze on Flack's bed and now got up and went to stand over his friend, looking down at that blank, unconscious face, his expression unreadable.

"Flack's gonna make it," he said, eventually.

"I think so," Mac agreed. Speaking the words out-loud seemed almost dangerous, like Flack's heart would automatically stop at the first cautious expression of optimism.

"People say, life's too short, you know?" Danny looked over his shoulder, back at Mac.

"For regrets?"

"Yeah," Danny nodded, "they say you can't go through life looking back, making second guesses, seeing all the things you did wrong but… I don't know. I think you need to be able to do that. I think people who don't end up just… making the same mistakes, over and over. At least if you look back, you learn, you grow a little, you know? Gives you a chance to think about the stuff you still have a chance to make right."

"True," Mac agreed. "What do you want to make right?"
Danny shrugged and smiled, "doesn't matter right now." He paused, then, "you ever been in a situation where you thought you were gonna die? Before today?"
Mac chuckled, darkly, "I was in the marines, Danny. There were mornings where I woke up assuming I was going to die that day. It was the only way to make it through without letting the fear of getting killed drive you insane – to assume you were already dead."

"Did it make you think about stuff?" Danny asked, coming back to sit next to him again, still nursing his beer.

"Like what?"

"Your life. The past. Regrets."

Mac smiled, "You don't think, in those situations, Danny. At least, I never did. You can't think. You just react. It's how you survive. You keep your head clear and your mind focused. Reflection comes later."

"What about today, defusing that bomb in the library," Danny looked at him, curiously, "you didn't get a whole 'life flashing before your eyes' thing?"

"Not really," Mac shrugged, "you just… keep a clear mind. Concentrate on what you're doing."

"We could have been blown to pieces back there."

"I know. But we weren't."

"I don't know how you concentrate like that, Mac," Danny shook his head, "my head just kept filling up – all the stuff I needed to do, or hadn't done, or wished I'd done…"

"You think too much, Danny," Mac smiled quietly, "It's what makes you a good CSI – and why you probably shouldn't join the bomb-squad."

Danny grinned again, and managed a slight laugh, "I guess so."

Mac leaned back in his seat and finished the last of his beer. He pulled off his tie and stood up to shake a cramp out of his leg. Danny began cleaning his glasses again, and Mac went to look out of the window at the dark New York night, gleaming before him as every building for miles was picked out by a thousand twinkling lights. He scrunched his eyes tight until those lights stretched and danced before them, then drew the blinds closed and went back to sit next to Danny once more. He was still cleaning his glasses.

"What was your mind so full of, Danny?" Mac asked him, eventually.

Danny shook his head, "doesn't matter."

"You sure?"

Danny glanced at his boss sideways, "you really wanna know?"

"Sure."

"It's stupid, really," Danny sighed and put his glasses back on, rubbing his eyes again. He looked very tired, Mac realised, a little guiltily, and wondered if Danny had actually gotten any sleep yet.

"Tell me anyway," he encouraged, "I assure you, it wont be as stupid as some of the thing that come flashing across my mind in life or death situations."

"Why? What do you think about?"
Mac shrugged, "just… random, everyday thoughts that come back to you without meaning or significance… whether I've left my stove on that morning, whether I let my cat out, remembering I've got to return a book to the library or I need to renew my car insurance. It happens when I'm trying to keep my head clear."

Danny looked down, "That ordinary, huh?"

"Yeah," Mac nodded, "so what were you thinking about?"

Danny looked a little awkward, "ah… jeez, fine… I was… I was thinking about Lindsay."

Mac lifted his eyebrows, "really?"

"Yes, really," Danny managed a sheepish grin.

Mac shook his head in disbelief, "you've uh… you got it that bad, huh?"
Danny began to laugh softly, "ah… jeez… um…" He licked his lips and inspected his nails, embarrassed, "Ah, Christ, do I ever have it bad, Mac. She uh… she does something to me… she just – she's something else, you know? She's… something else."

"I guess she must be," Mac was still shaking his head, "to get the great Danny Messer himself wrapped around her little finger."
Danny lifted his eyebrows at him, and Mac grinned ruefully, "you'd have to be blind not to see the way you look at her, Danny boy."

Danny smirked and looked down again, "that obvious, huh?"

"Well…" Mac shrugged, "to Stella, apparently. Me, I'm, uh… blind, to… that sort of thing. Always got my head in the latest case – according to Stella, anyway. Never see what's going on under my nose."

"You see plenty, Mac," Danny's glasses were beginning to slip; he thrust them impatiently back up the bridge of his nose, "maybe you're just not so in tune to office… stuff."

"Stuff," Mac agreed, glancing at Danny, who was looking self-conscious again. He smirked, "so… you and Lindsay can be filed under the miscellaneous label of… 'stuff'…?"

"Uh… sure," Danny sat back, "why not? It's all just stuff, right? We share an office, I make her coffee, she… kicks me under the table when I fall asleep – I… feel pain. She smiles…pain goes away… I figure, s'all good. Why mess with a good thing?"

"By doing something normal like… asking her out?" Mac enquired, diplomatically.

"Well…" Danny waved a hand, "that was… sort of what I was thinking about. Back… with the bomb… an' all…"

"Worried you'd never get the opportunity?" Mac asked.

"Sorta, yeah," Danny scratched his head, "It was something Aiden said, actually."

"Aiden?" Mac raised his eyebrows, "did you tell her?"
Danny snorted, "I didn't have to, Mac. She knew. She took one look at me the week after Lindsay came to the lab and she… ah, she knew before I did. And she thought it was fucking hilarious, too. She laughed her ass off the day she worked it out. Kept… ruffling my hair and calling me Danny-boy. She reckoned it was karma."

"Karma?"

"For all the dating I used to do, back in the day," Danny shrugged and smiled wanly, "suddenly I'm emotionally tied to this one girl – woman, I should say, definitely a woman – and I'm romantically paralysed until further notice. Aiden laughed like it was the funniest thing this side of comedy central."

Mac smiled. He could hear Aiden's voice, in the back of his head, her laughter loud and unrestrained. Aiden may have hidden her tears, bitten her lip when it trembled, but she never bottled up when she laughed – she was never ashamed. She laughed and she sang when she was happy, strong and… if not sweet, then in tune, loud and unashamedly joyful. Danny-boyyyyy, she used to sing, Danny-boyyy, my Danny-boy, across the Irish seeeea – he'll sail a ship for seven years and still come back to meeeee…

God, what a waste her death had been.

"You know, Aiden, she said to me," Danny began again, his eyes darkening slightly as he sobered, "she said, once she'd done laughing her ass off at me, that she bet I wouldn't be able to let it go – she said I had that jealous look about me. Told me to ask myself one thing, if I ever doubted it. She said, to ask myself whether I could see her – Lindsay – with anyone else, and be happy about it."

"Aiden was a smart woman," Mac nodded, quietly, "very smart. She knew about people. That was what made her a good CSI. It's… what meant she never stopped trying to catch Pratt."

"She knew he wouldn't stop until someone made him," Danny sighed, "God…"

"So… you asked yourself," Mac started, "whether you could see Lindsay with anyone else…"

"Yeah, that's pretty much what I was doing while you were defusing that bomb," Danny admitted, his grin sheepish.

"Good to know you were focused on the important things, Danny," Mac shook his head, a wry smirk touching his lips.

Danny laughed shortly, tossing his empty beer bottle restlessly from hand to hand – he still looked troubled, "If we got… if the bomb exploded I might have died and not… I really… I don't wanna die and not have… gotten to know her a little better."

"I see," Mac examined his hands. Stella had done some needling of Danny a few months previously about having a crush on the new girl, but Danny had mostly laughed that off and Mac had never once taken the accusation seriously. There had been rumours, of course – water-cooler talk, mostly. Break-room banter, nudges and winks. But that sort of thing happened all the time. He had seen how warmly Lindsay acted towards Danny, how well the two got on together these days. He had supposed that maybe, eventually, the pair would end up dating, but still… the reality of the idea was a strange one. Lindsay was not the sort of girl Danny was normally seen with. But then… what kind of girl did Danny normally get seen with?

Sad to say, Mac had to admit that he didn't know. Way back when, Danny dated around a lot – Aiden liked to dig at him about it – though, the last couple of years, he hadn't actually seen Danny with anyone. The guy had a reputation, but Mac was starting to suspect that that was all it was these days – a reputation. Being a CSI had changed the guy, made him start to hunt down some shred of meaning in his relationships. It seemed to have made him cut down on the number of women he was seeing, anyway. Maybe this new found emotional attachment to Lindsay was part of that.

He suspected Aiden herself had triggered what had become the gradual evolution of Danny Messer into a fully rounded human being. She was like Danny and not like Danny at the same time. Like him, she had been not so much raised as dragged up by various relatives while her parents were into all sorts, had learned to survive on the back streets and gleaned from that experience a desperate thirst the provide some justice in a world unjust enough to hand out childhoods like theirs. Unlike Danny she was measured, practical, patient and far from temper-prone. Mac had foisted the pair on each other when Aiden first became a CSI, a year after Danny did, and while it had been intended to be a learning experience for Aiden (Danny was a talented investigator, even then), Mac had realised fairly early on that it was Aiden who was taking care of Danny, far more than he was taking care of her. She kept him levelled out and balanced, stopped him obsessing or flipping out. She taught him to be diligent. He taught her to trust her own instincts. Under each other's watchful eyes, they both flourished. And Danny, probably for the first time in his life, formed a real, stable, intellectually equal friendship with a woman his own age.

Lindsay, Mac realised, had a lot to thank Aiden for. She might not know it, but the only reason Danny had become the (mostly) kind, compassionate, friendly colleague he was now was because of Aiden beating the bad stuff out of him long before the Montana-born CSI arrived. Aiden had left Danny more willing to form working relationships with people, and talked him into being patient with Lindsay (at Mac's request – he'd smelt trouble upon Danny and Lindsay's first meeting and given Aiden a call to beg her help in getting Danny to at least be civil).

Now here they were, nearly a full year later. The temperatures in the city were sky high once more, and the world seemed an altogether different place. Danny was in mourning for a brother who was not yet dead but might never wake again. Stella had experienced first hand a violent partner, and killed him. Aiden was in the ground. And Flack might be about to follow her there. All had occurred within a month – perhaps the most lurid, violent, twisted four weeks Mac had experienced since leaving the Marines.

Stella's bleeding hands… the scars were still there, fresh, raw, red, and would be there long after they had faded into white against her fingers. Aiden's broken body… Flack with a hole is chest. Mental images that couldn't be sponged away with time and some friendly counselling the way memories of the front line could at least be soothed into submission. People who he'd always taken for granted as safe, had been hurt – murdered. Somehow, the front line of a war he had never been consciously aware of fighting had been transferred squarely into his everyday life, and, apparently, all the people he cared about were being made casualties of it's progress.

Danny had been toying with his beer bottle in the silence as Mac got lost in his thoughts. He tossed it casually from hand to hand, spun it loosely around his fingers, then set it down before he could disturb the quiet by dropping it.

"You think Lindsay would ever see anything in a guy like me?" He asked, eventually. He sounded too exhausted to be hopeful, the question drained of all emotion aside from weariness.

Nonetheless, Mac shrugged, "you're a decent person, Danny. I think Lindsay's been looking for that – someone with compassion. Someone she understands, maybe."

"You think?"

"It's the way she looks at us; at the whole city," Mac shrugged again, "she's trying to find some kind of meaning. I think it's the whole reason she agreed to be transferred here from Montana. She wanted to know about some kind of life outside what she was used to, and she wanted to find… I don't know… some external logic."

"She does like to have things logical," Danny admitted, scratching his ear, "she hates the random stuff – you know, like that mugger who grabbed the girl we hauled out of the water in the mermaid costume. She couldn't take it just being shit happening. She needed there to be a reason."

"There you go," Mac nodded. "She wants some meaning. And you could be meaningful, Danny."

Danny snorted, "she doesn't understand me, though. She thinks I'm nuts."

"No, she doesn't – and I think she understands more than you give her credit for," Mac gave him a nudge, "she's just figuring you out. I think she likes that, too. Figuring people out."

"Mmm," Danny picked up his bear bottle and tapped it to his lips, quiet and thoughtful.

"Ask her out, Danny," Mac advised, quietly, "life's too short. You don't want to go through life being friends with her then wake up one day ten years later and realise you're a little too late to leave the friend zone – and that she's just been beaten to within an inch of her life by the son of a bitch she's seeing."

Danny looked up sharply at his boss, but Mac's expression was unreadable, his gaze fixed on something far away.

"I better get going," the younger man began, abruptly, suddenly feeling claustrophobic.

"You go and get some sleep, Danny," Mac advised. "I'll see you in the morning."

"You gotta sleep too, Mac," Danny reminded him.

Mac only smiled, "I'll sleep when I can be sure the nightmares in the waking world have stopped."

"Then welcome to life long insomnia, boss," Danny grinned wearily, picking up his coat, "g'night, Mac."

"'Night, Danny."

Danny left, Mac rubbed his eyes sitting forward in his seat, and the sound of Flack's respirator once again filled the room with uneasy silence. Beyond the hospital room, New York rumbled on, as it always did.