CSI: New York
Phantasmagoria
Phantasmagoria by definition is a scene that is something like you see in a dream.
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Three
"Flack, you okay?" Stella asked noticing her colleague limping past her.
He muttered something under his breath and dismissed the matter with just a wave of his hand. I don't want to talk about it. "Where's Mac?"
"On his way in," she replied. "You sure you're okay? Somebody stomped on your foot?"
He frowned as soon as he stuck his head in one of the lab rooms. Where's Danny at? He stood up straight and turned around only to take a step back, startled to see Stella standing so close behind him, her shoes tapping on the linoleum floor. What's with women today?
Earlier, Lindsay had threatened to break his fingers off if he would not step out of the room just so she could focus on processing the evidence without any disturbance (he was only there because Danny was there). Apparently, Don had talked too much and she was not pleased that Danny had somehow abandoned what he was supposed to be doing and instead, was busy joking around with his dear friend.
Then not too long ago, while attending to a scene, a suspect (who happened to be a woman) had given him one tight slap across his face for the snide remarks. Or so she claimed. She refused to cooperate, he reasoned with himself silently as he brought his hand to his cheek. And it still stings.
Then just recently, right outside the precinct, on the sidewalk, by the street, right next to a cab, his ex-colleague and (sometimes psycho and aggressive) female friend had gone all violent on him. Despite the fact that her heels were the cause of his limping and the pain and probably, the bruising later on, honestly, he found it strange that he missed of getting hurt by her.
"Seriously, Don," Isabelle warned, "I wouldn't hesitate to hurt you back physically, emotionally and mentally. I swear I'll make you suffer one day."
And what was his reply?
"How do you make someone hurt mentally? I'm curious, Belle, honest."
That had earned him a penknife being tossed in his direction, missing his head merely an inch before it hit the wall behind him and fell on the ground.
"It will be your enormous head I'm aiming the next time."
Stella leaned in closer to Don's face, scrutinizing him and wondered what was going on in that head of his. She snapped her fingers at him, satisfied that it got his attention. She leaned away from him and crossed her arms. "And when are you planning on telling me that Isabelle was here?"
He looked at her surprised. That was until he saw Danny smirking at him as he walked past with Lindsay, carrying a taped-up box. He told her. Stella continued. "And you made her angry?"
"That earned him a stomp on his foot with her heels," Danny informed over his shoulder. Don looked at him threateningly.
"Whose heels are we talking about?" Mac asked joining the two, eyes on the file he was holding.
"Isabelle's," Stella said the same time as Don said: "Nobody's." Stella gave him a look. Mac did not seem to hear though, which Don was grateful for and Stella, the otherwise.
"We found a matching DNA on the stiletto Natasha was wearing to the victim's blood. She's our main concern now."
"Well, let's go get her."
"Not that easy, Stella," Mac said finally looking up from the file. "She's nowhere to be found."
Great, another woman hunt, Don thought, sighing, a heels fetish, no less.
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When Isabelle reached her apartment door on the top floor, seeing yet another box (which was smaller in size than Danny's) was not much of a surprise to her. She kind of figured she would be expecting these showing up randomly, for five times at least. The fifth is Sheldon. By now, she had confirmed that the dream was indeed a dream but it was a dream with a message:
I haven't really got enough time to return all the borrowed things back to their owners.
She knew she ought (like most people would react) to be freaking out by now considering that she had no idea from whom or where these boxes came from but at the same time, it was not that weird or strange at all because somehow she understood that these were the boxes containing all those borrowed things that Aiden had—presumably—wanted to return but was already too late. She didn't return me my novels and DVDs. Not that it mattered now.
She sighed as she crouched by the box, looking momentarily at it before turning it around—again, with much difficulty because all of the boxes just had to be heavy—to see whose box this belonged to this time: BONASERA.
She opened her apartment door and slid Stella's box inside, right next to Don's. She stared at his box, reminding her that he was still the same old Don who managed to get on her nerves every time.
Her cell phone rang obnoxiously loud shortly after from inside her purse. Without giving her any chance to greet, the person on the other line said hurriedly: "What's the meaning of this, Belle?"
She could only frown at that. God knows for how many times she had frowned in a day. "Care to elaborate, Danny? What do you mean?"
Danny emptied the remaining contents of the box, which after every item, he frowned more and more, head filled with questions. "I mean what I mean, Belle: what's the meaning of this? These are the things…I never thought I'd see again. What's going on?"
"Would you believe me if I say Aiden wants me to return them to you?" she said quickly, making her way into the kitchen. She waited for him to talk. Fat chance he'll believe me.
"Should I believe you?" he asked slowly, as if afraid that if he happened to choose the wrong words, she would start screaming. Or stomping with her heels, he thought, smirking at how Don had been complaining about his foot aching. "She's gone, Belle."
She nodded though he could not see her. "Then it's just those things that she borrowed from you which I borrowed from her and now I'm returning them back to you because I don't want them to take up space in my apartment."
It took him a moment for it to register into his head. He laughed. "Okay, look, I don't know what's really going on with you but this is really strange, okay? I'd understand if you borrowed my CDs but what could you possibly want to do with my shirt?"
"You left your shirt with Aiden?" she feigned a gasped. "You slept with her, didn't you?"
He rolled his eyes. "Ha-ha, very funny."
She chuckled noting his annoyance in his voice. "Hey, you're not going to believe me with the story anyway because, well, it's going to sound completely impossible, crazy, strange, weird…whatever you want to call it. She wants me to help her return the things she borrowed. That's all."
Again, he was quiet. "I don't know what Miami has done to you," he finally said, "but it's hard to believe you with that. I mean, things don't just appear out of the blue, especially when the last person they're with is already gone."
"Believe me, Danny, that's what I thought." She poured herself a glass of cranberry juice and helped herself to it. "And I still have Stella's and Don's box to return."
"Hmm," he mused. "You have Don's box with you? This should be interesting. I'd like to know what you'd do with it."
Something, maybe, she thought evilly, suppressing a smile as if Danny would be able to sense it and could immediately know her thoughts and then, filling Don in on it.
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