The following characters are not mine. They belong to CSI NY creators. I honestly didn't think this chapter would ever be written. It just didn't seem to have focus. Actually, what it was missing was words. Lots and lots of words that ran away to some dark compartment somewhere and didn't want to be found. They are now imprisoned here for you to read :p Read at your own risk (ha ha).

Note: A 10-8 stands for Back in Service.

Back in Service

Chapter 8:

Turning off all the lights down stairs, Danny started to head up. On the way, he passed a picture on the wall he'd missed that was still turned around. He took it down and turned it over to study it for a moment. It was of Lindsay as a little girl, on her ranch with one of the horses. She had a child sized Stetson on her head and her brown eyes were alight with possibilities.

Kaley looked so much like her.

He hung the picture, and continued up the stairs, negotiating his way through the tall safety gate and then into Kaley's room. Lindsay was still with her. They'd been laughing, playing, and touching, the way they had so naturally since her birth. He'd brought food to them and they shared a little picnic together on the floor in the living room. That was hours ago.

It was quiet now. As he stepped in, Lindsay was in the rocking chair with a sleeping Kaley in her arms. The picture of them together, especially after the last few days, was heart breaking. Mother, cradling daughter, as she had so many times before. Still, Lindsay stared straight ahead, fighting sleep. Fighting her demons.

He walked over and bent to kiss her on the top of the head, brushing back her hair gently. "Come on, Montana."

She smiled weakly and ran her fingertips over Kaley's head. "I can't let her go."

"She'll be here in the morning."

"She grows up so fast."

"Not by the morning."

Lindsay looked up and gave him a small smile. It didn't reach her eyes. She relinquished Kaley reluctantly when he took her. When he lay his little girl down in her bed, Lindsay stepped up beside him. Together they watched her sleep by the light from the hallway, just letting the quiet of the night pass.

Finally, Lindsay reached down and moved Kaley's little rabbit over into the crook of Kaley's arm. Then she reached up and gently brushed back her soft hair, whispering, "Mommy loves you."

Danny reached out and took her hand, slowly drawing her from the room.

She was reluctant, even then, but it wasn't until they reached the doorway to their bedroom that she froze. He felt the trembling in her hand. He turned around, brought his hands up to either side of her face, drawing her eyes toward his own.

"I can't do this, Danny. I can't go to sleep." She was too tired to do anything else, too tired to fight.

"I'm going to be with you. I'm not going to leave you," he gave her an easy smile. "If you need to, we'll make a little bed in the closet and snuggle up together."

She rolled her eyes, drawing his attention to the moisture that had pulled there. After her friend's murder, her mother would find her sleeping in her closet, sometimes with clothes pulled down on top of her.

"Or we can go down stairs, sleep on the sofa, with all the pictures turned around backwards."

She sighed and reluctantly met his gaze, but there was a glimmer of a smile—a glimmer of both the fighter and the laughter he knew were part of Lindsay.

"If there are any other options—"

"Just hold onto me, Danny."

He drew her into the room, into his arms. "That, I can do."

Lindsay walked into the kitchen the next morning, ready for work. Kaley was already there, seated at the table eating pancakes that had been cut into bite sized pieces—the syrup was already on her face and hands, and probably in her hair. Danny set down two plates on the table and walked over toward her. As he had a later shift, he wore sweat pants and a loose t-shirt. After two fierce nightmares, she hadn't expected him looking so refreshed, with breakfast finished. She'd been prepared to rush out the door.

She realized then she'd stopped in the doorway. He reached out and tipped up her chin and for a moment their eyes connected. It was like she was shot with life saving voltage, bringing her heart back to life. She knew him, better than anyone. She knew that face, that heart, she knew his dreams. She knew his dreams had changed over the time they'd known each other.

He was hers.

His eyes drew that something-something from deep inside, reminding her that this was her family. This was their moment.

All within that split second, what she hadn't realized had turned shaky again, settled.

He gently pressed his lips to hers and stepped back.

"What did I tell you, Kaley?" Danny walked over to the table and sat down at his spot. "Mommy thought she was going to skip breakfast so she could get into work extra early. Kaley and I thought we would encourage you to stick around a bit longer."

Kaley laughed and clapped her hands together. "Daddy p'akes, Mommy."

She reached to double check her gun, then remembered that Make had taken it, along with her badge. She would get her badge back today. It would allow her some access to crime scenes and official offices and meetings, but some things would be off limits.

And so would her weapon.

Dr. Thurman would have to clear her first.

Lindsay went to Kaley first, gave her a smacking kiss, and then quickly tickled her.

"You taste like pancakes," Lindsay teased as Kaley giggled.

Kaley reached her syrup covered fingers to her plate and picked up a piece and offered it.

"Daddy's p'cakes."

"No," as Lindsay sat down, she reached across the table and took Danny's plate, switching it with her own as he watched with that knowing Messer grin. "These are Daddy's pancakes."

"Hey! You won't eat all that."

She grinned at him, and the relief of normalcy washed over her. "Wanna bet? I'm starved."

.

Across from her, Danny watched his two girls. Kaley didn't seem to be any worse for wear. When he'd retrieved her singing, from her room, she'd asked if Mommy would join them today for breakfast, but other than that, she seemed happy and settled.

Together they'd decided that they'd make Lindsay pancakes so she wouldn't be able to resist. Mommy loved pancakes, especially with chocolate ships—according to Kaley. Danny had pulled out the chocolate chips.

Still, Lindsay drenched the tall stack with the syrup she ordered over the internet from a Montana company. It was really sweet and thick. Danny gave her the required look of horror, but it felt good to be normal.

She was making an effort, he knew, for Kaley and for him. There was a war going on inside of her. She didn't want to leave. And there was a part of her that had to. Stay with her daughter, seek justice. Love unconditionally. Fight. Both were Lindsay.

If Lindsay had of expected anything her first day back, she didn't get anything that matched the feeling she was prepared to face. It wasn't a moment she could see and know. It was just a gnawing in her gut, as if there was something waiting, darkly in the background.

When she first arrived to work, she had to meet with Mac. It would take time for her to receive full freedom within the lab. Dr. Thurman would have to sign off on the return of her badge and the return of her gun. She would be off the streets and off the case or cases that cycled around the bodies as they found them.

It wasn't the arrival of the bodies, or knowing that they were in autopsy. It wasn't knowing she hadn't made the horrid details up. Even though they didn't—wouldn't—discuss the case with her, she knew by the look in their eyes that it was all true. They were finding them. Children. Little girls with their lives cut short and their families devastated.

She cleared her desk about a week in. She'd done all she'd been given the rights to do. She took out her badge, traced the gold shield, then the numbers. It was hers, her weapon against that darkness that had been inside of her for so long.

Her fingers curled into her palms. She needed to know more.

She paged Danny and told him to meet her in the conference room, then found the files to a few of the cases. When Danny arrived, she had the photos spread on the table.

"Montana, what are you doing?"

"I don't know," she stared at the photos, sorting through the short stack of the crime scene she hadn't visited, but knew about. She slapped her badge down on the conference room table, her gaze steady as she looked back at him.

"I can't stay away from this Danny. There a part of me that needs to put the pieces together."

He sat down beside her. She knew he was debating whether fighting over it was the right strategy.

She turned to him and took his hand. "This is the job—this isn't the nightmare."

He nodded, and she saw that he seemed to understand. He reached out and traced his fingers over her hand that still rested on her badge, then scooted a little closer and reached for the files, going over them with her. Going over details.

Her mind worked around them, filing them, sorting.

Lindsay didn't look up until the conference room door opened and Flack stepped in.

Flack looked from Danny to Lindsay, and frowned over the files that were spread out over the table. He'd come to find Danny, she could tell—to talk about this case. She lifted a brow. "You're going to have to talk about it at some time around me. I have to know."

"It's just …" Flack hesitated and looked first to Danny, though he received nothing. It made Lindsay smile.

"We just finished interviewing the parents of one Madison James, a little three year old girl that was admitted to the hospital two nights ago, having survived an abduction attempt the same night," he tapped his finger on the table as he sat down across from them. "She matches the profile of a girl on your list. Two from the bottom."

"He's not finished," Danny said.

"No. Hawkes and I put it together yesterday. The last little girl we found was killed this week. It seemed the murders were getting closer together, but still happened after Lindsay was taken and given the information. So we ran a check."

"He wants us to stop him," she said. "Classic psycho-killer inner struggle. He has it all planned out. All the steps. Who he wants, where he's going to commit the murder. He wants us to stop him before he does it again."

"So what do we do? Tell all the parents of the little girls in New York to keep them inside?" Danny asked.

"We stop him," Flack answered. It was obviously the only answer he had.

When Lindsay left after her shift, the unsettled feeling in her stomach had strengthened. She'd dropped by Dr. Thurman's office to check in and to share the information, but it didn't cause any tremors or blanking out. It didn't cause a panic attack.

He was helpful, however, in working with her to create a profile of the killer, one he'd already shared in part with Mac.

Lindsay ran it through her head as she rode the commuter train home. It worried her. Not because they hadn't been able to stop him yet. Not because …

She sighed. It was just going to run through her head, over and over again until the pieces were in place.

She stood as the train pulled away from a stop, unable to sit still as her thoughts circled.She braced herself against the rocking of the train, and held onto one of the braces. It was a movement she loved, something she'd only experienced in New York.

But even still, she wanted to be home.

She would set it aside for the evening. Enjoy her daughter. She reached up to fiddle with her locket as she thought of Kaley, but it wasn't there around her neck. It hadn't been since …

Since she'd been taken.

She stared out the window of the moving train, feeling the car closing in around her.

The image flashed of the man in the shadows, swinging the locket on its chain, back and forth … back and forth as he talked. As he went through his list.

As he made plans for his last kill.

Dun dun dun. I had that one up my sleeve since I went back and added the locket to the storyline :p ... I have been so waiting to get here. Please review--it would make my day and might help me get the next chapter out!

On an side note, it seemed the preference of other writers (several) that Danny must be able to make good pancakes--so I went with that in fanfic tradition.