Disclaimer: Not mine and all that other stuff. I wish they were.

A/N: I apologize if there was any confusion, I accidentally posted the draft online, and this one is just a little bit different. I hope you enjoy it! Thanks to all of you who are reading and reviewing, and all of you who are just reading. I hope this chapter lives up to expectations. (Assuming there are some)

The sounds in my mind just come to me
Come see, come see
And the call of her eyes makes waterfalls
Of me, of me

In the garden of her love I'll stay awhile
To be, to be
What the seeds of her thoughts once mean to me
Come see, come see

Visions of paradise, cloudless skies I see
Rainbows on the hill, blue onyx on the sea
Come see, ah, ah, ah

And the sounds in my mind just come to me
Come see, come see
And the call of her eyes, makes waterfalls
Of me, of me

Stella walked down to the parkade at the lab and went to her car. That was until she remembered she had hitched a ride into work that day. Her car wasn't here, and she didn't have money for the subway. Damn. Now what are you going to do? Thought Stella. Just then her phone rang.

"Bonasera."

"Hey Stel, it's Flack. I just got a call from Danny. Lindsay's awake."

Stella blew out some air as she felt relief rush through her. "Thank God." She said.

Flack just answered with a chuckle. "I'm headed there now, do you want a lift?"

"Thanks that would be great. I've got a bit of car trouble right now as it is."

"What kind of car trouble?"

"I don't have a car."

Flack laughed, finding that simple comment much funnier than he normally would have. Today, there was nothing that wasn't making him feel good. Things were starting to look on the up. And, now there was the prospect of getting to see Stella. "I'll come pick you up. Be there in ten minutes." He said, still laughing.

Stella hung up, a smile on her face. Lindsay was awake, and she was facing a ride to the hospital, alone with Don Flack. This day couldn't get much better.

---------------

Sonny Sassone stood outside an abandoned construction site, smoking a cigarette. There would be nobody here that shouldn't be. He had already made sure of that. He looked up and saw a solitary figure walking toward him. This meeting was one of great importance.

"Sassone."

"Messer."

"All right. Tell me what they've got against us."

"As of right this moment? Nothing. The only way they'll have something is if they decode the DVD. That's the only thing we need to worry about. Figlioni knew it. That's why he hid it. The bastard turned on us, he knew he was gonna have to face the consequences. He hid that DVD to make it hard for us to find it. Now we got to get it back."

"And what happens if we don't get it back?"

"Then we may all go down for murder one."

Joey Messer stared at the younger man. This was not good news. That DVD had the record for all the hits the Tanglewood Boys had ever done. If the cops decoded that DVD, then they could nail them for every murder Tanglewood had ever been responsible for. Normally, Joey wouldn't worry about that. The cops had nothing to tie him directly to the Tanglewood other than his son Louie, now deceased. That wasn't good enough. Until this DVD.

Joey was a big backer of the Tanglewood Boys. He had his own ties in organized crime, and was very pleased when his son Louie found two guys, Sal, and Sonny that would help start a respectable gang. Joey would fund them if they did some jobs for him. It was all going great; Louie even tried to get Danny involved. But that had been a fiasco.

Joey got angry at the thought. Danny was a coward. He was never strong enough to be involved in organized crime. So what did the scum do? He made best friends with a cop's family. Joey tried to beat it into Danny early that crime was the only thing the Messers were good at, but to no avail. Danny enrolled in the police academy. Go figure. But Joey let him go. He couldn't bring himself to kill a son, no matter how much of a traitor he may have been. But hen he got the surprise of his life years later.

Danny had been implicated in a 15-year old murder, one that could easily have put the Messer behind bars. But then, Louie Messer betrayed the gang that was his real family, to save his no-good, cop brother. He got Sassone put behind bars and Danny off scot-free. This was the worst thing he could have done. So Joey had no problem when Tanglewood decided to "deal" with Louie. He had lost the father-son love when he did that. Joey had had to call in way too many favours to get Sassone out of jail.

Now, Danny was no better. He had screwed with Tanglewood one too many times. He was also the only police officer in the city who could decode that DVD without trouble.

Sonny stared at the older man. This was causing him pain. It was hard for him to agree to put a hit out on his son. He would have to be persuaded then. "Joey, we've got no choice. He stays alive, we all get the needle. There are too many murder records on that DVD to mess around with here. It's him, or us." Sonny stared at the Messer standing before him. He was pleased when he saw the man give a curt nod.

"Fine." But make sure we get that DVD back somehow. I don't want to have killed him for nothing." With that, Joey Messer turned his back on Sonny Sassone and left the construction site.

Sonny looked after him for a few moments. He would take care of this. He was looking forward to it.

---------------

Danny couldn't wipe the grin off his face. This day was amazing – Valenti had confessed and Lindsay had woken up. The day was almost at a close and Danny couldn't remember a better one in the recent past. He stared dreamily at Lindsay as she ate her hospital food, consisting of JELLO, bread, and chocolate pudding. Not exactly the healthiest meal.

Lindsay glanced over at Danny and felt her stomach flutter. The look he was giving her made her feel odd. But in a good way. She couldn't describe the feeling and knew that was because she had never felt it before. This was the first time she had ever been in love. And she knew Danny felt the same way, those being the first words he said to her when she woke up. And he still hadn't let go of her hand, forcing her to eat clumsily with only one.

The doctor had been in and told her she was doing amazingly well. It had taken her a little while to remember exactly what had happened, but it had come back – suddenly and vividly. The shooter's eyes remained a strong image in her mind-s eye. But all it took was one look at Danny's bright blue eyes for her to realize that she was safe. Her stomach fluttered once again as he sent a goofy grin in her direction. Forget the food.

Lindsay pushed the food tray away from her and pulled Danny on the bed beside her. She leaned over and kissed him, just barely touching her lips to his. It didn't take long for the kiss to become a full-out, breath-taking action.

"OW!" Lindsay squeaked as she tried rolling over. She looked up at Danny's worried face and burst into laughter.

Danny's face slowly relaxed as he realized she was okay. "Hold that thought. We'll have to continue it another time. Can't have you getting hurt while I'm here, the doctor might kick me out." Danny said with a smirk.

"Oh, and we couldn't have that." Lindsay said, rolling her eyes. She lay down and put her head on Danny's chest, relishing the fact that she was able to be this close to him. She inhaled deeply, taking in everything about him – his scent, his messed-up hair, his bright blue eyes. As he brought his arms around her to hold her she snuggled deeper into his chest. She didn't want this moment to end.

Underneath her, Danny was thinking the same thing.

---------------

Adam looked at the computer screen in front of him and saw gibberish. He had absolutely no idea what the computer was displaying. And this was saying something, as Adam had never been stumped by a computer problem in his life. He puzzled over this for a moment before sending Mac a text. Maybe he would have some idea as to what this meant.

Some time later, Mac and Adam were both staring at the computer screen, wondering what to make of these symbols that had been downloaded off the recovered DVD.

"It must be some type of code, probably to do with the Tanglewood Boys. It could be their form of communication about sensitive issues. But I have no idea how to decode it. There seems to be no pattern to the characters." Mac stared at the computer screen for the umpteenth time, willing it to show him something more.

"I can try running it through decoding programs, but it doesn't look like anything I've seen before. I doubt we'll get a hit." Adam looked over at Mac to try and gauge his reaction. "If we can't figure it out, then we'll have to call in the federal code-breakers."

"I know." Mac wasn't happy about that prospect, but didn't know what else to do. He had one last hope. "Adam, make a copy of this. I want to let Danny take a look at it before we send it off. Maybe he can get something out of this. I know I can't make heads or tails of it."

"Sure boss." Adam answered.

Mac stalked out of the office, headed home for the day. Tomorrow he was going to be up bright and early.

---------------

"Hey Stel, wait a sec." Flack said quietly.

"What's up?" Stella froze in mid movement; halfway out of the SUV Flack had driven them to the hospital in.

"Nothing big, you've just got the seat belt hooked around your purse." Flack looked at Stella and smirked. Stella could feel her heart speed up to a few hundred beats per second.

"Oops. Thanks. That could have been ugly." Stella said, hoping that Flack wouldn't notice the waver in her voice. She was trying to hide her disappointment. She had thought for a moment that he was going to ask her something else. It was one kiss Stella. Don't' expect too much. He might not feel the same way about you.

Flack walked around to her side of the SUV and they walked up to the hospital side by side. She was pleasantly surprised when Flack opened the door for her, and then led her through, his hand at the small of her back. She hoped he wasn't looking at her at that moment, because she couldn't stop the smile from spreading across her face, making her look ridiculous she was sure, but she didn't mind.

"Stella! Flack! Hey you guys!" Lindsay squeaked out from her hospital bed. "It's so good to see you!"

"Good to see you too Linds." Flack replied with a chuckle. He was laughing because of the position Lindsay was in. She had obviously woken up moments before they walked through the door, as she looked rather disheveled, and she was stuck underneath Danny's arm.

Danny grunted and rolled over, opening his eyes reluctantly. He got one glimpse of Stella and Flack standing by the door and closed his eyes again.

"Well, I guess this means the cat is out of the bag now doesn't it?" He said grimly.

Stella didn't answer. She just had a smug look on her face that she gave to Danny. He just looked back at her sheepishly before rolling off the bed.

"Hey Danny, why don't you grab some food with Flack, you must be starving. You haven't left this room in hours."

"I get it Montana. You want your girl talk with Stella. Alright, alright, I'm leaving. Come on Flack, let's go grab some coffee. I need caffeine."

"Right behind you Messer." He turned to Lindsay. "Glad to see your okay Lindsay, if not for your sake, then mine." Lindsay looked at him, obviously a little confused. "If you hadn't pulled through, I would have had a really distraught Messer on my hands. That would have been one horrible punishment, created by the Gods to punish me on some cosmic level." He grinned as he walked out, a complaining Danny chasing him down.

Stella grinned at Lindsay as she sat down in the chair recently vacated by Lindsay. "Well?" Stella looked at her expectantly.

"What?"

"Don't play stupid with me Lindsay. How are you and Danny doing?"

"I'm fine aside from a few aches and pains, thanks for asking."

Stella looked a little embarrassed. "I'm sorry. I should have asked how you were doing. I mean you just woke up, and already I'm badgering you for information on your love life. That's really rude of me."

Lindsay was laughing. "It's okay Stel. I'm fine, and so is Danny. He's been here for so long I think he is probably on first name terms with all the doctors and nurses in the building."

"Only if they wouldn't tell him information about you. You should have seen him earlier Lindsay. He was badgering every nurse in this place to tell him what was going on. Jason had to plop him down, darn near handcuffing him to that chair. He had to promise him hourly updates on your status to keep him from freaking out."

Lindsay laughed. That sounded like Danny all right. "He told me he loved me." Lindsay said quietly. She was still a little surprised by that fact. His words had sounded so sincere, and she was mesmerized when he had said them to her.

"I know."

Lindsay looked up in surprise. "When you were still asleep, he told me. He was nervous, scared that if he said it, you wouldn't feel the same way. I told him he was wrong. Anyone looking at the two of you would know that you were in love. It's the way you flirt with each other and joke around while at work, they way you are comfortable with each other even in awkward circumstances. You trust each other, and Danny is obviously devoted to you enough to stay in a hospital room, chained to a chair and not let go of your hand for a day. Your eyes when looking at each other – it's something not many people find."

Lindsay was shocked. "How long have you known that?"

"Longer than you. There was an office pool set up only a few days after the two of you met. Come on Linds, we investigate things for a living. If we couldn't figure you two out, then we probably aren't very good at our jobs. You two were pretty obvious."

Lindsay could feel the red creeping up into her cheeks. So everybody had known for a long time had they? She had met Danny almost two years ago. So the lab had known for that long? She didn't know what to think, so she blurted out the only thing her mind could process. "Flack already told me about the office pool. But I didn't know that you all knew so much. I thought it was just a little bet."

"Well, not anymore. Flack won over three hundred dollars. That pot had been building up for a long time. Lots of people involved. I mean, come on Lindsay. Why couldn't you have waited one more day? That was my pick." Stella pouted as she looked at Lindsay. Suddenly, both women burst into laughter and it took several minutes for the fits to subside.

"Speaking of my conversation with Flack, he let something slip. And I guess as I have nothing to worry about people finding out about my relationship, then he will be granted the same honor. He mentioned a crush on a certain curly-haired CSI."

Stella blushed. Lindsay smirked. "From your reaction, I'm guessing he's already expressed this to you."

"I trust you'll keep this between you and me?"

"Well, and Danny."

Stella just looked at her, causing Lindsay to burst into laughter once again. She was saved the trouble of responding as Dr. Boldt walked in at that time.

"Glad to see you awake Ms. Monroe. If it's okay, I'd like to do a quick exam."

"Sure. I'll talk to you in a few minutes Stella."

"You bet." Stella left to go find Danny and Flack, happy to see Lindsay doing so well. And she trusted Lindsay. She wouldn't tell everyone about her and Flack. Would she?

"Well, Ms. Monroe, you seem to be progressing remarkably well. Do you have any pain?"

"Not really, only when I move awkwardly, or bump my shoulder."

"That's good to hear. As long as there are no complications, I think you can go home tomorrow, assuming you have someone to stay with you at home."

Lindsay briefly thought of Danny and smiled. "Yes Doctor. There will be someone at home."

---------------

Danny made it back to Lindsay's room an hour or so later, saying farewells to Flack and Stella. After having Jason and Mac stop by, Danny was glad to finally have a quiet room, consisting of only him and Lindsay. He smiled at her once, as he climbed up onto the bed next to her. It wasn't long before both of them were asleep.

Unbeknownst to the sleeping couple, a cell phone was vibrating away on the table next to them. It belonged to Danny, and the caller ID said "Dad". It rang twice, and then was silent.