The warehouse looked ominous. Its entrance a cavernous gaping maw that seemed to swallow the flood of afternoon light that lit the street outside. Danny and Stella shivered. Then grinned at each other in good humour and tried to shake off the chill that crept along their spines.

A tall, lanky plainclothes detective approached the pair, notebook in hand, holding his coat closed against the bitter wind.

"According to Officer O'Malley" he gestured at one of the uniformed cops standing by the nearby squad car, "the scene is secure. We have an unidentified male, estimated to be in his late fifties, found dead in the warehouse at 10:45. Took a while to call it in, kid who found him was sick as a dog at first. But not, you'll be relieved to know, all over your crime scene. Kid made it outside, passed out and called it in when he came round. He's being checked over. "

Walking from such brilliant sunshine into the dimly lit warehouse rendered the pair momentarily blind, and Stella had to stop abruptly after only a few feet, Danny cursed as he almost walked straight into her, and their cases clanged together loudly in the silence.

He scrambled backwards as she took a slow step further into the darkness, flicking on her maglite and creating a pool of light that only seemed to plunge the rest into an even darker inky blackness.

"Oh come on. There must be some lights around here somewhere…" Stella swore as she nearly tripped over the debris that littered the dusty floor.

Danny moved away sweeping his own maglite across the wall to his right, he could hear Stella to his left stumbling and swearing and he grinned widely, not needing to hide it in the pitch black. He swung the beam of light further along the wall and then quickly swung it back again.

"Hey, Stell, I think I might have something here…"

He pulled on the switch; grateful he had put his gloves on before he had entered the building.

At first nothing happened, then slowly, from somewhere in the heights of the rafters came the angry buzzing of lights. It turned the black to dirty grey; the two CSIs peered at their surroundings.

"Danny?" Stella whispered urgently.

"Yeah?" His voice was a low murmur off to her right.

"Didn't the Detective say there was a body?"

"Yeah."

"So why have we got two?"

She carefully set her case down and reached to unclip her weapon as the second 'body' surged to its feet and headed toward her in a crouched run.

The dim light glinted off the knife in his hand and she froze.

For a second all she could see was Frankie coming at her and it froze her blood, her breath clogged in her lungs and bile stung her throat, her heart beat so hard it felt as though it were about to leap out of her chest.

Danny swung around at the piercing scream and had only a second to register a crumpled Stella before he found himself on the floor and wrestling for the knife he could see gripped in their assailant's hand. He saw red, felt the burn of anger and the rush of adrenaline. He forgot about his gun and surged over the other man, grunting with the effort as his hands gripped tightly around the arms poised over his head. He groaned as they rolled over and over again and this time when they stopped he found himself underneath the writhing man, who was screaming in anger and defiance. Danny's blood pounded in his veins and his breath came in harsh gasps. Suddenly, the other man moved and the arm holding the knife disappeared between their bodies and Danny scrambled madly to regain his grip. Desperately trying to twist out of the other man's hold, he heard his holster hit the floor and he finally remembered his gun. Suddenly he was torn between fighting for the knife and reaching for his weapon and his momentary indecision cost him. Danny felt the heat and the burn as the knife pierced his skin and the agonising pain that followed, and he screamed in pain and anger. Filled with the instinctive desperate need to survive he clawed and wrenched at the hand that still gripped the knife, and millimetre by painful millimetre forced the hand away from his body. He felt the knife slide out from between his ribs and gritted his teeth against the white spots that threatened to fill his vision. They rolled again, and again the man managed to force his hands between them. Danny saw the man's eyes fill with hate moments before with what seemed like superhuman effort he forced them to roll again.

This time when the knife slid into flesh it stayed there.

Danny felt him jerk, he saw his eyes widen and then roll back. Eventually he felt the body under him sag into unconsciousness.

He rolled off the body and lay on the floor, his back against the cold concrete and tried to force air into his lungs without aggravating the vicious knife wound in his side. He struggled against the encroaching tunnelling of his vision, forcing his eyes wide and ignoring the stabbing agony gulped in deep cleansing breaths.

Stella.

With a low moan he rolled away and half crawled, half stumbled to the still form that lay crumpled only yards from him. He reached out with a trembling hand and checked her pulse. It was strong and steady. Danny sagged in relief and ignoring the excruciating pain radiating from his side gently gathered her up in his arms and rocked her.

"You're okay, you're okay" he repeated dully.