A/N: Thanks to MariaLisa for encouraging, discussing, and beta'ing!

Thanks to all those reading but not reviewing. I know you are out there and I appreciate it!

Rated M: for language.

DISCLAIMERS: The CSI:NY characters belong to Jerry Bruckheimer and the wonderful writers for CSI: NY. However everything else is mine.

Unconditional Love

Etch your burdens upon my heart

And from your shoulders they will depart

-Sally Jetson

"Mac, you wanted to see me?" Danny casually leaned against the office doorframe feeling anything but casual.

Mac swiveled his chair away from the window breaking his contemplative stare from the teeming city far below.

Mac thumbed his chin at Danny. "Close the door on your way in."

Shit this can't be good.

Danny leaned back in the chair across from Mac's desk and rubbed his hands up and down his thighs a couple of times to expel the nervous energy building inside him.

Mac steepled his fingers, eyeing the fidgety man before him.

"I heard about the takedown with Nicky Roselli and that your father was shot."

Danny registered relief with an expelled breath. "Yeah, it was a hell of a twenty-four hours but we all came out okay. I went by to see Dad this morning in the hospital and he's coming along."

"I'm relieved to hear that you father is going to be okay. And Lindsay… is she okay? Did she make her flight to Montana?"

"Yeah Mac, she's fine… you know she's a country girl, tough, doesn't miss a beat… and now she's off taking care of business." Tough? Messer, you know that she bleeds red just like the rest of us… you proved that before she left, didn't ya?

Danny shifted uncomfortably in his seat at the little white lie. He had no idea where Lindsay was at the moment or what her state of mind was but he could hazard a good guess after their less than amicable parting.

"Good. That's reassuring to me. I know it has been a rough couple of weeks for you."

"You got that right."

"If you need some more time off just let me know, I'll shift some people around…"

"Nah Mac, I'm good, really…I need to work…keep busy."

"I'll take you at your word but if it starts getting to you I need to know… no questions asked…understand?" Mac watched the expressive face of the younger man closely, knowing exactly how it felt to need to fill one's time to keep the sadness and loneliness at bay.

"Is that it?" Danny queried, anxious to be out from under the perceptive scrutiny of his boss.

"Yeah, that's it…"

Danny was up and had his hand on the doorknob when Mac spoke again.

"Tell Lindsay we're all thinking about her when you speak to her."

Damn!

Danny turned, giving Mac a sheepish look, "Uh, can you give me the number for her parents again? I have it in my cell but that hasn't been recovered yet and…"

"Sure."

Mac wrote the number on a slip of paper and handed it across the desk to him.

"Thanks, Mac," he said, stuffing the paper into his shirt pocket.

Messer you are so delusional… she doesn't want to speak to you.

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Patrice stared out the kitchen window, eyes locked on the slim figure wrapped in an oversized coat, head bent down, buffeted by the wind, making her way across the yard towards the barn. She always was the plucky one. Matt joined her, sliding an arm around her shoulders and pressing a kiss to her temple.

"How did it go?"

"Very well…" Patrice looked at Matt, the pieces of the puzzle shifting around on her face. "In fact, too well." she replied distractedly, as the pieces began to shift faster.

"What do you mean?"

"I just didn't get the reaction from her that I was expecting. It was as if her mind was somewhere else."

"I'm sure she's just worried about the trial and having to go through it all again…" Matt soothed, "as we all are," he added when she pegged him with a look.

"No," Patrice shook her head, trying to grasp the piece that would put it all into place. "It's something else… something must have happened in New York before she left… things aren't right, I can sense it."

They both stared out of the window in contemplative silence as Lindsay disappeared into the barn.

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With his long and incredibly tedious shift completed, he sat in his darkened apartment nursing a now-warm beer. His finger hovered over the numbers of his newly acquired cell phone as if it was the red button and he was the president in a moment of national crises. He wasn't sure if he was ready to do this… ready to speak to her… face his frustration, and his anger. What if she turned him away? He wouldn't blame her after the way he had treated her, the things he had said to her. But she had helped him before… and he sure as hell needed her help again.

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The horses nickered a soft greeting as she entered the barn, the smell of hay, liniment and manure pulling her back in time.

"Uncle Lariat?" she called out, as she heard a horse stamp and snort in agitation and a calming, "Easy boy," answer in return.

"Back here, Lindsay, in Dashiell's stall," a low, gravelly voice called out to her.

She approached and leaned over the stall, watching a spry man with a rope-thick salt and pepper braid trailing down his back squat beside the buckskin stallion as he ran an exploratory hand along the fetlock.

"Your daddy said that Dashiell was favoring this leg. It wouldn't do if he went lame on us now with the buyers coming down from Helena tomorrow to check him out."

"He sure is a beaut, Uncle Lariat."

"Ain't he though," Uncle Lariat agreed as he straightened, eyeing Lindsay speculatively.

"You look a little worse for wear there, Lindsay. What, New York not treating you right?"

"I wouldn't say it was New York itself that wasn't treating me right."

"Oh, them kind of troubles," Uncle Lariat commiserated as he bolted the stall door. "Set a spell?" He gestured to the hay bales stacked against the wall.

Pulling a blade of hay from the bale, he chewed it thoughtfully as they sat down on the bales, backs against the wall, knees drawn to chests.

After a few moments of companionable silence Uncle Lariat began to drawl out his customary, straightforward wisdom. "Well the way I see it you got two ways of dealing with trouble of that nature."

Lindsay nodded expectantly.

"You can head straight for the trouble and deal with it head on." Uncle Lariat squinted an eye along his outstretched arm as if he were sighting down a shotgun barrel.

"Already tried that approach." Lindsay muttered, swiftly.

"How'd it go?"

"Out the window."

Uncle Lariat grunted either in understanding complicity or shared experience and fell silent.

Minutes passed; Lindsay waited patiently knowing that Uncle Lariat could not be rushed. Just as she was losing the feeling in her fingers and toes, he spoke again.

"Well then I guess you have to take the other route." Again, he grew silent, now working the hay blade between his back teeth as a cow rolls her cud.

Lindsay, not used to just 'setting', particularly after being in New York for two years, cleared her throat suggestively.

He took the blade out of his mouth obviously gearing up for something important as Lindsay looked at him with her eyebrows raised.

"You head in the opposite direction," he gestured over his shoulder, "gain some perspective and wait it out."

"Uncle Lariat," she sighed at his earthy advice, "that's just not the easiest thing to do."

"Well, the way I see it you're already halfway there… after all Montana is a far cry from New York."

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She sat on the edge of the couch twisting her hands in her lap head bent forward, a burnished curtain of hair hiding her face.

His hand clenched and unclenched several times as he watched her, the anger, the hurt, the disappointment coursing through his veins like poison.

Then her words came back to him…. You don't know what love is.

Maybe not he sighed, as he took a step towards her, but it was the only chance he had.

She must have sensed his presence because she lifted her head when he was still a few feet away, even though he had approached silently.

Her eyes were glittering with tears.

Shit! Why do women have to cry?

He sat on the coffee table across from her, his knees touching hers, his arms resting on his thighs as his head dejectedly hung between his hunched shoulders.

"Ma, things are so fucked up and I don't know how to fix them."

"We talk about them… that's how we fix them."

"I don't know Ma, I am so fuckin' angry, at you, Dad, Uncle Sal."

"I know, but I'm not angry at you. I understand your reaction, your feelings. We all say and do things in the heat of the moment."

His head raised, eyes displaying the silent plea as his voice spoke it. "How did it happen, Ma?"

"Danny, that isn't what's important." Caitlin sighed softly laying a hand along his cheek.

"It is to me Ma! If it hadn't happened I wouldn't be here today. That makes it fuckin' important in my mind." His terse assertion goaded her towards an explanation.

She wrapped her arms around herself as if to protect herself from the memories… or the emotion. "I was angry at him…like you, I was just- so- angry."

"What'd he do, Ma? Did he cheat on ya? Did he hit ya?"

She shook her head vehemently as she explained, "Louie's third birthday party. I had planned it for weeks and Joe knew that. He promised me he'd be there. Everyone in the family was coming over to the house. At the last minute he got an invitation from a potential client for a weekend in Atlantic City."

"And he went." Danny anticipated dryly.

"Aye, he said the best deals were made at the craps table when the client was on a roll."

She sighed and her hands dropped to her lap, agitatedly twisting them again as she continued.

"When the party was over, Louie went home with your nona to spend the night. That was her birthday present to him. He was so excited. And Salvatore stayed to help me clean up. He knew I was angry. He was there for me."

She focused apologetic eyes on Danny. "It was just something that should have never happened."

Danny quickly did the math on his Cousin Michael's age.

"Where was Aunt Teresa?"

"At home; she'd had a bad cold and didn't want to pass it on to the kids."

"Was it a mistake, Ma?"

She flanked his face with her hands. She knew what the real question was; she could see it in his eyes, hear it in his voice.

"You were not a mistake, Danny. I wanted you the second I found out about you. It makes no difference to a mother's heart who is the father of her child."

"What about Dad?"

"I told him when I found out I was pregnant, to give him the opportunity to leave if he wanted to, but he didn't, he stayed."

Danny's hands fisted on his knees. "Ma, it was just so fuckin' painful all those years, growing up feeling ignored, unloved and unwanted by him."

"Oh Danny that wasn't because of who fathered you; it was because of who Joe is; the consummate business man, always after the better deal, following the born-in drive to succeed. He was that way with Louie as well; it is just who he is. That's why I put you in baseball with Salvatore. That was the deal I made with Joe that night that you got into trouble over the wise guy delivery. If Joe wasn't going to cut back the hours, be home more, spend more time with you and Louie, I would put you in some activity to keep you off the streets and I trusted Salvatore. I knew he would be good for you. I saw how he was with Michael."

Danny heard the pain and wistfulness in Caitlin's voice. He shifted over to the couch next to her and slid an arm around her shoulders pulling her into the crook of his shoulder.

"Ma, I'm sorry I said those things to you. I swear to God I never meant any of them."

"I know, Danny."

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The door was open as they approached the room. He could hear a voice that he hadn't expected to hear and immediately the agitation rose in him.

"Danny, I didn't know he was going to be here, are you going to be okay?" Caitlin squeezed his arm, halting him outside the door.

"I don't know Ma; I guess there's only one way to find out."

Both Joe and Uncle Sal caught the tense look on Danny's face as he entered the room.

Danny took a sweeping survey of the expressions on the faces in the room, expectation, trepidation, anticipation. Finally he took a deep breath, letting the words tumble out.

"Give me a fuckin' break, will ya?! I'm really trying here, but goddamn it, you guys have had years to absorb this, I've had what, 36 hours?"

There was a pregnant pause as looks were exchanged like a scandalous bit of gossip making the rounds of the neighborhood.

"Danny does have a point," Uncle Sal spoke for the first time since Danny had entered the room.

"Thank you, Uncle- Sal-," Danny exclaimed holding out his arms theatrically. "Finally someone gets me!"

"Salvatore always did get you, Danny." Caitlin remarked, trying to keep the smile out of her voice.

Danny stared at Caitlin. Not only was there a small smile playing around her lips but her eyes were dancing and daring him… just daring him. The room grew eerily silent, the men watching and wondering if this was another calm before the storm or if the wind had finally been taken out of his sails. After a few more tense moments Danny bent his head, shaking it back and forth as he put his hands on his hips, just a hint of astonished laughter creeping into his voice.

"Jesus Christ, this family is so fuckin' screwed up."

"Danny does have yet- another- point," Joe roguishly agreed.

Uncle Sal walked over and companionably slapped Joe on the back. "I guess it's a good thing that we sent him to college, eh? He seems to be the smart one in the family don't you think?"

"All right, all right," Danny sighed in acquiescence shaking a finger at them, "but don't think I'll forget this any time soon. I want takes in both of your estates, lo capite. Not that they're worth anything," Danny muttered as an aside.

Caitlin wrapped her arms around Danny kissing him on the cheek, her eyes misty.

"Thank you."

"Don't worry 'bout it, Ma." He threw a look beyond her shoulder to Joe and Uncle Sal. "Actually I don't really care which of those bastards is my father as long as you're my ma."

Caitlin laughed as she clenched Danny's chin playfully.

"By the way, did Lindsay get off to Montana okay?"

Caitlin caught the guilty look that passed over his face. "Um… about that. Ma, can I talk to you?" Danny gestured toward the hall with his head.

"Sure Danny," The worry lines creased her forehead as she followed him from the room.

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"Lindsay?" Patrice called to her as she shrugged out of the coat, "did you have a good visit with Lawrence?"

Lindsay smiled at Patrice's insistence on using Uncle Lariat's given name.

"Mom, why can't you just call him Lariat like everyone else?" she teased gently, finally feeling some sense of peace and control after her conversations with Uncle Lariat and her mom.

"Because maybe if somebody called him by a proper name he'd act more grown up."

"That's just his way Mom, and part of his charm."

"Well charming doesn't pay the bills, Lindsay, unless you're a gigolo," declared Patrice.

"Mom!"

Patrice shrugged her shoulders and looked at Lindsay in playful innocence as she closed the door of the dishwasher and started it. She grabbed a slip of paper off the counter, carefully gauging Lindsay's reaction as she held it out to her.

"Here; Danny called from New York and left his cell number for you."

Lindsay put a hand on the counter as her breath left her in a rush. I really do need to eat something.

When Lindsay stared at the paper but made no move to take it, Patrice decided to force the issue, "I could toss it if you don't want to speak to him."

Lindsay shook her head and hurriedly reached for the paper, "No Mom, I'll take it. Did he say anything… else? I mean… did he leave a message?"

"No, he didn't."

Patrice had never met the young detective her daughter had been seeing, and had only spoken with him on the phone 2 or 3 times in passing, but she decided it was time to stir pot to see what would rise to the top.

"Lindsay, if things aren't working out for you in New York or with Danny, you are always welcome to come back here. I miss having you around."

"Why would I want to do that?" Lindsay's mouth gapped in surprise.

"Lindsay is that such an awful prospect?" A small twinge of hurt crossed Patrice's face. She couldn't tell if Lindsay's reaction was due to the thought of living in Bozeman again and being around her, or if it was from the surprise of the call from Danny.

"No… I mean…" What do I mean? "My career is in New York now…" Danny is in New York. "and I love the city…" I love him.

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A/N: Believe it or not, the story is wrapping up! I'm writing ahead and there is about 5 to 6 chapters left to post. Hang in there guys!! SJ