Disclaimer: Don't own the characters, sadly.

Summary:

The trial is over and Lindsay Monroe is back in the Big Apple. This story follows her and the CSI team as they follow a string of dead bodies and a seemingly untraceable serial killer. Welcome back to the city that never sleeps. DL

Spoilers:

I live in the UK, so I've only seen up to episode 5 of season 3. However, I have read some spoilers and have a vague idea of what will happen. This story will not mention specific plotlines that appear in the show and references to past episodes will be to those already shown in the UK.

Just a Bad Day

Sometimes the system goes on the blink
And the whole thing turns out wrong
You might not make it back and you know
That you could be well oh that strong
And I'm not wrong

Having stayed late at the lab and only having three hours sleep, Mac inwardly groaned as the caller ID flashed on his cell- definitely too early on a Wednesday morning. He felt the form beside him shift and mumble something about nailing someone's ass to the door. Mac hoped she didn't mean his.

"DB found in an alley off West 33rd. The vic's female and covered in motor oil. I swear Mac, if this is another one of those crazy sex cults…" Flack paused to mutter instructions to one of his team already out on the scene. "I've told them not to touch anything 'til you guys get here."

"Alright, I'm on my way." Mac snapped his cell shut and closed his eyes. Another day, another crime.

Stella Bonasera arrived at the scene with her kit in her hand and ready to go. She wrinkled her nose against the pungent stench as she ducked under the tape to get a closer look at the body. When Mac said 'covered', she had assumed he mean a few splashes here and there. Now that she was actually looking at the scene she realised that he was not exaggerating.

"Have we got an ID on the vic yet?" She asked as she prepped her camera.

"Nope, but I'm hoping there's a purse or somethin' under all that crap." Flack, eloquent as always came to stand next to her. "Gurh, and I thought I was havin' a bad day."

"Girl trouble?" Stella smirked.

Flack rolled his eyes. "No, had my ma yelling at me last night for not going to see her in two weeks. I'm telling ya, it was not pretty."

Smiling to herself, Stella quickly took some shots of the victim and moved on to the area around it, leaving Flack to direct the rest of the officers around the scene.

"Who called it in?" Stella asked as soon as Mac was in hearing range.

"Some guy who was jogging."

"At 5:00 in the morning?"

Mac shrugged. "Said he couldn't sleep."

"I could think of some better things to do if I couldn't sleep."

He smiled. "We all have different ways of dealing-"

"Have you been sleeping lately, Mac?" Stella scrutinised her partner before turning her attention back to broken glass before her. "You look kinda…"

"I'm fine, Stella." Seeing her look, he enforced, "Really, I'm fine."

She sighed in resignation. Mac Taylor is a stubborn man. Intelligent, but stubborn. Ever since the death of his wife, he'd become reclusive and separated himself from those around him. However, she was relieved to see the change in him over the past few months. It began slowly, just little things like smiling more often. Sometimes his happiness would seep into his voice, something only those close to him would notice. Stella was glad he had found someone to open his heart to, someone who made him laugh and smile, and someone who could occasionally bring out the man Mac was before Claire's death. Stella was glad that person was Peyton. She smiled at herself, he could be the happiest man on Earth and still be like a mule.

Suddenly she frowned, realising why there was a sense of familiarity to the scene.

She remembered. It was the week before. She and Hawkes had been called out to Central Park where a woman had been found with a wound to her head and covered in cooking oil. Nothing was stolen, rape was ruled out and the case had effectively hit a dead end. After a whole weekend of overtime, they had finally admitted defeat, agreeing to come back to it at a later date.

"Hey Mac?"

"Mmm…"

"You remember that case we couldn't solve last week? The DB in Central Park, no prints, no murder weapon, no leads?"

Mac nodded.

"She was covered in cooking oil." Stella waved her hand at the spot where the body was being bagged up.

"You think we're dealing with a serial?"

Stella's look of concern told him everything he needed to know.

Butterflies. That's all she felt as the lift worked its way up. It felt as if her veins were jolting with electricity, like the blood running through them was made of electrostatic energy. Her hands felt clammy and her throat dry. Nothing different to your first day then, her lips twitched at the memory.

She had been so determined to not make a fool of herself and to give Mac a good first impression that she didn't sleep at all the night before. It was also when they had first worked together, her and Danny, and so evoked a sort of sentimentality whenever she thought of it. So what would it be like this time, she asked herself. She couldn't even begin to predict his reaction to her, hell she even had problems imagining her reaction to him. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath as the elevator stopped and the doors slid open. Back to work.

Hawkes was sitting alone in the break room reading over the cold case from the week before. He had been on call since the evening before and raced in when Stella mentioned a possible link between the two murders. He looked up as the sound of high heels approached and then faltered.

He grinned. "Lindsay!" He enveloped her in a warm hug. "Good to have you back."

Lindsay smiled. "It's good to be back. Do you know where Mac is?"

Hawkes took a gulp of his coffee before replying, "Crime scene. You're working in the lab on this case. I'll run you through, Stella thinks we may be looking at a serial."

Lindsay nodded. "Okay, what have we got?"

"First case came in about a week ago. The victim was a Caucasian female, Annie Davis, found in Central Park with blunt force trauma to the head and covered in cooking oil. We could get any usable prints but we determined that the weapon was probably similar to a baseball bat and that the attacker was left-handed." He paused to let her process the information.

"Now the murder that came in today. Female vic still a Jane Doe. Peyton and Sid should be looking over the body now so we'll probably get and ID soon. She was found in an alley off West 33rd by some guy taking an early morning run. Same injuries but this time, she's covered in motor oil."

Lindsay frowned. "Why the change from cooking oil to motor oil? I can see how they're similar but why didn't the attacker use cooking oil this time round?"

"You think it's a copycat?"

"I don't know what I think. I guess we'll have to wait until we can take a look at the skull. What about evidence found around the bodies?"

"First vic, nothing more than what you usually find in the park at this time of year. Nothing suspicious. Blood spatter indicated that she was killed there, rolled over and then covered in oil. Stella's still working on this morning's case, she said she'd run it over as soon as she was finished."

Just then, his pager sounded. Hawkes grinned. "Sid said he'd let me know when he's done. Want to come?"

"This reminds me of my youth." Sid peered over his glasses at the clean body before him. "There was this girl I used to date and she was quite a-"

Hawkes coughed. "The vic, Sid?"

The coroner looked slightly disgruntled. "Well Detective Monroe," he turned to her and spared her a smile, completely ignoring the man standing next to her, "The victim suffered a head wound that caused haemorrhaging and eventually death. There are no defensive wounds, only bruising which was probably caused when she fell. Her handbag was found partially under her right arm, that's coming over with Stella."

"What about time of death?" Lindsay inquired.

"I'd say around 2am this morning, give or take." Sid unclipped his glasses and glanced at the young CSIs standing opposite him. "And that's it."

"That's it?" Hawkes looked incredulous.

"Just like your cold one from last week. Here are what I got from her fingernails and eye-lashes. Oh, and I'll have the skull sent up when I'm done with it."

"Thank you Sid."

"You're welcome, and it's good to have you back Lindsay."

On their way back up to the lab Hawkes ran Lindsay through a few of his theories.

"Neither of the victims had defensive injuries, so we can conclude that they were attacked from behind. The motive wasn't rape or robbery, so he-"

"-Or she."

"Or she had a personal reason? Maybe there's a link between the victims themselves."

Lindsay sighed. "It's still very little to go on."

"Yeah. Listen, can you check for DNA in those," he pointed at the evidence bags, "I'm going to go see if Stella's back yet."

Stella and Mac stood together looking at the scene before them. The alleyway was relatively clean and yielded very little evidence. The only thing they had found so far was a few shards of broken glass. Both were eying the two dumpsters sitting at the far end when they were alerted to the presence of another person.

"Alright Mac, what do you want me to do?"

Stella raised her eyebrows at her partner. Good move!

"Danny." Mac greeted. "I assume Flack's filled you in."

Danny nodded.

"Good. We're almost done here, there's just one more thing…" Mac looked towards the end of the alley.

"Oh no, hang on a second, I'm not…" He wavered, "No way I'm doing that. Look man-"

Stella gave him 'the look'.

Danny knew he had lost and sulkily went in search of the dumpster diving gear.

There was a reason why Lindsay liked staying in the lab during a case but for the minute, she couldn't for the life of her remember why. She wanted to be out on the field like everyone else, not processing bits of fingernail clippings and gunk from victim's eyes. She puffed out her cheeks and waited for the reports to come through. It was going to be a long few weeks. Mac had told her that before letting her back into the field, she would have to go through psych evaluations and when this would happen depended on how she coped with the lab work. She silently groaned, as much as she loved the scientific side of the job, she knew she would probably die of boredom before the evaluation came through.

She walked over to the printer where the results were back on the trace collected from the victim's eye-lashes. Mascara, motor oil residue and eyeliner. Nothing unusual. Great, just another bad day at the lab.

"Lindsay, please tell me you found something." Hawkes entered, looking frustrated.

She shook her head. "Just your usual make-up and trace amounts of oil."

"Then we're at a dead end. I've got nothing from tox and the skull isn't telling us anything new." He looked pensive. "Damn, whoever did this covered their tracks pretty well."

As reporters swarmed around the police tape, Flack squeezed through the barrier of police officers to reach the body. The man spread-eagled on the floor was facing down, blood still pooling around his head. Mac was not going to like this.

He flipped open his cell and punched in the numbers. "Yeah, Mac, I got another one for you."

When Hawkes arrived at Mac's office, he found Stella already there and waiting. "Sorry," he apologised, "I've been trying to chase up some results."

"Don't worry." Mac paced the area behind his desk before speaking again. "We've got another case downtown. Stella, are you and Danny okay to take this one?" Seeing her nod, he continued, "Sheldon, you're with me then. Get your kit and head down first. Send whatever photographs you get to Lindsay as soon as you can. I have to sort out a few things here so you're on your own for now, think you can handle it?"

"Absolutely. I'll go let Lindsay know." He handed he papers in his hand to Stella and headed out.

"Stel, you and Danny focus on whatever pieces of evidence we have, get Adam to run trace for you. Let me know when you have a lead."

Stella nodded her agreement and set off to find said technician. Poor man, Mac thought, he won't know what hit him.

As noon loomed over New York, Mac sat down heavily at his desk and picked up the phone. It's just the beginning of a bad, bad day.

Lyrics from Bad Day by Daniel Powter

Author's Note: Sorry that took so long, I'm afraid life kind of took over this week. I apologise for any mistakes in the places mentioned (I know very little about New York) and any medical terms/procedures. Again, love constructive criticism, thanks for reading!