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

Last One to Know

Why is the last one to know
The first one to cry and the last to let go
Why is the one left behind the one left alone
With no one to hold
The last one to know

She hoped she could talk to him before he found out, to explain everything that had happened, but Lindsay Monroe realised she was too late. After taking the results from a lab tech, everyone in the room paused as they heard the commotion outside- Stella, Danny, and a whole lot of yelling.

He was angry. Real angry. There had been plenty of opportunities for Lindsay to see Danny's temper in the past and truth be told, sometimes it did frighten her. From his tense body language and rapid hand movements, she knew that this anger wouldn't pass so easily, and everyone knew why. Even the glass walls of the lab couldn't conceal his wrath.

"And I the only one that doesn't know?"

Lindsay shut her eyes, hoping to block out the violent blue of his eyes.

"Damnit Stella, she gets back and no one even thinks about letting me know?"

She feels dozens of pairs of eyes burning into her. What was it she was feeling now? A mixture of shame, guilt and self-loathing. When she found out about the trial back home, she knew, or rather believed it best that he were not involved, that he wouldn't be burdened by her problems. Or maybe she was just afraid, afraid of letting another person into her life, afraid of getting hurt again. So what was it she was inflicting on him now?

Quickly gathering her things, she wove between the tables and ducked out of the door on the other side without another backward glance. I promise I'll explain Danny, if you'll give me the chance.

Danny was beyond livid, so much so that he didn't think there was a word to describe what he was feeling. That bitch, running away again, he thought bitterly to himself. Knowing the sound-proofing in the building, he was sure that she heard it all. And there she goes, rushing through the door like Satan himself was coming after her with a ball of fire the size of Manhattan. Hell, she'd been tougher when she'd been faced with hardened criminals and what, now she can't face him?

Bitch. Danny shook his head and turned in the direction of the locker room. Why was he waiting for her again? Oh yeah, he thought he was in love with her. Stupid, stupid stupid! She was probably just pulling his strings, toying with him, just a little bit of fun on the side. Well not any more, he vowed, never again. He slammed his fist hard into the cold metal of the locker door. Fuck her, fuck the lab, fuck the whole goddamn world.

Stella laid out the two files side by side. On the left was that of Annie Davis, their first vic found in Central Park and on the right was Laura Howard. The two women had nothing in common other than their injuries and the oil. Flack had even pulled up past criminal records- none, convictions- none. They didn't know each other, and probably never even crossed paths.

Annie Davis was 27 and working in the marketing and design department in a business management company. According to her sister, who is currently attending NYU, Annie had no enemies (that she knew of) and was well settled in the company she was working for, she was even first in line for a promotion if there was a free position.

Laura Howard was 30, a lawyer. She worked for a freelance company which was seeing its successes grow after winning a string of cases. She had a boyfriend, but he'd been in Buffalo visiting his terminally ill mother, another possible suspect gone. Flack said he would get back to them on the parents front, as they weren't in any condition to give a full profile.

"Well," Mac rubbed the back of his neck, "there is one thing they have in common."

Stella looked at him questioningly.

"Both successful young women living New York."

"But that's it Mac, nothing more." She ran her fingers through her hair in frustration. "I'll get Danny to make a cast of the second vic's skull, when he's cooled down."

Mac grimaced. "That might be a while."

Stella nodded and continued. "But I doubt it'll tell us more than the first. You know Sid didn't manage to get any splinters or fragments from the wounds?"

"We'll work with what we've got, maybe Flack will find something and-"

"And we'll still have no solid evidence to get a conviction! God, I hate this job sometimes."

Mac nodded. "Just don't give up. Remember-"

Stella nodded, "Believe in the science, yeah I know. But what if science doesn't get you anywhere?"

"Lindsay, please tell me we've got something." Hawkes' tired voice broke through the quiet bustle of the lab.

Lindsay looked up from the microscope and nodded slightly. "I think we're on to something. The sticky substance you got off the bedside table? It's wood glue, which takes around 24 hours to dry out completely. The fact that it was still tacky when you got it off the table meant that if someone else was involved, the glue is just a part of the puzzle. Besides, what would a journalist need wood glue for anyway? Oh, do you have the fibres you pulled from the hinges of the window? Good, I need to run this, then I'll tell you if I'm right or not." She gave him a small smile, which faltered before she had the chance to turn away.

Hawkes looked at her with concern. "You OK?"

She nodded and the wobbly smile was back. "Yeah, I-I'm fine, really."

Though he wasn't convinced, Hawkes let the matter drop, she'd talk to him if she wanted to.

"So er, I also got a fragment of paper from the vic's hand so I'm gonna…" He pointed at the door. "If you need me, you'll know where to find me."

"Yeah sure. I'll let you know as soon as I got something from the fibre." Turning to the work at hand, Lindsay tried to clear her mind of a blue-eyed CSI who probably wouldn't ever want anything to do with her ever again. Work comes first Lindsay, remember that…

Flack stood tensely in front of the couple seated before him. After the shocks of the murder had been given time to sink in, he knew that he had to get on with the questions, because they still had a potentially dangerous serial killer on the loose.

He cleared his throat nervously. "Mr and Mrs Howard, I know this has been a difficult time for you and your family, but I need to take a statement from you both."

Mrs Howard pushed a strand of hair away from her face and looked at her husband. He nodded.

"Laura is, was," his voice broke, "was our only daughter. She'd wanted to be a lawyer since she was 13 years old and she became a damn good one at that. She'd usually come home every other weekend, depending on how busy her schedule was."

"Did she have any enemies?"

Mrs Howard smiled wryly. "I guess that as a lawyer, it would have been almost inevitable, all part of the job. But she never talked to us about that, she always evaded the subject. She, she was always so careful not to weigh us down with her problems, she preferred to deal with them by herself. She probably thought she needed to protect us from the bad people out there, but…"

Flack nodded and scribbled down some notes. "How about friends? Was there anyone she was particularly close to or…?"

The Howards looked at each other for a second, as if wondering whether any divulging on their part will result in dragging others into the whole thing.

Sensing this, Flack was quick the reassure them that it was routine to interview people close to their daughter, and that if her friends have nothing to hide, they may even be of use to the investigation.

The corners of Mrs Howard's lips twitched up. "Amber Reynolds. She and Laura have been friends since they were 10 years old, they were inseparable! I remember family holidays, the girls refused to go anywhere outside New York without the other, hell Amby was family. Both of them have stayed in contact even though Amber moved to Texas to be with her boyfriend. I don't think they've seen each other recently though, Laura's been busy with a couple of cases…"

"Alright, well we're going to need contact details for her." Flack handed Mrs Howard a piece of paper, waiting for her to take out her address book and copy out the information he needed before taking the page back and slipping it into his notebook. "Thank you both for your time."

As he turned to leave, he felt a gentle hand on the cuff of his sleeve. Bright blue eyes met tired grey ones.

"Detective, please find whoever did this."

Flack nodded and stood a little straighter. "We'll try our hardest ma'am."

Mac sat alone in his office, wondering if he was right in how he handled Lindsay's return, especially considering Danny. He didn't even know why he was thinking about it, because he had a ton of paperwork piling up on one side of his desk and an open case in front of him. Perhaps, just perhaps the boss 'front' he had so carefully maintained after Claire's death was beginning to waver just a little.

In the past, he would have been the first to say- absolutely no office romances, because he wanted to preserve the integrity of his lab and didn't want to give the IAB anything to come at them with. But things had changed. If he said that now, he'd be called a hypocrite, and even so, he'd have no intention of doing so because he knew that under the right circumstances, and with the right people involved, the lab would just carry on as normal.

Danny was the kid from Staten Island who was arrogant and hot-headed, but that certainly wasn't why Mac hired him. Mac knew from the start where his newest recruit had come from- a background of gangs and violence. While it would put some people off, Mac knew that by turning his life around Danny Messer would not be one to throw it all away, and he wasn't disappointed. In the lab, Danny was focused and always determined to nail the bad guy, even if it meant pulling triples and not sleeping for 4 days straight.

Even so, it probably would have been fair to say that CSI Detective Messer still had his wild ways. Mac was a great observer of people and with the lab's glass walls, it meant having eyes and ears everywhere. He was no stranger to Danny's exploits outside of work. No doubt these stories had been embellished and changed as it passed from person to person, but the essentials were still there- Danny liked to be a free man.

But Mac saw all that start to change, and in hindsight, hiring Lindsay Monroe was probably one of the best decisions of his life. Losing Aiden from the team was difficult, especially under those circumstances, but her replacement had proven she was just as capable and when Aiden's case had come up, Lindsay worked was if it was one of her own who had been killed. Mac admired her work ethics and her gutsy approach to everything in her way. Though she had tried to distance herself at first (Danny's teasing and name calling certainly did not help), she had become an indispensable member of the team.

Working together, Danny and Lindsay solved cases just like that. They bounced ideas off each other, and it was almost like they developed a keen awareness of what the other was doing. It was actually kind of freaky, Mac reflected.

So it would be inevitable then that being co-workers would feed into something more.

Mac rubbed his forehead. So maybe he should have told Danny, he thought, little twinges of guilt starting to creep into his system and making his head throb. The pair had grown close over the past year and a half, and producing a marked change in both parties involved. Danny became more mature and Lindsay a little more relaxed. So maybe they should just…

He groaned out loud. "Mac Taylor, you're becoming a soft touch."

A knock at the door startled him back into reality.

And who was it to knock but Danny Messer himself, standing at the door with his hands jammed firmly in his pockets. His eyes were glued to the floor.

"Is there something I can do for you Danny?"

The younger man's eyes flicked up briefly. "Stella told me to meet her here."

Mac nodded but realised his CSI wasn't watching him. Clearing his throat he said, "Okay, well sit down."

They waited in uncomfortable silence for what felt like eternity (when in fact it was no more than 5 minutes), neither wanting to bring up what had happened earlier in the day. The clip clop of heels from the almost deserted corridor outside signalled Stella's arrival.

She smiled apologetically on entering the room and pulled the door closed behind her. "Sorry, I got held up."

When she didn't get a response from either of the men, she mentally rolled her eyes. God, they can be so childish sometimes! Sitting back a little more in her chair, she turned her attention to man sitting beside her.

"So, you get anything from the skull?"

Danny licked his lips. "Only that it was one of your regular baseball bats, but the angle was strange, given that our vic wasn't that tall."

Stella frowned. "Laura Howard was 5'6…"

"Right, and it looked like her attacker was shorter because the bat was tilted a little higher than it would be it her attacker was the same height as her or taller."

Mac folded his arms across his chest. "So there's a possibility that we're looking for a woman."

"Or a short man." A glimmer of the Messer smile crept onto his face before disappearing again.

Mac sighed, noticing the strain on both faces before him. "Alright you two, go home. Come back tomorrow with a fresh pair of eyes to look over the evidence."

Gathering her things, Stella was the first to leave the room, throwing a smile and a 'goodnight' over her shoulder. And she was gone, but not before giving Mac the look that said 'you'd better not sleep in the office tonight, you stubborn ass'.

And that left Danny, standing awkwardly in front of his boss.

"Danny, go."

The younger CSI looked up, opening his mouth to complain no doubt.

"Go." This time, it wasn't a request, it was an order.

Watching him leave Mac's office, Lindsay's stomach twisted. She knew that by staying as far away from him as possible, as she had been doing that entire day, she was only delaying the ugly scene when they did finally meet, face to face.

She tried not to think about the months between 'the conversation' and the day she left for Montana. Their friendship seemed to turn to ice, cold, so very very cold. Although the required pleasantries where still there, they were nevertheless, as suggested, obligatory. He rarely called her Montana after that, only on those occasions when she knew he let it slip out of habit. Hell, she'd grown so use of that name that it was weird for him to call her anything else. So the distance between them grew, but only on a personal level. At work, they worked together as good as they always did, though with no banter, no jokes.

She'd had her chances, plenty of them. She remembered all the times one of them could have made a move- the bug takeout, him carrying her across the rooftop, the day she stood him up… All were chances and she let every single one slip by. She didn't blame him for feeling angry at her, she wouldn't blame him if he didn't speak to her for the rest of eternity. She'd made her bed and whether or not it was the kind she would have liked, she now had to lie in it. And god, it will hurt like a bitch.

When Danny left the lab that day, his fury had yet to subside. However, the directionality of it had changed dramatically. At first, it was directed towards Stella and Mac, and anyone else who knew she was back because they found out before he did, what the hell did they do to deserve that privilege? Then he was angry at her, the centre of his universe and the bearer of his pain. Couldn't she have called? Just a 'hey Danny, I'm back, just thought you'd like to know' would have been enough. But no. Instead she hoped that word would just get 'round and that he'd know soon enough. It was like she didn't even respect him, his feelings and their friendship enough.

But he knew, walking down to the subway stop, that he was probably angrier at himself. He remembered, not so long ago, when Mac told him that it could happen to him too. Love. Danny of course told his boss not to joke about things like that, it just wasn't him. Yep, the Danny Messer back then enjoyed playing the field and though the gossips at the lab were somewhat exaggerated, he would have been the first to admit that he was a man after non-committal relationships. Even the tiniest sign of 'getting serious' would send him bolting for the door faster than when he'd come through it.

So why did all that change? He'd had a good thing going, he had fun, no strings attached, no mothers wielding frying pans… And a trip to the zoo would end it all.

Lindsay Monroe. Small town girl from Bozeman, Montana, a real firecracker. Initially, he was determined not to get close to her, after all, no one could replace Aiden, and at such short notice too. So he teased her, made fun of her, called her Montana and you know what they say about having a crush on someone? Yeah, you're mean to them. Danny himself didn't know it then, but when her eyes flashed angrily at him, he was only spurred on. But it wasn't just that, his Montana could give as good as she got and their workplace bickering soon turned into something flirtier.

He did realise he loved her until that fateful day she volunteered to go undercover. Truth be told, he'd never been more scared in his life because at that moment, he stumbled upon the realisation that though it was unlikely, there was always a chance of her not making it out of that building. That sudden awareness of the strength of his feelings for her didn't even make him want to run for the hills, instead all he wanted to do was to hold her in his arms and keep her safe. Danny Messer doesn't cuddle, but he'd change that for her, hell he'd change everything about himself to be a better man for her.

Then she said it.

"It's not you."

He said all he wanted was fun and drinks. He lied. He promised himself he'd wait for her, as long as it took for her so sort out whatever it was that was bugging her. He wanted to be there for her, wanted for her to trust him with her secrets, wanted her to just tell him, like when she found his DNA on that cigarette butt.

But, he reflected, they had both changed a lot. And though a part of him still desperately hoped that they would eventually be more than just work colleagues, there was that annoying, niggling voice at the back of his mind that told him to move on. He never planned to fall in love, nor did he ever think that he'd have his heart trampled on by the country girl who he shared an office with. It wouldn't be hard to go back to what he was doing before, in fact it would be so easy… He'd just end up comparing every girl to her.

He shook his head, hoping that the motion would quieten conflict in his mind. Looks like it's just you, me and a six pack of beer tonight, Danno.

Lyrics from The Last One to Know by Reba Mcentire

Author's Note: Again, a million apologies for taking so long with this chapter, doesn't time fly by when you're up to your eyeballs in work? Anyway, big thanks to anyone still following, not entirely sure how many of you are left, but I hope you enjoyed that and let me know what you think:)