A/N – So thank you to everyone staying with me and reviewing. Those two previous chapters were what the warnings were all about really, so that's the worst bit over. To those of you who are sad, Don will still most definitely be in this story and nobody else is going to die.

Israel – Chapter Thirteen

Jo and Lovato weren't far away when they heard a gunshot echo through the house.

"Basement," Jo murmured and the two women proceeded down the stairs followed by ESU.

They positioned themselves either side of the door as it was battered down by two officers and then it was all go. They ran into the room and almost froze in horror at what they saw, but there wasn't time. Andy raised his gun towards the back of Danny's head, about to pull the trigger and laughing maniacally when Lovato pulled the trigger of her gun. Andy never knew what hit him. He staggered back and collapsed into the small table of knives, everything crashing to the floor with a loud clatter.

"Get Doctor Hawkes," Jo shouted to one of the ESU guys as she ran forward, closely followed by Lovato.

She immediately fell at Flack's side and pressed her fingers to his neck. Dead. She gulped down a cry and felt tears spike in her eyes.

"Check Bedford," she shouted at Lovato, who stood staring numbly at Flack.

Lovato did as she was told; she had to make sure the scene was safe. She felt for a pulse but Andy was dead, her bullet had hit the mark. Jo took a quick look at Mac who seemed to be in some sort of trance before rushing to Danny's side, deciding that the younger man was more in need of her attention. She pulled off the tape covering his mouth.

"Danny, Danny? Can you hear me?"

Danny screamed hysterically.

"Danny, I need you to calm down. You'll do more damage to yourself," she said as calmly as she could. She glanced up at Lovato who looked deathly pale, still staring at Flack's body.

"Where the hell is Hawkes?" Jo yelled, turning back towards the door. She could hear people stumbling down the stairs and then the doctor appeared with two paramedics. He rushed into the room and ran to Flack's side, intent on trying to help the detective in some way.

"Leave him, he's dead," shouted Jo in a blind panic. Danny hadn't stopped screaming and crying.

Hawkes' eyes widened and his face drained of any colour.

"Hawkes! Danny needs your help!" yelled Jo and Hawkes shook his head and then stumbled over. He glanced up at Lovato who looked faint.

Jo moved out of the way to let the paramedics and Hawkes work on Danny and watched in numb horror for a moment.

"Danny, tell me what happened?" Hawkes asked as he and the other two men examined him.

"Two knife wounds in the back...spine," one paramedic murmured.

"The spine?" Hawkes said quickly, fear flooding through his body to merge with the horror already residing there.

"We need to get him to the hospital straight away," the paramedic replied.

Jo clutched her chest and put a hand against a wall for support. She knew Danny had once been paralysed and mentions of injuries to his spine did nothing for the little hope she had left. She turned back to Mac and knelt at his side.

"Mac, Mac? Can you hear me? Are you injured?"

Mac's eyes were glazed over and staring wide. He didn't respond.

"Mac!" Jo shouted, afraid he too was hurt in some way.

She started ripping the tape away from his body and his arms so that she might examine him better.

"Mac, please..." she cried. "I need you here..."

Hawkes ran forward for a moment and he and Jo managed to look him over. "He seems okay I..." Hawkes was interrupted by a loud scream.

"FLAAAACCKKK, NNNOOOOOO..."

Danny was being carried out on a stretcher and as it passed by Don's body he'd screamed out to his dead friend.

"Go with him, Hawkes. Try to keep him calm. He's going to need someone he knows with him," Jo ordered.

Hawkes nodded and with one last glance at Flack he was gone.

Suddenly an anguished cry ripped from Mac's throat and he began struggling on the ground.

"Mac, calm down," Jo shouted as she tried to help him. "Are you hurt? Did he hurt you?"

She only received another cry in response as Mac struggled harder.

"Mac, you're already free," Jo told him as she tried to pull him up from the ground. Something inside him seemed to break and he pushed her away. Jo fell to the ground and watched helplessly as Mac tried to stand but fell too, and crawled the rest of the way towards Flack.

"Mac, no! You don't want to see him like this!" Jo shouted and she tried to pull Mac back, away from the body.

Mac shouted his lover's name again and pulled free from her grasp. Jo looked helplessly up at Lovato who mirrored her look. Neither woman knew what to do as their unemotional and fearless leader broke down before their very eyes, crying and frantically clutching Flack's lifeless body to his chest.

"Please...Don, no. Please...please...don't leave me..."

"Mac..." Jo cried as her lip trembled and she felt tears dripping down her face. "We need to leave. Crimescene will need to examine the scene."

She tried to be professional, tried to make Mac see sense as he clutched the body to him. But she couldn't. This was Flack they were talking about. He was a friend to them all and Mac was deeply in love with him. Mac had been planning to marry him within twenty four hours.

"Jo, maybe we should..." Lovato started but couldn't bring herself to finish.

Mac cried out again and Jo felt her heart break over and over again in pity for her friend, for his tragic loss. For the loss of such a kind, young soul. She couldn't stand it any longer. She went forward and softly placed a hand on Mac's shoulder but he shrugged it off.

"I love you, Don. I love you," Mac sobbed.

Jo shook her head and covered her mouth with a hand. "Lovato, could you give him a moment?" she finally said, realising Mac was not about to acknowledge them or move anywhere away from Flack. "Tell Crimescene when they get here just to wait outside."

"Sure," the young detective nodded and left the room, glad to get out of there.

Jo stepped back and allowed Mac to have some time alone. Time to say his goodbyes. She turned and looked away, finally finding it all too much to bear.

"I've got you, Don...I've got you..." he whispered.

Mac didn't know how long it had been now, whether he'd been sat there for mere seconds or hours. After ten minutes Jo approached him again and placed her hand on his back.

"Mac...he's gone," she whispered.

For the first time since they'd entered the room Mac turned to look at her, finally acknowledging her presence in the room.

"I love him, Jo," he murmured.

"I know," Jo said sadly. "But he's not in there anymore."

Mac nodded and his eyes averted back to stare at the form of his lost lover. "I can't leave him here, Jo."

"You have to, Mac. He's gone. You need to let go," Jo replied, as calmly as she could muster.

"I can't. The moment I let him go he'll be gone...he'll be gone forever," Mac murmured, eyes never leaving the body.

Jo sighed and closed her eyes for the briefest of moments. She needed to stay strong for Mac. She looked down at Flack's body. It was lolling carelessly in Mac's arms, no strength, no movement, no life of any kind left in him. The witty, strong, sarcastic detective had left them all, the first to go, long before his time was due.

"Mac..." she said gently and put an arm around him.

"I know," he murmured quietly. He looked down at Don. The man he'd been in love with for ten years, the man who'd enabled him to move on from Claire, who brought him back to life, who had given him hope where none had existed. The man he'd have died to protect. The man he'd sentenced to death.

"I love you so much, Don," Mac barely said, so quiet that not even Jo caught it.

Jo stood back as Mac carefully placed Flack back down on the ground and pulled off his jacket, covering the detective's face with it.

"Goodbye," he whispered and placed a kiss to the top of his jacket.

Adam sat patiently in the cushioned chair he'd been sat in for the last half hour. So much had happened in the last few hours that he'd just needed a moment to collapse and gather his thoughts. The ambulance ride to the hospital had been the longest journey of his entire life and it'd almost felt like time had stood still. Lindsay remained unconscious for the whole time and as soon as they'd arrived had been rushed away into surgery. He'd then rung Danny but had only received his answerphone. Next he'd tried Mac but had also got no answer. In desperation he'd then tried Flack but still got no reply. Starting to feel panicked he'd then rung Danny's mother who had not heard from Danny, but had promised to pick Lucy up from school and look after her for the rest of the day. Then he'd tried to call Hawkes, Jo and finally Sid. Sid had been the only one to pick up and had mumbled on about some emergency upstairs in the lab but he wasn't sure what as he'd got five bodies waiting for analysis down in the morgue. That was when Adam had resigned himself to leaving messages for everyone and then rushing back into the hospital to wait it out for either news of Lindsay or someone else to arrive. The former had occurred first. After what had been an hour or two a doctor had appeared from behind the door, the door that no-one could pass through, and had beckoned him towards her. Adam had stumbled up, fear clutching at him as he wondered if the worst had happened.

"You are here with my patient, Mrs Messer?"

"Err, yeah."

"Are you a relation?"

"Oh, um, no...not exactly. But I work with her, with Lindsay and her husband...and I tried to call him but I can't get hold of him at the moment. He's a detective so he might be in the middle of a case or something," Adam explained.

"Very well. I'm happy to say Mrs Messer's condition is stable. She suffered a placental abruption which is what caused the haemorrhaging and large loss of blood. We had to give her multiple blood transfusions to maintain blood pressure and she will have to be monitored closely for seven days in case of postpartum haemorrhaging. "

"P..p..placental abruption?" Adam stammered as he paled at the very thought of what that meant.

"Yes. The placental lining had separated from the uterus causing distress to the foetus. We had to deliver it immediately despite it being only thirty-three weeks."

"W...what does that mean?"Adam asked nervously.

"Due to the loss of blood we were unable to wake Mrs Messer and had to perform a caesarean section."

"The baby...is it...is it...?" Adam was unable to finish his words.

"The baby was delivered successfully but was taken to the neonatal intensive care unit immediately as it was having difficulty breathing. He's going to need specialised care for a few weeks but he seems to be a little fighter."

"He?" Adam murmured suddenly feeling a wave of relief wash over him as he heard the positive news about Lindsay and the baby.

The doctor nodded. "Yes. It's a little boy."

Adam blinked as a slight movement in front of him caught his attention and he rose from his chair. He approached the transparent incubator and frowned as he watched the tiny baby inside stir for the briefest of moments. Most of his face was masked by tubes helping him to breathe and feed as he was too small and underdeveloped to do so himself. But despite that Adam was suddenly taken by a feeling of how much larger life was than just him. It was beautiful, complex, fragile but so utterly and incomprehensibly perfect. This tiny little thing, this fighter was a miracle of life, a marvel of nature and mankind. Adam smiled and placed his hand on the incubator.

"Hey little guy," he said softly. "I'm Adam."

He glanced around but nobody else was taking much notice of him, too wrapped up in their own business to spare him a second thought.

"I'm friends with your Mummy and Daddy. They're very nice people, I'm sure you'll agree when you get to meet them."

He smiled again as he imagined what it would be like to know that the tiny baby in front of him was his own. That he'd become a father. In that instant he knew that was what he wanted. He wanted to be a father some day and he knew Michelle was the one. He'd known that for a while now and this tiny little baby, this miracle of life had given him the kick up the backside to do something about it. His mind was made up. He was going to ask her to marry him.

"Adam?!"

Adam jumped as he heard his name called and turned to see Hawkes staring at him.

"Hawkes, thank God! I've been calling and calling you guys. Where have you been?" Adam said in relief as he went over to his friend.

Hawkes frowned, wondering what the hell Adam was doing in the hospital and more importantly in the neonatal intensive care unit.

"Um, what are you doing here, Adam?"

Adam paused and then frowned too. "I came with Lindsay. Why? What are you doing here?"

Hawkes stared for a moment while his eyes widened. "Lindsay?" he choked.

"Well, yeah," Adam muttered. "I left you guys a bunch of messages. Didn't you get them?"

"There was a situation, I haven't checked..." Hawkes murmured.

"Situation? What situation?" Adam said nervously, a nasty feeling creeping into his stomach.

"I came in with Danny," Hawkes said quietly.

"Danny? Oh my God, is he okay? What happened?" Adam cried worriedly.

"I don't know. He went into surgery thirty minutes ago. I have a friend working up here so came up to ask if he might be able to find out anything for me."

"What happened to him?"

"There was damage to his spine, Adam," Hawkes said sadly.

"No," gasped Adam as he held his hands over his mouth.

Hawkes nodded and then something seemed to kick into gear in his head. "But what about you? You said you came in with Lindsay? How is she?"

"Oh...I..." Adam took a deep breath in. "She collapsed in a cafe this morning, she was bleeding pretty badly. The doctor said she'd suffered a placental abruption..."

"A placental abruption?!" Hawkes interrupted. "Is she okay?"

Adam nodded. "Yeah. She's still unconscious and will be until the morning. I was with her for a while but came up here to see..."

"The baby?" gasped Hawkes, looking round Adam to where the lab tech had been standing when he'd first spotted him.

"Yeah," Adam smiled feebly as he turned and pointed to the incubator. "He's gotta be kept in here for a while cos he was only thirty-three weeks but the doctor says he's doing okay. He's a fighter."

"I can't believe it," Hawkes murmured as he walked past Adam and looked at the baby boy. "Hi there."

Adam smiled briefly as he watched his friend speak softly to the baby. "So I guess I should find Mac or Flack and tell them about Lindsay. Are they downstairs waiting for Danny?" he asked innocently.

Hawkes' face was a picture of horror as he turned back to Adam, drained of any last remnants of colour.

"W...w..what?" stammered Adam uncomfortably.

"I...I...it's..." Hawkes tried to speak as his eyes filled with tears. He quickly blinked them away.

"Sheldon, what's going on?" Adam asked, the other man's face and attitude were scaring him.

"Mac's not downstairs. He hasn't arrived yet..."

"So?"

"The situation...Andrew Bedford kidnapped Mac, Danny and Flack."

"Oh my God!" Adam cried out in horror.

"Lovato shot Bedford, he died at the scene but not before hurting Danny and Mac..."

"Is Mac okay?" Adam asked worriedly.

"I don't know," Hawkes mumbled, thinking back to the frozen, glazed look he'd last seen on Mac's face before he'd left with Danny.

"Oh God," Adam sniffed. "And Flack?"

Hawkes stifled a cry from his mouth.

"Flack's dead."

Adam stared in horror, wavered and then stumbled back into the chair.

"No," he gasped, one hand covering his mouth as he retched, the other holding his stomach. He looked up to see Hawkes nodding, a tear dribbling down his face. "Please, no. Tell me, Hawkes...please...tell me it's a lie..."

"I can't tell you that," Hawkes murmured, wiping the tear from his cheek.

"No..." sobbed Adam, tears breaking the damn and flooding his face as he cried softly.

Hawkes came forward and perched on the armrest of the chair putting an arm around his friend's shoulder. Adam buried his head into Hawkes' body as he cried long hard tears of pain. Hawkes held him close, finding himself crying too.

Before them, the tiny baby stirred again in his incubator.

Sid stood motionless at the side of the table and stared down at the body there. Detective Don Flack. He couldn't believe it; he just couldn't accept what his eyes were seeing. Nobody had told him, nobody had forewarned him who it was being brought in. He guessed they were all too busy dealing with the scene and aftershock. He'd thought it was just another job, just another body but as he'd unzipped the black cover he'd let out a cry of shock at who he saw. Don Flack. His friend and colleague, Don Flack, with half his face cut off and the back of his head missing. Of course, being a close friend, he hadn't been able to perform the post-mortem himself, a necessity to confirm the bullet from Bedford's gun had indeed killed the detective. So a colleague had done it and for the first time, the first time in his entire career he hadn't been able to watch, so sick he'd felt. He'd hidden away in his office and cried softly before trying to call someone without any luck.

Now he stood staring down at Flack's corpse, unable to believe the sight before him. He'd never been aware of it before but suddenly he could feel death surrounding him, suffocating him and he choked on the stench of it. It was cold in the morgue and he found he couldn't breathe, the air permeated with the stench of death. This was it. This was what life was all about. Humanity. Mortality. And how very human the man before him was. His soul gone, fled of its mortal shell; and all that remained, all that survived, was the thick lump of flesh and bone that had once been Don Flack. Been a person; a living, breathing human being that he'd called his friend. But Flack was gone now and this was life after death. Life and death's destruction, and Sid suddenly found himself hating the morgue, hating what he could see in front of him. But most of all hating the realisation of the coldness and loneliness that would now hit them all, now that death had passed and life continued. For this was now the 'after death'.

He turned as he heard the elevator doors open and his eyes widened in shock as he saw Mac appear, with a bandage round his head, followed by an anxious and upset looking Jo. He hurried forward to stop Mac from seeing the body.

"Mac, I don't think you want to be here," he said kindly and gently held his hands up at Mac.

"Where is he, Sid?" Mac asked.

His voice was calm, collected, unemotional, just as his face was and Sid worried for him.

"Mac, I really think you should..."

"Where's Don?"

Sid folded against the piercing stare and stepped to one side, allowing Mac to go forward.

Mac approached the table slowly, his breath catching as the air stilled around him. Time had paused, frozen against the motion of life, and he knew for that moment, for these few minutes in the great scheme of life, it was just him and Don. He stood aside the table, the body laid out perfectly, still cold and white flesh, closed eyes, blood coagulated and dry. His eyes glanced over the form of his dead lover, taking the sight in, acknowledging to himself that this was real, convincing his mind that this was truth. It didn't look like Don anymore, not the Don he knew, not that beautiful man who had captivated his heart for so many years. He reached out and picked up the stub of hand. There weren't even any fingers left to thread through his own. Don had been broken. Don had been destroyed. The body's mutilated face on show, ear and cheek gone and he could see the bone so clearly. Don's bone. For that was all that Don had been. Just flesh and bone, that's all. He'd never been some type of superhero, even if he'd been a hero in Mac's eyes. No, Don had only been human, that was all too apparent now, and every human life had to end. Whether stolen or not. Mac tenderly stroked a hand across the remaining cheek. The cold of the flesh making him shiver. Don was no longer here. This form wasn't Don anymore. It was a shell, empty of life, devoid of feeling and love. He placed the hand neatly back down and turned, staring across at Jo and Sid. Never before had he felt so alone.

Sid watched Mac as he approached the table, pain for his friend filling his every pore before he felt a tugging on his arm.

"Let's give him a moment," Jo said softly.

Sid nodded and went out into the corridor with her where they settled into two chairs. They could still see Mac through the glass, staring down at the corpse.

"He's been like that ever since we left the scene," Jo murmured. "Even in the hospital when the doctor was bandaging up his head."

"It'll take a while for it to sink in," Sid mused.

"I can't believe this has happened," Jo said. Her voice hitched and Sid looked at her. She was crying. He gently placed a hand on hers and she took it immediately, clasping it tightly.

"Death comes for even the best of us," Sid said softly.

"But not Flack," Jo cried. "Not Don, not today..."

Sid squeezed her hand.

"He was just so young. The young aren't meant to go first..." he muttered.

Jo nodded unable to speak as she let her tears out for the first time.

"I was meant to be the first," Sid murmured. "I always thought that with the cancer, well, I thought I'd beat you all to it."

"No, Sid, don't say that," Jo cried. "I can't lose you too."

"You won't," Sid tried to smile. "I'm here, Jo."

He squeezed her hand again.

"But it shouldn't have been Don. Not first," he added.

"It shouldn't have been any of us, not for a long time yet," Jo said, trying to smile at Sid.

"I guess we never know when our time will come," Sid shrugged.

"Life can be so cruel," Jo murmured as her gaze flickered back to Mac. She could only see his back.

"Do you think he'll get over this?" Sid asked, following her gaze.

"I just don't know," Jo replied. And as Mac turned to look at them, his face empty, emotionless and blank she suddenly felt very scared.

Mac finally got home after midnight. The day of his wedding. His wedding to a man whose body now lay on a slab in the morgue. He let his eyes wander across the room taking in what he saw. Don's shoes lay messily in the middle of the floor, flakes of mud and dirt caking the bottom and the surrounding area. A copy of King Lear sat on the coffee table, a coaster shoved inside, marking a page of particular importance. A jar of peanut butter with a spoon in it was open next to it, the crunchy type and nearly all gone. A pale grey sweater had been flung over the back of the sofa, mustard stains down the front of it, no doubt from a hotdog. Mac's eyes settled on a small red stain on one of the couch cushions and all of sudden he found it impossible to breathe. He knew what that stain was from experience. It was blood...Don's blood. Don had been taken from his own home, from their home where they'd thought they were safe from the world.

Mac closed his eyes against the sight and wavered, waiting for himself to steady before opening them again. As he stared back at the room, at the life he'd shared with Don he felt dead inside. No more feelings came over him, no more thoughts, nothing that could be betrayed as emotion. It was simple. He'd done this before. Don was gone. And he was alone.