Spoiler Alert: Spoilers for Seasons 2 & 3, up to and including "Silent Night".
A/N: Some good guesses about the phone call, but sorry – it's not going to be so easy, unless, of course, you want the story to end quickly! Let me know – keep going, or wrap it up?
Disclaimer: No infringement of copyright is intended. All characters originated with CSI:NY; all song lyrics are from The Beatles.
It's a Long Journey Home
Chapter 13: Help Me
Help me if you can, I'm feeling down
And I do appreciate you being round.
Help me get my feet back on the ground,
Won't you please, please help me, help me, help me, oh.
"Hey, Mom. I'm just going into the Sheriff's office to talk to Bob Olafsen. Yeah, my plane landed safely. Yeah, it was a terrible thing to happen. I heard that most people were okay. Yes, I'll ask Bob about the accident." Lindsay listened for a moment longer, then broke into her mother's monologue. "Look, Mom, I see John McKim; I need to talk to him. I'll see you in a few hours, okay? Yeah, I'll call Dad. Yes, I know he's waiting for me at the office. Gotta go, Mom. We'll talk tonight." Lindsay closed her phone on her mother's voice, feeling guilty, and turned to give the man walking up to her the once-over.
"Well, well, Officer McKim. That uniform still looks pretty good on you." Her smile was wide and genuine.
"Not as good as it looks off me, sugarpie." The tall, blonde man stood back and stared at her, checking her out blatantly. "You're not looking too bad yourself, for a girl that's ditched us for the big bad city."
Lindsay gave him a hug, and was surprised and a little flattered when he seemed reluctant to let her go. She had been a few years behind him through high school; then Lindsay had been partnered with him after she finished her degree for her requisite officer training before she was promoted to Detective.
He was a good cop, who knew the streets and the people on them. Bozeman wasn't like New York: perversions and casual cruelties existed everywhere people congregated, but not in the sheer staggering numbers Lindsay had been exposed to over the past two years. She was constantly shocked not by what people would do to each other, but that they would do it so many times in a day. John had taught her to look at the details; she found herself often using his hands-on approach when she was examined evidence.
"So how are things going with you? You holding up?" John slung an arm over her shoulder and led her into the station.
"I'll be okay. This news kind of threw me, I have to admit. I just wasn't prepared for this right now. I mean, I thought I had put all this behind me long ago."
John gave her a little squeeze and said grimly, "Don't worry, babe. This time, we'll bury him."
Meetings with the sheriff, with the lead detectives, with the District Attorney and with the Crime Scene Investigators took up most of the rest of the day. Lindsay was wrung out by the time she called her father, who had gone home hours before.
Ted was shocked all over again by how pale and strained she looked, but comforted himself with the thought that she was home now, and that her mother could take care of her. Diane had spent all day cooking and baking, as if she could fix the world just by feeding it enough. Ted grinned; he could see a few extra pounds in his future.
When Ted drove down the long driveway and pulled up in front of the large old farmhouse, Lindsay climbed out of the truck. She nearly lost her balance, holding on tight to the door as the world spun around her. No food, no sleep, way too much intense emotion, all crashed down on her when she heard her mother's voice. She closed her eyes and let go.
"Okay, now this is really ridiculous." The voice broke through the darkness and left Lindsay feeling like a six-year-old again. Funny how a mother can do that.
She opened her eyes to see her mother's face hovering over her. She was lying on the couch in the living room: the one she had spent countless hours on during her childhood, the one where she had sweated out fevers and tried not to scratch chicken pox, the one where she had agonized over crushes and whether to go all the way before prom or not. Every lump in the cushions, every ink-stain on the fabric was as familiar as her mother's brown eyes and slight frown as she looked at her youngest daughter.
"Lindsay Monroe, what have you been doing to yourself? Obviously, you haven't been eating or looking after yourself at all. I knew this would happen. You're too old to need your mother to tell you how to take basic precautions."
Diane's words may have been harsh, but her voice was low and soothing, and her hands were gentle as she brushed Lindsay's hair off her pale face and pulled the quilt up higher, tucking it in around her.
"Hi Mom," Lindsay squeezed out through a throat suddenly too tight to do much more than breathe. Without warning, she bean to cry, deep wrenching sobs that wracked her body until she thought she would simply shake apart.
Diane said nothing, just holding her daughter and rubbing her back until the sobs died down and Lindsay could speak. Diane stopped her before she could say a word, however.
"Now, you are going to eat and then sleep. We will talk in the morning." Diane placed a bowl of soup on the lap tray which had also filled a big space in Lindsay's childhood and watched her spoon up thick, homemade turkey soup. Once Lindsay had cleaned the bowl, Diane removed the tray and pulled her up off the couch. "Bed," she said firmly.
Obediently, Lindsay turned to climb the stairs and go to her room, only to be stopped for a moment when her mother added, "I'm glad you're here, honey."
"Here," Lindsay noticed. Not "home."
For the first time in weeks, Lindsay slept through the night without dreaming.
When she finally woke up in the morning, the sun was full up and she could smell fresh baked bread and strong brewed coffee. She knew her parents would have been up for hours by now: Ted may be an accountant but he still ran his father's ranch, and Diane was a lab technician at the local hospital in addition to being a rancher's wife, a full-time and engrossing job in itself. Like most families in agriculture, the Monroes were do-it-yourself, jack-of-all-trades workaholics. The only time they had planned a family holiday, it had been cancelled by a devastating hailstorm which threatened their hay crop and nearly wiped them out for the year. Ted had never tempted fate again.
Lindsay got out of bed and had a shower. Even the water was different in Montana: hard and full of minerals, so her shampoo lathered up into a mass of bubbles. As she washed it away down the drain, she felt some of the tension and fear of the past few weeks go with it. She dressed in ranch clothes, jeans and a sweatshirt, and went down to the kitchen to sneak a piece of warm bread.
"That'll make your stomach hurt – you should wait for it to cool." Her mother spoke from behind the newspaper, repeating the words Lindsay had heard a million times first from her grandmother, then the woman who presently ran the kitchen, the family, and, if truth were told, much of the town.
Lindsay laughed, "You always say that, and it's never true." She swallowed that first glorious bite slathered with fresh butter, and then sipped her coffee. She sat down at the table and smiled at her mother.
Diane took in details about her daughter in one quick glance that another person would not have seen in a thousand years. Lindsay's eyes were still shadowed, though Diane had checked on her several times during the night and knew she had slept. She was thin, her hair was lank, and her colour was not good, a little muddy as if she had not seen enough sunlight.
"So, tell me what's happened. I know the news about Forbes changing his plea came as a shock, but there must be more going on to cause your reaction."
"Whoa, Mom, don't ease into anything, okay?" Lindsay couldn't help but laugh; her mother had never been known for her slow buildup. Sometimes when Lindsay was in the interview room, she would deliberately invoke her mother's attitude: it never failed to shock the interviewee to be suddenly bitten by the petite, sweet-looking detective. She had surprised her colleagues with it a time or two as well.
While she tried to think of how much to tell her mother, Lindsay unconsciously pushed up the sleeves of her sweatshirt and rubbed her wrists. They didn't hurt exactly, but she could feel the bruises; heat seemed to pool where Danny's hands had held her.
Diane looked down at Lindsay's hands and her eyes widened in shock. She grabbed Lindsay's arm and checked the bruising, then got up and found the tube of arnica cream which had been put on every nick and bump Lindsay and her brothers had managed to acquire during an active and sometimes foolhardy childhood. She massaged the cream in gently, noticing the finger and thumbprints standing out clearly on Lindsay's pale skin. Someone had held her girl, and held her hard.
Mortified, Lindsay couldn't speak. She could tell Diane believed she now understood what had happened: that Lindsay had been attacked or forced in some way, and that that accounted for her break down.
How could she tell her that it had not been like that, not after the first moment of shock? She wanted Danny so much: she couldn't breathe sometimes when they were in close proximity to each other. She would have let him do anything – did let him do anything – without complaint as long as he touched her.
She looked at her mother, who was blinking back tears, and knew she had to try and explain it. "Mom, I'm good. It's not what it looks like. He didn't hurt me, not really."
"Who was it?" Diane's voice was dangerously quiet: the one her oldest son Jamie called her rattlesnake voice.
"When you hear the warning rattle, jump back – she's going to strike!" For weeks the boys had come up behind their mother and made rattling sounds to drive her crazy.
"Mom, it wasn't just him; it was me too. Geez, Mom, I'm not sure I can talk about this with you." Lindsay flushed deep red: what would her farmwife mother know of passion so overwhelming it caused a person – two people –to act in such an uncharacteristic way?
Diane looked up at her daughter then with a laugh in her eyes, some of the tension dissipating. "Honey, you don't think four children were left in this house by the stork, do you? I doubt there's anything you can tell me I don't have at least a passing familiarity with, in books at least, if not in person!"
Lindsay took a sip of her coffee, and tried to figure out where to begin.