Spoiler Alert: Spoilers for Seasons 2 & 3, up to and including "Silent Night".
A/N: I forgot to wish The Little Corinthian a Happy Birthday yesterday, so here is my apology chapter (didn't mean to scare you). Also, thanks to all the reviewers who gave me their deductions about the case – so far, some interesting thinking! Let's see if this chapter gives you more to work with.
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 28: I Know the Way There
Got to get you into my life
What can I do, what can I be
When I'm with you I want to stay there
If I'm true I'll never leave
And if I do I know the way there
"What the hell are you talking about, Evans? How could evidence be missing?"
"All I can tell you is what I was told, Bob. That tech – Ross whatever – he said the shell casings weren't in the evidence box Monroe delivered to Jeffers before she walked out of the station."
The first voice was angry, frustrated, Lindsay thought. The second was cool and in control. She couldn't open her eyes, but every sound seemed to reverberate through her head.
"What are you saying, Carl? I told the kid to grab the casings from the table where Lindsay had laid them out. Why was he looking in the box for them?"
"I don't know. Maybe Monroe picked them up?"
"Why the hell would she do that? Look, Carl, just what is your problem with Lindsay Monroe anyway? She was a damn fine criminalist when she worked here. She's had nearly two years training in one of the best facilities in the country. What have you got against her?" The first voice was aggrieved and increasingly frustrated.
The second voice remained cool, although an additional note of defensiveness had entered. "She's too emotionally involved."
"Too emotionally involved? In this case? Jesus H Christ, Evans, that must be the stupidest thing I've ever heard you say…"
The raised voice broke through Lindsay's blur of pain killers and left her gasping in pain. She couldn't help moaning.
Both voices instantly stopped as one man ran to the door, "We need a doctor here immediately!"
The other man ran to Lindsay's bedside, "Who did this to you, Lindsay? Did you see anything? Lindsay?"
She opened her eyes for a moment, and saw a flash of light, heard an engine roar. Then everything was obscured in pain.
"Move!" A doctor's voice: impatient and authoritative. Someone grabbed her arm, and mercifully, she blacked out.
The next time she woke up, she looked around the room, trying not to move her head and wincing at the light coming in through the hospital door window.
"Hey, sleepyhead." The voice was calm and quiet, and Lindsay smiled.
"Hey, Mom." She blinked at the ceiling for a few minutes, then said, "So. Are you going to tell me what happened to me?"
Diane rolled up her knitting and leant over Lindsay, smoothing the hair from her forehead and helping her to some water. "Chris said you should remember it on your own eventually. I'd hate to show him up again."
As a member of the hospital staff, Diane was impressed by doctors in inverse proportion to how long she had known them. In the case of Dr. Chris Martens, the same age as her oldest son, she still thought of him as a lanky teenager always raiding her fridge and banging the screen door closed.
Lindsay blinked slowly again. "Did he say how long?"
Diane kissed her gently, "When it happens. I can tell you what is wrong with you, if you like?"
Lindsay nodded cautiously.
"Dislocated left shoulder; that will have to be immobilized for a few days, maybe as long as a week. Right leg: severe contusions and separated ankle. Bad, but not as bad as a break. Remember the one you had when you were fifteen?"
Lindsay nodded again, frowning. She was trying to remember something that had happened more recently, but other than a sound, she was drawing a blank.
"You also have a severe concussion; no permanent damage, he thinks. You hit pretty hard."
"Hit what pretty hard?" Lindsay wondered, but didn't bother asking.
"Mama, can I ask you two favours?'
"What can I do for you?"
"First, remember what I told you when I came home? About the bruises? Can you forget everything I told you, please?"
Diane looked at her with a gleam of mischief in her eyes. "What bruises?" she said innocently.
Lindsay would have laughed, but everything hurt.
"And the second thing?"
"Could you phone Danny Messer for me please?"
Diane looked at the watch attached to her uniform, which Lindsay only now realized she was wearing.
"Your father is at the airport now."
Lindsay blinked again at the apparent non sequitur. "Why?"
Diane grinned at her daughter, "Because I'm at work? I have to go back on shift too; my break is over."
"Mom, give me a break. I got a concussion here," Lindsay started. Only a mother or a native New Yorker would have heard the touch of Staten Island in her voice.
"Hush now. Go back to sleep, Lindsay; it'll all be clearer when you wake up next time."
She was asleep before her mother walked out of the room.
Lindsay stirred restlessly, trying to break out of the nightmare stalking her. She had been walking; then she heard a gun shot. When she looked down, she was covered in blood and brain matter, but it wasn't Cameron lying on the ground in front of her, it was Danny. She looked up and saw a truck coming towards her, then a masked face and dark eyes glaring at her.
She came awake with a gasp, and someone standing by the window turned to bend over her.
Not fair, she thought with a frown. If her mind was going to keep playing tricks on her, did it have to make things so hard? She closed her eyes against what she was seeing.
"Come on, Montana. The Sleeping Beauty act was cute while it lasted, but it's time to come up with another gimmick."
Lindsay smiled a little, but refused to open her eyes. Damn hallucination. It even got the voice right.
"Okay, I'll play along, but remember it was your idea."
The figure bent over her again and a warm mouth covered hers. Her eyes flew open in surprise, then closed again in dreamy pleasure. Her right hand curled around his neck to hold him closer as she opened her lips and he deepened the kiss. Her head started spinning, and the heart monitor she was attached to began to beep a little faster.
Slowly, before they were raided by a medical team, Danny eased back, hooking a chair with his foot to pull it closer and perching on the end of it, trying to find a way to lean on the bed without touching any part of Lindsay which was bruised, battered, or bandaged. It didn't leave him a lot of options.
"Damn," she whispered. "Not fair."
"What's not fair, sweetheart?" He tenderly pushed hair off her forehead and caressed her cheek, carefully avoiding the bruises and scratches.
"This hallucination even tastes right. I gotta get me some of these drugs for home."
Danny laughed and touched her eyelids delicately with his finger. "Not dreaming, Montana. Open your eyes and look at me. I'm really here."
"How? Why?" Brown eyes met blue and widened.
"You hadn't phoned me by the time I got into work, so I called your parents' house. Diane had just hung up on Sheriff Olafsen, and was on her way in to the hospital. She told me what had happened. I caught the next flight out." Danny's voice was calm and quiet, but Lindsay could see the stark terror clouding his eyes.
"Now I know you're a mirage. No way Mac Taylor let you drop everything and come to Bozeman." She was searching his face carefully, wanting to believe.
"Who do you think looked up the flights, and drove me to Kennedy airport? Did you know that it only takes two hours to get from New York to Bozeman, even though you spend four hours in the air?"
"What about your shifts?"
"Stella, Hawkes, plus Penn and Craig from day shift. All covered." His voice remained soft and comforting, but his hand was shaking a little against her cheek.
"Still one indisputable fact that proves you are not really here. There is no way city boy Danny Messer would leave the Big Apple and fly all the way out here to cow country." Lindsay had not let go of her 'hallucination', her good hand still wrapped around his neck, even as she tried to logically disprove his existence.
Danny laughed and moved the few inches to touch his lips to hers again. She moaned a little as what started as gentle caress flashed into flame. Immediately, he stilled and pulled away, resting his forehead carefully on hers.
"And yet, here I am. And I gotta tell you something, Montana; I'm really disappointed in my reception here. I've been in this state for nearly two hours now, and I haven't seen one single cow!"
The duty nurse was coming in to check on the police woman's stats; her heart monitor and pulse oxygen readouts had both shown a strange spike a few minutes earlier. Odd, but not worrying, as long as it settled down again. She paused on the doorstep, though, when she saw her giggling patient wrapped gently in the arms of a handsome young man.
With a sympathetic grin, she closed the door carefully again. From where she stood, the patient's vitals looked just fine.