Spoiler Alert: Spoilers for Seasons 2 & 3, up to and including "Silent Night".
A/N: People had some great, well-thought out solutions to the case: let's see if this chapter changes any minds! Thanks as always to the people who read, and the people who take time to review!
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 30: The Girl with Kaleidoscope Eyes.
Picture yourself on a train in a station,
With plasticine porters with looking glass ties,
Suddenly someone is there at the turnstile,
The girl with kaleidoscope eyes.
Frustrated, Danny walked down the hall to find somewhere to eat. Unlike New York hospitals, suffering from overcrowding and inadequate funding, the Bozeman Deaconess Hospital had a clean, attractive cafeteria which served recognizable, even healthy food. Danny picked up a sandwich and a carton of milk, which he took over to a window to eat. He didn't plan to leave Lindsay alone with the three Montana police for long; they hadn't been much good so far, and he couldn't see any signs that things were going to change.
He looked up with a smile when Diane put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed gently. "Hey, Mrs. Monroe."
Diane grimaced, "I asked you to call me Diane, please. I can't help but look over my shoulder for Ted's mom when I hear Mrs. Monroe. Danny, I'd like you to meet Dr. Chris Martens. He claims to be a doctor, anyway; I think he cheated on his exam, the way he did on his math test. Chris, Detective Daniel Messer, NYPD."
The dark-haired doctor shot a fond grin at Diane as he shook Danny's hand, "That test I cheated on was in Grade Three, just in case you're worrying! How come I still have to call you Mrs. Monroe?"
"Maybe I'll let you call me Diane when you grow up. Chris has been hanging around the house since he was six, Danny; he and my son Jamie were in school together."
They joined Danny at the table, both drinking another in what was probably an endless series of cups of coffee. Danny put down the carton of milk he had finished, and Diane glanced at it, askance.
"Can I grab you a coffee?" she asked.
"Naw, I'm good. Thanks though. So, Dr. Martens, how is Lindsay? Can either of you tell me exactly what happened?"
The two looked at each other, then the young man sighed, "Call me Chris; we're going to get to know each other fairly well. Medically, I can tell you she was fucking lucky."
Diane winced at the language, but said nothing.
"Sorry, Diane, but you know she was. She was walking through the intersection when she was hit by a truck. One witness said she was most of the way through, and she may have seen it coming and jumped, which would explain why we aren't making funeral arrangements now."
Danny shut his eyes. Dr. Martens was obviously not one of those "need-to-know" doctors; he believed in giving all the information you didn't want to hear.
"Anyway, she was clipped by the truck's fender. It spun her around and propelled her through the air. She smashed into a brick wall, which caused the concussion, the dislocated shoulder, and possibly the separated ankle. That could have been caused by the force of the truck hitting her upper leg, though. Her right leg was severely bruised by contact with the truck, but no break, which is a miracle. In fact, the whole thing is a miracle; if the driver had swerved to hit her, or had been going faster …" Chris' voice dropped. He had known Lindsay her whole life; Jamie had brought her, a tiny baby in a riot of pink, as 'Show and Tell' in kindergarten. He could barely stand to think about what could have happened.
Danny stood up restlessly, automatically tidying up the debris from his meal and taking it to a garbage can. Chris and Diane watched him silently, waiting for him to work out whatever he needed to work out.
"So, how long a recovery time, do you figure?"
"Weeks for full recovery, but she can leave the hospital earlier, of course. I want to keep her another day or two to monitor the concussion."
"Okay. Diane, I've booked a room at a hotel…"
"Don't be ridiculous. I made up Jamie's old room before I left for work. Lindsay will want you close by."
Danny flushed a little. Damn, what had Lindsay told her parents, he wondered. Ted hadn't greeted him with a shotgun, but perhaps he had forgotten in the worry about Lindsay's injuries.
"Thank you, I appreciate that. Chris, will I be able to check in with you later? I'd like to get back and make sure Lindsay isn't too wiped out from talking to the detectives."
"Oh, they showed up, did they?" Diane's lips pressed together, and she snapped the words out like peas from a pod. "Nice of them to take an interest."
Danny grinned tightly at her. Damn, he liked Montana's mom. He didn't stop to think about how unusual that was: mothers had never been high on his list.
They all started walking back towards the ward Lindsay was on. Danny said, "I wonder if they picked up Lindsay's clothes for processing yet?"
This time it was Chris' eyebrows that raised. "They hadn't even done that yet? Usually they are standing over us in the ER waiting for those."
Danny shook his head, his thoughts buzzing like blowflies on a bloated corpse: too many to get hold of just one. For some reason, he was feeling uneasy about leaving Lindsay, and unconsciously his footsteps sped up, only slowing down when he got to the room.
She was alone, and Danny noticed with a glance that the bag with her clothes was not where it had been in the corner of the room, so the sheriff or detective must have taken it with him when they left her.
He moved over to her bed, calling her name softly as he approached. He knew he should let her mother, even her doctor, talk to her first, but he couldn't shake the feeling something was wrong. He could hear her slow, shallow breathing, suddenly loud in the small room.
"Lindsay? You okay, sweetheart?" He bent over her, reaching for her hand, then sharply called to Chris, "Hey doc, she doesn't look right!"
Her hand was cold and clammy, and when she opened her eyes, her pupils were swallowed by the deep brown irises. "Danny?" She looked at him, disoriented and frightened.
Chris pushed Danny to one side and hit a button on the wall as Lindsay's body suddenly began to convulse. Danny grabbed Diane as she rushed towards her seizing daughter, holding her tightly.
"Let him do what he needs to, Diane."
Chris glanced up at the morphine drip, and with a curse, ripped the intravenous out of Lindsay's arm. "How did that happen?"
As his team entered the room, he began to snap orders at them, "Naloxone, stat, continuous drip. Someone opened her morphine drip; she's overdosing. Let's go, people!"
Although it seemed a lifetime to Danny and Diane, standing helplessly watching in the corner of the room, Chris was remarkably quick in getting Lindsay stabilized and recovering. The seizures stopped almost as soon as they began, and her breathing and heartbeat returned to normal under the naloxone.
Ted Monroe walked into the room half an hour after Lindsay first seized, responding to a panicked call from his wife, and saw his daughter, still pale and confused looking. He pulled her into his arms carefully, trying to avoid all the tubes and cords attaching her to machines, and held her while she cried. When she had calmed, he looked at Danny, who was leaning against a wall, silent and grim.
"What are you thinking, Detective?"
Danny frowned, his eyes searching out Lindsay's face. She was conscious, hurting, and still drowsy, but she nodded to him.
"Okay," Danny sat on the end of the bed carefully, avoiding Lindsay's legs as much as possible. Her parents were sitting beside her and Chris was checking her readouts while he listened.
"Someone opened your morphine drip, Linds. You nearly died of an overdose. Another few minutes," he glanced up at Chris for confirmation, who grimaced and nodded bleakly, "and you might not have come out of it. It can't be a coincidence that this happened just after Olafsen, Evans, and McKim were in your room alone with you, can it?"
He recognized the look in Lindsay's eyes and nearly laughed: bandaged from head to toe, fighting a concussion, recovering from a third attempt on her life in just over 24 hours, and she was preparing to argue through a case with him. He put his hand up, "We can talk about alternative theories later. Right now, I want to make sure you are safe."
He turned to Chris, "I asked for protection on her door. Do you know if the sheriff ordered that?"
Chris shook his head, "Not that I know."
"Okay. Ted, Diane, thank you for the offer of a bed at your place, but I think I'm going to have to pass. I can't keep Lindsay safe there, and obviously we can't keep her safe here. I think it's time for her to disappear."
Ted shot Danny a glare, "She should come home. We can protect her."
Diane put her hand on her husband's. "Listen to Danny, Ted. I think he's right. Bob and Carl haven't done a thing to keep her safe. We're too far out of town if something goes wrong. The only problem is, Danny, if you are with Lindsay, hiding out, what will happen to the case?"
"John," Lindsay's voice was slurred and heavy, but everyone heard it.
Danny shook his head, hating to do this to her. "Lindsay, I know you trust McKim, but he's a suspect here, as much as anyone else at the station."
More, in Danny's eyes, but that might just be him, he admitted.
Lindsay was shaking her head, "Not McKim. Mom, call John."
Diane smiled, "You sure, Lindsay?"
Lindsay nodded her head, struggling to keep her eyes open.
"No fighting?" Diane said, teasingly.
Lindsay grinned weakly. "Promise … not to … start." Every word seemed a struggle, but her face was serene.
Ted sighed in relief. "That's it, then. We call John, see if he can get some time off."
Danny looked at the three satisfied faces in front of him. He was obviously missing something here. "John?"
Chris looked up from the machines tracking Lindsay's progress. "John Monroe. He's the middle brother, between Jamie and Michael."
Danny nodded; he vaguely remembered Montana's big family of all brothers, although until now he hadn't known their names. "Why no fighting?"
Lindsay's eyes were closed, so he looked to her parents for an answer. It was her voice that responded though, with a suitable degree of scorn and dismay, "He's a … Fed … FBI."