Here's chapter 2 of Into the Blaze! Hope you enjoy it! And review!

Chapter Two: Who are you?

Beep!

Danny Messer awoke instantly, sweaty, his clothes sticking to him. He reached over to his alarm clock and turned it off, and hurried off to the shower. It was when he was done with his shower and dressed in his clothes when the thought came to him. The New York Crime Lab had burned down. He had left Lindsay there to die. What had he done? How had he made it out alive and why was he home at his apartment?

Running out the door to drive off in his car, he made his way to the New York Crime Lab to see that it was fine; no damage had been done to the building. He shook his head. No, there had been a fire yesterday, he remembered it. There was no way the building had survived a fire without a single mark...

He slammed the car door closed and ran inside the building to see many people working, just as the day before, before the fire had started. He looked up to the clock to see that it was ten thirty. Oh God, he was late for work. Mac wouldn't be happy with him. He hurried to the elevator, pressed the button for the thirty-fifth floor at least five times, and once the elevator had opened to his floor, he raced like a speeding bullet to Mac's office. But when he ran through the doors of his office, who he saw wasn't Mac. Instead, a woman with brown hair, cold blue looking eyes, and who was rather thin, looked up at him. Her voice showed no kindness either. "May I help you?"

He guessed it wasn't the time to bother her, since she had a great deal of paperwork on her desk. But this was Mac's office, why was she sitting at his desk? "Who are you?" asked Danny, instead of saying his reason for coming there.

"Detective Audrey Mayor, who are you?" she said.

Detective Audrey Mayor? Danny asked himself. Who the heck? "I'm Danny Messer," he quickly said. "I work as a CSI investigator here. Where's Mac Taylor?"

She gave him a look that made him belief she thought he was crazy. "Okay, one, you don't work here and I've never met you before. Two, Mac Taylor is a legendary musician, he plays the bass guitar in a band. He's playing at a local jazz club tonight, but what reason would make you think he would be here?"

Now it was his turn to give her the crazy look. "Mac Taylor was a detective that worked here, and this was his office. He's a musician?"

The detective nodded. "Now, I'm sorry to say this Mr. Messer, but I'm afraid you don't work here. And Mac Taylor was never a detective here. But you should check out his music sometime, I'm sure you'd like it." She looked back down to her paperwork. "Now, if you may please?"

Danny nodded, backing out of the office. He shook his head. Mac was a musician? What was going on? If Mac wasn't at the crime lab, what had happened to the other CSI investigators?

He continued his walk down the hallway, remembering the fire that had claimed the hallway—had Lindsay survived and had there ever been a fire? He was so focused on finding out the answers to all his questions when he accidentally bumped into someone. He looked up, hoping to see a familiar face, but instead was greeted with a questioning look from a medical examiner. She had blond hair and her now questioning look had changed to a stern, get out of my way, look.

Danny said one word, "Lost," and hurried away from the ME. So he had met two new people and found out that Mac was a musician. Where were the rest of his friends? He hurried to the lab—even if the detective he had met earlier would probably want him to leave—to see if Adam, Hawkes, Lindsay, Stella, or even Flack or Sid was there. No, his guess was wrong yet again.

A CSI investigator with red hair looked up to him. Many freckles dotted her face and she wore a smile. She laughed as she said, "Are you new here?"

Danny shook his head. "I had thought I'd worked here." He walked over to join the investigator. "Has anyone with the names Stella Bonasera, Don Flack, Sheldon Hawkes, Lindsay Monroe, Sid Hammerback or Adam Ross ever appeared in the lab? Have you ever heard of anyone with one of those names?"

"I think Don Flack may be a police officer," replied the red-haired CSI investigator. "Sheldon Hawkes is a famous doctor, a surgeon actually. But those other names, I haven't heard of before."

Makes sense, he thought. Flack was at least still in the same department and Hawkes had been a surgeon before, so it made sense why he would go back. But he had lost two patients on the operating table and he thought that he didn't want to go back to that. At least he knew what the jobs of three of his friends were; Mac was a musician, playing the bass guitar; Flack was a police officer; and Hawkes was a surgeon.

"I'm Megan Johnson," the woman was saying. She put out her hand and Danny shook it. "Who are you?"

"Danny Messer," he replied. "I had once worked as a CSI investigator, but now I don't." Why he wasn't a CSI, he didn't know and where he worked now was another one of the questions that circled his mind. He'd hope to find the answers to his questions soon.

"Well, Danny Messer, you probably should be getting to work, don't you think?" asked Megan. "You're probably late now, it's almost eleven."

He nodded, bumping into the same medical examiner he had seen in the hallway earlier as he turned to leave. When she began to talk, her accent reminded him of Peyton Driscoll, who had used to work as a medical examiner in New York, but left back to England because she wanted to be with her family. He wondered what had happened to Peyton, but without being able to talk with Mac, he knew he wouldn't figure out the answer. "I thought you were lost," she said.

"I was," replied Danny. "And Megan here was kind enough to tell me how to get out of here." He quickly walked past her, deciding to leave the crime lab once and for all before he met another person who didn't approve of his being there. Once he had left, the medical examiner turned around to look at Megan. "Who was that guy?"

"Danny Messer," she said. "He seems like a nice guy though."

"Yeah, that guy has bumped into me two times today, obviously clueless on where he was going," said the medical examiner. "I hate new people."

"Give him a chance, Riley," said Megan, though she knew that Danny didn't actually work there. But for some reason, she knew he would be back. She looked Riley, who just shrugged and then gave her the autopsy report she had been waiting for.

Danny was now walking the streets of New York, wondering what had happened to his friends. Why had they quit their jobs as CSI investigators? Why had they stopped working at the New York Crime Lab? Had there been a fire? And if there had, how long ago had it been and what year was it? Ugh, he thought. Too many questions have been left unanswered.

Clouds were gathering in the sky and the noise of thunder sounded in the distance. Despite the sun that had been out when he had first arrived at the crime lab, it was now gone and it began to rain. He was about to walk back to his car when it hit him. Now walking out of a coffee shop with an umbrella in her hands was Stella Bonasera, her brown curly hair visible through the crowd of people walking down the sidewalk. It had to have been her, maybe perhaps she did work at the crime lab and Megan hadn't seen her before. Stella could have gotten an early lunch and was now heading back to the crime lab. But when she turned to walk in the opposite direction, he realized she wasn't going back there. He quickened his pace.

"Stella!" he called.

She immediately turned around to the sound of his voice. Yes, he thought. She remembers me! "Hey Stel, what's up?"

She gave him a look of inquiry. "Have I met you before?"

The smile on his face suddenly disappeared. "Um, I had worked with you before…you were a detective…"

"A detective?" asked Stella. "I'm sorry, you must have been mistaken. There are probably other people with the name 'Stella' that work as a detective." They walked along, and as they came up to a jazz club, she pointed to a sign. Danny looked at the sign and realized two things: One, this was the same jazz club Mac was playing at and two, Stella was also singing there tonight. Danny hadn't ever heard Stella sing before, but he imagined that her voice was good and wondered if she would sing something Greek.

"So, you're a singer then?" he asked her.

Stella nodded. "You can come see my performance; Mac Taylor may sign a contract with me and I may be able to work with him. I'm not famous like him, but I guess you must have seen me sing at a few clubs before since you know who I am."

At this point, she began to walk away from him. He hurried to keep up; he had other questions he needed to ask her. But as he walked onto a busier street, he lost sight of her in a crowd. He pushed through the crowd, calling out, "Stella," but no one answered him, which left him standing in the way of people, getting soaked by the rain. He had met up with one of his old friends, but she obviously didn't remember him and she hadn't worked as a detective before.

As he turned to walk away, he kept telling himself, this is all a joke. The CSI investigators are just messing with me, and tomorrow, I'll wake up and go to the crime lab and find them waiting for me, laughing and saying, "Can't believe you fell for that one Danny!" He had convinced himself that was true, and since he was in such a good mood, he decided to go see both Mac and Stella perform at the jazz club.