Disclaimer: No infringement of copyright is intended. All characters originated with CSI:NY. Poetry not otherwise referenced is original.

A/N: I appreciate the reviews, the questions, the ideas, and the continuing support of those who read the story. Thank you all.

Spoiler Alert: Spoilers for Seasons 2 & 3, up to and including "Silent Night".

The Incarnation

You speak and I am filled

With joy, with sorrow,

With knowledge of life,

With taste of death.

You speak and I am filled

With despair, with peace,

With awareness,

With passion.

You spoke: I was replete,

But now your silence

Is all that fills me.

Chapter 17: Disturbing the Peace

As in many older parts of the city, the brick office buildings and small apartments hid the peaceful little courtyard in the centre of the block. The small group of adults was gathered around the bench, talking, while the children played quietly under a small cluster of trees by the fence. They swarmed around the young woman as she walked into the sunlight, asking soft questions in a variety of languages, darting quick nervous glances at the unfamiliar visitors. "Go, darlings," she said gently. "Yes, yes, I will come and talk to you later. Yes, I promise."

The three detectives seemed out of place in this quiet place: an uncomfortable reminder that the city did not always offer safe havens. Her calm voice with its light French-Canadian accent and Arabic formality was much more in keeping with the early spring air than Flack's sharp questioning.

Hawkes turned and observed the newcomer. Like her partners, she was short, perhaps a head shorter than Stella. Unlike the curvy Miriam or athletic Kathleen, though, she was very slim, almost childlike. She wore a bright green tunic over matching wide trousers, covered by the same white doctor's coat both the other women wore. Covering her head and shoulders, she wore a white headscarf, what Hawkes thought of as a hijab. It emphasized dark almond-shaped eyes touched with a hint of humour and skin the colour of café au lait.

She continued quietly, addressing Flack's comment, "We believe in helping the community in every way possible, Detective. That includes assisting those trained in other jurisdictions to apply their skills here."

Hawkes glanced away, afraid he may have been staring, and noticed that Flack, having given Dr. Suq a quick look over, was also carefully restricting his usual watchful gaze to her face.

"Dr. Suq? Nasreen Suq?" Flack said, waiting for her nod before going on. "I'm Detective Flack, NYPD. This is Dr. Sheldon Hawkes and Detective Stella Bonasera from the Crime Lab. Have you seen this woman? Did she come to the clinic?" He handed her the picture.

Dr. Suq sat down on the bench as if a sudden weight had been handed to her. Dr. O'Conal sat beside her, one arm wrapping supportively around her shoulders.

"Oh. Yes. Yes, she came in late last week. Thursday, I think. I will check the book."

"We'll do that in a minute, okay, Doctor? What did she come in for?" Flack's pen moved quickly across his notebook.

"She was pregnant – just six weeks. She came to discuss her options."

"You mean abortion?" Flack's voice remained cool, but Dr. Suq's eyes flashed as she glanced up at him.

"That would be one of the options we discussed, yes. Of course."

Hawkes stepped in, "Do you perform that procedure here?"

Dr. Beniamin looked at him over her partners' heads, "Yes. We have a fully equipped surgery. We do perhaps one or two a week. We much prefer earlier prevention, but in a neighbourhood like this one, it is not always possible."

Stella asked, "A neighbourhood like this one? What do you mean?"

"We work with three very traditional populations here, Detective Bonasera. Orthodox Jews, Catholics, and Muslims. Oh, of course there are many others that use our services, but those three groups are part of the reason for the way we have structured our practice." Dr. Suq's voice remained calm, but Hawkes could see that her hands were tightly clasped together, the knuckles white. Stella had taken the picture back when she asked her question.

"The adults are often struggling to uphold their values, their culture, in a new country," Dr. O'Conal went on. "The young people, though – they live in a new world, one in which tradition may be seen as repression. They want to break free – to explore new possibilities."

"On the other hand, some young people cling even tighter to the old ways, while their parents reject all differences in order to be accepted as American. Issues of pre-marital sex, birth control, intercultural relationships: all present potentially devastating roadblocks for families. We try to mediate between the generations, and between neighbours. It is not always an easy place to stand," Dr. Beniamin completed the statement.

Flack looked down at the three women, who together presented a pretty solid front. "This woman here, specifically," he pointed to the picture in Stella's hand. "What kind of mediation did you have to do for her?"

Dr. Suq looked at the picture again, sorrow filling her eyes. "Her name was Caitlin; at least that is what she told me. They do not always use their own names, Detective. She did not give a last name, but she did give us a medical insurance number, I think; I noticed when I filed the paperwork. She was Catholic; did you find her crucifix?"

Flack shook his head.

Dr Suq sighed, "It was a remarkably beautiful one – a gift from someone she loved and trusted, I believe. Gold, with filigree work, on a thin gold chain, perhaps 24 inches long. She held onto it the entire time I was examining her."

"Would you recognize it again if you saw it?" Flack asked.

"Yes, I think so. She told me she had a boyfriend, and I asked if she had spoken to him about the pregnancy. She said the boyfriend was not the father – could not be the father."

Dr. Suq looked up, but it was to Hawkes she spoke, not to Flack. "She said she had been forced… or coerced. She wasn't very clear in her own mind about what had happened, but she had been a virgin before that incident and had been with no one since. And before you ask, Detective," she looked at Flack then, "No, she did not report it."

"Did she tell you who it was?" Stella's voice was quiet.

"She said it was a priest at her church. She would not tell me his name."

"The name of the church?"

"No. She was afraid to tell anyone; she did not think anyone would believe her. She was afraid to tell her boyfriend. She was terrified of having an abortion; to her it was an unforgivable sin. When she left, she was still unsure what to do. I asked her to come back today or tomorrow. I had hoped to see her this morning."

"Dr. Suq, what advice did you give her?" Stella asked.

The young woman looked straight into Stella's eyes, "I told her not to have the abortion."

"If abortion is against your principals, Doctor, why do you work here?" Flack asked.

"I perform abortions when required, Detective, without too much strain on my conscience."

"As do I," Dr. O'Conal said. At Hawkes' surprised look, she said, "I am a licensed physician as well. I practice when needed."

"Although Islam agrees with the Catholic Church in regard to its stand on abortion," Dr. Suq went on in a firm voice, "My primary concern is always for the well-being of the patient. We have counselors and support groups for whatever choice women make. But there are no simple answers, and we must advise women according to their needs and characters."

She reached out a hand for Caitlin's picture again, and ran a gentle finger over the closed eyes of the young woman. "I advised Caitlin not to go ahead with the abortion because I believed it would destroy her emotionally. Having a child out of wedlock, the child of a priest, one ordained by God, the one who took her virginity ... the situation was impossible no matter which way she looked. And – well – she did not seem to me to be a strong person in many ways. Her faith was tearing her to pieces as it was. Adding what to her would be the mortal sin of abortion could only have made things exponentially worse."

-CSI:NY-CSI:NY-CSI:NY-CSI:NY-CSI:NY-

John Monroe watched Lindsay's face as Danny walked towards them, and he felt a pang. For so long, Lindsay had hidden her feelings behind that beautiful, deceptive smile: the one that lit up her face and left her eyes untouched. What was it about this guy that had finally cracked through that protective wall to the frightened, broken child inside?

He stood back to let Danny enfold her in his arms again, and turned away from the naked emotion on the other man's face. Perhaps he wasn't reaching her. Perhaps they were reaching out to each other.

After a moment, he cleared his throat, and said, "Linds, there's nothing more to do here."

She stepped away from Danny, wiping her eyes, and nodded. "We can go."

"You chauffin' us, Monroe?" Danny asked lightly.

John turned and favoured him with his best FBI agent stone face, which phased the grinning New Yorker not one bit, "You better enjoy it while you can, Messer. I've been called back to Quantico, Linds. I'll drive you out to say goodbye to Mom and Dad; then I have to be on the next plane out, I'm afraid."

Lindsay's eyes filled with tears again, but she just nodded.

Once in the car, she curled up in the back seat and fell asleep almost as soon as the car pulled out the hospital parking lot.

"She'll be okay," Danny said quietly, after several minutes of watching John's worried eyes checking on her through the rear-view window.

"Yeah," her brother sighed.

"She will," Danny insisted. "She's tough, John. Tougher than you guys maybe see." He hesitated a minute. What did he know about families like this one and how they functioned? But he knew what he would want to hear in this case.

"She was on the street when a Marine reject decided to prepare New York for a terrorist attack," Danny spoke low, not sure how much of this story would be new to her brother. "There was a street festival going on – kids, families, food, you know? New York in the summer, man. Mac calls her, tells her to get everyone away from the building. He'd found a bomb, but there wasn't time for him or Flack to get out. They got caught in the blast."

He closed his eyes against the memory of that image; Flack lying in the debris, split open like a slaughtered animal, Mac's hands red with his blood. John said nothing; he knew, of course, that it had happened. But Detective Monroe had not been mentioned in the reports he had seen.

"She'd managed to get most people moving in the right direction, but she was thrown a good ten feet when the bomb went off. By the time we got there, she was organizing the rescue parties, directing the EMTs, and trying to get hold of Mac on his cell. Blood all over her face, could barely breathe for the cracked rib where she'd hit a table. Didn't even slow her down."

"Shit." Danny breathed out carefully and took the final step off the precipice, "I thought my heart had stopped when I heard the call over the blower. I thought my fucking heart had stopped until I saw her still standing. But then … there was the Ghedi case. She tell you about that?"

John shook his head, glancing in the rear-view mirror reflexively. She was still sleeping, turned sideways on the seat, dark shadows showing under her eyes.

Danny cleared his throat. "We had these three girls knock over Tiffany's. They accidentally picked up blood diamonds belonging to a real bad guy, who wanted them back. He killed one, held the other, demanded the third bring everything to the apartment. We caught her going in. Lindsay took her place."

John hit the steering wheel with a clenched hand, but spoke in a strangled whisper. If Lindsay woke up, he knew she would shut down this conversation fast. "How the HELL did that happen? She's not trained; where were your plain clothes?"

Danny shook his head, the pain still evident in his eyes. "We had four minutes. She wouldn't listen to reason."

John let out a breath, "She had to save the girl."

"Yeah," Danny nodded. He got that now.

John's foot hit the accelerator and for a few minutes, Danny just hung on for the ride. Then the speed slacked off and John was able to ask him to go on, his voice nearly normal again.

"She was made as soon as she walked in; he had a picture of the three girls. But the bag with the diamonds was booby trapped with a flash bomb; she dropped it and we hit the door." He didn't tell John that he had been on the move several seconds before anyone else; he figured Lindsay's family knew far too much about him as it was. Even Lindsay didn't know it, unless Stella or Flack had told her. They had never actually talked about that incident.

"She saved the girl's life – knocked her to the floor when the bomb went off and protected her. It was a neat operation. She should have received a commendation for it."

"Why didn't she?" John was able to keep his voice merely curious.

"The brass hadn't approved the op. Flack and Stella had to play the whole thing by ear." Danny managed, just barely, to keep the resentment out of his voice. "She didn't tell anyone in the family?"

John shook his head. "She wouldn't. Nothing will ever make up for it, you see."

Danny nodded. "One day, it will."

"And how was your heart doing when you hit the door?"

The question sounded casual, but Danny knew his answer was going to go down in the family annals. "Get this wrong, Messer, you might as well walk now," he thought.

He took a deep breath and said, "It may never beat on its own again."

In the back seat, Lindsay's eyes filled with tears.