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

A/N: As always, thanks to my reviewers, and to those who are following along and, I hope, enjoying the journey.

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

Betrayal

You promised peace:

A comfort in times of confusion,

But when the skirmish ended

You were nowhere to be found.

You promised trust:

A place to come when all seemed lost,

But when that battle was over

You were gone to search for the next.

You promised fidelity:

Allegiance to our future,

But when the enemy was at the gate,

When the battering ram was at the door,

When I was besieged on all sides

By an adversary I could not even see,

I could not see you either.

SMT2007

Chapter 28: Turning over the Past

"Come here, you little bastard. What the fuck are you doing in there? Danny? Didn't I tell you to stay out of there?"

"She's sick, Mama … Mommy, I mean. Nonna's sick and she needs a doctor."

"She'll be fine. We can't afford a doctor, Danny. Not unless your uncle comes through on his promises. Dammit, the old woman is his mother too. I get stuck here cleaning up her shit and puke while Angela gets fur coats and diamond earrings."

"Mommy, she's thirsty. Can I make her tea? Please, Mommy, I'll be careful."

"Oh, Danny. Just leave her alone to sleep. Sleep is the best thing for her. When your father comes home, I'll send him for the doctor, okay? Go outside. Go play ball with the Mancuso kid, okay?"

"Mommy, Nonna needs …"

"Danny! I said go outside! I'll take care of your Nonna."

Danny woke up with a start, sure he could hear his mother's voice in the room. He rolled over slowly, reaching for Lindsay, but she was no longer beside him. Not that he was surprised by that; she rarely stayed in one place for long.

He rubbed his hands over his face hard, and sighing, got up and went to the bathroom, running the water cold and splashing it over his face after washing his hands. The edges of the dream stayed with him – no, not a dream. A memory, really. His mother had not been cut out for the life she led. A child could understand that, he thought grimly, and still not forgive it.

He wandered out into the living room where Lindsay was watching television, a frown of concentration showing the headache she was still fighting. She didn't turn her head when he passed her, so he went straight into the kitchen without speaking, and looked around with a sigh. He could see the food Peyton had brought; the cupboards were decently stocked, he noticed. So why had she not made herself something to eat? Judging by the light coming in from the window, he had been sleeping at least three hours.

With a shrug, he began to throw together a quick pasta sauce and salad, wincing a little when sore muscles pulled, but otherwise glad to be doing something. Like being back at the lab, working around the kitchen felt oddly right, as if he was recovering a part of himself Ross Adams had tried to leave behind on the forest floor.

Lindsay came around the corner, her eyes wide in horror. "What do you think you are doing?"

"Making us some dinner," he said absently, concentrating on cutting the tomatoes into even pieces.

"Danny, you should be lying down, or sitting down at least," she stepped in his way, forcing him to look at her, but he just grinned and handed her a knife and a head of lettuce.

"Salad, Monroe. You're in charge."

Lindsay glared at him, but he looked fine; his nap had obviously done him some good. Reluctantly, she took what he offered and went to the other side of the counter to start chopping at the inoffensive vegetables. It really wasn't his fault that she had been unable to stay asleep long enough to feel half-human, was it?

They ate quietly, Danny carefully saying nothing when Lindsay finished less than half of the food he had put on her plate. When he got up to wash the dishes, though, Lindsay firmly pushed him in the direction of the couch, and handed him the remote control. He didn't argue, just searched for a game of anything to watch. He picked up his cellphone and considered phoning Flack, but changed his mind when he checked his email and saw that Flack was set to 'Away'. Idly, Danny scrolled through the messages that had accumulated since he had gone to Montana – it seemed like months ago.

Mostly junk mail and stuff he'd already dealt with just by showing up alive at the lab that morning. He deleted as he went, mentally compiling a list of people he really should get in touch with now that he was back in the city.

Lindsay sat down beside him just as he hit the second to last message in his inbox.

"Danny? What is it?" She looked up in surprise as he threw his phone across the room into a chair opposite him, narrowly missing the open window.

He glanced over at her white face in mute apology. Dammit, he had to keep the lid on his temper; no way was she ready to deal with that.

"Sorry, Linds. I was just – surprised, is all."

"That looked like a little more than surprise. That looked like pure pissed off Messer," she said dryly, easing her sore shoulder by holding her elbow in the opposite hand and trying to find a comfortable way to sit.

"My cousin," Danny answered dully. "Wants to see me."

Lindsay lifted an eyebrow, "And you don't like your cousin?"

"She's okay." He sighed, and went on uncertainly, "Her father, on the other hand …"

"Gino Messer," she nodded in understanding.

He shot her a fulminating look, his pious vow not to let her see his temper disappearing in an instant, "Thought you said you didn't listen to those rumours about me being connected?"

She met his eyes, "I said I had heard. I'm not an idiot, Danny. I do know the difference between having a connected family and being connected yourself. So, Gino's daughter wants to meet you? Are you going?"

He pushed himself off the couch tiredly. "Don't know. Don't want to."

"But?"

"She's my cousin." He shrugged as if that was all he needed to say, and picked up his phone from the chair.

And, Lindsay supposed, in his world, that was all he needed to say.

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

Flack stood up and walked over to the window, with its cheerful view over the park, although for all his father cared, it could have had a view of a stinking alley. In fact, Flack thought with a wry twist of his mouth, the old bastard would probably prefer it. The wretched and damaged had always been more real to Don Flack Sr. than his tidy little house in Queens, with its well-behaved children and clean rooms. He had perched in that house like a welcome guest, only really coming to life out on the streets.

Flack had not realized how true that was until he had joined his father out there, and had seen him slip on a well-worn and comfortable skin: the tough dedicated cop who wasn't afraid to step over a few invisible lines to get to the truth, to seek justice. So different from the slightly detached but doting father he had grown up with, the one who always seemed to be the tiniest bit afraid around his own children.

"Donnie?" It was his father's voice again; no, it was the voice of this scarecrow-like figure presently occupying the same space as his father, shrunken, diminished, a grayscale version of the man who had stridden through his life like a superhero.

"Dad? Maureen Messer? What was she to you?" No time for a more diplomatic way to ask that - his father's limited contact with consciousness may give him only a few minutes to get the information he needed.

"Two weeks. Less: ten days," Don Sr.'s voice was strong again; he seemed to know what his son needed to hear. "It was a kind of madness."

He closed his eyes again, took a drink of water when he felt the straw at his lips. "You were not quite three, maybe, still in diapers, anyway. Your mother – she was having a bad time of it, Donnie – lost a couple babies before we'd done more than figure out when they were due. Then your little sister was born – Angelica, she called her. Her little angel." The old man's throat closed up, with a choking life-long sorrow this time, not the tar and crap of a million cigarettes smoked on cold street corners. "She lived only a day, Donnie. So perfect. I had to leave, to go on shift right after she was born. She came into the world with the dawn, was gone with the sunset. Little angel."

"You were at work."

It was a statement, not an accusation, but Don Sr. flinched as if his son had thrown a punch. "It's different now. We were barely allowed to go in and hand out cigars. No parental leave in our day. Mothers gave birth: fathers went to work. That's how it still was, especially for us on the force. She was perfect, Donnie, perfect. I had no reason not to go."

His eyes flew open, searched frantically for his son, standing tall in the light of the window. "I didn't mean it. It was just – your mother is a good woman, Donnie. Maybe a saint: I ain't qualified to say. But after Angelica died, she went cold."

He shrugged impatiently at Flack's instinctive grimace, "I don't mean sexually. Well, I do, but that wasn't it. Shit, I didn't expect that. She'd been through hell and back again. But she went completely cold. You're too young to remember, but I had to take you to stay with your Gran for some time. Dora – she couldn't even get out of bed. One day I came home from shift and she was sleeping. You were in standing up in your crib: filthy, soiled, no food all day. She hadn't woken up when you cried, when you called for her."

He stopped talking, breathing heavily, and Flack offered him the straw again. He pulled the cold water into his mouth as eagerly as he pulled the air into his lungs.

"They call it post-partum depression now, I guess. Then, we just thought she was crazy. They made me sign the papers, Donnie." The blue eyes that had been so like his son's, but were now fogged and faded with drugs and pain, looked up into the face of his judge and jury. "They made me sign my own wife into the rubber room unit at the hospital. If I didn't do it, the doctors would, and it would be harder to get her back out. When I left her there, she turned away. I didn't think she would ever forgive me."

He stopped, catching his breath, reliving that bitterest of moments. "I certainly never forgave myself."

Flack said nothing. There was nothing to say.

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

Reed looked at Mac with some excitement, feeling he'd personally cracked the case. It was something to do with the construction company. That's why he had been snatched. He should have been able to put it together before; it wasn't really that hard to work out. But the drugs they had kept forcing him to inhale, combined with no food or water for nearly two days, had fuddled him.

He grinned a little to himself. So far in his journalistic career, he had been beaten up once and kidnapped once for a story and he'd only been doing this for a few months. Soon he'd be ready for the big time!

He looked at his mother, and realized she was staring at Mac, white and wide-eyed. He wanted to tell her he was okay, that it was all over, but suddenly he realized the tension coming off her in waves was no longer directed at him. Whatever she was afraid of, he was no longer at the centre of.

Miranda stood up restlessly and began to pace the floor. It was a small room, and she was angry, shaking with anger, Reed noticed in some surprise, so it did not take much time for her to get from one side of the room to the other. Unlike Peter and himself, dressed in jeans and sweatshirts, she was dressed for a public appearance, wearing slim black trousers and a loose, stylish jacket he recognized as the same one she had worn the day before when her press conference had become a confrontation.

Reed was not naïve: his mother was ambitious and he understood his role was to look good and stay quiet most of the time. The news of his kidnapping had hit the streets early: Detective Bonasera had warned him to keep his head down when he came out of the warehouse, because reporter Jared Cross was trolling the gutters and had heard the alert go out on the scanners. Bonasera had managed to stave the reporter off at the scene, but he had been there front and centre, microphone and nose twitching eagerly, at the stairs of City Hall when Miranda had made her statement to the press, dryly commending the police who had found her son and the EMS who had seen to his health. Reed's job had been to stand beside and slightly behind her, looking suitably rescued and healthy and grateful.

Everything had gone smoothly until Cross had called out, "Mrs. Garrett, is it not true that your son, Reed, is actually the natural son of Detective Mac Taylor of the NYPD, the same detective who came to his rescue?"

'Natural': a much nicer term than 'bastard', Reed reflected bitterly.

Reed winced as he remembered his mother's nails digging into his arm as he stepped forward to set the record straight. Miranda had smiled sweetly at Cross and said, "Jared, the networks will never let you play on their team until you learn to check your facts better."

That sound bite had been gleefully picked up and broadcast by rival stations, but it had done nothing to warm the frigid atmosphere between Miranda and Mac.

Mac was watching Miranda pace with cool calculation, Reed saw. He had a bad feeling about this.

"Mrs. Garrett, we know who took Reed. We think we know why. We've had information that organized crime may have connections to someone, perhaps several someones, on City Council. What can you tell me about this situation?"

Reed turned on Mac with alarm, "Mac, no! Not her: you know it wasn't her!"

"I'm not talking to you at the moment, Reed," Mac said calmly.

"I'm talking to you! Damn it, Mac! I told you – I heard them. Do you think if it had been her …" he didn't finish the sentence, but Miranda threw him a startled and, he saw with horror, guilty look.

"You told me what you heard because you were afraid it might be. But I'm not relying on what you heard, Reed. Information has been received. Mrs. Garrett?" The voice was contained, polite, and ice.

Miranda walked across the room again, and then stopped in front of the window. She turned and leaned against the sill in an uncharacteristic posture of defeat.

"Detective, I can only tell you that I have nothing to do with organized crime. Other than that statement, I can't say anything at the present time."

Reed closed his eyes: Miranda Garrett, attorney-at-law, politician, was not his favourite version of his mother. "Mom, what are you involved in?"

Miranda looked at him, biting her lip uncertainly for a moment. "Reed, all I can tell you at the moment is that you have to trust me. I know what I'm doing. Can you do that? Can you trust me?"

He looked into her eyes, but had to drop his. The problem was that he couldn't trust her. He wanted to. But he hadn't told Mac everything about the conversation he had overheard at Chelsea the week before, when he had run like a scared rabbit to the safest place he could think of. He hadn't told him about the older guy, the one giving the orders to the younger one, who had said, "Don't worry about Garrett. We'll take care of that little problem when the time comes."

But which Garrett was the little problem? Him? Or Miranda?