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

A/N: I'm sorry updates are a little slow – we are moving into summer and internet access will be a bit sporadic. I'll try not to disappear as long as you promise to keep reading!

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

The Secret of Love

The secrets that hold you in their icy grip

Have reached out and touched my heart

Adding a tiny hesitation to each beat.

"Does he? Doesn't she? Can I? Will I?"

Every question asked into the vacuum echoes back

Roars back into the silence of that space between

Blood in and blood out.

You smile and say, "Of course I love you."

I hear "Thump – I – thump – love – thump – you"

And wonder what word was covered in the heartbeat.

SMT2007

Chapter 31: 'Fessing Up

"I'm sorry. I've never really done this before. I'm not quite sure what to do."

"That's okay. Why don't you just take your time? Get comfortable. We'll just chat a little while before we start."

"Stella Bonasera told me to come. She said you were good with this stuff. But she didn't explain to me what I was supposed to do."

"Ah well, Stella is a little more familiar with the ritual. You don't need to worry about any of that."

"I'm not Catholic, you see. The rest of them all are. Well, I don't think Mac is actually. I'm not sure what he is. Maybe he's nothing. Oh, sorry."

"Nothing to be sorry for. We all search for God's light. We don't need to take the same path."

"And Peyton, I guess. I'm pretty sure she's Episcopalian. She's from England."

"Ah, yes. Catholic Lite."

"Sorry?"

"A little joke. About four hundred years old."

"Oh. Umm, my family was … is … Presbyterian. We sort of stopped going when I was sixteen. But all the rest of them, Stella of course, and Flack …"

"I went to school with Don Flack. So Stella and Don are Catholic…?"

"Yes. And Danny of course."

"Ah yes. That would be Detective Messer?"

"Yes." Lindsay looked up, into the dark eyes of the priest, who looked impossibly young to be speaking for God. Not to mention good-looking in the same sort of cheeky way Don Flack was. "Do you know Danny?"

"We have many mutual acquaintances, yes." The priest's eyes cooled slightly, although his face remained calm and friendly. He put out a hand to shake hers. "Father Anthony Reagan. But as you're a friend of Stella and Don's, you can call me Father Tony."

She looked at the offered hand, and slowly placed hers in it. "Lindsay Monroe. Aren't you supposed to not know who I am if I'm confessing? Isn't it, like … well … anonymous?"

Father Tony laughed in honest amusement, "Well, that would be a bit difficult, seeing as this is the church I grew up in. I know pretty much everyone here, although some of them still count the money in the collection box after it passes me! Now don't worry about any of that. Anything you tell me will be in confidence; you needn't think twice about that. But you aren't really here to confess a sin, are you?"

Lindsay took a deep breath and looked around the church she had reluctantly shown up in, pushed and prodded by Stella, who was waiting for her in a coffee shop down the block. "You need to talk to someone, and you won't talk to the department shrink. So I have another suggestion for you." In typical Stella style, "no" had not been an option. She had sat up most of the previous night, curled in a corner of the couch, thinking about what Stella had said, while Danny slept alone in her bed.

"Yes, I am. Do we need to go into the little cubicle?" Her eyes had gone dark.

"No," Father Tony said slowly. "There's no one out here right now. Why don't you just tell me? Then we can decide what feels right."

Lindsay closed her eyes. She could not say the words, even to this young, understanding priest, if anyone was watching her. "Last month, in Montana, I killed a man: shot him in the chest. I am responsible for the death of another man, a police officer. I am responsible for the near fatal shooting of another police officer. I failed to protect the lives of four young people. And no one will listen to me. They keep saying it's not my fault. But it is. And I am afraid I will do it again."

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

"One, two, three … what do you mean she won't sleep?"

"I mean she don't sleep. We go to bed together; we get out of bed together. But she isn't there if I wake up in the middle of the night."

"Eight, nine, ten. Okay, that's enough of that. I mean it, man. I'm not spotting any more. You need to slow down a little. Rehab isn't supposed to run you into the ground. And how often do you wake up in the middle of the night?"

"This isn't about me. I'm doing okay. Just need to build up so that Mac will let me out of the damn lab."

"You keep pushing like this, the only part of the lab you'll be in is the morgue, never mind getting back in the field! You took a bullet and had major surgery – what? Like a week ago? That doesn't just go away."

"Yeah, I remember how patient you were with your recovery."

"Look, I got something to slow down for now. So do you. Be smart for once in your life. Do what the rehab guys tell you."

"I can't. I can't stand seeing her like this."

"You being able to bench press my weight ain't going to change how she feels, you know."

"I just … if every time she looked at me, she didn't see the gunshot wound …"

"Uh-huh. You think she'd get over it then?"

"I don't know. I know she won't get over it when that's all she sees."

"I thought you two were good. She came back from Montana with you –

you guys spend nights at each other's places."

"Yeah, 'cause what I was looking for was a nurse," muttered the slighter man, face lined with the marks of habitual pain.

"Shit, Danny." The other man looked on helplessly as Danny moved to the treadmill.

"S'okay, man. I just have to get back on my feet. Prove that whatever else Adams did, he didn't beat us."

Flack keyed in his own running pattern and fell into step on a nearby treadmill. "You hear from Monroe recently?"

"John? Yeah, he's coming out next week. We've got tickets to the playoff game, even if it is Buffalo. What the hell is that about?"

"Linds excited to see him?"

"Yeah, I guess. She doesn't talk much about it." Or anything else.

Flack caught the unspoken comment with a nod of his head, watching Danny push a little too hard on the treadmill. He had shoved his father's confession to the back of his mind: too much to deal with – too many people to hurt. It had waited this long; surely it could wait a little longer. But every time he looked at Danny's drawn and determined face, he heard his father's voice in his head: "lined him up like a golf ball … just got up and followed her."

He shook his head. "Let's finish up here. Stella's waiting for us. I texted her after you called this morning." His face was a little flushed as he leaned over to pick up his towel.

"Wonder how that went. Linds isn't really into the whole church thing."

"If anyone could get her to do something she doesn't want to do, it would be Tony. He's got the Irish on his tongue, that's for sure."

"Weird."

"What?"

"That you grew up with a guy who became a priest."

"You think it's weird? Try sharing my memories!"

"So, I haven't met him yet. He coming for breakfast?"

"Don't know. You could show up at church sometimes, meet him that way."

"On his turf? I don't think so. Too much power in his corner."

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

"So, we've lost one of our prime suspects in the Garrett kidnapping. Did the patrol pick up Joe Jr. last night?" Mac rubbed a hand across his eyes. He figured he must have gone home the night before, if only because he had woken up in his own bed that morning.

"Yeah, they got him. Found him out on the street, pissed to the gills and swearing a blue streak. He was packing – a Browning 9mm. He clammed up when they asked him who he was after, though." Detective Angell looked curiously at Taylor. It wasn't usual to see him looking less than a hundred percent.

"He didn't make any statement when he identified Robert Taglia's body?"

"He wasn't there for the ID; Joseph Sr. and," Angell checked her notebook, "Sophia Taglia were."

Hawkes knocked on the door, and stuck his head around the corner, "Hey, Mac? Taglias IDed Robert. Hey, Angell."

Mac waved him in, "And Joe Jr. is in custody."

Angell answered Hawkes' inquisitive look, "Drunk and disorderly, carrying a concealed. Being kept at the station for now – passed out."

"Get someone in to offer him protective custody, Angell. We need to know what he does. Dammit, why is Flack off today?" Mac muttered, then apologized when he saw the flicker of hurt flash over the young detective's face, "Jen, I'm sorry. It's just that we've been working this case from a different angle."

Angell nodded stiffly. It was no secret that Team Taylor was a tight group, hard to break into. She thought she had made some headway, but obviously there were currents here she wasn't privy to. She knew the rumours about the Garrett kidnapping. "I've texted him. I'll update him as soon as he checks in."

Mac rubbed a hand over his face wearily again, "Don't worry about it. He'll show up when he can. He deserves a day off, too."

Angell nodded again. "Still, he's primary on this. I'll get someone to talk to Joe Jr. when he sobers up if Flack hasn't shown up by then. Anything shakes loose on this, I'll let you know." She left, quiet and contained as always.

Mac spun his chair and stared out the window a moment. Damn, he hated screwing up with people. It was too hard to fix.

"She's fine, Mac," Hawkes' quiet voice eased through the room. "She knows the score."

Mac snorted, "Yeah, well if she didn't, I just rubbed her nose in it good and hard, didn't I?" He swung back around to face the desk, to face the job, again.

Hawkes shrugged, "She's a big girl. She wants to play with the big dogs, she can't piss like a puppy."

This time the snort that came from Mac was laughter, "I can't believe you said that."

Hawkes sat back in his chair, "She's tough, Mac, and she's good. She's also young, and she knows that just showing up is no guarantee of trust. She'll deal."

Mac put his head back on the chair and closed his eyes. "Yeah. But I don't have to be a jerk about it." He shook his head and opened his eyes again. "So, how are things going in the department? We keeping our heads above water?"

"We're still a little short handed with both Lindsay and Danny on light duty. We're trying our best, but even with Jillian Penn still on our shift, we're struggling to keep up."

Mac sighed, "I know. Danny's pushing to get back into the field. He texted me again before I even got here."

"We could use him, but is he ready?"

"Not in any way. It hasn't even been two weeks since he left the hospital in Montana, since he was shot. I have our departmental doctor's report; he estimates another month. The original injury is healing, but he lost a lot of blood. His recovery is going slower than they would like."

"What about Lindsay? Her injuries were pretty severe, too; losing an argument with a truck takes a toll."

"With her, it's more that she's just not ready to take on field work. What with the confrontation with Adams, having to shoot him, and having to face Forbes during his appeal hearings, she just isn't tough enough at the moment. And then there's McKim's death too."

"She talked to the shrink?"

With a shrug, Mac neatly dismissed the department shrink.

"Stella has a plan. If that doesn't work out, I don't know what to do next."

Hawkes nodded, "Talked to Stel yet?"

"She'll call in."

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

"Bonasera."

"Hi Stella. Heard anything from her yet?"

"No, she's still in the church with Father Tony."

"Is that a good sign?"

"Not a bad one. I'm taking anything that isn't her flying out of the church screaming as a good sign."

"Is Lindsay a church-goer at all, do you know?"

"I don't think so. Danny never mentioned anything, and she was a little worried about going into a Catholic church, so I don't know. Anyway, Father Tony has a degree in psychology and is a licensed therapist. It's not like I threw her to the Pope."

"Ah well, we Protestants tend to be a bit suspicious of the motives of Rome, you know! I can't blame Lindsay for feeling a trifle nervous."

"I know, and I only pushed her …"

"Because you're her friend and it was the right thing to do. It's all right, Stella; I'm sure it will be. She hasn't talked to you about Montana, has she?"

"Only that night, and only really about Danny. She blames herself for him being shot, you know."

"Yes, I gathered that."

"I guess that, along with everything else, she was pretty shaken by John McKim dying during the appeal hearing. He never regained consciousness."

"Hmm, so she wasn't able to figure out why he told her he loved her, or what his role in the case was."

"Right. And you know Lindsay, Peyton. She feels responsible for the whole thing. If she had recognized Ross Adams in the first place …"

"But the sheriff covered it up. And she was only 16."

"I guess that taking responsibility is one of the reasons she's a good investigator. But she has to get over this. I just don't know how hard to push."

"It's okay, Stella. You're good at reading people. You won't push too hard."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence! Hey, Peyton, Flack and Danny are just coming. Can I call you later?"

"I'm on shift in a few minutes. I'll probably see you at the station later."

"Not if I catch a lucky shift and don't have to worry about coming down to the morgue! Talk to you later."

"Let me know if there is anything I can do, Stella."

"Right."

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

"You scared the crap out of her last night, you know."

"Yeah, I know. I didn't mean to. I just didn't think, you know? By the time I left the diner it was getting late; transport back into the city was slow."

"You couldn't have called?"

"Sorry, Mom, I left my phone at her place. Man, am I off my game. I never leave my phone anywhere."

"There's this wonderful invention, Danny. It's called a pay phone. You use this little piece of metal, stick it in the slot, and make a call."

"Yeah, I know. I told her I was sorry."

"Stella, leave it alone." A hand on her arm.

A shrug to dislodge it. "How are you doing, Danny? You and Lindsay okay?"

"I don't know, Stel. She won't even talk to me. Just smiles and says she's working it out. But I know she's not."

"She's not sleeping, he says." Arms folded defensively on the table, hunching over.

"What do you mean, not sleeping?"

"It started with nightmares in Montana, just waking her up at night. Well, we were both having them, so no big deal, you know. We'd cope and go back to sleep. But now, I don't know when she's sleeping at all. When we stay together, she comes to bed with me. She's there in bed with me in the morning. But when I wake up in the night, she's not there."

"And how often are you waking up at night?"

"Jeez, why are you two so interested in my sleeping habits? This is about Lindsay. I don't know what to do; she won't talk to me at all."

"That's why I forced her to do this, Danny. She needs to talk to someone, and Father Tony is good at this. Don't worry. She's tough, and so are you. You're going to get through this and we are going make sure of it."

"Hush. Here she comes."

"Hi, Don. Hi, Stella."

Danny got up to kiss Lindsay on the cheek and pull out a chair for her, and Don reached for Stella's hand beneath the table and squeezed it. When she looked at him, one eyebrow raised, he mouthed, "I'm sorry."

She shook her head with a smile that did not quite reach her eyes. "No worries."

"I have to go in, Stel; Mac and Angell both texted me. But I need to talk to you," it was said in a hurried undertone. "After work? Dinner?'

Stella thought back to her ruined pasta sauce, which she had tossed out that morning, along with the saucepan it had simmered dry in.

"You're buying."