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

A/N: If I were to begin thanking people who have been instrumental in my writing this story, it would never end. So for this chapter, I will just thank the Wenches, all of them, for their unflagging faith in the Team.

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

Memento Mori

Remember, oh human, that you will die.

That some day, you too will come to this,

Dust to dust, ashes to grave,

The end time was built into your very bones and blood.

Before you were born, you had begun to die,

Breath by breath, you use up the gift of life.

But before you join us here in this narrow bed that none avoid

Be sure to live.

Wake each morning with joy for the day that awaits.

When there are troubles, sorrows, fears before you,

Throw back your head and laugh.

Feel the blood sing in your veins.

Breathe deep the air of freedom:

To do, to do not,

To choose a way that is your own.

Death comes at the end,

Whether you cower in bed,

Fear draped like a blanket over your head,

Or stride through the day daring all that comes your way.

So what life is there in fear?

Live, that death may be beloved companion

On life's journey from birth to grave.

Chapter 57: Scenes in a Graveyard

It should have been a bitterly cold day. There should have been sere leaves blowing among the headstones, the threat of snow in the dull and cloud-filled skies. It should have been a day full of ominous thunder or the far-off crackle of lightning in the sky.

Instead, it was a warm spring day, full of promise, too hot suddenly for full dress blues. Row on row of police officers – the young ones with the spit still on their boots, the old ones with the polish long worn off their badges – stood to attention in a mid-day sun unexpectedly and inappropriately cheery.

Don Flack stood staring at the coffin covered in floral tributes from all over the country, it seemed. Lieutenant Donald Flack Sr. had been the long arm of the law, touching men and women in places he had certainly never been interested in visiting: Seattle, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Miami, even Toronto and Calgary, where men and women who had been trained by him, or had attended a lecture by him, or had read his articles, had sent an acknowledgment. From where he stood, Don could see his own name on every envelope attached to a wreath or bouquet. He wondered numbly if, now that Don Flack Sr. was dead, he would lose the Junior from his name.

All the ceremony had been observed: the three volley salute fired by seven officers with shotguns positioned over the grave, the flag removed from the coffin and folded into a crisp triangle and handed to the widow, who clutched it to her chest, dry-eyed. The three sisters huddled, each holding the hand of a child, frozen into good behaviour by the silent weight of grief the adults carried with them. Husbands and fiancées and good friends "but-not-like-that, Mother" stood a step behind, uneasily supportive.

The priest, not Father Tony this time, but one of the older priests, the same age as his father, had spoken the final words over the grave:Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Don wondered with a spurt of dark humour why the hell they had paid so much for a hermetically sealed coffin if his father was supposed to end up as worm food anyway.

He had fallen into bed at night, asleep as soon as the covers were pulled over him. He had woken every morning for the past three days, bleary-eyed and confused, brain still fogged from the nightmares that plagued him through the dark hours: searching for something – something undone, something he had not completed.

Until this morning, this morning when he had woken with his arms and his heart equally full, her dark curls spread across his chest, head pillowed on his shoulder, one arm draped across him. He had blinked down at her peaceful form uncertainly. Perhaps he was still sleeping, and this was his reward for not having cracked up over the past few days.

She had stirred against him, stretching strained muscles. He had brushed her hair back out of her face and dropped a gentle kiss on her temple. No, that had felt real, if anything ever did. Her smile when she opened her eyes to look up at him before curling back against him had felt real as well.

As he had reveled in the feel of her against him, his cobwebby memory had finally caught him up with the events of the night before. She had followed him to his mother's where she had simply done practical things like make tea and coffee and find pen and paper when it was needed. The priests had met with the whole family to discuss the service at length, and Don had felt himself fraying at the edges as emotions welled and tempers had flared. And when he finally had excused himself quietly, Stella had taken his keys and driven him home, while he tried in vain to ignore the headache pounding through his eyes into the cavity between his ears.

Even now, he didn't know at what point she had decided to stay, but as he had stared down into bright green eyes, he had known this was the way he wanted to wake up every morning for the rest of his life.

A sharp breeze blew across his face, reminding him to stay focused for a few more minutes, until his father had been decently buried. He glanced around: Stella was standing beside him, uniform trim and looking sexier on her than it really ought. Across the circle from the family stood Mac Taylor, also in uniform, with Peyton Driscoll beside him. Sheldon Hawkes was behind them, dressed in a sombre dark grey suit whose dark hue did not match the restrained light in his eyes. Adam Ross, too, stood a little apart, the customary mischief in his face toned down in deference to the occasion.

Once the officers had broken ranks and began to file out of the cemetery, Flack turned to his mother, kissing her on the cheek and gently taking the flag from her reluctant hands, passing it on to his brother-in-law.

"We'll be back, Ma. We'll see you at the hall, okay?"

The Knights of Columbus hall, where every Flack celebration had taken place for three generations, had been a hotbed of activity for days: Don Flack Sr. would be going out on a wave of alcohol-fueled grief that would rival any wake held in New York City since his own father's.

Dora nodded and put one hand on her son's cheek. "As soon as you can, Donnie. We'll be there."

Flack wheeled around and moved swiftly in the opposite direction, away from the rest of the mourners, ignoring the annoyed look his sister Marie shot over her shoulder. As he moved, Stella, Mac, Peyton, Sheldon and Adam all swung into step behind him, along with a few other detectives and patrolmen who had worked with the crime scene investigators over the years: Kaile Maka and Jennifer Angell were right behind them, and even Gavin Moran had stepped up, no longer in uniform, but still moving with that easy swing that years of patrolling instill in a police officer.

It took them a few minutes: the cemetery was a large one, with neighbourhoods as distinct as any place in the city. But when they got to the graveside they were looking for, Flack was relieved to see they had arrived in time.

This crowd was small – no more than a dozen people at most. The priest was speaking a peculiar mixture of Italian, Latin, and English; some of the older women, dressed in black, wept softly as they held their rosaries in their gnarled hands. On one side of the grave stood Danny, his hand wrapped tightly in Lindsay's, wearing a decent black suit that made him look even paler than usual. Lindsay was watching him, paying little attention to the priest mumbling incomprehensibly. Behind her stood her brother, John, and a older couple, also hand in hand, whose likeness to their children announced their identities: Ted and Diane Monroe had been on a flight within four hours of Lindsay's phone call.

Over the coffin with its three small wreaths, Danny was watching Maureen Messer, who stood as tall and cold as the statue of an angel standing guard over a family plot a few feet away – not a mourning angel with broad comforting wings, but a martial angel with a sword held aloft, ready to do battle.

Without a word, the NYPD team flanked Danny, ranging behind him in a solid, comforting wall of blue and dark hues. Their coming swelled the number of mourners significantly, and when Don stood behind Danny, he could feel him visibly stand down, relaxing his defensive stance.

Maureen, on the other hand, went white, glaring at Mac as if she would strike him dead before her. He stood impassively beside Flack, as visible a sign of support for Danny as he could be, and stared back.

It was rather like watching a lava stream meet a glacier, thought Flack: Maureen slowed and steamed and cooled until she drooped slightly. The battle had been won without a shot fired.

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

Five days, they had had. Five days of laughter and sweet joy and loving that lasted for hours. Five days of cooking for her, of cleaning up with her, of caring for her.

He had come back to her place, drained and saddened, after supporting two of his friends now orphaned, now the older generation in their families. She had held him that night, offered him comfort that night, and he had seen visions of a life intertwined, when one could support the other, offer strength and passion and solace when needed, and accept it in turn.

And then, she had gone back to work, less than two weeks after her workplace had come down around her. And that night, he had called her on the phone, and left a message to say he had been called in to a crime scene that was going to keep him overtime. And the next day, when he came by her house, she was not there, and his messages left on her cell went unanswered, but she was busy, he knew: the rebuilding of the clinic was on-going and the whole community was coming together to re-create something which it now realized had helped define it.

And when it had been more than 36 hours, and he had not heard from her, and when he drove by her house again and saw the moving truck, he landed on Miriam and Kathleen's door, to be handed a white envelope with his name written across it in neat, precise writing, and a quiet place if he wanted to read it privately.

Numbly, he had thanked Kathleen, whose impulsive offer it had been, and whose wide eyes were filled with tears. He had avoided Miriam's sympathetic but grave look: she had warned him, he thought, despondent, and he had been so sure that he could win this one.

He turned and stumbled down the stairs. To read this, he needed to be alone. But not at home, he thought, or he would never be able to return without feeling this lost again. He drove aimlessly for several minutes, unconsciously returning to the neighbourhood that had changed his life in so many ways.

He found a parking space on the street, and, getting out, wandered for a few minutes, the letter burning in his pocket. When he finally paused in front of a dark little coffee-house, he knew what he had been looking for.

He walked in and sat down at the same table, smiling gravely at Fatima as she put down the tiny cup full of sweet, thick hot coffee in front of him. He did not take a sip immediately; instead, he held his breath and slowly, carefully, with an almost surgical precision, opened the envelope and lifted the fine sheet of white paper to his nose, closing his eyes and breathing her in.

Carnations and peonies and the fragrant bitterness of the coffee – scents he would never be able separate again.

He opened the letter, folded precisely in half with a sharp crease, and willed his sight to stay clear, not to blur.

My dearest Sheldon,

I call you that because it is true. I love you. How cold and empty that looks on the page. How hard it sounds in English. من عاشقت هستم :in Farsi, I would say man asheqet hastam. In French, I would say Je t'aime or even Je t'adore. And all of those statements would mean more to me than they ever could to you.

I could speak to you in the language of my home, and you would not understand. I could speak to you in the language of my childhood, and you would not understand. And the language of your home, of your childhood, is stiff and ugly on my tongue.

I could try to fit in to your world, as I know you would try to fit into mine. And every step we took towards understanding each other would be a risk.

I am afraid. I must admit it, must face it, must hear myself say it before I hear it from you. I am too afraid to risk myself again. You know I loved Amir. You know how he died and how that hurt me. I know you will believe that you understand what my fears are this time.

My family and my religion both agree this is wrong, that you and I must not be together. And yet, everything in me cries out that they are wrong. This feeling I have for you must be right.

I am sorry, Sheldon. Sorry that I do not have the courage that I need to prove them wrong: my family and my faith. Sorry that I cannot match your love with the courage it deserves.

Please do not hate me. I need to go home, to find myself again. There has been no peace for me for so long. Only in you. I found it only in you.

Je t'aime, mon amour. Je vous aimerai tandis que j'ai le souffle dans mon corps.

Nasreen

He sat still, in the dark corner he had chosen. The men who filled the coffee-house kept their eyes averted: he was a stranger here, not unwelcome, but not accepted either. He simply filled a space that would be more comfortably filled by someone else.

He lifted the tiny cup to his lips, sipping the bittersweet brew Fatima had given him. "Love should be black as the devil and sweet as love." Who had said that? He searched through his capacious memory for the correct quote, for who had said it and when, willing himself to avoid thinking about the letter, the words which burned into him. He could feel the pain Nasreen had been in as she wrote, and it was nothing to the pain he felt as he read.

Fatima was standing beside him as he finished his coffee, a hopeful smile on her face. He smiled and gestured to her to sit down. She sat and lifted his cup in both hands, covering it with the saucer and then carefully swirling the dregs of his coffee three times clock-wise. She gently placed it on the table again, and then stared intently into the cup as the grounds settled.

After a moment, she looked around her impatiently, and called out a name, "Laila!" A young girl came from the back of the room, her slightly impatient look smoothing out when she saw Hawkes.

"My aunt would like me to interpret for her, if that is alright, sir?" She smiled, her dark eyes filled with laughter, inviting him to join her in gentle ridicule.

Fatima grabbed her hand and began to talk rapidly, stopping every few moments to make sure Laila understood.

"Okay, okay, Auntie." Laila turned to Hawkes, rolling her eyes slightly as she began to recite what the older woman had said in rolling Farsi. "She would like me to tell you that you have had bad news…"

Hawkes looked down at the letter on the table. No prize for guessing that, he thought.

Fatima spoke again, pushing Laila on the shoulder, urging her to go on.

"Yes, Auntie. She says your bad news will change – see this here? It is a bird, a large bird, perhaps an eagle. It means that things will get better."

Fatima spoke again, pointing to a symbol even Hawkes could see looked like a tiny heart, very close to the rim.

"Auntie says there is faith here," Laila pointed to the symbol, "Love and trust. It is a long way away – in the future," she stopped and listened to her aunt again, puzzled, "But in the present too?" She spoke a few words to Fatima, and then shook her head in confusion.

"I'm sorry, sir. My aunt says that love is present, but hidden in the future? I don't quite understand what she is talking about."

Hawkes stood and smiled at the two women, the young one a little embarrassed, a little annoyed, the older one, serious and worried. "Tell your aunt thank you for everything. I understand what she is telling me."

He placed some money on the table, more than was needed, and picked up the letter. He could hear Nasreen's laughing voice in his head:"She'll promise you love and wealth and many children, all boys. She always promises love and wealth and boys."

"It sounds good to me, my love," he thought in a spurt of self-pitying anger. "Love and wealth and many children. Sounds good to me."