Disclaimer I own very little, especially not CSI NY.

Notes Eleventh chapter: thank you VERY MUCH for all previous reviews! I really hope this chapter can live up to them. Please continue reviewing - I love to know what you think - all very welcome, and always replied to if logged.

Thank you to everyone with this on alert, and to Fat Kat for your review. Dedicated to iluvcsi4ever on her return - she knows why ;)

Thank you to sarramaks for reading

Lost Letters: Chapter 11

13th August

… I'll be honest with you, as I know I can be: I'm nervous. They've finally trusted me with the 'real' job, so TJ calls it, the one I was telling you about a few days ago. According to him, if I pull this one off, them I'm properly in with them. However, the flip-side is, if I don't, then he's 'not happy' and I can only guess at what that might mean, probably at the least, that I'm out of their grand scheme. I'm beginning to wonder if Joe and I have got ourselves into something we shouldn't have. The more I get to know TJ and Rich, the less I trust them…

………………………………...

For the first time that he could remember, Sid stood in the morgue and felt absolute loneliness wrap round him as he paused over the body that Hawkes, Adam and he had examined in Central Park hours earlier. He was alone in the building: it often happened; he worked late and before he was aware of it, the background sounds of the people who lived and worked above and around him gradually ceased and were replaced by the un-living presence of the building. It never bothered him usually, and he enjoyed the existence of glass, concrete and steel around him, and listened to the music that played itself in his head as he uncovered the secrets of the once-living who lay in front of him. But tonight was different; tonight he felt the lack of life in the body before him and shivered as he felt time and mortality creep round him and whisper in his ears. He had heard no more about Stella; but Sheldon as he left had promised to call him as soon as there was anything from the scene. About Danny, there was still nothing else to be told; he remained comatose and in a critical condition.

Sid's heart was tired, and he moved around the morgue lethargically, stopping and catching himself every few minutes standing with a piece of equipment in his hand, and not remembering why or where he had picked it up. He would stare at it for a moment, then replace it and continue. But he seemed to be making no progress. And the silence and stillness became more arduous. The hour had become later than he realised, and a flicker of guilt passed through him when he realised that he had not called his wife; but tonight was her bridge night, and he expected that she would understand, when they managed to catch sight of each other long enough to have a conversation.

Sheldon had still not called.

"No news may not be bad news." Sid murmured, trying to shake himself out of the melancholy trance he had slipped into again too easily, "Come on, Hammerback, focus. Do what you have to do whilst you're waiting."

The body of the young man in the lake lay before him, also waiting. His skin had dried to a dull grey against the stainless steel; the bullet hole in his forehead was a ragged pink glimpse inside his skull, and Sid paused, considering it carefully.

"Seems fairly obvious…"

He began the incision into the chest cavity; pulling back and exposing what lay within; uncoiling and removing; cutting deeper. There was nothing unusual, nothing unique. Until his scalpel blade incised through the thin walls of the stomach, and struck something that resisted it. "Curious…"

Sid laid the tool down carefully and with delicate fingers pulled apart the slippery edges of tissue, and reached inside. Something hard and knobble-edged met his fingers, and he drew it out carefully so as not to rupture the delicate muscle.

It was not what he was expecting to find inside the stomach of a corpse: a small, metal key with a square torque and a short blade cut into a few irregular teeth. It caused Sid to delve into his memory as to where he had seen a similar key before. He held it slightly above eye level, his head angled as he scrutinised it, and then he remembered: on arrival in New York years before, he had taken ownership of a Post Office box. The clerk at the time; a petite, very dark-skinned woman he recalled, who wore a tiny sapphire in her nose and silver bangles on her wrist, had handed over to him a key that was almost identical in shape and size to the one he now held.

"Curious indeed…" He pronounced, and laying it carefully down he went to find his phone. But before he could reach it, it rang; showing the number he had been hoping for flashing on the screen.

………………………………...

Whilst they searched, Flack was functioning on the memory of adrenaline; powering his heartbeat, keeping himself and everyone around him doing what they had to, with nothing but the last gasps of energy. When Hawkes arrived at the scene, accompanied by Adam, he sighted them immediately, and went flying over to brief them. Adam's face was powerless to conceal his misery and revulsion; Hawkes gave away his feelings only in his quick, sharp movements; and the way he let the car door fly with a slam that shook it.

Flack gave them the latest details tersely, including Mac's theory and evidence.

At that, Adam's face lifted, sinking Flack's heart: the confidence the younger man had could so easily be destroyed, as his own was with every minute that passed.

"If Mac's found evidence then surely…"

But the sight of the car crushed the rest of his sentence out of existence. All three stopped and stood in a silence that none of them could end. Until their radios buzzed into life: Angell's voice came through, and she gave them all the news they had tried not to hope too much for. Found. Alive. And they began to swing away from despair.

The ground suddenly swarmed with people, and Flack found himself leading them. Not for a moment losing hold of the situation. It took minutes to turn around the leaden feeling of a futile search, to the light-headed delight of success. He recognised Angell immediately as she emerged from the buildings on the far side of the ground where he had left her, Mac and Lindsay earlier. But the gravity in her face, as her features became visible through the dusk, turned his joy to a sickening feeling as she hurried over. He crossed the gap to her in a few long-legged strides, and she drew him onwards, answering his question before he asked, with a tight-lipped shake of her head.

"Don, it's bad, I'm sorry. Gun shot wound to the abdomen; and if it happened at the scene this morning, that's nearly seven hours untreated and a serious amount of blood loss; probably smoke inhalation from the car fire too. She's not looking good. Mac got a weak pulse, but..."

Her words rained blows on him. Anger and fear biled in his throat.

"Bastards! Damn bastards! I swear to God, Jess, when we catch up with them…"

"I know, Don, I know…"

They were walking in unison, arms bumping together in their hurry; the little touch grounding him from the rocketing fury he felt at her news. But he could not unclench his fists, even if he wanted to.

"Where…?"

"Inside the warehouse. Mac's bringing her out; said he wasn't going to wait for the paramedics to come and find us - I had to agree with him, it's a maze in there. And we had someone with us who we need to treat as carefully as possible…"

"Who?"

Her face changed to show a blend of emotions, "The guy we need to thank for pulling Stella away from the car and saving her life; but who also nearly revoked that good work with what he did afterwards."

They had almost reached the door Angell had appeared from, when Flack saw another two figures pass over the threshold into the moonlight; Lindsay and a tall, skinny man walking close behind her; head bowed, but flicking constant glances from side to side. He seemed to be almost pressed into Lindsay's back; hiding himself, matching his walk leg for leg with her, trying to merge his shadow with hers. Lindsay's head was also down, her eyes hidden by the bangs of her hair, as she made her way over.

"Flack." She squeezed his hand briefly before dropping it, and moving once more in front of the man whose stance suggested he was trying to shrink himself out of sight.

When Flack turned with one more question on his lips, he was hushed by Angell, "I'll tell you the why on him later, Don. It's complicated, like him."

Their pace increased; Flack feeling the pressure of everyone else close behind him as they moved forward in a phalanx. So he pushed ahead, breaking away from Angell as Mac finally came into sight, holding the person he had been so desperately afraid he had last seen in the most horrific death. Only then, seeing her easily identifiable curls hanging over Mac's arm, was he finally able to accept that the body in the car, burned beyond recognition, was not Stella's. The rush of that truth sent him running to confirm the further truth that she was still living.

As he reached Mac though, one rapid glance at him and at Stella lying in his arms, sent him plummeting into doubt. When he saw the bloody mess she was in, the words jerked out before he could stop them, "Hell, Mac, please, tell me…"

"She's alive."

His face was almost as ashen as Stella's, and his voice as lifeless as she looked.

"Oh Jesus, Stella…"

Flack, clawing for words amidst his horror and fury, and hardly able to believe Mac, clutched her cold and unresponsive hand, and could only find a platitude he had never hoped so much would be true. "She'll be okay. She'll be okay, Mac. We've got her, she'll be okay..."

There was no time to say any more. He let her fingers slip out of his, as both she and Mac were swept away in the glare and rush of people and lights. Angell came and stood silently at his side, but even after their departure, the noise and lights did not stop blaring in the front of his mind. So much noise, so many people. But they had found the one person they wanted. And Flack also realised that he had the comfort of one person who he knew would be returning to his side later.

After the renewal of their promise of 'later', whenever that might now be, although they were both determined that it would be, Angell gave him a few brief but resonant words and left with Lindsay and the man identified only as 'Zee'. Then she was gone too.

And now it was all over. Flack stood in the aftermath of the activity that had hurricaned around him. He had remained the calm, human centre, but it had taken its toll, and he needed a few minutes out of time to gather himself back together; before he left to fight the tasks he now faced.

The storm had blown itself out and dissipated, leaving just a few souls gradually dispersing into the night. Only remains were left on the waste ground now, along with a maelstrom of footprints - any individual prints had been obliterated by their sheer number; his own included.

He looked around and marvelled at how, in such a short amount of time, the pendulum of their emotions had swung from despair to hope and back so many times. It held on hope for the moment, but he felt the weight of its momentum. Danny and Stella were both alive, which was more than he had dared to believe earlier; but whether they could keep both of them so was still uncertain. Flack rubbed his hand across his eyes, burning not just from fatigue, and felt his gut twist in anger.

But it was time to leave, and focus the anger where it would be most useful. Hawkes and Adam had left only minutes before; following the remains of the car and the remains inside it. Flack experienced only a momentary guilty twinge at the relief he felt knowing that it was someone else had who died in the car: if Mac's theory was correct, and the body was one of the men who had so brutally hurt two people he cared very much about, then there was a part of Don Flack that was not ashamed to admit satisfaction at their fate. Who said there was no justice?

His thoughts were bleak as he walked towards his car; justice would not do much towards helping his friends at this point, and there was nothing more he could do now for them, other than hold them in his heart and mind.

One last look around: deserted ground; echoing buildings left to brood and harbour their ghosts and empty rooms; the sluggish oil slick of the river under the moon and the cooling air. There was little left to show anyone had been here; just dust and ashes and footprints. All that ever would be left in the end. He walked away; the echo of his footsteps the last sound in the air.

………………………………...

Zee drained his second cup of coffee, containing enough sugar to rot teeth at a glance. Angell watched him, whilst also casting a discreet look at Lindsay. She was someone the homicide detective knew relatively little, having worked few cases with her. She felt ashamed that the most she knew about Lindsay Monroe was her home state, the terrible crime she had survived and her connection with Danny Messer.

Angell felt, not awkward, but less sure of how to approach Lindsay than she would the other CSIs. Even Mac, though sometimes taciturn, was someone she never had any difficulty working and having a frank discussion with. She guessed though that Lindsay did not share her feelings easily: after they had found Stella, the walls had closed up again, and Angell had seen the fragility of her defences against the threatening emotions.

But Lindsay was holding on, and she admired her for that. She knew Stella was a friend as well as a colleague, and her situation added to the worries Lindsay already had for Danny with whom she shared an even closer bond. Angell could only imagine how she might be feeling. And she had no wish to ever be in that position. She shivered suddenly.

"Are you okay?" Lindsay's gentle voice opened her eyes, and she smiled hurriedly.

"Yeah, I'm good." She drew a deep breath, and asked, "Are you?"

Lindsay gave a short laugh, and her eyes darkened to near-black as her lips moved tremulously, "Hanging in there. It's just... just hard, you know, not knowing anything, and I'm kind of filling in the gaps here with worst… worst case scenarios." For a moment her defences were down, and Angell saw the depths of panic through her eyes, but then Lindsay turned away, and took sole possession of her burden of fears again.

Zee suddenly smacked his empty cup down on the table and with narrow eyes, asked them, "You sure she ain't dead? I didn't kill her? I didn't kill Stella?"

With a sigh, Angell answered him with as much patience as she had the first time, "No, you didn't kill Stella. She's at the hospital but she's not dead…"

As far as she knew, she had to acknowledge painfully, not daring to glance at Lindsay who had stiffened at her side. The last they had heard, an hour ago, was that she was still in surgery. They both knew that the injuries she had received and the delay in treatment meant her hold on life could give way too easily. As could Danny's.

But there was nothing they could do themselves at present, except persevere with their witness. Angell leaned forwards, and laid her hands on the table, "Zee, I know you've had a fright, and gone through one hell of a time, and the last few hours have been very stressful for you… but I have to tell you again that we really need to know some things from you. You're very important to us. Do you understand what I'm saying? The reason why you're important is that you're a witness to what happened to Stella. We think she was hurt by two men who killed someone, and we think that one of the two men killed the other one as well. So what we need you to do is to think back really carefully to this afternoon, to just before you helped Stella, and tell us as much as you can remember."

Her words were a variation on the ones both she and Lindsay had already used several times to the man sitting before them. So far, they had received no new information: he had seen the fire and had run out; when he saw there was someone in the car, he had pulled her out. That was where he stopped. Anything before or after that seemed to have disappeared into smoke and dreams. His hands seized the cardboard cup, and began pinching the edges convulsively as he replied. His words were also a variation on the same ones he had used already.

Angell leaned back in the chair and her hands flopped at her side. Lindsay looked across at her, and the two women made a decision.

………………………………...

A couple of hours later and Zee was at a safe house for the rest of the night, after some protest, and Lindsay and Angell had given each other, with complete awareness of the irony, a 'good night' in the dawn's light. Angell going to meet her fellow homicide detective, whilst Lindsay was headed to the hospital where Danny lay.

With faltering steps, Lindsay reached the ward and the room where he was, and found herself unable to move. She stood outside the window, looking in, and could not lift her feet from the floor. But then the door opened and Danny's father was there in the gap, and his hand was held out to her, breaking the spell and drawing her in. She took his hand, and they both entered the room. The door closed softly behind them.

………………………………...

He was not sure what made him glance in as he passed. It was early morning, and Riaz Delgardo was at the end of a long shift and his thoughts were already beyond the hospital and into his apartment, and a long, cool shower to wash off the gluey August heat. But something made his head turn and look into the ICU room at the end of the corridor, whose door was slightly ajar. Riaz slowed as he walked past, soft-shoed feet making no sound on the tiles, and saw a dark haired man who looked even more crumpled and exhausted than he felt. The man was angled into a chair drawn up to the bed; gripping tightly the hand of its occupant, a woman with curling hair, whose eyes were closed and still. The only sounds in the room were those of the machines over and around the woman, and the soft rise and fall of her assisted breathing.

It was a sight he had seen many times before; the watcher and the watched; and he wondered briefly who and why and how. But there was no time to ask; he was leaving and home comforts were drawing him. As he picked up his pace again though, Riaz called out a quick, 'good morning', but the man did not seem to hear; and his eyes did not turn away from his vigil for a second. Riaz walked on, and left no sound or memory of himself behind.

I hope you enjoyed this - please review and let me know either way, all thoughts welcome! Next chapter up soon. Thanks, Lily x