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Notes Chapter 21: THANK YOU for all previous reviews! I hope you enjoy this chapter. Please continue reviewing - I love to know what you think - welcome at any time, for any chapter, and always replied to if logged.

Thanks to Fat Kat and Shadow Fox for your reviews, and to afrozenheart412 for further thoughts and ideas on the story.

Thanks to Blue Shadowdancer for reading and episode information.

Lost Letters: Chapter 21

3rd August

…Mrs Adams called in this morning, Joshua pushing through in front of her of course, I think he's taken quite a shine to me. It's nice to be loved, even if it is just by a cat. No, not really, Joe mumbles something of the sort, sometimes, when I catch him off guard; you know how it is I guess. Anyhow, Mrs Adams brought us up some sweet peas from the tubs she's got in her courtyard. They smell delicious, and she's promised to refill the jug they're in as soon as they've faded. She's really the nicest neighbour you could ask for…

………………………………...

Silence foremost in her mind and her surroundings. Silence composed of trebles and octaves of inorganic sounds; electric beats and quavers; syncopated pulses; out of tune. No human sound. She was lost in a peace and silence that didn't exist, that she didn't want; this dissonance that Danny had abandoned her in.

Lindsay sat and didn't speak; as she had sat for the last eight days; watching at Danny's side when she was able to. An hour before her shift began: she should have been sleeping, or eating, or paying bills; the thousand unimportant things that gathered dust. But she was here, and had no regrets.

Danny's parents had left her alone whilst they took some time to be with themselves. Time she was grateful for, knowing how precious each second had become with their son; measured and eked out in the artificial life pulse Danny now lived by.

Danny…

A son, a lover, a friend, and all the complications they brought. As unique as a drop of water, crystallized and frozen, absorbed into a fall of white drifts. But not lost, not for ever. And never just a number, never just a case file, never just another victim.

Danny.

Lindsay saw in their joined hands and the glint of rosary beads between Mrs Messer's fingers where his parents were leaving for. Before they walked out, feeling her cheeks flush, she asked them shyly to take her thoughts and prayers with them as well. What she believed, who she believed, she was not quite sure, and was always reticent of talking about. All she was certain of was the hope that someone would listen and answer.

Her hand was joined to no one else's, but wasn't empty. Lindsay had taken the old lady's advice to heart, even more closely now, and she sat beside Danny grasping an envelope and a piece of paper. The paper was covered in sloping script: her handwriting was barely practiced; she relied far more on keyboards that produced legible, clear and identical type. Which lacked her heart.

On looking at home last night, she had discovered that she still owned, amongst all the still-unpacked boxes from Montana, a pad of notepaper and a pack of envelopes. A set received as a childhood birthday present, decorated with a matching sprinkle of roses. The paper was tinged yellow at the edges, and crackled as she smoothed it out to write on, but it was hers. The paper and the words were hers to give to Danny.

At first, she had written hesitantly, the pen juddering to a stop every few words, and then she found everything that had been barraged was suddenly free and surging forth in a flood of ink. Released, caught and held for Danny.

Memories, thoughts, the future, the past. The walks along the streets and avenues at night; meals shared in dim restaurants; late rambles in the park between greensilver bowers and sandstone escarpments in the breathing space of the city.

Lindsay breathed out and her pen trailed to a stop as she finished writing Danny's name on the envelope. That last detail she had saved until the hospital. Her gaze meandered around, in a sudden blush of self-consciousness, but there was no one else in sight. She folded the paper in half and then quarters, then slipped it into the envelope and propped it on the bedside table; murmuring a few words to the man who now owned the letter.

"You're going to have to be waking up soon, you hear me, Danny Messer? I'm making a promise here; I'm going to write everything down for you, but I have to warn you, I've not got many sheets of paper or envelopes left, so you're to wake up soon and read them before I run out, okay?"

No answer. Of course not, not really, but she had hoped…

Danny.

So little of him visible; pale glimpses of skin; a heart that could not beat for itself; breath pushed in and out.

With her hand empty, she took hold of his, and warmed it; remembered it teasing a lock of hair out of her eyes; its chivalrous hold of a door as she passed through, and her merry laugh in return; the pull on her fingers as they ran along dark paths in the park, helplessly giggling and breathless. More memories. Passed and gone like all moments, with only their shadows caught on paper.

Beyond her, in the middle of the city, the peals of church bells, sonorous in her silence sounded the hour. Eight hours of the day passed, eight deep brass strikes. Bells clamouring to be heard; tolling, summoning, calling. Lindsay heard them, and prayed for the future memories she and Danny could create, would create, and she dropped her pen into her bag, seeing the time. Time to leave. The day was starting, she ended with his name.

"Remember what I've told you, Danny."

Too tired and sad to say any more to anyone, she hurried out of the hospital.

………………………………...

Peals and chimes, carillon calls, sounds, voices, sounds… Someone heard. Heard something. Someone. Me. I heard… I am… I think. I was. Still am, somewhere. Still someone. I will be. I think. I'm waiting, listening, waiting. I am…

………………………………...

Another day, another bright sky. Another morning when Adam had woken to the sun brilliantining through his window, slick across his vision and his possessions; blinding him with a heliograph message - get up, get out, get back to work. Blinds were useless; the sun made a mockery of any shields against it.

He had staggered out of bed, blinking and dazed, and had forgotten how he got there when he arrived at work, standing for a moment in the break room, swaying and bemused. Coffee had helped. But not much.

The eighth hour of the morning now - he had counted the strokes of the clock and the cathedral bells, audible from the lab; thought distractedly about the size and intonation, the depth of the sound, the composition of the metal as he listened.

Eight days since the crime scene that had dealt the lab, and the team that made it, its severest blow. They were still a long way from recovering, still reeling in the aftermath. And the setbacks. Black thoughts and a knell of bells. Not for his friends. No.

Adam sat with his eyes glazed over, exhausted from agitated sleep and the work that a reduced team were trying to complete. Pieces of paper lay like a snowstorm over his workstation, and all he could do was swither them round listlessly…

"Got you some breakfast, Adam."

A slim figure with a crown of blonde hair appeared in the doorway; a smile on her face that held the hint of possibilities, and lured him to return it.

"Hey, thanks - thanks, Kendall."

She sauntered into the room, and dropped a muffin into his lap, "Low fat, so you can feel less guilty about your diet."

He grinned, "Thanks."

Folding her arms, she swept her eyes over the papers, "How are we doing with the numbers?"

Adam sighed, and gathered them up into an untidy bunch, "Still too many. Way too many. I was hoping to have gotten the list shorter by now, but it's not happening." It riled him, wasp stings of frustration, that the task he had been so sure and determined of, had been so certain of succeeding in, had not been completed. It hurt and stung. He had failed.

Kendall twitched the papers out of his hands and scanned them, "It's shorter than it was… Looks like you've worked hard."

"We have. Sorry, sorry. I didn't mean to, you know, say that you hadn't…"

It all tumbled out, and he felt his hand damp with perspiration on the cellophane wrapper.

Regarding him with amusement, not unkindly, Kendall interrupted the flow, "Are you going to eat that muffin, or just squeeze it into crumbs? I know what I'd prefer to do with it…" Her fingers brushed his as she flicked the papers back onto the table. It made his cheeks singe, and he pulled the muffin out of his lap and onto the table faster than a hot coal.

"Sorry." The wrapper crinkled as his fingers fumbled to undo it, so much so, that Kendall with an exaggerated toss of her hair, plucked it from him and tore it open with her teeth. They flashed in a smile at him, "Here you go. Easy when you know how."

"Thanks."

Adam bit a larger than intended chunk out of the muffin, and then almost choked in his haste to swallow it.

Kendall watched him with an interested expression, "Bite too much off, Adam?"

"N - no. I'm good…"

"So… what's next?"

Another mistimed bite, but Kendall waited for him to finish, "I'm, uh, waiting for Hawkes. We're heading out to the company offices, going to test out the boxes and the key, soon as he can get the warrant."

She sighed, "Well, it's nice to be let out of the lab." And ran her finger along the table, "Just spare a thought for me slaving on the inside while you're out in the field, an intrepid lab rat."

Adam bristled just a little and crumpled the cellophane into the trash, "It's not…"

The arrival of the waited-for doctor cut him short. Hawkes waved a paper at the younger man, "We got our warrant, you good to go?"

"Sure, absolutely…"

He spun out of his chair and tossed the last muffin crumbs away.

"Maybe catch you for lunch later?" Kendall asked with a wink in her eye.

His eyes widened, "Uh, yeah, sure. Sure that would great. Later…" She was already breezing out of the room. Ignoring Hawkes's quizzical look as they walked out, Adam followed in his wake, and smiled a little more on the inside.

………………………………...

Bells. She could hear bells. Eight booming notes in minor chords as the sound reverberated in a tremor of echoes. They were close by, somewhere, but she could be anywhere. Anywhere in the city. Maybe not even in the city.

There was too much light in the room, spearing through latticed blinds, stabbing her in the eyes. Through windows that were too high up to reach. She had Alisha. Her baby was safe, that was all that mattered. But with a stab to her heart, Janie knew the situation could change.

How did this happen? How could she have been so careless? All the times as a child she had been told don't take candy from a stranger. This stranger hadn't even offered her candy, but tired and frustrated, she had followed him like a child. Into a cab, and then into somewhere she only had chance to see the front porch of before something had struck her from behind.

She had woken, head pounding with a sick ache, to a small room; Alisha sleeping on a roughly made up cot beside her, and her bags strewn round the room. There was no other sign of life. No sign of the man in the baseball cap, who hadn't even given her his name. And no way out. The door was locked, her cell was gone, she was trapped.

But not helpless. With a careful eye to Alisha, still blissfully asleep, issuing the soft snuffles of the unaware and innocent, Janie looked for what she could use to escape.

………………………………...

Angell left the precinct with a quick step; a busy day ahead, with too few hours in it. A distant clock struck the time as she hurried across the parking lot. Still only eight o'clock. Several hours already behind her; many more in front of her. For the next hour she would be interviewing Zee for the last time, before decisions were made about his future, and his safety. It occupied her mind as she got into the car, and burned her hand on the metal of the seatbelt. August was on its last gasp, but the heat showed no fatigue.

She pulled away after firing up the air conditioning to its maximum, and joined the lengthening lines of traffic. A few minutes later, a car slipped in a few places behind and followed her, unobserved.

………………………………...

Eight in the morning. Another morning inside. Stella, her thoughts troubled, sat looking out of the window, listening to the sounds beyond the wall of glass; the city, its traffic, faint melodies of bells sounding the hour.

Mac had returned hours before; wan-faced and with a violently coloured bruise wrapped round his neck, but alive and returned. They were now in an unforced silence: whilst Mac's eyes drifted over a file, she sat up in bed gazing at the sun and remembering how it felt on her skin; how the air felt; how the breeze felt. Sensations that she missed.

Not for much longer. That she was determined about. As soon as possible, sooner if she could manage, she would be out of the hospital. Eight days wasted when she could have been doing so many things, not least the job she loved, with the people she loved as her family, with everyone, with Mac.

Mac. Still here, at her side, even if she hadn't wanted him to be. But part of her, she could acknowledge, welcomed the friendship, loyalty and care that had showed itself in Mac Taylor spending the greater part of the last eight days in a dreary hospital room. At the side of his partner and his friend. As long as he knew that she would the same for him; she had told him that, just to make sure he did.

Eight days of his life shared with her, intimately, seeing the very worst she could feel; tired, hurting and angry.

She knew what had happened to Danny, cajoling it out of Hawkes and Sid yesterday, and the anger burned through her like ice-fire. She let it, drew it in and welcomed it, making her feel alive again. It took away some of the fear that had fastened into her mind; the fear she could feel the bones of; of death that had brushed its fingers across her heart.

She had tried to joke about it, half-heartedly, with Hawkes and Sid; third time unlucky, but her constructed smile had broken apart at the fear and truth in their eyes that were not smiling. Death had come too close. Her eyes closed as she remembered too vividly.

They flew open at the sound of the door opening.

………………………………...

She should have known, should have realised and acted sooner.

Why didn't I? I let her down. Should have helped her. She was too young…

Mrs Adams was old. Older than she dared say. Older than most of the people she passed along the streets, weighed down with far fewer decades; to whom she was almost invisible.

Rita's days had ended, eight days ago. But she had not known until yesterday when the young detective with the deep brown eyes and hair to match, had called her, returning her photo and delivering the harshest words in the gentlest voice. Rita was dead, and she had not known. The detective, the one who had taken her letters and listened to her, had asked her, again, so gently, if there was any family the girl had? None. None that Mrs Adams knew of, that she had ever talked about. There were only the letters she sent, to unknown readers; and they were gone, out into the world, all that was left of the girl.

The boyfriend had disappeared too. Which left only her to give Rita her name back. She had held the tears inside until she reached the sanctuary of her apartment, and then they had soaked into Joshua's fur as she hugged him close.

Now they were left without Rita; she and Joshua. They sat together sheltering from the sun-daggers piercing the basement courtyard. Surrounded by the scent of fading sweet peas. Joshua knew, and he sat at her side, a consoling presence. An old lady and her cat. Old, both old.

The bells of the church she had never attended clanged the eighth hour of the morning. Tolling for lost lives.

………………………………...

Flack entered the room, and Stella could not suppress a sigh of relief, or miss the look of concern on his face, "Am I disturbing you?"

"It's fine, I wasn't asleep."

He came further into the room, "Guys outside not disturbing you?"

"Not at all. Glad they're there…" Her smile became a frown, "You look beat, Flack. When was the last time you had a decent meal? Not counting a handful of candy bars from out a vending machine."

A guilty look crossed Flack's face as he pushed an empty wrapper out of sight into his pocket, and Stella looked accusingly at him, "I saw that. I don't miss anything. You and Mac are as bad as each other."

Mac merely raised his eyebrows and shrugged at the detective, putting his file aside as he did so, "It's safer not to argue, Don."

It sparked a grin, "Glad you realise that, Mac." Then her face clouded, "I'm sorry this has made so much more work for everyone…"

Flack's retaliation was almost aggressive, "I'm not listening to any apologies from you. I got plenty of my own I need to make…"

"No you don't." She cut him off; there was too much hurt in his eyes, things hidden. And something he was reluctant to ask her, "Come on, Don. Whatever you've come here to ask me, ask it. Questions aren't going to hurt me." Questions had answers. She needed answers.

In answer, Flack produced an envelope and laid it on the bed. He took a deep breath and glanced at Mac, who was listening intently, "These are from the hospital security cameras, images of the two guys who took a shot at me and Lindsay three days ago…"

She had already figured it out, and taken hold of the envelope, "You want me to look at them. See if I recognise either of them."

"You don't have to…" The words came simultaneously from both Mac and Flack, and it brought a hint of amusement despite the sudden dread that had slid its way into her. At what she might see once the envelope was open.

"Don't want to argue with you. I told you, I need to do something useful…"

The black and white photographs were in her hands. Glossy paper, but streaked and matted images. Two faces. One in shadow beneath a baseball cap. But the other…

Sitting in the car at the scene. A message on her phone. Reading it, reaching to turn the key in the ignition. Looking for Danny. Where was he? Sun through the windscreen. And then so fast, too fast… Seconds of a face and then a shot and then nothing. But the seconds had been long enough. She remembered the face, and recognised it now; caught on paper. Caught in her mind. Caught forever.

Not much action, but I hope this chapter was okay. Needed to catch hold of a few threads. Please let me know what you thought, whether good or bad, any suggestions welcome! Thank you, Lily x