Disclaimer I own very little, especially not CSI NY.
Notes Chapter 28: THANK YOU for all reviews! I really hope this chapter lives up to them. Please continue reviewing - I love to know what you think - welcome at any time, for any chapter, always replied to if logged. Thanks to everyone who's alerted and favourited. Thanks to autumn gold, Holly, Fat Kat, Juliette and Shadowfox (thank you for the reminder!) for your lovely reviews, sorry I couldn't send a proper reply. Thanks to marialisa for inspiring numbers, chrysalis escapist for thoughts, iluvCSI4ever for advising me and reading, and Blue Shadowdancer for reading.
Lost Letters: Chapter 28
27th July
… If you're overwhelmed by me sending a letter every day, you must tell me! I enjoy writing them though, and it gives me a purpose for the day as my diary isn't exactly bursting right now. However, I got a lot done today; grocery shopping, made dinner for Joe and ran a few errands for Mrs Adams. She's a darling old lady, but she seems kind of lonely. I don't think she has any family, but there must have been a Mr Adams once, well, I assume there was. They can't have had children though, leastways she never mentions any and none ever come to visit. I think she's taken me on as an adopted granddaughter…
………………………………...
Flack was moving as he saw what was coming to pass before it happened; seeing the future on a collision course with the present, impelled by the past; all about to meet in a quantum explosion of fury and helplessness and grief. The moment Mac had seized the collar of their suspect, with the prescience of empathy, Flack knew what was about to happen and catapulted himself into the interrogation room.
"Mac!"
The glass shook in its frame as he flung the door open and crossed the floor in two strides to Mac; then he was heaving on his shoulders, trying to pull him away from what would cost him more than just his career.
Angell conceded her hold as he moved in and she took the other side; similarly the uniformed officer began trying to pull the suspect out of the cemented grip.
Mac and their suspect were combat locked, and in turn, the moment his hands fell on Mac's shoulders, Flack was pulled into the conflict of his own and his friend's emotions.
"Let him go, Mac! This isn't the right way…"
He heard his voice, but Mac's voice was almost drowning him out.
"You nearly killed her! You left her to die, you bastard!"
They were running out of time, if Mac killed this man…
There would be one less criminal on the streets.
But he would have no justice, not the justice of the law.
He would have taken a life for a life. Righting the balance.
But it wasn't right…
"Don't do this! Let him go, Mac, he's not worth it; he's not worth your career, he's not worth this!"
Death was too good for him, the thought whispered in his mind.
The man was grunting for breath, short, horrible chokes of dying air. His lips were turning blue; fingers like spider legs as they danced grotesquely, scrabbling at his throat trying to unwrap the fingers that clutched him; his face stippled white and purple.
"You deserve to die for what you did to my detectives, for what you did to my partner!"
"Let go of him!"
Desperation strangled Flack, as he felt seconds slowing then speeding up. He felt the battle beyond and within him. He had to stop Mac from doing what he, in the darkest hours of the night and the clearest, brightest hours of daylight had been wanting to do since he saw what this man had done; since he saw Danny's broken body at the hospital; since he saw Stella's blood-covered body in Mac's arms.
He wanted to kill the man responsible.
He wanted to squeeze the life out of him and see him thrash in agony. So much so, it terrified him.
But he could not. Mac could not.
It wasn't right.
However much he wanted it to be.
"Don't do this! Please, Mac…"
He had to stop him; stop any more of him than had already come tumbling down around them all. Whatever it took. He owed it to Mac.
"Please…"
Under his hands, as they pulled, there was only skin and bone. Human frailty. He was only human. Prey to the love and violence and tumult that blew storms and earthquakes inside rooms and inside hearts. That could destroy hearts in seconds.
He was only human.
He knew how Mac felt, he did, and he knew he had to stop Mac and find the humanity that was somewhere buried beneath the collapsing heaps of vengeance and hurt. For the hurt of others.
But it would be so easy to remove this man, the man who was crowing for breath now, with etiolated skin, eyes bulging from his sockets. Just an un-lifted finger to remove him from humanity as he had almost removed his friends. Let the storms of violence reduce him to a heap of dust.
All he had to do was nothing.
No.
He had to stop this.
With a wrench of strength he did not know he had, Flack pulled Mac away and broke his hands from the man's throat. He felt his feet slipping underneath him, fighting against the struggle of everything that had happened in the last eight days, battling against the wrongs of everything that Mac had not been able to right. That he had not been able to right.
And then it was over.
The strength crumbled out of Mac; he saw the skeleton of his structure tottering and slumping to the ground with a shower of fragments spiralling up into the murky light.
It was over.
Mac's arms fell limp at his side and he staggered, falling into Flack who caught and held on to him.
As his throat was freed, the man slid gasping to the floor, legs concertinaing beneath him until he lay in a scrumpled heap.
It was over. And the room was choked with airlessness and humidity and what had almost happened. Flack breathed in and out, supporting Mac whilst Angell and the uniform dropped down besides the man.
Consequences.
Assault of a suspect by an officer; no matter what the provocation, it was still a serious matter, going against the badge they all wore: the one that was fixed to Mac's belt; the one that belonged to Stella; the one that Danny would wear again, that he had worn as he stood in front of the car that had not stopped. Serve and protect. Flack saw and understood.
Mac was only human; all the identities he buttressed himself with, that he had seen concrete into place eight days ago had fallen away and revealed the man beneath.
He held onto his shoulders, feeling the chill beneath his shirt, and let the air whoosh out of his lungs, "Mac, we're going to take a few minutes, okay? Let's go sit down, outside."
With the care of the wounded, he manoeuvred Mac with no resistance out of the room. In a daze, Mac walked in front of him and Flack felt his hands shaking and his heart banging as he followed him. Towards what had to happen now. The consequences of violence.
………………………………...
Angell heard Flack leave, only glancing up briefly as the door swung and two pairs of footsteps left the room. She knew to leave him to whatever needed to happen with Mac. Her duty, however much she might not want it to be, remained with the suspect. She crouched beside him, ignoring the fear of what had almost come to pass shooting nails into her nerves.
The man was alive, still breathing, despite the mauve splodges on his face and neck, and the lung-fuls of air he was dragging into himself like a rusty saw through steel. His hands still clutched at his throat, at the ghosts of Mac's fingers; and his eyes held an expression that Angell knew he had seen in others' faces. The horror of death.
She understood what Mac had done, having felt an invisible line away from the same actions.
The uniform and herself hauled the man between them back into the chair, where he slumped. His whole body was a twitching mass of ruins, and Angell had an intuition that lying amongst the dereliction of his human remains were the spectres of others he had brought down. The dust of lives lost to his hand.
Something inside his eyes. He was looking at her, but not seeing her. The uniformed officer stood waiting for further instruction behind the man; betraying her own fear only with a fluttering hand to her throat.
Angell regarded the man coldly as he coughed, "Breathe in and out. You're fine, just keep breathing…"
She thought of the many whose breathing he had stopped and nearly stopped.
"You want a medic to check him over?" The uniform asked, her eyes flickering to the door and back. There were figures in the distance along the corridor.
"Not yet, hold off a few minutes, I don't think there's too much damage done to him."
Not physically, nothing that could not be repaired. But if they had taken any longer to haul Mac off… for a dalliance of seconds, a vision of what had not happened laid the man prostrate on the ground, life choked out of him by Mac's hands; her own and Flack's stilled in complicity. Justice of vengeance. A pyrrhic victory, and no victory at all, answering violence with violence. How simple it could have been.
He hand went to her badge as she stared at the man. He blinked. Seeing ghosts. She waited as his lips parted and a croak emerged.
He coughed and then words crawled out of his mouth, "Was… her… her fault. You don't… know…"
It made her face contort, and took a mighty effort to keep her voice steady with the disgust that rose in her gullet, "If you think Detective Bonasera is in any way to blame…"
He continued as if her words had been nothing, staring at the far corner of the room. An empty corner, "Had no… no choice… her fault. Worthless… she called me worthless, stupid. She asked for it."
Doubt began to creep into her that he was talking about Stella.
His eyes were everywhere, flicking from corner to corner now. He rubbed his throat where the marks of Mac's fingers stained his skin.
"I wasn't worthless… wasn't. Was just… a kid… she had it coming."
He coughed wetly before slumping across the table; his head dropped back in his arms and a string of saliva hung from the corner of his mouth. His voice was half-stifled, "All her… fault. Irene's fault…"
Angell heard the name with a jolt. And knew suddenly who he was talking about. Who he had been talking about.
She knew who he was.
All the forgotten files, the unsolved cases that they had unearthed, the entombed evidence, amongst all of them they had found things; found names and faces; found fingerprints and traces that matched and gave away the face and the name in front of hers now.
She dropped into the chair opposite and her hands fell flat on the table. Pummelling her, the weight of the day attacked her bones and collapsed them.
Nowhere near the present, the man's eyes were lost to past sins. Stone supplanted Angell's heart as she spoke in a voice hardened of any comfort. Her words were balladromic, "I know what you did. I know who Irene was and I know what happened to her, and whose fault it was. You thought you'd run away didn't you? But crimes have a habit of catching you up."
She hit her target. The eyes came back to her, their depths glooming with fear. His mouth sagged open and silent.
Angel continued relentlessly, "We know what you did."
She sat back, "And we know who you are."
………………………………...
They sat in silence. Two men who had known each other for years and had made those years times of conflict and comradeship. Colleagues and friends, and everything in between amongst the months and days of those years; now just two men. There was everything and nothing to say and Flack did not know where to start. Since the day and the hour when he had sat with Mac for that short time at the hospital as Danny had been rushed into surgery, when they had not known if Stella was even alive; since then he had not known what to say to Mac. He did not know who he would be saying it to.
He sat propping his elbows on the desk. The activity of the bullpen continued in the background and a circle of avoidance spread around them. The silent signals that passed amongst the officers seemed to have already relayed what had happened in the interrogation room.
The usual drunks and perps and addicts that riddled the space drifted around them. One bumped into the back of Flack's chair and a leery breath of stale alcohol swept over him. He jerked round with a glower and an apologetic officer dragged the man away; sparing a second to glance at Mac.
Flack turned back to him and exhaled, "Mac…" Then his forearms came crashing onto the table and he shook his head, "You know what? Go home. Go home, Mac. It's late, it's the end of one of the longest days of my life and I don't know what else to say. You've spent the last eight days in a hospital room with no time for yourself and you look like hell. I can't say any more about what just happened in there right now and I don't want you to either."
Mac raised his head and started to speak, but Flack held up his hands, "I'm not hearing it, Mac. Today is done. You're in no state to talk about this now, go home. Not back to the hospital, not to the lab, to your home where you haven't been for the last nine days. We'll talk about this tomorrow."
He stood up and stood over Mac until he pulled himself stiffly out of the chair and faced him.
"You need a lift?"
Mac's voice grated, "I don't need a lift."
"I'll call you a cab."
"I don't need a cab, Don."
"Fine." His shoulders lifted in resignation, "That's fine."
They reached the door and he pushed it open for the older man. Older than he had ever seen him look before. He knew who was to blame.
As he pinched the bridge of his nose, he leaned his weight against the door and closed his eyes, "I'll see you tomorrow."
Mac's shoulder brushed against his as he passed. Flack opened his eyes. He stopped and faced him, "I'm sorry."
Hands fell to his sides, "So am I, Mac. So am I."
There was nothing more to be said.
………………………………...
Angell found him sitting with his head collapsed in his hands. Abject defeat in a man she had never seen defeated.
"Don?" She put a tentative hand on his shoulder and waited for him to speak.
"He's gone." He spoke between his hands, "I told him to go home, Jess."
A glimpse of tired blue appeared above his fingertips.
"You did the right thing."
"Yeah." His haggard face emerged with lips twisted humourlessly, "I know damn well he aint going to go anywhere near his apartment. He'll go to the lab and then he'll go straight back to the hospital."
"Which is where you want to be right now." Angell arched an eyebrow, and continued without waiting for a response, "So go there. No…" She folded her arms before he could begin to protest, "I got it, Don. Our perp's back in a holding cell for the rest of the night and I got the paperwork covered. Go. We can grab breakfast tomorrow and update then. Go."
"Jess…"
"Don Flack, you don't want to be arguing with me. I've gotten good at besting my brothers, you don't stand a chance. Get yourself out of here."
She stood and waited for him to do the same, and then nudged him towards the door, "I don't want to see you until tomorrow morning."
For a brief moment, she wondered if her eyes would give her lie away, and let her lashes fall over them as he looked at her.
"Thanks. I owe you."
"You owe me nothing, but if you're so inclined, you can buy me breakfast tomorrow, okay?"
She hoped the brittle smile she managed would not break in front of his eyes.
"Absolutely."
"I'll hold you to it." Sweeping him through the doors, she watched as Flack gave her one last look and then pushed his way outside. Her smile shattered and she turned back to everything that, despite what she had told him, would not wait until tomorrow. The clock at ten minutes past midnight lied; the day was far from finished.
………………………………...
The coda of the day; for some. The hours, the interview, the violence that had almost consumed him and almost destroyed his career were over. Mac left the precinct not catching the eye of any of those that looked and walked into the sapphire night; deepest blue above the skyscrapers; relieved by amber strands of lights that strung along the streets.
No one saw him.
People walked past and darted like gleams around him; the people he served and protected and did not know him.
No one spoke to him.
Just another man walking along the cooling sidewalks amongst the city of the night; architecture and people on the surface, waste and feculence underneath.
No one knew him.
He knew the people of the city and what they were capable of. He knew what he was capable of. What could rise to the surface.
A few lights blinked in the building that reared up and up above him as he entered. He looked at his watch; midnight ticked past, August died to September, and no one noticed.
Mac felt a stranger in his own home as he walked to the elevator and rode up to the lab. A few faces, inquisitive, hiding their questions, looked at him as he walked along the corridor.
He stood on the threshold of his office, leaning against the glass, taking in all that was unchanged in the time that had changed so much. Two cups stood on the desk where he had left them, where Stella had left them. A file on top of the never reducing heap, cover skewed to the side, bore her signature.
All that could have been left.
He stepped inside and stood in the darkness, and watched the city where the crowds and traffic and lights rivered below him in a jewelled flow that never ceased. He knew the reality behind the sparkle and the life; he knew that the night would die to morning and leave its consequences behind. And there would be nothing he could do about it. To protect and serve, always faithful, but there would always be failures. He could not, had not, and never would be able to protect everyone. The weight of the city's vastness and its throbbing heart of life and death was too much.
Unseen above the city, Mac removed his badge, held it with his hands and with his eyes and then laid it on the desk. He slid to the floor and sat staring into the darkness that wound round him.
………………………………...
Days ended, days began as the clock ticked over and August's yellow and gold deepened to September's russet and bronze. Though they were scattered like beads from a broken necklace across the city, the lives that still intertwined continued unbroken.
One joined two and made three as Flack reached the hospital and a smile broke over his face as he clasped Danny's and Lindsay's hands in his; and felt some of the cumber of cares fall away.
A young mother with her baby, escaped, safe, protected, sat in front of a detective and told her story, hands that had been cut and bloodied now cleaned and soothed.
Detective Markham and his partner sat across from each other in the glow of dinner and conversation, and joined hands across a distance that proved to be no distance at all.
Mrs Adams watched the swaying shadow trees above her courtyard and buried her hands in Joshua's fur, sharing his sleepless night and remembering the past.
Hawkes and Adam sat in a bar and with the satisfaction of connections made in the case, raised the glasses in their hands to each other and all the others who were not with them.
Sid rose from his chair, but she did not stir. He had stayed the past hour even when she drifted into sleep, wanting to give her company for as long as possible. Her right arm hung over the edge of the bed, so he placed it at her side, He held onto her hand for a moment and said softly, "Goodnight, Stella."
Before he walked away into the first hours of the new day.
Sorry, it all got a bit angst filled. I hope that was okay. Please review and tell me what you think, whether you liked it or not. I'd love to know! Thank you, Lily x