Disclaimer: I obviously do not own CSI: NY. I just own my car, my laptop and my crazy muse who seems to want to write 4 different stories at a time. I also do own any characters that you do not recognize. You can borrow them if you ask permission first!

A/N: Okay. Thanks to everyone that read and reviewed! Here's the next chapter!! Many thanks to Aphina and Axellia for the beta. I don't own the chapter title either. That belongs to System of a Down. Also, thank you soooooooo much to everyone who voted for me at the fanfiction awards. I'm stunned, really I am! You guys ROCK!

Chapter 2.

Chop Suey

The following week flew by for Cory. She decided to take Danny's advice and she backed off on calling her mother so much. She had only called her twice since her conversation with him, so when the cell phone rang and she saw that it was Alexis, she picked it up with a smile. "Hi, Mom. How are you?" she greeted her.

"I'm fine, sweetie, but I'm a little concerned that you haven't called me," Alexis responded sounding nervous.

Cory smiled. "Danny finally convinced me that I was driving you crazy, so I'm trying to back off."

Alexis let out a sigh of relief, her worry that something was going on with her oldest daughter easing. "Oh, that's good. I was also calling to see if you had gotten my list of possible reception sights for the wedding."

"I did, but I'm not sure that I want something that fancy. It just…" she trailed off, the memory of the lavish reception she had planned for her wedding to James coming back to haunt her. "It's just that I feel like I've already done that, and I want this to be fun for everyone. I don't want people worrying that they have to be part of a high society wedding."

"But, sweetie," Alexis started.

"No buts, Mom," Cory interjected. "I'm not that high society girl anymore. She's long gone. Plus that would draw tons of publicity and I hate being in the spotlight."

Alexis shook her head before conceding to Cory, "All right, I understand. As long as you are happy, then I'm happy."

"Thanks, Mom. How is Beth doing with her new job?"

"She loves it. Did she tell you that she is working on a side project as well?" Alexis responded.

Cory's eyebrows furrowed a bit, trying to remember if her sister had told her anything. "Nope. What's she doing?"

"She's working with the Dallas County DA's office to try to overturn wrongful convictions. They've been very successful so far," Alexis said, pride in her youngest daughter's accomplishments evident in her voice.

"That's great!" Cory exclaimed, happy that her sister was making her own mark on the world. "I'm so happy for her. When I get some time off in a couple of months, I'll have to fly down there and take her out for a celebration dinner." Cory looked up at the knock on her office door. Lydia was standing with a concerned look on her face. "Look, Mom. I hate to cut you off, but work is intruding. I'll talk to you later, okay?"

"Okay. I love you sweetie and stay safe," Alexis told her.

"I love you, too. And I always try to be safe," Cory said as she disconnected the call. She looked at Lydia, who had sat in her chair. "I don't like the look on your face."

Lydia nodded. "Another envelope, like the one you got last week that mentioned Columbine. I brought it straight here," she said somberly as she handed over the envelope.

Cory bit her lip, a bit of trepidation seeping into her gut. Carefully, she opened the envelope to have piece of paper fall out. She picked it up and began to read aloud, "Heed my warning, the revolution is here and it began with Charles Whitman."

Lydia shook her head. "Who in the world is Charles Whitman?"

Cory, however, felt the blood drain from her face. "He was the sniper in the observation tower," she muttered, fear crawling up her spine. She looked at Lydia who looked confused. "1966, the University of Texas at Austin. It was the first incidence of gun violence at a school. He killed fourteen people and wounded thirty-one others. When I joined the Bureau in Dallas, we had a whole training class on it."

Lydia looked at her, the magnitude of what the letters were saying coming forth. "This isn't a prank, is it? This is a cry for help."

Cory shrugged. "A cry for help? I don't know. But I think it may be an indicator for something that is beginning." She quickly pulled out a couple of evidence bags; living with Danny had ingrained some habits into her. "Let's get these to the lab and see if they can find anything on it."

Lydia nodded and somberly they proceeded to bag the evidence to send it to the FBI lab in Quantico.

Danny had just gotten to the lab, when Lindsay greeted him, her pregnancy showing clearly. "Hey, Montana. What's up?"

Lindsay sighed in exhaustion. "I'm tired of being in the lab, but I know that I can't go out in the field, but I came to tell you that Mac has a case for you," she said as she smiled. "Flack's going to pick you up and you guys can head to the crime scene."

"Anything unusual about the scene that you know of?" Danny questioned.

Lindsay shook her head. "Run of the mill robbery gone bad from what I've heard," she replied as she turned to head to the break room to get her a cup of tea. "Lord, what I wouldn't give for a cup of coffee right now," she muttered under her breath as she strode away.

Danny watched her walk away just as Flack walked up to him. "You ready?" Flack asked.

Danny nodded his head towards Lindsay. "I am, but is it me or is she really grouchy lately?"

Flack sighed. "It's not you," he muttered lowly. "I think it's just the hormones talking. I mean she's due in about two months and her feet swell all the time, she misses her caffeine and as she puts it, she has to pee every two minutes. I just think she's really uncomfortable."

Danny patted his friend on the shoulder. "I'm sorry."

Flack shrugged it off as they got onto the elevator. "Don't worry about it. At least she doesn't burst into tears at the drop of a hat anymore. I can handle it and I can't wait for the baby to be born."

Danny glanced at Flack, seeing the look of awe on his face and feeling a bit envious. He rubbed the back of his neck nervously. "I just can't wait to make it official with Cory. After everything we've been through…" he trailed off.

"You scared that she's gonna leave you at the altar?" Flack asked with a frown.

"Nope. I'm scared that one of us is going to die before we make it to the altar," Danny admitted. "You have to admit, both of us have been hurt more times than we can count."

Flack shrugged. "But you've made it through it," he said as he unlocked the car and they got in. "I gotta believe that the wedding will happen."

"Thanks, Don," Danny said feeling a bit better.

"Don't worry about it."

Thirty minutes later, they were to the crime scene. Danny grabbed his kit and began to photograph the scene, while Flack began to interview the witnesses and the bodega owner.

"So, Mr. Chen," Flack began as he started to question to owner, "can you tell me what exactly happened?"

"Stupid guy tried to rob me!" the small Asian man said with disbelief in his voice.

"Okay, so he tried to rob you, but what happened after that?" Flack asked trying to stay patient.

"Man came in, wanted to buy a pack of cigarettes. Then he wanted to show me a trick. He said he could hypnotize me." Flack fought down an urge to roll his eyes. "So, I said sure. If you hypnotize me, I'll give you a free pack of smokes. The next thing I know, I look down and see that I'm holding the shotgun and the guy is dead."

Flack raised an eyebrow in disbelief. "So, how do you know that he tried to rob you if you don't remember what happened?"

"I wouldn't shoot a good customer!" he man replied indignantly.

Flack just shook his head. "Look, you need to come down to the station and once we get the surveillance footage we can put together what happened," he said as he helped the man into the back of a squad car. Shaking his head after the man was in place, he walked over to Danny. "Man, you ain't gonna believe this. Owner says that the vic tried to rob him by hypnotizing him and he doesn't remember what happened because of it."

Danny looked at him, smirking. "Gotta love New York. I have to say, I've never heard that one before and I thought I'd heard it all." He gestured to the evidence that he was collecting. "I won't know what to make of this until we can process it at the lab first. I'll have Adam run the surveillance footage and see what we can find there."

Flack nodded. "I'm going to go run a background check on the vic and our owner. See if they have any history together. I'm just not buying the 'I was hypnotized' defense."

Danny laughed and waved to Flack as he left and then turned back to finish processing the scene.

Cory made copies of both of the notes before bagging them to send to the lab in Quantico. She and Lydia sat in her office comparing both notes. "Look," Lydia said. "The first note said that Columbine was just the beginning but this one says that it all began with Charles Whitman. Those cases were close to thirty years apart. That doesn't make sense."

Cory nodded. "That's true. We need to get a handwriting analysis done on this to see if the same person wrote it or if it's more than one." She sighed. "The problem is that I don't know much about what makes up a school shooter."

Lydia was quiet for a few moments before biting her lip. "I have an ex that works for the BAU. Maybe I could ask him to take a look?"

Cory looked at Lydia, sensing something else was going on. "Are you sure? You don't look like this is going to be a fun thing for you to do," she asked her.

"It's fine. We just didn't end on the best of terms. I wanted something more serious and he said he wasn't ready," Lydia confided. "After we broke up, that's when I moved to New York. I requested a transfer the day after it ended."

Cory cocked her head; she had known that Lydia had been assigned to Quantico, but never knew her reason for leaving. "I don't want to put you in an awkward situation. I can always officially request their help."

"No, it's fine. I've moved on and I hope that he has as well," Lydia told her with a reassuring smile. "I'll go make that call."

"Thanks, Lyd," Cory called after her as she walked out the door.

Danny was bent over a table examining the trace evidence from the bodega scene when Flack walked up to him. "Whatcha got Messer?" he asked with a smirk.

"Everything backs up that Chen is the one who fired the shotgun that killed the vic. What'd you find?"

Flack smirked again. "Turns out that our vic, one Jason Hamilton and Chen had a long standing friendship that seemed to go south in the last couple of months. Turns out that Hamilton was a drug dealer and something happened to both of them a couple of months ago." Flack paused for a dramatic effect. "Turns out that Chen's wife, Ming, died of a drug overdose two months ago and Chen blamed Hamilton for it."

Danny drew his eyebrows together. "So you thinking revenge killing?"

Flack nodded. "I'm about to bring him into interrogation. Wanna join me?"

Danny nodded with a smile as he packed up the evidence. Once that was done, he joined Flack in the small room.

"So, Mr. Chen, it seems that you weren't entirely truthful with me. You knew the victim. You were friends with him up until two months ago, when your wife OD'd. Did ya think I wouldn't find out?"

Mr. Chen looked into the stern faces of Danny and Flack and crumbled. "He killed my wife. He had to pay for that," he said with suppressed rage in his voice.

"No, the drugs killed your wife," Flack shot back. "But you killed him. Is it really okay for you to spend your life in jail because of that? What would your wife think?"

Mr. Chen just laughed. "I don't care. She was my world. Without her, life means nothing. Are you saying that if you're wife," he continued pointing to Flack's wedding ring, "was killed you wouldn't hunt down the man who killed her?"

Flack just looked at the man, knowing that in part he could understand the murderer's reasoning. "I don't know, but I would get my wife help if she was addicted to drugs," he said honestly.

Mr. Chen pursed his lips together in anger. "I'm not saying anything else without a lawyer."

Sighing, Flack and Danny left the room, each lost in their own thoughts of what would happen if Lindsay or Cory were killed. Each realizing that they may take the action that the man in the room had taken. Neither wanting to admit it to the other.

AN: Okay. So, I'm so sorry that's it's taken this long to get a second chapter out, but I am still madly working on my HP story, trying to get that done (doesn't help when my muse leaves me for a month), so I can't tell you when the next chapter will be up. Now for a couple more disclaimers. All the information on Charles Whitman, I got from Wikipedia and I would suggest that if you want to know more about him and what led up to the shooting, go check it out! Second...The hypnotizing thing was inspired by a case from Italy and when I heard it, I just couldn't pass up the chance to use it (although in that case, no one was killed). Thirdly, part of Flack's reaction to that case was inspired by a joke. The joke is: What's the difference between a Northern fairy tale and a Southern fairy tale. The answer: A Northern fairy tale starts off, "Once upon a time..." and a Southern fairy tale starts off, "Y'all ain't gonna believe this shit..." (lol). Now for the long awaited review responses!

Soccer-Bitch - It's up! Thanks for your help on it!

Madison Bellows - You can command me all you want, but it's my muse, I swear! She's been uber tempermental lately (I think it's the weather...Not even July and we've already hit 100 a couple of times). But truly, I think it was because I was working on converting a deck to an outside storage area and had absolutely no free time. I'm glad you loved it and hope that this one is just as intriguing!

laplandgirl - Thanks! I'm glad that I've created a character that people just love. I'm still stunned that I won 3 catagories. It's amazing and makes me feel so loved.

Aphina - I'm glad that she seems human. I really struggle trying not to make her a Mary Sue (you know that) and if I can avoid that, I'll be so grateful! I'll respond to all your emails tonight and can't wait to read the new one!

CSI junkie - I'm glad that you were excited. I was excited to get this chapter out, but can't make any promises until the HP story is finished (I think I have 4 more chaps on that). But it was good to get back into writing crime. It's my home and my fav thing to write!

katydid13 - Thanks! Here you go!

Axellia - I can't believe that you missed it either! How are you doing settling into the new house? And when do you plan on taking the test? Can I say that I'm really excited that you might be moving to btr? If you do, I will so take you out to a cowboy bar, so you can meet some cowboys!

Last thing and I'll leave y'all alone! I got 7 reviews for chapter one...can y'all beat that? (:p) No pressure.