DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN CSI:NY OR ANY OF ITS CHARACTERS. OBVIOUSLY. I ONLY OWN SAMANTHA FLACK AND KELLAN AND KALLISON FLACK. AND BABY DAWSON!
A/N: CHECK OUT THE 2009 CSI:NY FAN FICTION AWARDS AND CAST YOUR NOMINATIONS!!! LET YOUR FAVS LET YOU KNOW HOW MUCH YOU LOVE THEIR SHTICK!
THIS IS A FUTURE CHAPTER
Say goodbye to yesterday
"Some are like water, some are like the heat
Some are a melody and some are the beat
Sooner or later they all will be gone
Why don't they stay young?
It's so hard to get old without a cause
I don't want to perish like a fading horse
Youth's like diamonds in the sun,
And diamonds are forever
So many adventures given up today,
So many songs we forgot to play.
So many dreams swinging out of the blue
Oh let it come true.
Forever young, I want to be forever young.
Do you really want to live forever, Forever, and ever?
Forever young, I want to be forever young.
Do you really want to live forever, Forever young?."
-Forever Young, Alphaville
"I ever tell you how much I hate hospitals?" Flack asked his wife, as they stepped onto the elevator at the second level of the underground parking level of St. Vincent's Medical Center.
"You mean other then how at every OB appointment I had while I was pregnant you complained endlessly about the smell of the place making you nauseous?" Sam teased, as she pressed the button for the fifth floor. "Or how you whined incessantly about the crappy food and the uncomfortable sleeping conditions and the lack of hot water in the room's shower while I was in after having the girls and my hysterectomy? Or how you moaned about going bat shit insane as you call it while staying with Kellan every time she was admitted for something? If you don't mean any of that, then no. You've never told me."
"I swear to you, Sammie…" Flack shook his head as he sat Dawson's baby carrier on the floor of the elevator between them. It was Dawson now. They'd made the collective decision on the last leg of their journey to the hospital to refer to their son by the new name they'd chosen for him. And to encourage their friends and family to do the same. "If any of my kids grow up to a massive smart ass like you…"
"What?" she asked with a laugh, as she unzipped her winter jacket. "What are you going to do about it? Are you going to rant and rave at me and blame me for being such a horrible influence on your spawn? Are you going to hire a priest to exorcise all the evil out of them? Send them away to strict boarding schools? Boot camps?"
"Actually…" Flack leaned back against the rear wall of the elevator and grinned at her. "I was thinking more along the lines of putting you over my knee and spanking you. But I keep forgetting how that won't solve a thing. You know, considering you enjoy that kind of thing so much."
Her cheeks flushed slightly. "You've really got to start watching your mouth around the girls. They repeat everything you say, Don. And one day, they're going to be saying the crudest things at the most inopportune times."
"You mean like how they told their grandfather that their mom likes having her ass smacked?"
Sam sighed exasperatedly.
"For either years we've done so well," he said. "Keeping all of your dirty little secrets under wraps. Holding up that whole girl next door, sweet, innocent, apple pie image. And now? Now everyone is starting to find out what you're really like. A kinky, perverted sex kitten. But I guess considering your age I gotta start calling you a cougar now," he reached out and ran a hand over her hair. "Older woman, younger man…"
"You just think you're so humorous don't you," she grumbled, and reached out to pull down the zipper on his coat.
"I know I'm humorous. Just like I know you like it when I…"
"Please do not finish that sentence…just…please."
"I am just having fun with you, babe," he said, and leaning sideways, careful to mind the baby between them, pressed a kiss to her temple. "Keeps my mind off of the whole being at the hospital thing. Seems like we've spent way too much time at hospitals since we met."
"Well I guess you should have thought about your aversion to hospitals when you decided to kick things off by getting yourself stabbed in the stomach by a perp," she told him.
"How was I to know the crazy bitch would lunge for those scissors?" he asked.
"You're paid to anticipate stuff like that," Sam reminded him. "You're trained to expect the worst. And honestly, as a friend of Mel's, you really shouldn't have underestimated her or expected less."
"Yeah…" he agreed. "I gotta admit that I definitely wasn't on my game that day. But all's well that ends well, right? No harm, no foul. Only spent three days in the hospital. Got to have a week off of work, doing nothing more than lounging on the couch and having the most impossibly hot nurse looking after me," he winked at her. "Too bad you wouldn't go and buy one of them naughty nurse outfits like I begged and pleaded you to do."
"You were recuperating from being stabbed in the gut with a pair of scissors," Sam reminded him. "I wasn't taking the chance of making your recovery longer by having you bust your stitches by indulging in some crazy assed fantasy of yours. And is that seriously all you think about?"
He stared at her pointedly. "Eight years with me and you still feel the need to ask me that?"
"What was I ever thinking?" she asked with a dramatic gasp. "Let's just be thankful it wasn't a lot worse then it was."
He nodded in agreement. "I still remember how frantic you were that day. Running into the observation area they had me in the emergency room"
"I was worried about you. I didn't know how serious it was. And you can blame Danny for that. Calling me and telling me that you'd been seriously injured. You know what goes through someone's mind when you hear 'seriously injured'? I was thinking you were on death's door and I get there and you're snapping on the nurses and you've got a piece of rusty scissors sticking out of your stomach. Did you honestly think I wouldn't worry?"
"I knew you'd worry. I just didn't expect you to be bawling like a baby."
"I was relieved. Thanks to Danny I thought you were close to death. I show up and you're the same arrogant, sarcastic prick you always are. I was crying from relief."
"Sure you were…" he nudged her playfully with his elbow. "Admit it, Sammie. You were terrified. For a moment, after you got that call from Danny, you were terrified that I was gonna kick the bucket. And you knew you'd go insane if that happened."
"You are such an…"
"Arrogant bastard," he finished for her. "I know…you've been reminding me of that fact nearly every day since we first met. But obviously you don't mind it that much. Something sure keeps you around. Keeps you coming back for more. So I can't be that bad."
"You are an insufferable bastard at best," Sam declared, a smile tugging at both corners of her mouth.
Flack grinned and pressed another kiss to her temple as the elevator shuddered to a stop at the fifth floor. Reaching down and across his body, he picked up the baby carrier with his left hand and laid his right on the small of his wife's back as the door slid open and they stepped off the elevator and onto gleaming, tiled flooring.
"This way…" he said, nodding to his left and gently steering her in the desired direction. "Step down unit is down the end of the hall, across from the ICU. Danny's in a private room. Doesn't have to worry about listening to a roommate snore all night and doesn't have to share all the hot nurses."
Sam rolled her eyes.
"Hey, it was the only part of being in the hospital after the bombing I enjoyed. After I finally became more lucid and got my bearings, the nurses were the distraction from the horrific pain. I wanted to forget about the fact that it felt like someone was sitting on my chest and that they were trying to ripe my insides out through my ass. And all I had to do to stop the suffering for a little bit was to hit that call button and in less then a minute I'd have some company."
"I so do not want to hear this," Sam huffed.
"Yeah…" Flack sighed wistfully. "All the agony was made so much better by having some hot, young nurse giving me a sponge path and fluffing my pillows and…"
His wife glared up at him.
"I meant fluffing my pillows literally, hon. Don't be twisting that around. Never at any time did I encourage the nurses to do anything inappropriate in the line of duty."
"And did they willingly do anything inappropriate?" she asked curiously.
Flack grinned.
"Oh for shit sakes, Don. Of all the nurses in the whole hospital you just had to get the horny, young ones who just couldn't help themselves from…fluffing your pillows?" she made air quotes around the last three words.
"What can I say?" he asked with a shrug. "Everyone loves a hero."
Sam snorted and shook her head.
"I am just kidding baby," he chuckled. "Just kidding. Not once did any nurse, candy stripper or anyone else make it into my hospital bed. Now my bed at my old apartment…"
"Jesus Christ! Am I married to the biggest man-whore on earth or something?"
"Hey…can I help it if they had a thing for a hero cop with dashing good looks, a killer smile and beautiful blue eyes? I'm telling you, baby, day I was released? They were lined up to give me their phone numbers."
"And how many of those numbers did you call?" she inquired.
"A couple."
Sam stared at him.
"A couple," Flack insisted. "That's it. And you wanna know why I stopped at a couple?"
"I'm almost scared to know," she sighed.
"Because they thought I was a tool for refusing to take my shirt off when they wanted to get down to business. They made me feel like a complete loser for not wanting them to see what the scars looked like. I was embarrassed of them. I didn't want someone staring at me like I'm some kind of freak 'cause I looked like Doctor Frankenstein took a butcher knife to me. You would have thought that being nurses and seeing me having to piss and shit in a bag for a few months and being the ones to clean the wounds that they'd be a little more…compassionate, right?"
Sam nodded.
"Hell no. All 'cause I didn't want to take my shirt off they wanted nothing to do with me. They laughed in my face. Bailed on me. After that I just decided to be miserable and alone. Who needed someone making fun of them 'cause some psycho blew them up in a building and fucked their body up? So as for you being married to a man-whore? Maybe before the bombing, but definitely not after. You were the first person I ever took my shirt off in front of. Remember how paranoid I was about that? And how all of the things that you said? And did?"
She remembered that night very well. Although they hadn't had actual sex that night and wouldn't for nearly three months, she still could vivid recall how self-conscious and nervous he'd been when she'd attempted to peel his wife beater off of him. It was a side of him she wasn't used to, and it had taken her aback. She was familiar with the often cocky, more often then not conceited Don Flack. And there before her, a slight flush to his cheeks -both from an intense make out session and embarrassment- he seemed like a wounded and dejected little boy. He had quickly, and gently, explained that he didn't take his shirt off. For anyone. And it took him a long time to gain the trust in someone to let them see the scars that marred his body. She'd listened patiently and understandingly as he talked about the months in the hospital, of the excruciating pain of rehab. Of wishing he'd have died when the agony began too intense to bear.
And she'd still remembered the wary look in his eyes, the slight tremble to his body when, after he'd finished talking, she'd gently lifted that undershirt and he'd allowed her to pull it clean off. How he'd anxiously stood there and held his breath as she laid her hands on his hips and placed tender kisses along the scar on the left side of his abdomen. And how she'd assured him that scars didn't make him any less a man, and that she had many a scar too. Only you couldn't see hers.
And even after eight years together, that night still remained in her memory as the most tender, affectionate, loving moment they'd ever experienced together.
"You were the first woman I'd been with since the bombing that I actually took my shirt off in front of," he admitted.
Sam frowned. "But you were with Jess for…"
"For nearly a year," he finished. "Yeah…I know. And for nearly a year she never saw me in the shower, never bitched and moaned at me to take my shirt off to have sex. I avoided any other situations where I'd have to take my shirt off in front of her. And she was all right with it. She never shit all over me 'cause of it. She just accepted that that was the way I was. And then there was you. A persistent little shit."
"There was no way you were leaving your shirt on or your socks," she told him. "So you were either going to let me see your hideous feet and make my own decision about your body or you weren't getting even foreplay from me. I think you made a good choice, Donnie. But you and Jess…I just always assumed…."
"That things were 'normal' between me and her? Like how things have always been between us?"
"I guess…I don't know if normal is the right word mind you….nothing we do is ever normal…twisted and disturbed maybe…"
"Who wants normal?" he laughed. "How boring would that be, Sammie? If we were normal? If we were normal we'd be like…I don't know….like Danny and Lindsay…." he shuddered at the thought.
"It would be slightly less nerve wracking if it was normal," she informed him, giving a polite smile to the young nurse behind the step down unit's front desk as they stepped up to sign in. "And I wouldn't need to be on so many meds if my husband wasn't such a tool all the time."
"You'd think after eight years you'd get a new insult," Flack teased, as he set the baby carrier down on the floor and grabbed the clipboard and pen offered to him by the nurse.
"That's a horrible insult," Sam said, as curled an arm around his waist and leaned her head against his arm as he signed their names in the visitors log and wrote down what patient they were there to see. "At least it's a horrible insult to all the power tools I'm comparing you to."
The nurse, a pretty red head in a pale yellow scrub set, couldn't hold back a laugh.
"Yeah…she's a real laugh riot," Flack said, as he finished scrawling their names and handed the clipboard back to the young woman. "It's not so damn funny when you've been living with her and her mouth for the last eight years."
"That's the first time you've ever complained about my mouth. Especially when it's been so good to you, " Sam said, and flashing him a devilish smile, turned and bounced off down the corridor towards Danny's room. "
Flack smirked and shook his head as he watched her go. "You're lucky I love you, woman!" he called.
She glanced over her shoulder and gave him a wink before continuing on her way. Swaying her hips just a little bit more as she went.
But not nearly as lucky as I am that you love me, he thought, and picking up the baby carrier, followed dutifully behind her.
"Lindsay…" Danny spoke through gritted teeth, both from aggravation and from the pain shooting through his body as he struggled to get himself up into a sitting position in his hospital bed. "I told you this already. I don't want to be here. I don't need to fucking be here. I'm fine and I just want to get the hell out of here."
"And I've told you already that you do need to be here and that you are not fine," his wife countered, as she laid both hands on his shoulders and physically forced him back down into a lying position. "You're recovering from a collapsed lung and a massive concussion! You have a hairline fracture in your skull! You know what the doctor said! About how we need to be worried about stress causing swelling on the brain."
"The only thing that is causing me stress is being in here!" Danny argued. "I'll heal faster and better if I'm at home! With my kids! Being here, surrounded by sick people is not doing me any good! I need to be home, in my own bed where it's nice and comfortable with my wife and my kids fawning all over me! That's where I need to be!"
"You need to be where there's nurses and doctors to look after you!" Lindsay informed him angrily. "Don't be such a goddamn stubborn ass!"
"Hire a homecare nurse, then!" her husband spat. "Hire someone to come in the home every day! Hire them to live with us to keep an eye on me! I don't give a shit! I don't want to be here and I don't need to be here! Now just get off my ass and…"
"You want me off your ass, Danny! You think you're some big tough guy? You don't need to be here? You don't want me worrying about you? Fine. Just fine. Then you sit your ass up in the bed right now and you try and stand on your own two feet! And then I'll laugh and say I told you so when you fall on your ass!"
"Why are you being such a bitch to me?" he yelled. "Why you nagging at me like this? Why are you constantly riding my ass?!"
"Oh I don't know!" she spat. "Maybe because I'm worried about you! Maybe because I love you! Maybe because I want you healthy! Maybe because I want you strong enough to get out of here and come home to me and the kids! 'Cause we like having you around!"
"Then you tell that goddamn doctor next time he's here that I don't need to be here!" Danny yelled, and slammed his fists down onto the bed. "You tell him that I need to be home! I need to be with my wife and my kids! I need to help take care of Mari!"
"You can't even take care of yourself, Danny! How the hell are you going to take care of someone else! Mari's got a lot of people around here right now. She's got a lot of people that love her and that are supporting her. That are helping her with the kids and with making arrangements. She'd want you to take care of yourself. Hawkes would…"
"Hawkes would what?" Danny hissed. "He'd what? What would he what, Linds? He'd want me to not worry about his wife and his kids?"
"He'd want you to worry about yourself so that you can take care of your own wife and kids!" she cried. "I know you're torn about him dying and…"
"You don't know how I feel," he whispered savagely. "No one knows how I feel!"
"I know you feel guilty! I know you feel guilty that you lived and Hawkes died! I know that you feel guilty that he took that bullet pulling you out of the way! I know you've got some kind of survivor's complex over the whole thing! And I also know that you've wished at least once, that is was you and not him that died!"
"Hawkes didn't deserve to die," Danny said, his eyes closed, shaking his head from side to side as if the motion would rid him of the images and sounds swirling around in his brain. "Hawkes didn't deserve that…he didn't deserve to go out like that…Mari doesn't deserve to be burying her husband…his kids don't deserve to be saying bye to their dad…"
"And you don't deserve to be dead either!" Lindsay struggled to control the flood of tears that threatened to overwhelm her. "And I don't deserve to bury my husband and my kids…our kids…don't deserve to be saying goodbye to you! Goddamn you, Danny! Think about us for a change! You're still so fucking selfish! Nine years! Nine years we've been together! Almost ten! An entire decade and you still can't think about anyone but yourself! It's always how Danny feels and what Danny wants! Fucking snap out of it!"
"You don't understand…"
"I understand you're a self centered, arrogant prick at the best of times!" she snapped. "And I understand that you loved Hawkes! We all loved Hawkes! But for once I want you to love me and your kids more than you love everyone else! More than you love yourself!"
"Oh that's rich…" he snorted. "Takes one to know one, right Linds? All this coming from the Queen of self righteousness! The Supreme Drama Queen!"
"You know what, Danny? I know you're hurting. Physically and emotionally. I know this is hard on you. I know you hate being here and you hate that Hawkes is dead. I know it's the pain and your own grief that's making you a total bastard! And you can be as mean and nasty as you want to! I love you and I am your wife and as your wife I am taking fucking charge! You are not going anywhere! You are staying here until you get better! Under-fucking-stand me, Daniel!"
A loud knock on the door interrupted Danny before an off handed, rude reply could escape from his lips.
"Thank the freaking Lord!" Danny exclaimed, grimacing in pain as he struggled to sit up as Flack cautiously poked his head into the room. "Someone who has an ounce of common sense!"
"Is it safe to come in?" Flack asked. "Nothing's going to be tossed across the room or anything? 'Cause we could hear the two of you all the way down the hall and Florence Nightingale down at the desk is about thirty seconds away from calling security."
"Let her," Danny grumbled. "What are the rent a cops doing to do?"
"They'll call the real cops. And that would be me. So both of you shut the fuck up before I 'cuff both of your asses and haul you down to Central Booking."
"Don't be coming in here if you've come to bitch!" Danny informed his best friend. "If you've come to get on my ass about how badly things screwed up last night…"
"Messer, do not make me beat the living shit out of you. I'm here 'cause you're my best friend and you came this close," Flack held his hand up, his thumb and forefinger less than an inch apart. "…to having your lights put out. Permanently. So shut your gate and just be thankful Sammie and I give enough shit about you to be here."
"In other words, quit acting like a whiny little bitch," Sam chirped, her cheerfulness a less than adequate disguise for her concern and her grief for Hawkes as she slipped past her husband and walked across the room. Standing at the side of the bed, she embraced Danny lightly with both arms and kissed his cheek affectionately. "How are you feeling?" she asked, pulling away from him and running a gentle hand over his unshaven cheek.
"I'm fine…I'm perfectly fine…and I keep telling Lindsay that and she keeps insisting that I'm not! That I need to be here!"
"You do need to be here," Sam informed him, then grimaced as she glanced at the back of her friend's head. Where a chunk of hair had been shaved off and a nasty, jagged line of stitches held his scalp together.
"They couldn't shave your whole damn head?" Flack asked, as he set the baby carrier on the floor and shrugging out of his jacket, tossed it on the end of Danny's bed. "Or are you going to go home and give yourself some nasty ass Mohawk when you get out of here?"
"Bald," Danny replied. "Totally freaking bald."
Lindsay rolled her eyes and accepted a tight, warm hug from Flack and kisses to both her cheeks. "I'm doing okay," she whispered, fighting tears as he stroked her back soothingly. His actions speaking louder than any words. "It's hard but I'm doing okay…"
The detective nodded and kissed her cheek once again. Then stepped aside as Sam took his place and the two women hugged tightly and abruptly began sobbing into each other's shoulders. He reached out and ran a hand over his wife's hair and down to her shoulder, giving it a light squeeze before turning away from her and her best friend. Giving them some space as he picked up the baby carrier and headed towards the bed, his eyebrows raised as Danny watched the two women across the room.
"On and off," Flack told him. "Sam's fine one minute and a mess the next."
Danny nodded understandingly. "Hawkes got a bum rap, man," he whispered, his voice quivering with emotion. "He didn't deserve to go out like that."
"No one deserves to go out like that," Flack said. "Think about it this way. He went out a hero. He saved your life. You're still here. You're still going to able to kiss and hug your wife and kids and tell them you love them at the end of the day. You're still here, Dan-o. And if I ever hear you say that you wish it was you, I will seriously cause you a world of hurt. I will wait until you're out of here and all healed up, and I will take you somewhere nice and secluded where no one can hear you scream while I torture you. Got it?"
Danny nodded.
"You're still here, Mess. You got a wife and kids to worry about. To take care. And for you to say that you wish it was you that died? Think about what that would do to them. You'd think that being married and being a daddy for this long would have taught you that it ceased being just about us a long time ago. We stopped being able to worry about just us years ago. We have people that love us and depend on us. So quit being a selfish prick and count your lucky stars and all your blessings and shut the fuck up about it."
"I know…I know…I'm a selfish bastard," Danny mumbled.
"Yeah…you are," Flack agreed, then grinned. "But seeing as I feel just a little bit sorry for you, I brought you a little present."
"What would that be? You've already given me a kick in the ass. Give me time to extract you foot from my rectum, alright? Before you hand me anymore gifts."
"This gift can't hurt you," his best friend assured him. "But it can make you sick to your stomach under certain given circumstances."
"Stop keeping me in suspense here. And while you're at it, tell my wife that I don't need to be here. Tell her, Flack. Tell her I don't need to be here."
"Lindsay…" Flack sighed heavily and fixed serious blue eyes on her as she re-joined them at Danny's bedside.
She looked at him, her face streaked with tears, her hair an absolute mess and her nerves completely tattered.
"Danny needs to be here," Flack told her.
A soft smile cut through her gloom.
"You're an asshole," Danny informed his best friend. "Remind me to cut you out of my will."
"Like I'd lose much. Who'd want a pool table stained with biological trace anyway?" Flack teased. "Here…" he sat the baby carrier down on Danny's thighs. "You and Linds are babysitting while Sam and I find a place to tarnish with our own biologicals."
"You fucking wish," Danny snorted, as Lindsay busied herself with hurriedly unbuckling the baby from his car seat. "I'm here to recuperate. Not to put up with some whiny little…"
"Hey!" Sam made to cuff him upside the head. "Don't make me crack you open for some more stitches, lame brain!"
"I ain't your brother, Brooklyn!" Danny exclaimed, as he recoiled and covered his injured head with his hand. "Don't you be going all Gibbs-style on me. And now look what you've done," he nodded in the direction of his wife, who had their 'nephew' out of his car seat and cradled lovingly in her arms, rocking back and forth as she smiled tenderly done at him. "Now she's not going to give him back."
"You guys already have a tiny at home," Sam reminded him, as she took a seat on the edge of Danny's bed. "This is our tiny. You can't have him."
"Don't worry, Danny," Lindsay said, as she pressed a kiss to the baby's forehead. "We'll be seeing a lot of him when he's picking Makenna up for dates."
Danny's eyes narrowed. "You bite your goddamn tongue, Montana! No way in hell is my baby girl datin' a Flack!"
"I say the same thing about my girls and your son every day," Flack informed his best friend. "And I heard that Dan-Dan's already been puttin' the move on Kallie."
"I'll have you know that my son was seduced by your daughter," Danny corrected. "Grabbin' him and kissin' him and making him hold hands on the playground."
"Guess the seducing unsuspecting men thing runs in the family," Flack joked, winking playfully at Sam. "Hook, line and sinker, Mess. Any female with Ross in her just has that affect on you."
"In that case, you keep your daughters away from my son and your son away from my baby girl," Danny said. "Although I gotta give you some kind of credit, the kid is damn cute. And he must get it from you 'cause we all know is real mother wasn't some raving beauty."
"Danny!" Lindsay gasped. "That's an awful thing to say! Jordan was a very attractive woman."
"On what planet?" he asked. "Come on…what was so beautiful and sophisticated and intelligent about her? That's all anyone says when they talk about her. Ask me, someone can't be too intelligent or have too much class if they're going after a married man."
"It takes two," Lindsay spat. "And why are you starting this right now? Sam and Flack came to visit your sorry ass and you sit there insulting them?"
"I wasn't insulting them. I was insulting Jordan. And I'm sure Sam's said a hell of a lot worse about her."
Sam just smiled. She wasn't admitting to anything.
"But the kid is damn cute," Danny said, looking up at Flack. "You seem to have a knack of making some nice looking babies there, Flack. Must be the lovely blue eyes and the pale, creamy skin. Just make sure that poor Hunter doesn't take after you in the personality department, a'right?"
"Oh don't worry," Sam laughed. "I'm already on top of that so it doesn't happen. And it's Dawson. His name. We're changing his name."
"New family, new name," Flack reasoned, as he saw the curious looks on Danny and Lindsay's faces. "We just thought it would be a good thing to do. New start and all of that."
"You guys don't have to defend yourselves to us," Danny assured him. "You two make your own decisions and we'll back 'em up. Simple as that."
"Means a lot, Mess," Flack said sincerely, and clapped him on the shoulder.
"What you do gotta defend is the choice in flowers," the CSI said, casting a grimace in the direction of the arrangement of white roses and pale pink carnations, encased in a simple glass vase and surrounded by other flowers that had been delivered during the day. There were also two mylar balloons, one Patrick from Sponge Bob Square Pants and the other of Elmo.
"Sam picked them out," Flack told him quickly. "I had nothing to do with it."
"I didn't pick anything out. I called the hospital florist and said I needed something simple for a friend of mine. And that's just what they sent."
"Best part was that dirty little love letter you tucked in with it," Danny teased Sam, tousling her hair affectionately.
"You wish!" she snorted. "I don't even write Donnie love letters anymore. That moment passed the moment he'd decided to impregnate me with not one, but two of his demon children. That was the last time I ever wrote him any type of love letter or sent him some sweet little email during a shift."
"Don't forget about the perverted text messages and IM's," Flack said, as he plopped down into the chair next to Danny's bed. "Second that diamond went on your finger all the fun, kinky stuff stopped."
"Like your sex life has ever been boring!" she laughed. "Puh-leeze."
"Is that around the same time you two stopped making use of the CSI garage and the janitors closets?" Danny asked.
"I think you're confusing us with you and Lindsay," Sam teased.
"Sam and I were the ones in locker room in the precinct and the ones making use of that old leather couch you two used to have your office," Flack chuckled. "And never mind the time me and her took my squad down the foot of the Brooklyn bridge and we…"
"Do you mind?" Sam asked, glaring at him over her shoulder. "I hardly think this is the time to talk about this stuff."
"It's always time to talk about this stuff," Danny declared. "Trust me…it feels good to just talk about stuff instead of talking about what happened last night and thinking about H…" his voice broke and he cleared his throat noisily and looked up at the ceiling, tears sparkling in his eyes.
Sam twisted sideways, and giving him a gentle smile, rubbed one of his forearms gently. "It's okay, Danny," she whispered. "We're all feeling like this. Trust me."
Flack nodded in agreement.
"Important thing for you to do right now is try and relax and get as much rest as you can," Sam continued. "So that you can go home to your beautiful, loving wife and your amazing kids as soon as possible. You aren't doing them any good being in here. So you need to get out of here and home where you belong."
Danny sniffled noisily and nodded. "Anyone hear anything about funeral arrangements or anything like that?" he asked.
"Body's still at the ME's office," Flack replied, giving a heavy sigh as he stretched his legs out and placing his hands behind his head, closed his eyes. "I stopped by there last night. Talked to Mac for a bit. When I talked to him this morning, Mari hadn't arranged for a funeral home to pick the body up. She's probably trying to get around to it. I can't imagine that it's an easy thing to do."
"I wouldn't want to do it," Lindsay admitted quietly, emotion weighing heavy in her voice as she attempted to keep a smile on her face for the sake of the baby.
"Me either," Sam sighed and sniffled noisily. Smiling over her shoulder at Danny as she felt him softly and affectionately rub her shoulder.
"Is it going to be a department funeral you think?" Lindsay asked no one in particular.
"Doubt it," Flack replied. "Hawkes wasn't a sworn member of the department. Therefore he's not entitled to the whole departmental burial and what not."
"That's fucking bullshit," Danny snarled.
"Ripe, fucking bullshit," Flack agreed, as he ran his hands over his face and opened his eyes. "But it's the rules, Dan-o. You're not a sworn officer, you're not getting a department funeral. Simple as. I don't like the rules, but that's what they are. I know Mac's planning on going to the commissioner about it."
"Maybe it we sign a petition or something," Lindsay suggested. "Write a letter of outrage and get as many signatures from sworn officers objecting to Hawkes being treated that way."
"Won't do any good," Flack told her. "The union will pitch a fit that we're organizing a 'protest' without their permission or their involvement."
Danny snorted in disgust.
"I don't make the rules," Flack defended himself. "I just have to uphold them if I want a job and I want to be able to pay my mortgage and put a roof over my wife and kids' heads and food on the table. I'm not saying I agree with it. Hawkes getting a raw deal like that makes me fucking sick to my stomach. But no amount of begging and pleading on Mac's part to the commish and no petition, no matter how signatures are on it, is going to get the brass to change their mind."
"Fucking obnoxious," Sam declared. Then looked over at her shoulder at her husband. "Not you, baby," she quickly added. "Brass. They're fucking obnoxious and you know it."
"What do you want me to do about it, Sammie?" he asked. "I can't force them to change the rules for Hawkes. No matter how bad I want to. It's just the way things are, babe. The NYPD is old boys school. You know that. And getting them to change the rules and their way of thinking…it's just not going to happen."
"They might change their mind if the public gets involved," Sam said casually.
"How do you mean?" Lindsay asked.
"If the press finds out what's going on, they'll go ape shit with it," her best friend replied. "Imagine the public outrage when every newspaper and every radio and television station reports that while Doctor Sheldon Hawkes died doing the NYPD's bidding, the department can't even bend a little and give him a hero's burial?"
"The public will go ballistic," Danny said, nodding his head slowly. He liked the idea.
"Reed Garrett still has some heavy duty ties to the Times," Sam told them all. "And we talk on a constant basis with both him and Natalie. And I know for a fact that when Mac tells him what happened, they'll both be here for the funeral. So if I could get a hold of Reed and put a bug in his ear about what's going on…."
"You're a shit disturber," Flack said, a grin on his face. "That's my girl."
"It's just not fair," Sam sighed. "What happened to Hawkes…after all of the years of service he put in, both in the lab and the ME's office, it's just not fair that he'd be treated like that. And Mari and the kids deserve so much better. He died doing the same job all of us do. And if it was one of us? You can be damn sure he'd pull out all the stops to get us what we deserve."
Danny nodded in agreement. "Do what you got to do, Brooklyn," he said. "I got your back no matter what."
"Me too," Flack spoke up. "Not like there's ever a doubt about that mind you."
All eyes turned to Lindsay.
"I guess it's all for one and one for all," she concluded. "Whatever it takes, Sammie. Let me know if I can do anything."
"We gotta make this right," Danny declared. Determination in his voice and eyes. "For Hawkes."
"For Hawkes," the others said in unison.
Thanks to everyone that is reading and reviewing! I appreciate each and every one of you! Even all the lurkers! Please R and R folks! And go and cast some nominations! Preferably in my direction! LOL.
Special thanks to:
Hope4sall
Afrozenheart412
CSINYMinute
Soccer-bitch
HighQueenReicheru
Delko's Girl 88
wolfeylady
Forest Angel
xSamiliciousx
