Chapter Seven

It was Autumn. Of that much Flack was well aware as he plodded his way down Center Boulevard in Queens. The weather was still warm and the sun had reclaimed its rightful place in the sky after a couple of weeks of bitter rain. The leaves had started turning weeks ago and golds, oranges, yellows and browns floated down to the ground around him, catching the sunlight and making the world seem as if on fire. The air and ground were still somewhat damp and tiny droplets of water glittered as light fragmented its way through the clear liquid hanging from the trees and fencing. The air was fresh and Flack found himself caught on the waves of a warm zephyr as it took him and hurried him on his way back to the crimescene. He sighed wretchedly and tugged at his thick-knitted green and blue tartan scarf that he'd stupidly worn that morning. He'd assumed without any thought that the day would once again be a miserable one and that mist and rain would envelope the city with its ongoing presence. But the world had changed that very day. The mist had lifted, the rain had drifted on its way and now a clean and fresh city shone out around him.

"So no-one saw anything," Flack mumbled to Danny as the CSI bent over the body on the ground.

A body that might almost have been his own nine months ago. A poor soul had been out the night before and had been mugged of his wallet, watch, shoes, smart suit and coat. He lay almost naked on the very spot Flack had found himself lying in that night he'd been nearly mugged by two teens, and he had a sneaky suspicion as to who was responsible for this crime due to that. He no doubt pick them up later on if he did a drive round the area or could possibly ID them from some mugshots.

"It was foggy last night, it doesn't surprise me," Danny replied, not looking at Flack as he plucked a thread off the dead man's boxers using a pair of small tweezers.

"Warm, isn't it?" Flack coughed after a minute of silence.

Danny turned and stared up at him, eyes narrowing cautiously as he surveyed his nervy friend who was struggling to pull off his scarf. His face was a mixture of grim crossed with nothing. An unemotional blankness that had been ever present since the night Aiden had disappeared on them, for the second time. Flack's face was now even more lined with wrinkles of age and weariness. His eyes had faded from the once electric blue they had been so many years ago and now almost seemed grey. He'd once again let his unruly hair grow longer but didn't bother to glue it down with a whole tin of wax and gel each day. And this a man who had always been so careful about his appearance. It saddened Danny to see his dear friend fall even further into despondence.

"You okay?" Danny asked from his place on the ground.

Flack just looked at him coldly but didn't reply. Danny knew why that was, he'd been asking Flack if he was okay about ten million times every single day since that night he'd seen him kissing Aiden. He knew Flack was sick of it, that he wasn't 'fine' as he protested, but also that there was no way the man would open up either. Danny could see him falling, see him sinking into the pits of despair and felt powerless to stop it. He'd tried and tried again, he'd exhausted himself doing so but Flack was lost and it seemed nothing could now pull him back from the brink of self destruction. Danny now almost regretted telling Aiden to stay away, perhaps if he hadn't...

"God, I'm so hot!" Flack grouched as he almost ripped off his scarf with the anger of a great black bear and then tried to push it into a pocket of his jacket.

"Scarves are for wimps anyway," Danny smiled back, attempting to make light of the situation.

"Fuck off, Messer," Flack snapped and then turned on his heel and began pacing away.

"Hey...Flack?" Danny shouted after him, standing up and grimacing as his knees clicked from being knelt on the ground for too long. He was getting old.

Flack's retreating form didn't stop or turn around.

"Flack, what did I say?" Danny yelled. "Come back?!"

He sighed angrily as Flack paced away even faster.

"Fuck's sake," Danny growled and almost kicked out at a nearby tree, refraining from doing so only because he knew it might contaminate the crimescene.

Flack stomped off along the road back the way he had come. He passed the grubby little diner he and Aiden had had coffee in and kept on going. The smell of cheap coffee and cheap burgers invaded his nostrils and he shot a filthy look at the sticky establishment. He heard the leaves crunching underfoot, like the sound of death. The dead leaves fallen from the trees, their dried up and withered bodies lying like corpses on the ground to be crushed by his feet. It was as though their tiny dormant voices screamed with every step he took, as he crushed away their lives, and the noise of the bones disintegrating made him grimace with a wave of nausea. This was no longer purgatory, he'd lived through that, this was a void. Nothing. Emptiness. Where everything came to die. Where nothing survived. And this was where his soul had become stuck.

He missed her.

Flack choked on a gasp of air and realised he'd crossed over to the edge of the river. The sun was reflecting off it, rays dancing over the water's surface and twinkling up at him as if the river was filled with diamonds. Flack stared down at it, mesmerised by its beauty, if he could even call it that. He wasn't entirely sure he saw beauty in anything anymore. The water rippled gently and Flack noticed the small circles that formed where droplets of water and leaves fell down to the surface. It was hypnotic. The light bathed him in a kindly warmth and claimed him, body and soul. It beckoned to him and he felt himself falling, falling down into the light, into its beauty, into the colours... and then he stumbled and felt a painful pull on his shoulder as his hand was grabbed and he fell back. He hit the still damp ground hard and grunted loudly in pain.

"Fuck!" he swore as he sat up and shook his head.

"Fuck? Is that all you can say? What the hell were you thinking?"

"Danny!" Flack said warningly without even bothering to acknowledge the voice. He turned and choked on his next words.

"Not quite," Aiden stated as she returned his gaze.

Flack stared at her for a moment, unable to register any thoughts to voice or words to say. Then he frowned and picked himself up from the ground.

"What the hell are you doing here?" he growled as he brushed bits of crushed leaf from his clothes.

"Can't a girl take a walk in this beauty spot on a warm morning?" Aiden half smiled as she too stood.

Flack stared at her passively and she sighed.

"I've moved back to the city, permanently. So thought I'd take a walk down memory lane," she replied honestly.

"And what memories are there for you here?" Flack snorted derisively.

"You," she replied simply.

Flack stared at her again and though he felt anger bubbling up inside him, felt hurt and betrayal as painful as a knife in the gut he could feel his heart softening. He was pathetic when it came to her. To Aiden.

"There isn't exactly much of me left," Flack said quietly and he turned from her and looked back out across the river. The light danced in his eyes.

"Not if you go jumping into the East River," she said softly and Flack felt her right behind him.

"I didn't jump, I slipped," Flack muttered, though he knew it was unconvincing. Slipped, fell, jumped, thrown himself in...it all ended with the same outcome.

"No, because I was there to pull you back...to catch you," she murmured and Flack felt her arms snake around his waist and hold him tight.

He let her.

"I wouldn't have..." he began to say.

"Yes you would. I know you, Flack. I know what I did to you, how it made you feel..." Aiden drifted off and Flack heard her breathing become louder, become deeper.

"Why did you do it then?" he asked.

"To finish the assignment. We succeeded, Flack. Years and years of work, of living undercover as another identity... it was all worth it. The gang were taken down and we saved so many people."

Flack nodded in reply. He found himself unable to argue with her words. Her work had saved many lives and he was just one against the many. They'd all be dead if she'd stayed for him.

"I'm sorry, Don," she murmured against the back of his neck.

"I know you are," Flack replied.

"Do you?" she asked.

Flack stared out at the water and watched as it almost waved back at him, the ripples becoming slightly deeper and more prominent. The wind had picked up.

"Yes," he said after some time.

"I'm not perfect," she sighed. "I never was, despite what you'd convinced yourself."

"What?" Flack muttered and turned his head to the side to try to see her.

"That night... that night I took you and Danny to that God awful club... I wanted to kiss you," she whispered softly. "I'd been sneaking glances at you all night long and I saw you staring back at me... I so wanted to feel you against my body, to hold you close..."

Flack held his breath and froze as she paused momentarily.

"Those two men...the ones who stopped us... they were my brothers, Flack. Bernard and Fred. I didn't know they were back in the country. They'd been fighting in Iraq and had come home on leave. They'd come to see me, I was going to introduce you but you'd gone when I turned back around..."

"I didn't know," Flack choked.

"It was the last time I saw them too, before I disappeared. Bernie died in Iraq, blown to smithereens and Fred lost his left arm. I saw him yesterday for the first time in years."

Flack choked against his own tears as he felt something wet trickle down the back of his neck.

"It wasn't worth it," she whispered. "Saving lives, taking down the gang... to lose you, to lose Bernie and almost Fred too..."

"You haven't lost me," Flack replied. "I'm right here, aren't I?"

"But you so nearly weren't," she choked.

Flack could hear her sobbing quite clearly now and he turned decisively and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her close.

"I love you, Aiden," he cried as tears fell from his eyes.

"I'm so, so sorry, Flack," she sobbed into his jacket.

"Shhshh," he soothed.

"I'll never leave again," she murmured.

"You're back for good?" Flack asked as he pulled away slightly so he could look into her tear-stained face.

"Yes," she nodded. "I realised there was something I'd left behind. Something that once belonged to me, but doesn't anymore. So I'm gonna work damn hard to get it back."

"I was always yours," Flack stated and then in one step he was next to her, leaning down and their lips met in a tentative kiss.

"I love you, Don," she murmured into the kiss and held him tight.

Flack hugged her close and they kissed again, the passion between them impossible to ignore now. He tasted her essence, and if a person could be lost to another's soul, then it was now. They both felt the electricity that ran between them, their souls melting and melding into one another's, unifying into a single entity as they become one.

Danny smiled to himself as he watched his two very best friends in the whole world finally kissing, finally together and seemingly happy. As they broke apart he crossed the road and grinned at them.

"Hey hey, what's going on here then?" he chortled merrily.

"Danny," Aiden smiled as she turned to face him, Flack never letting her go.

"Hey, Aiden, it's good to see you back," he nodded, apologising with his eyes for telling her to stay away.

"I knew you'd miss me," she grinned back, their obvious banter breaking in at once.

"Not half as much as he did," Danny nodded at Flack.

Aiden half turned and looked up at Flack before turning back to Danny. "That's because he loves me," she replied.

"And you?" Danny asked.

"I love him," Aiden replied happily as Flack hugged her tighter.

"Good," Danny nodded as though they needed his approval in their unity.

"Look at us," Aiden smiled. "The old gang back together."

"Yeah, super three," Danny chuckled as he went to stand next to them and the three of them looked out across the river at the city.

"Just like the good old days," Flack commented.

"You'll have to meet my wife someday," Danny told Aiden.

"I'd love to," Aiden replied.

The three of them stood there for a while, lost in the memories of their past and their friendship. They bantered and laughed together as though nothing had ever happened between them, easily falling back into their old ways. Flack watched as his two best friends chatted excitedly with one another. No. His best friend and his soulmate. The love of his life. It was as it should be and suddenly he felt the constriction and tightness in his chest leaving him. Air swarmed into his lungs and he could breathe. He felt lighter. He felt dizzy but not from nausea or some other malady, he felt drunk, high on life and he closed his eyes. The warm zephyr swam around him and he smiled happily. His soul was being raised from purgatory, it was dancing on the wind and he felt the light of paradise shine through. The light of heaven. He had been finally granted forgiveness.

"You with me, Don?" he heard Aiden ask.

Flack's eyes fluttered open and he looked down at her. Danny was no longer around.

"Always," he smiled.

He felt her soft hand take hold of his and they both smiled, the breeze ruffling their dark hair.

Flack sighed happily to himself as he walked into the bullpen. He'd just got back to the precinct from seeing Aiden at the crimescene and knew his Captain would more than likely be cross for him being gone so long but he didn't care. He had Aiden back and he wouldn't lose her again. He strolled casually over to his desk chair and collapsed into it. The bullpen was bustling with life as usual and Flack glanced around it, smiling at his colleagues as he did so. His eyes fell on Lovato's empty desk and he felt a hint of sorrow; she'd transferred out of the precinct some months ago and they were still waiting on a replacement. Flack knew it was because of him and he should feel ashamed of himself for the way he'd treated her, but they would never have worked and she had made his life a complete and utter hell for the last few months she'd been at the precinct. Bitter and resentful did not suit her well. Flack sighed and then smiled as he thought of Aiden. He couldn't wait for his shift to be over so he could see her again.

"Yo Flack!"

Flack glanced up to see Detective Marchini staring at him.

"Marcs?" Flack muttered questioningly as the large Italian stood next to his desk.

"You seen Lovato's replacement?" Marchini asked as he jabbed a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of Lovato's old desk.

Flack bent his head around the side of the large man and his eyes caught sight of the detective sitting down at the desk. His mouth dropped open... she was stunning. Long dark hair, deep brown eyes that sparkled with mystery and perfectly full lips. She looked up and caught his eye, smiling affectionately at him. Flack grinned happily back at her and then turned back to Marchini.

"Yeah, yeah I have," he nodded and then looked past him again back at Aiden. He didn't understand how she had come to replace Lovato, but he didn't care. All he knew was that he had her back, and what's more back on his team and that meant the world to him.

Their eyes met again across the bullpen and they both smiled, completely and utterly lost in one another as life continued on around them.

Just as it always should have been.

Just how it always would be.

A/N - So that is it. I may carry this universe on at some point with Aiden being alive and with Flack but not for now.

Stories and updates from me will now be mush more sparse I'm afraid as I've taken on a lot more hours at work recently and with two jobs and trying to finish my Masters thesis I have hardly any spare time. I will be updating my Flack and Oscar story every so often but won't be doing anything new for a while except challenges and possibly oneshots as they are easier. I also have my own challenge up 'A Room with Two Characters' if anyone wants to take part in that.