numba 1 CSI lover - Thank you so much! i'm glad you stuck it out and that you enjoy it. And I need to write some more fluff - it's fun to write and I feel like I haven't written any ages!

kabwnb - Hey, I'm not complaining if that's the reason you read it - I'm just glad that you've enjoyed it! The bit that worries me, is that whilst I finally have an end in mind, it's ages away - I think my baby is just going to keep on growing!

The Corrupter - How's Canada treating you? I'm glad you're still reading. I don't know what I'm doing with her - I haven't actually thought that far in advance. I know I'm not finished with her (I need to wrap a few things up)

Lozzarooni - Did you work out where you were up to, or did you have to read everything again? I hope you've enjoyed it the second time around, as well as the new chapters!

Aphina - Hey, don't worry about it. I dread to think how far behind I am on all the reading I need to do! Lol, that's what I thought, which I hadn't thought of at the time - so I wonder what to do with that!

demolished-soul - I'm glad someone does! I hope it doesn't get too confusing! Yes, Marty is staying. He's going to finish out his teaching stint, and then he's coming back (which, storyline wise, will be after Christmas!) Cory will be back too, to wrap some loose ends - other than that, I haven't thought further ahead!

sparkyCSI - You have no idea how much this chapter confused me too. I finished DJing early (what a boring wedding party!) and figured it was time to update! And they did win the game!

RK9 - I used to love that show, but I haven't seen it in ages! I've gone off that pairing, and when I eventually get around to season 4, I may follow the show and write her out - it depends on if I can find my love for her!

meadow567 - well, I hope you get some vacation time (if you haven't already had it since I last posted!). I started reading the one with Marie in, then I stopped because I still haven't seen Miracle - which I know I really need to do - but at one of the jobs, I started reading again. (I'm only up to her going on a date with simon, though) Although I have no idea who the characters are. Yeah, I need to get that on DVD!

laplandgurl - cinnamon rolls are a no no (I'm allergic!!) My ideas went a little wacky with this eppy, but hopefully it will all make sense (:s)

Okay, so this is where it might get confusing. Hopefully not though!

What The Eyes Can't See

Chapter 190: I'm going slightly mad

The wind howling around outside the window was what woke Taylor up. She rolled over, reached for the alarm clock, and then sent that crashing to the floor.

Taylor stared at the clock on the floor, completely confused as Marty came crashing into her room.

'What happened?' Marty asked, looking around, as though expecting someone to be in there with her.

Taylor gave him a puzzled look. 'I knocked my alarm off again,' Taylor told him, pointing at the incriminating object. 'I did the same thing yesterday and you still came bounding in like there was someone else in here with me.' She glanced down at Flack's side of the bed and sighed. 'Has Don come home yet?'

Marty returned the confused look. 'He left about an hour ago. He won't be back until after the parade.'

'Oh,' Taylor frowned.

'Are you alright?' Marty asked her.

Taylor nodded slowly. 'I think I had a weird dream.'

'Are you still having those?' Marty asked her. 'Flack said you hadn't been sleeping recently. Still, by the way?' he asked her, cocking his head.

Taylor pulled herself out of her bed and grabbed her robe. 'Yeah, still,' she muttered as she tied it around her. 'What day is it?'

'Thanksgiving,' Marty told her. 'You know – you asked me to come around.'

'To teach me to cook,' Taylor muttered slowly.

Marty frowned. 'I think the deal was to save everyone else. I'm not sure I promised delivering a miracle.'

Taylor frowned and headed to her wardrobe, pulling out a pair of combats.

'Drew, if you want to get dressed, which is an excellent idea, by the way, can you please do it without me in the room.' Marty cocked his head. 'Actually, ignore that request. Go ahead. Get changed.'

Taylor ignored him, her hand pulling out the dime anklet. 'I am having a serious case of déjà vu,' she muttered. She turned to Marty. 'I need to go out.'

'Taylor, we need to get the turkey in the oven otherwise it won't be ready for when everyone comes around this afternoon.'

Taylor looked at him with a small frown on her face. 'Put it in the oven after it's been basting for half an hour, set the oven to 395F and it will be ready before the Jets game starts,' she told him as she began pulling her hair into a pony tail.

Marty's frown deepened. 'Since when did you learn how to cook a turkey?'

'Today,' Taylor muttered, pushing him out of the bedroom so she could throw her clothes on. He was still standing outside the door when she emerged, barely seconds later.

'Where are you going?'

'To check if I've lost my mind,' Taylor muttered.

Marty followed her down the stairs. 'I know a-'

'I am not seeing a departmental shrink,' Taylor yelled as the front door slammed shut behind her.

Marty stared at the door – an unimpressed look upon his face. 'How did I know I'd be the one cooking?' he muttered. 'You'd best be back for the Jets game!' he yelled at the closed door.

--

Circumnavigating the city to avoid the parade traffic was a little harder than Taylor expected. She managed it, going out of the way to come back in, and by the time she arrived, she was beginning to wonder if she had actually gone way past mad.

The crime lab was surprisingly empty. Taylor frowned. Or maybe it wasn't – if it was Thanksgiving again.

'Taylor?'

Taylor turned, spotting Mac. 'Mac,' she responded, walking over.

'I'm glad you're here,' Mac told her, his expression grim as he led her into his fishbowl office.

Taylor sat down. 'Okay, I didn't get arrested yesterday for murdering someone else, and nobody died.' She looked up. 'Nobody died, did they?'

Mac gave her a puzzled look, but shook his head. 'No, it's about Special Agent Reid.'

'I thought I'd been cleared of everything,' Taylor cried.

Mac nodded. 'You have, and it's not about that, exactly.'

'Exactly?' Taylor questioned.

'She may have approached it in the wrong way, but she made a perfectly valid point. Ghosts or not, you shouldn't be wandering around this lab, and you certainly shouldn't be at crime scenes. I should have put a stop to it months ago, Taylor, but I'm going to have to request that you empty that locker you acquired, and you are not to go further than the reception area.'

Taylor leant forward, pacing her hands together, almost as if she was praying, as she brought her lips against her index fingers. 'I guess I probably should have seen that one coming a while back. And I get that you don't believe in ghosts. Which is why this is going to seem completely crazy. But I know who killed the girl who has no eyelids.'

Mac stared at her. 'What did you say?'

'Oh crap,' Taylor muttered as she raked her hands through her hair. 'Um, Coney Island. The girl you found all wrapped up.'

'How do you know about her eyes?' Mac demanded.

'I didn't kill her!' Taylor suddenly cried, her eyes growing wide. 'I just, oh God. It was Dobson. Clay Dobson.'

Mac was on his feet and striding out of his office in an instant.

'Oh crap,' Taylor repeated as she scuffled to her feet and charged after him.

--

'Mac? You're a little early. I hadn't-' Sid greeted Mac as he stormed into the morgue.

'Has she had her eyelids removed?' Mac asked him.

Sid slowly shook his head. 'I haven't finished processing the rest of her body yet, Mac, never mind cutting the tape off her face.'

'Do it,' Mac ordered him.

Sid, slightly puzzled at his tone of voice, nodded and picked up the scissors.

'I hope you're wrong about this,' Mac told Taylor.

'So do I,' Taylor muttered.

'I haven't checked the tape for visible prints,' Sid added as he began cutting.

'Just cut the tape off, Sid.'

Sid nodded and continued cutting before carefully peeling the paper back in two halves.

'Oh God,' Taylor muttered, covering her mouth with her hand as she dashed to the sink. She returned to the table, keeping a few paces back so she didn't have to see the woman's face again. She was trying to stop the world from spinning when Mac whirled on her.

'How did you know?'

Taylor swallowed. 'Would you believe me if I said this is the second same Thanksgiving I've had?'

Mac looked at her like she had lost her mind. 'No.'

'Excuse me?' Sid asked, slightly confused.

Taylor stared at the coroner, before clearing her throat. 'Sorry – too much of that festive cheer already,' she muttered, rubbing at her cheek, unable to take her eyes away from the dead woman's face.

'Mac, these incisions are precise and clean. The instrument was sharp. No abrasions.' Sid frowned. 'It could be a scalpel.' Sid leaned in and examined the eyes closer. 'Worst part is it was done pre-mortem. The guy was a real sicko.' Sid looked between Mac and Taylor. 'And yet neither of you seem surprised.'

Mac sighed. 'I've seen this before. We locked up a guy five years ago; Clay Dobson. He used the same signature.'

'That's a highly unusual one. You think we could be looking at a copy cat here?'

'No, Mac replied, shaking his head. 'Dobson was released from prison.'

--

Taylor was pacing up and down in reception, trying to remember anything she could from yesterday. Or today. She still wasn't sure. The problem was, Mac wasn't being receptive in helping her (he didn't believe her, which was understandable considering she didn't really believe it either).

Her phone rang making her start. She pulled the vibrating object out of her pocket and hit answer. 'Hi Don,' she sighed.

'Taylor, where are you?'

'I'm in the reception of the Crime Lab.'

'… Why?'

'It's nothing important,' she muttered.

'Tay, what's wrong?'

'Nothing,' she lied. Taylor shut her eyes and sighed. 'Alright. Something. I think I need your help.' There was silence from the other end. 'Don?' she asked uncertainly.

'Give me half an hour and I'll be there. And thank you.'

'For what?'

'For asking for help,' he told her.

--

'Is there a reason you're in Reception?' Flack asked as he walked over to Taylor.

Taylor looked up from her position on the plastic leather chair and nodded. 'Mac has revoked any access I had to the lab. I'm restricted to Reception unless accompanied by a member of staff.'

Flack looked surprised. 'And you're listening to him?'

Taylor nodded. 'Don, I think I'm going insane.'

'Just because that quack therapist laughed at you does-'

Taylor quickly shook her head. 'Yesterday, I woke up, I cooked Thanksgiving dinner, and Mac killed a cuffed suspect.'

Flack crouched down in front of her. 'Are you alright?'

Taylor shook her head. 'Yes. No… I don't know, Don. I really think I've lost my mind,' she told him, genuinely scared.

Flack frowned, pulling himself into the chair next to her. 'You're going to have to explain this a little better.'

'Yesterday was Thanksgiving, and you got called out to a case. There was a body at Coney Island – a woman wrapped in saran wrap.'

'That was this morning,' Flack told her. 'Not yesterday.'

'It was yesterday as well,' Taylor told him. 'You came home last night and told me that you had arrested Mac for shooting a suspect who was handcuffed.'

'Mac wouldn't kill someone unless it was in defence, Taylor.'

'I know,' Taylor told him, a hint of desperation in her voice. 'I know that – that's what I told you. But you said that Clay Dobson-'

'Clay Dobson?' Flack asked, his eyes suddenly flashing stormy blue.

Taylor nodded, suddenly feeling a little scared. She had little chance for much else when Flack was up on his feet, storming into the lab.

'Don!' she called. She looked helplessly at his rapidly disappearing body, and then, figuring it was a close to being supervised as it could be, took off after him.

'Mac. You said you did the right thing when you put Detective Truby away,' Flack was saying as Taylor slipped in through the door.

Mac's eyes flicked over to Taylor before returning to Flack. 'Truby was dirty,' he told him calmly.

'But because you locked him up, Clay Dobson's conviction was overturned.'

Mac nodded. 'That's on Truby's head – not mine.'

'There was no forensic evidence,' Flack told him, clearly frustrated. 'No witness in the case, Mac. Dobson's conviction rested solely on the confession he gave Truby.'

'I know the case, Don,' said Mac, who was also becoming frustrated. 'What's your point?'

'Has Dobson killed again?'

Mac pursed his lips. 'I have a body killed with the same MO as Dobson.'

'That doesn't bother you a little bit?' Flack asked him, a combination of horrified and surprised.

'The way I feel has never affected the way I do my job,' Mac replied coldly.

'My weakness, I guess,' Flack muttered. 'But every hood Truby has ever convicted is going to be angling for a get out of jail free pass. Clay Dobson was just the first in line.'

'Are you having a good time saying I told you so?'

'No,' Flack cried. 'I gave you my case book and without it you wouldn't have been able to lock Truby up.'

'That was my responsibility,' Mac told him, firmly. 'You did the right thing – let it go. Let me take the hit.'

Taylor stared between the two of them. 'So what are we going to do about Clay Dobson?' she asked, trying to disperse some of the tension in the room.

'We're going to put him away for good this time,' Mac replied, all whilst never taking his eyes off Flack.

One day, I shall learn that working two 37 hour jobs is not good for me. Especially when I hate one of them more than Flack hates running. I don't know what's happening with my updates at the moment. I am writing, but I've gotten ahead of myself, so immediate chapters aren't completely there. Bear with me, please!