A/N – This story has been inspired by some wonderful classic works of literature and I have actually spent some time re-reading parts of them and have been reminded of just why they are so powerful. That being said this story may well get a bit darker in terms of the exploration of the doctors' motivations and aims. There may well be references to or quotations from these works that you might recognise, so disclaimer I do not own anything, just borrowing and will list these works at the end.

A reminder this story is set in 2011.

Chapter Ten

"Babe...babe..."

Lindsay stirred and woke a little from her dreams.

"Babe..."

Lindsay yawned and then finally opened her eyes, focusing them on the room around her.

"Danny, you're awake," she smiled. "How're you feeling?"

"Hurts everywhere," Danny replied slowly.

"I'll call for the doctor to come see you," Lindsay smiled and then stood and disappeared from the room for a moment. She returned after a minute with Doctor Caramel.

"Mr Messer, good to see you awake," the doctor said.

"So come on, doc, hit me," Danny rasped as Lindsay handed him a cup of water with a straw.

"Well you are a very fortunate young man. When you were brought in you had suffered a deep laceration to your stomach and your left shoulder. We took you straight in to surgery and managed to retrieve the glass and patch you up. Fortunately none of your internal organs were damaged by the glass," Doctor Caramel explained.

"You were so lucky, Danny," Lindsay smiled in relief and squeezed his hand.

"You have, however, fractured three ribs, suffered a mild concussion and soft tissue injury to the back of the neck along with numerous small lacerations and scrapes from the flying glass," Doctor Caramel added.

"Whiplash," Lindsay explained.

Danny smiled at her and then frowned slightly. "Whiplash? I was in a car?"

"Yes, you were chasing Flack..." Lindsay murmured as her smiled quickly dropped.

"I can't remember..." Danny started to panic.

"That's quite natural," Doctor Caramel quickly interjected. "The mild concussion may have affected you memory but that will quickly pass within the next day or so."

"Thank God," Lindsay sighed.

"Well I must be getting back to my other patients; I'll be back round later. The Nurse will be here shortly to run some tests," the doctor said and then left the room.

"So what happened?" Danny quickly asked once he was gone.

"You don't remember anything?" Lindsay asked warily.

"Nothing...wait...Mac, Mac was MIA..." Danny frowned.

"Yes. And you and Jo went to meet a lead, a girl named Sue," Lindsay encouraged.

Danny frowned. "I can't remember."

"She was shot, Danny," Lindsay said sadly. "She died."

"Is Jo okay?" Danny asked worriedly.

"She wasn't hurt," Lindsay said positively.

"And I was chasing Flack?" Danny asked. "Why?"

"Someone took him," Lindsay murmured, holding onto Danny's hand tightly. "We don't know who it was, or where they've taken him."

"Flack's gone?" Danny croaked, his eyes becoming red and wet.

"I'm so sorry, Danny. You tried your best to catch up with the car but a truck hit you and..." she trailed off gesturing to the hospital bed.

"And I lost him," Danny finished.

"It's not your fault!" Lindsay said sternly.

"Was it the same people who took Mac?" Danny asked.

"We think so. Sue said the people who took Mac were after someone else...after Flack, we don't know why yet. I know you and him went up to the institution and got into a fight together. Are you sure no-one saw you?" Lindsay asked.

"I don't know, Linds," Danny murmured. "I don't even remember going there."

Lindsay nodded sadly. "It's okay, Danny. You need to rest."

"And you need to get back to the lab," Danny stated.

"What?" Lindsay asked.

"I'm gonna be fine. The good doctor there said so himself. The team needs you, Linds. You need to help them find Flack and Mac."

"Danny, I'm not sure..." Lindsay tried to say.

"No, Linds. You gotta find Flack. You gotta get him back. He's my best bud...I love him. You have to find him. I'll be fine here," Danny urged, a tear dropping from his eye.

"You're right," Lindsay said as she stood up. "I'll be back as soon as I can and you get someone to call if you need anything, anything at all."

"Only if you call as soon as you find something," Danny replied as he pressed the button for his pain medication.

"I promise," she smiled and went towards the door. "You know I love you, right?"

"More than life," Danny nodded, lying his head back and closing his eyes.

Jo looked round the conference table wearily, attempting to keep a calm and collected demeanour. She could tell just from looking at the others that none of them had slept in the few brief hours she'd sent them home for. She, herself, hadn't bothered leaving the lab but had instead tried to catch forty winks on the couch in her office. It hadn't worked. Her dreams had been plagued with unsettling images and visions. So instead she had got up and got to work on the crushed car that had once belonged to Don Flack. Eventually Adam had mysteriously drifted in spouting some nonsense about a neighbour playing his tuba very loudly so instead of lying in bed awake he thought he'd return to the lab. They'd worked on the car for a few hours and on their return upstairs they'd found Hawkes settled comfortably in the trace lab working on samples collected from the sites of Sue's shooting and Flack's kidnapping. He'd mumbled something about some roadworks going on outside his apartment block and then gone back to his work. Sid had walked past at that moment holding up a clear bag containing the bullet he had pulled out of Sue's body and some fingerprint matches. He'd blushed at being caught working by Jo but had insisted that he couldn't sleep because of the cats caterwauling in the alley below his bedroom window. Now all four of them sat round the conference room table, the remainder of the team, the remnants of what they once were.

"So," Jo said, attempting a smile and failing miserably. "I appreciate all of you being here and working so hard, I want you to know that first of all..."

"Jo," Hawkes interrupted. "You don't even need to say it. I think I speak for us all when I say there's nowhere else we'd rather be."

Sid and Adam nodded their head in consent at the younger doctor's words.

"Thanks," Jo croaked. "So what do we have?" she asked.

Just then there was a tap on the door and Grace Connor entered the room.

"Sorry to interrupt," she apologised. "But since Flack..." she coughed and then turned away. Jo wondered if she was trying to blink a tear away.

"I've taken over this case from him," she stated and then sat down in a chair next to Adam.

"Thank you. We appreciate any input that you can give us," Jo nodded gratefully.

"I may as well start," Sid spoke up. "I've finished the autopsy on the girl Sue. I got a match on her fingerprints to a Susanna Ampleforth."

"Susanna Ampleforth?" Jo murmured.

"Yes," Sid nodded. "She was certainly killed by the bullet which I retrieved and gave to Hawkes."

"Judging from the bullet and the shape of the wound, I matched the gun to a Barrett M98B," Hawkes continued. "However that particular gun was recalled in 2009 due to a defect."

"So they immediately became a weapon that was highly sought after in the black market," Jo concluded.

"Exactly," Hawkes nodded. "There are no records of anyone being registered to own this type of rifle in the State of New York, but of course that doesn't mean that they don't," Hawkes nodded.

"Someone does," Grace murmured.

"And the chances are they obtained it illegally after the gun was recalled," Hawkes said logically.

"Why on earth would anyone want a gun with a defect," Adam sighed.

"Either someone who has a good knowledge of weaponry, or a complete idiot to be sure," Grace snarked.

"So at the moment we have no other leads on the whereabouts of this gun?" Jo asked.

"Nothing," Hawkes replied. "Whoever took that shot was careful. There was absolutely no trace left from where he would have been standing. He obviously knew that there was going to be another distraction on the ground."

"So the shooter and Flack's kidnapper were definitely working together?" Jo asked.

"I would say that was a definite," Hawkes replied. "What did the car bring up?"

"Nothing," Jo said irritably. "It confirmed the story of the truck driver who rammed into it but apart from that we could only find trace of Danny and Flack within it. We also found the crushed remnants of Flack's phone but it's beyond repair."

"I'm still going to have a go at getting anything from it," Adam squeaked.

"Did you have any luck with the old CCTV there?" Grace asked Adam.

"I caught a glimpse of a black SUV Range Rover speeding from the scene and ran the plates. It came back with false ones. I tried to follow it North out of the city but it's a common car..." he drifted off, unable to say that he had lost it. Lost the car that had been carrying Flack.

"But we know it was going North, just as whoever took Mac was," Jo said brightly.

"Where that institution is," Hawkes said bitterly.

"Speaking of which," Grace spoke up. "After Sid sent me Susanna Ampleforth's details I did a little bit of the old digging. She has no known address and the reason we couldn't find her on the staff list for the institution is that she's never been a member of staff. She was actually a patient there between 1997 and 2003."

"Six years that's a long time," Jo murmured.

"She was involved in a robbery the year before she was institutionalised and her prints were taken then, that's how we got the match there," Grace informed them.

"We need to see her medical details and question those doctors that Flack and Mac spoke to," Jo stated severely.

"We need to be careful there," Grace replied. "Flack and Mac both went up there and they're both MIA now."

"Sue said that place was just the start," Jo said, remembering the brief conversation with the girl.

"I'll give them a call now for you," Grace said getting up. "We shouldn't need a warrant for a deceased patient."

"Great," Jo nodded as Grace left the room.

"If I may," Sid interrupted. "She had quite a few old injuries to her body. Most noticeably the skin had been melted from her body and burnt."

"She was in a fire?" Jo asked.

"No. This was done deliberately," Sid said angrily. "There are marks and patterns in the skin that would never be there if an accident had caused it."

"Did she have a number tattooed on her neck?" Adam squeaked.

"Yes," Sid replied. "Eleven."

"A lot lower than our John Doe," Jo murmured.

"Who we still have no lead on," Hawkes muttered.

"Sue may have known him," Jo frowned. "Does she have any family?"

"Only known relative was a mother who died nine years ago," Sid replied, glancing at Sue's record.

"What about the trace you found at the shooting and kidnapping?" Jo asked Adam.

"Nothing. I'm sorry, Jo. We collected everything we could but these guys are good. They're clean."

"They're professional," Hawkes added.

"Just like whomever it is torturing these poor souls," Sid murmured.

"I want those medical records," Jo stated angrily. "That institution has something to do with this. Sue was there, she answered the phone for God's sake only yesterday, how did she manage that? And Flack and Mac were there and everything seems to be pointing us North to its location."

"No can do," Grace interrupted, coming back into the room. "They stored all the records of old patients who had been released in the original asylum which caught fire two years ago. All the records were destroyed."

"They're lying!" Jo stated angrily, standing up. "We need to go over that place with a fine toothcomb, checking every piece of paperwork there is!"

"To be sure we'll never get a warrant," Grace muttered. "Not for a medical facility. We need hard iron proof first and all we have is suspicions."

"But Sue," Hawkes exclaimed. "She was there..."

"And they no longer have her records," Grace interrupted. "Look, I need to get back to the precinct. I'll try on this warrant but I wouldn't get your hopes up there. We just don't have the evidence."

Jo watched Grace leave and then turned back to the team, desperation clawing at her.

"So basically we have nothing?" she said. "No leads to Flack or Mac's whereabouts and no way of finding them."

"Jo," Hawkes murmured.

"I need to think," Jo stated and then turned from the room.

Hawkes, Sid and Adam looked between themselves and sighed. The pressure was getting too much. The desperation was getting too much. They were slowly but surely running out of leads and running out of hope, but most importantly they were running out of time.

"I'll go," Sid murmured as he stood and followed the dark haired woman out of the conference room and towards the office that she shared with the two Messers, both of whom were now absent.

"Jo..." Sid said gently as he came in and sat down next to her on the couch.

"Sid..." she murmured and then leant her head against his shoulder as he put an arm round her.

"We'll find them," he soothed. "I know we will. Mac's strong, so is Flack. They'll be okay."

"We don't know that, Sid. They could be dead for all we know and I'm trying so hard to hold it all together. But I can't lose Mac. Not Mac," she wept.

"You won't," Sid said softly. "We'll get him back. Both of them."

"I'm trying so hard to be strong," Jo choked.

"You are strong," Sid told her.

"No I'm not," Jo said sadly. "I'm supposed to be incharge and I can't... I can't do it. How am I supposed to lead a crumbling team? We're falling apart and I can't stop it."

"Jo, we're stronger than ever," said a kindly voice.

Sid and Jo looked up to see Hawkes and Adam standing in the doorway. It was Hawkes who had spoken.

"Yeah," squeaked Adam as the two men came into the room. "United in disaster that makes us stronger."

"See," Sid smiled. "And I still haven't finished my work on the tranquiliser."

"I can go over Sue's clothes again," added Adam. "It might give us a lead to where she's been staying these past few years?"

"And I'll get back on the plant trace," Hawkes nodded encouragingly.

Jo smiled round at all of them. The team. Her team. Sid was right. They'd get through this. They'd find their two missing friends.

"Did someone call for an extra pair of hands?"

The four team members looked up.

"Lindsay," Jo smiled as Adam went over and hugged her.

"How's Danny?" Hawkes asked.

"He's doing okay," Lindsay replied.

"You should be with him," Jo said worriedly.

"No, my place is here with the team. Danny's going to be okay and I know he's out of the woods. So my place is right here with you guys, making sure we all come through this unscathed and that we find Flack and Mac," Lindsay stated sincerely.

"Well then," Sid smiled. "I suggest some coffee and then we get to work."

A nod of approval went round the room.

Mac was sat up on the edge of his bed, lost in thought as his mind worked to get him and Flack out of their prison. He knew he only had one more shot at getting it right. If his next attempt at escape failed, then Flack would certainly be killed as the Doctor had warned. A small voice in Mac's brain logically stated that the doctor wouldn't want to rid himself of his only bargaining chip to get Mac to cooperate but then again...Mac shushed the small voice. It wasn't worth the risk. Flack might be physically stronger than him but mentally, Mac had his doubts. Not that Flack wasn't a strong minded person, but he lacked the experience that Mac had, the maturity of life, the knowledge from seeing many different cultures and people. Mac could still remember his time as a Marine surviving such hardship on a daily basis, being left without contact for weeks one time when his troop got lost out in the desert. Food and drink had been in short supply, it had been tortuous but he had survived. All the men had. Mac knew he could survive mentally in this place, no matter what Emerson did to him, even if his physical being was tortured. But Flack, the young detective simply didn't have the stamina for that sort of thing and Mac feared for him.

Mac blinked hard as the bright lights shot on in his room and he awaited the inevitable turn of a key in the door lock. Mac turned his head to see Emerson standing there looking pleased with himself.

"567, you will come with me," Emerson ordered.

"Aren't you worried I might attack you again?" Mac asked coldly as he stood and walked out of the room. He was surprised not to see Logan or Thomas there.

"Not really," Emerson stated calmly and Mac felt a burn of anger in the pit of his stomach. The doctor knew he had him over a barrel, knew he wouldn't try anything that might lead to Flack being harmed.

"Why are you doing this?" Mac asked as he followed Emerson down the corridor.

"I will answer none of your questions," Emerson said without looking round. "We will have all the time in the world for that later."

Mac pursed his lips but continued to follow the doctor through the many hallways. As they walked Mac could see where words had been scratched into the surface of the walls, markings that no amount of cleaner could eradicate.

Dream but don't sleep.

Mac swallowed and turned to the other side of the hallway.

I live where you dwell.

"Who write these?" Mac asked realising they were walking deeper into the building, into it's very core.

"No questions," Emerson spat, still not looking round.

Whatever happened to me?

Mac frowned. A good question.

I taste like the dreams of mad children.

The people that resided here were mad. But whether they were made mad or grew mad Mac wasn't sure. He hadn't seen any other inmates so far but there must be others there, they had found one of them in New York. The John Doe must have come from this place. As if to confirm his suspicions a loud scream echoed round the stairwell Emerson and he stepped into it. Mac couldn't tell where it was coming from but it was blood curdling and made a shiver run down his spine. The doctor took him up three floors and out into another corridor. This part of the Asylum was much more run down. There was nothing clinical about it at all and only a few dim lights to show them the way. Just cracked walls and dirty floors and more words.

The Lucifer effect is upon me.

Mac wasn't sure he really wanted to know what the Lucifer effect was.

Death frees us from the feigning of our senses, the tyranny of our passions, the bondage of our desire and the vagaries of thought.

Death was not an escape, at least not for Mac. Freedom, now that was motivation, human rights, and Mac would see to it that all who were kept against their will here would be set free once he and Flack escaped.

And I walk the halls of my own mind ever-searching for the key to my asylum.

Mac stared at that last one until he realised the doctor had stopped walking and was unlocking a door.

"You have an hour. Make the most of it. If you both behave I will consider moving 571 to your ward. My legs dislike the journey up to this place. It is where we keep the most volatile patients," Emerson stated. "If you do anything I dislike you know what will happen, and believe me when I say death is not the worst a human can suffer."

Mac stared coldly at him before entering the small room. The door was slammed behind him and locked and Mac could hear Emerson begin walking away. There was barely any light in the room and Mac waited for his eyes to slowly become accustomed to the dimness. There was a bed, an old iron bedstead and a man. Flack.

"Don," Mac choked as he stumbled his way over to his friend.

"Mac?" he heard Don whisper back.

"Yes. I'm here," Mac replied as he reached the bed and knelt beside it, eyes skimming over Flack and examining his appearance. Even in the dark his blue eyes shone out like two beacons of hope, yet Mac could see past that. All the angry looking welts and sores on his scalp, the bruising on his arms and face and the irritant reddish black marks from the therapy. No doubt he had some himself too.

"You look like shit," Flack murmured, bringing a smile to Mac's face.

"Eloquent as ever," Mac responded. "Naturally you look perfect."

"They took my hair..." Flack muttered sadly.

Mac couldn't help but smirk in amusement. Whatever they had done to him, Flack still had his wit and sarcasm, and right at that moment, that meant the world to Mac.

"So I guess I found you then," Flack coughed.

"Good job," Mac stated, raising one eyebrow.

"Why are we here, Mac? What do they want with us?" Flack asked, tone changed to one of seriousness.

"We dug too deep," Mac murmured, leaving out anything to do with medical experimentation, or harm coming to Flack if Mac didn't obey Emerson.

"Where are we?" Flack asked.

"I don't know. I managed to escape earlier and get away. All I saw was dense woodland as far as the horizon," Mac replied.

"Not that institution then?" Flack coughed.

"I don't think so. There were other buildings close by to that. As far as I can tell this place is in the middle of nowhere," Mac frowned.

"It's North. We tracked your phone signal until it died. You were headed North out of the city," Flack murmured.

"So we could still be in the state of New York," Mac mused. "Or Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont or Maine."

"Or Canada," Flack added miserably.

"No, I don't think we're that far. What time was it last you knew?" Mac asked.

"Two thirty in the morning," Flack replied. "But that was before I was brought here."

"So I would have been missing just under twelve hours," Mac said logically. "With everything that's happened since, I would say we can't be more than five or six hours out of the city."

"You're right that rules out Canada then," Flack said in relief.

"Hartmann was here," Mac frowned as he tried to work everything out.

"That dick from the institution?" Flack muttered.

"Yes," Mac nodded.

"I knew that place was connected. You sure we're not there?" Flack asked.

"Positive," Mac replied.

"They gonna do to us what they did to that John Doe?" Flack asked and Mac couldn't help but hear the fear that laced his voice.

"No, Don. No they won't harm you," Mac stated firmly.

"You can't be sure of that," Flack replied and his voice cracked.

"I won't let them," Mac murmured as he reached out and gently touched Flack's arm. The detective didn't flinch.

"Why do I get the feeling I should have paid more attention when I watched One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest?" Flack murmured, a half-hearted attempt at a joke.

"I don't think you really want to know what happens at the end of that film," Mac murmured in reply.

"Jack Nicholson, wasn't it?" Flack asked.

"Yes," Mac nodded. "The performance of a lifetime, they said."

"I fell asleep, missed the end," Flack muttered.

Mac smirked in amusement. "Bit deep?" he asked.

"Nah, there were just hardly any hot chicks in it," Flack mumbled. "And I was eighteen."

"It won five Oscars, Don," Mac chuckled.

"Hey wasn't Jack Nicholson's character called Mac?" Flack asked smiling and then he coughed.

Mac smiled back at Flack thinking and then nodded. "Yes. Yes he was. McMurphy."

"Hey Mac?" Flack's voice interrupted Mac's thoughts.

"Hmm?"

"Why can't I feel my body?"

The smile immediately fell from Mac's face.

"It'll just take a while for the sensation to return to your limbs, Don," Mac stated confidently, hiding his worry.

"Did they really electrocute me?" Flack whispered.

Mac didn't answer, he couldn't, the truth was far too terrifying. Instead he sat up on the bed next to Flack and pulled the younger man's head into his lap.

"We'll get through this, Don, I promise," he murmured. "I promise."

Mac held Flack tight and his thoughts drifted. He saw a smiling face, beautiful dark eyes, joyous laughter. He saw Jo. His Jo. His beautiful Jo. And he had hope.

A/N – If anyone finds it unbelievable that Danny should survive this accident, I refer them to episode 6x18 'Rest in Peace Mariana Garito' where a truck crashes into Stella's car, flips it twice and she is absolutely fine. I watched that episode before I wrote the chapter eight and then based my car crash on that simply because I have no idea about car crashes and wanted to get it accurate.