Disclaimer: I do not own CSI:NY. I wish I did.
Summary: Danny Messer's life is in danger. The past even he had forgot isn't a secret anymore, neither is the future he doesn't want to embrace. Danny/Don friendship.
Warning: Rated for violence. May contain mature references.
CSI Danny Messer stood there, in the far corner of the interrogation room, observing while homicide detective Don Flack Jr. questioned the woman they found unconscious in their latest crime scene. He couldn't tell exactly why, not at this point, anyway, but Ms. Zamena Berger gave him the creeps. He didn't want to talk to her. He felt a bad vibe coming from her... no, she wasn't a bad person, he could see that, he doubted she was the killer... nonetheless, his instincts were telling him that if he talked to her, she would say something that would set in motion some change in their lives... his life... something that would affect him forever... maybe it was the eerie way she looked at him when he finally managed to wake her up in the crime scene, when he went to examine her body and found her pulse beating slowly instead, so faintly he almost missed it... or maybe it was the way she now kept looking at him every couple of minutes, opening her mouth and closing it again, as if wanting to say something... this and the fact she self-proclaimed herself some sort of seer.
He remembered that moment in the crime scene when he hurriedly took off his gloves to feel her pulse again, thinking he was imagining things... they told him she was dead, for God's sake, he was there to process her corpse, this wasn't happening... and even though his mind puzzled over these things, his skin perceived very clearly her heartbeat getting stronger, until it steadied itself...
"So, you're telling me that you saw, ahead of time, that the flower shop girl, Vanessa Surkith, would be killed? You went there to warn her?", Flack was asking, sarcasm dripping in his voice.
"Yes and no... I went there to buy flowers... when I was getting my orchid, I touched her hand and saw her being stabbed. It's like a flash, a blurred vision, I can't see faces, really... but I could sense that it'd happen soon.", answered Zamena.
"If you can't see the faces, how do you know it was her being murdered?", Flack sneered.
"I feel it. I don't know how to explain it... It just happens sometimes. I touch people and see bad things happening to them... from their point of view, so in fact I see those things happening to me... It's extremely unpleasant, as you can imagine. It's always something bad. And sometimes I see the past too...", Zamena continued, looking fleetingly at Danny again, opening and closing her mouth once more.
"So, let me see if I understand... If I asked you to touch my hand, you'd see my future?", scorned Flack.
"I might see your future... or your past... or I might not see anything at all... I told you, it doesn't happen all the time... anyway, you wouldn't wanna know, I never see good things...", she explained.
"And you're telling us that... why? I mean, I suppose that if it happened to me, I would lie about it... Wouldn't want people looking at me funny...", Flack said, trying to look like he was believing in her and failing miserably.
"Because you asked for the fuckin' truth! If you want me to lie, I can come up with a good 'believable' story!", she spat, losing her patience.
"Okay, okay, don't get all worked up... so... let's go back. You saw your vision thing and then did what? Told her?", Flack asked, in what he thought was a soothing voice.
"No, I don't tell anyone anymore. It doesn't matter what I do or say, it never changes. There's no point making the person suffer beforehand.", she replied mournfully. "I was leaving the shop when I brushed a guy in my way out. And then I saw it...", Zamena trailed off, tears appearing in her eyes.
"What did you see?", Flack asked curiously.
"I had a flash of him stabbing her. It never happened before. Usually I see whatever happens to the person that I touch, not the bad thing the person I touch is going to do... it was so intense - the hatred he was feeling - that I sort of died from the pain it caused me.", she finished.
"You died?! Touching a guy's arm?! And now you're here, talking to me?", mocked Flack.
"Yeah, I could see things from above, suspended in middle air, linked by a thread to my body, floating like a balloon... I saw him kill her and flee from the shop, taking the knife with him... wait... yeah... I saw him flinch a little when he stabbed her, he brought his finger to his mouth and sucked a bit... what is gross because he had her blood all over his hand... but maybe it means he cut himself while killing her... I saw...", her voice died away when she saw Danny flip open his cellphone and hit speed dial.
"Sid?... Messer. Have you washed my vic yet?... Good, good. Look, can you swab the stab wound? There's a possibility the perp cut himself and bleed a little, mixing his blood with hers... Hope it's not compromised or the amount too little to test DNA... Oh, you've already done it?... Great. Thanks... No, it'll still take a while here but I'll come down ASAP... Okay, will do.", Danny finished, noticing that she had stopped talking and Flack was looking at him with his "I-don't-believe-that-you-believe-in-all-this-bullshit" face. Wordlessly, Danny motioned her to continue.
Slightly taken aback by the fact that someone actually believed in her, she continued: "What I was saying?... Oh, yeah... I saw the uniformed police officer arrive, check me and her for vitals, grabbing our wrists. We were dead, he said so in his radio. Then, a while later, I saw you two and the others arrive, talking about the weather and its effect on crime rates or something like that... the other guy, the older one, crouched next to the flower girl's body while snapping his gloves on... and he..." - she said, jerking her thumb in Danny's direction - "... grabbed my wrist to examine my fingers, I suppose... and then he released it fast, took his gloves off and touched my neck... and then I felt like being pushed back to my body... I suppose it happened because he touched me."
"Yeah, Messer has this effect on girls, even dead ones...", Flack mocked, throwing a taunting look at Danny, who shifted tensely in his chair, not in the least looking amused.
"Anyway, got a good look at the killer when you brushed past him?", Flack asked nonchalantly, trying to mask his worry about the fact that Danny failed to scowl at his joke.
"Not really. Didn't see his face then and, later on, I was seeing him from above, so... All I can remember is that he was white, about 6 feet tall, dark brown hair, wearing a black jacket and blue jeans.", Zamena said.
"Okay. Have anything else to say?", Flack prompted, standing up, knowing she wasn't the killer, certain she dreamt it all while she was out cold.
Zamena's eyes fell on Danny, weighting if she should tell him that she saw his past, all the hell that he had endured, even the events his mind decided to forget in order to preserve itself... and, more importantly, if she should tell him she saw his future, the heartbreaking vision of these past events coming back and all the suffering that would yet befall him... She decided she had to say something but couldn't bring herself to do it. Then, instead, she stated: "Thank you for saving me. Not everyone would be able to do it.". As his eyebrows raised in question, she continued: "You have a strength that took you through a lot and hopefully will carry you through what's still to come. Your living force brought me back. Thank you."
She could tell that he knew that she saw something and was afraid to know what. She felt bad, tainted for bringing such distress to his already damaged life. "Can I go?", she asked, turning to Flack.
Flack saw Danny nod almost imperceptibly. "Yeah, we'll contact you if we need anything else. Just let us know if you're leaving town, you're still a witness and we might need to talk to you again... and if you want to talk to a counselor, you know, about what happened, he's a good one.", Flack said, handing her a business card.
She nodded, got the card while standing up, walked to the door and paused. Looking back at Danny's form, now sitting with his head in his hands, she said: "I'm really sorry. You don't deserve this."
And, with that, she left, leaving only dreadfulness inside him.