Disclaimer: CSI NY and its characters belong solely to CBS and Jerry Bruckheimer.

Note: Cases featured in my fanfic are actual cases in the show...

Episode references/spoilers: #1.17 - "The Fall"

Detective Don Flack walked briskly through the halls of the crime lab, eagerly awaiting lab results of evidence collected just hours ago, where a wine store owner was shot in cold blood by three gang-bangers.

"Stella!" he called out and she turned around to greet him.

"Hey, Flack. Ballistics and fingerprint results should be out soon. I'm gonna go check on them. Could you be a dear and buy me a cup of strong coffee? Our break room coffee stinks," Stella told him, as she started to push him towards the exit of the building. "Get yourself some coffee too. My treat," she winked at him and headed towards the Ballistics lab.

A few hours before…

The crime scene was an upscale wine store situated in the Bronx. The owner had been shot twice in the back, and managed to describe his attackers to the first responding officer on the scene, Sgt. Gavin Moran. "Go back and talk to the bodega owner. Be nice,"

"Can't tell when the blood ends and the wine begins," Moran quipped, as Detective Mac Taylor and Detective Stella Bonasera entered.

"Actually, you can. The scarcity and color are different," Stella replied.

"Scientists." Moran countered, as she smirked and started to take photos of the scene. He reported that the store owner managed to identify his attackers as three teenagers, and two of them were armed. The paramedics came two minutes too late, he had already passed away. In addition, there was a witness who saw the three teens running off on foot. With that, Mac and Stella then began to analyze the scene: swabbing samples of blood and wine, collecting casings fired from nine-millimeter guns, all the while taking care not to get cut by pieces of glass scattered about on the floor. Mac suspected that one of them might have been cut by one of the wine bottles, while "showing off".

"Bingo." Stella spotted a disposable lighter, probably used by the suspect and promptly began to fume the surface for prints, and got a couple.

"Double bingo," Mac added, as he pointed to a surveillance camera on the wall above them. It had been shot at by the suspects, but it was connected to a computer, and they could try and restore the video to see what exactly happened. Meanwhile, Sgt. Moran headed outside with his partner, a rookie, to see if they could find anything else. Just as he was reminding the rookie on the importance of their flashlight and extra batteries, Flack appeared.

"Remember all the lessons, rookie. This guy likes pop quizzes." Flack was under his charge for four years when he was just starting out in the NYPD. Even though the young detective was now higher in rank, he never lost respect for his former mentor, for he had learnt many lessons from him. Till this day, Flack still recalls the old times while they were on patrol, how Moran would constantly remind him of everything under the sun. "Always be alert and prepared. Call for back-up if you need to, don't try to be a hero, you could get killed," were the basis of some of Moran's daily anecdotes.

After Stella came out of the store to fill him in about the two armed teenagers and caliber of casings found at the scene, Flack and Moran immediately deduced that the guns would probably have been discarded right after they left the store, and began to head west. Guessing that alleys would be the most likely dump site, they both snapped on latex gloves and began going from alley to alley.

"Too clean. Too many windows,"

Flack and Moran came to an alley which they thought would be the best place to dump a gun unseen. Splitting up, Moran entered the alley to check out the area while Flack headed for the next alley, deducing that one of them would have dumped the gun in the first alley, and the other would follow suit in the next alley. Their efforts paid off, and both the guns were successfully recovered. Now all they had to do was process the guns, get a match and case solved. Or so Flack thought.

XXX

"Where the hell is he? Told me to be here but he's nowhere to be found…" A young woman of 22 mumbled to herself as she shuffled along the halls of the crime lab, looking for someone. Turning her head this way and that in search of that person, she failed to notice Flack approaching her line of sight. Flack too, did not notice her, for he was barking out orders to uniformed officers at the crime scene via his radio. By the time he realized someone was in his way, he did not manage to stop in time to warn her, and resulting in a head-on crash with the young woman. After she practically walked into his chest, the only thing Flack was aware of was the scent of her hair. He was towering over her with his 6' 2" frame, and she was a whole head shorter than him. Right now, all he could see was the top of her head, but his mind was already wandering.

'I wonder what she looks like. God, her hair smells so nice.'

Only one second had gone by, but Flack's mind had already gone into slow motion mode. "Oh! I'm so sorry. Are you alright?" His dazed look worried her for a moment, but he managed to return to reality and muttered a soft "yeah". She then apologized again, before taking off in a quick walk. He found himself staring after her; at her long, chestnut brown hair, her petite figure…when the thought came that he should have asked for her name. "Damn!" he cursed, gazing at her as she passed through the corridor in search of someone. She stopped in her tracks and turned around abruptly, which made Flack jump. She started to walk towards him and he felt his heart thumping so loudly, it felt as if the whole lab could hear it. He could go around kicking down doors yelling "NYPD!" all fiercely, but there was just something about this girl that made Flack go weak in the knees.

"Excuse me, do you know where Danny Messer is?"

this is my first try at a CSI NY fanfic, so please read and review! thank you!