Roses and Thorns

Fandom: CSI:NY

Author: Kimmychu

Rating: FRT

Pairings: Flack/ Hawkes, Danny/Flack, Danny/Lindsay, Mac/Stella

Content Warning: Goes AU after episode 3x19. Oh, and the story has this thingy called angst.

Spoilers: Pretty much every major episode in the show, and since this is a sequel to my story, RNA and DNA, spoilers for that too.

Summary: He pauses for an instant, then chokes out the most excruciating words he'll ever say, "You made your choice, and so have I, Danny. Whatever the hell there was between us … it's over." A multiple-ship story including Flack/Hawkes, Danny/Flack, Danny/Lindsay and Mac/Stella.

Disclaimer: You see, the cast on the show are actually clones. The real people are right here in my closet! Why yes, my closet is humongous!

( Oooo …... oooO )

Author's Notes: Whoa, I really didn't expect the final installment to be this long. My apologies for keeping anyone waiting for this final update, I've been very busy. I mentioned posting a long commentary at the end of the story, but I think I'll just post it over at my CSI:NY LJ instead (It's linked in my profile page). Just go to the Memories section and look for Fanfic: Roses and Thorns. It'll have a great deal of information in relation to the story, including links and pictured and commentary on all the characters in the story. As always, thank you so much for reading the story. I appreciate your reviews!

( Oooo …... oooO )

x. "Until you feel it all around you ..."

Stella's green eyes are as big and beautiful as ever.

"So, I'd be in the lab, and you'd come in with a hotdog in your mouth -"

Flack chuckles and playfully retorts, "Hey, nothin' wrong with that! Big boy like me, gotta eat a lot! And I still eat hotdogs from street vendors, ya know."

Stella widens her eyes in mock horror. "And you're still alive!"

Flack laughs again, and tightens his arm around her shoulders.

"C'mon, Stell, they're not so bad."

"Yeah, that's because you've never seen them under a microscope."

"That's your field of expertise. I'm just the guy who goes 'round interviewin' people and collarin' perps while I'm at it."

"Riiight. Says the man who has his own office now and an NYPD Medal of Honor under his belt."

"Nah, I leave it at home in a drawer. What's under my belt, now that's really one of a kind," Flack drawls, waggling his eyebrows.

Stella laughs so hard that she throws her head back in her merriment. Her tuneful laughter is contagious, and soon, he's snickering along with her, their faces crinkled by their smiles and their heads touching.

This is really nice, Flack thinks to himself as they sit together in front of his desk in his office at his precinct. Just like the old times.

He and Stella are seated in individual chairs that he placed side by side so they can converse without his desk between them. He enjoys being close to Stella anyway; she's like the older sister whom he never had, someone he can talk to, someone who will always be there when it is his turn to seek comfort in a great, loving heart.

"Just like old times, isn't it?" Stella murmurs after a while, as if she'd read his mind. "We'd be sitting like this in the break room at the labs, with Mac and Hawkes, and we would just … talk."

"Yeah."

Flack doesn't say anything more. The nostalgic smiles on his lips and Stella's are already speaking for them.

It is stupefying and almost frightening how rapid time has passed. It only seems like yesterday that he was a mere third grade homicide detective, working together with a team of CSIs who would become his closest friends in the long run. To be honest, he'd been rather hesitant about working with CSIs at first; once his rookie years were through, he had hoped to move to the narcotics department instead. Command drug raids, apprehend drug dealers, wipe out drug rings, action like that.

Then, he met CSIs Mac Taylor and Stella Bonasera, and they helped to amend his preconception of crime scene investigators.

And then, he met another CSI called Danny Messer, and he never, ever thought about leaving homicide again.

"You remember that time when Mac choked on a piece of bak choi?"

Flack sniggers. "Yeah, I sure do. You performed a … whachacallit? A Heimlich maneuver on him." His snickers grow louder. "That was awesome."

"The funniest bit to me was the look on Hawkes' face when the vegetable shot out of Mac's mouth and - and -"

Stella can't even finish her sentence due to her laughter.

Upon recollecting what happened after that, Flack laughs so much that his side throbs. Oh damn, he remembers that occurrence like a high-definition DVD film. It had happened just months before Mac was shot in the chest. There they were in the break room, having Chinese take out for dinner after a long albeit satisfying day of arresting perps for their crimes. Their success must have gotten to Mac because the guy was chattering all evening about his past experiences in the Marines. Nobody complained, though. An open, loquacious Mac was akin to discovering the fountain of youth in the center of the North Pole. A freaking miracle to be savored all the way.

Mac was going on about how he and his Marine teammate Jon had literally caught some insurgents with their pants down during an invasion in Beirut. Half-way through his very avid narration, Mac started to make really weird, choking noises. Everyone assumed it was all part of Mac's storytelling of how the rebels were being strangulated during the attack, till Mac was smacking himself on the chest with very real franticness.

Stella was behind Mac in a split second, slapping his back in an attempt to help him cough out whatever was blocking his throat. When that didn't work, Stella quickly wrapped her arms around Mac's midriff with her hands held together under the man's diaphragm. One, two exerts of pressure and a large, green piece of mashed vegetable went shooting out of Mac's gaping mouth.

Straight at Hawkes' face.

The splatting sound once it hit Hawkes on the nose and cheek was what did Flack in. He wound up laughing so hard he couldn't move at all to retrieve tissue papers for Hawkes, and it didn't help that Stella was laughing too and Mac was trying not to cough his lungs out and laugh at the same time. Hawkes, in his natural good nature, simply peeled the vegetable off his face and burst into laughter along with everybody in the room.

It'd taken forever for the hilarity to die down.

"See, that's what you get for talking with your mouth full," Stella had said with a smirk to a very red-faced Mac. She pinched one of his cheeks and then affectionately stroked the side of his face.

Flack pinpoints that precise moment as the moment Mac fell in love with Stella. He saw it in the way Mac's hazel eyes suddenly widened, and the way the man's mouth slackened in momentous epiphany.

Oh, the guy didn't wholly know it at the time, just like Hawkes had no clue he'd fallen in love with Angela, but Flack knew.

And so did Stella, over time.

"It's strange, you know," Stella murmurs some time later, clasping his hand and leaning her head against his cheek and the side of his jaw. "One minute, we were all sitting there, eating and laughing together, and the next … Mac's on a hospital bed with hundreds of tubes going in and out of his body, a giant hole in his chest."

Flack rubs her nearest forearm gently. He had been there at the hospital with her, while Mac underwent the emergency operation that lasted for hours and hours. Mac clinically died on the operating table twice, but the bastard was tough and made it through. Mac was out like a light most of the time thanks to all the painkillers and sedatives being pumped into his injured body.

It was Stella who'd suffered every moment of pain. Hers had been in the chest too, except it was a very different sort of pain.

"That's the thing about the job, isn't it? You don't think about getting wounded or dying, until it really happens to you, or someone whom you really care about," Stella continues in a quiet voice.

Flack pats her hand between his own. He understands where she's coming from, though in his case, he was the injured party. After the diner shooting, he'd been sped off to the hospital to get his gunshot wounds treated, drugged up to the eyeballs, blood splattered front and back all over his clothes. He had lost so much blood, he would have been done for had he arrived at the ER five minutes later than he did. And after all this time, he's yet to forget the way Hawkes' brown eyes were glistening in overt worry, or that Hawkes was at his bedside the whole day and night, having never once left him.

"The good news is, whatever doesn't kill us just makes us stronger," Flack says.

He senses Stella squeeze his hand once. Yes, she understands where he's coming from too. He, of all people, would know how it feels to have looked death in the eye and then survive to tell about it.

"And hey, everythin' turned out good for you and Mac in the end," he adds. "You're married, you guys have a new life together, Mac's doin' great with his job, you have a son, and now … you've got number two comin' along soon."

"Yes." Stella touches her slightly rounded belly, a softhearted smile brightening her whole face. "I hope it's a girl this time."

"Boy for you and a girl for Mac, huh?"

Stella's broad smile is more than enough of an answer to his inquiry.

A contented silence fills the room for a few minutes. Flack stares at the intertwining of his fingers with Stella's, and thinks about the last time his hand had been held like this. It'd been by a different person with different physical traits, but the love within that person exists inside this magnificent woman holding his hand too.

Love isn't blind, Flack ruminates, it's just real smart at knowing what to overlook and what not to.

Under the bright afternoon sunlight, their entwined hands seem to glow.

"Donovan is absolutely adorable," Stella murmurs.

Flack's features breaks into a buoyant grin at the mention of Hawkes' newborn baby. His namesake is, indeed, one of the cutest babies he has ever laid eyes on, all roly-poly with big, brown eyes like his dad's and a sweet smile like his mother's.

"Yeah, chubbiest baby ever. I gotta ask Sheldon what the heck he fed Angela while she was pregnant."

That gets Stella chuckling in amusement.

"Wait till the baby's six months old, and then you'll know what chubby really means."

"Yeah, well, I probably will. Angela's already booked me for babysittin' for the next five years."

Stella gives him a light smack on the forearm and grins at him. "Hey! You're supposed to be Alex's babysitter!"

Flack lets out a groan and slumps in his chair. "Ya know what? I think I'll just retire early and become a professional au pair - aww, stop laughin' at me, Stell, I'm serious!"

"Oh, Don, I can just imagine you walking around with a baby carrier and a whole bag of diapers and milk bottles," Stella replies between chuckles, wiping the corners of her eyes with a finger. "The Nanny Cop!"

"Hey, hey." Flack straightens up and gives Stella a mock haughty look, wrinkling his nose. "Obviously I'm good at it, or I wouldn't be in such high demand, would I?"

His feigned snooty expression is shortlived and transforms into a jovial smile when Stella gives him an affectionate kiss on the cheek. Her unhindered warmth is just one of so many elements of Stella's character that he adores.

"You are very good at caring for children," Stella says sincerely. "Alex turns into a hyperactive ball of joy just hearing your name, and I mean it when I say none of his other nannies can compare to you."

She squeezes his hand once more.

"You're good at caring, period. You have a lot of love within you, Don."

For the first time since Stella stepped into his office for a visit, he deliberately breaks eye contact and gazes at the crystal paperweight on his desk. The oval-shaped object had been given to him by Hawkes as a gift out of the blue, around the time their relationship was only beginning. He doesn't have to look at Stella to know what she's going to say next.

"I'm okay, Stella. Really," he says in a mellifluous tone to her implicit query.

He feels her stroking his knuckles, and he appreciates the platonic contact. It's been some time since anyone has touched him this way. Or touched him at all. That's what happens when he permits work to occupy his life.

Don, you're just saying that to make yourself feel better about turning down all those dating offers. Not that you doing that is wrong, of course … but how long are you going to wait for him?

He thinks it's pretty funny that his conscience sounds just like Hawkes these days.

And his silent answer to that question hasn't changed.

As long as the sun rises and sets.

As long as it takes.

Flack's brain endeavors its best to come up with another subject of conversation, but Stella thwarts him with, "You were with him for seven years. That's a very long time."

"Yeah, I know." Flack glances at her, his blue eyes warm in acknowledgement of her concern for him. "But I'm okay. I really am."

He shifts in his seat and turns more towards Stella to face her and look her in the eye.

"I'm happy that he's found somebody who loves him. I know Angela really does, 'cause believe me, if she didn't, I woulda said my mind 'bout it to Sheldon first thing."

He pauses for a moment.

"He wanted a family, I know that. He wanted children … a chance to be a father. Who am I to destroy his dreams, if I claim to love him and wish only the best for him?"

"You know what really surprises me, Don?" Stella asks with a countenance that's an amalgam of mild bafflement and fondness. "I'm amazed you're not already married yourself by now."

Flack shrugs. "Heh. Maybe I'm not meant to get married."

"Man like you? You're a liar if you dare to tell me there aren't women lining up at your door waiting for you to sweep them off their feet."

One end of Flack's lips bows up in a small smirk. Ah, damnit, he can never hide anything from Stella.

"I ain't interested in becomin' some trophy husband. I've been nothin' more than a trophy to my dad for most a' my life, and it took me gettin' shot by some whackjob with an AK-47 and savin' two dozen kids to make people stop thinkin' of me as a mere extension of my father. Last thing I want is to be chained up to some woman who just wants to use me to boost her rep, if ya know what I'm sayin'."

"I know. I didn't mean to imply that. We both know that's not going to happen …" Stella lifts one eyebrow. "Unless your feelings have changed?"

"Things do change," Flack replies in a solemn tone. However, he locks gazes with her and reveals his true answer with his blue eyes.

She sends him a kind smile, her eyes glinting with understanding.

"Not everything, it seems."

Flack is suddenly struck by the need to turn his face away again.

"Call me dumb or whatever, but I've tried, Stell. I tried to forget him. Yeah, sure, I managed to let him go … eventually. But I never forgot him. I just can't." He huffs out a joyless guffaw. "Don't ask me why. I don't know either. Maybe I'm just stupid where Danny is concerned."

Stella is quiet.

Flack doesn't take any offense at her silence. She'd already spent many a day and night trying to persuade him otherwise, throughout those long, taxing weeks while Mac was recuperating from his injuries and Stella needed respite every so often. He would come over to her apartment, and they would sit on her couch and he'd lend a sympathetic ear to her venting or talk her out of an irate mood when the moment called for it.

Somewhere along the way, the tables unexpectedly turned, and Flack became the one who poured his heart out about everything, about his life, about the loss and the disappointment and the hurt he'd kept inside himself for years. Stella didn't even blink at learning of his past relationship with Danny. He'd wondered for a long time after that just how transparent he might have appeared about Danny after all, if Stella figured it out on her own.

And if she figured it out, who else did too?

More importantly, if other people had done so and no one gave them any trouble for it … why did things end so badly for them anyway?

Where did it all go wrong?

Flack ponders about the most recent mysterious phone call, one he received two weeks ago. After the one originating from New Jersey, he'd been on edge for days. The good kind of edge, the kind he gets when he's supervising a major arrest and he and his team are going to jump a perp and cuff him fast. He hadn't thought much about the anonymous number of the call; he has tons of people calling him everyday, and the number was a New York number.

The muteness on the other end of the line had him leaping to his feet and prowling the floor of his living area at once. He didn't care that nothing was said like all the previous calls. What was of importance to him was that he said what he wanted to say, what he wanted the other person to hear.

Come back to me, Danny.

Please.

"Danny's back in New York," Stella says, cutting into his train of thought and reeling him back to the present.

Flack blinks hard and stares at Stella. Whoa. This mind reading power of hers is starting to get a little scary.

"What?"

"Danny's back in town. He gave Mac and I a call a week ago," Stella replies.

Flack keeps gazing at her, and hopes he's just imagining that the ground beneath him has fallen away.

"Yeah? What did he say?"

This is one of those times he's very glad to be a master of pokerfaces.

"Danny … actually, he didn't say very much about himself." Stella shrugs one shoulder, her refined brows furrowed in slight unease. "Mac picked up the call as I was putting Alex to bed, and he was so quiet after he said hello that I thought something awful had happened. You can imagine how shocked I was when he told me it was Danny on the line."

"Mac did most of the talking while he was listening to the phone. You know, about him getting shot and retiring, a little about our wedding and about Alex. Then Mac passed the phone to me, and the first thing Danny told me was that he got our number from Adam."

"So Danny called him too?"

"Uh hmm. Seems Adam's the only one who never changed his number."

Flack bites his lower lip. Danny may have called Adam, Mac and Stella and spoken with them.

But Danny had called him first. Five times in a row.

The immense magnitude of knowing that is causing his hands to tremble.

"So, yes," Stella resumes. "He's been back for almost a month. He traveled by bus, would you believe that? He said he wanted to sightsee." Stella chuckles softly. "He didn't specify exactly where he was staying. Just said that he was taking a break and giving himself time to work some things out."

She halts briefly.

"He apologized so much for not attending the wedding that I felt bad. Believe me, I was never angry about that. Disappointed, yes, but never angry. I know that was what he assumed I felt because he sounded so guilty about it. I kept telling him it's okay, but he didn't believe me, and in the end …" - she throws up her hands - "I had no idea what to say to him without making him feel worse."

She sighs in resignation.

"Finally, he told me that he didn't make it due to too much work, and that he was unable to take any more leave at the time. I don't know, it just … sounded like he was covering something up. He was all evasive too whenever I asked him what he'd been up to in Montana since he left New York. It was like trying to wrangle information out of a tight-lipped suspect."

Stella shakes her head.

"I don't know, Don. He just sounded … so different. Like I was talking to Danny, except … it wasn't really him."

Flack's tongue flits out and runs over very dry lips.

"Did he say anythin' else?"

"He asked whether we still hang out at Sullivan's. Including you."

It's taking all his energy to maintain a deadpan expression now.

"Yeah? What'd you tell him?"

"I told him that we did," Stella says, gazing pointedly at him. "That you and your detectives go there every night for drinks and pool."

Flack smirks at her. She's almost right about that. The major discrepancy is that he doesn't go there every night. More like once every few days when he's in the mood for some socializing and a nice, tall glass of Guinness.

"Hey, I like Frankie and his establishment and all, but I don't go there every night."

"Yes, but Danny doesn't need to know that, right?"

Flack swallows visibly.

Geez, Stella, do ya think Mac's gonna kill me if I give ya a big kiss?

"And since he called Mac and I a week ago, and specifically asked about you and Sullivan's … I think you know where to find him if you want to, right?"

"Yeah," Flack says in a gruff voice. "Figures the one week Messer chooses to go there is the one week I'm swamped with work."

He senses Stella taking his hand in hers.

"Hey. If you don't want to meet him, it's your choice. Nobody can blame you if you choose not to."

His lips curl up in a tiny, forlorn smile.

"S'that why ya decided to tell me 'bout Danny callin' after a week?"

"I'm sorry, Don," she answers, giving his hand an apologetic squeeze. "I - I didn't know how you'd react to finding out about Danny being back. After … you know."

"S'okay, Stell." He takes a deep breath. "I let go of the anger a long time ago. Life's too short for crap like that."

"I didn't say a thing about Hawkes. And he doesn't know about Hawkes getting married."

Flack glances at Stella with widened eyes.

"What? Wait, you mean Adam and Mac didn't say anythin' 'bout Sheldon either?"

"No, Mac didn't say anything. He got so caught up talking about Alex," Stella says, smiling widely. "And well, I gave Adam a call after Danny called us, and yeah, Adam didn't say anything about Hawkes either."

Stella puckers her lips.

"He completely forgot to mention Hawkes' wedding to Danny. He had to return to his hometown for his grandfather's funeral instead, remember?"

Flack nods. He recalls Adam talking to Hawkes at the labs a couple of days before the wedding, to explicate his regret for his nonattendance. Everybody had a good laugh when Adam presented Hawkes with a multi-purpose blender for a gift. The irony is, Angela regards it as her favorite home appliance and it hasn't broken down even once.

"I thought about telling Danny, but - He didn't ask a thing about Hawkes, so I didn't bring him up in our conversation."

Flack drums his fingers on his thigh. No, he isn't surprised at all about Danny shying away from any discussion of Hawkes. Now it's making much more sense why Danny doesn't say anything to him in those silent phone calls. What could the guy possibly say to a former lover whom he presumes to be still in a relationship with somebody else?

A somebody else who also used to be his mutual friend, no less.

"I notice you haven't mentioned anythin' 'bout Lindsay," Flack mutters after a few minutes.

The mere utterance of their ex-colleague's name immediately brings an ominous cloud of tension down upon them. A minute of charged silence lapses before Stella says, "Considering what happened between you and Danny, I thought it would be wise to not say anything."

Flack's snort seems to dispel whatever anxiety is in the air as rapidly as it arrived.

"Hell, if I'm gonna meet Danny, sooner or later I'll have to meet her too, won't I? Sayin' her name would be the least a' my problems."

"Interestingly enough, Danny never mentioned her. Not once. Not even when I asked about her."

Flack swivels his head to look at Stella. "Oh?"

"Yeah."

"So she's here with him too or what?"

Stella's green eyes are glittering in the sunlight.

"Don ... Danny came back alone."

Before he can stop himself, his right hand is rubbing the left side of his chest.

Can he be that fortunate? Can it be, that there's a second chance for them after all?

It seems too good to be true. And didn't somebody once say that when something is too good to be true, it usually is?

His right hand clenches into a loose fist.

His mind states: You're a fool for even thinking about giving him another chance. Have you forgotten what he did to you?

His heart says: Giving him a second chance will mean accepting the risk of getting hurt a second time. But, it will also mean allowing yourself the chance to love and live again.

Flack shuts his eyes, and realizes he's already made his choice long ago.

"Don?"

"I'm alright, Stella." He opens his eyes and casts an earnest smile upon her. "Thanks for lettin' me know. I appreciate it."

She smiles in return, and it is all he requires for a reply.

His arm remains around her shoulders as he walks her to the door of his office. She has to depart now to be home in time to prepare dinner and such. His face crinkles in a contented smile while he listens to her bemoan how tricky it is to persuade Alex to eat his vegetables and discourage Mac from eating them on their son's behalf. He is happy for her, sincerely happy she's found the love that many, many people in this world can only dream of.

"Whatever you choose to do, Mac and I will always be here for you," Stella murmurs into his ear when they embrace in farewell.

"I know," he simply says.

He smiles to himself, and reminds himself how lucky he is to be the person he is today. How lucky he is to have done the things he has and to have such exceptional people like Stella Bonasera in his life. She is family, like Mac, Hawkes and Angela are also his family, for the strongest bonds are not those formed by blood or flesh, but those formed in the soul.

And tonight, he will be restoring one he had once believed to be forever lost to him.

Tonight, he will lead Danny home.

xi. "And I don't mind ..."

"FLACK! My favorite customer!"

Flack's hand is up in the air in a wave of greeting at Frankie even before he's fully stepped into Sullivan's. It's busier tonight than usual, and he's mystified by the number of random strangers and acquaintances and friends coming up to him to say hello and chitchat a bit. It's so damn crowded he swears his butt was pinched at least three times.

Geez, who would have thought the people here missed him this much?

And I was only gone for a week, he thinks, putting on a polite face when another woman he doesn't quite recognize approaches him and tries to make some small talk with him. Fortunately, he's had more than sufficient training to extricate himself out of these types of conversations quick, and it takes him a little over three minutes to struggle from the entrance to the bar counter where Frankie is.

A heavy sigh whooshes out of his mouth the moment he stands next to the cash register. Frankie, the insensitive jerk who just had to announce his arrival like he's royalty or something, laughs his head off at him.

"Hey, Flack! About time ya came back! Yer fellow cops have been drinking away in the usual corner for hours now!" the bartender says, his teeth flashing under the warm orange lights. "I think they missed ya so much, they gotta come here and drink their sorrows away."

"You wish, Frankie. They see my ugly mug every day at work. Maybe they're drinkin' to forget it, huh?"

Frankie releases another roar of laughter that's quickly drowned by all the vivacious babbling and laughter and noises of people playing pool surrounding them.

"Oh yeah, Flack, you're gonna win the Ugly of the Year award, alright! And what's with that long, dramatic sigh, eh? You just got hit on by four different chicks in, what? Five minutes? That's better than some guys get in a whole year!"

Flack makes a face at the pepper grey-haired man.

"Not all guys like bein' pawed like fresh meat, ya know. I happen to be one a' them," Flack replies with a smirk. "Didn't I tell ya not to scream my name like that every time I come 'round?"

"But, Flack, you're my favorite customer of all time! Of course I gotta scream yer name!"

Flack laughs, peers from beneath his eyelids and drawls, "Frankie, if ya really wanna profess yer love for me, all ya gotta do is gimme a free Guinness keg every day and I'm all yours, darlin'."

"A free Guinness keg every day?!" The bartender's hazel eyes widen in a comical fashion. "Are ya kidding me?! Even you're not worth that!"

Flack laughs louder this time, slapping the smooth surface of the bar counter with his hand. Yep, Frankie's a true blue pub owner, alright.

He smacks a hand over his heart, lower lip out in a pout.

"You hurt my feelings, man. I thought I was yer favorite customer!"

Frankie grins at him while he fills out an order of three glasses of Bloody Marys. "You are, s'long as ya pay me. Ka-ching, ka-ching, kapish?"

"Yeah, yeah." Flack leans forward with his forearms on the counter, smiling to himself as he mutters, "Ya just sweet talk me to get my money. Ya don't love me at all."

"Aw, shit, you figured me out!"

The exaggerated expression of terror on the bartender's face incites more sniggering out of him. He always feels at ease and welcomed here at Sullivan's, and Frankie's a respectable, candid guy who takes good care of his business and his customers. Sure, the man's hair is all grey and white, but a close inspection of his face and body and one would think he's only in his late thirties instead of the late fifties.

Flack observes Frankie handing the Bloody Marys to one of the waitresses. Then, he hones his gaze on the variety of wine and liquor bottles stacked up on the shelves behind the counter. Unlike other nights where he'd check out the crowd, he simply stares ahead to evade eye contact with the other patrons.

If Danny's here tonight, he wants to give Danny the chance to come up to him on the man's own chosen time.

Coercion is not part of the process. Ever.

"So, ya want the usual tonight, or something different?"

Frankie's standing before him, wiping his hands on a dark green towel.

"Gimme my usual, Frankie."

"One Guinness, coming up!"

Flack glances downwards at the reflective surface of the counter, and sees himself staring back. He recently had his hair trimmed and it appears neat and lustrous even in the indistinct reflection. He had changed clothes after returning to his apartment from the precinct earlier in the evening, from his typical suit to the more casual jacket, black t-shirt and jeans combo. The jacket's the same one he had worn on the day of the AK-47 shooting at the diner, and there's a small patch over the bullet hole that went through the right shoulder of the jacket. Most people would have chucked it in the bin, what with all the blood that soaked it till he washed it clean, but he didn't have the heart to do that.

It's also the same jacket he'd worn in his initial years of being a homicide detective. The sentimental value in it is just too much to part with.

And most of all, it was once an item of clothing that drove a certain man wild every time.

"Damn you, Don, you know what it does to me."

"What? This leather jacket?"

"Yes, you sadistic bastard. It's fuckin' unfair. You're usin' it to distract me!"

"Nah, I'm just better at pool than you are, Danno."

"Oh yeah? You wanna say that again after I strip?"

"You strip … and I'll fuck you with my jacket on."

"Oh, yeah. I'm gonna hold you to that, Don, and you better give it to me good when I win!"

A smack to his shoulder abruptly snaps him out of his crystal-clear reverie.

"Hey, Flack, hello? Are you there?"

Flack scrunches his blue eyes shut for a second. Oh, shit. He hasn't daydreamed about Danny like that in a long time. He pushes himself off the counter and gives Frankie a contrite smile.

"Sorry, was just thinkin'."

Frankie snickers.

"Well, whatever the heck you were thinking, it must have been something real nice, eh?" The bartender passes him his glass of frothy, coal-black Guinness. "Here ya go."

"Thanks."

A pleased hum escapes his pursed lips when he tastes his beer. It's particularly flavorsome tonight, creamy and sweet, like cold coffee with lots of cream and sugar, with subtle hints of dark chocolate. Mmm, just the way he likes it.

"Hey, Flack."

He's surprised to see Frankie hasn't budged. Extra hectic night like this, the guy should be flying here and there like Super Bartender Man or something.

"What is it?"

His eyebrows shoot up at Frankie subtly gesturing for him to bend forward some more over the counter.

"There's some guy who's been looking for you," Frankie whispers into his ear.

It's insane that his heartbeat is suddenly more deafening than every other sound in the bar.

"That so?" he replies in a nonchalant tone.

"Yeah, he came in about a week ago. Walked straight up to me and asked me if you were gonna come in that night. Didn't know who he was, so I told him that I had no idea, and he just sat himself down with a whisky and stuck 'round until closing time."

Frankie draws even closer to him.

"Thing is, he's been doing this the whole week. Every evening, right on the dot, he comes in, orders a shot of whisky and stays the whole night. Keeps to himself too. Doesn't say a word to anybody else, not even when women come up to him and try to chat him up. That kinda got the alarm bells ringing, ya know? Thought maybe he's got some beef with you and didn't want to attract attention."

Flack's brows lower in a contemplative frown. The whisky bit sounds about right, unless Danny's switched alcohol preference at some point. The reclusive bit, however, that doesn't really sound like the Danny he'd known. And beef?

Heh, if Frankie only knew just how much history he has with Danny.

"I dunno, buddy, but he looked … familiar." Frankie gives him an inquisitive look. "I remember you used to hang out with this guy many years ago. Little shorter than you, brown hair, blue eyes. Glasses? Think he was your co-worker or something? Yeah, the guy kinda looks like him."

"Is he here tonight?"

Frankie nods.

"Yep, he sure is. Sitting at the same table like he has for the past seven nights. Only difference tonight is that he brought a duffel bag with him." The bartender's features shift into a troubled countenance. "I tell ya, I was half-tempted to ask him to open his bag up and show me what he had in there, if ya get my drift."

"If he's who I believe he is, he's no danger, trust me," Flack says in confidence.

"Okay, you're the man. I trust ya. Ya want me to point him out?"

"Please do."

Frankie leans back into an upright standing position, then slyly angles his head to the right, using the movement of his eyes to direct Flack towards the farthest corner of the bar on Flack's left. Flack, playing along with the game, picks up his glass of Guinness and scrutinizes that area of the place from the corners of his eyes while he sips his drink.

His six-foot-two height is a bonus to him tonight. He easily looks over the heads of many of the other customers, and has an ideal view of those sitting down. The first table he sets eyes on is occupied by a middle-aged couple who are on a romantic date, if their hand holding and smiles are anything to go by. The next table to it is in use by a group of young women who are, quite literally, the source of half the din in the entire bar.

It is the person sitting at following table after that one that causes some invisible band to constrict excruciatingly around his chest.

Flack has to blink numerous times to identify Danny out of the multitude of people. Like Frankie described, Danny is sitting alone at a table, nursing a shot of whisky. His shoulders are hunched, his head bowed, and it's hard to distinguish the expression on his face. What is most eye-catching to Flack is Danny's hair, or to be more precise, the lack of it. The man's shaven it extra short, just like he once did in the past when they still worked together.

Flack's gaze darts back to the table of young ladies, and he notices a few of them glancing at Danny once in a while, though Danny doesn't react to any of the looks. Danny doesn't appear to give a crap at all about anything outside the vicinity of his table.

The longer he stares at Danny, the tighter the pressure becomes around his lungs.

It's mind-boggling, that after all these years, he's here again. In the same place, the same spot. Staring at Danny the same way he did when he laid eyes on the attractive, passionate man for the very first time.

Even the sudden clogging up of his throat and the weakness in his knees is true to that first time.

"So … is he friend or foe?"

Flack inhales as deep as he can, then answers in a low voice, "Neither."

Frankie doesn't bat an eyelid. "But he's not trouble or anything?"

"No. He's … okay."

My God, he really is okay. Danny's okay.

"Don't worry. As long as I'm standing here, he can't really see you."

Flack looks sharply at the bartender.

"Where you're standing right now is a blind spot for that particular table," Frankie explains, smirking away. "He can see me, but he can't see you because I'm blocking the way, and so's part of this wine shelf."

Flack studies Frankie's face, and realizes that the man has been deliberately standing where he's been behind the bar counter, just so Flack would end up standing where he's standing at the moment.

"Hey, s'not like I'm gonna let some stranger have the upper hand over ya," Frankie says, his smirk softening into a smile. "I mean, I had no idea what he wanted with ya. If he was gonna try something funny in my bar, you can bet your ass I'll be the first to jump in front of ya in your defense."

The genuine loyalty in Frankie's declaration is a pleasant disclosure that relieves him of the stress building up inside him.

"And you say you only want my ka-ching, ka-ching."

"Oh, I do, but see, ya gotta be alive to give me your ka-ching, ka-ching, am I right?"

Shaking his head in amusement, Flack can only smile in mild chagrin and admiration of Frankie's straightforwardness. Sometimes he just can't figure out if Frankie's actually joking or not, and that's saying something since it's his aptitude to single out the perps from the innocent. Perhaps that's why he finds the older man such an intriguing guy.

"Think I'll put you outta yer misery and go see what he wants with me, how 'bout that?" Flack says in response, lifting his beer in a mock salute.

"You're my hero, Flack."

He chuckles at the bartender's falsetto voice as he saunters away towards Danny's table. One day, he'll thank Frankie for unwittingly helping him to confront one of the terrifying moments of his life.

For now, he just prays he won't upchuck the contents of his stomach all over the floor and make a total embarrassment of himself.

He's gripping the glass of his Guinness with more strength than he should. He has to command himself to breathe, to walk slowly, to keep his wobbly legs moving right, to smile when people he passes say hi to him, to go forward when what he really wants is turn around and head straight for the door.

This is too much, his mind blabbers in a panic, this is too much, too fast, you don't know what to say yet, you don't know how Danny's going to react to you, you don't know what Danny wants wi-

"Don?"

The chaos within his mind vanishes in a flash at the sound of Danny's husky voice.

He's standing beside Danny's table, and there's merely two feet of space separating them. Danny's staring up at him with such large, blue eyes, and it's minutes before it dawns on Flack that Danny isn't wearing any spectacles. And if Danny isn't wearing any contact lenses, there's the likelihood that Danny really doesn't recognize him.

"Hey, Danny."

He hopes to God his voice isn't as croaky as he thinks it is.

Danny jolts in his seat, as if he was electrocuted.

"Don."

It seems whispering his name is all Danny is capable of at the moment. Flack doesn't fault the other man one bit for that. His insides are shuddering in rare nervousness, and he's uncertain whether the next thing to roll off his tongue will be a word or a sob.

To Flack's senses, everything and everyone around them is decelerating to a standstill. All sounds trail off into a loaded silence. A serene duskiness descends over the entire bar, except this small space of a table and two chairs, this place where he and Danny are gazing into each other's wide eyes.

There's no light anywhere except the one shining upon them.

There's nobody in the world except them.

They are unmoving, frozen in time by the enormity of seeing each other in the flesh once more. The sheer realization, that there is only two feet of distance between them now, rather than thousands of miles.

A gap of two feet, that Flack crosses with the extending of his right hand.

"How ya doin'? It's been a while."

His hand is quivering. It doesn't matter though, in view of the fact that Danny is still staring up at him, motionless as a statue.

"Don … I -"

He gulps when Danny doesn't say or do anything else.

Maybe he's just seeing things, maybe he's just hallucinating the unadulterated elation in Danny's eyes, maybe he's just imagining how they're glistening beneath the light hanging from the ceiling above them. Maybe he's just fooling himself into believing that Danny's truly happy to see him.

Yeah, maybe he's just being a dumbass again. Maybe Danny's just happy because he's already married or something and Stella's wrong and any minute now, she's going to show up, and then he's going to learn firsthand what it means to be in hell -

Danny's clutching his right hand in a vice-like grip, and he doesn't utter a single squeak of protest.

He's holding onto Danny's hand equally hard.

"Yeah … yeah, it's been a long time," Danny says in a rush, a wide smile spreading across that gorgeous face of his. "It's good to see you again. It really is."

Danny's hand is warm and solid and somewhat more bony than he remembers. He glances downwards at their entwined hands, and the one thought that comes to mind is how right it looks and feels.

Connection.

The first step in guiding Danny home.

"It's good to see you too, Danny," he murmurs, and he means it with every fiber of his being.

In the usual social circumstance, this is where Flack will let go of the other person's hand after shaking it a few times.

But this isn't any usual situation.

And Danny is no ordinary person, never to him.

He doesn't give a shit whether anyone is watching them or not. He's waited seven whole years to be with the man he's never stopped loving, and narrow-minded idiots be damned should they think it's queer of him to hold Danny's hand this long.

Danny isn't letting go either.

Flack's heart feels like it's dancing the Macarena in his chest.

"Did ya just come in?" Danny asks tentatively.

Flack blinks. Huh, Danny must have missed Frankie's yelled greeting earlier on. Phew.

"Yeah, just a while ago." He raises the glass of Guinness in his left hand for Danny to see. "Was orderin' my drink."

The amused smirk on Danny's lips is making his heart beat in stranger rhythms now.

"Still a Guinness freak, huh?"

Flack nods at the glass in front of Danny on the table. "Still a whisky freak, huh?"

Danny cackles, and that familiar, heart-stopping laugh he loves so much is doing funny things to his eyes too.

All of a sudden, Danny's hand feels like a smoldering iron brand. He relaxes his fingers, and senses extreme reluctance in the slowness of Danny releasing his hand, in the way Danny's hand lingers in the air for a couple of seconds before it's pulled away and left curled in a loose fist on the table. He places his own right hand flat on the table top, letting the chill from it seep into his skin.

Danny's gazing downwards at his glass of whisky now, and somehow, Flack is sure that Danny is reading way too much in his breaking their handhold.

And of all things, knowing thatis what calms him down and clears his mind.

That's Danny, always making a mountain outta a molehill.

That's my Danny.

It's a good thing they're no longer grasping each other's hands anyway. He doesn't know what he would have done had they touched one another a second longer. They could get away with a really, really long handshake, but a really, really long hug?

He takes Danny into his arms right now, and he'll never let go.

"So, ya waitin' for somebody, Messer?" he asks, smiling sideways.

Danny's looking up at him again, and the doubt and apprehension he sees in those blue eyes are dissipating fast. Thank God for his snarkiness and his discipline of his outward expressions.

Danny gazes at him for a minute, like the guy's assessing him.

"I was."

He has to hand it to Danny. He definitely got fooled into thinking Danny was really waiting for somebody else until Danny dropped the deadpan face and smiled at him, his features all crinkled with mirth. And then, he gets it.

Geez, Danny, he thinks to himself, way to make my eyes burn by letting me know you've been waiting for me. All this time.

Flack sets his beer on the table and drags a chair over and sits on it. Yep, he's sitting close to Danny because it's very packed tonight, that's all. Anybody who says otherwise to him can shove it.

"I hear ya got awarded the NYPD Medal of Honor," Danny says, looking intently at his face, lips curled up at the ends in a tiny smile. "Congratulations. You deserved it, specially for what ya did, savin' those kids."

"Thanks, Danny." Flack makes a self-effacing face and shrugs his shoulders. "S'no big deal, really. Any other cop in my place woulda done the same thing I did."

"What, tackle a wacko with an AK-47 alone? And rescue twenty-six children at the same time? I don't think just any cop would do that."

"You would."

Danny's gaze flits away. "Ya so sure a' that, huh?"

"Yes. I am."

Danny sends him a piercing look, then glances away a second time, face flushed like the guy's really self-conscious. It's something that prompts Flack to grin inwardly like a loon.

That's my Danny, never knowing how to accept a sincere compliment without getting all bashful about it.

"If it had been you," Flack says, permitting his grin to show on his features, "I think you'd have just strolled right up to the perp, punched him in the face and ended the whole situation in five seconds flat."

His ploy to make Danny laugh and make eye contact again works like a charm.

"I'm not Superman, ya know."

"Minor detail."

Up close at last, he grabs the opportunity to examine the other man from head to toe, and stares unashamedly.

Danny's thinner, much thinner than Flack remembers. He can tell Danny has lost some muscle mass, even though Danny's wearing a round-neck sweater and a leather jacket he identifies to be the same one Danny had regularly worn during their years of working together. What a twist of fate it is that they're both wearing jackets from their past tonight, that he's wearing the one Danny's always been crazy about, that Danny's wearing the one he's always been crazy about.

The stark crew cut is showing off that rounded head, but it's also throwing Danny's facial features into noticeable prominence. The striking face is leaner, the cheekbones sharper, that jaw line and Italian nose more defined than before. After all this time, Danny's continued to maintain the light moustache and trimmed goatee style. It flatters the guy very much, and Flack is delighted that Danny has kept the look.

There are dark circles around Danny's eyes, which Flack attributes to lack of sleep or stress or both. He remembers Danny looking worn out like this whenever the man had to work on a nasty case that crawled under his skin bad. The gauntness is probably what's making Danny's blue eyes appear so big as well. Without glasses, they seem humongous on Danny's visage, glossy and mesmerizing.

They're staring back at him, without any reserve, and something burgeons within him at the openness of Danny's stare, something that tells him this man sitting beside him isn't the Danny who left this city without a word. The one who became engulfed with the trepidation of losing acceptance and approval, the one who eventually allowed fear to govern his choices.

This is the Danny who confronted an armed killer by himself and wasn't cowed one bit. This is the Danny who kept his head up high even when he was being accused of murder, when his brother was harmed. This is the Danny who gave the third finger to the world that attempted to change him into a different person.

This is the Danny he fell in love with.

"So what have you been up to all this time, Danny?" he asks as he taps on the side of his beer glass with a forefinger. "I bet you must have lotsa stories to tell."

Tell me why you never called me to say goodbye.

Tell me why you never returned for Mac and Stella's wedding.

Tell me why it took you seven years to come back to New York.

To me.

A minute of silence passes.

Once it's evident that Danny has no intentions of speaking about himself and won't do it without some major prodding, Flack utters the most brusque question that comes to mind.

"Are the wheatfields of Montana more beautiful than the New York skyline?"

Flack watches all the verve bleed from Danny's mien. The transformation from a happy expression to a blank, stony countenance is so rapid that Flack is startled by it.

"Nah. S'was like I expected it to be ... Wheat and cows everywhere. Wasn't my kinda place," Danny mutters in a monotone voice.

Flack brings his Guinness to his mouth and takes a long sip. He peers over the edge of the glass, first at Danny's unreadable face, then at Danny's hands on the table top. They're in fists so tight, the knuckles have gone white. The last time he'd seen Danny's hands like that, it was on the night the man's older brother Louie had been admitted into the hospital. Danny had showed up on his doorstep, eyes bloodshot and swollen, face all wet and hands clenched into painful fists. That night, he became one flower vase, three plates and a coffee mug less.

Danny isn't just mad, he's pissed off.

What the hell happened in Montana?

Flack clears his throat, then says in a casual manner, "Stella told me ya gave her and Mac a call 'bout a week ago."

Okay, Stella and Mac will make for an effective diversion topic. If Danny doesn't want to talk about Montana now, they'll talk about it later, when they're on Flack's own turf. He can't afford to risk Danny fleeing on him now, and he won't be able to stop Danny from doing that here in a public bar. Now without causing a scene, anyway.

Danny blinks a few times. He appears as if he's slowly awakening from a bad dream, brows lowering in a bewildered scowl, eyes bleary, his lips pursed into a thin line.

"Stella?"

"Yeah, Stella came to see me at my office today. Told me you called her up, and Adam too."

There's something about the way Danny is responding with such sluggishness and is slightly swaying in his seat that's bothering Flack. Danny's barely finished half his shot of whisky. There's no way Danny's drunk from that, unless he already consumed a whole lot more before this glass. Even then, he knows Danny's tolerance of alcohol. It'd take at least a dozen pints of beer and more shots of liquor before the guy reached the whee-the-whole-freaking-world-is-spinning-and-I'm-gonna-puke stage.

He recalls Danny behaving similar to this when the guy's exhausted and pushing himself far beyond his stamina and is ten seconds away from keeling over. And his touch helped Danny to focus every time.

He wraps his hand around Danny's closest wrist, instinctively squeezing his fingers the instant their skin touched.

"Dan?"

Danny's warm. Really warm.

"Hn? Yeah … yeah, I called Adam. Few days after I arrived," Danny mumbles. "He didn't change his number all this time."

Flack sustains his grip around Danny's wrist. His euphoria at finally seeing and talking with Danny in person again is gradually being replaced by worry.

Damnit. Danny's not just flushed from emotion, but a fever.

"Well, I had to change my number after that diner shootin'," Flack replies. "Some press idiot leaked it out, and my voice mailbox got filled overnight with hundreds of messages from, I dunno, fan girls or somethin'. My phone never stopped ringin' either till I changed numbers. It was nuts."

Danny releases an odd chuckle. "Who can blame 'em, huh? Handsome, world-class guy like you."

Flack nibbles on his lower lip, watching the other man with concerned eyes. If Danny's truly ill, this is not an appropriate time to be questioning Danny about making those anonymous phone calls. The thing is, he knows Danny. Healthy and in the right mind, the guy will never confess to doing something like that.

It has to be now.

"I got some weird phone calls 'bout a month ago. Heh, thought somebody had leaked my number out again, ya know?"

Danny's staring hard at him, lips slightly parted.

"'Course, the wonderful thing 'bout technology these days is," Flack continues, returning Danny's stare with his own intense one, "I can find out 'xactly where any call to my number comes from. You oughta know that, Danny, you bein' the CSI and all."

The muscles of Danny's wrist are flexing in his grasp.

"Stella said ya returned by bus. Did ya happen to pass North Dakota and Minnesota along the way? Maybe Illinois and New Jersey too?"

Danny's lower lip is trembling now.

"You may have called Adam and Mac and Stella, and talked to them, but …" Flack falls quiet for an instant, then murmurs, "You called me first, didn't you?"

He watches the Adam's apple in the center of Danny's long neck bob as Danny swallows. The tension stiffening Danny's whole body is so tangible that Flack can see it the rigidity of the guy's broad shoulders, feel it in the tautness of the wrist still clutched in his hand.

He senses more than sees Danny tugging at his hand, and his own body tenses up in readiness.

Damnit, damnit, damnit, no, Danny -

"I wanted to come back home."

Danny's whispered answer resonates within him with the power of a supernova.

With his eyes blurry and hot, it doesn't take much for him to imagine that they're not in Sullivan's, that they're back in a time before a dream was buried, before everything ended with a fight in the locker room. That they're standing in front of CSI headquarters, while everyone else is partying away up in the labs. Standing there in their suits, mere inches apart, gazing into each other's eyes like they are now.

And Danny's whispering into his lips, the whiff of cigarette smoke tinting the man's breath.

You're New York city, Don.

You're my heart.

You're my home.

Flack has to strive past a blocked throat to rasp, "You always did love New York with all your heart."

He isn't holding Danny's wrist anymore.

Instead, he's holding Danny's hand and Danny is holding his hand, just like they did as Danny whispered those fulfilling words into his mouth, his soul.

Danny isn't running away at all.

Flack is pinned to the spot by the other man's blue eyes, by the emotion in them that he's only seen in his treasured memories for so many years.

"I still do," Danny replies in a very resolved tone, and Flack hears the unspoken avowal in those three words.

I still love New York.

I still love you.

Flack's hand tightens violently around Danny's.

Oh God. Oh God.

Against the odds of seven entire years and over two thousand miles of total separation … their love for each other has never died.

It's not too late.

"I -"

Out of nowhere, somebody accidentally bumps into his chair.

The shock of the impact nudges Flack's senses into a very heightened awareness of his environment. He sucks in a quick breath. All at once, it's too noisy and the bar is teeming with too many people, and he feels like he's a sardine confined in a tin can. He has to move Danny and himself somewhere else that's more quiet and private.

Time to get out of here.

Time for the next step.

"Come on," he says, after coughing to clear his throat. "Let's go back to my apartment. It's gettin' too crowded here for my likin'."

Danny stares at him with a blank countenance, then rotates his head from side to side as if to inspect their surroundings. Danny's appearing dazed again, eyelids fluttering like he wants to sleep but is forcing himself to not do so. Seeing Danny this way is ample motivation for Flack to gulp down the remainder of his Guinness and stand up, pulling gently at Danny's forearm to attract the man's attention.

"C'mon, I got more whisky at my place, if ya still wanna drink. We can talk more there."

"But …"

Danny's looking down at an object on the floor next to him. Flack peers over Danny's thighs, and sees a large, yellow-and-black duffel bag. It has to be the bag Frankie glimpsed Danny carrying into Sullivan's with him. It's much too big for a regular night out. More like a piece of luggage a person would use for extended travelling. And moreover, Danny's the I-just-need-my-wallet-to-hit-the-bar type of guy.

Something clicks in Flack's brain.

If Danny has a place to stay, he wouldn't be lugging a hefty duffel bag like that around the city with him. Which means …

"Look, it's gettin' late, and my apartment's close by. So let's go back to my place, okay?" Flack says firmly.

"Don, I don't think that's -"

"Danny. We haven't seen each other for seven years. We've barely talked 'bout anythin' yet. And don't worry 'bout missin' the last train out or crap like that. I have a guest room that's never used, so it's 'bout time it actually lives up to its name of bein' a guest room, okay?"

He stares into Danny's eyes, letting his own reveal the determination he feels in his heart. The other man would have to be blind to not see that he won't brook any refusal of his offer.

His stomach clenches in apprehension when Danny dips his head, concealing his face from view.

C'mon, Danny. You can beat it, you can beat the fear.

Like you always have.

"Okay," Danny mumbles. "Noise's gettin' to me anyway."

Then Danny raises his head, and gifts him with a soft smile that makes him grin from ear to ear.

"That's my boy," Flack says, already rummaging around in his jeans' side pocket for his car keys. He quietly watches Danny finish his whisky, then adds, "My car's parked right in front. I'll drive us home."

Danny's blue eyes are enormous with what seems to be jubilant disbelief.

"Okay."

Flack waits for Danny to pick up his bag and saunter ahead of him towards the main doorway of the bar. It's bizarre and fantastic and breath-stealing all at the same time, to be so physically close to Danny once more. To walk behind the man, to smell Danny's natural scent with a mere inhalation, to feel Danny's warmth against him, to know that Danny's right here with him.

Just like it used to be.

Just like it's always meant to be.

He feels like he's floating a couple of feet in the air. He feels bigger and greater than the whole fucking universe, and maybe he really will fly high into the sky should someone pin a red cape on his back. He waves goodbye at Frankie who grins at him and shouts in that falsetto voice, "Goodbye, my hero! I love ya!"

He laughs together with the other patrons of Sullivan's, his pearly teeth flashing in more than just amusement. Danny's cackling too, glancing back at him with those big, blue eyes and that mischievous smirk of his.

God, Danny's smile is as spectacular as he remembers it.

And as he drives them back to his apartment building, he thinks it's an absolute marvel too, that falling in love with Danny Messer all over again is as glorious as the first time.

xii. "If it's me you need to turn to ..."

The foremost thing Flack does once they've entered his penthouse apartment is to haul Danny's duffel bag off the man's shoulder and bring it to the guest bedroom. He pays little heed to Danny's remonstrations, shushing them with a forthright, "Mi casa es su casa."

He drops it on the floor beside the queen-sized, made up bed, and alone in the room, he allows himself only the shortest span of time to concede to the restlessness within himself. He squeezes his eyes shut.

This is beyond his wildest imagination.

Danny's here, after all these years.

In his apartment.

Here to stay.

He runs his hands down his face, and mutters to himself over and over to not fuck things up. He can't afford to mess up.

He's not sure if he can survive losing Danny a second time.

It's going to be fine, a voice within himself reassures, just follow your heart, and your feet will know where to go. Like they always have.

After a while, after he's calmed down, he walks out of the guest room wearing a poker face mastered with decades of practice. He's going to remain strong. For both Danny and himself, till they're on stable ground and they've no longer struggling in the waters of doubt and disquiet.

He has all the time in the world now, to row them to the safety of the shores.

On his way to the living area, he goes into the main bathroom of the apartment, to a white medicine cabinet next to the sink. He opens it up and rummages through the various bottles and plastic containers in it.

Aspirin. He has to find some aspirin for Danny's fever.

"C'mon … I know you're in here somewhere," Flack mutters to himself.

He come across a white-and-aqua colored box of Bayer aspirin that's stuck between an unopened box of tissue papers and the side wall of the cabinet. Checks inside, and sees that only three tablets have been taken since he bought it. There's more than enough for Danny.

Stuffing the aspirin into a side pocket of his leather jacket, he closes the medicine cabinet and strides out. He's already mentally readying himself for the fuss Danny's going to put up when he makes the guy take some of the white pills.

Heh, he thinks with a muted chuckle, nothing's changed at all.

Of course, he's well aware of the sarcasm in that notion.

"Danny?"

Flack ambles into the living room. Danny's shuffling around the way a timid child would, looking here and there as if he's in a regal palace and he's afraid of touching anything in case he breaks something valuable. For a second, there's a fleeting manifestation of the old Danny he knew so well when Danny encounters a stone statue placed near his plasma television. It's a miniature version of one of them big-headed sculptures on Easter Island, something he purchased on a whim at the Annex Antique Fair and Flea Market five years ago. He watches Danny smirk at it and poke it with a forefinger. Then, Danny yanks back his hand like he just did something he shouldn't have, and withdraws into himself again.

This behavior is so disparate from that of the Danny with whom he was so familiar. It's a solemn reminder to him of his crucial task at hand, to draw Danny out of his shell and help the man abandon whatever pain he's bearing from the past, for good.

Flack goes to stand behind the couch, his hands in the pockets of his jeans. Danny doesn't seem to realize that he's there. The guy has halted before his display of photographs that hangs in an organized cluster on a wall perpendicular to the television set, facing the floor-to-ceiling windows of the living area.

It's eerie how motionless and quiet Danny is.

"Dan?"

He moseys around the couch to stand at Danny's side.

Upon glancing at the other man, Flack realizes Danny is studying some of the pictures so intently that he's lost in a world of his own. The concentration on that appealing face causes his lips to arch up in a fond smile.

Ah, he remembers Danny with that precise expression whenever the man was doing some meticulous research for a case, staring at a computer monitor or a book with rapt eyes, lips pursed like it is at the moment. Danny gets that look on his face, and it'll usually take a loud call of his name or a jostle to the shoulder or arm to capture his attention.

Flack follows Danny's stare to one particular photograph. It's a group shot of him together with Mac, Stella and Hawkes that was taken some years ago during an annual party at CSI headquarters. Mac has his left arm around Stella's shoulders in a very loving gesture, and Stella's left hand is clasped over his. Their wedding rings gleam under the camera flash.

His smile softens as his gaze falls on Hawkes' crinkled features. Hawkes' teeth are blinding white in a huge grin. The man managed to wrap an arm tight around his waist before Adam snapped the photograph, and only a sightless person is incapable of noticing the intimacy between them. His eyes shut for a mere instant.

Oh yes, he still remembers the ferocity of their kisses and caresses that night. He'll never forget them.

He opens his eyes, glances at Danny again, and what he sees on the man's visage makes his chest ache deep inside. Those blue eyes are wide and haunted with a pain with which he was once so familiar. He yearns very much to reach out to Danny, to stroke away the stiffness, the anguish, the fear, in that body gone so skinny. To draw his former lover and best friend, his other half, into his arms, hold him close like he always did, before all the lies and stupidity and their foolish pride robbed them of their years of love.

Instead, he is only able to stand where is, a hot wetness behind his eyes when Danny speaks in a broken whisper at last.

"Tell me, Don."

Danny's lower lip is quavering.

"Tell me everythin' he did ... so I can do it right this time."

Each word pierces Flack like a jagged dagger.

He has to grind his teeth and swallow hard to preserve his equanimity. It's agonizing, so agonizing, to see Danny standing there with wetness trailing down his cheeks, with no walls, no defenses, nothing encasing his exposed heart and soul anymore. A man without his armor should appear vulnerable and weak, and yet, Flack has never seen Danny looking so brave and strong as he is right now.

"He loved me," Flack murmurs, gazing at Danny through blurred eyes. "It's all he's ever had to do, Danny."

His words strikes Danny as acutely as Danny's did him.

He watches Danny's face crumple with emotion. It's even more distressing to witness the man's internal anguish contorting those attractive features, to see with his naked eye just how much pain Danny is containing inside himself.

"I did, even then," Danny whispers hoarsely, his head bowed and his eyes closed. "I still do."

Flack stretches out a tremulous hand and caresses one side of Danny's damp face, brushing away moisture with his thumb. Danny feels so warm. So alive. So real.

And he knows he's not dreaming this time, as Danny's lifts his head and looks him straight in the eyes and declares with a steadfast, low voice, "I never stopped lovin' you. I won't blame you if you don't believe me, but it's true … I never stopped lovin' you. Never."

What can he say, to such words that are full of so much hope, words that he's certain are spoken with total truth and sincerity?

What can he say to them, without falling to his knees in the enlightenment that his prayers have truly been heard and answered?

"S'was 'bout time ya came home," he rasps, his lips arched up in a wavering smile. He doesn't give a damn that his face's as wet as Danny's now. "New York hasn't been the same without you, Danny."

I have never been the same without you, Danny.

They stare into each other's eyes, and Flack feels the same wobbliness in his knees that he experienced earlier at Sullivan's. It's even worse this time. He has to lock his legs in place just to keep standing.

Does Danny understand?

Is their bond still as strong as it used to be?

"I haven't been the same without you either, Don."

Hearing that, along with seeing the immeasurable sentiment in Danny's bright, blue eyes, is like discovering the final piece of the jigsaw puzzle that is himself, after eons upon eons of searching. He senses Danny's hands cupping his face, and that last piece slides into its rightful place in his soul with their shared, faint laughter and the touching of their foreheads.

"My New York," Danny whispers into his lips. "My home."

Their first kiss in seven long years is an unhurried and tender one. It's a closed-lip one, soft brushes of their lips against one another's, tentative touches that are sweet and almost innocent in their nature. The hesitancy in Danny's motions speaks to Flack of how much anxiety there still is within the other man, the apprehension that all this is merely an evanescent dream, just another beautiful lie.

Flack understands the feeling and more, but fear has ceased to rule him. He's wiser now. Better. Stronger.

He'll endure for both of them, because he can and more than anything else, he desires to do so.

Flack parts his lips to encourage Danny to do likewise. He feels Danny stiffen for a moment, and then, Danny throws his arms around his shoulders, crushing him in a powerful embrace as their tongues duel and their lips mold together in a series of fervent kisses. He encloses his own arms tight around Danny's torso, hands roaming beneath the other man's leather jacket, stroking that warm, familiar though slimmer body, clutching Danny close to him like he once did.

He tastes hints of whisky on Danny's lips. He feels bristly facial hair grazing his cheeks and chin. He hears the muffled moans and sighs emanating from Danny's mouth into his, and something within him untangles at its seams, something that causes him to pull Danny even closer to him, to kiss the other man more ferociously than ever.

Oh God, Danny tastes so good … smells so good, feels so good and hot -

Danny lets out another moan.

It's one that certainly doesn't sound like the pleasured sort.

All of a sudden, Danny's becoming a heavier weight in his embrace.

Flack rears his head back, just a bit, to look at Danny's face, and gasps as Danny's eyes roll back into his head. The alarm of seeing all color drain from Danny's mien slows down his reflexes, but his body is already taking intuitive action, clutching Danny to his chest and securing his grip around the unconscious man's torso. Danny really has lost weight and body mass.

He curses himself inwardly. Shit, how low can he get? Danny's ill and in no freaking condition to be participating in some kissing marathon, and here he is, sucking Danny's face off when he should be carting the guy to bed with some aspirin and food.

"Danny?" he murmurs in concern.

He doesn't receive any response. Danny's eyes are shut, and the way the man's slumped against his chest and shoulder, limp and lifeless, he knows Danny's out like a light.

"Damnit," he berates himself under his breath.

That doesn't get any reaction out of Danny either.

Flack thinks it's rather funny that he's only relaxing now, after Danny's blacked out and no longer able to run away again.

No longer able to see him at the edge of restraint, so close to losing it big time.

He thinks it's funny too, that Danny is the sole human being in the world who has such capacity to make him feel higher then a kite for one moment, then make him weep in the next. Such power over him, and he doesn't mind it at all.

True love drives out all fear, remember?

He smiles to himself in a forlorn manner. Heh, how appropriate it is that the voice of wisdom this time sounds like Aiden. He's wondered before whether things would have been different between him and Danny had she not died. Would Danny have left him then? Would they have stayed together instead? Maybe, maybe not. No one will ever know for sure.

Flack nuzzles the side of Danny's head, his nose prickled by shorn, brown hair. Danny's hair smells somewhat different from how he remembered it. Probably because of a different shampoo or something. He grants himself a few seconds to just rock them back and forth, to feel the unforgettable warmth and life of Danny's body against him, around him. To kiss the other man on the temple, and know that it's not just another dream or another old memory this time.

"Mmnnh."

A muffled moan is the only warning Flack receives before Danny abruptly jerks awake in his arms, gasping aloud with fright, thrashing and attempting to shove himself away.

"Whoa, whoa … S'okay, Danny, you're safe," Flack murmurs, nudging Danny's head back onto his shoulder and stroking the back of the man's head without thought. "It's me ... It's okay."

He suspects it's his voice more than his words that does the job of calming Danny down.

"Don? I don't feel so good."

Danny's mumbling, and the weakness in Danny's voice prompts Flack to lay his palm on the other man's high forehead. The fever is still there.

The way Danny had behaved so edgy and terrified upon returning to consciousness perturbs him. Danny's not the type of guy who gets spooked easy. Flack ought to know; he'd been there by Danny's side during some of the man's worst predicaments. The subway shooting in which Detective Minhaus, an undercover cop, was killed had gotten Danny all tense and upset and angry, but not frightened like what he witnessed minutes ago. Not even close. Getting locked up with a dead billionaire in a steel-enforced panic room didn't affect Danny for long. Mere hours after getting out, Danny was in a pub drinking beer with his brother Louie as if nothing happened.

As for the entire Tanglewood business with Louie? Even that hadn't given Danny nightmares. just lots of anger, self-reproach and guilt and more guilt. Needless to say, Danny was a pro at hiding his inner turmoil from the world, from everyone.

Except him.

And perhaps that too, like everything else about him and Danny, has always been predestined.

Danny has the power to turn his world upside down every time, to electrify his existence whenever he starts to assume there's nothing more in life that'll ever surprise him. To make him feel truly alive when nothing else can. He, on the other hand, has the power to break through all of Danny's masks and shields, to see the real man within. To accept and love Danny as who he is, and not expect him to be someone else.

Complements of each other.

Yin and yang as one.

Balance.

"Ya got a fever," Flack says while he pets Danny's hair. "Think you can give the sun a run for its money."

Danny huffs an inaudible chuckle. "I'm hot, but not that hot."

Flack replies with nothing more than a soft smile. He's rocking them to and fro again. The motion seems to soothe Danny, who is clutching at his jacket and nestling his face in the crook between his neck and shoulder.

"Whatcha do to yourself, hm?" Flack asks gently.

"Rainin' … cold … " Danny rasps after a minute. "Nowhere to go."

The last three words are filled with so much misery and resignation that Flack is rendered speechless. How could Danny have ever thought that, with his family and all his friends right here, a mere phone call away?

How could Danny have ever thought that he wasn't someone to go to in his time of need?

The answer is simple, his heart says, he believes that you're still with Hawkes. That you still hate him for what he did to you.

The revelation causes his breath to snag in his throat.

He's absolved Danny long ago for past transgressions.

The question is, has Danny done the same for himself?

Flack gazes down at the man in his embrace, and like a candle lit in the darkness, the knowledge of how to demolish the remaining walls standing between them arrives with amazing clarity. It's so easy that he's annoyed with himself for not thinking of it any sooner.

Years ago, he had shattered their relationship with angry, ruthless words.

In the approaching morning, he will mend what he had destroyed with words as well, words that he's been yearning to say to Danny for a very, very long time.

For now, getting Danny into bed and well rested is the top priority.

"Ya got me … ya always have," he murmurs into Danny's hair, and he senses Danny nuzzling his neck, a silent appreciation of his assertion. He is content with the wordless display of affection. A single picture can paint a thousand words. A single gesture can speak of just as many, if not more.

What matters to him is that Danny has returned to him, and that is more than he could have ever asked for.

"C'mon … gonna getcha some food to go along with some aspirin, okay?"

Sustaining his hold around Danny's midriff, Flack leads them at a leisurely pace from the living area to the guest bedroom. The lethargy shows in Danny shuffling his feet and letting Flack support much of his weight. For a millisecond, Flack is tempted to hook his arm under Danny's knees and simply carry the guy the rest of the way to the room, but just a millisecond. The last time he'd tried that, Danny had continuously whacked him on the head with a plastic hammer that was part of the party packs handed out during an annual party at CSI headquarters.

It had been the night Danny had whispered such love into his lips. The night his soul became forever linked to his home city, to the man who deemed him to be as beautiful as the metropolis that is New York.

The minute Danny closed the front door of his apartment, he'd seized Danny and hoisted the atypically ebullient man into his arms, and staggered to the bedroom. Despite the abuse to his poor, thick skull, he carried Danny all the way without tripping once. Danny had been more than happy after that to give Flack the opportunity to atone for lugging him around like a virgin bride across the threshold.

Danny would have probably beaten his head some more, should the guy have known that Flack had been serious about them eloping to the Netherlands or Canada to get married.

And he wonders what Danny will say, should he ask the question again, and realize he means it with all his heart.

"You hungry? Did ya eat somethin' at Sullivan's 'fore I went there?"

Flack loosens his arms to let Danny slip out of his arms and sit on the side of the bed.

"No ... Just whisky."

"Okay." Flack sends Danny a meaningful gaze. "Peanut butter and jelly?"

Danny goes rigid, and stares up at him with widened, puffy eyes. It's astonishment that he sees in them, a nearly child-like astonishment that he actually remembers Danny's favorite snack sandwich.

"Wha, ya think I've forgotten?" Flack says with an amused smile. He taps the side of his head using a forefinger. "Don Flack, Jr. never forgets."

When the words leave his mouth, he is suddenly overwhelmed by a powerful sense of déjà vu. He's said those words many times, though just to a select few in his lifetime. He blinks, and sees a Danny from the past sitting before him, Danny with his spiky hair streaked with gold, grinning at him as the naked man tugs him onto the bed.

"You never forget anythin', huh?"

"No, specially not when it concerns you."

"Really, Don? Even if ya got some lobotomy or somethin'? Ya think you won't forget me even then?"

"It's kinda hard to forget half of yourself."

He blinks once more, and the Danny before him is the older Danny he met tonight. Danny, whose eyes are so old and yet so trusting.

Danny, who never stopped loving him.

"You never forget anythin', huh?"

It is Flack's turn to be taken aback. It's true, it seems, that the most significant moments in life repeat themselves.

His lips move on their own volition.

"No. Especially not when it concerns you."

He sees the comprehension, the recollection, dawning in those blue eyes.

"Yeah." Danny blinks. "It's kinda hard to forget half of yerself … isn't it?"

Flack's eyelids flicker shut over hot eyes.

It won't take much to convince himself that nothing's changed after all. That they never left each other. That they never lied to one another, or hurt each other, or gave in to fear and permitted it to destroy the life they might have had. That the last seven years of being apart never came to pass.

But doing so would be surrendering to that fear again, resigning themselves to another existence of lies, and he'll never let that happen ever again. No, they will learn from their mistakes, accept that the past is unchangeable, move on and never look back.

No more pretense. No more living in denial.

Only truth can set a soul free.

"Don?"

Danny is grasping his wrists, then his hands, entwining their fingers.

Flack opens his eyes at half-mast and glances down at Danny. The concern softening Danny's facial features makes his lips bow up in a tender smile. He strokes one hand down the left side of Danny's face, and as Danny's lips part in the beginnings of speech, Flack murmurs, "We'll talk in the mornin', 'kay?"

Danny appears to want to say something anyway, then changes his mind and closes his mouth, giving Flack a single nod.

"Here." Flack takes out the box of aspirin from his jacket pocket, and hands it to Danny. "I'll go get some water and make ya a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Ya like that?"

"Yeah, that sounds good." Danny smiles at him.

He's about to turn and walk to the bedroom door when Danny grabs his hand.

"Don, I …" - Danny swallows perceptibly - "Thank you. For lettin' me stay."

The amalgam of remorse and tremendous gratefulness in Danny's expression causes a pang in his chest. He gives Danny's hand a heartening squeeze.

"Don't worry 'bout it. You can stay for as long as you like."

Danny smirks, and in an attempt to lighten the mood, says in the most casual manner possible, "What? Even if it's forever?"

"Yes."

Flack merely whispered it, but it sounds as if it's echoing through the cosmos.

Danny looks like he's been gut-punched and told he'd won a billion dollars at the same time. Flack figures it's an apt time as any to leave Danny alone for a bit, and he needs to go get some water and make that sandwich fast in case Danny passes out a second time while he's at it.

"Ya want anythin' else with yer sandwich?"

Danny shakes his head in silence. The man's so bowled over that he can't speak.

"Okay, I'll be back soon."

Flack feels Danny squeeze his hand like he did moments ago, and he smiles again, knowing that there's just one more step to take. Just one more barrier to remove before they can say goodbye to the past in all honesty and walk forward as one. It will take place in the morning, and it will be the most difficult step of all, particularly for Danny.

He knows, however, that Danny will come through for both of them.

And he will be there, to the end.

At the bedroom door, Flack swivels around to look at Danny one more time. Danny's removing his boots and taking off his jacket. The curtains of the room's windows aren't drawn yet, and moonlight cascades through the glass and onto Danny's back, lighting him in stark white from behind. Danny's eyelids are lowered and his dark eyelashes fan high cheekbones. When he's folded up his jacket and placed it on the bed next to him, Danny tilts his head back, arching that slender neck and pushing his shoulders back to stretch his arms and body.

It's a sight that takes Flack's breath away. His mind commits it to vibrant memory, along with all the other sensual, cherished memories he has of the attractive, blue-eyed man.

As he's in his kitchen spreading some creamy peanut butter onto bread, he hums softly to himself, and contemplates how enjoyable it will be to have a giant photograph of Danny in that exact pose.

Hanging over their bed.

( Oooo …... oooO )

The scars on Danny's forearms are haunting Flack's meditations.

He's sitting on the side of the bed, so close to Danny slumbering that their hips are touching, separated only by the blanket swathing Danny from chin to toes. He's changed into a more cozy t-shirt and long cotton pants, which is a deviation from the norm since he usually sleeps in the nude. Besides, it's rather cold tonight and he doesn't want to leave Danny on his own. The man's fever hasn't ebbed away yet.

He caresses Danny's forehead again, to check whether the high temperature has gone down, and to simply touch him. Danny looks so much younger when he's sleeping. Like a little boy, regardless of the facial hair. In the semi-dimness of the room that's lit by just one bedside lamp, the lines on Danny's face and the dark circles around those closed eyes are concealed by diffused shadows, and the blanket is covering Danny's arms.

Arms with long, dark scars where there were once none.

What happened to you in Montana, Danny? Things must have gotten so bad for you to end up this way, Flack thinks. Will you tell me what happened, in the morning?

The words remain in his mind. If things go the way he hopes they will, he'll find out within a matter of hours anyhow.

Flack's gaze shifts from Danny's relaxed mien to the empty glass and plate left on the bedside table.

Danny had devoured the two sandwiches like he hadn't eaten in days. He would have made another two, except Danny went beet red when the last crumb was gone and protested heavily about him making more food. A few minutes later, after swallowing some aspirin, Danny was fast asleep and dead to the world. Flack could play heavy metal at full blast on his stereo system and Danny would probably still sleep like a baby all through the night. Danny didn't even so much as twitch while he tugged the blanket from beneath the snoozing man and arranged Danny's limbs into a more comfortable position.

It was then that the long sleeves of Danny's shirt rolled up and exposed those shocking scars.

A fading bruise on the left forearm had caught Flack's attention at first. It was large enough that Flack speculated it might have been caused by Danny falling down and knocking against something hard, or by getting hit by something. Or someone. He swears that he could see the print of a human fistin the shape of the bruise. He ever finds out who did that to Danny, the jerk's dead meat.

He soon forgot the contusion after detecting the scars. He had stared at them in aghast silence for three minutes straight, cautiously outlining them with his fingertips, unable to believe they were really there. Danny had always prided himself on his well-built arms. They were one of the reasons the man loved wearing tank tops, so he could show them off. That, and Danny knew how much Flack relished staring at him in tight, sleeveless shirts.

But now, with scars like these …

Flack sighs. He has his work cut out for him, if the reason Danny's become so jumpy and apprehensive is associated with the scars. His gut instincts are telling him that it's going to require a lot of encouragement from him for Danny to just talk about them, much less voluntarily show them to him.

Even with his eyes shut, they're clear as day in his mind. The scars are long, straight streaks of darker tissue that criss-cross along Danny's forearms, from above the wrists to the elbows. They're diverse in length; some are longer and thicker and others, and they appear as if they were made by a sharp weapon.

Like a knife.

It worries Flack to a great extent that Danny might have inflicted them upon himself.

No. No.

Flack scowls, his brows furrowing and his lips twisting downwards in vehemence.

No, Danny's not like that.

No matter how terrible the situation may have gotten, he's certain Danny would never resort to suicide.

Flack opens his eyes, and out of the blue, he recalls an occurrence where he was at CSI headquarters, standing in the morgue with Mac and Hammerback around the corpse of a young woman who'd been stabbed to death. Hammerback was spouting medical jargon and details that Mac obviously understood, so while they talked shop, he studied the DB's wounds. With all the blood washed away, the gouges almost appeared fake, like they were Hollywood horror make up rather than very real and brutal stab wounds that had ceased the life of a human being.

Hammerback raised one of the victim's arms. Pointed at the deep gashes on the outer forearm.

The ME stared him directly in the eye and said, "Defense wounds."

Flack gasps.

Defense wounds. Why hadn't he thought of that?

His eyes flit back to where Danny's arms lie underneath the dark red blanket. Now that he thinks about it, he hadn't taken note of where the scars were on the forearms. He'd been too shocked at merely seeing them on Danny's once unmarred skin.

Were they on the inner side, or the outer side?

He curls his fingers around the edge of the blanket and gently pulls it down, baring Danny's body down to the waist. He had placed Danny's arms in such a way that the hands lay on top of the guy's belly, allowing the forearms to rest on the sides and the upper arms to remain on the bed. The left sleeve of Danny's shirt is rolled up to the elbow, and Flack immediately sees that the scars are, indeed, on the outer side of the forearms. Just to be sure, he grasps Danny's wrist and turns the forearm towards him with care.

Some of the scars are long enough that they end on the underside of the arms, but there are none on the inner side.

Defense wounds.

Danny had received these scars as a result of an attack.

Flack has to suck in deep breaths to repress the rapid fury boiling within him. His lips are in a thin line of anger as he returns Danny's arm to its former position and draws the blanket back up to the slumbering man's chin.

Who did this to Danny? Did it happen during a case? Was Danny assaulted by some perp?

Or had this been the outcome of things gone sour between Danny and Lindsay?

One of Flack's hands clenches into a taut fist on the bed. The sinister theory that springs to his mind is one that makes him both nauseated and outraged to the marrow of his bones.

Did she do this?

He considers the possibility for a sheer second, then squeezes his eyes shut, rubbing at his forehead with a thumb and forefinger in skepticism. Geez, he may not have liked her much, but even he can't envision her capable of an act this cruel.

Still, the remote chance is there.

Many things can change in seven years. People can change in seven years, and not always for the better.

"Hnnnmh."

Danny's hushed moan snaps him out of his brooding. In the serene silence of the bedroom, he observes Danny slowly roll onto his side towards him, curling up into a fetal position. Danny's brows contract in a slight frown, then ease as the man returns to a deep slumber. Flack can't help smiling at the way Danny's reflexively huddled beneath the blanket. Now the guy appears even more like a sleeping child, all bundled up and hiding his face from the light of the bedside lamp nearby.

Flack reluctantly gets to his feet to reduce the brightness of the lamp via its switch. He glances at the digital clock on the bedside table next to the lamp, and sees that it's not even nine o'clock yet. Way too early for him to retire to bed, and it's Saturday tomorrow and a day off for him. Not necessary for him to awaken early. Maybe he'll go watch some television, check up on Danny now and then till it's bedtime.

"Huh, Letterman's not on tonight …" he mutters, scratching at the side of his neck.

The room having become darker doesn't affect him maneuvering around. Thanks to his constant walking about with bare feet, he has the floor plan of his whole apartment ingrained on his brain by now. He's more than able to move in utter darkness without bumping into anything.

Tonight, though, isn't like any other regular night where he's alone.

Not six steps away from the bedside table, his foot slams into something big that's neither soft or hard. He lets out a grunt of surprise and staggers a couple of steps to the side, almost falling flat on his face.

Damn, what the -

Once he recovers his equilibrium, he nudges the object with his foot.

Oh. It's Danny's duffel bag. He'd completely forgotten about it.

He looks in Danny's direction, and is relieved that the man's sleep isn't disturbed by his clumsiness. Kneeling down, he feels around with his hands, patting the bag and the floor around it. The bag's zip had opened up, and stuff had definitely fallen out of it. He encounters an open box with some papers and assorted objects in it, and its cover a few hands' breath away. It's easier said than done to not wonder what exactly is inside the box. As much as he wishes to know, it would be a breach of Danny's privacy and he knows what it's like to have people snooping around trying to dig up dirt on him. It's a repellent act, and there's no way he's going to do the same to anybody else.

He places the cover back onto the box, then skims his hands on the floor in wider circles to check for any other things he might have missed. To his left, over an arm's length away, his hand lands on top of something small and round, the size of his palm.

Something with … netting. And feathers.

Curiosity piqued, he picks it up and shuffles on his knees to the bedside table to better view the unknown object in his grasp.

A minute passes before he recognizes what it is he's holding under the lamp.

It's a dreamcatcher.

The same one he had bought for Danny many years ago, around the time their friendship had just begun to develop into so much more.

Flack's large eyes widen.

He examines it from numerous angles, staring at the four light blue feathers dangling down from the bottom half of the dreamcatcher's circular frame, at the intricate, florid mesh stretched within that frame. There's a hole in the net, and he's rather certain that when he purchased it, it didn't have one.

Flack's thick brows lower in rumination.

Hmm, he can't recall any longer where he'd gotten it. The only distinct memory he has of the item is him presenting it to Danny at the labs.

It was late one evening. He'd driven to CSI headquarters from his precinct, intent on surprising Danny with his gift. Danny was alone in one of the laboratories, staring at a computer monitor screen with squinted eyes and looking like he needed a nice, long break from the monotony of research. Flack crept up behind the guy, and caught the CSI unawares with a hug and a raspberry kiss on the neck.

He'd laughed so hard at Danny squeaking like a giant mouse and leaping off the chair the way the guy did. That was probably not a very smart move, given that Danny was all annoyed and huffy as he took out the brand new dreamcatcher from his jacket pocket and dangled it in front of Danny's face.

"What's that?" Danny said with an obvious pout, arms crossed over his chest.

"It's a dreamcatcher," he replied, jiggling the object to make the feathers dance in the air. "Ya know, to catch bad dreams so ya won't have any when ya sleep."

Danny's pout intensified.

"Why would I need it? That's just superstitious mumbo-jumbo."

Reliving that scene in his mind, Flack is amused at his past self for feeling so dejected at Danny's snub of his gift. Danny did have a point about it being just superstitious mumbo-jumbo. But back then, he'd been younger. A young man who was head over heels in love with a friend who became more than a friend. A young man who had so much to learn about life and its joys and tribulations.

He doesn't remember what he said in answer. Perhaps he didn't say anything, not verbally. His expression must have, however, because Danny was suddenly gazing at him with big, receptive eyes, all sullenness vanished into thin air.

He was pulling his hand back, about to crush the dreamcatcher in a fist and chuck it away.

And then, Danny's hand was around his, around the dreamcatcher.

"Why would I need it?" Danny said again.

The mellowness of Danny's voice persuaded him to look at the other man's face once more. Danny was smiling tenderly, and the sincerity in the curve of those lips diminished his melancholy by a tenfold.

"I dunno," Flack mumbled, feeling like a dunce. "I just thought … ya'd like it 'cause you're into artistic stuff … and all that." He shrugged. Oh boy, his face was warm.

Danny had turned his hand upwards and was studying the dreamcatcher on his palm with rapt eyes.

"It is a gorgeous piece of work," Danny says after some time.

"Yeah, well. I picked the one with the light blue feathers 'cause …" - oh man, he hoped his face wasn't becoming more red - "'Cause the blue feathers kinda reminded me of your eyes."

He had anticipated some sarcastic laugh or at least a sneer from Danny. What he hadn't expected, due to the risk somebody could barge in on them, was Danny kissing him then and there.

"You're silly, ya know that?" Danny whispered against his mouth. The man was still smiling.

Flack started to reply, and was dazed into silence when Danny kissed him a second time, looked him in the eye and said, "Why would I need it … when I already have the best one?"

He hadn't been able to articulate a word for a while after that.

And right now, kneeling at the bedside table and staring with hot eyes at the dreamcatcher in his hands, he is similarly overwhelmed.

Danny had accepted the present from him in the end, but he'd never seen it again since that evening. He had assumed Danny threw it away, what with how the guy initially reacted to it.

Flack traces the edge of the dreamcatcher's frame with his forefinger.

Danny's kept it. All this time.

Even after the man left him.

He closes his eyes, and there in his thoughts, Danny's standing before him once more, gazing at him with such hopeful eyes.

I won't blame you if you don't believe me, but it's true … I never stopped lovin' you. Never.

His fingers tighten around the dreamcatcher.

He knows it's true.

The proof is right here in his hands.

"Mmnh, no …"

Danny's moaning in a sleep that is transforming into a fitful one.

Flack places the dreamcatcher on the bedside table and turns towards the bed, laying one hand on the top of Danny's head and the other on Danny's upper arm. Danny's forehead feels cooler. The fever's finally going down.

"No … don't …"

Danny has moved his arms up in front of his face, as if he's blocking something from view.

Or protecting himself from a violent assault.

"Sshh, it's alright, I'm here," Flack murmurs in a kind voice. He strokes the other man's hair, praying the physical contact will soothe away whatever nightmare Danny is suffering.

"Don't …"

Danny's entire body abruptly stiffens under the blanket. Danny's face is no longer obscured by the cloth, and the terror twisting those attractive features rips at Flack's heart.

Shit, what he wouldn't give to kick the living crap out of the fucker who hurt Danny.

The anxiety is building more and more within Danny, he can sense it. Flack has to forcibly restrain himself from pressing Danny down on the bed or shake the squirming guy awake. He has no clue whatsoever how Danny will respond to either treatment; Danny's earlier behavior in the living room after blacking out cautions him that doing either is a lousy idea.

For one tense moment, it seems as though Danny is going to lash out with his legs, tangled as they are in the blanket.

Flack increases the pressure of his caresses along Danny's rounded head. If Danny can't hear him, perhaps the man can still feel him.

Another tense moment ticks by.

Then little by little, Danny loosens up, going limp on the bed. The fright on Danny's visage gradually disappears, leaving a tranquil countenance in its place.

"Shh, that's right, it's Don … I'm here."

Danny's calm and quiet. The nightmare has departed.

Flack returns to sitting on the side of the bed, and continues to stroke Danny's head and face. Forget television and sleep. He's just fine where he is. He's not leaving, not when he still has a responsibility here, a responsibility he's more than willing to undertake.

"It's okay," he whispers to a semi-dozing Danny who is now holding his other hand.

Something deep within his chest quavers with emotion as he watches Danny languidly stroke his hand a few times, the man's eyelids flickering. Danny had only ever done this once in all their years together, clinging onto his hand this way and stroking it with such reliance.

It had been at the hospital. After that bomb had shredded his abdomen and almost killed him and left him bedridden for weeks.

He hears Danny mumble something disjointed. Those eyelids flutter some more and then, seconds later, they fully close again. Danny's hands become motionless and lax.

It is only after some minutes that Danny's murmured words register on his brain.

Flack smiles in affection, and even though he knows Danny won't hear it, he answers the sleeping man's plea.

"Don't worry, I'm here ... Your dreamcatcher is here."

xiii. "We'll get by ..."

The sun has yet to rise.

At this time of the morning, Flack is more often than not still in bed, snoozing away until his alarm clock goes off at seven. He'll climb out of bed and head for the bathroom to wash up and change into his work clothes. After that, it's a swift breakfast of toast with butter and honey and a lovely, hot cup of tea. Used to drink coffee, but his preference of morning beverage has switched over the years. Hawkes' recommendation of tea being healthier in the long run had something to do with that.

This particular morning, breakfast is an event for two. Not only is there toast, there is also scrambled eggs, some fried sausages and slices of bacon. There's a big pot of tea brewing, and its herbal scent fills the kitchen with an invigorating, pleasant aroma.

Flack takes a deep breath as he pours the hot tea into two mugs. Ah, Darjeeling. His favorite tea of all.

Danny is sitting at the dining table at his behest, patiently waiting for breakfast to be served, tapping his fingers on the table top as he's doing so. The man's hair is too short to look the slightest ruffled. His clothes, on the other hand, are disheveled and wrinkled and very slept in. The dark circles around his eyes are lighter now due to the ten hours of recuperation he's had.

In his case, Flack was awake long before Danny was. He had attempted to sleep, and took a nap that was brief. Once out of bed, he spent some time lounging on his couch, reading the latest news via the internet on his laptop. Later, he looked out at the glittering panorama beyond his living room windows and pondered on a strategy to encourage Danny into talking today. He'd arrived at a decision that food was the way to go when Danny shambled out of the guest bedroom and into the living area. Flack immediately strode up to Danny and felt the drowsy man's forehead. He was very pleased to discover the fever gone.

"Don, I can help with the -"

"Nuh uh." Flack pivots around and waggles a finger in Danny's direction. "You just sit there and let me bring the food over."

Flack turns back to the kitchen counter and takes two plates of scrambled eggs, bacon and sausages to the dining table, setting one in front of Danny, and the other in front of the empty chair next to Danny's. Then he goes back for the full mugs of tea, and hands one to Danny.

Danny grins at the cup's bright pink color and yellow chicks painted on it.

"I didn't buy that," Flack says, and Danny snickers.

"Yeah, so who did?"

Before Flack says anything, Danny's expression unexpectedly turns solemn. It's an expression that's begging Flack to ignore his inquiry. Flack is baffled by the hasty alteration in Danny's demeanor. And then, he figures it out.

Danny must be presuming a former girlfriend bought it.

Or Hawkes, even.

Well. Sheldon apparently remains a sensitive issue of discussion.

Nonetheless, he's going to put Danny's doubts to rest right quick.

"A little girl called Mandy," Flack replies. He smiles in reminiscence of the NYPD Medal of Honor award ceremony. He was speaking with some of the parents of the children whom he'd rescued, including Mandy's mother who bestowed him with the cup and said Mandy hand-picked it for him. She'd apologized profusely for its very girlish pink color and the even more unmasculine print of baby chickens on the mug, but he merely laughed in amusement and made sure to thank Mandy for it. How could he ever refuse such a sweet gift?

He's man enough to own a cup like that. An adorable eight-year-old girl certainly thought so.

Danny sends him an inquisitive look. "Mandy?"

"Yeah. She was one of the children who was in that diner shootin'."

Danny's blue eyes become warm. "You mean, one of the children you saved."

"If ya wanna put it that way," Flack says, shrugging his shoulders.

"Nothin' wrong with sayin' ya saved those kids, Don. That's what ya did."

"Well, like I said 'fore, if any other cop was in my place, they'd do the same thing."

Danny smirks and says in a self-deriding tone, "Yeah, even me, right?"

"Yeah. Specially you."

The change of one word and its significance isn't lost on Danny. The guy avoids commenting on it by picking up his fork and eating some scrambled eggs. Flack considers teasing Danny about it, and stops himself in time. If they're going to approach the topic of Danny's past seven years, he'll have to tread with prudence, and that means steering clear of anything that'll make Danny clam up. For now.

Throughout the easygoing meal, Flack notes that Danny is frequently casting glances his way. He would be eating something, with his head dipped, and Danny would stare at him till he raised his head and looked back at the other man. Danny would then look away, acting as if he was doing anything except gawk at Flack.

Flack considers this very humorous.

"What? Do I have a tree growin' outta my face?" he asks, lifting one eyebrow.

Danny's lips arch up in an abashed smile. Whoops, caught in the act.

"You're wearin' glasses."

Flack blinks.

Oh, that's right. Danny has never seen him with spectacles before.

"Yeah, eyesight ain't what it used to be." He pushes his black, steel-framed glasses higher up his nose with his forefinger. "Had to get these last year. Tiny words were startin' to go blurry on me."

Danny's staring openly at him now.

"S'like Superman."

Both of Flack's eyebrows shoot up. "Superman?"

"Yeah." Danny's smile morphs into a toothy grin. "Glasses on, you're Clark Kent. Glasses off, you're Superman."

Flack chuckles at this comparison. "Hey, I thought we agreed that you're Superman."

Danny frowns for a minute, then smiles again. Ah, the guy has recalled their chat in Sullivan's last night.

"Oh, geez, I'm no Superman. What kinda lousy Superman catches a fever after standin' 'round in the rain?"

Flack simply smiles back, and finishes the remainder of his toast. Danny appears to have already forgotten his own question, and has resumed staring at him. It doesn't bother him in the least; he often stared at Danny in an akin manner once upon a time. Who'd have thought Danny would find him wearing glasses so … captivating?

The clean up afterwards progresses into a short albeit fun game of flicking and slapping bubbly foam on each other. Danny wouldn't heed his request to let him do all the washing up, and had insisted on helping him to dry the dishes and utensils as well. Consequently, while Danny is using a long cloth to towel a cleansed, wet plate, Flack is hit by the impulse to dab Danny's nose with frothy suds. The foam is so thick that it sticks to the tip of Danny's nose, and it's spherical, like a deer's cute snout.

"Danny the Soap-Nosed Reindeer," Flack says with a deadpan face.

Danny gapes at him, glances down the bridge of his nose with nearly crossed eyes, then up at him once more.

Without glancing away, Danny scoops a whole handful of the white, bubbly stuff from the sink.

"Oh yeah? Here's some soap pancake!"

His glasses prevent the foam from getting into his eyes. Unfortunately, his mouth had been open, and he's spitting out soap and wiping at his face and spectacles as Danny laughs with glee and hops out of his range. Yeech, soap tastes icky.

"Ugh, remind me not to buy any more of 'em soap pancakes. Too full a' chemicals," he drawls, taking off his glasses and setting them next to the sink. He can see fine without them. He'll clean them later.

He hears Danny snigger a little more. Then, he feels Danny's fingers upon his face, brushing away residual suds from his lower jaw and right cheek. He, in turn, pinches the foamy blob off Danny's nose and shakes it off his hand over the sink. They stand face to face, with mere inches between them, gazing into one another's eyes.

All of a sudden, the air is wrought with staggering tension. The scorching kind of tension. The kind Flack senses just before he's swept away by the exhilarating sensations of Danny's solid body against his, of Danny's lips pressed on his, of being deep inside Danny and listening to his lover's cries of ecstasy. The mind-blowing kind that's causing his entire body to tingle from head to toe right now.

He knows Danny's feeling precisely what he's feeling. He sees it in Danny's humongous eyes, in the way the pupils are dilated, the way Danny's lips are parted and that broad chest is heaving with muted panting.

His hands reach up to clasp Danny's upper arms.

Danny's leaning forward even as he pulls the other man towards him.

Their heads angle in opposite directions.

Their lips touch.

Boom.

Flack grunts when his lower back collides with the edge of the sink. It's the only noise that manages to escape his mouth. Danny is kissing and fondling him so zealously and moaning so much that it's all he hears, and fuck, it turns him on so bad.

"I missed you," Danny's whispering into his lips, "I missed you so fuckin' much -"

The huskiness of Danny's voice breaks the modicum of self-control he has left into a billion shards. Danny's neck arches, exposing smooth skin, and Flack latches fast on it with his lips and teeth, planting kisses and nibbles from under the lower jaw down to the hollow between Danny's collarbones. The high-pitched groan that reverberates in the air makes Flack grin from ear to ear.

He hasn't forgotten Danny's hot spots at all, noooo, sir.

Danny's literally writhing in his embrace, clawing at his shoulders and back with frantic hands, face flushed and slack with pleasure. He's so enthralled by the sinuous motions of Danny's torso and hips, surging and rolling like the waves of a flowing river.

"Oh yeah," Flack rasps against the other man's neck. "Yeah, that's it, let it go, babe -"

Flack grabs Danny's waist and spins them around so that Danny is propped up against the sink and he's the one rubbing and undulating his hips against Danny's, bending Danny backwards and kissing the man for all he's worth. He's already rock hard just from the sounds Danny's making, and oh damn, Danny's hard too, and he has to fucking feel Danny without all these clothes right now -

"Uhh …"

Something's shifted in the tone of Danny's voice.

"Dan? You okay?" he says into Danny's ear, nuzzling the other man's bristly cheek.

Danny's motionless now, apart from the shivering, and it's not the type a person gets from pleasurable stimulation.

"Dizzy," Danny murmurs in a small voice. "Man, my body friggin' hates me. Cuts things off every time it starts gettin' fun."

Flack chuckles in understanding, then tightens his arms around Danny's midriff, rubbing comforting circles all over the guy's upper back with one hand. They've returned to the same pose they were in last night when they were in the living area; Danny resting on his shoulder and chest, clutching at the back of his shirt, and him with his head slanted on top of Danny's, rocking them back and forth.

"S'okay, you're not a hundred percent well yet, that's all."

"I blacked out last night, didn't I?" Danny mumbles after some time.

"Yeah," Flack replies. "Just for a couple a' seconds. Scared the crap outta me."

He senses Danny kiss him on the side of his neck, and he responds to it by stroking the back of Danny's head and neck. Danny likes that a lot, he knows.

The following five minutes trickles by with them basking in each other's presence, just holding one another, remembering what it is to be alive again. It's a huge effort for Flack to eventually release Danny from his encirclement and step backwards, out of the other man's personal space. Danny, in contrast, isn't letting go of his shirt, and is gazing up at him with sad puppy eyes.

A jolt travels up Flack's spine.

The last time he'd seen Danny's eyes appearing that way was that evening in the labs' locker room. He was so certain it was an act, nothing more than a charade to smash his defenses.

What if he'd been wrong?

What if he hadn't been so foolish, if he hadn't permitted his rage to overtake his sanity and warp his perception? Would they have split up if he had kept his big mouth shut and seen and listened instead?

Was it his fault, then, that things turned out the way they did?

He purses his lips hard, squeezing his left temple with his fingertips.

No, a firm voice in his heart utters, stop it. No more looking back at the past that can't be changed. It's over and done.

Look forward.

Live today.

"Don?"

His eyes open wide. Huh, he doesn't recall shutting them.

Danny's eyes seem even bigger. The emotion Flack sees within them is a familiar one by now, one he wishes to banish from their existence for infinity. Fear has no place in a life of love.

"M'okay," he says, caressing Danny's cheek and chin with the back of his fingers. The stubble on Danny's lower face feels coarse on his skin. It's a sensation he enjoys very much.

Danny stares at him for a while, and asks out of the blue, "Are ya workin' today?"

The spontaneous change of subject makes Flack blink. Then, it becomes clear to him.

Ah. Danny's subtly fishing for information, attempting to get him to talk about what's bothering him. It is such an irony that he's trying to do the same thing to Danny, and Danny already has a head start on him.

"Nah. Day off," Flack answers coolly. He sucks in one long breath. Perhaps he's crazy or something, but the air always smells so … good whenever Danny's close.

"Oh."

Flack hears the other's man unstated query in that single word.

What do we do now?

"Go on, go laze on the couch, watch TV or somethin'. I got a whole lotta DVDs in the shelf next to the TV, if ya wanna watch 'em," Flack says. "I'll just finish up here and be with you in a sec."

Danny still isn't letting go of his shirt.

And he is powerless in the other man's grasp.

In the past, he was the one who often demonstrated physical affection towards Danny in public. A touch of the arm or shoulder, maybe the lower back if he can get away with it. Maybe even an arm around the shoulders, in the appropriate circumstances. Danny would shoot insinuating, sensual glances at him instead, saving the touching, kissing, grinding and all out moaning and screaming for private, intimate hours.

He was the instigator of most, if not all, of their sexual encounters. Danny rarely made the first move. He never found fault with that though. It was a thrill to chase Danny who played hard to get, and Danny adored being the recipient of such attention, the focus of such relentless pursuit. They both knew, at the end of the day, Flack always got his man, and so did Danny.

To have Danny holding onto him this way, to see that the tables have turned, that Danny is chasing him this time is a sobering reminder that things between them are no longer the same. They are on new grounds now. Territory they have yet to explore and cultivate, rife with weeds that must be dug up and thrown away.

But it's alright. They have time to do all that and more.

"It's okay, Danny," Flack murmurs, stepping forward to touch their foreheads together. "We got time." He gives the quiet man a gentle peck on the lips. "I ain't goin' anywhere."

The words seem to reassure Danny. After scrutinizing his face, Danny nods once, then ambles away to the living area, halting only for a moment at the entrance of the kitchen to glance back at him. Whatever Danny sees on his face, it's something that softens Danny's attractive features into a beautiful countenance.

The cold water from the tap alleviates the lust coursing through Flack's body as he completes the washing up. He's rather grateful he's on his own in the kitchen; another second more, and Danny would have been lying flat on the dining table with his clothes torn off, recovered from a fever or not. That's how damn aroused he is.

"Cool it," he scolds himself under his breath.

There are more important matters to attend to this morning.

There'll be time for making love afterwards.

About seven minutes later, having dried the plates and utensils and stored them, he saunters into the living room, much more composed. The television isn't switched on, and his laptop is closed like he left it on the low coffee table in front of the couch where Danny is sitting.

"Nothin' interestin' on TV, huh?"

Silence greets him.

He walks up to the sofa and quietly settles down on the cushions next to Danny. Danny is staring out the ceiling-to-floor windows, riveted by the Manhattan eastern skyline and the dark grayish-blue of the sky in the background. Flack shoots a glance at the analog clock hanging on the wall near the television set. It's almost seven in the morning, but according to an online sunrise and sunset calendar, dawn won't occur for another twenty minutes or so. The sunrise is commonly late during the winter.

"Look at that," Danny states in a voice filled with veneration. "That is one hell of a view."

Flack rests one arm on the back of the couch behind Danny. "Yeah, wait till ya see what it's like when the dawn comes."

He's yearning to place his arm around Danny's shoulders, except something in his mind is dissuading him from doing it. Okay, he has to give Danny space. He drags Danny into a cuddle or a hug, and they'll be so busy making out all over the furniture and the floor that they will barely have breath to talk.

And talk is what Flack requires Danny to do.

He doesn't get Danny talking today, it'll become more and more challenging with each passing day that Danny doesn't, and he knows Danny's a master at avoiding discussion of anything delicate in nature. What's more, the longer Danny doesn't talk about the events of the past seven years, the less likely it'll be of him ever learning the truth.

Like why Danny never called him once in all those years. Like why Danny had to journey back to New York city using a freaking bus. Like what happened between Danny and Lindsay that the guy wound up the way he is today.

With those scars on his arms. With that haunted expression in those big, blue eyes.

"Mommy called me up."

Flack stares hard at Danny's face in profile. Danny is looking forward at the plasma television now, eyes glazed over in recollection. Flack stays silent and waits for Danny to say more. Did the guy mean his mother recently called him, or that he was enlightening Flack on an incident from the past?

"She sounded strange," Danny says. "Like she believed somethin' bad was gonna happen to me or somethin'. Kinda a coincidence, ya know, 'cause I got clonked on the head with a brick while we were chasin' that perp in the Minelli case that day."

Flack shifts higher up on the couch, all ears now. He remembers that case. The vic had been shot in the head and chest in the back alley of a restaurant in Little Italy, and only he and Danny had been assigned to it. It was a clear cut investigation that got wrapped up in a day seeing as the perp actually showed his stupid face at the crime scene and made them pursue him down two blocks into some construction site. Flack would have been nice to the guy, if he hadn't hurled that brick at Danny's head and injured the detective.

Yes, he remembers the Minelli case, alright.

It had taken place mere days before Danny was caught in the subway shooting that killed Detective Minhaus. Truly an uncanny fluke, then, that Danny's mother had called her son with concern for his life right before it occurred.

"I thought it was gonna be the usual stuff, worryin' 'bout me and whether I was eatin' right and takin' care of myself … but for some reason, she kept askin' whether I was seein' anybody."

Flack bites his lower lip. Danny had been seeing somebody at the time. However, considering how nervous Danny had been about their relationship, he highly doubted Danny told his mother he was sleeping with his homicide detective colleague and friend. Who also happened to be a man.

"She wouldn't even let me talk. All she kept goin' on 'bout was that she was gettin' old and kept askin' me when I was gonna get married and have kids."

Danny's brows are low in a mild frown.

"She never bugged me 'bout things like that before. Ya know what she's like, I always brought ya 'round to the house during the weekends for spaghetti."

Flack smiles at that. Yeah, Mrs. Messer's a sweet lady with serious cook-fu skills in the kitchen. She made the best spaghetti and meatballs with mozzarella cheese in town, hands down. It's a shame that he lost touch with her after Danny had left the city. He couldn't stomach the idea of hearing about Danny's new life with Lindsay in Montana from Danny's mother. As long as he didn't contact her, he would never have to correlate Danny's cheating and eventual departure with her. She'd have remained in his mind as someone related to Danny who didn't know Lindsay, someone who wouldn't remind him of the wrong committed against him, or what he lost.

"It was just … weird. The thing was, I couldn't get it outta my head, the things she was naggin' me 'bout. It kept buggin' me, and I started thinkin' real hard 'bout it all." Danny turns his head to look at Flack. "'Bout us."

Without being aware of it, Flack clenches one hand into a loose fist.

Oh geez, here it comes, the reason why Danny left him -

"Ya gotta believe me, Don, when we were still … when we had what we had, I was - I was happy. Really. You made me happy. They were some a' the best years of my life."

Danny's plucking at the hem of his sweater, in that twitchy way that suggests to Flack Danny isn't as unperturbed as he appears.

"But, it was like I suddenly couldn't stop thinkin' 'bout what would happen if people found out 'bout us. 'Bout our relationship. Wasn't worried 'bout me 'cause, c'mon, I already had such a lousy rep from the start. The whole Tanglewood shit, people tellin' Mac not to hire me, and other cops thinkin' I'm a cop killer too … can't go lower than that."

Flack purses his lips. Mac had been way out of line for throwing that into Danny's face once the Minhaus case was dealt with. Danny didn't deserve that, even though the incident had been a real mess. Mac never saw the guilt Danny harbored due to the undercover detective's death. Mac never saw how acutely his lack of support had affected Danny.

But he did.

And it had upset him to discover that Danny hadn't trusted him either, at the time.

He should have spotted the branches of fear sprouting out then. He should have hacked them off when he had the chance.

"I was worried 'bout you."

Flack gazes deep into Danny's glossy eyes.

"Me?" he asks.

The ends of Danny's lips curl up in a cheerless smile.

"Yeah. You're the total opposite a' me, Don. You're the son of a New York legend. You're blue blood. You got a perfect record, ya got the looks and the personality, ya got everythin' goin' for ya. And me … I was just tyin' ya down with all my crap." Danny gestures with his hands at their surroundings. "Just look at yerself. Look how far you've made it."

Something hot ignites within Flack.

"So let me get this straight," he articulates in a deceptively calm voice. "You think that I'm where I am, that I achieved what I have … because you were outta my life? Is that it?"

Danny is staring down at a spot on the floor near his feet, and is very quiet.

"You don't know that, Danny. You don't know that."

"Can you honestly say that your life woulda turned out the same if I'd stayed?" Danny whispers.

Flack doesn't even hesitate.

"Yeah. I can."

Right away, Danny is staring at him with wide eyes.

"I can," Flack repeats. "Because I loved you then. I still do."

The silence looming over them is so thick that Flack can taste it.

Danny's eyes are glistening, and even in the dimness of the living area, Flack sees Danny's neck ripple in a visible swallow.

"I never stopped lovin' you," Flack murmurs, never once looking away from the other man's features. "I mean it. I never stopped lovin' you, Danny, no matter what you may think."

The desire to enfold his arms around Danny strengthens tenfold when Danny bows his head low, concealing his face. His nails dig into the flesh of his palms. He can't do it. No yet, not until Danny's gotten everything out.

"I believe you," Danny whispers croakily. "But you were angry at me too."

It's a rhetorical statement.

"Yeah, I was. What you did hurt me like hell. Probably worse than hell."

That sad smile has returned to Danny's lips.

"That was - that was what I hoped, ya know, 'cause I knew you'd be angry at me for havin' an affair behind your back. You'd be pissed off, you'd hate my guts and dump me and find somebody better." Danny raises his head a little and gazes at his own hands on his thighs. "You'd be free of me. Free to have a wife, kids … a family. Live a good life, without worryin' 'bout what other people think, without dealin' with me and all my problems." He lets out a mirthless chuckle. "And you oughta know what a fucked up person I am, you of all people."

Flack closes his eyes, unable to bear the despair upon Danny's visage.

God, he was right, after all. If he'd just listened and read between the lines of the situation instead of falling so easily into Danny's scheme, then -

Then the fear would still have been there, his heart asserts, he would have found some other means to push you away, because he believed he was doing it for your own good.

He opens his eyes once more, and sees that Danny is watching him with such apprehensive eyes. Rigid. Shoulders hunched forward.

"There's just one problem with your theory," Flack says evenly. "I never gave a shit what other people think 'bout me or my life. I still don't, and I never will."

Danny blinks.

"Dan, I've been open 'bout my bisexuality for years, long before we got together. I was quiet 'bout it when I was a teenager, but at the time, it was already crazy 'nough tryin' to figure out who I was and what I wanted to do with my life, much less why I'm attracted to women and men."

Flack pauses for a moment.

"Then I grew up, and realized that makin' myself live a lie would be worse than any crap people could give me for being the way I am. Yeah, I might end up livin' the life most people consider 'normal' and yeah, people won't give me any grief if I got married with a woman and had kids or somethin' … But ya see, I do that, and I'd be lyin' to myself every day. I'd lyin' to everybody 'round me. My entire damn life would be a friggin' lie, and I'm only gonna live once and it's my life, so who the hell is anyone else to tell me how I should live it, huh? Who the hell is anyone else to tell you how you should live yours?"

"I'm not strong like you," Danny replies in a tiny voice.

"Bullshit. You are. You just made the wrong choices, that's all."

"Yeah … I sure did, didn't I?"

Flack caves in to his longing to touch Danny, and stretches out his hand to stroke the side of Danny's face. Danny's eyelids flicker as he does so.

"Everybody makes mistakes, Danny."

For a few minutes, they're both quiet, sitting stationary where they are on the couch. The sky outside is beginning to lighten, the dark grey transforming into a dark blue hue.

Then, Danny sits upright.

"The first time I thought of the plan was after Hammerback told me Lindsay had a crush on me," the man says, staring at the blank television screen again.

One of Flack's eyebrows lifts. Huh, he certainly hadn't anticipated that.

"It surprised me. It just came outta the blue while he was handin' me some evidence in the morgue, and I thought he was jokin', ya know? I mean, it was Hammerback. What would he know 'bout Lindsay likin' me, right?" Danny scratches at his right collarbone, above the circular neckline of his sweater. "But the more I thought 'bout it, the more I figured it was the perfect thing to jumpstart it all … Hammerback starts tellin' people she had a crush on me, maybe he starts tellin' people I had a crush on her, and the rumors would go 'round the labs real quick."

"I didn't think things would move so fast. It was just a couple a' days afterwards, and I was already hearin' the other lab techs talk 'bout Lindsay and me. And before I knew it, Lindsay was talkin' more and more to me, even after I teased her and made her mad, and … she just made it so easy."

Flack releases a soft, non-committal sound from between his pursed lips. Thinking back to the time Lindsay first appeared, Danny's explanation so far does help to clarify why their relationship floundered so swiftly after her induction into the team. In all honesty, he didn't like Lindsay from the instant he met her. There was something about her that just didn't … sit right with him. Like he knew she was wearing a mask and hiding her true self beneath it, and nobody else did.

Not even Danny, who was supposedly the most paranoid and skeptical person on the block.

At least, that's what Flack had been thinking all these years till now. Now, he knows better. Danny probably knew all along that something was fishy about her too, although the guy chose to turn a blind eye to it in order to get his own ruse up and rolling.

Damn. Another forewarning he should have picked up and inspected when he had the opportunity.

"I dunno, Don … I think maybe in the beginnin', there mighta been some real connection. Maybe it was the fact she was different. Girl from the countryside, different from a city girl, ya know? Maybe that's what I was really attracted to, the fact that she came from somewhere else. Maybe that's what it was for her too, that she mighta found me attractive only 'cause I'm a city guy or somethin', the kinda guy she wouldn't have met where she came from."

Danny falls silent for a minute.

"I guess I … used her. And in some way, she was usin' me too. I just never realized it until it was too late."

Danny shakes his head; it is a motion filled with deep-rooted contempt aimed at himself.

"I'm such a fuckin' coward, aren't I?"

Flack glances out the living room windows, watching more light brighten up the sky. He can see fuzzy shapes of clouds scattered in bulbous clusters here and there. It's going to be a dazzling dawn this morning.

"Danny," he says gently after a while. "You coulda talked to me. We coulda talked things out. Sure, I woulda been really unhappy 'bout endin' things … but I woulda done it, if it meant that you were happy at the end of the day. Wha, did ya think I was gonna beat you up or somethin'?"

Danny's cackle is mordant and joyless.

"You don't understand." Danny swivels his head and stares at him. "I didn't want to say goodbye."

It takes a moment for the deeper meaning of Danny's last statement to sink into his mind.

I didn't want to say goodbye, because I never wanted to leave you.

The grief, the loss he feels upon this realization is crushing in its intensity. He has to exert every drop of willpower to maintain a poised expression.

If only he had bothered to find out why Danny had been pushing him away. If only he had looked beyond his own pride and hurt, and seen the truth behind the fabrication Danny had spun. If only he had fought for their relationship, for the love they had -

If only. The most terrible, excruciating phrase in the dictionary of life.

A phrase that should - no, must - no longer belong in his dictionary, not if he is determined to start anew with Danny and leave the past behind.

"On the last night I was here in New York, all I could think 'bout was how much I was gonna miss the city. How much I was gonna miss you," Danny says in a voice that has become more steady. "But like ya said to me, I made my choice. I dug my own grave, and I was gonna have to live with it." He shakes his head again. "By then, there was no turnin' back for me. Things had already gone too far, and you had already moved on."

"I was happy for you, that ya found somebody better, like Hawkes. He's a good guy. A great guy. I knew he'd treat you right … better than me, that's for sure. So, in a sense, me leavin' had been a good thing."

Flack looks down at their legs. He and Danny are now sitting on the sofa with their legs slanted at a forty-five degree angle towards each other, and their knees are just inches apart. He is suddenly finding that space between their knees very intriguing.

He can't deny that his relationship with Hawkes had been amazing. He had gained so much knowledge and insight from the years he'd spent in Hawkes' company, many experiences big and small that have contributed to him being the person he is in the present.

"It's true that I wouldn't have ended up with Sheldon if ya hadn't left. That doesn't mean that I was glad that you did," he responds. "Life's just … unpredictable. And there's a reason for everythin'."

For the first time since their conversation started, Danny displays a genuine smile that diminishes the despondency on his mien.

"I used to say that."

"I know." Flack shows a small smile of his own. "That's why I remember it."

Danny's smile widens, then fades away as his expression becomes somber once more.

After a short time, the man says, "I tried really hard to like Montana. There was no turnin' back for me anymore, so I had no choice except to go ahead with what I'd planned out … leave New York, start a new life in Montana with Lindsay, live the American dream. Ya know, live in a nice, suburban house, have 2.4 kids, have a nine to five job, all that jazz."

"I tried so hard to like Montana, I did. I guess I shoulda known how things were gonna be, seein' how much I already dreaded leavin' even before I actually did … It was hell from day one." Danny gesticulates with his hands, his brows furrowed. "I tried to be like them, ya know? Especially when Lindsay introduced me to her family. I tried. And I know they knew I was tryin', 'cause all I was hearin' was, 'Don't worry, you'll be one of us in no time!'"

Danny slaps his hands on top of his thighs, palms down.

"I dunno how to explain it, Don. Of all the things, that was what got to me. It was like it woke me up or somethin'. I mean, there I was, tryin' to adapt as much as I could, to be like the people 'round me, and all of a sudden, I'm thinkin', 'Why do I hafta change myself to be accepted? What's wrong with being me?'"

Something inside Flack's chest swells.

Good for you, Danny, he thinks with gratification, good for you.

"And … I dunno. Suddenly, I was mad. Mad that I was still feelin' like a complete foreigner even after years a' being there. That I had to be somebody I wasn't in order to fit in. Most of all, I was mad that she expected me to be somebody I wasn't."

A heavy sigh leaves Danny's lips.

"Man, things between Lindsay and me went to the crapper in less than two years after we moved to Montana. It just … deteriorated like lightning. At first, it seemed like things were gonna be okay. Everythin' was new, including' our relationship. New place, new people, new job. I guess that made things interestin' for me for a while, and I thought that, maybe, it was gonna work out after all. Maybe I could do this."

Danny inhales deeply, then pulls up his legs onto the couch and sits with them folded and his knees up to his chest. It's a much more relaxed position, the usual position Danny shifts into whenever he's in the mood for talking.

It's a very positive sign to Flack.

"Once the honeymoon phase was over, that was when it all went to shit. It didn't happen overnight. It was more like … the thrill of the chase was gone. For both of us. We caught each other, so what's left? Chase was over, so now we had the time to get to know each other more. And … I guess she didn't like what she saw in me. That I wasn't the guy she thought I was. No skin off my nose though. Turned out that she wasn't the woman I thought she was either, not by a long shot."

"It was nuts. S'was like she expected me to know what she wanted, all the time. Like I'm supposed to be this mind reader or somethin'. If I didn't say what she wanted to hear, she'd get mad at me. If I didn't do things the way she wanted, she'd get mad too, and sulk all day and make me feel like crap. Sometimes, she'd try to sweet talk me or come onto me like sex was all it took to - to buy me. It pissed me off so bad. I'd brush her off, and then she'd go back to being this … hateful, angry person. It was like I didn't know who she was anymore."

Danny shrugs one shoulder.

"I guess I never did know her to begin with."

Flack simply nods. It appears that no one who'd worked with Lindsay here in New York ever knew the real her. She never stuck around long enough for people to do that.

Fakes never last for long in the Big Apple, anyhow.

"I tried, Don, I tried, but I just couldn't be the guy she expected me to be. I just couldn't be somebody else."

"If she ever cared 'bout you, she would never have expected you to be somebody else," Flack says. "People who love you, they love you for who you are, Dan."

The last wall standing between them and freedom from what went before is crumbling, he can sense it. The bricks are falling away one by one, and another vanishes as Danny slides a hand across the cushions to clasp his nearest hand, entwining their fingers.

Flack gazes at their joined hands, marveling yet again at how right it looks and feels.

"I know that now," Danny replies, giving his hand a squeeze.

A single question pops into Flack's head out of nowhere.

"Danny … why did you come back to New York on a bus?" Flack smirks in faint amusement. "Always pegged you for being a plane person."

Danny's eyes instantaneously become shuttered.

"Didn't have the cash to buy a plane ticket."

Flack sends the other man a sharp glance.

"I shoulda seen it comin'. All that pressurin' to quickly save up money to buy a house, to get married, get joint bank accounts ... I shoulda seen it comin'. I was so stupid."

Flack's eyes narrow in growing comprehension. Is Danny saying what he thinks he is?

"Are you tellin' me that Lindsay took your money?"

Danny doesn't say anything for a few seconds.

"No. Not really. He did."

Flack's eyes narrow even more. "Who's he?"

Rage is blazing in Danny's blue eyes.

"Daniel Armstrong. My ex-partner back in Bozeman." The muscles in Danny's lower jaw twitch. "The guy Lindsay had an affair with behind my back."

And suddenly, Flack is feeling the same fury inside himself.

"Is he the sonofabitch who gave ya those scars?" he grinds out.

Danny is rubbing at his forearms at once, over the sleeves of his sweater. He's looking anywhere aside from Flack's face now. He shakes his head in a negative.

"No … no, though you could say he played a part in it," Danny mumbles. "This old lady who lived alone was murdered in her home. Her throat was slashed. During' the investigation, we found out that she liked helpin' homeless people out by payin' them to do house repairs and stuff like that, if they knew how. After a whole lotta interviews, we narrowed the list of suspects to one homeless guy who was a drug addict too, and always stopped by her house for free food and warm lodging when it got too cold outside. We found out where he hung 'round on the streets and went to get him."

"It was almost midnight by then. I was the first to go into the alley where the perp was, and Armstrong was supposed to be watchin' out for me. We were both armed, and we were both sure the perp's only weapon was a blade, so I thought it was gonna be an easy arrest."

Flack notices that Danny is rubbing harder at his forearms, that his toes are curled inwards on the sofa cushions. The stress is escalating inside Danny again. This may possibly be the very first time Danny had spoken about the confrontation to anyone.

"He jumped outta nowhere, scared the livin' shit outta me, and he was so strong, like he was as strong as five guys in one. I think he was high on drugs when he attacked me … he was screamin' nonsense and slashin' at me with this knife and - and I couldn't even get a shot 'fore he slammed me onto the ground and I lost my gun -"

Danny's shaking his head over and over, and the frenzied movement prompts Flack into wrapping his hand around the back of Danny's neck, pressing on the taut muscles there in reassurance. The physical connection rapidly placates Danny.

Danny lets out a shuddering breath, then says, "To be honest, I didn't really know what was happenin' to me after the perp knocked me down. All I knew was that my arms were hurtin' so bad, and I could feel this hot wetness all over my arms and my face and shirt and I was screamin' for help, for Armstrong to shoot the guy but … he never did. He wasn't there."

"The only reason I got outta the fight alive was 'cause I managed to find my gun again and shoot the perp in the chest. Then, I guess I blacked out. When I woke up again, I was in the hospital and, God, I still can't believe it … people were congratulatin' Armstrong for savin' my life."

Danny has covered his face with his hands.

"He told everybody that there had been more than one suspect at the scene, two guys instead a' just one. That he was chasin' the other guy and he had confirmation from me that I was fine on my own. He said the other guy escaped, and he returned to the alley and shot the perp who was attackin' me. I tried to set the record straight but nobody would listen to me ... not even Lindsay. I had a concussion too, and Armstrong used it as reasonable doubt to question my side of the story when I was adamant there had only been one suspect, and that Armstrong hadn't backed me up at all. The perp died before the ambulance arrived, so it was basically my word versus Armstrong's."

Danny huffs out a caustic chuckle.

"And of course, they never found 'the other guy'."

The wrath Flack feels surges so high that his hands, his whole body is trembling with it.

What the fuck kind of detective allows a dangerous suspect to assault his partner? And not assist them in any way? And worst of all, make up some bullshit story to seize all the glory for himself?

If this pathetic Armstrong piece of shit ever has the nerve to cross his path, he'll rip the jerk apart with his bare hands. Literally.

"Is this lousy Armstrong bastard still alive?" Flack flashes a lethal, cold grin. "I think I might just pay a visit to Bozeman and say hi. With my fists. And my gun."

"He ain't worth it, Don. You're too good a man to get stuck in the revenge business, specially 'cause of me."

Danny has moved closer to him. Their sides and hips are touching, and Flack finally places his arm around Danny's shoulders and envelops the man in a powerful hug.

"He comes here to my city, and I swear I'll hunt him down and make him suffer for every wrong he's done 'gainst you." Flack growls. "The sonofabitch will get the worst. In spades."

He means what he says to the marrow of his bones.

Danny doesn't make a sound; instead, he reacts to Flack's promise of vengeance by tucking his head under Flack's chin and rubbing at Flack's belly. Flack, in turn, caresses Danny's arms. It's been so long since they cuddled together like this, and yet … it feels as if they had never parted from one another.

Indeed, the invisible power that bonds them is far above the mortal limitations of time and distance.

"Armstrong and I were at odds from the moment we met," Danny murmurs against his neck. "It was like we hated each other on sight. I think the only reason we tolerated each other in the first few years was because he and Lindsay were friends. She was the one who introduced us, and she kept tryin' to convince me that he was a nice guy. Armstrong also had some connection to the chief CSI, so that's how we became partners."

"I never got why he wanted to be my partner even though he disliked me so much. Okay, yeah, he was real careful 'bout showin' any animosity towards me in public and people never suspected anythin', but he never hesitated to tell me what he really thought of me when we were alone."

Danny sighs.

"I just never thought of the possibility that Armstrong would have an affair with Lindsay behind my back. It didn't make sense, ya know? If Lindsay was so keen on me movin' to Bozeman with her, to start a new life together and all that … why would she go and sleep with another guy, right? 'Course, that was in the beginnin'. Later on, things were so bad that we hardly talked to each other. When we did, it always ended up 'bout why things weren't going the way she thought they would, why I wasn't doin' this or that. I was just so sick of it all by then. I didn't want anythin' to do with her, not unless she was willin' to hear me out for a change."

"I think that was when they started sleepin' together. It probably went on for years, 'cause I never knew it until a couple a' months ago. I dunno. Maybe I suspected somethin' … just never wanted to acknowledge it."

Flack senses Danny nestling his face into the crook between his neck and shoulder.

"The shower was on when I walked into the apartment. I figured it was Lindsay in the bathroom, so I didn't think much 'bout it. Went into the kitchen to get a drink of water and then, I went into the bedroom to change."

Danny's gulp is audible to Flack's ears.

"That was when I came face to face with Armstrong. He was sittin' on the rumpled bed, naked and talkin' on his cel phone to somebody. I was so shocked that I couldn't say a word. I actually thought I was in some kinda Twilight Zone episode. When he realized I was there … he didn't even act like he was caught red-handed or anythin'. He just sat there and kept talkin' till he was done, and then Lindsay showed up at the bedroom door in nothin' except a towel."

"She didn't expect to see me back from work so soon. I could see it on her face. She didn't say anythin' either, but Armstrong just started laughin', like it was the funniest shit ever. He didn't even bother wearin' his clothes and he just walked right up to me and said, 'Don't even think about making a fuss, faggot.'"

Flack's arms tighten fiercely around Danny.

That damned bastard.

That disgusting, two-faced lowlife of a bastard.

"That was the end for me, Don. That was the last straw." Danny's voice has become very gravely. "It felt so fuckin' good to smash his face in with my fist, after all the crap he was puttin' me through. For all his bravado, he went down like a sack a' potatoes."

That's my boy, Flack thinks with pride, that's my Danny.

"I didn't say a thing to Lindsay. Hadn't had a thing to say to her in a long time. I just grabbed my duffel bag and some of my clothes and personal stuff and walked out, and never looked back. And ya know what I remember most 'bout that? She never came after me. Didn't even call out my name. She didn't give a damn at all that I was walkin' out on her for good. God, I'd wasted so many years of my life with her. For nothin'."

Danny coughs, and then says, "I went straight back to the labs and resigned on the spot. I didn't stick 'round for the shit to hit the fan. Went to the bank, and found out all my money was gone. Lindsay had withdrawn everythin' from our joint account. So all I had was a few hundred bucks in my wallet, and all I could think of … was comin' home."

Flack runs his fingers through Danny's shorn hair. Right now, he's feeling an unsettling combination of compassion and sorrow for Danny's plight together with an incalculable amount of infuriation at the two people who made the man he loves suffer so much. He hasn't even met this Armstrong jerk, and already he despises the pitiful example of a man. As for Lindsay … had he known the full scope of her selfishness and her capability of such deceit, he would have done everything he could to keep her away from the people he loved. The people he still loves.

He's furious with her, alright. She did what no one else was able to do, not even an armed killer or a group of gangsters could.

She had succeeded in breaking Danny's spirit.

The good news is, Flack's going to be around to see to it that Danny heals from the damage she's wreaked upon him. No matter how long it takes.

Before he can speak, Danny sits up and says, "I deserved it all."

The four words stun him.

"Deserved what?" Flack asks, his eyes wide in disbelief. "To live in a place that you didn't want to? To be treated like crap by Lindsay and Armstrong? What, to have them fuckin' 'round behind yer back?"

Danny has shifted back to his former position on the couch, a forearm's distance away from Flack. Danny stares at the floor.

"That's what I did to you, remember?"

"Danny, no, that's in t-"

"Don't deny it, Don. That's exactly what I did to you. I cheated on you. You, the guy who didn't deserve it in any way. I did it to you, and now, karma's gotten me back for it. I deserved it. I deserve to be alone. I deserve to lose everythin'. It's what I get for treatin' my brother the way I have. I pushed Louie aside every time he needed me, even when I knew I coulda helped him, and now I know what it feels like being him, to have nobody to turn to … not even yer family -"

Flack's staring at Danny, but what he sees is that fear rearing its ugly head again, towering over them, threatening to consume them like it once did.

No. Not this time.

Not ever.

Flack grabs Danny by the upper arms and shakes the man hard.

"Listen to me! That's not how it is! You don't deserve any of it!"

Danny's rambling on to himself now, cupping the sides of his face with his hands.

"I deserved every shitty thing that happened to me. You were better off without me all this time, and ya got Hawkes, so what the hell do you want with m-"

Flack's patience disappears like a puff of smoke. That's it, he's going to have to resort to the old-time technique of getting through to Danny.

"Hawkes is MARRIED!"

His bellow echoes in the vast living area of his apartment.

Danny's eyes are so wide that the whites are noticeable around the blue irises.

"Wh-what?"

"That's right, damnit," Flack rasps after sucking in a deep breath. "Hawkes got married earlier this year. In fact, I just visited him and his wife and their newborn baby boy last week. And, no. I dunno how the hell ya came up with that dumb reasonin' of you deservin' everythin' that's happened to you since you left, but that's bullcrap!"

"I …"

Danny suddenly turns his head to stare at something on the wall behind Flack. Frowning, Flack follows Danny's line of sight and realizes that Danny is looking at the collection of photographs there, the pictures of his life for the last seven years. He hastily revolves back to study Danny's visage.

Oh, no. He knows that look -

Danny doesn't have to open his mouth to speak to him. The man's glistening eyes are already uttering a wealth of words.

I don't deserve to be here.

I don't deserve your kindness.

I don't deserve you.

"Danny -"

Danny bounds so fast from the couch that Flack is still sitting on the cushions, his face slack with astonishment, by the time Danny dashes across the living room floor towards the guest bedroom. Another precious second flies by before it strikes Flack to the core what Danny means to do.

Thank you, Ma, for givin' me the genes for long legs, Flack thinks as he sprints after Danny. He's at the doorway of the guest bedroom in a split second, and something clenches hard in the left side of his chest at Danny scrambling around the room and chucking his things into his duffel bag.

"Oh no, you don't!"

He pounces onto the kneeling man, hell bent on stopping Danny from running away, stopping Danny from making another big mistake.

Nononononono, no, not gonna let fear win again, NO -

For a man who almost toppled over unconscious twice in less than twenty-four hours, Danny is more energetic and aggressive than Flack ever anticipated. He has to throw his entire body on top of Danny's just to keep the thrashing guy pinned on the floor. He thanks God and his mother for his long legs a second time as he uses them to hinder Danny from kicking him. Tears spring to his eyes the moment one of Danny's fists hurtles into his side, directly where his kidney is. Fuck, Danny knows where to hit -

"Lemme go, I don't deserve you, lemme GO!"

Flack manages to seize Danny's wrists. Another loud roar erupts from Danny's gaping mouth when he restrains Danny's arms and effectively immobilizes the red-faced man beneath him. For a while, Danny is unmoving, chest rising and falling from rapid breaths. Then, the guy bursts into a flurry of motion, bucking his lower body in an ambush attempt to throw Flack off, but Flack had foreseen the likelihood of Danny trying that.

"C'mon, Danny, stop fightin' me, please."

He doesn't have a clue whether it's what he said or the evenness of his voice that reaches Danny. One instant, Danny's struggling underneath him with all his might. The next, the man is limp on the floor, arms askew, face turned away.

There's something about the way Danny is exposing one side of his face that troubles Flack. He extends one hand towards Danny's cheek, and stiffens when Danny flinches … and then deliberately presents his face once more.

As if he's waiting to be punched.

Flack hastily climbs off Danny. Oh God, did Danny really think he'd do that? Hit him?

"Danny."

Flack heaves the other man up to a sitting pose. Danny is in a completely reverse state from just minutes ago; docile and passive, prepared to accept his fate at Flack's hands.

"Danny, look at me. Please."

He waits and hopes that Danny hasn't shut him out.

A fleeting second later, Flack is gazing into those beloved blue eyes that are so downcast and resigned. He cups his hands on Danny's cheeks.

The time has come for the final step.

The final blow to flatten that wall of trepidation and misgivings.

The final row to bring them onto the shores of a new journey in life.

The final words that will cut away what remains of the infection of regret in their souls, and heal them both, at last.

"I forgive you."

It is as if time itself halts upon Flack declaring those three words, the three greatest words in the universe. There is a light within him now, a light that is even more blinding than that of the dawn that illuminates the heavens outside with glorious, awe-inspiring colors of intense golds and rich, deep reds. The light is also in Danny's eyes, in the windows to the man's soul that are reflecting absolute amazement.

"I forgive you, Danny, do ya hear me?" Flack murmurs, voice hoarse from emotion. "I forgive you."

They kneel together on the floor as one person in each other's embrace. The moisture in Flack's eyes blurs the sunrise beyond the windows of the bedroom, but it is no less stunning to him. He senses dampness seeping into his shirt as well, dampness that comes from Danny's tears as the man weeps against his chest, whispering, "I'm sorry," again and again and releasing more of his anguish with each time.

Flack strokes Danny's head and back with slow, tender touches, and thinks about how wonderful it is for them to be in the light. The sunshine is saturating everything with vivid color and vitality. Danny's hair is turned a startlingly fair brown, and if Flack looks close enough, he'll see some strands of grey and white hair among the brown ones. It is a sight that makes him smile.

Yes, it will be nice to grow old with Danny.

It will be nice, too, to share many more dawns much like this one, dawns that signify a new day.

A new chance.

A new beginning.

xiv. "It's the heart that really matters in the end."

At approximately the same global time in Beijing, China, a mother is singing softly to her sleeping baby as she gazes outside the window, waiting for her husband to return home from work. In Warsaw, Poland, a teenager is celebrating her sixteenth birthday and wishes for her departed mother to be smiling down at her from heaven as she blows out the candles.

In Johannesburg, Africa, a young woman in a business suit bumps into an old childhood friend and is changed forever when she looks into his eyes for the first time. In Rio de Janeiro, a father and husband awakens to the touch of his wife, and his smile is as bright as the sun that rises outside the window of their bedroom.

And in the United States of America, in a place called New York city, there are two men lying on a bed in the guest room of a penthouse apartment located in Manhattan. One of them is awake, leaning on the headboard of the bed as he gazes down with immense love at the other man who is dozing beside him. He is dressed in a simple t-shirt and cotton trousers that are evidently wrinkled and slept in, and his dark, thick hair is ruffled. There is a tender smile arching his lips, for in his mind, he is already planning a trip for both of them to Canada in a few weeks' time. It is where he hopes to sign a lifelong covenant with the person of his heart, who had answered a resounding, "Yes!" to his proposal, and is holding one of his hands while he slumbers.

As for the other man, who is shorter and garbed in a circular-necked sweater and jeans, he is sleeping peacefully on his side, facing away from the windows of the bedroom and the brilliant sunlight cascading in. His stubbly face was once lined by unhappiness and remorse, but now, the contours have faded away for neither shame nor nightmares plague him anymore. His nap this morning is dreamless. The skin around his closed eyes are puffy and red. The ruddiness will wane with time, like his torment has.

And like the taller man in bed with him, there is a smile upon his lips too. He is at peace with himself, at long last, for he no longer feels thorns but the rose petals of forgiveness beneath his cheek.

Fin.