Danny was just crawling into bed when his door buzzer went. He groaned, grabbed his specs and dragged his ass over to the intercom, deciding that if it was anyone but Flack, they were getting sent away, and if was Flack himself, he better not be expecting sex with a conscious body tonight.

It was almost four in the morning and Danny had just gotten off a triple shift. He hadn’t sleep in almost thirty-three hours and was ready to get a little homicidal himself.

He pressed the release button for the building’s main door and propped himself against the wall to wait for his visitor to get to his apartment. If someone had buzzed the wrong number, Danny was definitely going to go homicidal.

Finally, just as he was dozing off standing up, there was a loud thud against his door, followed by hurried knocking.

Danny snapped awake and quickly unlocked and opened his door.

“…Oh holy fuck, Aid.”

Aiden was standing before him, swaying on her feet and shaking badly. Her face was bloody and battered, streaked with dirt and tears, her hair was a mess, her clothes were torn and muddy, and her hands were covered in defensive wounds. Her facial expression was defiant – barely so – but still defiant.

“I got ‘em. I mean, he got me, and this ain’t how I wanted it to happen, but I got ‘em.” Her face creased and the last of the defiance faded away. “I got ‘em, Danny.”

Seeing red and unable to move, Danny demanded hoarsely, “Who? Got who? What the fuck happened to you?”

Tears spilled down her cheeks and she gave him the saddest look he’d ever seen on her proud, tough face.

“Just help me, Messer. Please. Don’t call anybody yet, just help me.”

Danny finally started moving. He took her by the arms and pulled her into the apartment, bolting the door behind them. He led her straight to the bedroom; muttering angrily and swearing under his breathe as he did so, and stripped the bed to the bare mattress. He darted to the bathroom cabinet, fetched a stack of freshly cleaned towels, and spread two on the mattress.

Here he hesitated.

“I gotta undress you.”

Aiden gave him a watery smile and slowly held her arms above her head. As gently as he could, he helped her remove her sweater, t-shirt and bra. Trying to avert his eyes but also take note of her wounds, he folded her tops and set them on a laid out towel on the floor.

Danny reached gingerly for her belt buckle, then stopped and reached behind him for a notebook and pen he kept in the nightstand. He wrote down everything he’d done so far and made some notes about what trauma he could already see blooming on her beautiful body. Then he finished undressing her, murmuring words of comfort and apologies at her winces.

He redressed her in a pair of sweatpants identical to the ones he was wearing himself and a Rangers t-shirt that probably actually belonged to Flack. She looked young and miserable all beaten up and bruised in pyjamas that were too big for her and Danny resisted pulling her into a tight hug, knowing it would only hurt her.

“C’mon, Aid. Lie down for me,” Danny insisted gently, helping her settle onto the towels on the mattress.

“It’s for evidence,” he explained, laying another large towel over her. She just nodded, understanding. Then he went to the cabinet again and got a clean afghan. He threw it over her and pulled it up to her chin.

Perching on the edge of the mattress, careful not to get too close and invade her personal space, Danny asked quietly, “What happened, Burn? Who hit you? That bum boyfriend of yours?”

Aiden shook her head slowly, staring at Danny with wide, glassy eyes. “No. Pratt. Danny, I got ‘em.”

“Yeah, you said that. What does that even mean?” he asked, knowing after seeing her damaged body that it wasn’t something he wanted to know, but had to.

“I…I followed him. But he caught me. He…hit me,” she told him haltingly, and coming to an abrupt end.

Everything suddenly clicked into place for Danny. The raw and purpling bruising on her thighs, shoulders and wrists suddenly made clear and obvious sense.

“Jesus Christ Almighty. He fuckin raped you.” The words came out harsher than he wanted them too, but Aiden obviously expected it, because she just nodded.

Danny stood jerkily and staggered away a few feet, glaring at her. “That motherfucker. I’m gonna fuckin kill ‘em. I’m gonna rip that cocksucker limb from fuckin limb.”

Aiden closed her eyes and gave a weary sigh. “No. You’re gonna do this right, Messer. You hear me?”

Danny fumed for another moment, before snapping, “Fine. Fuckin fine…Frig.”

He seemed to remember the pain she was in and really did calm down enough to come to a realization.

“I gotta call Mac. Stella, or Flack. Somebody. You need a friggin doctor,” he said, reaching for his cell.

“No!” Aiden said sharply, surprising him into freezing halfway. “I-I can’t…not yet. Call…call Hawkes, okay? I’m not ready for Mac or Stel, and I don’t wanna see Don. Not like this. Okay, Danny?”

Danny’s first instinct was to argue, but then he noticed the tears welling up in her eyes again and gave in, dialled the Doc without a word. He’d never seen Aiden actually cry, not even after she was fired; she hadn’t let him. So he sure as fuck wasn’t going to be the cause of more tears now.

“Yeah, okay.” He licked his lips nervously. “You, uh, need…anythin’? For, uh…”

Aiden shifted gingerly onto her side, away from him, and said softly, “No. Call Hawkes, Danny.”

“…Aiden? Why d’you smell like gasoline?”

She didn’t answer. In fact, she appeared to have fallen asleep.

Danny stood there fidgeting, unsure, then finally just nodded to himself and left the room to go make the call.

csiny

Considering how cryptic and urgent Danny was on the phone, Hawkes agreed to come quickly and alone pretty easily. But Hawkes was dependable like that. A friend in need, and all that.

Danny let him in and took him into the kitchen, where he was putting together an icepack for Aiden’s head, and gave Hawkes the lowdown.

Hawkes’ eyes widened at the news and he asked in a hushed voice, “You mean like Stella?”

Danny brought the washcloth wrapped ice down on the counter harder than he needed and said distractedly, “No. Worse. Worse than Stella. That motherfuckin’ cocksucker raped her, Doc. Beat the ever-lovin’ shit outta her and raped her too.”

Moving slowly and carefully, Hawkes leaned forward on the counter, onto his elbows and shook his head sadly. “Jesus.”

Danny let out a breathless, nervous laugh and rambled on. “I know. And, y’know, don’t ever tell Aiden this, but as tough and strong and brilliant as she is, she isn’t as much so as Stella. She…I don’ wanna make ‘er sound weak or nothin, but you gotta understand that she’s always had someone to stand beside her and be a backup, y’know? She grew up with four brothers to protect her. And then she had me and Flack. I ain’t sayin she needs someone to protect her all the time – she doesn’t – but she always had it. But she went at this alone and you cannot do somethin like this alone, Doc. You just can’t. I mean, look where cocky, self-righteous bullshit like that got me, am I right?”

Hawkes straightened and touched Danny’s arm lightly. “Calm down, man. She’s gonna be okay. I promise.”

Danny looked up at him sharply and gave him a humourless smirk as he tossed the makeshift icepack carelessly on the counter. “I don’t trust promises. Sorry. You ain’t even seen ‘er yet.”

Sometimes Danny Messer revealed something, something from his past, that frightened Hawkes. But he always managed to put up a steady front and keep Danny relatively on track. He wasn’t as good as Flack or Aiden, but the Messer was still his friend too, and he knew he helped the guy out a little.

“Danny,” he started as gently and firmly as possible. “We work together and have – I think so anyway – a business partnership based on trust. But on top of that I also consider you a close friend. I don’t lie to friends. And you know that I’m a good doctor, and that I’ll be careful with Aiden. You obviously trust me enough to call me here, so why don’t you let me go see to her?”

Danny slapped the countertop with an open hand and rocked on his heels, refusing to meet the other man’s gaze for a moment. Finally he grunted out, “She’s in my bedroom. I think she’s sleepin’.” He raised his narrowed eyes and pinned Hawkes with a hard stare. “You better treat ‘er like fuckin glass, Doc.”

“I’ll treat her better than that,” Hawkes swore, then picked up the icepack and his kit and headed off to Danny’s bedroom.

Danny stayed in his kitchen, clenching and unclenching his fists and glancing back and forth between the phone and the floor. He wanted to call Flack so badly. Have him come over and help. Flack was good at stuff like this, good at calming people down and making them see logic but still be comforting. Danny sucked at it. He couldn’t even keep Lindsay freakin Monroe under control when she spazzed out. Stuff like this made Danny want to swing punches and run away and talk back to the people he trusted. Same with Flack, but he, unlike the Messer, was able to push past the volatile straight-up reactive instincts and manage to pull his shit together.

Plus he really fuckin wanted to get a start on tracking this Pratt asshole down and tearing him limb from limb. After seeing Aiden, Flack would surely throw all desire to go by the books in preference to lending a hand in said mauling.

But Aiden had specifically requested that nobody be called but Hawkes and that Flack was definitely not to be told until she said so. Danny supposed he could understand that. When he was a kid he felt like he could go to his dad with every hurt and injustice put upon him, but had to hide every supposed weakness from his brother. Other than his dad, Danny used to love and trust Louie more than anybody, but could never bear to let Louie see him upset over a scraped knee or blackened eye or shouted insult. It was protection or something.

Danny closed his eyes tightly and bit his tongue to keep himself in check. First Louie, then Stella, now Aiden getting her ass kicked? If Flack was next Danny knew that that would just be the final straw. He’d lose it for sure. But thinking like that was ridiculous. Flack was fine. He didn’t have prior gang relations with some bad people, he didn’t have a fucked up boyfriend (well, he did, but Danny wasn’t fucked up in the same way Frankie was) and he wasn’t losing his shit and going vigilante on some rapist nut-job. Flack was as safe as he could be in this profession.

Reassured that someone seemed to be okay in his life, Danny opened his eyes and relaxed his fists. He could taste blood in his mouth and his tongue and bottom lip were both stinging, but he ignored it and headed towards the bedroom cautiously.

He stood outside the half-open door for a few minutes, listening to the soft murmur of Hawkes and Aiden talking. He couldn’t catch every word, but Hawkes was speaking softly and smoothly, obviously comforting and guiding Aiden along. Danny doubted the man had ever done anything like this before. Sure he’d been a ‘non-dead guy doctor’ as Flack once put it before becoming a coroner, but this wasn’t a normal surgeon or male doctor act to perform. But it sounded like he was doing okay. Aiden’s voice was raspy and harder to hear, and the distress and tears were still clearly present, but less so than before.

Danny didn’t know what to do. He wanted to be at her side, wanted to hold her hand and be some reassuring force, but he knew first hand how women in Aiden’s position felt about having too many people in the room, particularly men.

Finally he knocked lightly on the doorframe.

“Hey, you, uh, need anythin’?” he called out, his voice sounding tinny and awkward in his ears.

There was a moment of silence from the other side, then a murmur of discussion. Then Hawkes answered quietly, “C’mon in, Danny. I need help with the evidence.”

Something seized in his chest and it felt suddenly like he’d just swallowed a fish hook. He’d already said it himself, but hearing from someone else that Aiden was evidence hurt. But he pushed the door open and stepped into the room anyway, shoulders back and chin up, like Aiden would have told him to.

She was lying on top of the towels still, halfway between being on her back and her side, with her legs pulled up and her arms wrapped around herself. The blanket that had been covering her was pushed back, but she was still wearing Danny’s sweatpants and tee.

Hawkes was sitting on the edge of the mattress and scribbling away in the notebook Danny had started. He glanced up at Danny and smiled gently.

“We need to gather all the towels and blankets used, the clothes she was wearing, and any trace on her person.” He looked to Aiden and asked softly, “Do you want to do trace here or at the hospital?”

Aiden gave him a wavering smile and a small shrug. “Here’s okay for the external stuff, the photographs and everythin’, but we should do the medical stuff at the hospital. But no ambulances, okay?”

Danny let out a whooshing breathe of relief. Hawkes had convinced her she needed a hospital, thank God. At least she was somewhat reasonable and responsive now.

Hawkes looked back up at Danny, “You got your camera?”

Of course he did. He always lugged everything around so it was on hand. Danny just nodded though.

“Okay then, kids,” Hawkes sighed. “Let’s get started.”

csiny

An hour later, Danny was in the bathroom, scrubbing at his hands, trying to get the talcum powder from the gloves and images of Aiden’s blood off of them.

He’d taken the pictures – Aiden had always let him do that part; said he had the eye for it – and gone over her body and through her hair with the metaphorical fine-tooth comb. Him and Hawkes documented every cut, bruise and abrasion with notes and photos, took a plaster cast of her teeth – something about her being a biter in self-defence, which Danny already knew from when he’d tickled her that one time – and wrapped all the evidence in either Ziploc baggies or clear garbage bags. It was crude, but it worked.

And besides, Danny thought to himself bitterly as he reached for the soap again, everything about this night was crude and awful.

The only thing they hadn’t gotten from Aiden was her full statement. Danny had attempted to make himself ask a couple times, but either Aiden has turned her face him and tried to go foetal, or Hawkes shushed him. Danny was torn about how he felt about that. On one hand, he wanted to know so he could hunt Pratt down and get him for good. But on the other, he did not want to know one more detail about his best friend’s brutal assault.

“Hey, you okay in there?”

Danny jumped and swore, shutting off the water hurriedly and drying his hands roughly with the front of his thermal.

“Yeah, Doc, I’m fine. Hold on.”

He ran a damp hand through his sweaty hair and reached for the doorknob with the other, noticing – embarrassed – that both were trembling.

He opened the door anyway and came face to face with Hawkes.

“How is she now?”

They’d finished things up by cleaning and bandaging her wounds, which Danny had found oddly comforting, like they were actually helping heal her with that. But then Hawkes had asked Aiden if she had any feminine pads to help with the light bleeding that was still occurring, and Danny had excused himself.

Remembering this, Danny suddenly turned away from Hawkes, reached behind the toilet, and came up with a small, plastic encased bundle.

Hawkes chuckled low. “A true ladies man. Always prepared, right?”

Danny shrugged, embarrassed again. “Yeah, well. Aiden made me do it, I swear.”

Hawkes took the pads and gave Danny a shrug, answering his question finally with, “She’s okay. She’s sleeping. I called the hospital, they’re sending a van over with two female medics, and they’ve agreed to use no lights or sirens.”

Danny leaned against the doorframe with a sigh. “Good. That’s good.”

“Danny…” Hawkes stepped closer and lowered his voice, saying, “We need to call Mac or Stella. This has to be made official. Aiden has to make a statement. We gotta catch this guy…It was Pratt, wasn’t it?”

Danny forced a smirk onto his face. “Very astute, young CSI. The force is strong with you. Soon you shall be a master.”

Hawkes allowed a small smile at Danny’s attempt at humour. “Soon you’re going to get smacked for those dumb-ass jokes, Messer. Now…Mac or Stella? If you don’t choose and call one, I will.”

“…Mac. You call Mac. Stella…it’s too soon after that shit with Frankie, y’know? And Mac…he swore to Aiden that he’d catch this guy, so this should be his anyway. Agreed?”

Hawkes held out his hand for Danny to shake. “Agreed, brother.”

Danny snickered despite it all and slapped the offered hand in a soul shake.

“Awright then. I’ll call Flack, you call Mac.” Danny wrinkled his nose at his own words. “God, I hate how that rhymes.”

“Danny, Don, Flack, Mac, Hawkes. I’m surprised it isn’t bungled more. But, yes, let’s do that. Have everyone meet at the hospital.”

csiny

By the time Mac sent Danny home, it was sunny out and he’d been conscious for thirty-nine hours.

Because Danny was so close to Aiden, Mac forbade him to get any more involved in the case than he already was, refusing him access to Pratt, the evidence and test results. He had to give a formal statement about what happened between Aiden arriving at his apartment and arriving at the hospital, and was told not to ask Flack, Hawkes or Mac too many questions, but Mac also had to acknowledge that Danny was so close to Aiden, and allowed him free access to her hospital room and promised to keep him updated.

But after watching over Aiden’s deeply sleeping form for two hours and listening to the three men actually on the case discussing in low tones outside the door, taking and receiving phone calls and almost arguing once or twice, and staring at the nurse moving in and out of the room without a word to him, not to mention his complete lack of sleep, he found he couldn’t really be bothered to fight Mac’s wishes.

Hawkes gave him a reassuring smile and Mac squeezed his shoulder when he came out of Aiden’s room and told them that he would follow Mac’s order and go home and rest. Flack just nodded and muttered something about walking him to the ambulance bay and helping him get a cab before Danny passed out, and they quickly fell into step together.

Down on the street it was noisy and bustling. Danny usually found the chaos of his city comforting, but this morning, like on the evening after Louie’s hospital admittance and the whole day with the subway shooting, it felt confusing and almost frightening. Danny keep thinking he was going to fall down or something, but Flack had a firm grip on his bicep and led him quickly to the curb, holding him up steadily. Anyone else, Danny would have pulled away from, but Flack was different, wasn’t he? Even more than Aiden, he was the person Danny trusted most in the world.

“Don…?”

Flack glanced from the street to him, frowning concernedly. “Yeah?”

“You ever seen Aiden naked?”

“…No.”

Danny shuddered under Flack’s hand and shook his head. “She’d never lower herself to my level. She was right ‘bout bein’ outta my league. Shouldn’ta seen her naked today.”

Flack stared at him for a long moment, then reached out and traced a thumb over Danny’s bottom lip, where he’d bitten and cut it. Then dropped his head, turned his head and gave a sharp whistle. A yellow cab immediately screeched to a halt in front of them.

“Awright, listen,” Flack started, ducking his head a little to catch Danny’s darting gaze. “Mac doesn’t want you to go home home, awright? He…”

Clenching his jaw and narrowing his eyes angrily, Danny guessed, “He wants to do trace on my apartment, doesn’t he?”

“Easy, Dan. You know that he’s gotta have goddamn angle on this thing for the courts. He’s gotta have a fuckin flawless case. It’s not like he’s gonna be goin’ through your CD collection or your underwear drawer,” Flack reminded him gently.

He knew that, but it still unnerved Danny to have someone going through his home, nosing through his possessions. Especially when he wasn’t there. It was too much like when he was a kid and there’d be a white, non-descript van parked four doors down around the clock. He could still remember the feel of the camera lens trained on him when he went with his old man on his routes or when he ran errands for his uncles. Danny could always deal with cops, even when they shook him and Louie down in the middle of the street for nothing (okay, maybe not for nothing) but he’d always hated feds. And now Mac and Hawkes, two people he more or less trusted, were going to be rifling through his things for evidence.

Reminding himself that this was also for Aiden, that she needed this to be done as Flack said, flawlessly, he asked, “You’ll be there while they do their thing?”

Flack nodded quickly. “Yeah. Of course. It’ll be okay, pal, I promise.”

Danny grimaced and nodded back. He’d told Hawkes hours earlier that he didn’t trust promises, but that wasn’t entirely true. He trusted Flack’s.

“Awright, so then where do I go?” Danny questioned, waving impatiently at the cabbie to hold his goddamn horses.

Flack opened the cab door and got Danny into it without banging his head or getting much resistance. He closed the door and continued through the open window.

“Go to my place. Here.” He pushed his keys into Danny’s hand and gave the cabbie the address before Danny could get a word out. “Eat somethin’, grab a shower, and take a nap. You need it. All of it. There’s a bottle of PMs in the medicine cabinet. Take one if ya need it, okay? I’ll be there in a few hours.”

Danny scowled opened his mouth to say something, probably argue or bitch, but Flack gave the roof of the car a farewell slap and the cabbie peeled into traffic.

csiny

Danny wasn’t sure how he felt about being shuffled off by Flack like that, so he reacted naturally by defying his lover’s word. He went to Flack’s apartment, but skipped the food and shower and headed straight for the bed. He wouldn’t need the PM, that was for sure.

He supposed he was in shock now over what happened to Aiden, because he felt nothing but calm as he stripped off his sweatpants, thermal and socks and climbed under the covers in his BVDs. He could still see Aiden’s wounds and the tears and the way she’d clung to his hand throughout most of the night as he did his CSI thing, but now only if he closed his eyes and concentrated. Danny was actually just too tired to be haunted by Aiden’s trauma. He was even too tired to hate himself for it, but told himself he could do that when he woke up, which hopefully wouldn’t happen until this whole ordeal was over.

As he buried his face into one of Flack’s pillows, he briefly noticed that the events of the day had become blurry and jumbled. He could clearly remember Flack getting him a cab and what they’d said to each other, and he remembered getting the pads for Hawkes to give to Aiden, but could no longer remember the need to scrub his hands or what she’d been wearing when she’d arrived at his apartment.

Almost immediately after coming to this realization, Danny passed out and fell into the first dreamless and unbroken sleep he’d had in almost a month.

csiny

Flack stood in the bedroom doorway with his arms crossed over his chest and his face set in a concerned frown.

At some point while he was sleeping, Danny had kicked away the blankets and knocked all but one of the pillows off the bed. He was curled up on his side, his legs drawn up so close to his chest that he had one arm hooked under his knee at the elbow and he was hugging the last pillow under his head with the other arm. But his face was relaxed and he seemed sound. Besides, Danny always slept in weird positions, something that Flack found both irritating and endearing.

Flack briefly considered just letting him sleep, but thought of Aiden’s face at hearing the final news of Pratt and how Danny had acted all morning at the hospital.

He stripped to his boxers, crossed the small room and climbed onto the bed, straddling Danny’s sleeping form and rolling the smaller man over gently, making him stretch his legs out. Settling on his right knee so his weight was off Danny but his left thigh was pinning him down at the hips, Flack gently started to shake his friend awake.

“C’mon, Messer. Wakey wakey, eggs and bakey.”

Danny’s eyes opened blearily and his face scrunched up with wakefulness. “Really?”

Flack rolled his eyes. “Oh yeah. ‘Cause I can cook.”

Danny started to grin, then suddenly gasped and sat up, almost knocking heads with Flack.

“Aiden. Is she…?”

Flack pushed him back down and shifted so he was lying next to him on his side, head on hand, elbow on mattress. “She’s fine. It’s gonna take a while till she’s back full-force, but she called me a douche when I threatened to tell the nurses not to bring her ice cream, so I’m not worried ‘bout her as much as I was.”

Danny grimaced and licked at his lips. “And Pratt? You got ‘em, right? Tell me you did, man.”

Smiling humourlessly, Flack said, “Aiden got ‘em, Danny. He’s dead.”

Danny stared at him. “No.”

“Yeah. He pulled her into a car to wail on ‘er, raped her, and was gonna knock ‘er out and burn the car with her in it, but she got the upper hand, made it outta there somehow. He’s dead. Stella and Lindsay detailed the car this afternoon.”

Sitting up and away from Flack’s touch, Danny hunched his shoulders around himself, hands clasped around opposite elbows, and stared at the far wall.

“Does she realize?”

“…Yeah. That’s why she wouldn’t give her statement to you earlier. She wanted to tell Mac. She was worried you’d get even more upset.”

Danny shook his head slowly. “I’m not upset. I’m…relieved. He’s dead and gone. Fuckin finally.”

“Aiden can finally move on,” Flack agreed, sitting up too. “She can come back to us. I mean, not to the CSU, but to you and me. She can get on with things.”

Danny glanced at his lover. “It’s still gonna be a while. It takes a long time for people to get over this kinda shit, Donnie.”

Flack shrugged and slung an arm around Danny’s still tense shoulders and pulled him closer. “I know,” he murmured in the smaller man’s ear, tugging him back down towards the mattress. “I know. But we’re not goin’ anywhere. We’ll take care of her. You know that.”

“I wanna go see her.”

“Man, you gotta be so sick of that hospital by now. She’ll be sleepin’ now anyways. And Mac still wants some distance for a day or two. Not just 'cause of the way she is right now either. He's like a worried father with you. He don't want you hangin' 'round there so much.”

Danny allowed himself to be pulled down with a sigh. That he didn’t fight was a testament to his current state. Turning his head and squinting to look Flack in the eye, he asked quietly, “We’re not goin’ anywhere?”

Flack smiled broadly, knowing what Danny was really asking, but not wanting to push it. Danny was being exceptionally calm about this now. Flack thought it might be a little bit that the guy’d been doing some growing up over the past year, but mostly that he was just tired and still in shock from his brother’s beating to really focus on Stella or Aiden’s. Flack had had it rough the past couple weeks, but as always, Danny’s had it worse.

“C’mon, pal,” he chastised jokingly. “We’re Bronx, born and raised. Where the hell could you or I possibly go?”

Danny grinned back, a little tenuously, but honestly. “Right. Where could you go? No one would have ya.”

“Yeah, easy, Messer.”