Disclaimer: The characters and the show CSI:NY are the intellectual property of their creators and CBS TV.

A/N: This is a sequel to Twelve Days of Christmas CSI:NY. Waking up after surgery is always a painstaking process.

Thanks as always to marialisa and sallyjetson.

Keep You Near

Title from Within Temptation’s “Memories”: “all of my memories keep you near”.

The room was bathed in that peculiar half-light common to institutions. Emergency Exit signs, security lights, hall lights on low: there was neither true dark nor true light in any direction. She blinked slowly a few times, trying to find her focus, trying to work out where she was.

It was the beeping that gave it away, that and the foul taste in her mouth.

She was in the hospital.

She could hear the machines monitoring her every laboured breath, her every slow heart beat. Her head ached dully, more an awareness of pain than actual throbbing. She closed her eyes against the pain she could feel waiting for her around the next breath.

She wriggled her feet experimentally. They seemed to move when she asked them to, which meant that the sensation of paralysis was more likely from hospital corners and well-trained nurses than anything else.

One hand seemed to be restrained in some way, and she could feel the IV in the other hand; flexing her fingers was a terrible mistake. Through closed eyes, she could see the angry pulsing of the small veins in the back of her hand where all the pain in her body seemed to congregate.

She breathed in heavily through her nose, riding out the waves of pain until they retreated.

Cautiously, she opened her eyes again, this time prepared for the dim light surrounding her, working out what each light source consisted of, orienting herself within the room.

Hmm. A private room, obviously, as there were no other beds, no other machines competing for “Most Annoying Beep of 2008”.

She grasped at that thought. Something funny about it.

The year. 2008. She knew the date: January 2008.

Okay, not the day. But she thought it was a good sign that she remembered the month and the year. Hell, some years it took her until April to remember to change the date on her reports.

Her gaze wandered around the room again, as far as possible without moving her head, which seemed to be more or less restricted in its movement as well. There was a window; she could just see a faint hint of the New York City skyline.

New York.

She chased that thought, too, but only for a minute. Where else would she be but NYC? Was there anywhere else?

Name. She knew the drill (how did she know the drill?). She knew they would ask her name, and her age, and her address. They would ask her what day it was – at least she could tell them the month and year.

Her address – a street name and number popped into her mind. Was that where she lived? Or where she worked?

Was there a difference?

She frowned at the thought, closed her eyes again, and drifted off to sleep.

The next time she woke up, she could move her hand. But she still couldn’t move her head. It felt like she was wearing a hat. A very bulky hat.

“Hey there. You’re back in the land of the living again.”

A face swam into view. Two bright eyes behind narrow glasses, a smile with a professional gloss. Like a flight attendant. Or a dental hygienist.

Or a nurse.

“Can you tell me your name?” Cold hands against the wrist, eyes down on the watch attached to the uniform.

“Stella Bonasera.”

“Do you know where you are?”

“Hospital.”

A straw inserted between dry lips; cold water sliding down sore throat. A gauze pad with something slick – Vaseline? – rubbed briskly and comfortingly over her skin.

“Do you know the date?”

“January. January … 4th? 2008!” Said proudly.

“Can you tell me your address?” Eyes shifting from machines to face and back again: focused on the multitude of tasks at hand.

Stella rattled off an address, still not sure if it was home or work.

No reaction from the nurse. Maybe she’d got it right.

“Now, everything is looking very nice. I’m going to drop your morphine drip just a bit, so tell us if it isn’t keeping the pain at bay, yes?”

Stella tried to nod, but gave up.

“You can’t move your head much just yet; we’ll check the bandages once the surgeon has been to see you. Dr. Tomas – ever so nice he is. He’ll be in to see you this evening. And your young man will be right back. We just sent him down to the café for something to eat – he hasn’t moved since you came out of surgery. Worn to a frazzle, he looked. Poor boy. We’ll keep an eye on him, don’t you worry. In fact,” the nurse, who had been tucking and tidying and making notes on her chart, looked up with a smile, “You’d better get yourself healthy and out that bed. Every other woman on the floor has an eye on him!”

She winked and patted Stella on the hand. “Close your eyes and have a little sleep, dearie. We’ll wake you when Dr. Tomas does rounds.”

Exhausted by just trying to listen to the steady stream of blether coming from the bubbly nurse, Stella closed her eyes. Her last thought drifted around the cloudy parts of her mind, “My young man?”

The next time Stella opened her eyes, light from the sun was filling the room. The first thing she saw was her young man. Or at least, she assumed that the person sitting in the chair beside her was the person the nurse had been talking about.

Her hand was immobilized again. But this time she could move her head a little, and she did, trying to see who was sitting beside her – had been sitting beside her, according to the nurse, through the night and well into the day.

She stared into the face: high cheekbones, strong chin, covered with a day’s growth of beard. Dark hair, tousled and unkempt. Heavy black eyebrows, relaxed where they were usually expressive; long mobile mouth now slack and turned down at the corners.

Striped shirt, unbuttoned at the throat with a brightly coloured tie loose around his neck. Sleeves rolled up to show strong arms. One hand clasping hers, tightly enough that he must have lost circulation several times by now. He was slumped in the uncomfortable chair set beside her bed, his head at an awkward angle, eyes closed, breathing heavy.

She stared at him a long time, trying not to move, not to alert him that she was awake.

She needed time.

She knew, when those eyes opened, they would burn a brilliant blue against the tired bruises. She knew, when those eyes opened, they would search her very depths for answers to questions she could not even begin to imagine at the moment.

She knew his hands would reach for her again – those hands that had played her so delicately, so masterfully the day before, the night before that. He had sought and found those places that she had tried hard to lock away – all those vulnerable parts of her that she had decided were no longer to be available for public viewing. He had coaxed and teased and loved her open.

Stella Bonasera was no stranger to sex. Or to love. But this. This had been something more. Something other.

She remembered. She remembered.

The heated touch. The tender mouth. The shower where he washed her as carefully as a mother her child, then the bed where he loved her into losing control.

She remembered.

The conversation after she woke up. The resigned heartbreak in his eyes as he prepared to walk away. If she hadn’t pushed – if he hadn’t thought not knowing would be worse for her than knowing, she knew he would have walked out of her room that day and never said a word.

She remembered.

Every touch. Every taste. The texture of his body against hers. She could feel a burn run through her body, and she shivered involuntarily.

She remembered.

And now she waited for him to open his eyes. For him to look at her and know. For him to decide what next, what happened next.

She remembered.

But he would have to choose.

She tightened her hand on his, and waited for him to wake up.

And when he did, when deep blue eyes met watchful green, suddenly there were no questions left.

There was only one answer, and she found it in his smile of delighted relief.