[Danny = stillacrime, Flack = and_dontgetcute, follows the Quadruple Murder Storyline.]

It was strange, being on the other side of the curtain.

She had still been in the hospital when Flack was in the bombing, and the other times she had visited people in the hospital, she’d been able to flash a badge and get in whatever time she pleased. But now that she was a civilian, she was bound to visiting hours and the rules of the hospital, and yes, it was different. But when it came to Danny, she was always willing to wait.

This case had was being seen from another side as well. Flack had kept her in the loop throughout the entire thing, letting her know as much as he could as the days passed by, and she hated not knowing all the answers. When it came to a friend like Danny, she felt like she was letting him down by not being out there looking for him, but she wouldn’t have even begun to know where to look. So she waited. Waited for Flack to call and give her the information she needed to hear—like the hospital where Danny had landed, and when the soonest was that she could see him.

She slowly made her way through the hallways of the hospital, a bouquet of flowers in one hand and the other sitting in her pocket, glancing up at the room numbers and trying to figure out exactly what she was going to say to him when she got there, without letting the guilt and worry seep through. When she reached the door of the room she took a deep breath, before knocking lightly, and pushing the door open, hoping to high heaven that she wasn’t walking in on something entirely awkward. When she finally caught sight of him, she couldn’t help but grin.

“Hey.”

301 words
RP for stillacrime

The second she tore that seal open she knew. She knew she’d hit a point where she couldn’t go back, couldn’t change what she was about to do from this point on, and while her emotions were telling her to go through with it, to put that smug bastard right back behind bars where he belonged, she couldn’t. She couldn’t go through with it. In the back of her mind, she knew it was wrong, and that wasn’t the way she wanted to get this guy. She wanted to do it right. By the book.

She’d tried explaining that to Mac.

She said that she couldn’t go through with it. That she knew better, and was going to do better, be better, but he wouldn’t listen. He couldn’t let her stay, because she had crossed the line, and once she did there was no going back. She understood that now. And to be perfectly honest, she hates the fact that she doesn’t regret what she did more. Now, a few years down the line with more balance under her belt and some time away from the job, she knew that she should have just seen it as a sign.

The lab wasn’t the right fit. And now she was free to find the thing out there that was. At the end of the day, that was all she really needed to know.

232 words

[and_dontgetcute used with permission. And backdated to last weekend because I kinda suck at on time atm.]

“So how’d you get these things anyway?”

Flack glanced over at Aiden as he handed her a beer. “The beer? It’s relatively simple. I walked up the stairs, over to the bar, ordered two beers—”

Aiden rolled her eyes, smacking him lightly on the shoulder as he sat down next to her. “I meant the tickets, you smartass.”

He got quiet for a minute, before taking a pull of his beer and turning back to her. “They were a parting gift.”

“From an ex?” she said, tilting her head to the side slightly. He shrugged and she dropped it, clear that he didn’t want to talk about it. It was the middle of the fifth inning, and she didn’t want to make a scene. She would save the pushing and prodding for when they weren’t sitting in the middle of Yankee Stadium. Instead, she changed the subject, watching him as he started cheering along with the rest of the crowd when the Yankees got another hit. She just chuckled and shook her head before responding. “Swear to God, Flack, you’re the only boy from Queens I know who would actually admit to being a Yankee’s fan.”

“Are you kidding me?” he said with a smirk. “The Mets suck.”

“The Mets used to suck. Now I think they’re leading their division.”

“It’s a rebuilding year.”

At that, Aiden just laughed. She’d been hearing that excuse from Yankee fans since the beginning of the season. All she did was just take another sip of the beer, before going back to watching the game for a while. After a few minutes, she turned back to him with a sigh.

“So why’d she dump you?”

( *** )

584 words

She was luckier than she had any right to be. Sitting in the hospital bed, she counted the contusions and the bruises, noted what would leave a scar and what wouldn’t, as well as the severity of the scar. She shouldn’t be up like this, in the middle of the night, not sleeping when she was supposed to be recovering from a head injury, but she was. She was up and counting, thanking God for the fact that she was lucky enough to have made it out of that alive.

She thought of all the woman who had wound up with worse. Every woman that he had raped, the one woman he had killed. She had gotten off with a lot less than what they have had to go through, than what they did go through. They hadn’t done anything wrong. They were good people, good girls, the kind who deserved to have a whole life ahead of them. They deserved to have husbands and families without the memories of what this man did to them etched into their brains. Good people. People who didn’t deserve to have that kind of pain thrust upon them, and she seemed to have been spared the worst part.

But the fact of the matter was, she didn’t deserve to be spared. She wasn’t anything special. She was just Aiden—the woman who was too abrasive, too independent to be in a relationship, but the woman who wasn’t strong enough to be a cop. She didn’t have a badge, or a calling that was worth saving her, sparing her for. And yet here she was, counting scars and abrasions in the middle of the night, wondering when she would finally get what was coming due to her.

Pratt had said it himself, she was a lucky little bitch. She just hoped that at some point she deserved to be as lucky as she was.

320 words

I haven't decided if I'm going to actively/kind of play her yet. She's sort of only shifting back and one forth on her feet and considering coming out to play, and I might indulge her in little things like just_sayit it or sixwordstories, but I might not.

However! If I do put Aiden into play, I don't want to tear canon, and some canon universes for that matter, apart because I have to bring her back to life. So if I do bring her back, I'm just modifying her canon slightly, and to put it in bullet form:

- Aiden still almost!tampers with evidence.
- Aiden still gets fired.
- Aiden still stalks DJ Pratt.
- Aiden still gets attacked by Pratt.
- Aiden doesn't die and get burned up.
- Pratt still goes to jail but for aggravated assault and rape.
- Aiden is hospitalized for a while, before going back out to work on building up her PI Agency.

No existing CSI:NY muses are bound to participate in this verse with her, and if they'd like to play with a more S1 style Aiden, they're more than welcome to her. This is just looking to be a way for me to flesh out her voice a bit.

She'd also like to note that she owns and_dontgetcute. No other Aiden's are allowed to have him.