Hi. This is my first published piece of fiction, and it's a big'un. Not really got a point, just enjoyed the episode and wanted to write it! Enjoy.
Ships: Mac/Stella, one-sided Flack/Stella or Flack/Aiden if you squint, Danny/Aiden.
Disclaimer: I own nothing. Just borrowing characters to play. Will put them back (soon) I promise.
Both of their days begin with a moment. Just one single, calm, carefree moment as they open their eyes. One sated moment before reality slams back into them, and they are wrenched from slumber. She heads to the shower. He heads to the church. She spends her time before the inevitable, but still, even after all these years, devastating phone call making herself up to face the world. The 'fake it 'til you make it' strategy has taken her years to perfect, and sometimes, even now, she finds herself taken back to those days, be it by a smell or a sight or a sound.
He is still finding himself again. How? By trying, trying so desperately not to lose her that he is losing a part of himself. They both know it. It kills her to see it. But they pretend it's not happening, because sometimes, just sometimes, that's what your best friends are for. This, he has persuaded himself, is why she doesn't know about these impromptu visits to the church.
And now, as the angry red sun rises above a city which seems, to him at least, to be losing more and more colour each day, they find themselves reflecting.
The ring comes, of course it comes, and it always, always comes. It comes while she is doing the dance well known to all women, The Last Minute Stumble Through My Apartment Collecting Anything I May Possibly Need To Use Today. Even in heels pushing 3 inches, she manages it with grace.
The ring comes while he is staring at, no, being mocked by, the large statue of the Virgin, who, and here his analytical, scientist's mind kicks in, unwelcome, should not, could not, have children, is standing, babe in arms. She had something to live for (the bitter, melodramatic but somehow still so right voice kicks in this time, also unwelcome) he reminds himself. What does he have? He can never, as he wishes to, approach this question analytically. He never really has an answer to his question. He doesn't have anything to live for. He can count nothing. These thoughts fly through his head in a second. He pauses, allowing this to happen, and when the last thought becomes too painful, he presses the green button. And then, as he reads the page, which he knows can only come from her, (her slightly inappropriate over-exuberance can be matched by no-one he has met) and as he hears her voice (Mr Sagacious kicks in here, reminding him this is impossible, because, Mac, it's a page) her reprimand clear, and so full of the things he has lost, he realises he can count one thing.
And then he's there, under the bridge, stepping out from the car that commands so much respect. And Flack's talking to him, all business of course, because that's how it is and has to be.
His eyes brush over the man with the dog – a sardonic 'really?' passes through his head, bit down upon quickly, because it's not his job to pass judgement – and it's there, on the banks of the domination body of water, that is, in his opinion, still beautiful, despite what he's seen there, that they find the girl, and it's there, when Flack, doing his job, he reminds himself, asks about a 'Rape-dump?', that Mac cannot bring himself to answer. Because that woman has the potential, he reminds himself, to be every woman. And then the moment has passed. Until he sees the ring. And he cannot help but think that he's going to turn her back over and see her face, her beautiful, open, loving eyes staring right back at him. And when he tells Flack that 'Someone out there's missing a wife', they both know who he's talking about. But Flack, like her, lets him pretend.
He hears her before he sees her. Danny's bold comment, delivered in the most laid-back tone anyone has ever used to deliver a line, and Stella's carefree, mirthful reprimand. Before he sees her and after he's heard her, her scent reaches him. A combination of the fruity shampoo (whilst not an expert on emotion, his skills as a spectator are the best that many have ever seen) that both of them had mentioned, a perfume that she had been wearing since day one, and a scent that he cannot describe. Beautiful women have it, and damaged ones. The scent of power and of control, and something so unique that he has never smelt anything like it, not even, he remembers, and a twinge of guilt passes through him, on her.
She doesn't know that he's aware of her presence, and when she stops outside his office, face falling as she takes in all the things that other people don't see – don't want to see – before stepping through the doorway with complete confidence in her right to do so without announcing herself. Ever the observer, he notices this, and wonders if, perhaps, she's known her power over him all along.
And when she asks him about the body, brushing over all the things that they don't need to tell each other – all the things that people tell each other when they don't know each other well enough to know the answer – concern is evident in her eyes. And because he knows that it's fruitless, and possibly detrimental to do so, he doesn't bother to hide the tiredness or the reason for it. Three years and eleven days. 2006 days. 48,144 hours. 2,888,640 minutes since the person he loves most in the world was taken away from him, and he was left, alone, with the memories.
They go through the routine, she asks him the questions, she prompts him, and he tells her that there are, as yet, no answers, but he manages to draw the exchange out. He can't help but feel a piece of himself thaw, just a bit, when she reprimands him, not, he realises, dissimilarly to the way she reprimanded Danny a minute before, but surely he means more to her than that? And then he tells her good morning, and leaves. It's like this every day. She thaws him out until they're ready to leave, and when he goes home to empty, or, as is becoming more common, doesn't bother to find out that there is empty, preferring to stay in the lab, the ice builds up again. It's a routine, a dance around each other. He's sure one of them will break it one day.
Hawkes, as tired as he is, but less able to hide it, clues him in on the bruising – not cause of death – on the neck, the cause of death – strokes, two, rapid succession – and the lividity slats and bedsores, indicating lack of movement. The strangeness of her lungs – she inhaled something just prior to death, Hawkes tells him, leave him wondering.
And then, it is time for the both of them to go see her husband. Just 28 years old, and she was memories. If ever there was a time to call it a day, Mac felt it then and there. But he showed nothing, and there they stood, facing the disbelieving husband. And yes, they looked like a couple themselves, but here there were to be no pleasantries, no disbelief when people discovered that they were just friends. Here there was heartbreak, visible and palpable, in front of their very eyes.
They accompany him to see his wife for the last time. She stands in front of him, sympathy evident in her every movement, for both of them. It's easy to forget that she's been scathed, and he realises, with a jolt, that he has forgotten. He wants to tell her there and then, but it's not the time – hell, is it ever the time? – and he knows that when it would be the time, he'll have lost his courage.
They watch the man break down, knowing little about him, but that he loved his wife. And when he is forced to offer the words that mean little to a relative, but that he delivers thick with emotion, he hopes she understands. They themselves seem to deflate as the man recalls his last moments with his beautiful wife.
Danny and Aiden meet him later, both young, vibrant, and he smirks, almost imperceptibly, when he thinks to himself that he wishes he could feel that way again. Feeling uncharacteristically old, he listens to what they have to say, remarking that it makes no sense, neither to them nor to him, but because it doesn't. And then ring number two comes, and it starts to make more sense.
Another body. Another bit of the river. Another set of bruises that don't quite make sense. A serial killer. The faces on his team as he tells them the news. They make his heart just a little bit gloomier. These people – Danny, Aiden, Flack, and most of all Stella – are the people he relies on to keep him up, not down. And a little bit of their light has been extinguished, and he feels partly responsible, the bearer of the news always does, unfortunately.
A grin is stifled when Danny, both tactlessly but meaningfully refers to the pair as 'you guys'. Adults, hitting their prime, are not, it is widely recognised, 'guys'. But, to Danny, who sees their good sides, and undoubtedly their young sides, that's who they are. A pair, fitting together well enough to be referred to as one term. Who are they to argue?
He hears their differences first. He hears her, pre-empting his question. He hears little else. If everything is connected, he knows what he has to do. He knows exactly what he has to do. Connect the things that make sense.
He drifts back in at her comment, strangely flirtatious, and he doesn't understand why. He shares his first truly light-hearted comment – the Stella Effect again – with the doctor, something about data and statistics. And he is unaware of the doctor's piercing eyes on his back, confused as to why the man might be emulating a murder on his own, precious dummy.
And then his mind flickers off into its own little world, and somewhere at the back of it he wonders how the others are getting on. He slips easily into boss mode, does Taylor, why, he suspects, he was given the job in the first place.
And Aiden and Danny, how are they getting on? Well. Very well. Of course, it helps that Aiden can never resist taking a small peek at Danny's behind when he bends over in a jumpsuit just that bit too small. And it helps that Danny can never resist leaning in that bit too far, letting his eyes rest that bit too long, inhaling her scent just that bit too obviously. Oh yes, they're getting on fine.
And is she? She hunts feverishly through case file after case file, beautiful brow furrowed in complete concentration, he notices. She doesn't know he's there; she's too involved in her own work for her to possibly know that he's taking her in, all of her. And then, in that moment, he's lucky enough to witness her face as she finds what she's looking for. True beauty shines out of her at that moment. And then he realises how soppy he's being, and goes off to do something boring and mundane, and less bright.
And suddenly he's back to the morning again. He's telling the relatives of the dead girl the same meaningless words. And they still mean nothing. Damn.
And then they leave, finding the kid surprisingly easily. He knows that she knows to stay slightly behind him at all times – who knows when these things could turn nasty. She gets frustrated by his need to protect, in her less lucid moments she gets so angry with him it hurts, but she knows why he does it. And that's why, in the manner that I mentioned earlier, she lets him protect the one thing he does have left. That's all.
Her aggressive tone rears up for just a second when the kid, not a straight talker but not intentionally being an ass either, doesn't spit out the answer to her question. Her judgment of people, usually spot on to be honest, can annoy him. It happens fast, and it doesn't happen fair. But that's part of how she does her job, and more importantly it's part of who she is, and he's not going to be the one to crush another little piece of her, no way.
This kid, unfortunately for him, is a 'joker'. He feels sorry for him. She has little patience with them. Why, he wonders, as yet again, she rears up incredulously, why, do people think we care? We care about helping the ones who've gone before, and providing some comfort to those left. We do not, we categorically do not give a Benjamin about your day out at the zoo. Aggravated, he continues to let the conversation flow, enjoying her smirk at Flack's completely typical comment, but wishing that she was smirking because of something he had said. Ah, the inner voice tells him. She smirks at Flack. But she smiles at you. It makes all the difference. He takes the kid in.
Some time later, when she's leaning in just that little bit too close, he allows his mind to wander again, as his hands to the work, and his mouth provides the running commentary. He thinks very little, he rarely has time to, but it's at times like this, when he could so easily reach out to touch her, in every way, that he lets himself. He considers their beauty. She was mid-height, curvy, with the darkest hair and the lightest eyes he'd ever known. She is tall, so tall, and slender, to the point where he worries. She has the curliest hair, and the greenest eyes, and the most blemish-free, silky looking skin. Why, he wonders, can't he remember the details any more? She's sitting in front of him; of course he can see the details. But she sat in front of him for years. She married him. He should remember as much about her as he can see in front of him now. It becomes too painful, and he focuses back in, head in hands. Her worry is evident, is palpable, but there's no time for that now.
They find the house, of course they do, and they enter, one after the other, violent and calm all at once. They hear the noise together, and a thrill rushes imperceptibly from one to the other. Barely exchanging a glance, they know what they have to do.
The sight that meets them is catastrophic. The thrill turns to fear and to anger. They rush, protocol be damned, to save the life that they see ebbing away from them. Her eyes are open. That's what he sees. The eyes, the windows on reality, they're open. They've seen it all. God knows what happened here. He is still thinking it as her pupils contract. 'She's alive.'
Barking orders at his team, pushing his emotions to the side. This is where the real, the fierce, the obnoxious Mac Taylor lies. And so, he will remind himself when pushing his frustration aside later, that's why she chose now to make her attack. Because, of course, she and he both know that that's not the real him. That's the Mac Taylor who has barely slept in, well, years actually, eating the minimum, and living the minimum, coasting along, pulling it together enough to command others around him in a painfully hypocritical way. The short exchange serves only to infuriate him, and to worry her further. Because, of course, that's what she would have done.
She'd once told him that it was a wife's duty to worry about her husband, because he wasn't going to do it for himself. He had laughed at the time, and gone back to doing whatever they were doing, making breakfast, if his memory served him right (which it did, always). But she'd repeated in her vows, and, he could have sworn that that was the moment in which her eyes strayed from him, and met hers. A completely unspoken agreement passed between them, cementing their friendship, but, unfortunately, making him feel like a complete burden on this beautiful woman, who needed more than he could ever have given. And so, when she shared her concerns for him with him, he shook them off, automatically annoyed. The short exchange, at the most inappropriate time, threw him off for the drive to the hospital, her words echoing through his head. He is, he realises, annoyed more with himself, for letting her in, and then he remembers how fruitless it is to try and stop her getting there in the first place.
All she can think of is how he couldn't answer her last question. 'Did the husband get to you?' She mentally chastises herself. Of course the husband got to the man. The two were in almost identical situations. Except they weren't. Because that day, everyone went through a personal tragedy. Peoples' hearts broke all over the world when they heard. And they all knew someone. She couldn't help but remember them as she headed back into the building. Mac, of course, had been too wrapped up in his own hell to help his team, who had actually needed him more than ever. So it fell to Stella. She knew, of course, that the real reason was because they all assumed that, having no family, she would have remained largely unscathed, comparatively speaking. The day had left a scar on all of their hearts. So when she found them, scattered around their floor, inconsolable, she was the one who picked them up, and listened. It was always worse to see the strongest ones fall apart, she thought. All of their team were strong. And to watch them shatter, firsthand, has to be the worst thing to experience.
She remembers watching Aiden fall apart all too clearly. She'd held it together, actually. Really held it together, until all of them believed that she'd gotten through it. It was only when a list of names was put together, months after the attack, confirming what most of them already knew, that she lost it. Stella learnt a lot about Aiden that day. She was young, really, really young. Mac knew that, of course, but Stella hadn't. Aiden graduated from high school early, by one year, and started working for Mac when she was 20. The towers fell 4 months later. Age 21 and 4 days, Aiden had lost a lot. They came from families of policeman, Danny, Flack, or soldiers, Mac, or doctors, Hawkes, Sid. Aiden broke the pattern, coming from a family of FDNY higher-ups. Unfortunately it was the firemen and women who were sent into the towers. Boyfriend, twin brother, younger sister, father. Gone for Aiden in minutes. She was left to pull her remaining family through it, and eventually it got too much. She had been found minutes before it was too late, by Stella of course. Sitting on the roof of her building. She'd told them that she had no intention of jumping, of falling, but that she needed to be somewhere where sympathy and pity weren't. She'd convinced them all, the psych. team at Angel of Mercy, her boss, and nearly, really nearly, Stella, who knew that it wouldn't have been the first time. And now her attention turns to the girl herself, stronger than ever, and, she suspects as she watches Danny flirt shamelessly, still lying about her age.
His heart is heavy as he enters her room. There's no way of knowing what he's about to find but he fears the worst, he cannot help but to do so. Human instinct kicks in, making it hard to do the job well, but he does. He talks to her, introducing himself and explaining what he is about to do, not, he dryly reminds himself, because he expects her consent, or even because he wants to, but because if there's a shred of dignity he can give these girls, he knows he should. He would remind the onlooker very much of her at that moment. The girl's eyes, seen as her face is forced toward him, are big, almost bovine, and completely glassy. He is as gentle as he can be, and again, he allows his mind to wander, letting the rhythmic rise and fall of the ventilator provide a backdrop for his thoughts. He is jerked back to the present when the girl blinks.
Flack is close to losing his patience with this one. The man, typically masculine, is normally calm and cool, rearing up a tad too quickly perhaps, but able to recognize this. Not, however when the suspects play games. Flack is tough, handsome and loves his ma, the stuff of many women's dreams, and he knows it. He doesn't, however, abuse it, probably because he loves his ma, because she taught him to respect all the leggy, lithe, and, let's face it, easy girls that he could have. And (and he brings this thought to the forefront of his mind only when drunk, jogging, and, strangely enough, with one of the aforementioned women – he's only human after all, everything in moderation) because the women around him are the toughest women he knows, the most sexy, and the ones who would, without a doubt, whip his pert behind to wherever and back if they got word that he was messing a girl about. One in particular catches his attention daily. But, he reminds himself as he drifts back into his interrogation, more time for that later.
Danny enters the room then – perfect timing as usual – and drops easily into the jokey role that he and Flack know works wonders when played off correctly. Though he's never, ever, gonna admit it, it's not outside the realms of the known for Danny to feel slightly in awe of Flack. It's always Danny who messes it up, to be frank. It's Danny who does, on occasion, get the butt-whipping mentioned earlier. On the other hand, he usually deserves it. They make a good pair, and they know it, and that's how Danny gets his swab.
He's sombre as he meets the doctor, unsure of where the investigation can go from here. The old saying, 'It's only up from here', haunts him, as he thinks about how ironic it is. The reality of the situation is more disturbing than they could have ever imagined. His heart grows heavier as the doctors words sink in: 'Locked-in syndrome…paralysis…with the exception of the eyes…' The terror she might have experienced is unbearable, the things she might have seen he is unable to contemplate.
He returns to the hospital both disgusted and with a sense of renewed hope that he recognises in himself as perverse and completely inappropriate. He explains ever-so-gently to the girl (he cannot yet bring himself to internally refer to her as a Jane Doe) that he understands what has happened to her, he wants to help her, can she help him? He recognizes his own words as meaningless but speaks them anyway, knowing there's little else that he can do. And as she's dragged painfully, violently away from him, he watches, transfixed, yelling for a nurse because he knows it's what must be done, all the while feeling suspended in time, watching the life ebb out of the girl. He stays with her even when it's over. Sits, talks, and allows himself a figment of hope for the first time in a while. It's only when she cannot blink that he accepts that he cannot save her, and with this comes the sweeping realisation that he cannot save everyone. It's really not been a good day.
Even Stella's appearance at the hospital can barely blunt his, to be frank, appalling mood. She does, however, understand how justified it is, and for that he is eternally grateful. In the car on the way back he turns to tell her this, having been paying very little attention on the ride through the oppressive city. He is lucky enough to catch her in one of her unguarded moments. A song has come on the radio, the sort of song that gets your feet tapping every time, but you never know the name too. She's singing along happily, eyes glittering, hair bouncing, a radiant smile on her face. And he breaks his own resolve of grumpy silence to grin at her. Their eyes meet and – Heavens help him – she giggles. Stella Bonasera giggles. Wow. What else can he say?
He quickly retreats back into his morose state, darting quickly out of her car into the building, though not without the thank you she neither needed nor expected to confirm his appreciation. Sighing, she follows, entering the building with a smile to the receptionist, and heads straight to the break-room for a cup of what the state calls coffee. The rest of humanity accepts it as warm, brown, caffeine-saturated water. Flack's in there (she fleetingly wonders why he's not back at his own HQ, but dismisses the idea of questioning him) and he grins shyly at her from behind the sports page of the New York Times, a favourite among the cops who consider themselves worthy of knowing the news. Flack is one of the few cops she knows who actually is worthy. She grins back, saying more with the beam than she could have with words, and pours two mugs of coffee-water from the recently-boiled kettle. He deflates a little as she turns right out of the room, knowing whose office she has headed to. She has little time to worry about the younger man's feelings, because he needs her, and so with him she shall be.
She finds him, silent, brooding, pacing his office moodily, an idea in his head that he cannot prove, and countless others that he doubtless could if he so chose. His face drops at this realisation, so she waits silently, buzzing with energy nonetheless. She is unsure, as yet, what he wants from her, but he's surprisingly explicit. She does as he asks, he knows she will, and they sit. 'Diabolical'. 'Calculated'. 'Personal'. The words flow, both true and easily from her mouth as he watches her. 'Intimate'. This time his own idea. It's difficult – god knows they both know it – to remove intimacy from another. And that's where they'll go from.
Aiden. Danny. Mac. Stella. An hour later they can be found in one of the labs, silent as they work, but all understanding. The lights are shut off, and they can begin. Of course, he finds what he's looking for, he's Mac Taylor, and of course he finds what he's looking for. And then Stella surprises him for the umpteenth time. Where, where, did she learn to speak Russian? The look that passes between them speaks volumes. Not only does she understand that he intends to question her later, but he's silently thrilled. They know who did this now.
They sit together in the cold interview room, as the light slips rapidly away. The man is uncooperative, but that's to be expected, rarely can you accuse a person of murder, or of a heinous crime, and expect them to come right out and admit it, although it has happened to him, but once in his career so far. Mac has never heard the word 'love' spoken less emotively, than the way this monster speaks of Zoya. Mac throws the man's crimes back at him, watching attentively for any hint of unspoken emotion. He finds none, and it is this which disgusts him more than much of what he has seen before. He is surprised to hear his own voice thick with emotion as he asks the question one shouldn't: 'why?'
He suddenly despises the man sitting opposite him.
And then he's back with her at the hospital. Still nameless, still being artificially pumped full of oxygen. Oxygen. Air. The beach ball. He finds himself explaining it to her, disbelief in his own brazenness until he remembers that she cannot hear him. He's not unloading anything really. He's just articulating what he has been unable to articulate to ears that can actually hear him so far. Maybe it's a step in the right direction. He misses his wife so much. He wants to tell her about that too, because she will listen, she loves him and he loves her as best friends should. They know each other well. She knows that he's still suffering. And even though she's the only one that still remembers the important dates – her birthday, their anniversary, and the exact moment, on the exact day that he found out for sure that she wouldn't be coming home again – he is still unable to share. Yet.
He needs to be close to her now. Whenever that's what he needs he comes to see her here. He feels uneasy, coming to the place in which she died in order to remember her life, but by the time he feels he has to be here he doesn't usually care. He lets the cabbie take him there the long way, almost grateful for the time to think, despite the extortionate fee that will be flung upon him, no questions asked, at the end of the journey. He sees the faces of strangers, embroiled in some aspect of their daily lives, even at this hour. A young couple, making out under a lamppost. An elderly man, walking his elderly dog, looking tired but content as the spaniel trundles along beside him. A beautiful woman, admiring glances thrown her way by the men she passed. She had been like that. Beautiful enough to make the average man catch flies, mouth wide open, and to lower the IQ of anyone she passed. And him? How would he end up? The old man with the dog? Or coupling again, with a beautiful women, living a second youth? Talking of beauty, he knew that she had a date tonight. She hadn't mentioned it, but Danny had in passing to Aiden, who'd glanced admiringly at the elder woman before dragging Danny off to some bar or other. Mac had seen Stella hanging up her outfit in her locker that morning, just in case, as was to be expected, the day ended too late for her to get home to change. He hadn't made the link at that time.
Drawn out of his reverie, he strides, ever graceful, across the wide, pale paving stones, towards her ghost. No-one bothers him, barely anyone's around. He presses his face in at the bars, and a little bit of his heart breaks one more time. It's a tired movement, he's not there to be seen, he's there to see. The glint of his wedding ring catches his own attention, and he raises his hand to place it through the cold, narrow bars. 'I love you baby.' The words are carried out of his mouth on a whisper, taken, he hopes, to her. 'I love you, so, so much.' And it's all he can do not to cry there and then. But he doesn't cry. He goes home. To very little.
Flack goes home to a baseball game with three mates (all cops), three pizzas (all meat-filled and greasy) and a couple of beers each (all cold and welcoming). He sleeps easy, in tracksuit pants and a college shirt, sprawled on top of his bed in a manner both confident and endearing.
Aiden goes home with Danny. They had a brilliant evening, one that seems strangely out of place after the day they've had. Aiden drinks tea (Stella put her on to the drink as soon as she started working at the lab) and Danny drinks the strongest coffee he can find in his own cupboards. They laugh together, fuelled partly by the cocktails (Aiden) and beers (Danny) that they enjoyed earlier and partly by the ultimate comfort of each others' friendship.
Hawkes goes home to Kara. Naively, some would say, he thinks that maybe, just maybe, she's the one. She's cooking dinner, and the sight of her in the apron her mother gave her when they moved in together makes him think of what they might have one day.
The doctor goes home to what Hawkes wants. A wife aging achingly beautifully. Children, all at different stages, who all love him however well they bury it under the disdain that only a teenager can muster. And he goes home to something that Hawkes does not want. And when he gets the call he's been waiting for, for what feels like an age but in reality has only been days (the curse, he supposes, of carrying on with both of them at once) and he goes to her, he thinks that maybe one person really can have it all.
Mac, you know, has gone home to nothing. And after two hours of nothing, he goes to work again. Here he can do something useful. Here he is needed and wanted, and here is where he doesn't have to have a story, here is where he can just be.
And Stella? Stella dances. She dances with him (she will later tell Aiden that his name was Josh – despite being fiercely private she knows that trust goes both ways – but she won't be sure whether it could actually have been Jake. It is in fact Jack) for what feels like hours. And then, in the age-old and time-honoured tradition that she sure isn't about to break, he invites her back to his for coffee. And as she fakes emotion under him, she wonders whether she'll always feel this empty, despite being full. And as she leaves his apartment at some ungodly time, hating herself, she wonders whether he'll always feel this empty. And maybe, she concludes, as she enters an apartment as cold and lonely as his own, two empty people together could fill each other up.
What did you think? Press the green button. Please?