Title: He Said, She Said
Author: delga
Rating: K+ (to be safe. It's really quite mild. And, shockingly, no swearing!).
Pairing: Mac/Stella
Content Warning: none
Summary: Post-ep for (surprise, surprise) Officer Blue. "Stella wonders if she's caught in white noise, endless and aching and where are we now?"
Disclaimer: Not mine, don't sue!
A. N: For natushka (for understanding); lyrics are No Doubt's "Don't Speak" (which is my Mac/Stella song) and Lindsay Lohan's "Over" (because it's my song of sappy teen angst). Apologises for the long and winding structure but it was necessary to try and convey a tumult of emotion.
He Said, She Said
I can't live without you,
Can't breathe without you,
I'm dreaming 'bout you,
Honestly, tell me that it's over
"We haven't had a fight like that in a long time," she says and she would know; after all, she keeps their conversations tallied in her head and charted on her hands, her fingers, her skin. "We haven't had a fight like that in a long time," and what she means to say is, "You don't look at me anymore; you don't see me here." She means to say one thing and yet she says another and the space between what she says and what she means is as cavernous as the distance between them. She shakes his hand because this is acceptable. She cracks a joke because this is expected, par course.
Stella wonders if she's caught in white noise, endless and aching and where are we now?
Our memories
They can be inviting
But some are altogether mighty
frightening
He's demure and shy in a way she's never seen before and whilst usually she'd be inclined to mock that in a man, she really can't bring herself to be rude to this one. (They're introduced in a casual way and Stella just grins because Mac Taylor seems mildly alarmed by her and she feels that if she can make him blush three times within one conversation, she'll be the happiest person in the world). He holds out his hand and she looks at him as though he's slightly crazed and oh the irony of that thought as she notes his firm grip and returns the salutational gesture.
She spends the evening with a glass in her hand and a smile on her face; he remains perpetually bemused, sipping at Irish coffee as she talks and talks and is blunt and direct as possible (and do people even drink that stuff anymore)? She is witty and clever and funny and he is polite and obscure; quiet, amused (and charming and darling and oh so very comfortable). Stella feels as though she is free-falling, dazing past the heights of her life and crashing towards the light of this man, this quiet, touching man and she knows - so suddenly, so accurately – that she will never get over this feeling.
His trick, she realises, is in making her feel intelligent without presuming a scholarly air. He pushes and prods her just enough to get her thoughts flowing and she is so grateful for the high that comes from being in his presence that she neglects to question why, so far, it's all been about her.
(He's from Chicago and he bears the lines that military service has scratched into him, branding and marking him apart. He wears them the way she wears her memories; like fickle charms to be forgotten but not forgiven; never forgiven because they shaped him – still shape him - and now he cannot be rid of them).
In return for all her rambling (and she can't help it, really she can't - he excites a nerve in her that is already predisposed to discourse and analysis and when they speak, she's fuelled to burst open unless she lays out all her thoughts in whichever order they come to her), he demands that she display this city to him and in this, too, she is well-equipped. This is New York City and she is Stella Bonasera and she will not let him have one without the other.
You and me,
We used to be together,
Every day together,
Always
He's fallen in love with the city and maybe he's fallen for her too because he talks of never leaving and is always there, hovering on her periphery. She wishes, sometimes, that he wasn't so intangible but it doesn't really make that much of a difference because they've skirted this thing, this horrible, wonderful, catastrophic thing for over three years and Stella still isn't tired of it. Instead, he's doing patrol work and she's doing her masters in Chemistry and he comes to her after his longest days and they sit on the roof of her apartment block eating pizza. He talks about his day and she recites the composition of amino acids; he points out the constellations and she tells him the myths behind them.
And sometimes he asks her a question and she has to stop and think before she speaks because she senses that her answer could be monumentally important. So she stops and she considers her decision and he watches her oh so carefully, waiting in patient silence whilst she thinks. Sometimes she gives him an answer and he nods as if confirming his own thoughts; other times she gives him a reply and he frowns and then Stella wonders what it is she's said to provoke such a sullen response, her stomach binding up in knots before he turns to her and smiles and all is right with the world again.
It's times like these that she freezes under the tone of his gaze and is forced to silence; forced, it seems, to take stock of all her blessings and remember everything she has because it doesn't matter that he doesn't quite understand her and it doesn't matter that he isn't really quite there when she's speaking, and it's not really that much of a deal that they're almost in sync but never quite there and thus forever hitting each other at odd and even angles—
It starts to rain.
One summer later, he finally gets an apartment and Stella finally gets her degree and so many things are happening all at once that she's almost nauseous at the pace at which their lives at moving.
It's practically superficial, the way they meet with regularity, the way they speak to each other. He asks how she is, how her day was, if she's hungry, what she'd like to eat. He asks her all the questions he's supposed to ask and thus begins the task of finding meaning in the things he says to her. So Stella asks him whatever comes to mind, asks him if his ties are sewn to his shirts, asks him if he wonders what he'll be in twenty years time (and wonders if she'll still be in the picture). She asks him about Chicago, asks him about Beirut. Asks him if he's serious or if he's playing around and why the hell are they still doing this, walking around each other on tiptoes? After all, it's been six years and she knows him better than she's ever known anyone before and yet he's standing there saying how do you do and wonderful weather and all she wants is to shake him into some form of sense.
So suddenly it's are you insane? and are you blind? and she's kissing him as if it's the last thing she will ever do. She's kissing him and she's wondering if she's made a mistake when, slowly, he begins to kiss her back and then she's relieved, unendingly relieved because this means it's ok and she was right and there is something more to them than empty words.
They're not lovers, not really, or not so much as they would confess to themselves and she supposes it's some sort of sin that they're not all that consistent about whether or not they're together. Sometimes it's urgent, as though the world is about to end and they've only just been told and these are the times when Mac hurts her with the gravity of his mind and his words and his body. Then there are times when all is levity and Stella can barely feel herself as he tickles her, making her ache with an omnipresent need and she giggles and laughs and screams delirium, the radio tinkling in the background as they come together without any form of grace.
And sometimes she screams at him for a different reason and sometimes he's cold and distant and they don't speak for days upon days upon days. Then there will be some crisis and they'll find one other in empty doorways and fall into each other without the presence of mind to realise that this is becoming a cycle and cycles never ever end happily or, at least, not where they're concerned.
I really feel
That I'm losing my best friend,
I can't believe this could be the end
He tells her that he's been offered a job in Chicago and she hugs him and tells him she's happy for him and this is the point, she guesses, when she starts lying to them both, just to keep him happy. He tells her he's been offered a job and she asks him where and she knows it's not a good sign that he's chewing his lip, so when he says Chicago she's inanely relieved because Chicago is closer than, say, Los Angeles and she can't really see him fitting in on the West Coast and then she's screaming silently at herself because he's leaving and the world must be spinning in the other direction because this is wrong, wrong, wrong.
He says, "In Chicago" and she says, "Congratulations" and what she means, of course, is no. But Stella has been counting the days until the end and she supposes this was inevitable in every sense of the word. So she says "Congratulations," when, of course, she means "No," and she hugs him so that he can't see the sadness in her eyes.
The phone rings and she has to smile because he's been gone less than three hours and already he's calling her and touching base, as it were; and this is gratifying and pleasing and guilty happiness tinged with a tiny edge of anger (because Stella could never suppress herself, not really, not when it counted). She laughs when she picks up the phone, laughs when she hears his voice and this is contentment, she thinks, this is safety. For what could be better than knowing that distance changes nothing and that time is powerless and they are still the same although she's at home and he's waiting for a plane to take him away from her - yet still they're here and doing this and being this and it's forever comforting to know that some things will never ever change.
I won't be the one to chase you
but at the same time you're the heart that I call home
For the first few months, he calls nearly every other day. Soon it becomes once a week and eventually it becomes erratic and ridiculous (and they never knew to let something die). That doesn't mean she doesn't stare at the phone, willing it ring. That doesn't mean she won't jump out of the shower, shampoo in hair, if it rings. That doesn't mean she can conceal excitement when it's him, or her disappointment if it's anyone but.
It just means that things change and time does make a difference and distance is a barrier she can't hope to overcome.
I watch the walls around me crumble
but it's not like I won't build them up again
Her name is Clare, he tells her. Her name is Clare and Clare is the reason why the calls have suddenly become more frequent, the reason why his voice is lighter, why he sounds happier (and did he ever sound that way when he was in New York or is she being silly and overanalysing this in the same way she overanalyses everything that happens in his life?) Her name is Clare and he loves her and this is something he wants to share with her, with Stella and the significance of that is not lost on her.
So he tells her about Clare and Stella makes up something about a guy she met in a bar and she doesn't tell him that's she's heartbroken and she doesn't mention that she misses him. She just packs away her hope and concentrates on being his friend because, really, what else is there left to do?
The months go on, the phone calls become something she's beginning to dread and then finally, after one gruelling day too many, she opens the door to her apartment and the phone is ringing and she's painfully aware of what is about to happen. Still, she picks up the phone, adds some levity to her tone; jokes that she's surprised Clare will take him and then adds that of course she's happy for him, she's ecstatic, this is brilliant news. She sends him her love and her congratulations and he tells her that Clare will be there later and could he call because he knows that Stella will like her, he's certain of it. Stella says, yes, yes, of course when actually she means, no, never, of course not. But she says yes and an hour later, after she's wept her tears and had a shower, the phone rings again and she finds herself talking to this woman, this Helen, this enigma that has caught Mac Taylor breathless and she wishes she could hate her but she really, really can't.
She doesn't go to the wedding; sends a present (a porcelain vase) and a short note. Makes up some nonsense about having to visit someone somewhere about something. It doesn't matter. She doesn't go to the wedding; she apologises her absence. Mac tells her that it's ok, he understands.
(He tells her it's ok and she knows he means it isn't but this is a pattern for them, a cycle of sorts; a brand new cycle in which they only ever say what the other wants to hear).
My tears are turning into time
I've wasted trying to find
A reason for goodbye
And suddenly he's there, right in front of her, no longer in the shadows and he's there and it's him and she hugs him because what else could she possibly do? He's there and Clare is behind him and Stella thinks that Clare is impossibly beautiful but she's promised herself to get past jealousy and envy and all things petty so she hugs Clare too and welcomes her into the family, so to speak. Clare seems startled (mildly alarmed and this is déjà vu) and Stella can only laugh. He's there and it's him and he hasn't changed, not one bit, and Stella does another turnabout on the concept of time.
She takes them for a drink at O'Reilly's and Mac smiles when she orders him Irish coffee. She orders him his drink and she turns to Clare and they end up having martinis and laughing and giggling together and Stella hates it, detests the fact that she actually likes this woman, this thief who stole in at the eleventh hour and took Mac away without even a cursory glance in Stella's direction.
Work is a revelation and it doesn't matter to Stella that Mac is married and that he goes home to someone else because she's moving past that and onto something that always had her pulse racing. Mac puts forward a theory, Stella slams it down with one of her own. They barter with each other, use words on each other; they talk, they argue, they reason. Stella isn't stupid, she never was and she didn't need Mac to prove this to her but she liked it all the same when he did. Talking to him is still like riding a tsunami, only more dangerous now because it raises in her such a desperate and hurting need to touch and ratify that she burns and becomes archly sardonic. Her grin belies her need and she finds herself waiting for him to question her, to pause and look at her and force her to search for an Important Answer; force her to think before answering with a smile or a nod or something.
He doesn't ask. He goes home to Clare. He goes home to Clare and Stella goes home to no one but she's moving on and it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It really, really doesn't.
It looks as though you're letting go
And if it's real,
Well, I don't want to know
Clare may be cheating on him, Mac isn't sure, but he tells Stella this anyway and she is nonplussed and confused as to what the appropriate response should be. Clare may be cheating on him and Stella feels herself become angry because why is she doing this? Why is she fighting her every impulse if this woman is going to walk out on Mac for some high roller? Stella wants to be angry but instead she tells him not to be stupid and that he's obviously not getting enough sleep because Clare would never do that to him.
But he begins to fall apart anyway and Stella feels helpless on his periphery (much as he was once on hers) and she wants to be of comfort to him in some meagre way, except he has too much pride to ask her for it and she'd never give it freely, not unless he asked, because those are The Rules and she'd long since stopped breaking them.
Clare may be cheating on him and a part of Stella rejoices silently and stoically. She begins to count the days.
You and me
I can see us dying
-- are we?
It wasn't supposed to be this way. This wasn't supposed to happen. Not this, never this.
The sky falls down. Clare dies. Mac mourns.
(Stella takes a step back and then two, faltering, and then runs as fast as she can. They'll never fix this, they'll never mend. They will be one continuous, unending catastrophe of a non-pair and they will be a bleeding wound that never closes until they die, exsanguinated by their pain).
Stella tries, tries so hard to help. She says nothing when he's outside her door, says nothing when he cries in her bed. She holds him and rocks him, makes him breakfast, lets him shatter across her skin and all the time, she doesn't really say anything. She stays quiet and unobtrusive and helpful for as long as she possibly can (and only cries when she's under the burning spray of the shower, cleansing herself of all her sins).
When she wakes, two days later, the apartment is empty. She looks for a note, some symbol that Mac has been there. Instead, she steps into the living room and finds the TV on and Mac gone. A newscaster is recapping the death toll; they show film of the world ending and pictures of those still lost to apocalypse.
The city will never be the same and Stella, being so inextricably bound to it, won't either.
They are made of patterns and cycles and this, she fears, will never ever change. This, of all things, will remain constant and unchanged by time. (She tries to comfort herself with the fact that she's thought the same at least twice before and still managed to be wrong, but no one knows Sod's Law the way she does and this will probably by the one time she's actually truthfully and terribly right). She goes to work, forces on herself a routine, a poor apparition of normality, just like every other dead soul in the city. She forces herself to focus on the task at hand and watches from the corner of her eye as Mac buries himself in the rubble of the city's injustice.
He won't leave; his ghosts tie him there. He never could untangle himself from the history he found in this city of cities. And as long as Mac is there, burning the midnight oil, Stella will be there, pinning her eyes open, giving him coffee, forcing him out the door at the end of the day. She will watch him and guard him and be a friend, so help her god, and she will do it and she will move on and this will be over.
Stupid that she can even lie to herself now.
Tell me that it's over
And I'll be the first to go
She tries to make him go home. She teases, proffers, prods and manipulates. She makes demands of him, steals his coffee, leaves him notes all over his office. She threatens to drag him out, to have him forcibly removed, to poison him if that's what it takes to get him to leave that goddamned office and damn well go home.
She stands in his doorway, arms crossed and swears at him. "Go home, dammit! Killing yourself won't bring her back, so go home!"
And she barely registers what she's said except she's tired and a year has passed and she feels like her grief is as potent as his, except he's dealing with it in a manner far more proficient than hers and she's dealing with it by making sure he doesn't drown himself in red tape and paperwork and it's just not working, goddamnit, and she refuses to drag his ass out of there anymore because it's too much.
And then she sees his face and registers what she's said and she's about to open her mouth to apologise when she finally, truly gives up and walks away. She's over it.
It becomes quiet in their life and there's something unimaginable about the void of emotion she has left behind her. She can't distinguish one feeling from the next and finally she realises this is because she has no two emotions to distinguish between. She is numb with the force of her words, numbed by the voracity of what she had chosen to do and, whilst she wishes and begs and prays that she hadn't said what she had said, she's also fairly relieved because the truth is sweet on her lips.
But she sees him skulking around the labs and a week later, after days upon days (upon eons upon eons) of being incommunicado, she comes back to the office and the seven days that have just passed evaporate between them, as though she's here for the first time. He is sitting at the desk and staring at the table and she knows he's not seeing a word of what he's reading. So she grabs his coat, pulls him away and takes him home, and when he's cried himself to sleep she whispers that she's sorry, she's so, so sorry for ever hurting him or making him pain in any way.
Don't speak,
I know just what you're saying,
So please stop explaining,
Don't tell me 'cause it hurts
He yells at her (they're arguing something, a fine point in a case). He yells at her and she gets angry – really angry, the way she hasn't in what feels like forever. She's angry and she's tired and she can barely hear herself think when he calls her Clare and suddenly everything is silence and maybe they're drowning in it because she can't breathe for silence.
He moves to apologise but she backs away, quickly, almost trips herself up as she flees. She backs away and it's no better than the last time but she can't help it because she won't be his ghost and she doesn't want to be his ghost and it's no longer enough just to be anything to him, it has to be something and something will never be Clare. Stella is not that enigma; Stella is not that beauty. Stella didn't swoop in at the last minute, she was thrown at him like the light of the sun and she will not play the ghost. She will not.
She is fickle, she thinks, fickle and jealous and lonely. She is sad, too, but this is what they have in common – miles upon miles of distance and half-lies spoken in half-whispers. "We haven't had a fight like that in a long time," she says and what she means is, "We haven't had a spat in a long time" because if she's truthful, they fight more now than they ever fought before, only this latest argument was trivial in comparison because this time they weren't talking about themselves.
She says "We haven't fought," and he says, "Not without you," and she sees it as a sort of pact because they're too old to do this properly and they're too bruised to make it work (and if she thinks about it, it never worked all that well to begin with, what with hurtling into each other at odd and even angles) and she decides that this, at least, is progress, because this is smiling and tenderness and the need, so raw and so bitter, just to be forgiven.
FIN