A/N: Random ficlet that popped into my head listening to ANOTHER Eric Church song... I know right, he had to come out with another album and give Kelsey more excuses to torment you all with mini-song-fic-one-shots. Muahaha! Although, my other one's a LWD, so unless you pay attention to both... maybe it's not as annoying. Hmmm.

Well, for all you CSI NY lovers, here's WITHOUT YOU HERE, a SMACKED fic.

EHMAHGOD, MY FIRST SMACKED FIC! :D


"I don't know where, but there's still life out there... not without you here."

Mac laid in his bed, listening to this new country song on the radio. He rarely listened to country, but she'd loved it. So he listened to it.

This song seemed to embody the whole hell he'd been going through for the last 29 days, 13 hours, 45 seconds. Or so. It's not like he'd been counting.

"Without you here, everything's in black and white, without you here, I'm upside down, without you here, hunny, I'm a melody, living in a world that can't hear sound."

Mac thought. That last line was so true. This guy knew what he was talking about. When someone you loved was gone, it took all the sound out, all the true music. He was just listening for the hell of it lately. Very rarely did anything sink in. In fact, this may be the first time he's really heard something since he heard "Time of death, 6:49 pm."

He missed her. He missed her so much.

They'd been arguing the last time he heard her speak. She told him to go to hell, and she'd walked out the door. He'd smiled, thinking she'd be back. But then, he'd heard the sirens. Heard his cell phone go off. Looked at the ID, it was Flack. Panic was evident in the man's damn voice, so Mac knew it was serious. He'd gotten into a cruiser and revved the siren, not giving a shit who cared. Because it was his girl in that ambulance. His girl. His beautiful Stella.

"I'd give the shirt off my back, or my last dime, if it could take me anywhere, other than without you here."

He'd give everything to have her back. That cold gravestone didn't seem right for his warm, kind-hearted companion, best friend, partner in crime. Too cold, sour, dark, somber. Nothing like his beautiful laughing, warm, happy Stella. Nothing like it.

"Without you here, every breath is wasted. Without you here, I'm just a ghost."

She was so warm and caring, she'd gone straight to heaven. He was the ghost living back here on earth.

Flack and Danny and Hawkes made such an effort to get him moving, out, eating, sleeping right. And he guessed it worked, sometimes. Sometimes he just went along with it so they'd stop bothering him. It was the easiest way to handle their good-intentioned pushiness.

And then when they were drunk and loud and uncaring, he slipped away, back to his apartment, back to his cold, lonely bed. And he slept. Not soundly, not well, but he slept. Waiting to find anywhere, other than without her here.


A/N: It's short, based just on the song and my imagination. I don't own CSI NY, because if I did, Mac and Stella would be established, Danny and Lindsay wouldn't have a kid, and Flack's sister would show up a lot more. I love her :D

I also, unfortunately don't own Eric Church. EMI and his wife do. *Sob, sob*