I promised you another short one while you're waiting for the updates on "Members Only" and "Picking up the Pieces" - here it is. It's not gonna be too long and not much suspense - just a little something out of an inspiration I got from a comment in a review to "If Love Would Be Easy". Song lyrics in this story are from Bon Jovi's "Love Me Back To Life".

Check out if you like it and let me know :-)

Disclaimer: All the original characters belong to their owners - except for Mac. Mac belongs to Stella.

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Chapter 1

"Mac, what's going on with you lately?" Stella asked when he entered the room and turned to his locker without even looking over to her.

"What do you mean?" he replied edgily.

"You seem a little … distracted," she determined, keeping her eyes on his movements.

"I'm fine."

He focused on his locker and rearranged stuff from one side to the other to avoid meeting her intense gaze that he could feel on his back.

"I told you... I'm fine!" he snapped when he realized that she wouldn't let go.

"Right…" Stella mumbled, the tone in her voice making more than clear that she didn't believe him for one second.

Damn! How does she always do that? She reads me like an open book, no matter how hard I try to hide. This is almost scary – and she always manages to make me furious by not letting it just go…

"LEAVE IT ALONE!" he finally exclaimed. "It's none of your business, why don't you just take care of your own things?"

Stella's eyes narrowed.

-

This world don't give you nothing it can't take away
Everybody holding on to something
Nobody wants to fade away


That's it – enough was enough. She slowly approached him, her eyes fixating on his. Mac wasn't sure how to react, so he did nothing but watch her coming closer. When she was close enough, she pushed him back against the locker with her right hand on his chest.

"You think you can do anything here, right? You believe because you're the boss everyone, including me, should just ask 'How high?' if you order us to jump, huh? Questions not wanted, complaints or arguments not accepted? That's not how it works, buddy!"

Her face was only inches from his, her body almost pressing him into the locker behind him.

"If you don't like it that I care about you – then I'm sorry. But in that case you will just learn to live with it because that's not going to stop, whether you like it or not – and don't even think about answering back now," she finished with a long, deep look into his eyes before she closed his lips with an almost aggressive, yet passionate kiss.

"Think about it!" she breathed heavily when she let go of him after what seemed to him like an eternity.

Without turning around, she headed out.

Outside, she ran into Danny who was on his way to change after court. He followed her with a puzzled look, then shook his head and entered the locker room where he found a pretty confused Mac who was still leaning against the lockers with a perplexed look on his face.

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No forgiveness on the streets of this town
I left my patience at a traffic light
There's no denying that I almost lost it
Threw in the towel, too tired to fight

-

"You alright?" Danny wondered, looking back to the door, wondering if Stella's hasty leaving had something to do with Mac's condition.

Mac stared at him for a moment, then vaguely nodded and turned to leave the room without a word. Danny looked after him and shook his head. Those two weren't behaving normally. Of that, he was absolutely sure.

XXXXX

When Danny returned to the lab several minutes later, Flack quickly approached him in the corridor with a relieved expression on his face.

"Thank God you're here!" he exclaimed.

"Where's the fire?" Danny asked puzzled.

"Mac's office, he and Stella have been fighting like cats and dogs for several minutes and I think if we don't do anything to stop them…"

"Yeah, right. CSI all over the place… – no good," Danny figured. "Alright then, let's go. You wearing your bullet proof vest?"

Flack smirked slightly as they headed for Mac's office to prevent the worst.

XXXXX

"OH-KAY!" Flack announced loudly after he and Danny entered Mac's office, trying to interrupt the argument and get some attention.

"Now, why don't we two sweethearts go and check the coroner's report," he turned to Stella and put an arm around her shoulders, carefully guiding her away from Mac and out of the office.

"And us guys have another look at the evidence," Danny addressed to Mac. "Trace just brought in some new test results."

Mac took a deep breath and released it through his nostrils. Then he nodded. He was well aware that his fighting with Stella at the lab was anything but appropriate behavior to say the least. Yet he still couldn't help it. Somehow both of them seemed to be pretty agitated lately. And her little 'attack' in the locker room had been…

He shook his head in an attempt to get his thoughts straight again.

"I dunno what you said to her, but I'm glad I'm not in your shoes. You better apologize to her … and soon," Danny mumbled.

"ME???" Mac fumed. "I'm not the one who crossed the line! Why is it always that I am the one who has to apologize? The thought that Stella did something wrong wouldn't cross anyone's mind, right?"

Danny lowered his head and shrugged lightly. Better not to push this anymore for now. But someone had to do something. There had to be a reason for this persistent fighting – and a solution to end it for good.

They studied the evidence they had spread out on the table in front of them in silence until something caught Mac's attention.

"That's it! I knew it looked strangely familiar. There was a case about 15 years ago, back when I started here at the Crime Lab. Same MO and everything," he explained.

"15 years? Gee, those files won't even be in the system, we need to go down to the basement and dig through tons of dusty cardboard boxes and folders…" Danny complained.

"I will go, I guess you need to finish some reports anyway if I'm not completely wrong," Mac gave him a pensive look.

Danny sighed. Speak of having to choose from two evils… Then an idea shot into his brain out of the blue.

"Alright, you go – I'll be on those reports, you'll have them on your desk by the end of the shift!"

"Right," Mac wondered about Danny's sudden enthusiasm for paper work. "In case someone is looking for me, tell them I'll be back in an hour. Cell phones and pagers won't work in the basement."

"Yeah, I know…" Danny replied, trying to sound non-committal.

His mind was already working on a mission.

XXXXX

"Should Mac be worried? You can forge his writing pretty well, when even Stella can't notice the difference…" Lindsay joked after Stella had informed her that she would be in the basement for a while because Mac had written her a note to meet him there to check on some old files.

"Just one of the many dubious skills I acquired during my rough and tumble childhood," Danny smirked mischievously.

Lindsay gave him an eye roll and shook her head.

"So, what's the plan now? You really believe it's such a good idea to put them together where there's nobody to intervene if things get outta hand?" she doubtfully asked. "What if they are at each other's throat and…"

That's not exactly where I expect their hands to be actually…

"They won't be," he firmly declared. "And I sorta hope things WILL get outta hand…"

"What?" Lindsay replied confused. "You don't expect them to argue down there where nobody can hear them if that's almost all they did the last few days even up here??"

"Not if the door is locked for hours and there is no light down there, I don't…" he mysteriously returned.

"DANNY MESSER!" Lindsay exclaimed in shocked surprise. "You can't possibly…"

"Watch me!" he grinned and quickly headed for the elevator.

TBC

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Okay, your turn ;-)

xxxlittlesheepxxx