"Stella!!"

She's lying face down in the water, and he doesn't really register the cold until he has her out of the water and coughing it up. He has another moment of panic when her eyes focus briefly in his, and then roll back, passing out again.

"Stella, come on, wake up. You've got to wake up…"

He fumbles in search of his phone, but realizes that the dunk he took effectively killed it, so he yells to the onlookers for an ambulance.

He can't really tell for how long he sat there, cradling Stella's head and hoping that she would open her eyes, but then the ambulance arrives and loads her in, so he has to scramble to his feet to go with her.

At the Hospital, the scene is eerily familiar. He is not allowed to go in with her, so he's left standing on the same hallway, waiting for news.

Even though he saw her open her eyes as they arrived to the hospital, the blood stains on his shirt remind him too much of another time he spent waiting on this same hallway, of losing another important woman on his life.

Just as he's about to ask the nurses for the nth time about Stella, he feels a hand on his shoulder. "Hey Don, any news?"

Don looks up to see the concerned face of Mac Taylor. He stands up, moving with him to the nurses' station. "Mac, they won't tell me anything, she went in about 30 minutes ago, and they still won't say how she is…"

"Let me see if I can get any information…" Mac moves to the counter, asking the nurse about Stella and about a doctor. The nurse goes inside and comes back a couple of minutes later, giving Mac an update on Stella's condition. He turns to Flack. "They say that she's awake, and they are checking her up, to make sure that there's not any serious damage. She's in good hands, I know the doctor who's treating her…"

Don sits down on a chair, holding his head in his hands, finally able to breathe easily. "Good, that's good. " He stands up quickly. "I'd better go find the bastard that did this. I got him in the leg, he shouldn't be too hard to find…" He iss stopped by Mac's hand on his arm.

"Don, they tell me that in about 15 minutes we can see Stella." He looks down at Don's clothes. "Adam had this bag in the crime lab, and since they heard you went after Stella, he thought you could use them. Why don't you go change and we check on her before you go on your way?"

Don looks down at his own clothes, still dripping wet and stained with some blood. He takes the bag from Mac, smiling. "Ross' clothes? Well, I guess Messer's pants would be too short. Thanks Mac." He moves to change, but is stopped by Mac's hand on his arm.

"Don, thanks for having her back."

Don ducks his head. "I was nearly too late, and the guy got away, but I'll make sure to catch him and hand him to Stella all wrapped up… Go check on her, and try to convince her to take some time off if you can, I'll make a couple of phone calls and be there in a sec." He moves to the bathroom, breathing easier now that he knew his friend is going to be fine.

A couple of days later, the case was closed, Dirisa was behind bars, Stella was back to normal and everything looked fine.

His first day off in more than a week was nearing its end, but he couldn't bring himself to relax all day. He kept waking up all night, with images of Stella bleeding on his arms, of him holding the gun to Dirisa's gut and shooting, of Jess bleeding on the floor of the diner. It all mixed up, to make sleep the most unpleasant activity he could think of.

By 4 am, he finally gave up, and decided to start his day early, doing his laundry and all the shores he had neglected for the last week or so.

His grumbling stomach alerted him that he had skipped lunch, one look at his watch told him that he has missed lunch by four or five hours. At least his apartment looked a little less like a warzone than it did yesterday.

Deciding that it was enough for the day, he got his keys, determined to find something to pacify his grumbling stomach.

Somehow his quest for Pizza ended up with him knocking on Stella's door, with two jumbo pizzas and a six-pack of beer on his hands.

Stella opened her door, looking surprised to see him. "Flack! Hi, what are you doing here?"

He showed her the food on his hands. "I come bearing gifts, I hope I'm not interrupting?..."

She opened the door for him. "No, of course, come in!"

After setting up the plates, throwing away the frozen pizza she was about to have, and doing some small talk, they were both sitting side to side on her couch, watching a movie with a slice of pizza in one hand and a beer in the other.

Stella put down her pizza, giving him a sideways glance. "So, we've talked about my head, about your day off, about the Rangers and about the movie we're not really paying attention to. Are you ready to tell me why you are really here?"

Don sighed, looking down to his beer bottle. Without looking at her, he started talking. "It's been nearly a year since Jess… Since she… she died. And now, if I had been any slower, if I hadn't shown up when I did, you could have… " He took a deep breath. "It's just that if we lost you… I… I couldn't take it…"

Stella leaned forward, reaching out and gently squeezing his leg. "Except from Lucy, this has been an awful year for us, hasn't it?"

Don didn't look up, but chuckled at that. "That's a bit of an understatement, Stell…"

"Well, yes. It's been a bad year, and we all seem to have moved apart by it, but the only way to make it a bit better is to start taking better care of each other, and of ourselves…" She gave Don a thoughtful look. "Tell you what… Let's make a deal…"

That caught Don's attention, and he looked up to her. "What kind of deal are we talking about exactly?"

She smiled at him. "Well, I promise to be more careful, to try not to go off chasing perps all by myself without any backup, and generally to try not to get killed while at it, if you promise to take better care of yourself too."

He frowned at that. "Hey! I take perfectly good care of myself!"

She raised an eyebrow. "Really? Then how come you're on your first day off in weeks and you look like you haven't slept a wink all night?"

"I take good care of myself." He grumbled.

"Then it shouldn't be a problem for you… So, do we have a deal?" She extended her bottle.

Don leaned back on the couch, taking a minute to study her face. Finally, he clanked his beer bottle against hers. "We have a deal."

She smiled at that. "And you never know, we may even find the time to take care of each other while at it."

Don shrugged. "I don't know about that… I'll have to check my schedule, to see if I can squeeze you in there somewhere…"

She elbowed on the ribs, laughing. Eventually, they continued watching the movie and finishing up the food.

Half an hour later, all that could be heard in Stella's apartment was the soft breathing of two friends sleeping on her couch. Tomorrow, they would start doing their parts of the deal, and try to look after each other, if they had the time.

AN. Than you for reading, if you got this far. As usual, these were a couple of scenes I felt were missing from the episode. Poor Donnie always have to play the hero, and look all tough and collected afterwards. And the clothes he was wearing at the Hospital!! Anyway, this is what came out of it...

I hope you liked it, and whether you did, or not, I hope you review!!

See you around!!