Of Coffee, Anniversaries, and Good Memories

by MacsLady

On the anniversary of her brother's death, Mac goes to see Christine, and a difficult day becomes a little bit better for both of them.

Notes: -

Thanks to RW for medical details, and for help with Mac's timeline.

I know on the show Christine's brother is named 'Stan' but I refuse to use that in my fic for reasons anyone who has seen 'Charge of this Post' will understand. I mean, seriously? So I changed it to 'Steven'.

All characters are the property of the show's writers.

Of Coffee, Anniversaries, and Good Memories.

Christine was jarred from sleep by the sharp, annoying ring of her alarm clock.

It took a few moments, as she dragged herself from the fug of sleep, to remember what day it was.

April 12. The anniversary of Steven's death.

She closed her eyes against the sudden, sharp rush of pain. Even all these years later, she still missed him, and this day was always hard. She thought of Mac, and wondered how the hell he'd gotten through ten years of anniversaries of his wife's death, anniversaries that were so very public, splashed all over the news for days and even weeks in advance. She supposed he did what she did - just got through the day as best he could. She suspected work was his solace, as it was hers.

She got up from bed slowly, and washed and dressed. She was standing in her kitchen, waiting for the coffee to finish percolating, when her cell rang. Despite the heavy sadness that lingered in her, that seemed to infiltrate her entire being, she couldn't help a slight smile, when the caller id flashed on the screen.

'Mac,' she said warmly.

'Hey, Christine,'

Mac's voice was warm and reassuring, and she felt some of a tension she hadn't even fully been aware of dissipate.

'I just wanted to call to let you know I'm thinking of you. I know today's tough for you.'

Christine felt a rush of gratitude at the simplicity with which Mac said that. No 'how are you doing?', no pity or uncomfortable platitudes - just a simple acknowledgement that he knew what today was, what it meant, and that, most importantly, he *understood* exactly how tough this particular day would be.

'Thank you, Mac,' she said.

'I was wondering if...if you'd like to meet up later. For coffee or something. If you want to, of course. I understand if...if you'd rather be alone.'

'No, Mac. I mean, that would be good. I'd like that. I have to go into work this afternoon to sort some stuff out, but I have the evening off.'

'I can finish early,' Mac said, 'We just closed a case and there's nothing major going on right now. I'm pretty sure my partner can cover for me.'

'Great,' Christine said, 'I'll meet you at 7pm, at that coffee place in midtown?'

She could hear the warmth in Mac's voice as he replied,

'Sure. Take care today, Christine. Call me if you need...if you need to talk at all.'

'Thanks, Mac,' she said again, meaning it.

She hung up. Today was going to be hard, as it always was. Although she had found some degree of closure over Steven, there were times when the pain of his death still wrenched at her, filling every fiber of her being, and today was one of them. Part of the problem was that she had no one to really talk about him with. Their parents were dead, and her friends had never met him. She could literally see their uneasy pity on the few occasions he came up, she knew if she saw them today, they would make a point of not talking about him. But now, there was Mac. With him she could talk about Steven, and she knew there would be no uneasy pity or stupid platitudes from him, only a shared sadness. With Mac, she could remember the good times with Steven, something she never got to do with anyone else. No one else could see past the fact that he was dead, no one else understood or remembered that he had once been a living, breathing man, a police officer with an appetite for good food and a great sense of humour. She was looking forward to seeing Mac tonight. Not just because right now it felt like he was the only person in the world who genuinely understood what she was feeling today, but also because she was just looking forward to spending more time with him.

Mac smiled as he hung up the phone. He felt the usual sadness he always felt on this day. He'd never forgotten the anniversary of Steven's death, even though he and Claire had lost touch with Christine after she left the city and he got promoted to detective, and Claire got the job at the Trade Center. Life, as so often happened, had taken over. But April 12, 1994, was one of those days Mac would never forget.

He turned his chair so he was looking out of the window of his office, into the warm April day outside.

Like so many days of tragedy, like 9/11, Steven's death had been on a day when the sky was clear and blue, the sun warm, a seemingly ordinary, harmless day. The city hadn't yet been struck by the summer heatwaves that drove it's inhabitants into a frenzy of violence and crime. It was late morning, and he and Steven were out on patrol. They'd been discussing the merits of boxing over hockey. Steven was a hockey nut, and had been trying to convert Mac to the sport since they'd met, while Mac had tried to educate Steven about the sport of boxing.

'I'm telling you, Taylor, hockey is better,' Steven said.

'I'm not going to the game with you, Whitney. I have better things to do.'

'Oh yeah? Like what?'

'Unlike you, Whitney, I have a wife. Who also thinks hockey sucks. We're going to the opera tonight.'

Whitney cackled.

'The opera? Oh, Taylor, you gotta be kidding me. You like opera? Boxing's bad enough, but frigging opera?'

'I don't love it,' Mac protested, 'But it's okay. And Claire loves it. It's more about spending time with her, you know? Her face lit up when I gave her the tickets,' Mac smiled at the memory.

Steven grinned at him.

'Ooooh, Taylor, you really are in luuuuuurve, aren't ya?'

'Yep,' Mac said, not minding Steven's teasing for once, 'I am. Maybe when you grow up a little you'll find someone too.'

'Jeez, Taylor, you sound just like my sister. She's always on at me to find someone to settle down with.'

Mac was about to reply when he saw a couple of hooded figures on the street outside suddenly grab a woman and try to snatch her bag. Steven saw too, and instantly pulled over. They leapt from the car.

'Stop, police!' they yelled, almost in unison. For a second, the entire scene froze as the two would-be muggers and their victim stared at them. Then, one of the muggers, and youngish white man with a scraggly beard, swore and took off running. Mac and Steven exchanged a split second look, a wordless conversation passing between them, before Mac took off after Scraggly Beard. Scraggly Beard wasn't particularly fit, and Mac caught up with him after only a couple of blocks. He slammed him up against a wall, and cuffed him, automatically reeling out his rights. Scraggly Beard, whose name Mac would later learn was Dwayne Sanders, responded with a few insults and then a sulky silence.

Just then, another patrol car pulled up, and Mac smiled as he saw Loretta Sanchez get out. She was from the same precinct as him and Steven.

'Hey, Taylor, what'd you catch?'

'Mugger,' Mac responded. 'Can you take him in for me? I need to get back to my partner.'

'Sure thing,' she responded, 'You guys coming to Weaver's bar after work?'

'Steven might. I'm taking my wife to the opera,'

'Nice,' Loretta said, smiling. She took the glowering perp from him. They were standing close to her car, when her radio crackled into life,

'All units, all units, be advised. We have reports of an officer down...'

Mac's heart froze in his chest as the dispatcher reeled off the location. It was Steven. Loretta took one look at his face and swore, understanding.

Mac took off running.

How the hell had this happened? It could only have been a matter of minutes since he'd left Steven. How could he be hurt? Scraggly Beard hadn't been armed, but Steven's perp must have been.

'Shit, shit, shit,' Mac cursed.

He rounded the corner to the street where he'd left his partner.

Saw their empty patrol car. Saw a group of shocked pedestrians gathered round something on the sidewalk. Seconds later, Mac was pushing through them. Steven lay in a pool of blood. A black youth was pressing his hands to Steven's leg, at the top, about halfway across to the groin. Through the cold terror that engulfed him, two words flashed large in Mac's mind from his medical training for Recon - femoral artery. The young man's hands were covered in blood, and Steven's uniform pants were drenched in it.

Mac dropped to his knees.

'Let me,' he said. He put his hands over the younger man's, who withdrew his. Mac pressed down as hard as he could, feeling sick as he felt hot blood instantly push up and flow around his hands. He wouldn't even have needed the medical knowledge of a Recon Marine to know that this was bad. Very, very bad.

'Go keep an eye out for the ambulance,' he said to the youth who had been trying to help Steven. He nodded and disappeared.

'Steven, can you hear me?'

Steven's face was pale and his eyes were fluttering. He was conscious, but barely.

'Mac?'

'Yeah, it's me, you hang in there. Don't you dare die on me, y'hear?'

'Fucker had a knife, Mac...I don't think...shit, Mac, I'm scared.'

'I know, but you're going to be okay, just hang in there. I'll go to the stupid hockey game, okay, Steven? I'll go with you. Just please, please hang in there...'

Mac's voice was choked, and tears stung his eyes.

'Steven?'

No response. Mac looked at his friend's face. His eyes were closed.

'STEVEN! WHITNEY, GODDAMMIT, WAKE UP!' Mac yelled, so loudly that several of the still-hovering pedestrians jumped back in surprise. But there was no response from Steven. Mac pressed more firmly down with his left hand on the wound on his partner's leg, and reached with the other, feeling for a pulse in his neck. When he couldn't find one, the cold fear in his chest turned into outright terror. He forced himself to focus, pushing away the terror, his mind snapping down into purely what needed to be done.

'I need someone to put pressure on the wound in his leg while I give CPR,' Mac said, using the calm, commanding tone he'd learnt as a Marine officer, a tone which instantly got a response. A woman knelt by him and placed her hands over his.

'Press down as hard as you can,' Mac instructed.

The woman nodded. Mac slid his blood-covered hands out from under hers, and began to administer CPR to Steven. He forced his mind to focus purely on performing the steps of the procedure, and not, *not* on the fact that his partner, his friend, was bleeding to death.

'Medics! Get out of the way, medics!' came a woman's commanding tone.

Mac continued to focus on the CPR. A female medic knelt beside him.

'What have we got?' she asked Mac. Her tone was calm, professional, but looking at her face briefly, Mac could see the look in her eyes. The one that probably mirrored the look in his own. The look of someone who understood just how very, very bad this was.

'He was stabbed,' Mac said, fighting to keep his voice calm, 'Looks like the femoral artery, right at the pulse.'

The medic cursed quietly.

'Jimmy, get over here,' she called to her partner. Mac was dimly aware of someone behind him, and hand on his shoulder.

'Hey, Officer, we can take over the CPR now,' came a man's voice, his tone professional and reassuring.

'No, I can do it,' Mac insisted, shrugging the man's hand away. Goddamit, he would *not* let this happen again.

'What's your name?' asked the female medic.

'Mac, and he's Steven,'

'Mac, you need to let us take over now.'

Mac shook his head, violently.

'No.'

Eventually, the male medic had to pull Mac forcefully away from Steven. Mac resisted for a second, and then just couldn't any more. He let the medic lead him to the curb and sit him down.

'This is really bad, but we'll do everything we can for him,' he reassured.

He raced back to his partner.

Mac stared at his hands. They were covered with blood, as were his uniform pants. Steven's blood. Steven was dying. Just like Stan Whitney, all those years ago. Mac dropped his head and wept hot, silent tears of fury and grief and helplessness.

Along with the grief and the fury and the helplessness came an all too familiar guilt. Mac couldn't begin to imagine how he was going to break the news to Christine.

He lifted his head and turned to watch the medics. He could see that even though Steven didn't have a pulse, the heart monitor was showing activity. He felt a minute flare of hope. He'd taken a double-major of biology and chemistry in college and knew that this was Pulseless Electrical Activity. Steven's heart was still firing electrically, even though it wasn't pumping mechanically. There was, he knew, a very slight chance that if they got him to the hospital in time, the doctors might just be able to save Steven. But he also knew just how unlikely that was.

The medics made the decision to transport Steven, and Mac was allowed to ride in the front of the ambulance. The journey to the hospital was short, but not short enough.

'Dammit, he's gone into asystole!' I'm putting in IV lines and intubating now,' said the medic working on Steven. Mac felt fear and hopelessness engulf him. Asystole was what viewers of medical shows around the world knew by sight if not by definition- a flat line on the heart monitor.

When they reached the hospital, Mac raced into the trauma bay behind the medics. He stood at the back, watching with ever-growing helplessness and frustration as the doctors worked on his friend. He watched as they continued CPR. He watched as a doctor ordered a portable chest x-ray to make sure the ET tube used to intubate Steven was correctly in place. He watched as the doctor ordered the administration of Epi and atropine, then another Epi, and another atropine. He watched as the doctors tried everything possible to save his friend. Watched as the doctor shook his head.

'Stop CPR.' he ordered.

'No...' Mac said, 'No...he can't...'

'I'm sorry,' the doctor said, meeting Mac's eyes for a moment. 'It's too serious. He lost too much blood.'

Mac watched as the doctor announced 'Time of death, 1300 hours.'

Mac closed his eyes and let the hot tears fall again. His fists clenched and his body shook as he tried desperately to contain the scream of furious, frustrated, utter helplessness that engulfed him and filled every fiber of his being.

'Officer?'

Mac opened his eyes to look at the woman standing in front of him.

'What?' he whispered.

'I'm Rebekah, the hospital social worker. I need your partner's details. Name, his date of birth, an emergency contact.'

'His name's Steven Whitney. His date of birth is 5th June 1961.'

'And his contact?'

'His sister. But I want to contact her. I should do it.' Mac said.

'Okay,' Rebekah said, her tone gentle, 'I'll take you to the phone in the doctor's cubby. You can call her from there.'

'Thank you,' Mac said.

He followed her out of the trauma bay. That sense of utter, almost debilitating helplessness was now matched by a sense of desolation and dread. How the hell was he going to tell Christine?

'Mac, are you okay?'

Jo's voice snapped him back to the present.

He turned from the window to see her watching him from the doorway, concern on her face.

He briefly considered telling her he was fine, but he knew she wouldn't believe that.

He gestured for her to come in. She crossed to his desk and sat opposite him.

He told her the basics of what had happened all those years ago, and about Christine and how they'd recently met up again.

'I'm going to see her this evening,' he said, 'Can you cover for me? It's just today's really hard for her, and I want to be there for her, as best I can. I know what anniversaries are like.'

'Of course, Mac,' Jo said.

She noticed the warmth in Mac's voice when he talked about Christine, and the softness and genuine concern as he said how he knew today would be tough. If anyone understood the pain of anniversaries of the day someone they loved was snatched from them in violent, shocking circumstances, it was Mac.

'Thanks,' Mac said.

Jo just smiled at him. Mac Taylor was not only finishing work at what, for him, was a surprisingly early hour, but was doing so to spend time with a female friend. Interesting,she thought.

Christine was having trouble focusing at work.

She had spent the afternoon getting various paperwork done. There was, unfortunately, more to the restaurant trade than just cooking, there was a lot of paperwork that needed to be done behind the scenes.

She stared down at the book of accounts she was trying to work on, but all she could see was Mac's face on that day, all those years ago.

She'd been working in a bakery at the time, and her boss had called her into the office, saying there was a call for her.

'Hello?' she'd said into the phone.

'Christine, it's Mac.'

Right away, from his quiet, broken, desolate tone, she had known. Her heart froze in her chest and she closed her eyes, clutching the phone in a white knuckled grip.

'Steven?' she said, her own voice breaking.

'He's...he's...I'm so sorry, Christine. I'm so sorry, I...'

'Where are you?'

Mac told her which hospital he was at.

Christine ran into the ER. Mac rose from a seat. His face was deathly pale, and she took in the tracks of tears on his cheeks, and the wrenching, desolate look in his eyes, the blood on his pants.

'Mac?' she asked, her voice tiny.

'He's...he's gone, Christine.'

He crossed the floor between them and pulled her to him in a desperate, tight hug. She hugged him back, holding on to him like a drowning woman would a life preserver. The world around her seemed to become unhinged and unreal, with Mac the only solid, real thing in it.

Mac said nothing. She said nothing. They just held onto each other until a nurse offered to move them somewhere quieter.

She showed them a room designated for family members of patients in the ER, and they sat side by side on a battered couch. Mac looked her right in the eye as he softly told her what had happened. How he had tried so hard to save Steven. How he'd discovered that the second mugger had stabbed Steven twice, hitting his femoral artery right at the femoral pulse in his upper leg.

'I couldn't...I couldn't stop it. The bleeding,' Mac whispered, his voice rough, tears in his eyes.

'You tried, though,' Christine managed to choke out, understanding that Mac was likely blaming himself for what had happened. 'You tried. I'm...I'm glad it was you who was with him, Mac.'

They had hugged again then, both of them needing the contact and the closeness, and Christine wept silently into Mac's shoulder, aware of his body shaking against hers with his own barely suppressed grief.

Coming back to the present, Christine glanced up at the clock. It was 5pm. In a couple of hours, it would be time to meet Mac.

She felt a sense of relief ease some of the pain of memory. She realized that despite all those years they'd lost contact, there was no one she'd rather spend this particular afternoon with. No one else understood the way he did. To everyone else, even her other friends, she was 'The Woman Whose Brother Was A Cop Who Got Stabbed'. A source of wary pity or whispered gossip, perhaps somehow contagious. As if grief or the death of a loved one was catching. But not with Mac. While he knew what today was, what it meant, how it had changed her, to him, he still recognized in her the person she had been before Steven's death, the person she still *was* despite what other people thought. It made being with him simple and relaxing.

Mac entered the coffee bar. Christine was sat at one of the tables with a coffee. She smiled as she saw him and stood. Mac walked over to her and they hugged. Mac was suddenly very aware of little things like the scent of her, perfume mixed with shampoo, and the warmth of her body against his. The feel of her hair against his cheek. He was aware too that from the instant he'd seen her, he'd felt some of his own stress and tension slip away.

They pulled back from the hug at the same time, and Mac smiled at her, a little uncertain of himself, and of the situation. It was comfortable and easy being with her, it had been from that first meeting when she'd looked him right in the eyes as she mentioned Claire's death, without a trace of pity in her expression or tone. When she'd mentioned reading the article about the 9/11 memorial he'd worked on, he'd dreaded that she would do what so many others did, adopting a wary pity combined with a look that suggested his loss might somehow be catching. When he'd gotten only genuine sorrow and warmth and compassion and, most importantly, absolute honesty, he'd been surprised. So it wasn't meeting an old friend again after so many years that made Mac always feel a little unsure when he was around her. It was more the fact that now they weren't friends through Steven. They were...well, just friends he guessed. But not just that. Because Mac had never quite fully *noticed* before that Christine was an attractive, sweet, smart, funny woman. Back when Steven and Claire were alive, he guessed he'd noticed these qualities in her, but more in a passing, casual way. But now that it was just them, these qualities seemed more important, more noticeable somehow. And Mac wasn't entirely sure what to *do* about that.

A barista came over and asked Mac what he'd like, interrupting his thoughts. He ordered a large black coffee, then gestured for Christine to sit, before taking the seat opposite her.

'Thank you for coming, Mac,' she said, offering him a warm smile tinged with sadness. 'It means a lot to me. It would to Steven too.'

'I can't think of anywhere else I would want to be,' Mac said, surprising himself a little at the honesty of his words, 'I know how hard today is for you, and I figured you could use a friend.'

She nodded.

'I do need a friend. One who doesn't look at me with that horrible wary pity. Before...I mean, other years, my friends have taken me out or called or come to see me, but they're so damn wary and sorry for me all the time. They either look down as they murmur apologies and make sympathetic noises, or sometimes they try to act like it's just another day. They...I can never talk to them about him, you know? About who he was. About when we were kids and he beat the shit out of this kid Billy Drago because he pushed me down in the playground, or the time I hit him upside the head with a baseball bat because he was being a pig, or how excited he was when he got into the Academy.'

'Or how he was mad about hockey, and useless at giving up smoking, and chewed on a pen?' Mac added.

Christine's eyes softened, and her smile lost a bit of it's sadness.

'Yeah. To everyone but you and me, Mac, it's like Steven is defined purely by his death. He was a cop who got stabbed. It's like to them, that's all there is to him, and they don't want to talk about him, and seem uneasy when I bring him up, because they think that...I don't know...'

'That all that stuff about him, the things you loved, the things that drove you nuts, don't matter, because he's gone, and somehow that fact makes everything else irrelevant? Like you can't possibly have happy memories of him because he died, and because of how he died?' Mac said. He knew how that felt, he thought, wryly. He knew all too well.

Christine's eyes widened for a moment, and glistened with tears. For an awful moment, Mac worried he'd somehow upset her, made it all worse, but then she reached out and took his hand in hers and squeezed gently. Without even thinking about it, Mac turned his hand so their fingers interlocked, and returned the squeeze.

'That's...exactly it. I've never...no one's ever understood that,' she said.

Mac offered her a soft, sad, smile.

'I know. I got the exact same reactions after Claire died,' he said, 'Only a few people I know have managed to avoid those kind of reactions. Most of my friends and colleagues, even though they mean well can't quite help that nervousness and wary pity whenever I mention her, or around the time of the anniversary. You're actually the only person I know now who knew Claire...before. I've lost contact with her other friends, and her mother died in 1995, and her father in 2000. It's one of the reasons it's always good to see you again.'

Christine smiled softly at him and squeezed his hand again before letting go, slowly.

'It's always good to see you again, too, Mac. I'm so glad I read that article.'

They both sipped their coffee in a warm silence that was tinged with that...that something between them that Mac couldn't quite define.

'Do you remember Steven and that girl?' Mac said, suddenly.

Christine smiled.

'Which girl? You know what he was like. You were the happily married one who was crazy about his wife, and Steven was the player, the one I thought wouldn't settle down with a woman until he was about 60, and then with someone half his age.'

Mac grinned. She had described Steven's dating habits, which had more or less been a new lady love every month, if that, perfectly.

'The one in Myrtle Beach. The night before we had that party with all the beer and the music. We were in some bar, drinking pina coladas, and he was hitting on this girl for ages, and he was doing okay...'

Christine's eyes lit in recognition.

'Until he spilt his drink all down her dress. She slapped him a good one. He was so drunk, I don't think he even felt it.'

Mac nodded, smiling too.

'That was a good night. Though the next morning wasn't so good.'

'I remember,' Christine said, smiling even wider, 'We were all sitting round the table outside the hotel the next morning, swigging coffee and Tylenol and teasing Steven about that girl. And then that night, we had that party, just the four of us. You got completely wasted and sang the Marine hymn at the top of your voice.' She grinned playfully at him 'You fell over at the end.'

Mac nodded, wincing at the memory.

'I think drinking and partying was practically all we did on that holiday,' he chuckled, 'God, we were all so young. I couldn't do that now. My friend Don and I - he's a detective - go out for a night out as regularly as we can, and we always end up hammered, but no way could I do a week in Myrtle Beach like *that* one in 1993 again.'

Christine laughed.

'Me neither. God, I feel ill just thinking about those hangovers,' Then her smile turned a little playful and sly again, and she added, 'But I see the oh-so-respectable, serious, responsible boss of the Crime Lab still has a little bit of a wild side. Going out and getting wasted with a fellow cop? In so many ways, you haven't changed at all, Mac Taylor.'

He smiled at her.

'You haven't changed in a lot of ways, either. You're still a fantastic cook. Those shrimp diabolos of yours are amazing.'

Christine blushed a little, evidently pleased at the compliment, which made Mac smile again too.

For the next hour or so, they talked of their shared memories of Steven, Claire, and the time they'd spent together. Mac told Christine about particularly memorable arrests he and Steven had made, and she told him a couple of stories about Steven as a kid.

'Wow, it's getting kind of late,' Christine said, 'Have you eaten yet? It's almost 8:30,'

'I haven't,' Mac said. He paused for a second, a little uncertain whether to ask what he wanted to ask. He pushed it away and said, 'I was hoping you would let me take you for dinner. I know a great little Italian place that does amazing linguini.'

He met her eyes, and realized that he was a little nervous, and that he really wanted her to say yes.

Christine seemed a little surprised too, but she smiled at him, and said,

'I'd love that, Mac.'

'Great. Are you ready to go now?'

'Sure.'

They stood and left the coffee bar, Christine smiling when Mac held the door open for her.

'Still the gentleman, I see,' she teased gently as they stepped outside, 'And still a really great friend.' She stepped closer to Mac and took his hand in hers. 'Thanks for this, Mac. For calling me this morning, for meeting me for coffee, for talking with me about Steven, for letting me remember him, for taking me for dinner. You didn't have to do any of it.'

Her eyes never left his as she spoke, and Mac found himself not only thinking that he had really enjoyed spending time with her, but also noticing, again, that she really was very pretty.

'I wanted to,' he said, simply, 'Now, about the Italian place, did I mention they also make the best cannolis in the city?'

The End.