Title: Twin Size
Summary: Running from a killer and stuck in a snowed in lodge somewhere on the outskirts of New York (of course, with no backup or working radio) Stella and Mac are forced to spend the night in the only available room, which has one bed: a twin sized bed. SMACKed!
Disclaimer: Sorry, I don't own Stella or Mac, or any other established CSI NY character. I own the murderer, however :D If you know anyone who has the same name, description it's purely coincidental, although I don't quite believe in coincidences, everybody just puts that in their disclaimer.
A/N: My first one-shot, also one of my first CSI NY fics I've written, the other one was more of a test to see if I could do it successfully (or at least semi-successfully) so I'm sorry it's bad... Leave a review? Feedback makes me happy :P
THE FIRST AND ONLY CHAPTER
Stella made her way for the CSI truck, her hands icy cold. Mac had to tell her at least twice she wasn't allowed to wear gloves at a crime scene. As she crawled into the Avalanche, waiting for Mac to finish up, she looked out the rear view mirror. Everybody was finishing up and pulling away, but she could see a small silver car pulling up. She tilted her head up, managing to see the bright yellow CSI on the back of their jacket as they got out of the car.
Mac walked to the SUV, nodding to the new guy on scene.
"Strange how he's so late to a crime scene..." Mac muttered as he climbed into the car.
"Yeah, yeah just start the car; it's freezing!" Stella said. She could see her breathe fog in the cool air.
As they drove down the ice slicked road if began snowing. First a slight flurry, then it rushed into a blinding white.
"Stella we're going to have to pull over." Mac muttered as the got off the highway and driving over into a gravelly area, like a parking lot. A forest of oak trees lined the side, ferns and prickly bushes poking out. Stella dared not exit the car, as there would be no heating.
The snow had begun to slow down a bit, enough to see colors and shapes.
"Mac can we go? I really want to get back to the lab and process some evidence. There was something off about the scene...everything was pretty clean, not a single fingerprint, except they left the murder weapon." She creased her eyebrow in thought. "Why would somebody smart enough not to leave a trace leave the knife?" Mac began to pull out of the median, Stella lost in thought. She looked in the rearview mirror.
"Oh my god!" She whispered, looking at Mac. "I've just had an epiphany."
Mac turned and looked at her, his steel blue eyes connecting with her jade ones, before he was forced to look back on the road.
'Focus.' He reminded himself, not trying to get distracted by her as he always did; always getting caught up in the tangle of curls, the depths of her green eyes, and the perfection of her face. "Enlighten me." He smiled.
Immediately her face lit up and she went into her explanation, which was actually very brief, only a sentence.
"He forgot it." She said. He shrugged, hoping for something more extravagant, but just hearing her voice made him content.
"That's what happens most of the time; they forget and leave it at the scene." He looked at her using peripheral vision.
"Mac, that's the thing," she briskly rubbed her hands on her arms, shivering through the air conditioner, "this guy is smart, remember? He would come back as soon as he realized it was missing."
Mac pursed his lips, looking at the green roadside sign. Through the snow he could see 1 MILE, however not able to see what was in one mile.
"Alright, the murder weapon is with us, so he'll be looking for it. We'll stop the night at a hotel; he shouldn't be able to find us there."
"Why can't we go to the police station?"Stella muttered, attempting to see through the thick flurry.
"Because in one mile, there is a lodge hotel, but in fifty-nine miles there is a city. He would have caught up to us by then.
"Lodge it is…" she whispered, sitting back.
Not even two minutes later, they had arrived at the lodge hotel. It was a two story log building, Stella could see smoke coming out of a chimney. The parking lot was almost completely full, only two or three parking spaces hiding between cars. They quickly parked in between a big charcoal van and a smaller tawny brown car. Climbing out of the SUV, Stella wrapped her coat tighter around herself. Brisk winds battered at her hair, sending curls flying around her head in a dramatic fashion. Mac joined her in a heartbeat, his bodily warmth making her feel hot and she couldn't help but get closer to him. Snowflakes lightly danced around, catching in her hair and dusting her cheeks.
"Let's get inside!" Mac breathed.
As soon as they walked in, they were welcomed with a warm lingering heat. Stella could see the stone fireplace in the big open room. Some people were sitting around it, talking quietly. Taking a few steps, they reached the front desk. The man working there was half asleep, but Mac cleared his voice, waking the front deskman instantly.
"Hello, welcome to Oakland Lodge, I'm Gregg Nettle, how can I help you?" he asked groggily, clearing his eyes of sleep.
"I'm in need of a room." Mac didn't mention that a killer was chasing them. Stella shifted, hand clenching around her duffle bag that she had grabbed. It was actually Mac's bag; it had his just washed gym clothes in it, and the evidence bag with the knife.
"We actually only have one room left. Snow days are busy days. And…" he scrolled through the computer. "It only has one bed. Is that okay?" he raised his eyebrows awkwardly.
Mac hesitated. He didn't know what to say. He wouldn't mind sharing a bed with Stella, but would she?
"It's fine." Stella spoke up. Mr. Nettle sighed, typing something into the computer and talking to Mac about pricing. Stella looked out the window. And what she saw made her tug on Mac's sleeve. "Mac! Mac he's here!" she whispered through clenched teeth.
Quickly, Mac took the room key from Gregg, and they walked, fairly quickly, toward the steps, running up them as fast as they could.
"How do you know it's him?" Mac muttered as they ran.
"He was the late, and I'm pretty sure fake, CSI from earlier." She panted, taking the steps two at a time. When they arrived at the room, swinging open the door, and shutting it quietly, they turned to look and see where they were actually staying the night.
"I'm going to call for backup." Mac said pulling out his phone.
"Why didn't you do that earlier?" Stella muttered, walking over to the bed.
"No service out here in the snow storm." he sighed, throwing his phone down on the small table. Stella didn't respond. She was too busy looking at the bed. "Stell what's wrong?" he turned.
"Mac it's a twin size bed." She whispered, eyebrows raised and lips parted as if she were going to say something else. Like, 'that's going to be cozy' or 'I haven't spooned with anyone in a while' but she didn't. She had no idea how he felt, Mac Taylor: the iceman.
"I won't be sleeping," he shrugged, "I'll stay awake and keep watch." Stella scoffed, but sat back on the bed, checking the clock by her side for the time. 10:55 PM. She had been glad that the murder was at a more reasonable hour rather than three in the morning, but now that it was late and she felt tired, she couldn't wait to settle down and go to sleep. At the moment, however, she was afraid of a possible murderer coming to find them. 'Good thing I got Mac, then'… she thought to herself, looking over at said detective. Stella fumbled with the hem of her green top as she was lost in thought, before Mac said something to bring her back.
"Stell? Stella!" he said her name twice before she realized that he was speaking.
"Yeah—what?" she closed her eyes and shook her head as if shaking out thoughts, and looked up at Mac with glimmering green eyes.
"I'm going downstairs to see what's going on." Stella's eyes lit up.
"Can I come?" she asked, grabbing her badge and gun without an answer.
"No." he said firmly, and she shyly stopped her quick movements to get ready.
"W-What? Why not?" she creased her eyebrows.
"It's too dangerous. He could be armed. Or it could be a waste of time." He shrugged, hoping to convince her. She rolled her eyes and set her gun and badge back down on the side table with a sigh. He smirked and walked out; feeling proud that he easily convinced the stubborn woman.
Little did he know, or at least he should have known, that Stella would go anyway. As soon as he was at the end of the hallway, she crouched and snuck after him, her back pressed against the white was walls, and her feet silently sliding along the pale, short rug. As she descended down the steps, she hid behind the wall, watching Mac enter the lobby. He was still wearing his CSI jacket, and started interacting with people quietly, shaking hands.
'Waste of time, he was right.' She thought silently. She began to walk back up the steps before she heard yelling. She immediately clung back to the wall, making sure to stay hidden. She watched a man confront Mac, yelling at him.
"I know you have it, I watched you leave with it! Where is it!" the man had a gun drawn, pointing it at Mac.
"It? I don't quite understand what it is."
"Don't play stupid Detective. I know you have it." He cocked the gun.
Stella drew her gun out, getting low to the ground so she had a better shot of the gunman.
"Mac?" she called out her partner's name. Mac turned to look at her, the gunner doing the same. He didn't look too happy to have a gun pointed at him now. Stella shakily stood up, gun still trained on him, and half her body hidden behind the wall for protection.
"Drop you weapon!" Stella began calling out the proper words, rather than Mac. Which, just saying Mac did sound like it could be a proper procedure. "Get down on the ground!" she, in turn cocked her gun, ready to protect Mac and the other people in the room.
"I don't have time for this!" the murderer growled, running a hand through his hair. He fired his gun, three shots, and then moved behind a pillar in the room. Before Stella could actually fire her pistol, she felt a rogue, not very well aimed bullet rip right above her hip. Just a graze…. She noted, right after cursing several times in Greek and in English.
"Mac, you okay?!" she called out, pressing a hand against the now bleeding cut.
"Yeah—I should be asking you that!" he ran in for protection next to Stella.
"I'll be fine, do you have service?" she raised a brow hopefully. He checked his phone.
"Not a bar." He growled, stuffing it in his pocket. "He grabbed my gun before I could react." Stella handed him her service weapon, and she slumped up against the wall, hand on the injury. "Are you sure you're going to be okay?" he whispered, putting up the gun. She nodded silently.
Mac crept into the big open lobby. There were some citizens hiding, crouched down behind sofas by the fireplace. He could see the shooter, but the killer couldn't see him.
"You killed her didn't you?" he had his gun aimed, and the shooter didn't have time to reach for his stolen one. He put his hands up. "You killed Beckha Sterns?" the both rose to their feet, the officer with his gun trained on the fugitive. He nodded slowly.
"You don't understand… she knew what they were doing. She was a witness. You know how in the TV shows, they send a hit man to go tie up loose ends? That's all I am… I don't want to go to jail!" he begged. Mac neared, one hand grabbing the cuffs at his hip to wrap around the killers wrists. Before he could arrest him, the killer popped a pill, falling to the ground, mouth foaming. Cyanide pill.
"Coward!" Mac cried, and in the killer's last moments alive as he twisted and withered around in the pain of death, he shrugged.
"I'm a loose end now." He choked out the words before movement slowing, and stopping altogether. Dead. Stella shakily stood up from her hiding place, blood staining her shirt.
"Damn it. This was one of my favorite shirts…" she whispered, looking up at Mac. "What are we going to do? We can't call back up, this snowstorm has made sure of that…" she looked over at the witnesses. "Are you guys okay?" she asked. Some were crying, standing up. Most nodded, others said or did nothing but sat.
"Stell I think we need to check that out." He nodded to her gunshot wound. She shrugged; checking her hand, blood was staining all the way from her palm to the base of her fingers. "Do you have a first aid kit?" he asked the Gregg Nettle, who simply nodded slowly, still in shock of what had just unfolded before him.
"See Mac, this is why you don't go without me. Someone always gets hurt." She half joked, smiling. He rolled his eyes, opening up the first aid kit. He pulled out a sterile wipe, and she lifted up her shirt. He wiped away the blood, and she breathed in, shuttering.
"Well if you had gone at the same time we probably both would have been shot." He retorted, a rare smirk forming on his face. He applied a non-adhesive pad, wrapping pale brown gauze around her waist.
"Compress dressing. I'm impressed!" she smiled at his work, pulling her shirt down gently over the bandage.
"I have a shirt that you can use, if you want." She nodded, slightly disgusted at her blood coating the side of her shirt. "And I think the snowstorm is calming down. We might get better reception after it's gone back to a flurry," he put his hand under her arm to help her upstairs to change her shirt.
Mac pulled out a gray NYPD shirt from the bag of clean gym clothes, pushing aside the evidence bag. He tossed it to her, and she gave a side smile, before turning and stripping herself of the bloody green shirt. Mac turned away, but couldn't help but look at her without a shirt on. His eyes wondered from the neatly wrapped gauze up to the base of her black bra, before realizing he had gone too far and turning all the way around. Stella pulled on the NYPD shirt, it was big on her as it was Mac sized, but she really didn't care. She curled up in the twin sized bed, tired. She read the clock. 11:18 PM. She closed her eyes, and felt Mac pull the covers over her shoulders, and saw him flick the lights off, and she fell asleep.
Mac went downstairs, waiting to get signal. He couldn't just leave a body, although he probably would for Stella. However, he still couldn't leave him unattended. Even though the dead killer was a murderer, hurt his Stella, and committed suicide, it deserved his respect. And Mac didn't even know his name. Two hours of sitting in the lobby and calming down the people who had witnessed the crime, the storm finally had cleared enough to that he could get cell service. Immediately he dialed Flack's number.
"God Mac, where have you been?" Flack growled. "Your team has been waiting on the key piece of evidence for three hours!"
"We found the murderer. The storm got really bad so we stopped at a lodge. We couldn't call, the storm was so bad. He committed suicide."
"Oh god…" Flack muttered, "alright, I'm getting some people out there, hold tight."
By the time Flack arrived with a crew of officers, Mac was ready to check on Stella. "Where's Stell?" Flack asked, his notebook out, ready to talk to witnesses. Red and blue lights flashed in the windows, lighting the side of his face.
"She got hurt when the guy fired shots. She's fine, though. She's asleep upstairs." Flack was ready to go up and check on his friend, when Mac grabbed his forearm. "I've got it; you can talk to the witnesses. They'll tell you everything." Mac went up the steps, taking them two at a time. He opened their door, walking through the darkness to the bed. Stella woke instantly at the sound of him, but slowly shut her eyes as she realized it was only Mac. He slipped into the twin size bed, and she shuffled over so they both fit. It was a squeeze, so Mac had to hold her in his arms, close to his chest.
And they fell asleep together in the twin sized bed.
END
A/N: I called Mac the iceman because I didn't really know what else to put and according to urban dictionary (so not reliable but whatever) an iceman is 1. A thug or hit man 2. Someone who shows very little emotion in the face of danger, death, or extreme pain. I was going really for definition two, but I guess Mac could possibly be a thug if he really wanted to. #THUGMAC
Thanks for reading, reviews are awesome; I will be working on more CSI: NY fanfics, as I already have the perfect idea for my next one!