A/N: This story follows 'The Salt of Your Tears' and 'The Sound of Your Silence'. You don't necessarily need to read those to read this, but some things might make more sense if you do. Happy reading!
The Beat of Your Heart
The idea had been not to panic.
Stella understood that now. She had tried her damndest to keep a cool head, to stay in control while her world fell away around her. She'd managed.
An explosion. Lindsay, tossed like a rag doll out into the street; glass littered everywhere, covered in crimson blood; and Mac and Don, trapped inside. She'd felt her heart jump into her throat when she'd gotten the call, felt like she wanted to throw up when she heard what had happened. But, she had convinced herself, this was Mac. The man who could survive anything life threw at him. If anyone was alive, it was him. And you could be damned sure he'd bring out any survivors with him.
Still, when she saw the bodies of those who hadn't been lucky enough to escape, a shiver ran up her spine. She couldn't help picturing Mac on one of those stretchers.
But that hadn't happened. He had been fine. Or as close as to fine as one could be after getting blown up.
He had scars. She'd discovered that one he and Flack had been rescued, and Mac had been taken in for the cut on his neck. The mark was on his chest—a living testament to the hell he'd gone though twenty-three years ago. She realized she'd never known about the wounds he sustained defending them all.
He'd told her about the day at Beirut. She didn't think he would—Mac Taylor was a private person—but he did. Sitting outside Flack's room, both tired and shaken from their face-off with the bomber that day, Mac opened his usually ironclad barriers and told Stella of one of the many horrors he'd seen serving his country.
She still sat outside Flack's room hours later. The doctors had allowed Mac in to see Don a little while ago; she'd seen her friend take the man in the bed's hand and hold it as though his life depended on it. Before, she would have wondered what he was doing, but now, having heard Mac's story, she understood. He saved a life to pledge the memory of the man he couldn't save all those years ago.
More time passed. The clock on the wall read one thirty a.m. Stella rose from her chair and stretched the stiff muscles in her neck and back before venturing into Flack's room.
Mac was asleep in the chair beside Don's bed, his chest softly rising and falling as his always-moving mind took a break. She hated the idea of waking him, she really did, but she knew the chair he was sleeping in was uncomfortable, and he hadn't been home since the first bombing.
"Mac," she whispered, "Mac."
His eyes opened blearily to see Stella staring back at him, her green eyes twinkling with concern beneath her long lashes.
"How long have I been asleep?" Mac asked. He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes until the room became focused again.
"A couple of hours," she said. "Come on. I'm going to take you home."
"No."
Stella stared at him.
"I'm staying here," he stated. "With Flack."
She sighed. Always stubborn.
"Mac, you've been here for hours. Flack would want you to go home. In fact," she smiled sadly, "he'd order it."
Deep down, Mac knew Stella was right, but that didn't stop him from hesitating allowing her to take his hand and lead him from the room. However, once he felt her slender fingers wrap around his, he conceded defeat. The warmth that he felt from her very presence calmed him, soothed him, allowed him to sink in the comfort that was Stella and temporarily forget the world around him. Mac thought he had lost the ability to forget long ago.
She kept his hand in hers as they made their way to her car. He wasn't aware of the world around him, and, frankly, he didn't care. He'd been in the middle of an explosion that day. It was all a blur—finding the bomb, clearing the building, running with Flack through the hallways, hearing the detonation before he felt his body fly through the air and everything going black.
He remembered seeing a pair of green eyes before he hit the ground.
"Mac." He came back to reality with the voice of his Stella coaxing him. "Mac, we're here."
He looked up. Indeed, they were sitting outside his apartment building where his SUV usually sat. The car was still at the hospital.
"Thank you, Stella," he said. Mac couldn't bring himself to meet the gaze of the woman next to him, and instead numbly opened the door and exited the vehicle.
"Mac!" She rolled down the window. He turned. "Do you need me?"
God, yes.
"I'll be fine, Stell. I'll see you tomorrow, okay?"
Mac hated himself for lying to her.
Stella hated herself for letting him.
Rain beat down on the normally hot pavement of New York City. All around, men and women hurried up and down the streets with their coats pulled tight to them, holding newspapers over their heads in an attempt to keep their hair dry. Rain was cleansing to a broken spirit, she thought. There was something about the feeling of the water moving down one's skin, something about the way the cool liquid shocked the senses that made her feel cleansed, even whole again.
She couldn't feel it, though. The rain was on the outside and she was on the inside, observing, thinking, but not feeling.
God, but she wanted to feel.
It had been a mere half-hour since she had watching him enter his apartment building and disappear into the dark. Ever since, she had remained sitting outside in the car, her mind miles away and wondering what he was feeling. Did he really not need her? Something told her that he did and just wouldn't admit it.
After the last few weeks, she believed that to be true. He'd let her in farther than she'd ever been, allowed her to see him break down, and, in turn, allowed her to break down in front of him. What had changed? What the hell had changed?
She was out of the car and running toward the building before she realized she'd moved. The key he had given her allowed her in the front and she kept running, up six flights of stairs and down past door after door until she reached the one she was looking for.
"Mac!" She knocked, hard, upon the door. After counting to five, she tried again. "Mac!"
Screw it. A woman on a mission, Stella inserted the key in the lock and flew threw Mac's doorway.
She stopped. The lights were out all over the apartment, as if he had never been there at all.
"Mac?" Stella stepped tentatively into the sitting room. The room was empty, just as the kitchen and study were.
She felt no hesitation as she approached his bedroom. Inside, the door to the bathroom stood open with light spilling into the dark room.
"Mac?"
Stella could hear the shower going. She quietly toed over to the door and peered inside.
He was still fully clothed—save for the suit jacket hanging precariously off the sink counter—sitting on the floor of the shower with water pouring down upon his body. His shirt and pants were soaked through, and, with a horrific realization, Stella saw blood run down his arm.
"Mac!" Stella threw her jacket off as she yanked the door of the shower open, wincing slightly when the ice-cold water met her body.
"Mac! Mac, talk to me!" She dropped to her knees in front of him, panic running through her veins, her heart thudding in her chest. Oh, God, no…Please…
"Stella?"
His eyes opened to meet her frightened ones.
"Mac! What the hell were you thinking? You scared me half to death!"
"What?" He marvelled at the fact that, even soaking wet, Stella Bonasera was more beautiful than anything he'd ever seen in his life.
"You're bleeding, Mac!" She said. Mac touched the side of his neck and felt the blood there.
"It's from the bombing. I guess I forgot to cover it when I got in." He paused. "I needed to cool off."
Stella stared at the man in front of her, feeling tears prickle at the corners of her eyes.
"Hey, hey, hey," Mac whispered, his voice uncharacteristically soft, "what's this?"
She shook her head, running a hand through her wet curls.
"I almost lost you today, Mac," she said. "You were missing and I couldn't find you, and God, I was scared…"
Tears ran down her cheeks now, mixing with the water cascading down on both of them and trailing down her neck.
"Stella—"
"And then you shut me out!" She cried. "You shut me out and you swore to me you'd never do that again!"
Mac stared at the beautiful woman in front of him and mentally kicked himself for hurting her.
"I'm sorry, Stella. I just…it's been so much, so fast. Danny, Aiden…and you, Stell. I was so scared I'd lost you."
Stella reached out and smoothed the hair that was soaking wet.
"You didn't lost me, Mac, remember? You opened up to me, let me in, and I loved you for that. But then, after you went to see Don, you shut me out. Why?"
"I didn't mean to, Stell. I was just so shaken up…I should've seen it coming. I should have seen it and saved Flack."
"But you did save him, Mac," she said. "There was no way you could have seen that bomb coming and you still saved him. You did all that you could. You saved his life."
Mac reached for Stella and she crawled into his arms, laying her head gently on his shoulder while he buried his face in her hair.
"I'm sorry, Stella," he whispered. "God, I'm sorry."
Stella didn't say anything. Instead, she raised her water-soaked head to meet his eyes with hers and placed a hand on his chest.
"Do you trust me, Mac?"
He looked into the eyes he knew so well, and nodded.
Slowly, with the tenderness instilled in her from her childhood, Stella began unbuttoning the soaked through shirt. She could feel Mac's eyes watching her every move, but she could also feel how relaxed he was, trusting her completely in her mission. Stella held back tears as her fingers slid each button from its place and gently brushed the skin she carefully exposed.
Then, when the shirt was finally free, Stella once again looked up at Mac for reassurance. He nodded, the question in his eyes and trust in his heart. She smiled.
Gently, she pushed aside the shirt to reveal the scar over his heart. She'd seen the mark when the medic had treated him after the first bombing, and it was then that he had begun to open up to her about that day at Beirut. Now, sitting in front of her, soaked to the skin with her in his arms, he realized what it was to live. To love. And, when Stella leaned down to brush a kiss against the scar on his chest, Mac Taylor finally remembered what he had forgotten to day his wife had died—what love was.
"You never have to be sorry with me, Mac."
Later, they would emerge from the shower and realize how late it was, laughing at the absurdity of it all. Later, Stella would change into one of Mac's shirts, and the man himself would fight the better part of an hour trying not to stare at her. Later, both Mac and his partner would call in sick to work, and spend the day on Mac's couch watching old reruns of The X-Files and all six Star Wars movies, wrapped tightly in blankets with forgotten chicken noodle soup in front of them and Kleenexes all over the place. Later, Stella would fall asleep in Mac's lap, and he would watch her, stroking the curly hair he loved so much and daring to trace her soft, bare arms with the tips of his fingers. And later, much, much later, when both had recovered from their colds and lay on the floor, trying to cool their bodies from the heat of the summer, Mac Taylor would kiss Stella Bonasera and it would feel twenty times better than it ever had in his dreams.
It's amazing how two people manage to find each other in a world full of strangers. Amongst the hustle and bustle of everyday life, somehow a person finds that one special human being. And, if they're lucky enough, that other person grows to love them.
Mac Taylor weighed the odds of him finding love again only when they were dancing. Only when she was pressed flush against his body with her hand in his and the other resting at the nape of his neck. Only when her head was tucked safely under his chin and he could bury his face in her hair to inhale the scent he had come to associate with home.
Never when her lips met his in a soft, tender kiss that always felt like love.
A/N: Special thanks to my reviewers from my last story. I love reviews. Love, love, love. Telling me what you think is gratifying and quite helpful.
Read and review!