Breathe
Another mac/stelle fic from Mac's POV!
Disclaimer: CSY:NY does not belong to me, neither do the characters.
It's been twenty four hours and I don't know where she is. They say we should give up after twenty four hours but there's not way on this earth am I giving up. Mac Taylor doesn't give up. I can remember the conversation we had yeserday and I don't want it to be the last conversation I ever have with her. It was more like an argument, I said some things I didn't mean and now she's gone, without a trace. I didn't even know she was missing until I came across her car in the parking lot with the trunk wide open and her crime scene kit scattered across the tarmac along with her keys. The argument was my god damn fault and now I may never see her again and take the opportunity to say I'm sorry, amongst other things.
I haven't slept since it was officially announced that Detective Stella Bonasera was missing and I don't think anyone else has either. We've all stayed in the lab, keeping vigil. I'm so worried sick about her, the most fustrating thing is we know who is was that took her, we just need to find them, it's just finding her now, safe and well. I've seen what these people can do and all I want to do right now is find her, take her in my arms and tell her that everything will be alright and I will never let anything bad happen to her, I'll never let her go.
I look at the crime scene photos of the other six dead women and I have to be sick, The thought of Stella not being a part of my life scares me more than anything and I'd rather not be here at all if she wasn't going to be either. I have to admit it but I can't live without her, she's the air that I breathe, the ground I walk on. I'm not letting these monsters take that away from me, because it's taken me a long time to find that again. I would die for her, I will do anything to see her come to no harm.
Flack and his team are searching the city high and low, there isn't a single NYPD cop not on this case. Everyone is on this, looking for their friend and colleague. I can't bare to sit around here any longer doing nothing so I call Flack and tell him to add my name to the search list. I know it is my job to analyse the evidence but there is no evidence to analyse, they left no trace, just like the other girls they killed. I know I am being very unprofessional but right now, my partner, my best friend, the love of my life is missing and in grave danger and I will stop at nothing until I find her. And I will make it my personal duty that the people responsible for this are put away for what they have done. Six murders. I don't want Stella to uneven that number. I've been a cop for many years now but I've never wanted someone dead so badly before, these girls were all aged between seventeen and twenty five, their lives cut short, in such an unfair way. I ride with Flack in his SUV, speeding through the city because we've suddenly had an anonomous tip-off. A woman called in to say she had seen a woman matching Stella's description was being dragged into an abandoned warehouse on Queens. I pencil down the address as Flack puts his foot down on the accelerator, my heart is beating so fast I am afraid it is going to stop at any given moment.
Before the SUV even comes to a halt at the warehouse, I'm out of the car and running towards the building, armed with my gun, wearing a bullet proof vest along with dozens of other police officers. The door is kicked in and we all file in quickly. Flack follows close behind me as I hear the officers shouting "NYPD". The only words I can shout are her name, over and over and over again. Then like everyone else in the building, I hear a gunshot that doesn't come from one of our guns. I stop breathing, desperatly trying to locate the source of the sound in the dark. Suddenly, a door flies open and several men dressed in black attempt to flee from the scene, but they are taken down immediately by our team of officers and they are lead out into the blistering sunlight. I run as fast as my legs will carry me through the door in which they made their exit and into the room where they had left her, gagged, and bound to the wall. I fly over to her aid, untiying her hands and feet. When I removed the gag from her mouth she coughs and splutters blood, sobbing in relief. She is so distressed she can't seem to put sentences together and tell me where she's hurting. But I don't need to be told when I see the amount of blood pooling around her stomach, it is then I know what she was trying to tell me. I scream and shout for an ambulance as she passes out cold onto my chest. I hold her close to me and when she's not breathing I do everything I can because I fear the ambulance will never make it in time. I try to breathe my own life into her through mouth to mouth but that combined with chest compressions nothing is working.
I'm so over come with grief and exhaustion , Flack pulls me away as the paramedics take over the scene. I'm feely, openly sobbing now, I have now control over my feelings for this women, for Stella. I don't care who sees me. I watch them insert IVs and check her vitals, the blaring noise of the machines is unbearable.
"No, she can't be gone, she can't be gone!" I watch as they shock her with paddles once, twice, three times. They look up at me but as if God was answering my prayers, the beeping sound returns to normal.
"We've got a pulse" I hear one one of the paramedics say as Stella is lifted onto a gurney and taken into the ambulance. I jump into the back before anyone has a chance to protest. I sit on the side and take her hand. I look out of the ambulance and see the alarmed faces of my wo-workers, my friends, her friends; Danny, Lindsey, Flack and Hawkes before the ambulance doors are slammed shut and we speed to the nearest hospital. The paramedic is bustling around me as another takes control of the wheel and drives us to the hospital. I ask the paramedic is Stella is going to be alright but her only response is "she's lost a lot of blood", I don't need to be told anymore than that. Stella's eyes are closed now, she's looks so peaceful despite being covered in blood and wires, the oxygen mask on her face fills with condensation as she takes breaths in and out, a sign that she's still breathing. My heart has hope for her yet…it always has, Stella is the strongest woman I know.
I'm holding her hand tight and the paramedic looks at me and smiles comfortingly. "Talk to her, she might be able to hear you. I'd imagine she will be taken straight to surgery when we get to the hospital" she says untangling some wires connected to Stella's IV drip.
"Don't leave me" I whisper into her ear. "Please, don't leave me Stella, hold on for me, everything is going to be alright, I promise" I say, wiping the tears away from my eyes.
We brake sharply when we arrive at the hospital and in a matter of minutes she's taken away from me and rushed straight into the O.R. just like the paramedic said.
It's nearly 9pm and I've been pacing the halls for nearly four hours, what's taking so long? I see a doctor come out into the corridor looking sorrowful.
"I'm sorry" he tells me. I jerk awake, I was only dreaming. Then I realise where I am, I'm lying on a gurney of my own in the ER and Danny is seated next to me. I realise that my clothes are still covered in blood, her blood.
"Welcome back, boss" he says, "You fainted on us in the ER" he continues, I sit up sharply "Where's Stella?" I say, in total alarm, ignoring the dizziness in my head. I swing my legs over the side and make for he exit. Suprisingly, Danny doesn't make any attempt to stop me.
"She came out of the O.R. acouple of hours ago, the surgery was a success and the doctors think that she's going to be alright" he says "Flack and Lindsey are in I.C.U with her right now. I brought you some clothes to change into" he says looking at my blood stained clothes, I find it hard to believe that all this blood has come from Stella.
"Thanks," I say, taking the bag he hands to me.
"I'll go and tell the others that you're on your way up, ok?" Danny says going to leave.
Tiem slows down when I approach the Intensive Care Unit. I've never liked hospitals and I don't feel right, wearing a shirt that doesn't smell like my own. When the others see me, they get up and leave. For a second, I'm almost scared to go in but when I look through the glass into her room, the thought vanishes, she needs me, now more than ever. I think to myself. I open the door and go inside, taking a seat next to her bed. I take her pale, cold hand in mine. I'm scared to blink just in case I miss the moment when her eyes flutter open. I wait for hours and hours for her to wake up after I pluck up the courage to do something I've always wanted to do. I get up from the arm chair and plant a soft kiss on her lips, as I sit back down, the loose grip on my hand tightens and Stella's eyes flutter open, and at last…
I start breathing again.