Disclaimer: of course CSI:NY belongs to it's creators.
A/N: Well, well, wouldn't you know, here comes a story from me, must be a couple of months since last! As usually it's betaed by the wonderfull Cae Prince.
Crescendo
by: Little Miss Sorrow
Stella woke to the feeling of something warm in her right hand. She blinked against the light, turned her head and found Mac sitting on the floor - his head slumped forwards, with his chin resting on his chest. She carefully slipped her hand out of his, and swiftly rose from the bed.
She stole a glance at the still-sleeping Mac, smiling to herself when he stirred a little and drew himself into a more comfortable position. She grabbed her blanket off the bed and covered him with it. She tiptoed out of the bedroom, and stepped into the living room. She looked around, noting with pleasure that he had tidied the room up. She made a mental note to thank Mac later for cleaning up her mess.
Walking into her kitchen, Stella poured out the night-old coffee and put on a fresh pot. She poked her head in the fridge looking for some breakfast. She rolled her eyes at the almost empty shelves and slid out the only things she could find: marmalade and butter.
She then reached up to open the over-head cabinet where she'd kept the bread.
"Let me get that," a voice said from just behind her. She whipped her head around to find Mac grinning at her."And, Good Morning to you too," she quipped. "Were you trying to give me a heart attack, Mac?" She leaned back on her heels and moved to let him get the bread.
"Why you insist on keeping the bread on a shelf you can't reach is beyond me," Mac remarked, ignoring her quip.
"It's because I like to stretch out in the mornings," she answered with a straight face.
"Really?"
"No," Stella smiled, shaking her head. "I don't honestly know why I keep it there, I just do."
They continued making breakfast in silence and when they were seated at the table Stella spoke again.
"Before I forget, thank you so much for cleaning up the mess in my living room, I would have done it sooner, but I just..." she trailed off. He raised his head and gazed into her eyes. And Stella knew he'd understood.
"Anytime." he answered softly.
Finishing the breakfast Mac started to pour water into the sink, intending to do the dishes, but Stella stopped him, telling him to go home and get ready for work.
"You'll be late," she insisted.
"So will you," he countered logically.
She raised her eyebrows, "I'm not the boss. You should be setting an example!"
"We'll have lunch then," he insisted, as he grabbed his shoes from the living room.
"Deal!" she laughed and waived, as he stepped out.
Stella hummed to herself as she finished up the dishes. She felt good this morning and for the first time in a long time, she felt happy. She felt cared for. Mac didn't know it, but it meant a lot to her that he had stayed on her floor all night holding her hand. It made her feel loved, even if it was only as a friend.
She grabbed her keys from her bag and took a final look at her now neat flat and stepped out. She looked out on the street trying to find her car, which was nowhere to be seen. She had a moment of panic – before she decided that Mac must have driven her back yesterday. She made for the 155th underground station and then stopped mid-way as she realized how clogged Line A could be in the morning. She decided to head for the 157th instead.
Stella stepped in to the police department fifteen minutes late – a delay due to a minor snag in the train. She deposited her stuff in her office and headed off to the break room where she found the team filling out of it having already been assigned new cases. After exchanging pleasantries with Danny and Lindsay, she stepped inside and poured herself a cup of coffee before walking down the halls to the evidence vault.
Paula Appelwill greeted Stella with her usual patronizing smile and walked away leaving Stella to sign the necessary forms.
Taking the evidence from the case she'd been working on the previous day, she walked to the lift and rode it up to the 35th floor and looked for an empty layout room. After she found one, she spread the evidence on the illuminated table and stood back, coffee in hand. She looked intently at the items she'd spread out as though waiting for it to speak to her.
Her coffee had long ago turned cold when she heard the tiny voice of the evidence. Putting aside the coffee cup she picked up the crime scene photos one after another, examining them closely.
"Of course" she muttered under her breath, as she realized something.
Without wasting another moment, she headed for the DNA-lab, where she found Adam hunched over a printer.
"Hey Adam, my DNA ready yet?"
The lab-tech turned around in his chair and handed her the paper, "Machine just spit it out."
Stella cast a look at the paper and then opened her cell to make a call, while Adam watched her. Once she was done, she thanked Adam and then stepped out into the corridor and went in search of Mac.
She found him in his office. She rapped on the glass door, while saying: "Knock, knock"
Mac looked up from his paperwork and smiled at her, as she took a seat in front of him.
Holding the file for him to take, Stella said, "I almost whish criminals in this city weren't so stupid."
He raised his eyebrows. She grinned.
"Open the file." She nodded towards the file in his hand. When he had complied, she continued, "Notice how the blood pool is shaped like the number eight?"
He nodded, indicating for her to continue.
"At first I thought it was two drops of blood from the same source. But notice how the bigger one is slightly darker?" He scrutinized the photo more carefully, his eyebrows making for his hairline again. "I figured that's because it was dropped earlier than the smaller one and thus having the time to coagulate. So when I checked DNA, the bigger one is female – the victim, and the smaller one is male – Robson Gallagher. Flack's bringing him in as we speak. I talked to him as part of the initial investigation but he explained the presence of his fingerprints, as he is a friend of the victim. Besides the prints were on the refrigerator - hardly incriminating."
"Good job, Stella," Mac said, closing the file and smiling at her. "Now as you seem to be free for an hour or so, what do you say we grab some lunch?"
"So long as it's not hot dogs I'm on" Stella quipped.
"You're never going to let me forget that are you?" Mac said as he guided her out of his office.
"Probably not," she smirked.
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Lunch turned out to be Thai food – Stella's choice. Walking a block away from the police station, down a side street they ended up at "Thaisty" - owned by a little Thai man who had changed his name to "Joe" as no New Yorker had managed to pronounce his birth name. Greeting Joe, they took seats at the counter and ordered chicken satay with peanut sauce and rice.
Lunch was pleasant, although it was cut short by Flack calling to let Stella know that they had brought in Mr Gallagher and if she was ready to question him. After apologizing to Mac and promising to make it up to him with dinner at her place that night, she hurried down the sidewalk towards the precinct.
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"Mr. Gallagher," Stella greeted as she entered the interrogation room. "Has anyone read you your rights?"
The man in front of her said, "Yes."
"And you have denied the help of an attorney?"
Again the man in front of her nodded.
Taking a seat in front of Robson Gallagher, Stella placed a photograph on the table, sliding it over to the man.
"Do you know what this is?" she asked.
"A drop of blood," he answered nonchalantly.
"Yeah, your blood." She narrowed her eyes. "Care to tell me how it ended up on the crime scene?" Stella did not like the man's attitude.
"I was there," he muttered. "I told you, I visited Molly."
"Ok, do you have your own keys to Molly's place" Stella asked.
"No, she let me in."
"And that, Mr. Gallagher, makes you a suspect." The man gave a start. Stella's eyes narrowed even further. "You see, there was no forced entry to Ms. Welsh's apartment. So as you said, Molly had to have let you in. But - now this is a big but - your blood is on top of Ms. Welsh's, which means that you either killed her or saw who killed her and that makes you an accessory to murder. You're going away, pal, so you better start talking."
It was at that moment Robson Gallagher made his first smart move. He spoke the golden words: "I want a lawyer" and then he promptly started to contemplate all possible meanings of the phrase 'silent as the grave'.
Stella smiled smugly as she exited the interrogation room, dropping the case file in the waiting hands of Flack. She asked him to wait for the lawyer and then book Gallagher, adding that he could find her in the lab if he needed her.
She headed off towards the labs, hoping to find Mac in his office. When she found his office empty Stella looked around and spotted him in the DNA-lab. Smiling she opened the glass door and plopped down on the table and stared at Mac. After a few moments of silence Mac turned his head to Stella and asked if she wanted anything.
"I'm making Moussaka. Be on time, huh?" She stood up and walked away leaving Mac to contemplate when exactly 'on time' would be.
After picking up her things from her office, Stella decided that she had pulled so much overtime the last few months that she could sneak out early without feeling guilty. Besides, she was treating the boss to dinner, so she had to do some grocery shopping.
Taking her chances Stella took the A line as the stop was closer to the grocery store and she was pleasantly surprised to find out that the train was not late. Getting off at 155th street, she waded her way through the over-crowded sidewalks. Grocery shopping was never a pleasant thing to do, and today even more unpleasant - it was Friday and a lot of people had decided to skip queues, so they got of work early. Unfortunately, that had resulted in longer queues.
Stella carried the overloaded bags in her arms back to her apartment, and she balanced them in her arms as she searched for her keys in her handbag. Letting herself into her apartment, Stella kicked the door shut behind her and walked to her kitchen and placed the grocery bags on the kitchen table.
Walking out of her kitchen, Stella fetched a ponytail holder form her bathroom, putting her hair up in a bun as she walked over to her CD player. Flipping through the well-organized CDs, she found the one she was looking for and put it on. The melancholy chords of Coldplay filled her flat. Singing quietly along, Stella retuned to the kitchen and started to make her "office famous" Moussaka.
She liked cooking - no doubt about it. However, she still wished she could bring more variety into her cooking – not that she ever found the time to do it. But the Moussaka - that she could do - most of the time.
When the doorbell chimed, Stella cast an annoyed look on the oven clock. Marching to the door, she opened it and regarded the man on the other side.
"You're early," she stated matter-of-factly, before heading out to the kitchen again - leaving Mac to hang up his coat on his own.
He chuckled softly as she smirked at him over her shoulder.
"You know it would have been easier to be on time if you had specified when 'on time' would be," he answered with amusement twinkling in his eyes.
"On time would have between 18:30 and 19:00, since you usually stop working between six and six-thirty and it's a thirty-minute drive work to here."
Laughter was the only response she got. Reaching above Stella Mac took out the plates and placed them on the table, followed by the wine glasses and lastly by the cutlery. Stella placed the salad on the table and took out a bottle of wine from the cupboard under the sink. She must have noticed Mac's look of disbelief regarding the place she kept her wine because she simply said:
"It has just the right temperature"
"Of course," he smiled back. "By the way, how did the case go?"
"Ah, I nailed him, Flack even texted me his motive." Stella said as she took the Moussaka out of the oven and placed it on the table.
"Do tell." Mac said as he seated himself at the table.
"As I've already stated, criminals in this city are stupid. But this guy was extremely dumb. His motive for killing her, oldest in the book: girl offends man's penis, girl gets killed" Stella's eyes twinkled with amusement as she noticed the light flush which had spread across her friend's face. Every now and then, she liked to catch him off-guard with her language. Still grinning, she continued:
"I do know it's really tragic that he killed her, but you have to admit that he had an absolutely silly reason to do so."
"So technically, you say with the right reason murder is justified?" Mac knew he was pushing it, but he couldn't help it.
"Oh, yeah!" she snarked, placing her fork on the table. "Totally justified."
She took hold of her wine glass and raised it in a toast "To all the stupid criminals out there, who keep us in business – May the stupidity never cease."
"Hear, hear!" Laughing, Mac raised his glass and clinked it with hers.
Later that evening when they had finished dinner, they retired to the living room. Stella enjoyed the simplicity of Mac's company - they didn't need to talk - just knowing that he was there seemed to suffice.
Looking at her best friend Stella smiled and then said, "Why don't you stay the night?" She paused, "In fact, why don't you stay every night?"
Mac smiled and tuned his head to look at her.
"I can do that."