Title: Paper Airplanes
Disclaimer: I don't own anything. All belongs to CBS
Summary: What if Mac met Adam once before being a CSI? A Marine, who is waiting for a redeye in an airport, finds a red haired kid sitting there alone. What does he do?
Rating: G
Mac was tired. His bones felt like the disconnected from each other and now were pulling him down. He just got off the plane he was going to transfer to New York soon.
It has been several months since he had last seen his family. He was twenty-four years old and his military career was flourishing. It had been a few years after the Beruit bombing but it still made him a little world weary. Seeing his family relaxed him.
It was very late in the night, he noted while looking out the large glass windows to see a clear starless night. He dropped his wallet and keys into a plastic bowl and passed through security. He took his belongings and headed to his gate.
He glanced at his watch and sighed. It would be about a half an hour till his plane arrived. The airport was nearly empty. All the travelers had rumpled clothes and weary faces. Mac was sure he looked the same.
When he reached his gate he paused for a second. It was all empty except for one person or kid to be more exact. The kid had a wildfire of messy curly red locks covering his head and pale skin covered in freckles. He wore a plain neon orange t-shirt, jeans, and black sneakers. He was holding what seemed to be a Rubik's cube and was turning it quickly with his tongue sticking out the side of his mouth.
Mac frowned, concerned to find a young child sitting alone in an airport gate. He sat next to the child but the boy did not seem to notice at all. He was still completely concentrated on the colorful cube. Mac cleared his throat but it only caused the boys eyebrows furrow as he seemed to be trying to drown out all noise.
Mac upgraded his attention tactics by snapping his finger in front of the boy's face. The kid violently flinched and dropped his cube. He stared up with large light green eyes which seem to flash with fear.
"Sorry kid, didn't mean to scare you."
"No sir, it's alright. I-I uh, oh, wait – um I'm not s'posed to talk to you." He stammered. Getting up quickly and picking up his cube and twisting it nervously.
"Oh, well you're going to lose your spot if you keep doing that." Mac raised an eyebrow motioning his head towards the cube.
"Aw, Geez." The kid moaned looking morosely at his now tangled colors on the cube.
"Why aren't you allowed to talk to me?" Mac asked smiling a little. The kid looked up with wide eyes.
"You're a stranger. My mom says strangers are dangerous. She says strangers are mean and don't care about me. They'll grab me up and take me to their spaceship." The kid said quickly in a very self-informed tone.
"To their spaceship?" Mac asked, tilting his head, wondering why a mother would tell her son that.
"I made that part up." The kid said puffing his chest out proudly. Mac smiled wider at the boy who seemed to be very bright for his age. He seemed to be 7 or 8.
"Well, would I be a stranger if you knew my name?" Mac asked.
The boy looked down biting his lip and scuffing the ground with front of his shoe. "I guess not." He conceded.
"Mac Taylor." He said stretching his hand out. The kid obviously delighted to be treated like an adult with a very adult handshake enthusiastically took his hand.
"Adam Ross." He proclaimed happily shaking Mac's hand several times before letting go. Mac chuckled a little.
"I was wondering where your parents were. I don't see too many kids sitting by themselves."
Adam's wide smiled seemed to dim a little, "My Dad said to sit and wait here. So that's what I'm doing." He said while quickly scrambling onto the chair as if his father could see that he had gotten up for a few minutes.
"So you don't know where your Dad is?" Mac asked.
Adam looked down at his cube, "Nu-uh."
"Or your mom?"
"Nope." He said resolutely but still staring at his cube.
"So you're lost." Mac declared in a matter of fact tone.
Adam looked up sharply, "No, course not. I know where I am. I'm at the Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport."
"How long have you been here?"
Adam shrugged, "I dunno – long time I s'pose."
"Why did they leave you here?"
"My mom says it's closest to our house and my dad says that he doesn't want no snot nosed kid around when he wants to be with my mom. I don't know what he's talking about. My nose never has snot in unless I'm sick and I'm not sick right now." He informed obviously affronted to being called a snot-nosed kid.
"Do they leave you here a lot?" Mac said frowning even more. He wasn't an expert on childcare, but he was pretty sure it was a bad idea to leave your kid alone at an airport.
"Yep, my mom and dad work here so I can go wherever I want, but this place is my favorite because it's got all these cool magazines that the other gates don't have." He said like a skilled connoisseur of airport gates.
Mac glanced at the magazine racks and saw that they were mostly science based magazines. Mac being a science geek himself was thrilled to a see a little boy taking an interest.
"You like science?" Mac said temporarily changing the subject.
"Yep, I even have a potato lamp in my room, but sometimes it gets smelly and I have to change the potato." He said wrinkling his nose.
"I like science also."
"Do you have a potato lamp?" He asked with wide curious eyes.
"No, but I always thought those were pretty cool." Mac said and Adam nodded vigorously at the statement.
"You know, it isn't right for your parents to leave you here, alone." Mac said steering it back to a more serious topic.
"Well, s'not like I have much a choice in it, do I? I'd rather be at home playing my computer games than messing with this stupid thing." Adam said glaring at the cube.
"You should tell them you don't want to be at the airport, then."
"No, they wouldn't like that very much."
"Well sometimes you need to be brave and tell them what they don't like." Mac said giving him a meaningful look.
"Well, I'm just going to wait till I get bit by a radioactive spider before I start telling them what they don't like." Adam said in a unyielding tone. Mac sighed.
"Why don't I tell them?"Mac was feeling protective of this kid whose parents left here to fend for himself.
"But I didn't do anything wrong. You don't need to tell them anything. I was good." He said suddenly hysterical. Mac jerked back at the sudden change of demeanor of the previously sunny boy.
"Who said you did anything wrong." Mac said softly.
"Why else would you want to tell my mom and dad not to leave me at the airport?" The boy said frowning with watery eyes.
"Maybe because it's not safe to leave boys in airports by themselves. You could get hurt."
"I get hurt a bunch of times but I'm tough. My mom says I'm the toughest boy she knows." He proclaimed with a defensive tone.
"Sometimes it's better to avoid things that can hurt you then to try and prove that you're tough. Your parents should know this."
"That's okay mister Mac. I'm pretty sure my parents won't let me get too hurt. My dad is like 80 feet tall and can probably see me right now." The last part of the sentence was a whisper.
Mac rubbed his face emotionally tired from this boy. "Why are we whispering?" He whispered back.
"Well, I just thought right now, if he can see me he probably can hear me so I was going to whisper. You know cuz' we're friends and all and friends always whisper to each other. So then my dad will know we're friends and that I'm not talking to a stranger"
"Friends always whisper?" Mac suddenly confused at this notion.
"Yeah, course they do!" He said as it were the most obvious thing in the world. He then leaned real close and said conspiratorially, "You're my first friend ever. Well 'cept in first grade I knew this one kid name Joey but then he moved far away to somewhere like Africa or something. But yeah all the other kids have friends and whenever I go near them they always start whispering to each other." He explained.
Mac suddenly felt extremely sad for this bright and slightly hyperactive kid."Why don't you have friends at school?"
Adam shrugged, "Not sure. I mean sometimes I forget people are there I guess. Like in science class when we start s'perimenting the teacher has to call my name a billion times to tell me class is over and everyone finds that so funny. They call me a lot of names because I like school and I'm kind of clumsy."
School kids can be so cruel, Mac thought. "Well I'm sure you'll make a lot of friends eventually." Mac said.
"Sure." Adam said looking like that was the last thing he'd ever believe.
"Plane to New York leaves in five minutes." A female voice rang out of the speakers.
Mac had to leave but he felt horrible about leaving Adam here. He took out a business card that he was carrying and gave it to the boy. "Here, if you're ever in trouble or need anything you can give me a call or page me." Mac said ruffling the boy's hair.
"You're going to New York?" Adam said in awed voice.
"Yep, that's where I live."
"One day I'm going to live there." Adam announced pointing his thumb at his chest.
Mac smiled, "Well I'll meet you there, then." He once again offered his hand and Adam shook his just as energetically as before.
"Adam Ross? Are you sure he's the best candidate? He barely he has any experience and he lives in Arizona. Sure he's smart but are you sure about this, Mac?" Stella questioned.
Stella thought it was strange they had fifty applicants and when Mac saw Adam Ross' file he immediately dropped all others and said he wanted that candidate.
"I'm sure he'll do well. He's coming in today. You can stay for the interview." Mac said.
"Are you really going to interview him? It seems like you already made your decision." Stella half joked.
Mac Taylor was hardly an impulsive man. Adam Ross never called him after that day and sometimes he wondered about that kid he met alone at an airport. He was sure there were hundreds of Adam Ross's in the US. What are the odds that this one would be in the same state and around the same age and into science? What pretty much sealed it for Mac was when he looked him up and found a news article about this Adam Ross winning a full ride scholarship to Arizona State after writing an essay on the "Science of Superheroes".
If there was any doubt at all that this was the right Adam Ross it was erased when a curly auburn haired man walked in nervously and started to ramble. "Hello sir, I was told I was supposed to come in here, but you look like your busy and I wanted to wait but that guy over there insisted I interrupt this. I'm very sorry if I'm interrupting anything – I,"
"Mr. Ross, It's okay." Stella interrupted as she tried to stifle a grin mostly because Danny seemed to have taken and instant liking to the kid and was grinning like a Cheshire cat behind Adam with a thumbs-up sign.
Mac looked at Adam and noticed that he probably didn't remember him. Heck, most people wouldn't remember someone that the only met once at seven or eight years old.
"Sit down, Adam."
"Yes, sir." He said quickly taking a seat.
"Don't call me, sir." Mac answered marveling at how much Adam was still the same person.
"Yes, sir – I mean Mac." He answered nervously. After a few minutes of a short but rather humorous interview Stella was already taking out the forms to hire him. Mac couldn't place it but Adam sure had a charm about him that he completely oblivious to.
"Well, You start Monday, Adam." He said putting his hand out. Adam broke into a smile and excitedly shook Mac's hand. Mac couldn't help but give a rare full-blow grin.
A/N: I know a little cheesy but I'm in a cheesy mood. Sue me. Please review.