A/N: This story continues to not be suitable for younger readers. Thanks to the wenches for all their support and help.
Disclaimer: No infringement of copyright is intended. All characters originated with CSI:NY.
Unbound
Stella walked down the street, her usual free stride not slowed at all by the high-heeled ankle boots she was wearing, her long leather coat snapping around her legs. She breathed in the busy turmoil of downtown with a smile. The sun was shining; the cabbies were swearing; someone down the street had hip-hop blaring from a ghetto blaster, and a group of kids were dancing. She could smell hot dogs and popcorn and ice cream and the exhaust from a thousand frustrated drivers. This was her world and she loved it.
They had wrapped a case the day before: yet another restaurant killing. This time it was a dishwasher whose girl had been grabbed at once too often by the head chef. Never mess with a man who washed sharp knives for a living. Stella shook her head; the scene had been gruesome, but straightforward. She had finished the paperwork and was enjoying a few precious moments of shopping and freedom before going in for her next shift.
Springtime in New York, and everywhere she looked, flowers were blooming and lovers were spooning. On a bench near the park sat an old couple hand in hand, watching the world go by in complete harmony with each other. Across the street a young couple stood in a bus stop, so entwined around each other it was hard to tell where he started and she finished. Stella smothered a giggle as the bus pulled in, waited a moment, then drove away without the oblivious pair, the driver gesturing and talking to himself in disgust.
In the play park on the swing was a tiny girl dressed in designer sneakers with ribbons in her hair, and two young men taking turns pushing her, trading kisses with her and each other as they called out encouragement and nonsensical endearments. The park was filled with couples and babies and couples and toddlers and couples and preschoolers, and Stella turned away to window shop at her favourite shoe store.
As she did, she saw yet another couple, a young girl barely out of her teens with smooth blonde hair, turned out like a run-way model, holding onto a tall dark man who was grinning as he bent his head to kiss her laughing mouth. The kiss quickly turned passionate, and Stella's heart stuttered as she recognized him: she knew how those lips would taste against hers, knew how he could move from teasing banter to searing intensity with the flip of a switch. A switch she had been pretty good at flipping when she had a mind to.
She ducked around the corner and stood for a minute, breathing hard as if she had been running.
…………
Hawkes was talking as he poured his fourth cup of coffee that shift. "So where did you meet this one?"
Stella stopped outside the break room when she heard Flack answer calmly, "She just started in the secretarial pool at the precinct. She locked her keys in her car on her first day…"
"And you rescued her? The old white knight act?" Hawkes teased.
Stella could almost see Flack's shrug.
"Well, she's awfully pretty, Flack, but she seems a little … I don't know …"
"Vacant? Vacuous? A conversationalist with severe limitations?" It was Danny interrupting, and Stella turned back to a nearby desk, pretending to search it for something.
"She says everything I need to hear right now," was the answer. Most men would have said it with a smirk or a sly innuendo; Flack just sounded tired.
Stella watched Hawkes tip his cup to Flack as he walked out the door saying, "I'll let you know when the results are in, okay?"
Flack nodded, then turned coolly to Danny. Stella could hear the ice in his voice from the common area she was standing in. "You got something to say?"
Danny held out his hands in defense, "Hey man, I'm sure you know what you're doing. It's just … I thought you and Stella …" He licked his lips and looked at Flack's impassive face.
"Even fun and games come to an end. Time to move on, Danno."
"Okay. Whatever you say."
Stella walked blindly down the hall as Flack turned his back on his best friend and left the room. When she glanced over her shoulder, she could see Danny staring pensively into his bottle of water, as if waiting for it to tell him something, then opening his cell phone and hitting speed dial.
…………
"Stel. Stella? You okay?" She felt a hand on her shoulder, and roused to see Lindsay standing over her, looking worried.
"Yeah. Fine. What did you need, Linds?" She smiled, trying not to be too obviously dismissive.
The younger woman stepped back, a little flustered. "Umm, nothing. You just looked …" She faltered, her hand dropping unconsciously to her own abdomen, rubbing it gently.
"I'm fine. You sure you don't need something? Because I should probably get this to the lab." Stella picked up a report off her desk at random, and Lindsay's eyes flickered from it to her face knowingly. Stella moved towards the door meaningfully.
"So Flack has a new girlfriend?" Lindsay blurted out, flushing a little as Stella turned around with an arched eyebrow.
"So I've heard."
"She works at the precinct. We met her this morning. She's a bit … plastic," Lindsay fumbled over the words, put off by Stella's coolly amused look.
"Whatever turns him on. Perky young tits and a tight ass works for most men." She glanced at the file she was holding in her hand, and realized it was her expense vouchers for the next quarterly report. No wonder Lindsay had looked at her strangely, she thought wryly. Now if she had just said she was taking it to Mac, she might have gotten away with it.
"I thought you and Flack were …" Lindsay stepped back when Stella caught her gaze, her green eyes blazing.
Her voice, however, remained calm. "Friends with benefits? Yeah, we had some fun – a little swing-from-the-chandelier sex-on-call. That's all it was," she lied with a pleasant smile; then she went on flippantly, "Just because you and Danny are all lovey-dovey and broody, Lindsay, doesn't mean the whole world wants to be tied down."
She tried to smile to soften the blow, but could tell she had not quite managed it by the way Lindsay's arms came protectively over her belly. Only four months along, no one would notice the slight swelling if Lindsay herself were not so self-conscious about it.
Or if Danny could keep his hands off her in public, Stella thought with a spurt of dry amusement, coloured, she suspected, by a large dollop of envy.
"I have to talk to Mac. Catch you later." She walked away quickly, knowing she had hurt the younger woman, but not able to think any further than the look on Flack's face when he had been holding the young woman in his arms.
She walked into the nearest restroom, and stared into the mirror.
…………
The early days of March, sweet as daffodils in a gentle breeze, had turned mere weeks later into the screaming storms typical of an East Coast spring. Stella ran into the building, shaking the rain from her bright hair which curled riotously around her face, and nearly walked into a couple holding hands as they parted in different directions.
Startled, she looked up into blue eyes that cooled from affectionate laughter to professional distance so fast it was like another blast from the rain-laden wind that had driven her inside.
"Sorry, Flack, I didn't see you."
"No problem. Stella, this is Kandi Kellow. Kandi, meet Detective Stella Bonasera." He performed the introduction punctiliously.
"Wow. You're a detective too? That must be like so totally interesting." The young woman's baby blue eyes were so wide, her smile so blindingly white, Stella thought for a moment she was putting on an act, but a second look convinced her that Kandi was as genuine as a vintage 1950s Barbie doll.
"I'm a CSI, actually." Stella put her hand out to shake Kandi's hand. Small, delicate, with perfectly manicured nails painted in the same colour of bubble-gum pink as her shoes.
"Oh, don't tell me, don't tell me; that means Crime Scene Investigator, right?"
That giggle might get wearing, Stella reflected.
"There are just so many things to remember! But Donnie has been so great, helping me out and all." She wrapped her arms around Flack's waist, rubbing her head against his chest, staring Stella in the eyes as she did.
Stella raised an eyebrow at the territorial movement, but merely smiled and said, "I'm sure he has been." She couldn't resist adding in a neutral tone, "I've always found him very accommodating. It was nice to meet you, Kandi."
She stood at the elevator, impatiently begging for it to arrive and carry her away before the couple behind her finished their protracted goodbyes.
"But if I had any luck at all, it would be bad," she thought to herself as Flack stood beside her, courteously motioning her into the elevator car before him, then automatically pushing the button for the lab floor.
Instinctively, she reached forward and pushed the button for the eighteenth floor, three lower than the newly refurbished lab. He raised an eyebrow; the only offices on that floor belonged to the brass, and she would normally have sold her soul or her Jimmy Choos rather than show up on that floor voluntarily. He said nothing, though, just leaned back against the wall of the slow moving car, and yawned, covering his mouth with the hand closest to her.
"Rough night?" She could have bitten out her own tongue. Talk about a set up.
He nodded wearily though. "You'll have the report on your desk. Messer and Hawkes caught a big one – ugly too. Domestic that took out a mother and kid – father burned down the house with them all in it. Lost a fireman in the blaze. NYFD's going ballistic."
She turned and looked at him, seeing the disillusionment and pain that struggled to overwhelm him on a daily basis, which he fought back with decency and determination. Feeble weapons at best.
"I'm sorry." She stretched out a hand to him, but dropped it uncomfortably as a whiff of Kandi's overly sweet perfume reached her.
Losing a fellow officer was always difficult, but it was the kids that tore at the soul, she thought, her heart flashing back to the child porn ring they had busted a few months ago.
And how she had dealt with the pain that time.
"Your girl is nice."
"She is."
"She's very young."
"Eight years younger than me. It's not so much," he said neutrally, with a hint of a sigh.
She shrugged uneasily. They had had that conversation before.
She stood silent as the elevator rose slowly. They had always talked easily and freely, she thought morosely. Now there were too many silences between them.
The elevator indicator lit up number 17, and Stella shifted her weight from foot to foot.
"She's nice." What else was there to say? She couldn't look at him.
His voice sank into the void between them, "I can't live tied up in knots any more, Stella. I have to get free. Even if it means leaving a piece of myself behind." His voice was so contained another person might have missed the underlying fury.
She took in a deep breath and moved to the doors as the elevator slowed to a stop. "She'll never be me."
For days, and long endless nights, she would regret that surge of jealousy, that impulse to wound.
She left him in the empty elevator, his eyes closed, his hands clenched so tightly they ached for days.
