Disclaimer I own very little, especially not CSI NY. Wish I did though.

Notes Thank you very, very much for all the reviews for the previous chapters, I've LOVED reading them, they're always welcome! Here's the tenth instalment. As always, I hope you enjoy. It got long!

Thank you again very much to everyone who has nominated my stories and me for the CSI NY fan fic awards, I really am honoured. Thanks to: Shining Zephyr, Marialisa, Blue Shadowdancer, ImasupernaturalCSI, iluvcsi4ever, Sally Jetson, sarramaks, chrysalis escapist, shawdoo and Ana Pereira

This story, 'Watching', 'Walk Through the Shadows' and 'Thorns' have all been nominated for awards in various categories, along with myself, so if you'd like to vote for them, that would be brilliant : ) Thank you!

Falling Leaves: Chapter 10

Present:

Sometimes the day hits hard. Sometimes it brings him to his knees. Today though has almost floored him. A man who survived death's fingers stealing round his heart, even him. Flack feels stone supplanting his flesh again and dread catching like shards of flint in his lungs, cutting his breath. The burden of the man he carries is no mass, but the weight is nearly too much to bear. A life so strong, faded in a day. His footsteps do not falter though as he walks his course whilst Hawkes plants his feet solidly beside him, the smell of mud and rain soaking rankly into their nostrils.

The doctor hurries their pace as much as he can through the slow motion seas of grass beneath their feet, "We need to get him outta here, Don, soon as we can."

"You think I don't know that?" Flack doesn't break his stride.

Hawkes tries to placate him, "No I don't…"

"Then get the goddamn paramedics over here. Where the hell are they anyhow? They give up hope?"

"They're coming, Don."

He speaks the truth as they come running, shoes squealing in the mud, two of them.

"Can't get any closer than this, ground's too wet, ambulance is sinking into it. You'll have to bring him over. You manage that?" The blur of devastation and exhaustion on both their faces has not been missed, except by themselves.

"We can manage." Flack stolidly continues, "Not much further, Mac, okay? We got you safe now." No response, he knew there would not be, but it makes his throat constrict until it hurts. Only yesterday when he saw them last. A day away, and a lifetime since. Still in motion, he asks his companion, "They found Stell yet? Can you see? They got her out?"

Hawkes dares to turn over his shoulder, and sees at last a cause for hope, "They got her, Don. Sid's got her. She's safe." He hopes.

"Thank God." Flack raises his head for a moment, lets the water cool his eyes, and then marches on. Hope at last.

………………………………...

Sid holds her carefully as he crosses the wasteland of water and disarray, trying not to jolt her. Hands tighten around her with life flowing through his veins, whilst her fingers trail through the streams of air as they pass. The water that clings to Stella becomes part of him. He sees himself not in shining armour though, it is only his arms around a friend; someone dear to him, and dearer still because of the life he owes to her.

Rain compounds his determination and he speaks to her closed eyes, touching his forehead against the ice of hers, "Stella, I think you can hear me somehow, and I want you to know this; today is not your day for leaving us. We didn't pull you out of there just to bury you again, you or Mac. Keep a hold of that, and we'll be waiting for you." He can only feel how cold she is, "Please hear me, Stella."

………………………………...

"I hear you, Sid." Stella murmurs, turning away from the other world she is watching, "I hear you." She passes a hand across her forehead and addresses Mac, "I don't want to see myself like that, or you, Mac. This is… this is wrong. This should not be happening. What the hell is this about?"

"I don't…"

"You don't know, I know, and neither do I. But you know what? That pisses me off." She folds her hands across her chest, tilts her face skywards and lets the rain plunge around her.

"Believe it or not, Stella, I don't have an answer for everything." There is the first suggestion of anger in his tone, "Like I said, wish I did, but I don't. Much as I want to give you one."

She sighs, "I'm sorry. But tell me, please, you think we have a chance?"

"There's a chance."

A chance both ways, and they both know it. Lilting laments, the downpour lights around them. Mac looks on at the playing out of their lives, and realises suddenly the possibility of his own leaving him. The possibility that it already has. But somehow there is no fear in that anymore. Maybe today is the day, even though he was not expecting it yet. A slightest smile is all he shows. He has often tricked it, at one time welcomed it, never feared it. Always in his thoughts and bound into his being are the ones who have gone before. Forever missed, never forgotten. But his regret will be the ones he leaves behind, and the one he hopes he will not have taken with him.

Stella turns slowly towards him and sees the lines of his thoughts. She takes a step towards him, warily, "Mac…"

"Stella, please, listen a moment, hear me out, I have to tell you the 'ifs'. Please?" His hands hover over hers, but she snatches them away.

"No! No, Mac. I know what you're thinking, and no! You don't give up on me, d'you hear? I won't let you. You owe yourself the chance. Think of everything you've been through, and got through and everything that needs you, everyone." She is racing out the words now, desperate and furious, "Don't give up, don't you dare give up. Who else is gonna be the one who keeps the rest of us in check, hey? Who else, Mac?"

His voice is calm, "You do that too, Stella. Who do you think keeps me in check? I trust you with anything, everything."

"Then trust me with your life!"

"I do, I always have." Succeeding in catching her hands, he holds them in his, feels the lack of warmth. "Trust me on this as well. If this is it, then there's not a whole lot we can do about it, and…. and we have to trust that. It's gotta happen sometime, Stella, today, tomorrow, whenever, maybe it's today, for me…"

Tears are shaking her now, as she storms at him, "You leave, and I will never forgive you!"

"Yes you will." He finds the tranquil centre of the tempest, the arias of the winds "You will, and you'll keep on living, you have too much life in you to give up yet, Stella. And one day you'll be okay, and you'll keep going. Trust me."

"Not on this, Mac." Almost choking with a sob that she will not let overwhelm her, she berates him all the strength she has left, "Hell no. You gotta trust me this time. Neither of us are ready to go." She takes a chance, "Whoever might be waiting for either of us... whoever. But it isn't time to find that out." Her grip is ferocious, imploring him, "Your life is here, Mac. Maybe we would manage, carry on, eventually, but I'm not ready to yet, I don't want to. And you know what else? Maybe it's not your turn, maybe it's mine today, but I'm sure as hell gonna fight that possibility. we're not done yet."

Mac kindles the spark from her eyes and it strikes tinder in his soul. She is at his side. And he realises that maybe today is not the day. Maybe there is still a chance worth fighting for.

………………………………...

Flack relinquishes him finally, only when he has to, and reluctantly. Letting go of Mac has too much finality. But Hawkes is around him as the medical team are able to start finding life.

"Don, you're gonna have to sit this one out, okay man? Most help you can give is being here for the time, I'll tell you everything you need to know as we're going along, you got my word."

"Damn right you will, Hawkes." Flack slumps in the seat opposite, his voice is gruff, and he knows that when the time is right, later, he will apologise to the man who has never been anything less than gentle and considerate even in the face of his helpless aggression. He rubs his hand across his jaw, leaving another streak of dirt, "Do what you have to, don't let him get away from us." An uncontrollable, hopelessly inappropriate sentence jerks out of him, "We got cases to close, he don't get out of them that easily… ah, shit, Hawkes, please, you know I don't mean that."

"It's okay, Don. I know." Hawkes spares him a hand on his shoulder, before turning back to Mac.

He looks down at him, the only time he ever has. It hurts to see a man who is always the movement of justice and ideals, never pausing for others now so cold and still, cut from clay. His face is wiped with a patina of rain, his lips are blue with a bloom of white, no breath from them. And Hawkes swears silently before he starts trying to bring the life back into him. He will not fail.

………………………………...

They are waiting for Sid, two more paramedics traipsing through the escalating mud to meet him, resignation in their faces which he chooses to ignore.

"Bring her up, we'll take her."

"Her name is Stella, Detective Stella Bonasera." He tells them, and they nod.

"Okay, sir, you coming with us?"

"Of course. And, please, it's Dr Hammerback, not sir."

"You got it." They are unfazed as they guide him up the steps and move in on Stella as soon as he has laid her down, laying hands on her.

Sid searches for the strength and vitality inside her that they all love; the movement in her ringing words and always brisk footsteps. But looking at her now he can only grieve for what the elements have taken from her; burnished curls replaced by lustreless, lank waves and glow of colour with damp, china clay skin. No light, no movement. From the gods, he pleads life back to her still form.

One more chapter to go, as long as I can fit everything in, really must try harder with my editing… At the end, if you're interested, I was thinking of the myth of Pygmalion and Galatea. Hope you liked this chapter. All thoughts welcome! Lily x