A/N: The final chapter. :) Hope you like it.

"Please don't say anything. Please," she whispered.

Her eyes were closed, and she stood still as though she was afraid to move. He looked her over, baffled by the sight of the woman standing in front of him. He was scared to even touch her, for fear that she might break.

"God, Stella. What did he do to you?" he whispered in return, ignoring her request. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I don't know," she answered and then reconsidered. "Because I knew how you'd react."

"How?"

"Like this! Just like this! And I bet you even went looking for him today, didn't you? Did you find him even though I didn't give you a name? Huh?"

She knew him too well. He dodged the questions. "How did you want me to react? Did you want me to just ignore the bruise on your face? Did you want me to let you go back home to him? He could've killed you, Stella. Maybe not just yet, but if you had stayed, believe me, he would have."

"I am fine," she reiterated.

"No, you're not. A bruise on your face is not 'fine.' Your entire upper arm being purple an--and fucking blue is not 'fine.' Your skin is supposed to be tan. Not blue, Stella." He immediately took a mental note of how ridiculous and juvenile that last remark sounded, but he was so caught up in the moment, that he didn't bother correcting himself.

"Why do you care so much about what color my skin is?" she snapped. She had also taken note of the absurd comment.

"You're my best friend, Stella! My God, I would take a bullet for you. I have, or don't you remember?"

"Of course, I remember, Mac."

"Yeah? Well, it's a little hard to tell sometimes."

She looked up at him in disbelief. "You know I remember, Mac," she said softly. It was an image that haunted her sleep.

He looked at her and sighed. "I'm sorry."

She nodded towards the ground.

He scratched the back of his head. "Let's go." He walked a couple feet to get his coat.

She looked up quickly, taken aback by his sudden change of direction. "Go where?"

"Let's go grab a drink."

"Okay." She'd agreed mainly because another second in that house would have made her go insane. As soon as they stepped out the front door, she took the deepest breath of fresh air.

Mac Taylor sometimes had a way of unknowingly suffocating her. So much concern at such a high concentration scared the living daylights out of Stella.

She grew up, learning never to expect someone to care about her. "Don't you dare get your hopes up, Stella," her conscience always warned as she sat in her little frilly dress, waiting for the nun in charge to retrieve her. Wannabe parents came and went. She learned not to get attached because it was easier that way. Easier so that when she had a meeting with an aspiring mother and father, and they looked her over and decided that she was "too ethnic" to portray the biological child of an upper class Irish couple in their production called "a happy family," she wasn't too crushed. She was "too old" to be placed with a couple in their mid-twenties... Too this. Too that. She got used to it.

Her partner, however, confused her. She didn't understand what it was about her that made him care about her unconditionally. It wasn't about how she presented herself. It wasn't about anything like that. They fought like cats and dogs – even moreso when Claire was alive – but with him… she wasn't too… anything.

She'd kept her head down and her hair in front of her face from the time they stepped out of the cab, even as they entered the front door. He walked behind her into the bar, his hand resting in its familiar spot on the small of her back, softly in unspoken assurance that this hand would never hurt her.

Mike looked up from the counter and nodded in their direction. Wasn't too long before he brought their usual drinks to the booth Stella chose over by the back window.

"Is there anything else I can get you folks?" Mike asked before walking away, giving no indication that he'd conversed with Mac just hours earlier.

Thankful for Mike's charade, Mac looked across the table at Stella, who wasn't paying any attention - which could've been intentional, he assumed - and then back at the bartender on his left. "No, we're good."

She stared out at the busy street. Tourists with their incessant picture taking. One guy tried to wave down a cab, but they all kept passing him by. Red brake lights and yellow headlights dotted the night. But her mind wasn't on any of those things really.

He blew across the top of his coffee, trying to cool the liquid before he put the cup to his lips. "Are you going to be mad at me forever?" he asked, breaking the silence.

"I'm still trying to decide."

"Everyone's been worried about you."

"Oh yeah?" she asked, unaffected and then took a sip of her drink.

"Yeah. Danny, Aiden, everybody. Chad was lost without you."

She shook her head, fondly thinking of her little lab-tech lackey.

"You're the central pillar that holds that whole unit together, Stella. You don't know that?"

"Whatever," she replied and took another drink.

"It's the truth," he swore.

She scoffed at the comment as she crunched a couple of ice cubes between her back teeth. He didn't think Stella truly knew the extent of her importance in people's lives - especially those in their close work circle. Though he hated to admit it, he knew that the younger CSIs learned more from Stella than they did from him. She was truly a blessing in every sense of the word. And he tried to tell her in subtle ways every now and again. He wasn't sure if she ever caught on.

Still, something had been bothering him all day. Perhaps, it was the most confusing part of the whole ordeal. The one thing that didn't make sense, and it was driving Mac crazy.

"But I don't get it," he began. "You can fight with me toe-to-toe for hours on end. Why didn't you stand up to him?"

"I did." She paused and had to force the next sentence from her trembling lips. "And look what happened."

The vague gesture she made to her face was enough to make Mac's heart shatter. It made him wish that he'd done more than threaten Damon. So much more than threaten. Tears fell in streams while she held the beverage up to her mouth, presumably trying to steady her lips. She felt her bottom teeth chatter against the glass, making the faintest repetitive "clink" sound.

He reached over and grabbed a printed napkin from the dispenser, offering it out to her. She looked so broken. He rarely ever saw this woman cry. It caught him off-guard every time. She'd like you to believe that she is the epitome of strength. And, in some ways, she is. In their line of work, disconnecting yourself from feeling was standard procedure, or else the job wouldn't get done properly. At some point, you forgot you even knew how to cry. But at that moment, when he sees tears running down her face and how hard she's trying to fight them, it reminds him just how fragile she is. How human she is. And suddenly, she's not just his colleague; she is his whole world.

"Why'd you keep going for so long?"

She thought a bit before she responded, looking down into her drink as if she would find an answer there. But then she said, barely above a whisper, so low that Mac had to strain to hear it, "…Guess I didn't want to face the fact that another person doesn't want me."

Who doesn't want you? Look at you. You're brilliant. You're gorgeous.

"What the hell are you talking about, Stella?"

It seemed Mac Taylor's ever-realistic head and his closely guarded heart were always at odds whenever Stella was concerned. And yet, somehow, his head always kicked his heart's ass.

"He didn't really want me. He just wanted someone he could control. And I just didn't want to see it." She traced the rim of her glass with her fingernail.

"Well, it's easy to be blinded."

"I have not had a single lasting relationship in 38 years."

She'd never used being an orphan as an excuse before. It wasn't just some card she played when the timing was convenient. He knew Stella wasn't like that. She never wanted any sympathy from being one. She just was one. And though Mac knew it hurt her sometimes to watch kids in the park playing football with their fathers or being pushed on swings by their mothers, Stella had long-since accepted the fact that she would never have such experiences. She used what she had to make her life the best she could.

He believed that in some small way, she was always striving for excellence because maybe one day, her parents would see what she'd turned into. And maybe they'd never know the ashes she arose from, but she'd know, and that meant more. Mac pitied her birth parents; they gave up something pretty great.

Still, he did worry about her sometimes – though not as much as he did today. How she'd spend hours going over a case and get frustrated when everything didn't perfectly align the way she desperately needed it to. How she'd throw her pen clear across the room when she couldn't see that everything was right in front of her all along. He was never far away to point out the one piece she needed to put the puzzle together. She buried herself in work with her never-ending crusade to find the truth instead of taking time for herself. But then again, he was doing the same thing.

"Well, what about me? Do I not count?"

She smirked sweetly at him. "Of course you do. But you know what I mean."

"Well now, that was a contradictory statement, wasn't it?" he smiled. "If I count – which you have admitted that I do -- then it would merely make sense to say 'I have had only one lasting relationship in 38 years,' am I right?"

"Don't get all cute on me, Mac."

There was that smile. The one he'd been longing to see all day. He wasn't sure it would ever find its way back to her beautiful face. That smile was the one thing that made the whole day full of fights and arguments and hours upon hours of worry… worth it.

The end.

A/N: Well, that's it. I know it doesn't entirely solve Stella's problem, and it's probably not the typical "MacStella" you all were wanting/waiting for, but I'm pretty happy with it. This ending was written simultaneously with the middle of the first chapter, so I knew it would end like this all along. I hope I've entertained y'all with this story that's been on my mind for a very long time. Thank-you for being patient while I worked stuff out and for the great reviews.- SS
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