The Salt of Your Tears
Aresanob…
Shut up.
Aresanob…
Please, just go away.
Come on, Stella…
No!
You did it, Stella. You killed me.
Go. Just go.
How can you live with yourself?
Please!
HOW CAN YOU LIVE WITH YOURSELF!
She woke. The ground beneath her was hard. She lifted her head to look around, blinking in the light that invaded her eyes. The hallway of her apartment was blurry to her vision and she closed her eyes to clear her sight.
The door behind her back was cold and hard. She vaguely wondered how long she'd been sitting outside her own door. It didn't matter. She wasn't inside—she wasn't behind the piece of wood that separated her from her memories. They were locked inside. She was outside with her duffel and no where to go. But she was on the other side.
Stella pulled her knees up to her chest. Her hair was piled up on top of her head, falling in curls around her oval face. She wondered whether her curls could hide the wounds that bit at the smooth flesh of her face. She wondered where she could go.
Danny?
No. He and Lindsay had been more than friendly lately, and she didn't want to intrude on that.
Flack?
Early callout.
There was only one person that she needed right now.
He won't have you. He turned you away.
He didn't 'turn me away'. He just…shut down.
You're in denial.
Oh, go to hell.
Stella stood up. Blood rushed from the tip of her head to the tip of her toes; she swayed where she stood. Pulling strength from somewhere inside her aching body, she picked up her duffel, smoothed her flyaway hair down, and headed downstairs to hail a taxi.
&----
She stood in front of another door. God, she was sick of doors. She was sick of being pushed out, and dammit, she was sick of not being able to cry.
&----
Mac Taylor padded around his New York apartment clothed in his navy blue Marines t-shirt and jeans. His usual work attire hung back in his closet or was set aside for the Laundromat. He'd have to make a trip there tomorrow on his day off—come to think of it, he needed to pick up groceries, too, and more vacuum bags. He made a mental checklist in his head as he moved around his kitchen to nuke a leftover bowl of pasta he'd made the night before. It wasn't his favorite thing, but pasta was easy to make and he wasn't much of a cook. Who was he to complain?
He contemplated calling her while lifting a forkful of rigatoni into his mouth. She'd been adamant that she wanted to be on her own. She'd told him she was a big girl and didn't need his help, didn't she? He'd seen in her eyes she was lying, sure, but when Stella Bonasera said something, she meant it. He'd felt horrible driving away from her, standing there staring up at her building with a look of defeated determination written across her pretty face. But, he reasoned with himself, if she wanted my help, she would have asked for it, right?
Even Mac knew he had no hope of fooling himself into believing that. After Claire died, he didn't go to her. She came to him on a wet, rainy night while he stood without a coat over the vast expanse of what had been his wife's life. They hadn't begun the official cleanup yet, he recalled. A flag had been raised in their honour, blowing like a beat up rag doll in the sleeting wind. She'd wrapped a blanket around him and held him while the rain washed away his tears. He collapsed and she went with him, clutching him to her until his shakes subsided, until all that was left was her whispering words in her native Greek into his ear. The words were foreign to him, but inside he knew what she was saying.
It was okay. It was okay to cry, okay to laugh, okay to mourn, okay to rage.
Okay to live.
&----
She willed her arm to raise and connect with the door. Behind it she knew salvation stood, ready and waiting, to let her in. Assuming he would have her. Mac Taylor was a private man, one not privy to letting people in no matter what he was going through. There was one time, though…one dark, black night in the rain.
It wasn't that he could feel her, it was that he always felt when she was missing, knew when her presence was gone. Now, right now, he vaguely recognized that he couldn't feel the emptiness he felt once he left her. It was missing.
Was she near?
&----
"Mac," she whispered, leaning her forehead against the cool wood of the door. Her shoulders slumped; her hands rested lightly on the frame.
At first, she didn't realize the surface of the door had begun to move away from her body, nor the sound of the man softly inhaling and exhaling in front of her. She only felt his reassuring aura envelop her.
Blue eyes met green as she raised her head. His forehead was crinkled in confusion of her standing outside his front door, his eyes filled with concern.
"Stella?"
She couldn't breathe. With the remaining strength left in her, Stella launched herself from the doorway and into Mac's arms. He head her as she clung to his shirt, shoulders, arms—anywhere she could reach to ensure he was really there.
"Stella…"
He's going to reject you. He's going to push you away.
No, he won't.
I won't.
Mac kept Stella safely wrapped in his arms while she shook. He could feel her gasping desperately for air over the tears cascading down the soft skin of her face, feel her hold on him for dear life and vowed, at that moment, never to let her go.
"Oh, God, Mac," she gasped, still sobbing, "I killed him…he was in my home and I killed him."
"Sh, Stella," he tightened his embrace, "no more, now. He's gone. It's over."
It was over.
Over.
The word echoed in her mind as she felt Mac loosen his embrace and watched, hiccupping slightly, while he retrieved her duffel from the hallway. She felt his hand wrap around hers and soon found herself being led into the apartment she visited so frequently after that rainy night.
It hadn't changed much since that day. The hardwood floors were just as dark as ever, paneling throughout the entire apartment—save for the bedroom and bathroom—and cool to the touch. The black leather couches in the sitting room had been rearranged around the glass coffee table, which was piled high with an assortment of books from the large bookcase to the left of the TV. Mac gently sat her there before he disappeared to fetch her a glass of water.
"Thanks," she whispered, accepting the drink. He watched her sip from the cool liquid for a few moments.
"Want to tell me what happened?" He asked. She wrapped her hands around the glass to ease their shaking.
"I…I couldn't do it. I walked in—I thought I was okay, you know?" She drew a shaky breath before continuing. "There was blood everywhere. Everywhere. And the farther I got into my apartment, the more the memories came back. I couldn't handle it. I left."
"What memories, Stell?"
"Him. He went insane, Mac. He tried to kill me and I had to fight for my life…but he didn't deserve to die."
Mac stared at the anguish his friend felt. There was no way he should have left her there. He should have taken her with him, taken her away from what she was clearly not ready to see.
And he felt anger. It boiled up from the pit of his stomach and buzzed in his ears. She shouldn't have had to go through that at all!
"Stella," he spoke softly, careful not to alert her to the anger he felt, "Stella, listen to me: he tried to kill you. You did what you had to do in order to make yourself feel safe. I would have done the same thing. And if I'd been there, Stell, he never would have made it through the front door."
She smiled sadly.
"I should have seen him for who he was. What he was." She sighed. "But I just so wanted him to be the one, you know? Or at least someone that was capable of having a normal, adult relationship. I'm not getting any younger and this whole dating game isn't getting any easier. And I turn around and shoot the only man that's interested in me."
"Interested in you? Stella, he was obsessed with you!" Stella looked shocked at Mac's outburst and he immediately changed his tone. "I'm sorry. It's just hard for me to think that you feel guilt about this, Stella. You deserve so much better than that scumbag. You deserve a man that's going to take care of you, and love you for who you are no matter what. Frankie used you. He didn't love you."
Stella was silent. Mac watched as a lone tear trailed down her bruised cheek. She was rapidly blinking back more.
"Oh God, Stella, I—"
"Is it that hard, Mac? Is it that hard to believe a man would have me?" Her voice was harsh.
"No, Stella—"
"I mean, we were fine before I met him, and then bam! The minute I start seeing him, you retreat back into your little Mac-shell and shut me out!"
"I didn't want to intrude, Stella!" Mac said. "I didn't want to tell you how unethical it was that you were dating a consultant on one of your cases! I didn't want to watch you be swept off you feet by the same man! I just couldn't do it!"
Stella was fuming.
" 'Couldn't do it'? This coming from the same man who just last week was supporting Danny while his brother was dying in the hospital? I know what you can and can't take, Mac!" She was crying angry tears now. "So, what is it, Mac? What's your real reason?"
Mac stayed silent. He stared hard at his fidgeting hands and tried to sort out his thoughts. He and Stella had never gotten this deep into each other's defenses before, much less gotten so angry that they'd reduced one another to tears. They'd fought at work, of course, usually due to a clash between their moral stances on the issues they were dealing with, but never directly with each other about each other.
"I—" Mac cleared his throat. "I…"
"If you have no answer, Mac, other than the lies you gave me before—"
"I was afraid of losing you!" He said. "I saw you with him and I got scared. I thought it would be easier to push you out than to watch you leave me."
Stella stared at him, trying to see if she could detect a lie buried in the confession. When she could not, yet another tear fell from the corner of her and she reached for his fidgeting hands.
"I will never leave you, Mac," she whispered. "I may drift for a while, but I will never leave you. When I met you all those years ago, you and I both knew we were in it for the long haul. And that night in the rain, when I saw the real Mac Taylor, that's when I decided you were worth waiting for. Because that night, you let me in."
Her tears were falling freely now, round, fat tears that rolled down her cheeks and fell with a soft crash onto her jeans. Mac reached a hand toward her face and gently brushed the pad of his thumb over the tracks the salty liquid left behind.
"I'm sorry, Stella," he said. She placed her hand on the one softly stroking her cheek.
"I'm sorry, too."
He smiled shyly and pulled her into a tight hug.
"You're the strongest person I know, Stella. If we can get through this, we can get through anything."
Stella buried her head into the crook of Mac's neck and savored the word 'we'.
&----
Hours later, when the sun had set and the night crawlers had emerged, Mac Taylor lifted Stella Bonasera from her place on his couch and carried her to his bedroom. He lay her on the down comforter she'd insisted he'd buy for the winter, wondering how only in sleep the peace one yearned for during the day could be achieved.
Stella shifted on the bed as Mac turned to leave. He hadn't made it two feet when he felt a hand gently grasp his, tugging him down next to her. He hesitated. A moment later, she tugged again, and Mac relented, lying down next to her. She smiled in her sleep.
He hadn't had another person in his bed since Claire had died. But, lying there with Stella safely curled around him, using his chest as a pillow, Mac found he didn't mind in the slightest. He gently wrapped his hand around the slender one laying on his stomach. This was peace, he thought, closing his eyes. This was the peace that had been missing since that cold, dark night in the rain.
This was peace.
------------------
A/N: Oh, my God, I'm alive. And I'm back. For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, I've been on hiatus for about two months. Life got crazy and quite in the way. But now I'm back and working harder than ever to bring you more and more excitement than ever before (hey, I sound like a CSI: Miami ad, don't I?). Stay tuned for some GC action over at Vegas and more Mac/Stella fun soon.