AN: Ok here is the second part! Enjoy!
It couldn't be, it wasn't possible! Thought Mac this wasn't his Stella.
His Stella... Mac paused.
Since when had he started thinking of her as his?
He didn't know, but he realised that he couldn't think of her as anything else. His Stella...
He was sure Stella was fine, probably enjoying her first day off in weeks.
"It can't be her", Mac pleaded.
The officer stared at them not realizing what was happening.
Mac snapped back to reality trying to pull himself together, he slowly walked towards the victim and knelt down beside her carefully so as not to disturb the evidence.
He closed his eyes trying to control his breathing once again praying it was just a bad dream.
But when he opened them again, nothing had changed.
He heard a gasp behind him, but he couldn't bring himself to tear his gaze away from the body, from her body.
He didn't seem to notice the tears that began to form in his eyes, his mind was blank.
His mind seemed stuck at one thought.
This is wrong! It's nothing but a bad dream. Please let me wake up! Stella isn't dead! She can't, she wouldn't leave me! Please, I can't go on without her! I need her!
He looked down at her familiar face, seeing the horrified look in her beautiful eyes, he knew his praying hadn't been heard, his Stella was dead.
Danny had seen his fair share of bodies, he really thought nothing
could shock him anymore.
He had seen burn victims, skeletons, raped and mutilated women, dead children, but nothing had prepared him for this.
Seeing his co-worker and friend lying there, dead, he was proven
different.
Her bruised and lifeless body covered in her own blood, but what shocked him most were her eyes.
The pleading frightened look he had never seen in Stella eyes before.
But looking at her gaping neck wound, he knew her pleading hadn't been heard.
How could someone do that?
Someone just slit her throat and left her there to
die.
He couldn't take it anymore.
Feeling ill he turned away running from the crime scene to empty his stomach contents in the snow.
He closed his eyes, but instead of calming him down he saw her eyes
again her body covered in her own blood and he had to throw up again.
Stella couldn't be dead Danny didn't want to believe that, but his rational brain told him differently.
You have to calm down! Focus! If Stella was here he knew she would tell him exactly that.
But she isn't here! She's dead! Someone killed her!
What kind of sicko would kill her?
In this moment his feelings changed and he wanted nothing more than kill whoever did this.
Aiden had just finished her court testimony, when her cell rang.
She looked down at her caller ID even though she already had a good idea who it was.
Like Danny she wasn't very fond of the idea of working in the cold. And she had a sinking feeling that's exactly what she would be doing shortly.
"Aiden Burn", she answered grumpily.
"Aiden I need you at...a scene", Mac's voice was shaking.
"What happened?" She was concerned, his voice seemed different somehow, kind of empty, she had never heard him sounding like this before.
"It's...it's...Stella, I need you at central park ASAP", with that he
hung up.
Aiden put her phone down. What the hell was that? Stella? What happened with Stella? It was her day-off right?
Aiden walked to her car and drove towards central park. Wondering what happened that made Mac sound so bad?
Arriving at the crimes scene she found an awfully pale looking Danny.
"You wanna do the victim or footprints or the rest?", asked Danny,
without any kind of greeting.
"What the hell happened here?"
"Well more like footprints or rest, I think Mac is taking the body...", Danny said ignoring her question. He sounded on the edge like he was about to explode any second.
"Danny! Talk to me! What the hell happened!", demanded Aiden in a slightly angry voice.
Why was everyone avoiding her questions?
"She's dead alright? Stella's dead! Is that what you wanted to hear!
Cause it's the fucking truth!", screamed Danny at her, then grabbed the
equipment to work on the footprints and stormed off leaving a shocked Aiden behind.
Could it really be?
Stella and her had recently started to becoming friends or at least
that's what Aiden thought.
Not so long ago they couldn't even be in the same room without bitching at each other, but they had finally started to get along.
They sometimes went out for drinks after work and talked about all the stupid things like shopping and office rumors.
She walked in the direction in which Danny had stormed off and found
him working on some footprints in the snow, he had already started marking the different sets in different colours.
She followed the footprints until she found Mac and the victim.
Mac looked exactly like his voice had sounded on the phone earlier,
awful and she could see traces of tears on his face.
A sinking feeling hit her as she started to realise Danny had told the truth.
She had never seen Mac cry before, then she looked down at the body and instead of getting ill like Danny or getting as emotional as Mac, she felt numb. She opened her mouth to say something, but no words came out.
When Danny had told her the victim was Stella, she was shocked, but a
part of her brain had just turned it down as a joke, even though she knew Danny wouldn't make jokes about something as serious as this.
Now seeing Stella there dead, she couldn't deny it anymore, but she
still tried to.
Without speaking a word she turned away, trying to shake the horrible
picture of her mind and determined to do her job.
Aiden took some photos of the crowd, that was still gathered behind the crime scene tape.
Then she made her way over to the woman who found the body.
She was shaking, her face was pale.
Her short blond hair kept falling into her face everytime she turned her head.
"Hi, my name is Aiden Burn, I'm with the crime lab, can I ask you some questions?", asked Aiden, running completely on autopilot.
The woman looked up at her with scared blue eyes and nodded.
"What's your name?"
"Katy Freeling", her voice was barely above a whisper.
"And you were the one who found... the body?"
That's Stella! Not a body! How could she talk about her friends like that?
Katy just nodded, she seemed like a small child, even though her look
told Aiden she was at least 20 years old.
"Can you tell me what happend?", asked Aiden.
"I was... I was walking home from work. My boyfriends always told me I shouldn't do that, walking home alone, maybe I should have listened", a little ironic smile appeared on her face just to disappear seconds later when she began shaking again.
"And then I found her, she was just lying there and I didn't know what to do..."
"Did you notice anything strange or another person?"
She just shook her head and started sobbing tears running down her
cheeks.
Aiden just started at her for a moment then she reached out and
carefully touched her arm.
"Please, can I go now?", she asked so quiet, Aiden nearly missed it.
"Yeah sure", murmured Aiden, she didn't even notice as Katy Freeling disappeared, she just kept staring into space.
AN2: Thank you guys for your reviews! And thanks a lot to fruitbat00 for reading beta!