AN: Here's the fourth part, sorry it took a bit longer, but I didn't have time to write before the weekend, because my Math teacher has this wierd fantasy that I'm supposed to pay attention instead of writing fanfics... Don't know where he got that from. Anyway enjoy!
Aiden, Danny, Flack and Mac were all sitting in Mac's office.
Their shift had ended hours ago, in fact their new shift was about to start but no one had even thought about going home.
They were gathered to compare what they found out.
All of them looked bad, understandably, but Mac looked by far the worst.
His eyes were bloodshot and his face pale, the last time he had eaten was before the case had started and like everyone else he was running on pure caffeine.
"Ok, tell me we have something" demanded Mac walking over to the coffee-machine to get himself another pot.
"Well I looked at everyone who would have a grudge against her, criminals she put behind bars and recently got out, that kind of stuff, but I came up empty, nothing seems to fit", started Flack.
Mac just nodded definitely not happy with what he was hearing.
"I looked into the footprints. We got good shoe prints of the killer, but I ran them through the data base and came up empty, which means our computer never heard of this shoe. So all we know is that the killer has two normal big feet."
"Like almost every other person in New York. Any good news?" asked Mac.
"Well if we found the shoe we could prove it was the shoe of the killer."
Mac groaned.
This isn't possible! They solved all these cases and when it matters most, there isn't a fucking clue!
"Aiden. What about you?" he hoped she had found something that could help them.
"Well I finished with the nightgown for you, there wasn't much to find since everything was wet, but I found... sperm", Aiden froze as if she had just discovered the meaning of what she was saying. She shivered.
"I sent it off to DNA."
Stella was raped? No! That wasn't proven yet! The sperm could have gotten there another way! Like what? It flew there?
Oh my god! Wasn't it enough that someone killed her, slit her throat?
Mac looked down into his coffee, as if it held the answer to all questions.
It took all of his self-control to not throw something at his office window and even more strength to keep from crying, he couldn't bear the thought of Stella being raped, it was just too much for him.
Aiden stood in the middle of the office, what had she done?
You didn't do anything! Her conscience tried to tell her…
But looking at Mac, who seemed to be stuck somewhere far from reality and Danny, who was clutching his coffee mug so hard it was about to bust any minute, she felt like this was her fault.
A loud bang yanked her out of her thoughts. Looking up she saw Flack holding his hand. He had hit the wall so hard that one of Mac's pictures had fallen down.
Aiden looked at Mac for some kind of reaction to this but he didn't even seem to notice.
Poor Mac! This hit him hard. Aiden knew Stella and Mac were close; they helped each other through everything.
When Claire had died, Stella helped him the best she could, no one could get through to him back then, beside her.
The two of them had some kind of strong bond between them, they had the ability to talk purely with glances, and sometimes it was almost as if they could read each others thoughts.
"They would have been a cute couple", thought Aiden.
A sad smile appeared on her face.
It wasn't fair! It wasn't fucking fair!
The silence which lay over the office was interrupted when Sheldon Hawkes entered the office.
"Hi everyone", he greeted, but his voice didn't sound cheerful at all. He looked just as horrible as everyone else.
Join the club! thought Danny.
"I finished ... the autopsy."
He had done so many autopsies in his life.
But it's different if you know the person you are cutting open.
He had seen Stella lying on the metal slab naked and he wanted nothing more than to look away and cover her.
He felt ashamed of himself; this was wrong, that wasn't something he should see.
He slit her skin open, like he was supposed to, but it didn't feel like it usually did.
To him she was still Stella, in his mind he saw her standing next to him, talking about some results of her case or just joking around.
She wasn't some anonymous body, she was a person he knew, and it didn't matter the slightest if she was dead or alive.
Seeing her blood coming from the cut he made, he felt like he was hurting her, invading her privacy, violating her, he felt like a criminal.
Of course there wasn't much blood, because the blood flow through her body had stopped hours ago, but it was enough for to make him turn away and considering just running out of the room.
"What did you find?" asked Mac.
Do you really want to know?
The little voice in his head had a point, could he stand knowing what Stella had went through before her death?
"Well COD was... the obvious... she bled out, didn't take more than 5 min", Sheldon had trouble speaking.
"TOD was around 4 in the morning. Further, I found force trauma to her head, two broken ribs and other bruises caused most likely by a fist..."
"She was beaten up?" asked Flack.
"Yes and I also found out... that she had sex shortly before she was killed..."
"Rape?" Oh my god, did you really have to ask that? thought Mac.
But he had to know, he had to know the truth, even if it was just so he could nail the bastard who did that.
"It's hard to tell, it could have been that she wanted it too, but since it was very shortly before her death, I presume it was with her killer and I doubt Stella would have sex with the man who was about to kill her..."
Stop babbling, Sheldon; you are just making it worse for everyone!
"We have to take a look at Stella's apartment", said Danny, he didn't like the thought of going through her things, but they had to.
"Yeah, we are going to do it in an about an hour", said Mac.
"Has anyone notified her family?" asked Aiden suddenly.
It hadn't even occurred to her before, but seeing the people here, she considered her family, she suddenly thought about Stella's.
Danny, Sheldon and Don looked at her with surprised looks, obviously no one had thought about that yet.
Then she looked at Mac, he finally looked up from his coffee.
"There isn't anyone to notify."
"There has to be someone", said Sheldon, "even if she doesn't get along with her family, I think they want to know and besides who's going to prepare the funeral and all, if not her family?"
"I am, she talked to me about it a while ago."
It was true, a few months ago after the case where a police officer was shot to death, she came to him.
First he thought she was just a bit freaked, about the case, but she had been serious.
"She doesn't have a family, she grew up in an orphanage, never knowing her parents..."
A tear made his way down his cheek, but he quickly wiped it away.
No, he wouldn't cry again, he wouldn't, not with everyone staring at him.
Danny kept staring at Mac. Stella grew up in an orphanage...
He had never known that, sure he noticed she never talked about her family or her childhood, but he never thought anything of it.
Silence had engulfed the office again, everyone processing this new information.
Did they know Stella after all?
"Wow, what the hell is going on here? You all look like someone died!"
Mac's head shot up, he knew this voice.
No, no, this isn't possible, your mind is playing tricks on you! You are going crazy!
Standing in the door to his office was Stella.
AN2: Thanks to my (other) beta Caroline! And thank you guys for the reviews!
Kate K, it wasn't on purpose that I didn't bring Flack in til know...