Chapter 7: Rocket Man

And I think it's gonna be a long long time

Till touch down brings me round again to find

I'm not the man they think I am at home

Oh no no no I'm a rocket man

Rocket man burning out his fuse up here alone

"No, Stella," Mac voice was stern. "No, I won't talk to them. And no, you won't either. They're grown-ups. They have to deal with this themselves. And I'm just as happy if it stays out of the office."

Stella sighed in frustration. Mac was just not listening to her. "This is not about their love lives, Mac," she patiently tried again. "This is about more than that. They are both hurting, and it is hurting all of us."

Mac looked at her quizzically. A calm and rational Stella was a new sight, unless she was on a case. Perhaps he had jumped to conclusions about the focus of her concern.

"Okay, lay it out for me, Stella, as if it were a case." He sat back with his coffee cup in his hand and stared at the table as she gathered her thoughts. Testing, he thought, with an inward grimace: did he really have to be testing everyone all the time?

It didn't take her long. She had been running through this for days, almost since the day Lindsay had gone in undercover and nearly been shot. By the time she had tied together all of the traumas Danny had been through, and outlined Lindsay's extreme reactions to some of the recent events, Mac was staring at her in admiration.

Stella cleared her throat. He was looking at her as if he couldn't believe his ears, and she accepted that he still felt she was over-stating the obvious. She hurried to reassure him.

"Of course, you know all this, Mac. We were all there. But I think that Lindsay has brought something new to the mix, and it could be a catalyst for something worse. I'm not blaming her," Stella rushed on as Mac's eyebrow lifted quizzically. "It's just she seems to have reached some part of Danny no one else had, or … I don't know. I am really uneasy, that's all."

"You present an excellent case, Stel. I agree that something has to be done. Of course, I knew Danny would have trouble, but when he passed through his psych exam, I figured he'd be okay. Yes, yes, I know," he grinned at her pungent dismissal of the department shrink, "but she knows what the key danger signs are, and she passed Danny through without a hint of doubt. Lindsay, too."

Stella took a sip of her now cold coffee, and worried at a napkin until it lay in shreds before her. She looked up to see Mac watching her restless hands. "I don't know what to say, Mac. I KNOW everything is not fine. I KNOW Lindsay needs help, and I know Danny is on the edge. I am so afraid of missing something, of not being there when one of them jumps…" she trailed off, realizing what she had said. "Oh God, Mac, that IS what I'm afraid of."

He raised that eyebrow at her again, "Do you really think either of them is suicidal, Stella? I'm not buying that."

She shook her head uncertainly. "You're not Catholic, are you Mac? Suicide is a sin for a Catholic because it signifies despair – the belief that not even God can fix what is wrong. It is, in a sense, a refusal to believe God can make things right. Suicide is a worse sin than murder because it is a complete denial of God's power." She waited a moment to see if Mac got any of that. He just looked at her expectantly.

"I don't see suicidal in the sense you are talking about. I see despair. I don't know Lindsay well enough to know what is driving her, but I do know Danny. He is going to do something stupid, something dangerous, something that takes any decision out of his hands. And I don't know how to reach him first."