Chapter 22: Just the Way You Are

I said I love you and that's forever

And this I promise from the heart

I could not love you any better

I love you just the way you are.

"Hey Mac," Stella turned to him in the elevator. "We're going for a drink. Come with us."

He wanted, oh how he wanted, to refuse, to just go home and get with the programme he had set out in his head. With a mental apology to Peyton, he nodded. He owed Stella something – hell, everything – and although it seemed an innocent enough offer, he could tell from her expression it was not.

On the other side of her, Flack stiffened. Damn. Drinks with the boss (and Stella's former lover? His mind could not entirely avoid that thought.) was not the relaxing evening he had planned. Of course, since that skinny punk-ass kid had run into the bar and demanded money from the till, waving a gun around as if it were a tree branch, the evening hadn't exactly gone according to plan.

Stella stifled a sigh. On one side of her, she could feel Don – tense and anxious. On the other, she could feel Mac – stressed and impatient. Okay, perhaps not the best time to do the relationship talk thing. But if not now, when? "Carpe diem, Stel. Now or never." She was pretty sure Don would have gone with never.

They did not go back to the bar where Danny and Flack's pizza was even now being tossed in the garbage (and the bill was being added to their tab – any cop bar which didn't run tabs for its unreliable customers soon went out of business). Instead, they ended up at a quieter pub, where once again Flack led the way to a booth, being careful to sit on the outside so he had a clear run if things got sticky.

The conversation started off slowly: there was a "meet-the-parents" feel to the whole thing. Once Stella asked Flack about how the chase had started, though, things began to run more smoothly. Flack was eloquent in his admiration of Danny's feat; Stella thought he sounded like a little boy describing a super hero.

"I don't think he even thought about it, Stel. He just went right over the side. I thought my heart would stop. Of course, he knows these rooftops like he knows the street. He knew that the building next to the one we were on was a little lower, but only a couple of feet away. Man, though – what a jump!"

Stella looked at the big cop sitting next to her and sighed. They really were all just little boys. "Don, he could have been killed."

Flack looked at her, obviously confused by her statement. "Well, yeah, Stella. He could have been killed when that numbnuts walked in to a bar filled with cops packing more fire power than a Marine corps. Chasing the kid was a way of keeping him from getting hurt."

Stella knew she'd lost when Mac nodded in judicious agreement. "From the angle I was watching, I could see him hit the roof. He could have gone another couple feet if he hadn't been stopped by the kid."

"And the roof," Flack completed the thought.

Stella rolled her eyes as the two men went off on "amazing feats they had seen (or done)". At least they were getting along. "Excuse me a minute, Don," she nudged him out of the way. "Back in a second."

There, that would give them time to talk, not she thought with a sigh, that they would probably use it.

There was a moment's silence as the two men sized each other up. Flack cleared his throat. "So, we good?"

Mac looked up with a sense of déjà vu – Danny had asked almost the same thing, in practically the same words, just after the Tanglewood business. Mac still felt that he had handled that badly; he was determined to do better this time.

"You going to be careful with her?"

"Yeah." No declarations of undying love; no promises to look after his tough Stella who could do a pretty good job of it herself. Just a straightforward statement. Flack found himself looking Mac in the eyes, a task no man took on lightly.

"Okay then. Good luck." Mac tipped his glass in a salute and they both drank.

Stella came back and as Flack slid out of the booth to let her back in, his pager went off. He looked at it, a hint of a frown on his face, and said, "Sorry, I have to take this. Back in a moment."

Stella squeezed his arm as he passed, then sat across from Mac again, chin up, a little challenging. "So?"

A world of trust and affection passed between them in one glance.

"Are you happy, Stel?" Mac had always been a man of few words, but he could barely talk around the lump in his throat this time.

"You know what? I really, really am. I would never have expected this, and I wasn't looking for it. But he gets me, Mac. I don't have to be anything but me with Don." She looked up from her glass, her eyes shining, with happiness and a few tears.

"Then I'm happy for you too. Anything you need, I'm still here."

She reached across the table and grasped his hand tightly. "As always."

Don stood outside the restaurant, pretending to talk on his cell phone, watching Mac and Stella. He had to assume the clasped hands were a good thing. He looked down at the message on his pager again.

"Give us 5 mins, OK? LuvU. S"