CHAPTER THIRTEEN: Fight or Flight
May 19, 2005
Mac felt the hormones surging in his veins like the waves of the Atlantic against an eroding shore. With every touch of his hand on the wheel, his heart pounded like a jackhammer in his chest. With every glance he threw at the woman strapped beside him at his passenger side, there was a tidal wave within him. It pounded in his ears, and if he had the chance to close his eyes, he was sure to see red.
Fight or flight, his brain shrieked, mysteriously in the voice of his college professor when he learned about the intricacies of the human anatomy. He was ready to fight or flight. All for a little girl he had never met … yet had already loved beyond reason.
Stella fidgeted against the seatbelt, running her fingers on the strap again and again. It made a whoosh sound when she pulled it away from her body, and an audible snap when she released it to pick at her fingernails. She was about to bite on her hangnails or beg him for a cigarette – whatever opportunity presented first, but he certainly did not expect her to jump out of the car the moment he haphazardly parked it behind a blinking NYPD vehicle. He barely finished shifting gears when she bolted out and away from him.
"Fuck," he muttered under his breath, fumbling with his seatbelt and instinctively patting his waist for his gun. Within a few long strides, Mac was a few feet away from Stella, but he couldn't catch up with her soon enough. When he was able to join her, he was panting beyond belief and Flack was already in the middle of a quick debriefing.
"… three men at the back and we're closing in on them. One in front, right about there –" Flack raised a finger to point at a door behind the patio, "is keeping close watch at us. We also hear monkeys inside, probably at the basement. They're getting louder and louder at the occasional exchange of fire. Right now, we're at a standstill and waiting for their demands. We have a negotiator there front and center –" Flack gestured to the line of NYPD cars circling the tiny nondescript house. The blue and red lights flashed simultaneously, still painful to Mac's eyes despite the mellow afternoon sun.
"The kid?" Mac addressed, surprising Stella, who turned around to glance at him briefly before directing her attention to the scene in front of them. Mac cleared his throat to keep his voice above the crackling of radios and nervous murmurs of the police force. "Is there a visual on the child?"
Flack crinkled his brow, brushing away the strands of brown hair that pasted on his brow's sweat. "Yeah, we have visual. She's inside the house. With the one in front," he dejectedly said, adding, "We're trying to keep her as safe as possible. We'll be attempting hand-to-hand combat at the back once we've unarmed them. They're low on ammo, as we've been told by our informant – their next-door neighbor who responded to the Amber this morning." The radio attached to Flack's vest screeched to life and he pressed on a button to answer its call. A few words were barked out by a female voice on the other end: "We're getting his demands in – the perp wants safe passage out of New York –"
"Without the kid, over!" Flack sternly said. Static bubbled before an answer came.
"No, with the kid, over."
"No deal." Flack clicked on the red button to shut the signal out, but then rethought that, "Tell him he has to be reasonable or else we'll blow his head off and he can kiss that Pink Diamond goodbye. Over."
"He's not letting her go …" Stella trailed off, seemingly frozen in her spot. Mac sighed deeply, his whole body screaming for him to do something, anything, than just stand there to watch the whole spectacle unfold before them, so he grabbed Stella's elbow and stroked it a little to assure her … and maybe himself, too.
"Of course he won't," Mac whispered, close to her ear, "she knows where the diamond is."
Stella faced him, but everyone halted in their spots when a terrifying, blood-curling scream pierced the standoff. Mac's eyes widened in fear, and he could see Stella visibly shake.
The screams continued, one after the other, the intensity magnified as it drowned out the sirens and the worried murmurs around them.
"Flack!" Mac demanded, "What the fuck is happening?"
Responding immediately, the young Detective pressed the button on his radio. "Smith, what the hell is going on? Over!" A static hiss from the other end, then: "The perp is raising new demands. He wants someone here to shut the girl up, over."
Just like that, Stella sprang to life. Before Mac could warn her against it, she was already shrugging off her jacket, unclipping her gun, and motioning to the other officers available around them. When she noticed the two Detectives looking at her questioningly, she offered them her usual sarcastic smile. "That's my job description," she said, to which Mac shook his head.
"I'm not letting you do this, Stella –"
"Strap me up," she ordered a young police officer, who quickly obliged with a bulletproof vest. Ignoring Mac, the CSI continued, "Flack, tell them they got their gal."
Flack warily glanced at Mac, then pressed his radio when he saw the warning in Stella's fiery green eyes. "Smith, we have someone here, over. Tell them to hold their fire. We're sending someone." The radio sprang to reply with a, "Copy, Flack. Hurry, over."
"Stella," Mac pleaded, getting her gun from her hand and clipping it on his waist. "I know what you're trying to do … and this is dangerous, we don't understand what these perps are capable of, hell, we don't even know their criminal profiles. I cannot lose …"
"You won't." She stared at him, raising her arms so that the vest can be strapped as tightly as possible. "Not me or her. We have a lot to talk about after this. We'll have the time." She turned to Flack, just as she brushed away her hair to let the shoulder straps be tightened. "Flack, let Mac handle the fire."
"I don't think that's a good idea …" Flack protested.
"I trust him, just as he trusts me to do this." Her arms come down to her side to tug down on the vest. "Trust me," she whispered to Mac, bringing her mouth close to his ear. He could feel the heat of her breath on his skin, and suddenly, an onslaught of emotions weighed him down: early morning New York in the police station; coffee in her old apartment, middle of winter; her smile against his skin after a morning of lovemaking; the feel of her kisses below his ear after she had come home from university - his love for her that had never, ever stopped.
"I do, with my life," he admitted, bringing her close for a hug, and with his mind a frightful blank, he quickly kissed her on the lips. When they broke free, Stella had tears in her eyes. She blinked, and these were gone like a mirage.
Flack moved into their space and directed Stella with a hand at her back. He followed after them, stopping behind a squad car that had a sniper set up. All the nerves he learned to control from being part of the Marines came back to him and he reveled in the confidence he was feeling – if there was anyone who could save their daughter, it was only them who could. No one else. He could do this. They could do this.
"Give me a clear shot, Bonasera!" he cried out, just before Stella was ushered into the street and towards the pathway of the small house. She whipped her head back and winked at him.
Mac stilled his breath and crouched down. From the sniper's scope, he had a good perspective of the perp: a young man with dirty blonde hair and thick beard who seemed perturbed at the screaming beside him … and there she was. Mac's heart swelled at seeing his daughter for the first time in his life. Her face was all red and hands were tightly balled in fists, but he could see that she had her mother's curly brown hair … and Christ, she had his face. That unmistakable nose, his lips …
Mac's finger settled on the trigger. He didn't have a clear shot – the perp had his arm around Estella.
Soon, Stella's figure was in his view. She was walking to the house with her arms held out. The perp eyed her with suspicion, but the CSI handled everything professionally – she introduced herself, carefully opened the door, crouched down to talk to the girl, and slowly moved towards where they were so that she could calm the child down. The perp wouldn't let go of the girl, but Stella was still talking to them.
Behind the gun, Mac's breath flatlined to an incredible stillness. He had to concentrate. There was only one shot.
"You have visual, Mac?" Flack asked behind him. Mac shook his head.
In the scope, Stella finally gathered the visibly-shaking child in her arms. She turned Estella from the perp, to the direction of the door. It wasn't intentional – it seemed to be the trajectory of the child who was trying hard to move away from the perp, however, everything escalated within that split second: the perp reacted defensively. He raised his weapon towards Stella, who shielded their daughter from the gunfire, and in that same split second, Mac had his shot. Raising the crosshairs to the perp's shoulder, he squeezed the trigger … just as the perp squeezed his.
Like a rag doll, the perp's body melted down to the floor. Unfortunately, and to his dismay, Stella also went down. Their daughter looked at her in shock. Police swarmed into the place, grabbing the child.
Mac and Flack both stood up and ran to the house. They could hear the girl's screams from outside, and on pure adrenaline, he fought against the police and medic there to reach his daughter. Once inside, he saw that she was being comforted by a female police officer, so he directed his attention at Stella, who was being hauled onto a stretcher.
"Where?" he demanded the medic who was strapping Stella on the bed. He couldn't see her wound – there was so much blood. He felt dizzy.
"She was shot through her arm, Detective. She'll be okay. We're taking her to the hospital."
Mac leaned down to brush away hair from Stella's sweaty forehead. Her eyes fluttered and she was able to smile at him. Then, she mouthed, "Take care of her."
"I will, I promise," he replied, leaning down to give her a kiss on her lips. The medics shooed him away as they hauled her out, with the perp's stretcher following closely behind. Mac moved to where Estella was and saw that Flack was already with the little girl. He leaned down to talk to her.
"Hi," he greeted, wanting so bad to reach out, yet understanding that the girl needed space.
"Hi …" she trailed off, her face pressed on a ratty old teddy bear. Her hair was being stroked by the female police officer, while Flack was looking on, smiling. The younger Detective was clearly studying the girl's features, probably tickled that she looked so much like both of his colleagues.
Estella turned around to face Mac fully, and his breath was caught in his throat. There she was: Stella's hair and jawline, but God, his lips, nose, and those gray eyes … those are undoubtedly his. Those eyes and that intense stare, those are his.
His daughter.
Her small voice interrupted his thoughts. "Will she be all right? She got shot because of me," she muttered.
"No, sweetheart," Mac answered, keeping his voice low, "Stella did what she had to do, which was to keep you safe."
"Oh," the girl continued, "we have kind of the same name."
"Yeah," Mac reached up to wipe a tear from his cheek, which he didn't know had escaped his eye. "Yeah, you do. Stella's going to be okay. She will be. She wants to be." He offered a hand before him. "Will you come with me to the station? We'll take care of you there. Promise."
The girl stared at him, strong and intense – as strong as Stella's stare at him had been that early morning in the police station when they met for the first time and as intense as her façade had been when she declared to Mac that he loved her. All of it, all that love, all the emotions they had shared together throughout those years was here, in front of him. The proof of the love they once shared, and he knew he still had for her, was here. Alive.
Gingerly, Estella placed her small hand into his own and he clasped it to his chest. Standing up, he allowed her to take the lead out of the house while he followed behind, his hand still gripping hers.
"You can call me Ela," the girl told him, and smiled. That smile – all sunshine and Stella in the morning shaking her hips to Joni Mitchell until he woke up to attack her with kisses on the couch – that smile was everything to Mac, that smile told Mac that the past had caught up with him, but it was okay, since there was going to be a future from that moment on.
"Okay, Ela."
In his head, he thought, you'll be okay too, Mac.
"Does it still hurt?"
"Not really," Ela picked at the bandages on her wound. She told them it was from trying to run away from the perps when they attacked the Seferhs' house. It was not properly treated, so infection had set in. Thank goodness the doctors in the hospital were quick to clean it up, despite Ela's cries of pain. When they were done, they gave Mac antibiotics and painkillers, to which he awkwardly accepted. Was he the official caretaker of the child? Did he even have any right to her when he had not known she existed until a week ago?
His daughter held onto the ratty teddy bear she wouldn't let go off, despite it being covered in dirt and blood. What was more disconcerting about it was that he wasn't sure whose blood it was.
There would be months of therapy sessions for Ela, the doctors and social worker had informed him, before her custody could be decided on. While this was happening, Mac had instructed Flack to call Danny to gather all the necessary DNA results from the lab that proved he was indeed her father. He wanted to be her "caretaker," until he could officially be her father – not only biologically, but also lawfully. It was going to be a long fight, Flack warned him, but one he was willing to go through just so he could make it up to his daughter.
As for Stella … he was sure she would want to be a part of their daughter's life, and in that case, he had also asked Danny to include the DNA results from Stella's maternity test. When she regained consciousness, he could ask her himself how she wanted to go about this long process. Do they fight for Estella together, or apart?
Flack was on the wheel, and the Detective honked as a trailer truck cut through his lane. Mac wanted Ela to rest; however, the girl seemed to be clamoring to go back "home" – meaning, the crime scene where her foster mother had been killed. The two Detectives had an inkling as to why the girl wanted to go back, but they held off their guesses. They waited for the child to show them herself.
Parking on the familiar driveway beneath the hill, Flack turned off the engine and breathed deeply before unbuckling himself. Mac did the same, glancing worriedly at the young one who was strapped behind them, but was surprised when she unbuckled herself without any qualms and got out of the car. Her teddy bear, which she held by its ragged ear, trailed after her on the asphalt.
Soon, Estella was climbing up the hill as if in a trance, her little legs pummeling the ground with obvious familiarity. Mac and Flack picked up their paces, giving each other sideway glances as they walked on each of the girl's side. Mac's eye caught Ela holding her bandaged arm, and he bent down in concern.
"Ela, are you okay? Do you want to take a breather?"
"No," she replied, voice remarkably cool. "I want to show you something, Mac."
As they climbed up the hill, the glorious Seferhs house was now in view. The leaves had fallen on the thick grass, with no monthly gardener available for its upkeep. Yellow police lines still cordoned the area, though some had collapsed to the ground and mingled with the dying brown leaves swirling around. The house, white and pristine, stood empty and ominous – its windows closed up to the cold breeze that tapped on its sills. Beside it stood the playground, with its swings moving to the direction of the wind. The sandbox had fragments of sand drifting off and out of its confines, to drop to the grass that lined around its shape.
"The monkeys came first," Ela started. Flack eyed Mac, and he nodded at his younger colleague, a signal to just let the child narrate what she remembered.
"What monkeys, Ela?" Mac asked gently. Ela stopped in the middle of the yard, lifting up her teddy bear to hug it close to her chest.
"Mama was always afraid of monkeys. She thinks they can kill her. I told her no, they can't kill … monkeys are nice animals. She had nightmares about them. She always went to her therapist …"
"Did she only tell her therapist, Ela?" Flack inquired, voice as soft as Mac's. Ela nodded, "And me. She only told Desiree and me about her fears." Mac made a mental note of the therapist (which they had records of), while Ela moved to the entrance of the house. He thought she would come in, but she stopped and stared at the door.
"They came when Mama and I were about to leave. We were moving to Greece, she promised me, but I knew that wasn't true. She can't take me to Greece … I did not even have a passport. She said we'll take a ferry, a long ferry, a cruise, and then we'll be in Greece. There was nothing left in the house except a computer because Mama was talking to people in Greece about her arrival. She never mentioned me to anyone there. Then, the monkeys came." Her thin shoulders shook a little. "One by one, they came. Through the yard. Mama … was hysterical. She gave me my bear and asked me to run. I ran away, to the playground to hide behind the bushes, but the monkeys came and I saw them move around the house, trying to get in. Mama was trapped inside. I thought quickly …" She glanced at the playground, gray eyes lightened by the sun. "Until I saw them all. Four men, all wearing black. I knew what they wanted and I didn't want them to get it. One of them grabbed me and held me. I couldn't do anything. They dragged Mama out of the house; the monkeys all became excited. One of them, Ralph, tried stopping the monkeys with collars, but they were too excited. They kept screeching. Mama was crying so hard …" Ela's knees buckled. Instinctively, Mac crouched down to hold the girl close to him. She let him hold her, her head resting on his chest.
"I- I was thinking … if the monkeys didn't kill Mama from fright, they probably would. And they did. They hit her with a shovel. They said she wouldn't stop screaming … they hit her, a couple of times. I- I saw the fi-first hit and I closed my eyes after." Tears ran down her cheeks, to which Mac brushed some away with his thumb. Flack's brows furrowed as he listened. "I fought hard against the one holding me, Weasel, but he held me tight. I kicked him in his pants and he doubled over. I ran to Mama, but he hit my shoulder with a pocket knife," Ela caressed her wound absentmindedly, "and the others were really mad he did it. They hit his head a couple of times with their fists. Since then, Weasel never liked me. They left Ralph in charge of me, the one who got shot in the house."
Suddenly, she broke free of Mac and moved to the playground. Once there, she stood in front of the sandbox. "They only wanted one thing. They think I have it, but I never did."
Flack, following closely after, stood before the child. "Where's the Diamond, Estella?" he questioned, still wary.
Ela dropped to her knees in the sandbox, discarding her teddy bear. Mac picked it up, noticing a huge gash in its belly. He remembered what Ela narrated: She gave me my bear and asked me to run. The bear had the diamond in it. But then, Ela said she never had it so …
With just a few scratches through the sand, Ela reached the loam beneath. She scratched furthermore, until a shiny object came to light. With one pull, she retrieved it and there it was, glinting under the sun. Muddy, sandy, but pink. It was as huge as the child's palm and as pink as her lips.
The Pink Spanish Heart Diamond.
Flack produced a ziplock bag from his pocket and motioned for Estella to put the Diamond in it. She complied, dropping it into the bag. Mac noticed that when she released the object, it seemed as if a weight had been lifted off her shoulders. She sighed, then turned to him.
"Mac, what will happen to me now?" it was her turn to ask, eyes big and innocent, lips quivering and forehead crinkling. Again, Stella's face flashed in his mind.
"Don't you worry, Ela, you're in good hands. I will personally see to that," he promised his daughter; silently, he also promised her mother and himself. Ela nodded and stood up from the sandbox, brushing away the dirt from her knees. Mac helped her do so, and when they were done, she let him hold her hand until they hiked back to the car.
The first time Stella opened her eyes after she was stabilized, she didn't recognize Mac. He panicked, she panicked, and all hell broke loose in her hospital room. Flack had to restrain him, while Danny and Aiden watched helplessly outside the room as the medical personnel all labored to keep her blood pressure down.
It was a sunny afternoon, shy of summer, when she opened her eyes again. He had fallen asleep on her bedside, drooling on the white sheets of her bed when he felt her stir. Collecting himself by wiping his chin, Mac sat up and smiled sleepily at Stella. His smile got wider when he detected the cognizance in her green eyes; his chest immediately weighed lighter, as if the rest of New York finally slipped back to its rightful place from the tectonic spot in his body.
"Hey," he murmured, voice still not cooperating after his unexpected snooze. Stella's eyelashes fluttered in the mid-afternoon sunlight and then there was a lazy smile on her dry lips.
"Hey yourself," she responded, stretching her upper body up, only to discover that the rest of her limbs were not ready to cooperate yet. Bouncing back down on her pillows, she sighed heavily. "Hit an artery, didn't it?"
"Nicked, to be more precise." Mac cleared his throat. "They responded fast enough, but the medics realized halfway to the hospital that you were bleeding too profusely for JUST a gunshot wound to the arm. They said you soaked through at least five bandages. They were afraid you lost a quarter of your body weight in blood."
"Ah, no need to diet for that summer body then," Stella snickered, making Mac smile too.
"No need to diet for the next two weeks while you recuperate," Mac sternly warned her, waving a finger in the air for good measure. Stella nodded, her mind already on different matters. She motioned for water, which Mac was prepared for. He grabbed a glass beside him and bent a straw to her direction. Taking a sip, he saw her wince when the water hit her parched throat, then she motioned for him to take it away. He did, settling it on the table, beside the basket of fruits the CSIs from the morning shift had gifted her with.
"W-Where is Estella?" his partner wondered out loud, and Mac gently clasped her cold hands in his.
"Let's start from the beginning, Bonasera, okay? The perps were all Brooklyn thugs who had read about the Seferhs from local celebrity columns. One of them, Rafael Montana, is the boyfriend of Mrs. Seferhs' therapist, from which the plan was hatched. They only intended to scare her a bit with the Wooly Monkeys, but it got out of hand when she started becoming hysterical. Their frustration deepened when they realized that there was no way they could force Estella to telling them where the Diamond was, let alone that she didn't have it. They couldn't kill her because she was the only one who knew where it was. Estella, she likes to be called Ela by the way," Mac added, making Stella raise an eyebrow, "is one pretty smart girl. She knows how to play by the thugs. She cooperated to the letter, until she saw the opportunity in the house and saw the NYPD outside. She said she screamed for her life, for the first time since they had kidnapped her. That shocked the thugs." Lifting her hand up to his lips, he kissed her knuckles and whispered, "She's very smart. She takes after you."
"Or you," Stella corrected, to which they both chuckled.
"Everyone's in jail as we speak. The evidence were all collected by Danny and Aiden, to be submitted to the prosecution by the end of the week."
"And Estella, I mean Ela?"
Mac's whole chest felt warm. He grinned at her. "She wanted to see you. So, she's here …" he moved away from the hospital bed, so that Stella could see where their daughter was – sleeping on the room's extra bed. She was swaddled in white blankets, generously provided by the nurses, and breathing steadily with her dirty teddy bear buried beneath her arms. Her delicate brown curls covered her face, but from their vantage point, Mac knew that Stella could clearly see her strong jawline, her thin lips, and pointed noise: a perfect mishmash of them.
When he returned to face her, her cheeks were already streaming with tears, and he hurriedly tried to wipe them away with the bed sheets.
"Stell," he began, but she cut him off.
"How can she ever forgive me for what I've done?" she choked out, and it shattered his heart into a million pieces on his feet. After all these years, Stella Bonasera was still the one person who perfectly knew how to undo the knots he had stitched his heart with all those years.
His hold on her hand tightened. "Stell, don't think about that. Concentrate on getting better, we need you to get better. I need you to get better." She tried squirming out of his grasp, but he held on as tight as he could without hurting her delicate muscles. "I mean that, Stella. We're going through this, together. What we did before doesn't matter anymore. She matters, we matter, and our future together matters. We'll cross that bridge when we get there." Before she could protest, Mac sat up from his chair so that he could lean in and press his lips on hers. It was meant to be a chaste kiss, but for some reason, Stella opened her mouth and he slipped his tongue in.
It was the first kiss they have shared since that winter evening he was so lost and alone. Since the night he promised to be the last. Since his whole world had fallen apart and in one night, she was able to put it back together again … but in doing so, he broke her. He knew he did. So he stopped trying to be her lover and decided to be her friend instead. Now, her world had fallen apart and he wanted to take her hands and help her pick the pieces up, just as he knew that their kiss was helping him mend his heart back to beat once more. Mac could taste her tears, the thickness of her emotions, the desperation in her breath, but he swallowed it all. He wanted all of her, and more. He always had. That was probably the reason why Stella Bonasera never could stay with him.
As they broke their kiss to gasp for air, he pressed his forehead to hers and wondered if she could still run away from him now that there was a weapon to hold her down. Mac further wondered if he would ever be brave enough to use that against her – if there would ever be a point that his conscience could reach that peak of desperation.
"Mac?"
Reacting as if electrocuted, Mac stood up and turned around to face Ela. She was sitting up on the bed and gazing at them inquisitively with her bright gray eyes.
"Hey, Ela, guess what? Stella's finally awake," Mac tried to perk up, moving to sit down on the edge of the bed. He placed an arm around his partner, who (seemingly boneless) melted into his side. In a soft voice, Stella said, "Hey sweetie," before wiping her tears away on Mac's white polo shirt.
Ela chewed on the ear of her bear, before lifting her head up to face them.
"Are you my real parents?"
A/N: I'm currently enjoying the break by bingewatching CSI:NY's first season. Man, I missed these two and their chemistry. Don't you? How do you like this chapter so far, by the way? Let me know!