2.

"Step out the front door like a ghost into the fog,
where no one notices the contrast of white on white
and in between the moon and you the angels get a better view,
of the crumbling difference between wrong and right."

"Flack!"

Mac's voice sliced through the club like a missile, casting silence over the lighthearted atmosphere. "What did you do with her?" he charged after the man, taking his collar in his clenched fists. The thug, frozen with fear, was nothing but a moose in headlights, heavy and deadly, unaware of his strength at the moment. "Where is she!"

Flack came almost comically launching over the bar and did a secret agent tumble into the room, smashing into some cardboard boxes and shooting to his feet. He pulled out his gun at once, his philosophy of work scarily similar to Mac's. Danny was clumsily at his heels though not as fortunate, but Mac didn't have time or patience to cringe when he smashed into the pots and pans.

The large man pointed a quivering hand out the door that was still swinging in the light breeze, and Mac didn't turn around. "Deal with this one!" he ordered, and pushed by him.

"Wait!" Danny cut him off. "Mac, you gatta tell us what's goin' on, at least. Where the hell is Stel—?"

"All over his hands," Mac seethed, and took off into the night, gun cocked at his side. He realized he was jumping to conclusions, but what else could he assume? Stella's disappearance, blood on the counter, all over the man's hands and shirt. In a split second Mac had hit speed dial two—Stella was only second to his own voicemail—and pressed the phone to his ear.

Before the person on the other end even spoke his mouth opened and her name fell out. "Stella?" his voice was drenched in anxiety, his knees knocking and hands shaking.

"Mac," she breathed in relief, and he felt oxygen pour into his lungs. Her tone was soft and suffocated.

In the background, so faint that Mac had to strain to hear it, a voice said, "Tell him that you're okay." Stella's phone volume was always turned all the way up, and he constantly nagged her about it, but he made a vow then and there to never say another word about it.

"I'm okay," she whispered, but her voice revealed the exact opposite.

Stella was the strongest woman he'd ever known, hands down. She didn't just give up easily. But by the sound of the way she was speaking, she had already run out of options. She didn't have a vest on, her gun wasn't with her, nothing.

"Stella, listen—"

Shuffling and static cut him off. She sneezed twice. "Get your gray beard off of me! God, what are you, albino? Your skin is as pale as the snow and your hair is almost the same color! You must be at least ten years older than me, why don't you act that way!"

A growl answered her little speech, and then a muffled, but loud, thud. She cried out.

"Stella, forget that! Listen to me—you have to—"

"We're on the corner of Broadway and 6th," she told her captor, "you think no one will see this? Who are you, and what do you want? Give me your name! What the hell is that you're driving? A red Jeep 4x4? In New York? Clearly you can't be a local—oh wait, your license plate says—"

Two more thuds, a louder, more pained cry.

What the hell was she doing? His mind raced fervently. She was practically egging him on, revealing information about the man, making him angry.

Then the cylinders clinked and he understood.

Flack was coming up behind him now, but Mac burst into a sprint, taking a sharp left and heading toward Broadway. "Stella! Stay with me, we're coming, do you hear me? Don't let him hurt you, we're—"

"NO!"

Two words came to Mac's mind when she screamed: bloody murder.

He instantly stopped in his tracks. "What? What? Tell me what's happening, Stella—talk me through this—!"

"No, no!" she sounded choked, her throat gurgling. Mac vaguely felt his heart shatter into a thousand pieces and then blow away, but it was nothing new. It'd happened before.

"MAC!" she screeched,

"Stella—!"

A gunshot pierced the air, but in two places. Over the phone, and in the New York city streets somewhere. Her scream instantly cut off, and the line went dead.

Mac's blood turned to ice, clogging his veins, his heart slowing down.

Flack had heard the shot, too, how it had reverberated through the empty air that was suddenly filled with Stella.

"Mac," Flack said wearily, patronizing his boss with absolutely terrified eyes. Mac couldn't make words come out.

"Mac," Flack said, louder this time, more clear. "What the hell is happening?!"

Just like that, Mac's legs were moving again, a blur beneath him, flying across the pavement. Adrenaline melted the ice and even though he wasn't sure where he was going, his brain knew. The world was turning in slow motion but he was flying, though there was the feeling of anxiety that he wasn't getting any closer, and she was slipping away, forever, forever, just like his Claire had years ago.

He wouldn't believe believe Stella was dead—she couldn't die, she was Stella—but he couldn't deny the uselessness he felt. All of a sudden it was September and he was running toward the fire in the sky, running toward the woman he loved, consumed in death and ash.

"Oh, God," he choked under his breath. Not another. Not again. "STELLA!"

Nearly tripping with every lunge he made, he nearly doubled his pace. Adrenaline screamed in his blood, and he couldn't hear anymore, the deafening silence was closing in on him and all around him was black and white—the world was void of color, and all he felt was her, everywhere; in the air, on his skin, burning in the back of his throat.

He reached the corner of the streets and searched wildly, his eyes flickering back and forth, gun drawn. Flack roared up behind him and skidded to a stop, panting like he'd just run a marathon.

A man jogged up next to them, first looking at Mac's gun and then the badge Flack had produced, which was now clenched in his hand awkwardly as he hacked.

"Officers? You okay?"

Mac had since reached his limit. He felt his existence pulling apart at the seams. When Claire had died, he'd had Stella. Through everything, he'd had Stella. Always. Stella was his rock, Stella was what kept him from falling apart. And where was Stella now? With a murderer. Blood on hands, blood on a counter. A scream in the night. A gunshot already forgotten by NYC.

He wouldn't admit she was dead to himself. Because she couldn't be.

"Sir?" the man asked again, touching Mac's shoulder tenderly.

The ex-marine pivoted and rammed the man into a brick wall near the alley they'd just turned from.
"What have you seen all night? Where have you been? Who killed her?" His breaths came in shallow gasps, greedily grabbing at the potent air around him. She'd been here. He knew it. But now there was nothing but an empty midnight and a puddle of blood.

"Mac!" Flack exclaimed, looking up. Quickly, he pulled his boss off of the innocent bystander, not believing what he was seeing. Mac never snapped. After Frankie, he'd been more protective of Stella, but not like this.

Don pushed Mac away, watching as the older man leaned against a streetlight post, trying to hold himself together. He didn't make eye contact with either of the other men.

"We...we were talking," he huffed, still trying to catch his breath. "I kept thinking about Claire, and how that in... everything—my nightmares, memories, thoughts, deja vu, everything—she had turned into Stella. She keeps me going, Flack," he finished, but promptly shut his mouth, realizing how extremely out of character he was being tonight. He looked at the pole, punched it once, and then stared up at the sky. There was that star again, happy, alone, glittering.

Flack shook Bystander Ted's hand and walked to Mac's side. "Mac," he said, wrapping an arm around the older man's shoulders. "Hey, listen to me. It's Stella we're talking about here. She's not going down without a fight, and she's not gonna let herself die this way. You know her. C'mon."

Mac shook his head and stared at the midnight once more before turning to Flack. "Yeah," he managed, and that was when his phone rang, a pleasant interruption.

"Tayl—"

"Mac," Danny cut him off, sighing loudly. "Do you mind tellin' us what the hell's goin' on? You run out, leavin' us with a bloody boxing champ who won't say a peep, no vic, and bloody napkins as your evidence? Sure, and then you run out with your gun and take Flack with you. Thanks for all the info, man, 'preciate it."

"Stella's gone," Mac said simply, keeping his voice as even as he could. He tried to put the fact that Stella was his best friend behind him. He was a CSI, and that was his identity as of now.

Flack slipped the phone out of his hand and walked away, scolding Danny for being such a "loud-mouth prick-ass piece of shit."

Mac put on his work face and pushed Stella out of his mind as best he could. There was a job that needed to be done if he wanted to see her again, and he would do anything, sacrifice anything, to finish that job.

a/n: Thanks for all the brilliant reviews! I really appreciate it, guys. I had a review that Mac was a tad OOC last chapter, I'm sure he was moreso in this chapter, but I'll fix that asap. This is just how I feel Mac would respond to fearing that Stella is dead – I feel like he sees her as his saving grace, the thread that keeps his seams together.

Songcred goes to the Counting Crows for their song "Round Here." Great band. :D