"We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl
Year after year, running over the same old ground
What have you found? The same old fears
Wish you were here."
When Danny placed his hands around Lindsay's waist, it felt out of place. Not because they were in the lab—they snuck PDAs like a couple of addicts in that case—but because of the situation and emotional state the entire lab was in. Confusion. Loss. Absolute helplessness.
Except for Mac. Nothing could ever launch Mac into the feeling of helplessness; there was always something to do, connections to be made, evidence to be processed, hope to be exercised. The thought of this normally would've put a smile on his face because of the knowledge that no matter how many people stopped looking, Mac always would, but he was too somber to even feel positive.
Lindsay almost shook him off, but decided against it, instead remaining awkwardly under his embrace, which turned quickly from seductive to comforting. He felt the same way too. There were few times when Lindsay and Danny weren't on the same emotional page.
He knew that she looked up to Stella. A confident, independent woman who always got the job done and fought through anything that stood in her way. Stella had always said she would never be a body at a crime scene, that she would never let it happen. And if it did, she always jokingly promised that she'd make it the toughest scene Mac would ever see in all his years on the team, leaving enough evidence but in a scattered, unlikely fashion.
Though it was only a result of her teasing, Danny swore he saw Mac fidget and begin to sweat uncomfortably at the thought of such a situation.
"Montana."
The nickname fanned over her hair in a warm breath. It had become less and less common, but Danny knew that every time he said it, she was home—home in his arms, like a golden field of wheat swaying in a lazy summer breeze, where nothing was wrong and everything was right.
Usually this euphoric feeling lasted for more than a few seconds, but today that was all the satisfaction she'd get. She turned around to face him, pressing her face into his chest and trying not to cry. Stella wouldn't cry; Stella would be strong.
But she wasn't Stella, she decided, and allowed the silent tears to escape the corners of her eyes.
Instantly, Danny pulled her closer, resting his chin on her head and running a hand through her hair. "Hey," he whispered. "Hey, hey, don't cry, alright?" His voice was thick with emotion as well, frustration and loss bundled tight with incapability. "Listen," he began, pulling her back so he could look at her. She avoided his eyes, ashamed of the warm liquid spilling from them. "Look at me, Linds, okay? Just look."
Her eyes slowly met his.
"She's gonna put up a fight. I don't think I know one person who's not scared shitless of Stella."
Lindsay was shocked into laughter, and Danny smiled genuinely for the first time in a while.
"Mac's at the top of that list. Only one person can terrify Mac, and that would be Stella. Second person on the list..." he shrugged, "prob'ly Sid."
Lindsay gave a small smile.
"That's what I like to see." He rubbed her back and pulled her back in for a hug. "I know it's tough, but you can't be thinkin' negative like that, alright?"
"You keep saying, 'It's Stella, nothing can happen to her,'" she countered softly, "but it can. Her determination could be the thing that... that gets her killed."
"But guess what?"
Lindsay looked up at him again.
"It's not gonna be."
Stella put her clothes on slowly, inching them tenderly over the bruises on her skin. Violated. She felt so, so violated, and she had no idea how to respond to it. Of course, she'd had her fair share of abusive foster parents, but never like this.
The shaking had started moments after the realization, and now it wouldn't stop—it was painful, not just a quiver but lurching by every part of her body. It took three tries to get her left leg into her pants, and five for her right.
Seth faced the other direction and tried to calm his breathing. He'd just met this cop, but he already liked her—it was clear to tell she had a good head on her shoulders. Nobody deserved what his father had done, but especially not a talented, kind-hearted cop who was taken hostage.
Very few things were keeping him from running up those stairs, beating the door with his bare hands until it broke down, and then breaking his father's neck—one was because he wanted to keep an eye on Stella, another was because he knew the door wasn't going to break no matter what he threw at it.
"Stella?" he asked tenderly, keeping his voice low.
She sniffled and said, "Yes," under her breath, so quietly that he might have imagined it. When he turned around, she was fully clothed but huddled beneath her blankets, her face void of any emotion.
"Stella?" he asked again. "Listen, I'm going to go try to—to get a phone, or something," he rattled off. She didn't move. "Just... you'll be okay, okay? Just keep your eyes open, remain calm. I'm not gonna let him do anything else to you." He took a step closer and outstretched his hand to touch her arm comfortingly.
Her eyes flashed to his and a look of horror slipped into them, and she cringed away from him. He took a step back instantly and dropped his hand to his side. Instead, he piled up the blankets he'd used at the bottom of the staircase, thinking ahead in his plan.
When he turned around, Stella's zombielike state was gone and she was cradling his sketchpad.
"I... I might've gotten it off," he admitted in a whisper. "My eyesight's going fast."
Absentmindedly she ran her hands over it, studying it. She looked up at him with a grateful look. He smiled as genuinely as he could and turned to the staircase, and began to pound on the door.
There were a few hesitant steps and then the door flew open, revealing Isaac; angry, frightening, and armed. Fearless, Seth wasted no time throwing himself at his father, knocking the man onto his back on the hardwood floors.
The gun fired once into the air, piercing a hole through the ceiling, but Seth got up and ran anyway, his thought only on one item.
Something hit the pile of blankets with a dull thud when Stella reached the tenth picture in Seth's sketchpad, and she almost screamed in terror.
The commotion upstairs had been drowned out by the peace induced from his artwork, so lifelike and beautiful, full of hope and wonder. Now she heard the gunshots and the shouts and the shattering of glass, and with this thought in mind, she hurried over to the blankets.
A house phone.
The shaking was back now. Her body lurched painfully as he heard his voice screaming upstairs, screaming her name, screaming Seth's.
A number. Any number.
She opted for the only one she could remember.
Normally, Danny would've groaned and complained, "That ringtone!" but once again, the situation didn't call for humor. He was out of place a lot lately.
He stared at Mac's phone for a second and wondered if he should answer it, but then decided not to. God only knew what would happen.
Mac apparently teleported into the room then, because Danny hadn't seen him walk through the door and there was virtually no other entrance. The phone was open and to his ear in a swift instant, his last name slipping from between his lips a millisecond after answering.
The expression on his face went from relief to anger to fright in a brief moment.
"Mac, I don't know where I am," came Stella's stressful voice into his ear, "you have to come find me, he's shooting upstairs, I don't have my gun, and..." she sounded so, so lost, something that Stella never was, no matter what weapons she did or did not have. Something had happened, Mac deduced. Something very, very bad had happened to make her snap like this.
"We're coming. Stay on the phone with me, okay? Just keep talking, just stay hidden... don't go near him, okay? If he comes near you, you need to get the hell out of there. Stella, can you hear me?"
She blubbered on and on, saying things he couldn't comprehend, as he yelled off the phone number to Danny, who quickly typed it into one of the computers to get a location.
"We got an address, a house. I'm going to call Flack—"
"We don't have time." Mac kept the phone to his ear as he stalked out of the room, Danny keeping on his heels. "She hears gunshots. Something's wrong with her. We need to get there, now."
He broke into a run and put the blinders on everything else.
Stella was alive.
Alive.
Alive.
songcred; Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd.