1"swish, swish, swish." that was the only sound that echoed in the room. The steady sound of the life support machine was all I could hear. As I looked around I found Mac sitting in a chair with his head cocked to one side, sound asleep. When I shifted my frame to get more comfortable his head shot up, his eyes darted around the room until they came to rest on me.
He smiled. "Stell, don't try to talk, I'll get the nurse." I nodded and he left in search of my nurse. He appeared shortly after with a young brunette woman. She said her name was Claire and had been my nurse for the past two weeks. I wasn't really paying attention to her, all of my attention was focused on the other person in the room, Detective Mac Taylor. This man had just saved my life and had slowly been stealing my heart.
Claire told me that I had severely fractured my left wrist, had sustained minor whiplash, and had a lower back injury. They put me in a drug induced coma to help the spinal cord injury, so I wouldn't be moving. She told me that it was critical that I moved as little as possible. I looked over at Mac and said, "I guess that means that I won't be going back to work for a while." He laughed and said, "Absolutely not Stella."
Claire left and Mac just stood there watching me. It was a comfortable silence until I spoke up, "Mac, I know you are really busy, you don't need to stay with me, I'll be fine."
"Stella. I know you will be fine, I need to be here for me." Mac paused and took a deep breath. "Stell I have no idea what I would do if something happened to you. I just hope I'm not too late in telling you this, but Stell, I love you." Mac was staring deep into my eyes as I was staring deep into his.
"I know Mac. I've waited so long for you to say that. I love you too." I smiled at him as he made his way over to my bed. Then our lips met in a long awaited kiss. As we broke apart I could hear the heart monitor beeping uncontrollably. Mac looked into my eyes, smiled and said, "Easy there, Stell." I laughed as Claire came back into make sure that everything was alright.
Soon after Claire came into check on me I heard a commotion out in the hall. "Come on, let us go see her." I laughed. The whole gang was here and I am sure that the nurses were having a fit trying to tell them that they couldn't all go in at once. Then Danny pulled the "We are cops and are working on an ongoing investigation and if you would like to stop us, we can have you arrested for failure to cooperate with law enforcement" act. Mac went out and told the nurses that I was up to company and they would only stay for a few minutes.
The gang rushed in consisting of Hawkes, Flack, Lindsay and Danny, and of course Mac. Lindsay came over to my side and nearly squashed me in a hug. Everyone else did the same thing. Except Mac. He was content to just watch the whole scene. I kept my eyes on him for most of the time until I heard Danny say my name, "Stell. What is up with you? You seem like ya in a trance or something." I replied while looking at Mac and grinning, "Oh, it's nothing Danny, don't worry about me."
Lindsay was smiling and grinning and I caught this and said, "Linds, what are you so happy about?" She looked from me to Mac and then said, "Well, you are laying in a hospital bed and I haven't seen you this happy in a long time. And well, Detective Taylor over there has the same goofy grin slapped on his face. So I'm thinking something happened before we arrived. Am I right?"
Mac blushed and I'm pretty sure I did too. Lindsay broke out into a huge grin and said, "I knew it." Danny just laughed and said, "It's about freakin' time you made a move Mac." Everyone laughed, including me and then I felt a sharp pain in my lower back as I sucked in a painful breath the entire room seemed to spin and I fell back against my pillow with a thud. Everything went quiet in the room and I faintly heard Mac say, "Hawkes go get her nurse. Everyone else out. I'll keep you posted."