Chapter 6: The Confessions

"And as we lie beneath the stars

We realize how small we are

If they could love like you and me

Imagine what the world could be"

"Open the door, Stella; I know you're in there," Mac pounds on her door for the fourth time.

Finally she opens the door. "What do you want? I was trying to sleep."

"We caught the guy who shot all the kids."

"So?"

"Just thought you'd want to know."

Stella starts to close the door but his foot stops her. "What now?"

"You look… you look beautiful when you're mad," he says nervously.

She frowns, "Since when do you notice how I look?"

"Since I first met you."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Because I want you to know that I love you."

"But what about your rule about relationships between coworkers?"

"I already broke it with Peyton."

She hesitates, "What if we ruin our friendship?"

"There's nothing to be scared about, Stel."

"I'm not scared."

He steps all the way in and closes the door. "I won't hurt you."

"But it's impossible to love and not get hurt," she takes her eyes from his blue ones.

"And I think both of us have already been hurt enough by love. Only so much can go wrong before something good happens," he takes her hand in his.

"What would you do if I don't love you back?"

"I know you do."

She guides him to the couch, and they sit down. "Why are you telling me this now?"

"Because I wanted to see you again. I miss not having you at work. It just kind of came out when you tried to close the door; I needed some way to get you to open it."

"But you do really love me?"

"Yes."

"And what have you done about Mitchell?"

"Um… not much."

"Get out," she says calmly, taking her hand away from him.

"What?"

"Just get out, Mac." Stella opens the door for him. "Now."

"Stella, we don't have enough evidence."

"Yes, we do. And if we don't get him away from her, he's not going to live long. He probably got beaten for almost telling me."

"We aren't going to do anything. You're off the case and suspended. I'll have child services look into it," he promises.

"Thanks," she closes the door. "You don't have to go unless you want to."

Mac studies her for a few minutes, "Were you abused… as a child?"

"What would make you think that?"

"Just a guess," he shrugs.

"Yes," she says slowly. "Foster parents don't really care about the children they take in, just the money they get that's supposed to be to help cover the costs of the children. I was pushed down many flights of stairs, locked in closets for days, a lot of other things."

He hugs her, assuring her he'll never hurt her. "I'll keep you safe from now on."

"Mac?"

"Yes?"

"I love you too," she kisses the corner of his mouth.

A/N: So he fixed it afterall. Or did he? Really sad in the next chapter, just so you know. So school's okay. Spanish is like the same, except I don't really know the people in my class because most of them are juniors or I'm not friends with any of the sophmores. Then I don't know anybody really in history; well, I know them, I just don't talk to them really. Pre-calculus... I have a couple friends in that class, but when do you do partner work in math? One friend in gym. There's at least four or five people in English I'm friends with; the teacher went on and on about all these books we're going to read and how we have to read like thirty pages a night, but she couldn't remember half the titles. We had our test on Huck Finn today, which reminds me, I should go look at my grades, not that there's anything up. Lunch is okay. Chemistry I think is my favorite; except when I first walked into the room, I thought I was in the wrong room because they were all like juniors. I just finished my collage for that class; I have a rubber duck and balloons and food and plastic and a microscope and lots more. The things somehow had to relate to chemistry in our life. And then there's band. It was awful today because we went outside and it's like a million degrees. Actually, the whole school if awful; the only room I'm in that's air conditioned is the band room, but most the time we go out. Chemistry might be air conditioned too; I'm not sure. So... I guess I'll update Saturday. We have our first football game tomorrow. God, I hope it's really, really cold. Please review.