A/N: Love-hate? Fear-respect? Ying-yang? How can we describe Flack and Mac's relationship?

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MAC – WALL

Something is happening, this time around I feel like I'm being left alone… as alone as night…

My life would be so much easier if I could just tell you to fuck off; or if I vowed to Sinclair's wishes and became a snitch, working close to you only to make you tumble and fall. But I can't do that, not to you. Especially not to you.

It would also be easier if I didn't respect your fucking sense of duty and that obsession of yours of doing the right thing. Because I share it. Because I swore to serve and protect. Because I'd rather die or rot in jail than live or go free knowing that I allowed a wrong to go unpunished simply because I didn't do anything about it,

It would be a helluva lot simpler if I didn't feel like I owed you my own frigging life. Not that you remind me of it. Not that you've asked for my loyalty or my silence in payment. Not that you've used that knowledge as a bargain chip when things come up between you and me. But I still feel that gratitude and I'd certainly think twice before doing anything to upset that delicate balance we've established.

I KNOW I don't owe you, God knows I'd tried to do the same for you have our roles be reversed. Lucky thing was that they weren't, cause between you and me, you're a better "tailor" that I'd ever dream of being. I'd probably stuck my hands in there and kept them there until help arrived, not once considering there were better ways of stopping your bleeding. And if you had died… I'd kept the rest of my life the image of my hands covered in your blood… in more ways than one.

Damn it, Mac, you're more my father than my own flesh and blood, and just like the original DNA donor, dealing with you is like pounding on a wall… useless and painful most of the times. I say "go", you say "wait"; I go with my gut (as scarred as it is) you go with your evidence (as flaky as it sometimes feels); I want to do things my way, you want me to learn that your way is better. Pops was never as keen on this side of my education as you are.

The worst part is, most of the times I agree with you. Problem is, it's always the fucking circumstances that have us sitting on different sides of the same fence, over and over again. Call it Truby, Dobson, the pigeon kid, Aiden, Danny, Stella, the Irish mob… you push, I pull and we never stop for a second to realize we both want to get to the same place, eventually. We just choose different paths.

You have your science, I have my gut, and never the twain shall meet. You have your army training, I have my street upbringing, and we both see things in black and white, except we never seem to agree on which shade to stand. The wall stands between us, immovable as time and crime itself.

Some of those bricks were put in there by those around us; those who fall with us because they love us and those who'd love to see us fall.

Some of the bricks have been put there by the circumstances, the ones we created and the ones we stumbled on; the ones we support and the ones we bear simply because we have no other choice. Circumstances, situations, locations… solved or saved, all of them are there, each and every one of them.

And then there are the bricks that we've put them ourselves. Your losses and mine, your beliefs, the ones I share and those I disregard without much thought; your laughter and my tears, your pain and my smiles. The people we love and the ones we'd be willing to die for.

Heavy bricks, light bricks, bricks full of joy and bricks full of sorrow… bricks filled with a sense of duty and bricks mortared with a sense of obligation. All out story is in those bricks, in that wall. And maybe it's a good thing that the wall is there, cause it gives silent testimony of just who, exactly, you and I are. A wall that surrounds us and everything we stand for, right or wrong.

Too bad it's the same wall that sometimes stands between us!

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"Muro" by Carlos Varela is a song that deals mostly with doing what you have to do and bearing the loneliness that derives from it… fitting, huh?