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Notes Chapter 25: THANK YOU for all previous reviews! Hope you enjoy this chapter. Please continue reviewing - I love to know what you think - welcome at any time, for any chapter, and always replied to if logged.

Thank you Fat Kat, Shadow Fox and Juliette for your reviews, sorry I couldn't send a proper review reply. Thanks to iluvCSI4ever and Blue Shadowdancer for discussion, confidence boosting and reading; to chrysalis escapist for more thoughts on the story; marialisa for idea bouncing; Confused Knight for compliments; and anyone who's gently poked me to update. Sorry this is late.

Lost Letters: Chapter 25

30th July

… It was his fault, really. I know it seems like I'm just saying that, but honestly, how was I supposed to react when Joe tells me he's gone and spent twenty dollars on lotto tickets? I mean, that was twenty dollars we could have saved for our apartment fund. I guess he just didn't think about us though and our future. And he wouldn't tell me either if he'd even won a few bucks back. I guess maybe our future isn't as important to him as I thought. So I got mad with him…

………………………………...

"Where was it?" Stella asked as she withdrew her hand, taking her badge and laying it next to her. Mac heard trepidation overridden by curiosity, "Did I have it on me?"

He hesitated, and realised it was concern for the memories it would disturb for him, still not laid to rest. Telling her about the hours in the deepening twilight and then the moonlit wasteland; the culmination of hours more of the day they had searched for her, not knowing how they would find her; telling her about that was almost too difficult.

And the moment they had found her; too late, gone beyond into the realms of shadows as he had thought… it still filled his waking mind with sable shivers of horror; led him to a necropolis of dust-stained blood and ruined buildings and left him choking for breath amongst its nightmares.

Her badge had been all he had to hold onto when the burned cadaver of the car destroyed nearly the last fragment of hope and humanity inside him. Don in the dusk moving towards him; Lindsay beside him. Mac remembered every second as they let go and he held on. But he had found the badge, such an integral part of who Stella was, and shut down everything inside him to hold on and believe that it meant she was still alive. It had proved him right. But what haunted Mac and worried at him like teeth on the back of his neck was that if he had not seen the black and gold object amongst the kicked-up dust then the present would be very different.

He would not be sitting where he was, talking to the person he was. He did not know where he would be.

She was waiting for him, a softer look in her eyes, "Look, I'm guessing this might be tough for you as I know I wasn't in the best shape when you found me, but I still want to know, even - even if the details aren't pretty. And you got to remember, I'm still here to ask you, okay?"

"I know you are."

For a second he was there again, kneeling on the broken floor with Stella lying in front of him; too much of her blood lying around her; almost too little left to find the life that was ebbing away.

A small crook of her head raised the ghost of a smile from him, and banished a few spectres.

"Yeah, well, just reminding you, Mac. I am still here."

The reminder of her presence was needed, but he did not tell her that. Even though he was talking with Stella, not without her.

"I found it by the car. That was how I knew you'd got out." The words scraped from his throat.

"Must've got knocked off my belt, when I was dragged away from it." Resentment twisted her face, "When I couldn't even get myself away from a burning car. That really pisses me off…"

The membrane holding back the fear and the fury at all that had happened was ripped unexpectedly by her words, and he turned to Stella with his face crunched up in anger, "So you'd rather have been left to die, is that it? Because given a choice between your pride and your life Stella, I know which one I'd choose!"

Her eyes widened and glittered, "You think this is just about my pride? Because if so, you're seriously mistaken!" She moved herself round so they were face to face, eyes meeting and sparking, "Yeah, it's a part of it, I can't deny that, but it's not just pride." Clenching her hands, she looked away for a moment, and then snapped back round to him, "Don't you get it? I've had nearly everything taken from me since that scene; nearly everything that's important to me! Not least that I'm struggling to do the most basic things for myself here. Do you know how often I've gone back over what happened? Right from the start, when I couldn't stop them from taking our evidence for the case…"

"As I said to Angell, given a choice between evidence and my team, I choose my team every time."

"What else was I supposed to have done? Sat back and just let them take everything?"

There was no simple answer, "I don't know…"

"If you think I acted recklessly, then tell me, Mac."

"I don't think you acted recklessly. You did what anyone would have done and more in the circumstances, you have nothing to blame yourself for, Stella."

"Neither have you."

"I could have got to the car sooner, and stopped them."

The hurricane was not blown over yet.

Stella's voice raised, "Not the point, Mac! I should have been able to defend myself. I tried to, I tried damn hard, but I couldn't get my piece out in time and stop myself getting shot, and then… then I failed again when they set the car on fire and someone else risked their life to save mine…"

She crumpled a little, and it crushed Mac's heart. It hurt to hear her say that. Because it brought his own failures back to throttle him.

"You didn't fail, Stella, and that's the end of it. You've risked your own life more than enough times for others; and don't tell me you've forgotten what happened yesterday; you saved yourself, and by all accounts me as well. Don't tell me that's failing."

Still sitting at an angle, facing him, Stella's face was flushed and her hands were agitated, "Maybe, but I still failed to defend myself at the scene! No one else should have to do that for me, and you know what else? I don't want, and I know Danny sure as hell won't want, either you or Flack or anyone out there being a knight in shining armour, putting yourselves in danger to get this guy!"

Mac let her frustration buffet him, and it blew away some of the shrouding from him. A ray of sunlight cut across his eyes, threading gleams through the room, "Clearly you don't, either of you, and that's not what this is about, as I know you know! This is about bringing a killer to justice, and a man who seriously injured two of my CSIs. So you're going to have to allow a little personal feeling in there too."

"You shouldn't even have to be here, Mac…"

"We've been through this. You shouldn't have to be here, Danny shouldn't have to be here, but you are, so I need to make sure you're both able to get out of here safely as soon as possible."

"Damn straight! I don't intend to be here any second longer than I have to." Stella suddenly deflated and Mac frowned; she was speaking again before he could ask her if she was all right. But he knew what she would say anyway, "I'm sorry, Mac, but being confined to bed, to this room, you know, it's… it's hard. And you're the only person I can take it out on." A wry smile appeared for a moment, "Guess you're sick of the sight of me by now, huh? No one could say you haven't seen my bad sides."

"I seem to remember you saying something to me a while ago along the lines of it's what partners do…"

"We take care of each other, I know, I remember." She answered, "I just… I don't know, I just don't want you to think I can't take care of myself, you know?"

"I've never doubted that, Stella."

Mac let a small smile lift his features. Even in circumstances such as these, arguing with an angry Stella rescued some of his heart that felt buried under an iron-bound sea; a rip-curl of life dragging him back into something like normality. The very fact that she was throwing words back at him meant she was also regaining her own normality and strength.

"So I have my badge…" The pause communicated eloquently as Stella wrapped her hands around her knees, the object in question between her fingers.

"And you want your piece as well." Mac finished, having taken a leap to where the logic of their earlier conversation was leading. He pulled his shirt sleeves up and folded his arms across his chest.

It took a moment of fiddling with the badge before she answered, "Yeah. Not having it, even here, doesn't feel right. I'd feel happier knowing I'd got it to hand."

Part of him agreed with her, swayed by the conviction she had herself, but another part doubted, "I don't know if it's…"

"It is a good idea, Mac! I don't want to have to find myself in the same situation as before. And besides…" Her face cracked into a smile, "I already smashed the vase, and no one's replaced it, so…"

He still hesitated, and she pressed her argument home, gesturing to the side, "Come on, Mac. You know I'm right. I can keep it in the side table. It's at the lab, you can bring it, surely it's about time you took yourself out into the fresh air?"

A muscle cramped in Mac's leg, provoking a twitch in his face; he jogged his knee, "The lab can run without me there, and I've taken a few walks."

Stella raised her eyebrows, "I don't recall you doing that."

"You were asleep."

"Right." Her disbelief was plain.

Silence fell as Stella's face slipped into thoughtfulness again, and Mac let his mind rest for a moment in thoughts of the future he had scarcely dared hope existed so few days ago.

For Danny though, the future was still not secure; he had heard no more news on his condition since yesterday and thoughts of the worst came slithering into his mind too easily. Still gravely ill; he could slip away; one brave, one foolhardy action, and then one evil, calculated action and his life was hanging by a wisp of threadlace.

"Where'd you find my piece?" Stella broke into the darkroom he was starting to wall himself up in again. A slight smile on her lips, "Tell me if it's enough already with the questions."

"I'll answer whatever questions I can, Stella."

And he would. Not least for the very fact that she was asking them of him.

"It was by the car as well?"

Mac ran his hands over his knees, and pressed his back into the chair. The ill-designed back dug a hard edge into his muscles. Into a groove he was certain would be permanently left in his skin.

"Mac?" Stella was looking carefully at him.

"No, it wasn't, it was still in your holster. I took charge of it on the ride over here, and sent it to the lab for any prints or trace…"

"Which there wasn't, otherwise you'd've told me, right?" Stella nodded as he did in confirmation.

Silence stole over them.

To Stella, Mac added nothing more of the memory of the ride to the hospital with her which had writhed up again from the deeps. Or everything before that.

He had only strobe flashes of the end of the night, no narrative memory; jerking images that played from the warehouse: sending Angell disappearing into the darkness with her radio pressed to her mouth; the instructions to her forgotten now, something about time, no time to wait; Lindsay hovering and afraid, as he lifted Stella's limp body off the floor, feeling her so cold against him; Zee a shadow, locked into fear; remnants of light beyond his reach from Lindsay's flashlight as she hurried ahead; and himself not letting anything else into his mind other than that he was not going to let his dearest friend die in his arms…

Stella sat beside him and her eyes dropped to the badge in her fingers as she turned it back and forth.

Seized by memory though, Mac found the present overlaid by the past, double imaged. Watching his terror play again in the building which seemed to snake and warp and distend in his desperate haste; losing the faint sound of Stella's breathing till all he could hear were his footsteps. Two people, only one sound.

Don't die on me, please don't die on me…

They had made it outside; dazzled by the sudden lights and the rush of the crowd; feeling only then the chilling wet of blood soaked through a thin shirt; The first face towards them; words that he could not remember spilling from Flack's mouth as he grabbed Stella's hand and let it slip away; then his face vanished.

Mac had not stopped moving, had not let go of her until they were inside the ambulance and indistinct faces, no memory of their features now, had guided him and taken the charge of her life, coaxing it to stay. He did not remember the moment when it happened, only that her belt and holster were in his hands, and at some point on the journey one of the paramedics must have passed them to him. The blood on them transferred to his hands, adding to too much already there.

The picture stuttered again, a deteriorating film reel: Stella; still; still alive; a crowd of faces pressing around her; into the hospital they had still not left; hurrying, hurrying along, until he was stopped. And then she was gone as they took her away and he was left only with objects and blood, cold in his shaking hands.

But, the present; she was still here. A vital presence.

Green eyes looked into his at an equal level, a smile dappling their depths, "What are you thinking, Mac? I can almost hear your mind racing."

Mac looked at his hands. No trace left. They were steady.

He wanted to tell Stella; there was no one else who he could tell about the fears and memories that had burrowed a residence in him. Only he could not tell her; not yet. Stretching his torso, he rested his hands palm down on the arms of the chair and shook himself free from the past, for the time being, "I was thinking about your piece, that's all."

Her lips quirked, "I was thinking the same; when I'm going to have it returned…"

His cell interrupted. Flack. Stella caught his eye as she read the name on the screen he held in sight of her.

"Updates. Maybe." She said quietly.

"Let's hope so. Taylor…"

They both heard the brief conversation; it only took a few words. They had their suspect.

There was silence. Too much feeling for words. Now the moment they all wanted was actually arrived, Mac was bled dry of what to feel. His mouth and lips were arid and speechless. They had him…

Stella broke the silence.

"You know where you need to be."

It was a razor wire decision, "Stella…"

She had already decided, "In the interrogation room, not here. I'm resigned to the fact I've zero chance of being there, which is why you are going to get your ass down to the precinct in both our places."

"I'm not…"

"You're not leaving me here alone, there are two uniforms outside the door. I'm a big girl, Mac. I told you before, I don't need babysitting."

They were deadlocked. Mac sat himself up in the chair, hating himself for doing so, but raising his eyelevel just above Stella's as his only defence, "You were only saying before you didn't feel right without your piece."

It was a feeble argument, and she batted it back without blinking, "Then bring it back with you. Or ask Sid to bring it, he said he was going to visit today."

He hesitated, and brought his hand to his own holster, "I could…"

"I don't want yours."

The battle was already won. Mac stood up and looked in resignation at his partner, "I'll get your piece to you, and I promise you'll have a transcript of the interview if I can manage it, if that's what you want."

She nodded and sat back with a sigh, "Thanks."

"Are you okay?" Mac looked sharply at her: not as much as it could have, but the force of their discussion had taken its toll; the earlier colour in Stella's face seemed wrung out of her now, "Maybe you should rest…"

"Not much else to do here is there?" She grumbled, and reassured him at the same time, "You better go…" Her eyes flashed at him even as she sank down a little into the pillows, "Take care of yourself, Mac."

"Of course."

"Make sure you do."

He gave her fingers a light touch; suddenly, and irrationally apprehensive. Stella watched him as he left the room, and he took the memory as he closed the door and walked back into the world, and whatever waited for him.

………………………………...

Three cups of coffee cooled as Lindsay, Adam and Hawkes laboured at their task of sifting through the packets of Mrs Adams's letters.

Adam undid another faded ribbon and flipped through a bundle, "Still the same name, same address. All seems consistent."

"Seems." Lindsay frowned, "So far. We still got another box to go."

The afternoon had worn on without them realising; all of them becoming absorbed into other lives, unfolded and exposed before them in sheets of paper and silk ribbons; scented with damask rose and old lilacs. Love letters. Spread out now on a layout table in the most modern and romance devoid surroundings.

Reading the words written in a confident hand, blue ink throughout on an assortment of pastel shaded paper, Adam had felt at points a voyeur. His skin had prickled, glimpsing intimate, raw moments; and more than once his voice had dropped to a gruff few syllables and he had rubbed his fingers in the corners of his eyes reading of the things of human calamity in every day lives. Unique lives. Small to some, insignificant to others; but he felt them and sorrowed and celebrated as he read them.

Days of triumphs. Days of tragedies.

Laying down carefully the paper in his hand, Adam looked at his companions and their drooping eyelids, "You guys want some more coffee?"

Grateful faces responded; then Lindsay's cell buzzed. Adam lingered whilst she answered it, wanting to make sure he got her order right, and so he was able to see the joy that transformed her when she finally lowered the phone.

She turned to both of them, eyes shimmering, "That was… that was Danny's mom, from - from the hospital… she said… she said… there's someone who's - who's wanting to see me… Danny; he's awake! Danny's awake!"

Days of triumph…

I hope that was okay, not much action, but I wanted some character time and a pause before upcoming drama :D Please review, please let me know what you think. Thank you, Lily x