Well, finally... Here we are, with the following chapter. I did it with the invaluable assistance of Lily Moonlight (she has a "touch" that make the text looking much better), and now I think I could continue posting regularly.

Thank you all for your patience.

I Can't Say Goodbye

Chapter 2

Mac looked at the clock on his bedside table. It was too early, even for him. But he knew he would not get to sleep again, so he got up. He went to the kitchen and made coffee. He couldn't stop thinking about the dream he had had, which showed his most hidden fears. What if Stella was ever seriously injured in a mission? And what if she died, just like Aiden, or Jessica? He couldn't stand it, he could not. In addition, Stella seemed to do nothing to avert danger. Their discussion of the previous day had begun just because of that.

In the morning, going to a crime scene, Stella had seen a robber running away from a store. Without thinking twice, without calling for reinforcements, she had left the car and had followed him to the alley where the offender had fled. He had stopped, turned, and he had fired at her. He had shot at her! He could have had better aim, he could have reached her, and a scene like in his dream would have been real... Stella had also fired at him, hitting him in the leg, which prevented him from running. Finding himself wounded, the robber had thrown the gun and she had handcuffed him and taken him to hospital, and after that to the police station. In the store, the robber had beaten the owner with the gun, but his wound wasn't serious. The man had thanked Stella profusely for having taken that rat off the streets.

But Mac had thrown the book at her. For failing to report before acting, for not calling in reinforcements and for exposing herself to a real hazard, since she had been fired at. Mac hadn't found funny the joke she had made; "But I saw the bullet coming and I'm faster, I stepped out of its way..." quite the contrary. She wasn't yet aware of the danger she had faced and she wasn't even a bit sorry.

"Don't you realize that though the end of this story has been a criminal arrested and a cop complimented by the victim, it could easily have been a murderer fled and a cop dead in an alley?"

By that time, Mac was yelling, completely altered by the thought that she could have been hurt...

"You're irresponsible! That's not the way this job has to be done!"

And so it had all begun...

Mac sat on his sofa in the dimness of this Friday dawn, a day that should be sunny and happy. Stella's birthday, he suddenly remembered. On the terms that they had finished last night, Mac had no idea what to do for her to forgive him, and for them to celebrate her birthday as they used to do in recent years, first taking a drink with the team and afterwards having dinner together. He did not think Stella really wanted to have dinner with him right now.

Stella also rose. She had put the papers into the envelope again, and tried to go back to sleep, but it was impossible. She went to the kitchen and started to make coffee. The calendar on the wall showed her a red circle drawn around the day, with rays coming out in all directions… She smiled, despite herself. Every New Year, when she hung the brand new calendar, the first thing she did was highlight her birthday. Throughout her childhood in the orphanage, her birthday was the only day in which she felt she was someone special, the only day that she was the subject of everyone's attention, receiving all the congratulations. It was the day that the cooks concocted a humble pie on which was written her name. Stella. Her name written in a thin chocolate thread was the height of her childhood happiness, and the excitement about celebrating that day had endured over time.

When she became a CSI, the celebration was soon done with her colleagues, going out for drinks after the turn. For several years, to the celebration had been added a more private dinner with her best friend, her boss, Mac Taylor. But this year... this year nobody was in the mood for celebrations. Since Angell's death, things were strained between them. Don wasn't the same, and it seemed he wasn't going to be anymore. Those clear eyes he had always had, no longer showed that childish and mischievous look, and had become elusive, without the cheerful spark that had always characterized them. His silly jokes and humorous comments had virtually disappeared. It was as if he had suddenly grown up, or worse, he had got old. It was like Mac himself after Claire's death, Stella remembered. Or worse, because Mac had never been so open either before his wife death, so the change was not so noticeable. Stella sincerely hoped that Don would soon find someone to be able to start a new story with, he couldn't be alone forever. Or maybe yes, she said to herself, tilting her head to and fro, if he followed Mac's example.

She didn't understand Mac, she actually understood him less and less. When she thought they were closer, afterGreece, after solving the case of Angell's death, when they should have taken the definitive step in their relationship, he retreated, he seemed to take shelter again in his usual coolness... Stella didn't care, she decided to give him a margin, not to put pressure on him... And suddenly, he was dating Aubrey. Aubrey! A girl he had met by chance and had suddenly become a great friend... Stella was disconcerted. He had never been intimate with anyone, and much less in so little time. Aubrey was a lovely woman, sure, but it hurt Stella's heart to see the growing closeness between them, something she had worked so hard to get. It seemed as if all these years Stella had been working to turn Mac into a man able to be happy again with a woman, and suddenly that woman wouldn't be her. And she didn't feel able to contemplate that, of course not. What's more, Peyton's sudden reappearance had come to further complicate things when Mac was more vulnerable, after nearly losing his life in a fall from two stories that could have killed him. With his broken wrist, needing help, Stella had felt again useful for Mac... but his home had become a parade of women. Aubrey as a friend and doctor... Mac didn't seem to consider her something different, or if he did he didn't say it to Stella. And Peyton... Stella didn't fully understand the return of Peyton and her intentions around Mac, however, he seemed to make it clear he wasn't interested in anything special with her again. All that was the past, Stella thought. She still remembered the day Mac had received that devastating letter in which Peyton broke up with him... She had done much, much damage. That day, she appeared at the club where he played, he had looked from the small stage and had smiled, sadly. At least, he knew that Stella was there for him... And then the whole thing Shane Casey had come to destroy the tenuous balance in which all of them seemed to be. The dramatic end at the lighthouse, without finding the murderer's body, and his reappearance at the Messer's home...

Lindsay was still trying to overcome the terrible nightmares believing her daughter in danger. The last normal and friendly conversation between Stella and Mac had been precisely about that, Mac insisted that theirs was not a good profession to raise a family, let alone being the two partners in the Police. They could never be sure to see their children grown, if not even put them in danger. What had happened, a murderer so close to his little goddaughter Lucy Messer, had put even more doubt in Mac about their ability to raise a family.

But the evening before, Mac had been angry with her because of the incident in the morning, and the discussion had taken an unexpected turn, personal. Mac had finished saying things that had apparently been stored in his heart for years. Stella never believed he could bear a grudge, but his words had almost convinced her about it, or he would not have said some of the hurtful things he had said.

All that because, in principle, he was terrified that something bad could have happened during the arrest of the robber. She had wanted to downplay the issue joking, and that had ended up driving him mad. When she had left Mac's office, trying to hold back tears, she had seen the expressions of astonishment on the faces of her colleagues, who, although they had not heard the content of the discussion, had witnessed the brawl through the glass walls. Mac had become red with anger, accusing her, they had seen him smash the folders on his desk in anger... They just had a similar confrontation when, immersed in the Diakos case, Stella had ignored Mac's express orders and she had followed on her own... and then the discussion was over with Stella's resignation and her badge left on Mac's table.

Yesterday, she just had gone. The shift was not over, but Stella had collected her purse and keys and gone home. Her colleagues had seen Mac sitting, elbows on the table and his head between his hands. He remained this way for several long minutes, no one daring interrupt him in his thoughts, depression, remorse or whatever was happening to him at that moment. After half an hour, he also had left without saying goodbye, without even looking at anyone.

On his couch, finishing his second cup of coffee, Mac remembered what had been said the previous evening, word by word. How had he been able to say those things? What fear, what anger, spite, jealousy... what? He thought again. Jealousy? Reactive jealousy? Maybe yes.

He didn't know. He really couldn't understand what the hell had led him to talk that way to his best friend, his confidant, his angel, the woman who had always been there for him, the woman he… loved?