Thanks to Lily Moonlight for her help with the translation, she is a really good teacher.

I Can't Say Goodbye

Chapter 3

Stella decided to take a shower; she didn't know what else to do while the time seemed to have stopped this morning. She ran water over her hair, her face, trying not to think, not to remember... but it was impossible.

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

What Mac had said had hurt, he had hurt her badly, because she, Stella Bonasera, was very good at her job. It was the only thing she really did well in life. If Mac said now that she wasn't good enough at work, what was left? She could not contain herself, he had offended her badly.

"I'll tell you one thing, Mac Taylor ... If there's one thing I can do well, maybe the only thing I do well, it's my job. I'm a cop, Mac, before being a CSI I was a cop, and I may stop being a CSI, but I'll never stop being a cop. I was trained for that, I fought for it and I learned to solve situations by putting service to other people before my own convenience. I can deal with danger to avoid being harmed and I know how to handle it, I learned to make decisions in milliseconds, to have the reflexes to predict what an offender can do and to avoid fatal consequences. So do not tell me I cannot do my job! "

"But there are some protocols that are made to be followed! An agent being alone should report before acting!"

"And give the bad guy time to escape while I report my position?"

"The rules have been established for a reason, and they must be obeyed!"

She took a deep breath before speaking again, angrily.

"Mac Taylor, Mr. Rules-to-follow, I'm sick of you and your rules, rules at work, rules of life! You're not a man, you're a walking manual! I'll tell you more: It's you here who isn't a cop, you're a Marine, and you've never ceased to be one. You live your life like you're at war, you never allow yourself to get out of your strict code of ethics, based on rigid principles which are as outdated as you are..."

At that point, Mac had turned red with anger, and had thrown on the table the folders he held in his hands. Some of them had bounced and fallen to the ground, scattering their contents. He had also kicked one of them.

"So I'm obsolete?" he had asked

"Yes, you are. You live like a monk, nothing and nobody seems to bother you. You don't let anyone love you or be close to you... Well, unless you meet a stranger, who knows where, and suddenly you feel you can trust her more than anyone in the world..."

"You're contradicting yourself, Stella ... And if you're talking about Aubrey, keep her out of this. So you think there's something wrong with me because nothing affects me, but if I find someone I start to get attached to, that's not good either?"

"No, it isn't good. It isn't natural that the people who are always here for you haven't any clue about what goes through your head, and then someone who doesn't have any right becomes your confidant."

"What exactly do you mean?" he demanded.

"I'm talking about years of being at your side, waiting for you to be the friend you were supposed to be. I'm talking about being someone who listens to your confidences and trusts you with his problems, and not the one who saves all his demons and lets you out of his life. I'm talking about being there for you and getting nothing in return, not even a little intimate sincerity. To deal with you is like navigating in a fog, and, frankly, I'm tired of it."

He stares at her for a little while before he answers her.

"What are you worried about, then? I don't think that all these years you have only been there for me... although I would have liked it and I really wanted it. But I can name you several other "friends" who apparently were not as reserved as me and they got very close to you. They were apparently very "sincere" and you were very good to class them as such... Or not, given the results. All that training and skills of yours almost cost your life, and nearly mine, thanks to your overconfidence in men who were so open and honest... Such as Frankie, for example, or Drew and most of the undesirable guys that have visited your bed "

Stella was speechless; unable to believe what she had heard.

"How... how dare you?" The words could hardly get out of her throat. "What the hell did you think? That I was going to stay chaste and pure until you decided yourself? On the day of your retirement, perhaps? Because, of course, a relationship further than friendship in our job situation is against the rules... "

"I didn't feel you encouraged me in that way, Stella. When your apartment burned down, I offered you my house. And you didn't accept. The excuse of snoring? That was almost insulting. I really thought you didn't want anything with me. And even after returning fromGreece, when I finally thought we had a chance of something more..." He paused thoughtfully.

"I thought so too, Mac, but then it came the shooting, and Angell's death... and you became like ice"

"And you don't, of course. Just the opposite. You became so hot you take the first man who passed in front of you to bed... And all that after telling me that you were "The woman in my life." How was I supposed to interpret that?"

Stella had looked at him, becoming pale. Mac knew it, he knew about Adam... He had continued.

"But then, who am I to speak... Mr. Rules, Mr. Do-not-involve-yourself-with-a-subordinate, Mr... Mr. No-one for you, like you showed me. You didn't care you were risking your career, or Adam's... For God's sake, Stella... Adam! What were you thinking?"

"What was I thinking? You're asking me what was I thinking?" Stella took a deep breath. She no longer cared about anything. After that, really nothing could be worse. So, what the hell... She would tell it him straight and probably for the last time. "I'll tell you, Mac, I'll tell you what I was thinking. I was thinking the same thing I've thought about the last ten years whenever I slept with a man... I was thinking about you and how it would be if it were you who was with me, above me, inside me. That's what I was thinking, you idiot! "

Red with rage, Stella had approached the door and stormed out, leaving him as flustered, confused, angry and bewildered as she was.

The water flowing over her now was getting cold and that made her react and get out of the shower. She sighed as she started to dry herself. There was no possible solution. It was the best to leave. Her time with Mac was over; if they ever had an opportunity it had been missed and the chance would not come twice. Today, her thirty-fifth birthday, was going to be the start of the third part of her life. An excellent job in a new country, new people to meet, the opportunity to start something from scratch and try to do it better. Today she would speak to Sinclair; ask him to arrange for her being transferred, and she did not expect any resistance on his part, when he saw where the request for her services came from.

Mac also had showered, shaved and dressed... and it wasn't yet six in the morning. He decided to leave and take the car, leave it in the Laboratory parking, go for a walk and find a place to eat breakfast, perhaps with a view of the Park. He would read the newspaper and gather strength to face this Friday, after what Stella had said the day before. The last look in her eyes had made him fear the worst; that she was never going to forgive him. And she was right, he had called her more or less a libertine, a whore... And her last words, admitting that when she was with another man, she thought of him... She could only say that in the heat of the argument, and Mac was sure that it would be killing her, to have told him that and that he now knew it... How little Stella knew that with a minimum change of place of a noun, an adverb and two pronouns, he could have spoken the same paragraph too.

"... I was thinking the same thing I thought about the last ten years when I slept with a woman... I was thinking about you and how it would be if it were you who was with me, below me, I inside you..."

He could not imagine how it would be to see each other today. He could not know how they would behave... the very day of her birthday, when they had agreed that all the team would go for a drink to celebrate at the end of the shift. How the atmosphere would be... His co-workers had been semi-silent witnesses in the distance to what had happened, and by the faces he had seen obliquely when he left the lab, he realized that everyone had noticed the scope of the argument, more serious than any other so far.