Stella has to blink several times to get her eyes used to the light that is beaming in through the window. Slightly groggy; she rubs her eyes, then stretches her arms out in front of her. The air is cold and she reaches down for her blanket to pull it up to her neck. As she pulls on the fabric, she realizes she has no blanket; instead a dark coloured suit jacket covers her. Slightly confused, and still fighting to open her eyes all the way, she begins to sit up as she notices she had slept on a sofa, and was still wearing the same clothes from the previous night. She takes a look around and realizes where she is. Macs office.

"Good morning Sunshine!" Stella is startled to hear Macs voice from behind her. He stands at the doorway to his office holding two coffee mugs in his hands.

Scratching her head Stella finally manages to verbalize her thoughts "I fell asleep? ..."

"Nothing gets past you detective..." Mac laughs as he walks towards her "thought you could use this" he says, still chuckling, as he hands her one of the steaming mugs.

"What time is it?" she asks after taking a long sip of her coffee.

"About 10 after 6"

"Ugh." Stella sighs as she throws her head back onto the sofa. "Don't you ever sleep Taylor?"

Mac raises an eyebrow at Stella "What is with everybody's obsession with my sleeping habits?" he scoffs. "Some of us just have better things to do you know" he laughs.

"There's something wrong with you.." Stella jokes as she shakes her head and chuckles.

Mac shrugs a shoulder and opens the door to his office to exit "well, I'm gonna hit the locker room and take a shower"

"Mac, wait!" Stella interrupts before he can leave.

He stops and turns back towards her.

"I just wanted to say, thanks. For coming back for me last night."

"Well, you know what they say, misery loves company" Mac laughs. "Besides, what else am I gonna do while I'm not sleeping"

Stella just laughs and nods her head.

Mac smiles at her and exits the office.

Now alone in Macs office, Stella sits on the edge of the sofa and finishes her coffee. She reaches over beside the couch and grabs the yellow case files that are piled neatly on the table and sets her empty mug down. She begins to flip through the pages, now beginning to remember that she had started reading these last night. Disappointed with the lack of evidence and suspect leads in the information the team had gathered so far, she tosses the folder back onto the table "no wonder I fell asleep".

She stands up from the couch and looks down at her wrinkled clothes "I must look like crap!" she thinks to herself. She exits Macs office and makes her way towards the locker room.

She opens the door to the locker room and turns down to the row where her locker is. She stops in her tracks once she turned the corner. Mac stood at his locker, which was directly across from Stella's. He had not finished changing; he was wearing only his pants and had a towel in his hand. He rubbed the towel through his hair, and across the back of his neck. She watched him for a moment as a bead of water dripped from his hair onto his chest and slowly made its way down to his abdomen.

"Oh! I'm sorry" Stella eventually blurts out as she puts her hand on her forehead in embarrassment and looks to the floor.

Mac laughs "for what?"

Stella pops her head back up as she thinks to herself "yeah, for what? I've had the locker across from him for over 10 years now; this wouldn't be the first time I saw him without a shirt on"

"Ugh, don't mind me" Stella scoffs as she shakes her head "I think I'm just tired" she says, trying to sound convincing.

Mac laughs again as he pulls his black t-shirt over his head. Stella becomes entranced again as she watches him pull the shirt down and it hugs against his chiselled abs.

"Well, the place is all yours" Macs voice pulls her out of her own thoughts, as he throws his towel in a large black bin and exits the locker room.

Stella leans her back up against her locker and puts her head back, looking to the ceiling. "Snap out of it Stella" she thinks to herself, feeling silly that she's acting like she's in high school again.

In the shower, and alone with her own thoughts again, her mind begins to wander. "What has gotten into me? Where did these feelings come from?"

The hot shower did her good. She put on clean clothes, sat on the edge of the bench near her locker, and her mind was beginning to clear again. She writes her feelings off as 'emotional stress', and nothing else. After all, in the last couple weeks her life had been in serious jeopardy twice. Once in Greece, where Mac had put himself in harms way to protect her, and again 2 nights ago. She can hardly remember what happened that night, everything happened so fast. She remembers hearing the sound of glass shattering all around her, she fell to the floor and threw her arms over her head. The next thing she remembered was hearing tires screeching, as she brought her head up to see that Mac was hovered over her, to shield her from the flying bullets.

She takes solace in the fact that she has a good friend like Mac, and convinces herself that friendship is all she ever wanted from him, and all he ever wanted from her.

[end scene]

**Is she really convinced? I don't think so! ;)

More to come soon. Leave some reviews XD**