SMOKESCREEN

MacStella romance/angst. After one of their cases gets far too involved with one of the worst gangs in New York, Mac and Stella are forced to go into witness protection. Their lives are changed, their names and their jobs. And with it, their attitudes to each other.

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Just in case you thought I did.

Spoilers: None.

Prologue

He watched as they walked through the doors. He couldn't say anything, there was nothing to say. He held his wife's hand tightly in his, and he could feel her returning his unsure grip. They were back.

Back. After years, seventeen years to be precise, they were back.

He wondered if anything had changed, he wondered if anything would be any different. As he looked around he noticed the differences, and they almost hurt. What had he been expecting? Everything to be in exactly the same place he had left it? Somehow he had spent all this time thinking that everything would just have stopped when they left, never to return. He couldn't imagine the team just getting on with it, pulling through and reaching the other side, remaining the thriving department they had always been. But he guessed now, for the first time, that that was what they must have done. Muddled on without two of their best.

Ellidy was a couple of impatient strides ahead, turning her head every now and then to beckon them on, urge them to follow, quicker. She was eager to enter this world, this world she had never known.

Mac smiled knowingly at her and turned his head slightly to Stella. He could feel her eyes on him, and she looked up at him with almost a sad look in her eyes. Would returning here make everything that had happened in the past seventeen years erase itself? Would feelings be forgotten, roles destroyed? Would everything go straight back to the way it was? Of course it couldn't, completely. Ellidy was a clear reminder of that. But somehow they both thought that maybe going back to the old people, to the old way of everything, that that would change the way - the way things were.

Stella's heart caught. What if there was no one here that had been before? What if they had all moved on? It had been a long and hard seventeen years for everyone, she was sure of that. What if they had all found it easier away from the lab and had gone their own ways, finding new jobs and new friends in other places. She hoped they had stayed in touch. She hoped they hadn't fallen apart because of the loss of her and Mac. But her world was uncertain these days, and she no longer had any idea what to expect.

"Come on." Ellidy said impatiently, turning once again to look at them. "I thought you'd be jumping to come in again."

So had they. But suddenly, when they could finally go back, their absence was more comfortable. Things were different from hereon in, they both knew that, and they wondered how much their miraculous return would strain everyone, most of all themselves.

Mac squeezed Stella's hand slightly and walked forward a couple of steps, bringing her with him. Her knuckles were whitening with her fist around her handbag strap on her shoulder. He knew why. Her gun was in there, and after everything they had gone through she still felt uneasy without it close to hand. He let go of her hand and slung his arm around her waist, pulling her closely into him and for a moment burying his head in her familiar smelling hair, and smiling. Ellidy rolled her eyes and nodded forwards. They followed their daughter, back into their old lives.

Back into NYPD.

OK, first CSI:NY fic so be nice!!!!!!!

And review!!!!