*After a year of hiding in his cave in the canyons, the Mac muse is calling on me once again.

*Couple of things I want to preface this story with, although I still may get some 'Mac is OOC' comments. I will say up front that I am taking an enormous amount of creative license with characterization and the plot/circumstances may seem AUish. This is my version of Mac before he gets into drugs. He's cooking meth but not on it yet. He's in his mid-twenties. He has a bond with the OC because they grew up together. All these things may seem off for a Mac fic but as I said I'm being creative with the hope of keeping him complex and to tell a compelling story. Once again, I am dealing with damaged soul mates... very damaged.

*This is Mac so all the usual warnings apply. Rated VERY M. This IS NOT a fluffy romance story.

As always, I appreciate you taking the time to read my work and reviews are always welcome.

xx

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Voice hoarse, eyes wide and stinging, Memphis looked at the blood on her skinned knees and the dirt on her white nightgown. Crawling, trying to escape. Her father's voice was getting closer, his footsteps reverberating in the sandy soil beneath her. Memphis knew no one would save her tonight. No, she was the one who would have to do the saving.

She slipped into the dilapidated shed behind the house desperately trying to hide. She searched the tools of torture that hung on the walls for any weapon. The ax was the closest.

"Such a waste," came a sing-song voice from the still open doorway. "You let her get away. Now you'll just have to take that bitch's place. It's your own fault Memphis. You are making me do this."

Memphis would forever remember that moment; it was when she turned to look at the Devil and saw every nightmare she'd ever had embodied in a single creäture. He strolled into his shed with ease. This place was where he did all of his work. It was where he tied her to a chair and made her watch. Even when she closed her eyes, she could hear their screams and smell them. The odor of blood and rot and fear was always strong in here, but never more pungent than tonight. Tonight it was her own blood and her own terror that her flesh would rot with the rest of the nameless women's forever. Unless she fought.

"It wasn't supposed to happen this way. It wasn't supposed to be you yet." Her father's voice was almost melancholy. "But you couldn't leave well enough alone, could you? Look what you are making me do!" He screamed the last part.

Squeezing her fingers tightly around the hilt, the young girl bit her lip until she tasted blood and then swung the ax down quickly. At the last minute, the Devil sensed the girl behind him and whipped his body around sharply just as the ax struck his arm. The ax stuck, lodged on the bone there. Gritting her teeth, Memphis pushed down on the ax, using all her weight to cut through the bone and sever the limb.

Blood gushed and sprayed while the Devil looked at the place where his arm had been and laughed in a mixture of hysteria and delight. Memphis clamped her lips tight as she was showered with his blood, but she didn't stop.

Lifting the ax again, arms shaking with the effort, she swung down with all her might, stumbling as she did so. The Devil was too disoriented to move or block her attack, so the ax lodged with deadly precision in his chest, breaking his ribs and penetrating to his lungs.

Memphis gazed into the Devil's eyes as he went down, seeing her reflection in their murky, pain clouded depths. She saw a girl coated in blood, tears, and dirt from her hair to her naked toes. She saw the surprise on her face, fear in her eyes, and something else.

Whatever it was, the Devil recognized it: a kinship to his soul. Falling to his knees with an ax embedded in his chest and blood dripping from his wound, he swayed but looked up at Memphis The Devil smiled widely. "You can't run from who you are. You are like me, so like me...my accomplice in all of this," he choked as fell into a pool of his own blood.

She stared at the body for what felt like an eternity, memorizing every pore that oozed sweat and blood and death. Her eyes finally looked down and were caught by the red stain crusting on her fingers, hands, and further up her arms. Her body lurched forward of its own accord and her stomach heaved. Accomplice? No! She had been bait, she had been his audience, she had been his reason but she had not been his accomplice. Had she?

That's when she felt his hand on her shoulder. Mac was there. It was okay. He was steadfast and calm, unfazed by the gruesome scene before them.

"Is he dead? I...I think he is I...Mac I..."

A strangled grunt came from the body at her feet and she gasped. "How?"

"Go, get out of here. I'll finish it." The male teenager assured her through gritted teeth. "Mem, just get out of here now, before..." The sirens sounded cutting off his words or any action he planned to take against the Devil.

Memphis jolted awake in her seat. The darkness outside the bus window enveloped the landscape as if the world were underwater. She pressed her forehead against the cool glass. She couldn't see through the murky, blackened depths. She felt like she was fifteen years old again and the night IT happened flooded her unconscious in the familiar nightmare. Ten years later and her father's voice had not faded one bit. "You can't run from who you are. You are like me, so like me...my accomplice in all of this." Memphis almost heaved, but forced the sour bile back down her throat. Can that shit really be in someone's DNA?

As the Greyhound sped along the southwestern highway, its other passengers remained oblivious to the terror the young woman had relived behind her closed eyes. The cowboy next to her continued to spit tobacco juice into the soda can on his lap, the mother across the aisle breastfed her infant and the driver was yelling at the radio because he hadn't been the right number caller to win tickets to a monster truck show.

The worst part wasn't going back to Caineville itself but knowing that she could make the nightmare a reality all over again. Still she had nowhere else to go. She burned all her bridges from LA to San Francisco; from Seattle to Portland. She had no money. She had to go home. Home. She chewed a hangnail. Did she still have a home? Did she still have Mac?

Now you see me

Now you don't

Now you say you love me

Pretty soon you won't

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2 weeks later

Memphis wished Mac would say something to her, anything, even just to yell at her. She knew he usually just tuned people out as if they weren't there, and it had always infuriated her when they were growing up. He could be almost inhuman at times. But then wasn't that why she sought him out?

Tap tap tap.

Throughout the agonizingly slow ride, her boot never stopped tapping against the floorboard of the truck, her constant motion marked a contrast to Mac's stolid exterior as he steered the pickup. Memphis' left leg, bare to the mid-thigh in her denim cut-offs, bounced up and down, catching Mac's eye as he drove.

God she's grown up...

"Stop that shit." He ordered laconically, his voice betraying only annoyance and absolutely no trace of his appreciation for his friend's feminine form.

Memphis clamped one hand down on her knee though it only served to transfer her nervous energy to her fingers which she ran through her long dark hair. She looked over at Mac, whose own hair was, as always, short-cropped, messy, dirty dark blonde.

"That, too," He added. "Fucking annoying."

Late night in the desert meant there was little traffic on the road. They sped through a series of flashing yellow traffic lights. There was something magical late at night like things were possible then that weren't in the light of day. She didn't want to interrupt this time. Mac had gone into one of his "zones." She knew he was thinking things over, turning over every possible objection, every contingency, and possibility. Sometimes, she was in awe of the way the man could think. Other times, she wished he'd get out of his own head and take notice of other people in the world.

"Are you pissed?" she asked, strangely hoping he was.

Mac waited so long to respond that Memphis almost thought he didn't hear her. Then, with the faintest of head turns, just barely enough to signal his recognition of her presence, he spoke.

"Nope."

"Don't have a lecture for me?"

"Nope."

"Did you miss me?"

"Who's to say?"

That last one pissed Memphis off. Mac could be impossibly cryptic when he didn't want to be honest with her.

"Don't care your best friend almost spent the night in jail?" she asked with growing frustration.

They reached an actually functioning red light and stopped. Mac turned slightly more towards her. "I came, didn't I?" he said, his voice no warmer.

Memphis felt a little bad. She wanted Mac to care about her, even though he wasn't showing it. She had to admit, though, that picking her up at 2 AM from the police station in the next town after she was in a brawl at a bar was a pretty decent thing for friend to do. He had even paid her bail.

"Yeah, you did. Thanks," she said sheepishly. "Tonight sucked. I had to get out of that house. My mom's fucking pissing me off. I don't how much longer I can stay there. I'm an adult you know, but she still acts like I'm...she wants me to pay rent, but I have no money and I.."

Mac didn't say anything sympathetic. In fact, he seemed bored, so she felt stupid for complaining. " I'm not drunk. I know that's what the cop said."

"Lucky he thought so. Why did you do it Mem?"

"He…this guy…touched me. Wouldn't leave me alone." She zipped her hoodie and pulled the garment tightly around her middle self-protectively.

Mac lit a cigarette.

His silence and her admission about the man made her uneasy so she changed the subject. "So, not to be an asshole or anything, but I'm starving. Any chance we could get something to eat?"

Memphis was hungry, but most of all, she didn't want to go back to her house. Anywhere but there.

"It's late. Sure there's food back home," he said, seemingly oblivious to her ulterior motives.

Memphis' voice took on a hopeful lilt. "You mean your house?"

"Very funny," Mac replied. "You're going home.

"Please, Mac. Just one night."

"No," he said, with the finality of a judge pronouncing a sentence. "You belong there."

"Then let me out." she said defiantly.

"So what? You can get killed on the side of the road?" he asked incredulously. "Not happening."

"Who are you to tell me what to do?"

"The guy you called to get you out of jail." he said.

Memphis' anger flared. Why couldn't he talk to her like he used to? "I called my friend. I don't know who the fuck you are," she said with wounded outrage.

"Friend huh?" He snorted. "You ever call me? Write me? The fucking post office lost all them letters you sent in the last three years?"

She looked away. She pulled her hood on and tried to hide behind her hair.

"You been back two weeks and this is the first you let me know of it. You called cause you were up shit creek. That's all this is."

"You knew I was back?" She asked, ignoring the accusation.

"Shit yeah, what don't I know about this place? Your memory that bad? Been watching you. I know you're back at your mom's place."

"Why didn't you come by then?"

"Same reason you went two towns over to get wasted and in a bar fight I guess."

"Mac I…"

"Save it. Why did you really call me tonight?" he asked.

She was genuinely surprised at his demeanor.

"I told you because you're my friend, and we used to be close. Shit, we ought to be closer now. You're right. I fucked up by staying away from you. Not this place, but you. I get it if you hate me now. If you don't want to have anything to do with me its..."

"Stop. Don't hate you," he said. "I, look...there's just shit you don't know about me. It's not you. It's me."

"That's just it," she said as if excited to get a chance to prove her point. "I don't know about you because you won't tell me. We used to tell each other everything."

"We were just kids then."

"So? Why does it have to change?'

"It does, that's all."

"Mac, you can tell me anything. I want to be a part of your life."

"Stop fucking pushing me Memphis! Goddamn you fucking bitch, don't be like the rest of them!"

"The what? The rest of who?"

He didn't answer but looked straight ahead clenching his jaw. He hadn't changed all that much, she realized. He still switched moods on the drop of a dime. She hadn't changed either. Her emotions continued to get the better of her despite years of head shrinking. Still being impulsive and careless with her safety, she reacted to his silent treatment accordingly. With the truck moving as slowly as it was, Memphis figured she could get out easily enough. She opened the door, only to realize that the road can be deceptive. They were moving faster than she had reckoned. The force of opening the door almost knocked her out of the cab, and Mac slammed on the brakes, grabbing her across the chest to hold her back in. His mask of indifference had shattered, though she couldn't tell if he was pissed at her for opening the door or embarrassed for inadvertently feeling up her tits.

"Are you fucking crazy?" he shouted at the top of his lungs.

His words hit Memphis like a hammer blow. Mac, the person she cared about more than anyone in the whole world, was using the "c" word. She started to cry, tears of sadness and anger.

"Fuck. You." She said, punctuating each word with a middle finger. "You're just like them."

With the pick up now stopped, she jumped out and made a run for it, heading towards a cluster of rocks. Mac followed her, heedless of his truck now parked in the middle of the road. Though he had every reason to be angry, after giving chase for a minute he found himself in awe of her graceful, muscular body as she ran from him. The way so many others did, only in terror, soon to be caught. Memphis wasn't afraid of him she was running cause she was pissed off and hurt.

He stopped to admire her, letting her run herself to exhaustion while he broke into a slower jog. He didn't want to catch her like he did the others. He might as well just wait for her to come back to him, assuming she would. After Mac had given chase for as long as he could, he collapsed in a heap in front of a large boulder.

Sitting on the cold sandy earth, Mac felt a strange feeling, one he hadn't known in a while. Despite his better than average vocabulary, he couldn't put a finger on exactly what the right word for it was. It wasn't fear, or concern, or anger, or anything like what he assumed he should be feeling. He remembered feeling it when they took her away after what happened with her dad. Regret? He felt like he'd let her down that night. He hadn't finished the job and he'd let them drag her off to that place, that hospital in Salt Lake City.

He was exhausted enough to easily slip into one of his zones again. He was thinking without thinking; Memphis knew that state better than probably anyone else in the world. After about ten minutes, she returned and wasn't surprised to see him sitting there, patiently waiting for her.

"I didn't think you'd chase after me," Memphis said from behind him.

Mac grunted at her. "Fuck that." A strange smile broke across his face, and he shook his head just a little. He wondered what she'd think if she knew what he did to other women. If she knew, it was her fault.

She looked at him more closely. "Are you smiling, weirdo?" She asked, her voice less harsh than before.

Mac stroked his chin a little, laughing inside that her breath was still heaving while his had long since calmed. "Christ, you're in good shape," he said. "I feel like I'm a hundred years old now."

"Mac, I'm not okay." She sat heavily beside him, her voice serious.

"I know."

As they walked back to the road, he let her desperate hand grasp his unlovable one. They climbed silently into the truck, and he started off. He kept watching her out of the corner of his eye, hoping to see some sign she was relaxing and letting go of her nerves and anger. He was disappointed, but there was something else; she was...different. She had really grown up while she was gone. He'd missed how she'd flowered into a beautiful if a little wild, woman.

"I'm sorry about the truck thing, taking off. " She said sincerely. "Pushing you to talk. I won't do that again. Just, please don't call me 'crazy.' I don't want to explain it, but I hate that more than anything in the world."

"I don't think you're crazy," he said quietly.

"Don't lie to me," Memphis said. "I mean, everybody else does. Mac you should see the books my mom still reads: 'Coping with Problem Children,' 'Parenting a Borderline Child,' 'The Tough Love Approach to Juvenile Rebellion.' She thinks I'm crazy. Everybody does. Because of what I did, because of the hospital. Because my father was a fucking serial killer."

Memphis hadn't meant to let that last part slip out. She and Mac had of course never talked over his feelings about what happened that night when she'd tried to kill her father and they'd committed her. She looked at the unusually concerned expression in his eyes.

"Mem, you're not stupid. You're not crazy. You just shouldn't have left."

"I had no choice, they took me away."

"No, I mean the second time after you...got out. You came back, but you ran. That's on you. We were supposed to stick together remember?" He began to sound angry again.

"I'm sorry you're pissed. I'm sorry I left and was a shitty friend. But...When I'm with you, I don't have to feel like I'm the worst person in the world."

Almost without thinking, he turned left when he should have turned right.

"Where are you going?" Memphis asked, with equal parts anticipation and curiosity.

Mac was silent for a moment. He felt out of his element and more than a little uneasy now. Yet it wasn't all bad; it was strangely exhilarating to throw caution to the wind, to move without thinking, not to plan what he was going to say. She did that to him. He looked into her eyes, twin volcanoes full of bad ideas. Just like when they were kids.

"We're going to my place."