TITLE: Drive
AUTHOR: Rain Garcia
RATING: T
SUMMARY: A drive around New York answers so much for Mac.
ARCHIVE: My website. Anywhere else please tell me first.
FEEDBACK: Cherished and needed. Please.
AUTHOR'S NOTES:Jenna Dy: You started this. I owe you one.
This is my first time to write CSI: New York, and also my first time to post here. All mistakes are mine, no one proofread this story. Please be nice. :-)
p.s.: If anyone knows how to fix formatting here, please email me. I have no idea on how to put spaces in between paragraphs. Huge spaces. Thanks!
There was a cathartic percussion drumming in his head when he first met her. He commented about how she managed to tease her hair so damn high without searing a hole in the Ozone layer -- and with only the whole day to do it. He thought that she would be offended, but when she smiled and gave him a name, he knew that he found his first friend in New York City.
Stella. Stella Bonasera.
The drumming suddenly became louder. He wondered, vaguely, if it was his head or his heart.
There was no awkwardness between them, he remembered. There were just a few shots of tequila, a lot of one- liners … then a drive.
They drove around New York in his new, bad- ass Skyhawk. She led the way, barking at him her narratives about a certain place or restaurant, telling him small details of her personal life. He followed suit at her directions, still edgy about being in an unfamiliar city and driving with a woman he could still classify as a stranger. But he continued to drive. He never stopped.
He only stepped on the brakes when he met Claire.
Mac Taylor ignited the engine of his government– issued car. He gritted his teeth, attempting to put a stop to the percussion that kept whistling in his head. With a heavy step on the gas, he whizzed off into the early morning darkness, zooming to an alarming 80 for the first five minutes. Then, when he felt his head quieting down, he maneuvered to a safe 60, but not without gripping the driving wheel so hard his knuckles turned white.
It wasn't right when he woke up and heard the fucking drums in his head again. He pressed his chest – over his heart – to stop them, but it didn't work. He knew that that was where they came from. He just didn't understand why. Was he afraid? Was he feeling threatened? Was he … doubting himself? Doubting her?
If it was any consolation, when he moved his eyes from his naked torso and toward the likewise naked woman beside him, he knew he fucked up somewhere between last night and that morning. Literally and figuratively.
So he did the best thing he could do: He got up, dressed, and left before she could wake up. He didn't want her to hear him go, just as he didn't want her to wake up beside him. Not yet.
Mac turned to Central Park and circled the area. The sound of the wind fumbling with the leaves and the tires groaning against the cement were his only companion. And his ever talkative thoughts.
Claire always referred to Stella as his 'special friend'. She'd tease him about her – especially when she found out that they were both rookies in the CSI department. With her ear – to – ear smile the one he revered so much, she would nudge his ribs, saying that Stella looked at him with this 'spark'. Mac would dismiss his wife immediately. Not because he was uncomfortable with the possibility, but because he knew that Stella did look at him that way. And knowing Stella for years … she was not the kind who easily hid her emotions. When she was angry, she would start kicking furniture. When she was frustrated, she 'cooled' off. When she was dating someone, she basically flew into office with a gregarious laugh.
However, she chose people when it came to this side of her.
She chose him.
He couldn't decide if he was happy or dismayed about that.
Abandoning Central Park, Mac drove to the highway. He looked up in his rearview mirror, and found the Statue of Liberty's flame smoldering in the incoming dawn.
This was Stella Bonasera: So many parts a woman, yet there was that lingering piece of her that screamed girl.
When Claire died, he found himself on the curb in front of her apartment, huddling in the cold. She came out bringing a blanket and she draped it over him. She never invited him in, never said a word. She only sat down beside him, took him in her arms, and huddled with him in the cool city air.
Suddenly, there were those goddamn drums in his head again, in his heart.
He pillowed his head in her chest and cried for all he was worth. Stella only accepted his grief, but never gave any sympathy back. Only because he didn't want it.
For a moment there, he thought that they were back in that car. In his old Skyhawk before it was murdered by the junkyard. For a moment, they were two individuals in New York again. Two nondescript kids having a joyride. The feeling of ease, the grandiose of what he was doing, the freedom from complication …
Stella kissed the top of his head gingerly.
He remembered hearing her back then, telling him that she never allowed herself to tangle with someone who could never return her affections. She learned – through so many experiences – that its every woman for herself and you should never let your heart get broken twice. Once is enough. It's a hard principle, sure, but she did try to stick to it.
Stella ultimately junked this belief. Like how little girls junked their Care bears and Rainbow Bright dolls when the new edition of Barbie came along. The latter never recovered.
The sun was coming up. The orange rays streaked from the somber sky, reaching and touching his skin. Mac squinted his eyes at the brightness, then pulled out his shades from the dash board.
Making love to Stella was surprisingly easy and uncomplicated, when he had previously deemed it as the incoming sign of the apocalypse.
She was his constant outside his dark life. Deep inside of him, she was always a burst of color –-- a startling contrast to the black and white that he resided in after Claire. She always reminded him that yes, there was a reason to go to work everyday and yes, there was still great coffee just around the block. Yes, there was still a reason to live.
And he liked that thought. He liked it that he glued her on a pedestal and he liked it that he admired her from afar. He liked it that he fell in love with her from afar.
It was easy that way. He still would have his Statue of Liberty, he would still wallow in his own self– pity, and she would be safe from his black and white memoirs. She wouldn't fall into his bottomless pit of a life. He could protect her.
Easier said than done.
He passed the perimeter of ground zero, slowing down his car to a 30 as he trailed his eyes at the ruins. The sunlight creased through the now vacant lot, piercing the epiphany that was left behind.
Their job was perilous. They accepted that fact and was brainwashed with the possibilities of their death back in training. He told Stella that she would never have to worry about being shot in the head because of her 'bee- hive' of a hair. She pierced him with a gaze so stern it gave him cold feet. Then, she joked back that shooters wouldn't want to have him as a victim because they would think that he was already dead.
He rolled his eyes at that.
But he wasn't rolling his eyes when a bullet grazed Stella's forehead during their most recent case. They were standing in the middle of a crime scene, talking about their head- butting theories, while Aidan Burn and Don Flack argued about who gets to process what in the lab. It wasn't a good day to start with and their tempers were a testament to that.
Until a silver line dashed at the corner of his eye. It passed his shoulder, crossed the gap between him and Stella, and began to head straight to the middle of her eyes.
Mac reflexively pulled Stella down, but wasn't fast enough. He heard her cry of pain, then the sickening thud as their bodies hit the cold ground.
He frantically checked on her, patting everywhere the bullet could have hit, and with a curse of relief, found that she would only be left with a three inch wound on the left side of her forehead.
Even if the shooter was caught, it barely gave his scampering nerves liberation. That was too close. WAY too close.
He found himself at the edge of the marina, staring passively at the Upper New York Bay. He stretched his legs for a while, massaged his sore limbs, then removed his eyewear to see the cool water face-to-face.
The waves before him splashed against each other --- convulsing and sinking, creating union and then dispersing to their own paths. The tide's splash against the land made droplets propel on his five o' clock shadow. He smiled.
There was no decision last night, there was none to be made. One look at Stella and the bandage atop her forehead made him hold her fiercely. He didn't even stare at her straight in the eye when he devoured her lips. He only heard her moan and that was his signal. It was okay. It was going to happen. There would be no turning back.
And he never did turn his back. Even when he was whispering to her crazily how he didn't want to lose her. Even when she kidded back that he was right about her hair. Even when he entered her and he almost blacked out by the intensity of her warmth. Even when he was about to come in a way that he hadn't before. Even when the fright of allowing her into his black and white passion almost consumed him as he watched her writhe under him. Even when he left her alone in the early morning to go out for a drive.
He wasn't going to turn his back at her. He couldn't.
Mac breathed in the crispy, salty air and returned to his car. He drove mindlessly for long minutes, debating inwardly whether he should buy coffee or bagels, then resolved himself by buying nothing.
He parked his car where it previously was and reentered Stella's apartment with his own key. Coming into her room, he was glad to find her still asleep.
She was cuddling into a pillow, burying her face between white softness and the mop of curly hair. She was snoring lightly very lightly, he could tell, and he had to control his laughter. But when he sat down on the space beside her, toeing his shoes off, he couldn't help his bubbling arousal at the sight of her bare back. He trailed his fingers over the protrusion of her spine, the silky whiteness, the temporary marks the sheets had left.
Somewhere in his drive, the drumming in his head stopped. Somewhere in his drive, he found his way.
Stella stirred, stretched a little baring the side of her cleavage much to his delight, and turned around to face him. She ran a hand over her eyes to adjust her vision, then when she found him in his clothes, she pointed wearily at his stomach.
"Did you eat?"
Mac shook his head, taking the pointing hand and kissing it. "No."
"Where'd you go?" she asked, yawning, but managing a small smirk.
"I was out for a drive," he answered. Stella furrowed her eyebrows, wincing afterward when she felt the sting of her wound. Mac whispered a 'be careful', gently running a hand over her bandages.
"Where were you going?" she continued to prod.
Mac couldn't help teasing her with a wink as he laid down beside her, aligning their bodies, face-to-face. He was wearing clothes, but he had never felt so naked in his life. The surprising thing was it actually felt good.
He tightened his hold on her hand and placed it above his heart.
"I was going home."
THE END