It's Funny...

No worries Mel. I'm typing, I'm typing. Got three paragraphs done for the next chapter. :)
And yes, hopefully RL won't get in the way this time. ;)
 
Hi, just waiting for my wonderful beta to return my edits to me. Then I'll have more to post. ;)

Just thought I would update you Mel. ;)
 
I finally got my edits done thanks to my lovely friend Leigh.
Unfortunately, this chapter is really long. I'm going to have to break it up into two parts...

Here is the first part.....



I guess I’ve always been in love with Mac. I knew from the moment I met him there was a kindness and warmth about him. He had a way about him that drew me to him right away. I couldn’t explain it but I knew I wanted to be near him.

He doesn’t have the dancing blue eyes and the gorgeousness of Don Flack. Or the boyish charm and innocence of Danny Messer, but he has something. Something that I’ve been missing I guess in my life.

The hardest thing about loving Mac was watching him with Claire. I knew how much he loved her; I saw it all over him. When I met her I really didn’t want to like her, I really didn’t but unfortunately for me, I did. I liked her a lot.

Claire and I became close. We weren’t best friends or anything but we were friends. I remember several times when she would invite me over to dinner at her and Mac’s place. At first I felt like a third wheel, somewhat out of place. Claire went out of her way to make me feel at home. I know she was being nice and it was sort of fun when she and I used to poke fun at Mac from time to time. He would roll his eyes at us as Claire and I giggled at some silly thing he did or didn’t do. It was enjoyable and, at times, I actually miss those carefree, fun, innocent moments.

Over time, I got more comfortable being around her and Mac. It didn’t bother me so much when they kissed or when he rubbed her feet or just touched her arm when she was close. Okay, well that part was a lie, it did bother me. I couldn’t tell you why it did, but she was his wife. What else was I to expect?

She called me once when she was totally stumped on what to get Mac for his birthday. He’s not very sentimental about birthdays, but she wanted it to be special. “You only turn forty once,” she cooed into my phone. She felt that I was the only other person who knew Mac as well as she did.

When she died it almost destroyed Mac. The thing about her death was it was sudden, very sudden and unpredictable. No one saw it coming. That’s what tore him up the most. The helplessness he felt.

After her death, something in me felt obligated to check on him, to see if he was eating and sleeping. I wanted to protect him, comfort him, nurture him and most of all love him. He would struggle everyday just to do normal everyday things like go grocery shopping or do laundry. I constantly wanted to put my arms around him and tell him everything was going to be okay, although I wasn’t sure of it myself. On those nights when I would just randomly show up at his and Claire’s place, he never turned me away. Most of all I felt I had to be strong for him, to help him through.

Over the course of the years, we learned to lean on each other. I helped him get through loosing Claire and he helped me get through the Academy and eventually in CSI. He told me, on more than one occasion, that, in his shroud of darkness he called it; the only thing that made life worth living was me. I had helped him through so much. Honestly I really didn’t think I did anything that out of the ordinary, I did what came natural to me.

Unfortunately I felt myself feeling more and more for Mac. I loved him in a way I couldn’t express. I felt myself wanting to be there, in his arms, and wanting to be next to him and NOT wanting him to find his way out of his misery and out into the world. I wanted to hold him in my little cocoon until he was ready to love me the way I wanted him to.

But, I knew I couldn’t live like that and I couldn’t let Mac live like that either. So, I let him go so to speak, into the world. My heart melted just like a parent would after they witnessed their child go off and face the world without them. I knew then that I would always love Mac.

After all the years of working together and become closer friends and now lovers, I was alone in our apartment with his son; yes, his son in my belly. Mac left, he felt he couldn’t take anymore of whatever it was and he felt he had to walk out of our life.

I circled the living room a few hundred times. My hands were sore from wringing them together. A habit I do when I’m nervous or upset. My body was alert, stiff, excited, and adrenaline filled.

My mind was racing. Several times I flashed back to the night I showed up at his (now our) door and how that innocent gesture of me entering his life like that led to his exit from it.
I kept hoping it was all a dream, like I was having some sort of ‘out of body experience’ or some pregnancy induced something to explain why he left.


After a few hours of walking our apartment, I realized he wasn’t coming back. Horrible thoughts entered my head. Terrible ideas came to me. Horrible, morbid and disturbing ideas came to me in questions…

What if my apartment never burned down?

What if Mac turned me down and I had to live somewhere else?

What if we never became intimate?

And possibly the most disturbing… What if I got rid of the baby?


I had to stop myself from thinking along those lines. I knew I wasn’t going to get rid of the baby. Even if Mac didn’t want to be a father, I would be a mother and I would love our son no matter what.

I circled the couch in the living room as I made a decision. I patted my four-month-pregnant belly, “Don’t worry, I’m not going to get rid of you,” I reassured not only our baby but myself. I found myself getting tired and felt a little more at ease after I reached a conclusion….

I’m going to move out. It’s best for all of us. I wrote on a piece of paper and left it on the table with the idea that Mac would eventually find it.

I didn’t feel good about my decision but it was the right thing to do, or I thought so. I sat down on the couch and began to relax some. I felt the weight of my body sink into the couch. I wasn’t going to cry, I told myself that. I told myself I was going to be strong and continue living like I normally do, but now, as a mother.

As I sat getting comfortable on the couch, my hands rubbed my stomach. I felt a bit weird, not like something was wrong but like he, Mac and my son, knew that things were going to work out. If it was either I was going to live on my own and raise him on my own or if Mac and I were going to raise him together as a family. It was a feeling I couldn’t explain, but I knew the baby was telling me something.

To repay the child growing in me, I got myself up off the couch somehow and started toward the kitchen. Over the past weeks the baby had done something and I hadn’t noticed until then. He was growing, actually growing in me. I was beginning to walk differently, carry myself differently and most of all; he was beginning to protrude from inside me announcing himself to the world. I couldn’t hide the fact that I was pregnant any longer.

When I made it to the kitchen, I rubbed my belly again and asked, “So, what would you like to eat? Greek salad? Yeah, me too.” I said to my son, because at that point he was my son.

I have always thought of food as way of comfort. In most cultures food soothes the sole as well as nourishes the body. Since I have no recollection of my family, when I make Greek dishes I image myself at a long community table, surrounded by loved ones, on a sun-drenched patio eating, talking and laughing like Greeks do.

So, at 3:30 in the morning, I started to chop cucumbers and red peppers to make the salad.

I was sharing my first food experience with my unborn son and I enjoyed it. I began humming an old lullaby. Also in Greek, while rubbing my belly. Something I found myself doing a lot, especially that night. I felt like I was reaching out to our baby and making a connection. The more I rubbed him, talked to him, and told him I loved him, the more I would feel better.

As I reached for the red onion from across the counter top, the front door opened. I wasn’t scared or frightened considering the hour it was. I looked up and saw Mac standing in the entry way of our apartment.

Tiny hairs were showing up on his chin and his upper lip. He looked tired. Not necessarily tired from lack of sleep, but physically exhausted. I wanted to joke with him walking to the Hamptons and back, but I didn’t. I stood there and took him in instead. He was doing the same to me. We weren’t staring, but just looking at each other both trying to decide who should speak first. He did.

“I…. I... want to say I’m sorry,” he sputtered out.

I didn’t say anything.

“Stella,” he reached out and pulled me towards him. He wrapped his arms around me and hugged me.

I was too shocked and taken off guard to say anything. I just stood there in Mac’s arms. I could smell the faint smell of Scotch on his breath as I wrapped my arms around him.

I stood there longer in Mac’s arms. I could hear him breathing. I let my head fall to his chest. I closed my eyes trying to fight off the tears that I didn’t allow myself to cry earlier. They came anyway as I let myself cry in his arms.

We gently swayed back and forth in the entryway of the apartment we shared. He stroked his hand up and down my back. For all the things I know about Mac, he can say he knows a few things about me. Knowing how much I love it when he strokes my back was just one of them.

“Shhh love, it’s okay, I’m here,” he whispered.

My tears kept falling the more he spoke. I missed him so much. I missed him holding me, touching me and most of all I missed him loving me.


“How are you feeling?” He asked looking at me in ‘just that way’ that he does that makes me melt.

I finally looked at Mac and into his eyes. A couple years back one of our crime scenes involved a deaf family. The mother of the family trusted Mac to get her grandchild back. She told him, in her way, that Mac talked with his eyes. I never thought anything of that statement when he told me, but now I can see it’s true. Mac does talk with his eyes and his face.

“Hungry,” I joked laughing through my tears.

He unwrapped one of my hands from around his body and slipped it into his coat pocket while his other hand gently caressed my tummy.

He kept his eyes on me as I fumbled around his coat pocket for whatever he wanted me to find. I fingered a small box, a little box with rounded edges and a smooth surface.

“What do you think?” He asked as his hand gently guided mine out of his pocket while holding the box.

I felt the box in my hand. I hadn’t opened it yet, but I knew what it held, our future.

“So, Ms Bonasera,” he started, “you made a promise to me, I intend on keeping it.” He smiled that smile of his as I opened the small box. I smiled right back after I saw what was inside.

“Oh Mac,” I quietly said, “It’s beautiful.” I said of the stunning ring I saw in front of me. A princess cut solitaire set in platinum.


I couldn’t help it, but I snapped the lid to the box closed. The SNAP of the box filled the space between me and Mac.

I grasped the box as he stared at me with that same look again, like I was a serial killer. I didn’t know what else to do, so I backed away from him. I put my hand over the baby like I was protecting him and placed the box on the counter. I knew Mac would never hurt me, but I felt I had to step away from him at that moment.

I threw my hands up as he came closer to me. He had a vacant look to him. It was almost scary; the lack of any emotion that was on his face.

“NO, NO, NO!” I yelled waving my hands.
“It’s not right. This isn’t right. You can’t just come back here, offer me a beautiful ring with your breath smelling like Scotch and expect me to forgive you. After what you have been like and more importantly, what you have done to me and to him.” I stopped short of the kitchen counter and patted my stomach.

Mac’s face changed. To something more human that what he was like when he walked in.

“What did you say?” He said quietly. “What did you say about him?” Mac asked again.

“That’s right,” I smiled. I could feel I was on the verge of more tears. I rubbed my belly full of our baby and said, “Yeah Mac, it’s a boy. You have a son.” I said my words and stood there as solemnly as I could. I wanted him to realize what exactly was happening. That he and I were going to have a baby, a baby boy.

He wanted to touch me, I know he did. But he also knew that I wouldn’t let him unless I got to the root of his behavior and I was satisfied with his answer. A trait that comes from being friends with Mac for so long. So I stood, in the kitchen while Mac stood by the doorway as a cold silence filled the even more distant space between us.

“Where do I start?” He asked looking down.

I knew he didn’t expect me to answer but I did anyway, “At the beginning…”
 
Here's the rest of the chapter. I think you'll like it :D
~~~~

He wiped his mouth with his hand drawing it down to his chin. I could see the tenseness of his jaw. His teeth were almost grinding. He was in thought.

Since he didn’t say anything for a while, or at least he didn’t reply fast enough for my satisfaction, I started for him, “Tell me about Peyton.”

A smile came to his face. I wanted to get swallowed up again at that moment. I couldn’t look at him let alone now bear what he was going to say about him and her. I closed my eyes knowing that I had thrown out the question, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear the answer.

“Peyton,” Mac started, “Peyton is in Canada. She and her husband moved there about a year ago. My eyes flicked open with the word husband.

“Oh,” I commented as calmly as I could.

“She asked me for a recommendation…” He went on but all I could hear was him laughing with her when they were on the phone.

“Laughing” I sputtered, “you were laughing.”

Mac smiled at me. I tried my best not to smile back. He kept looking at me with that damn smile of his.

I wanted to stay strong and remain strong so but I couldn’t bear to look at him thinking something was going on with him and Peyton. But when he looked at me that way, I couldn’t resist him. So, I cracked a half smile and listened.

“She told me of the time when she and her husband met. They met in a bookstore outside of Oxford.”

He stopped. I could see it on his face he still wanted to come near me. The coldness between us was starting to melt as I listened to him talk about Peyton.

“Go on,” I managed.

Mac looked at me that way again. The way that breaks me up inside. That way of his that gets to me every time. I was starting to feel better about Peyton but I knew there was so much more he wasn’t telling me.

He stepped closer to me and I let him. I felt like I wanted to go to him but I stood my ground and listened….

“He and Peyton reached for the same book. She threatened him if he didn’t let her have it. I had to laugh at that.” Mac paused with that same look on his face. “She’s happy Stella, and I told her that I’m glad for it.”

“Does she know about us?” I couldn’t help but ask.

“Yes,” He stated without emotion.

“And the baby…”

“Yes,” he answered with the same lack of inflection.

I couldn’t think of anything else to say about Peyton. “I’m delighted she’s happy,” Was all that came to me.

Mac started taking steps toward me. He came closer and closer to where I was then he walked right up to where I was standing in the kitchen.

“What about the baby?” He asked then planted a kiss on my neck. I let him. I even wrapped my arms around him pulling him closer. He continued to kiss my neck and shoulders. I stood there fighting with myself. God, it felt so good when he touched me and kissed me like that. I closed my eyes and let him feel me. I missed his arms, his body next to mine, his scent, everything. I missed him just next to me. Something he hasn’t been in a long time. I missed him close to me like that, but I still felt unsettled. Something about him coming back still felt uneasy and I still felt troubled.

“Mac,” I said pushing him way. He stood in front of me with his hand resting on my stomach.

“I need more. More than just your phone calls from Peyton. I need … I need you. But, like I said,” I stopped. I felt myself getting angry. I felt the rush of hot come to my face. I felt my body tense up. “You can’t just come back here offer me a ring, tell me about your conversation with Peyton, kiss me then think I’ll let you off the hook. I can’t and I won’t!” I caught myself raising my voice.

I stood there, as I felt my fingers wrap around the pinky of my other hand. Something else I do when I’m nervous or upset. Not only have I been noticing more things about Mac over the past few months, I’ve also noticed more things about myself, my idiosyncrasies if you will. I guess my hands gave me away as well as the ice cold stare I was giving Mac.

“Mac,” I started while he still had his hand on me. “I want you to be honest with me. Did you give me the ring because of the baby? Or do you really want to marry me?”

Another question I wasn’t sure I wanted the answer to, but since I threw it to Mac, I knew I had to hear the answer.

“I’m not sure where to begin,” he said quietly.


At times I see him try to carry the world on his shoulder. That’s when he tells me he needs me, so he can feel like he doesn’t have to. I try to tell him that sometimes the ‘bad guy’ gets away and that doesn’t make him any less of a Detective.

And that it is also okay for him to feel something for someone else besides Claire. And its okay for him to show emotion, any kind of emotion when something happens. That’s what makes us all human. But, Mac had tuned out the world and learned to become something other than human.

“I need you,” he said to his hand on the baby. I put my hand over his. We were connected the three of us at that moment. If felt nice, good, right. But I still looked for more from him.

“I need you too,” I whispered to my hand.

“I need more Mac, more of an explanation on why you left. Why you were such a jerk, to put it nicely, and why you felt you couldn’t talk to me about any of this.” I could feel myself start to get tired again; my voice was low and shaky.

“I always thought I knew where I stood with you Stella, but now… well now things are different.”

“Yes Mac, that’s true, things are different. You and I, well, we are different. We are going to be parents.” I stopped and took in a breath. “We let this happen; you and I both let this happen. And if neither one of us wanted it happen, it wouldn’t have. I know that, you and I know you know that too. Yes, things are different, but that doesn’t make it a bad thing.”

I let the words I just spoke sink into Mac. I wouldn’t let myself cry again so I swallowed down the tears and spoke again….

“I want this Mac, I want a life with you; a house, a garden, a child,” I squeezed my hand over his. “Possibly more,” I winked.

“I want this with you too Stella.” Now his voice was low and shaky. “I struggled with letting you into my life like this for a long time. I don’t know exactly how to say how much you mean to me. I fight with myself over how much I love you.” He paused and waited for me to absorb his words.

“When we had our conversation...”

“Wait,” I cut him off, ‘Who’s we?” I asked.

He looked at me with confusion in his face. I know he didn’t just start a random conversation with some stranger on the street. I also know he wouldn’t or doesn’t very often talk about our life with the members of the team. So I was curious as to whom Mac had this conversation with…

“When Claire and I talked earlier….” He stopped. He looked at me with a look that wasn’t quite sadness but something more….

“I talk to Claire, almost every day. It sort of keeps me connected to her.”

“Oh Mac,” I smiled through the tears that started to fall, “I had no idea.”

“It’s okay,” he smiled back to me. “I know you of all people would understand why I still talk to her.”

“It’s….it’s beautiful,” I said with my tears still falling.

“Achem,” he cleared his throat sort of jokingly, “So when Claire and I talked tonight we both agreed that you and I should get married. And have a baby and live happily ever after.” Then he looked at me, that look of boyish mischief and playfulness. He raised an eyebrow at me like he knew what I was going to say.

“How can I say no to you?” I joked. “I can’t ever say no to you. And well for Claire, you know I’ve always liked her.”

“So Mac, are we really going to do this, get married?” I asked stepping closer to him.

“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” he replied hugging me again.

Something happened just then. I grasped my baby bump with both my hands and took in a deep breath. My head fell forward. I had no words to describe what was happening.

“Stella, are you okay? Is it the baby; is everything okay with the baby?” His voice was filled with concern as his hands met mine.

“Mac,” I panted looking up at him, my eyes wide. “He moved, the baby…he moved. I felt it…” I grabbed his hand and placed over the area where I felt our baby move.

“He moved Mac,” I said as tears welled in my eyes again.

I drew a breath in again as I felt this tiny being inside me moving. A feeling I couldn’t begin to describe but I did my best for Mac.

“It’s….it’s like, like butterflies, like butterflies flying inside me. It’s … incredible,” I made out to Mac. My hand guided Mac’s over all the places I felt our baby.

“Wow,” Mac said as his eyes lit up after feeling a THUMP from our baby inside me. “That is incredible. Something you and I created together is now, well now he’s real.”

“He’s always been real Mac, but now he’s just more real,” I smirked.

“That seals it then,” Mac smiled, “now we have to get married.”

He pulled me to him as we embraced each other yet again. I closed my eyes and took him in, breathing almost with him as our bodies remained close.

“Stella, I can’t imagine living my life without you,” he whispered above me.

“And this time, I really think you need to say YES,” Mac joked.
 
I wanted to stop by and leave some bad news. :(

I had the last two chapters of this typed up and ready to go when...BAM the computer crashed and lost...all my work. :mad:

So, I'm resending my work to my lovely and very patient beta.

I feel bad because I liked writing this and I apologize that it took me way longer than I thought it would. :(

So, let's just say until after my family vacation next week, this fic is on HIATUS.
 
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