disclaimer: No, they're not mine, sadly. Not even Mac's name (JFK's Secretary of Defense). The title is from a quote by F. Scott Fitzgerald: "Of course all life is a process of breaking down."

rating: T, almost M (language, sex, mature themes, etc.)

spoilers: Nothing huge, spans all seasons, I guess.

summary: "I don't think anyone really does escape unscathed." The job and the fallout.

pairing: Mac/Stella, Mac POV

note: a) Wow, I haven't written fanfiction in forever. Feels familiar, but forgive me, my words and I are rusty. b) This is angst. c) These are just snippets of their lives. They connect, and they don't. It's within the same universe, but one does not necessarily connect to another. d) Feedback, I love. Thanks. I don't say that enough.

Of Course All Life
author: Jo C.

one Coffee and cigarettes

"I didn't know you smoked," you say quietly.

"Because I don't." She exhales gray smoke into the early morning sky as she says this, leans back against the hood of your department-issued SUV. "Besides," she continues, "it goes well with my coffee."

You look at her, study the way her coat crumples around her, the folds, the edges. "You don't have coffee."

She laughs loudly, but it sounds hollow. "Oh well."

Next to her, you copy her stance. Your gaze follows hers. The edge of morning is just appearing over the Atlantic.

"I'm so tired," she admits softly.

You take the cigarette from her fingers, bring it to your lips. Deep drag. You haven't smoked since sophomore year of high school. It was only a few times. Your father caught you in the backyard. He slapped you so hard, it left a red mark for days, and he didn't look you in the eye for weeks.

"That was a long time ago."

She turns to you. "Hmm?"

You shake your head. "Nothing. Just remembering something. My father."

She says nothing. You flick ash from the cigarette before returning it.

"Stella –"

"Maybe it's better this way," she interrupts, not looking at you. "This almost got out of control. I don't want that. You don't want that. Maybe it's just better this way. That it happened like this."

"What do you mean?" Your voice is scratchy.

"What do you mean what do I mean?" She finishes off the cigarette, stamps it out. "I mean nothing. Fuck. Forget it, Mac."

And you do know what she means. "Yeah."

"The whole thing just costs us too much. Too fucking much." Your gazes meet for the first time. "We're not the same. Just pieces of who we were. Things aren't the same."

Somehow, you lose her then. Maybe you lost her a long time ago and didn't know it. You breathe the Jersey Shore air. The beach is just over that ridge, that empty parking lot.

"We pretend so much. I can't remember anymore. What we once were." She frowns to herself. "I'm tired. I don't want this anymore. We tempt death at every corner. And this thing. How many times do you think a person can tempt death and escape unscathed?"

You close your eyes, shrug gently. "I don't think anyone really does escape unscathed."

"I guess you would know," she replies softly.

You clear your throat. "You would, too."

A wry, murderous smile. "Yeah, I suppose we both have gone through it a half dozen times. Enough times to make us stop believing."

"Believing what?"

"Things. Just things. Things that have meaning. Or should."

You keep pushing. "Like what?"

She looks up at you, eyes shining. She doesn't answer.

She sticks her hands in her coat pockets instead. You feel her shutting down. You'll wake up tomorrow and wonder what happened, wonder if this was the ending you were promised from the start.

two Thunder road

Summer, 1979.

Your head pounds. Your vision is blurry, blood in your eyes, blood down the side of your face. Your mouth is parted slightly, your gaze dazed in the night. A flurry of paramedics and cops and chaos surrounds you. Your hand reaches up, touches the wound at your hairline; the blood is warm and sticky under your fingertips. Your head pounds, and your breath is ragged along the edges.

A paramedic tilts his head and looks at you. What's your name, son? (A light shines in your eyes.) Do you know who you are? Do you know what happened?

A cop puts a solid hand on your shoulder. Kid, I'm going to check your ID, okay? He grabs your wallet from your back pocket, checks the driver's license. Robert S. McNamara Taylor. Is that your name, Kid? Son?

You meet the cop's eyes as the paramedic looks you over, powdery latex gloves against your skin. Your voice is rough, distant, strange in your throat.

"Yes," you answer slowly. (A gurney with feeble, squeaky wheels rolls past, a girl with closed lids strapped to it.) "Mac. Mac Taylor."

"Mac." Stella's voice descends, grounding you.

You open your eyes. You blink. Her bedroom is cold.

"Mac? You okay?" she asks. She places a hand on your shoulder, like that cop did so many years ago, solid and reassuring.

Your mouth meets hers, quiet, desperate, and you're so alone and afraid of losing contact, connection, and you never do quite find yourself. At the moment though, you rely on her, and that is good enough for you – at the moment.

In the morning though, you'll button your shirt up in a shroud of soft morning Atlantic light, and it'll be awkward, silent, aching. She'll look at you sleepily, her eyes almost – almost – devoid of emotion, but you'll see something you're not supposed to see, like sadness, and you'll sit on the edge of the mattress until the day forces its way into your private lives.

You'll leave then, because you'll have to; you must get ready for work after all, and she won't allow you to go into the office dressed in the exact same suit as yesterday because you had both insisted you go home with her. You'll agree. You always do, but you'll be reluctant. You'll linger by her doorway, tired and old and boyish, and you'll tell her you'll see her in a bit, and there will be nothing in her eyes except professionalism. She's always been very good at snapping back to reality. You'll be hurt, and you won't say a word about it either way because that's just not how it works here in this life, this city.

You'll walk down to the closest subway station, your lips and hands still tingling from the night, and you'll wonder and wonder and wonder when the next time you'll taste her skin will be, and wonder if this entirely too entropic relationship will ever explode into either A) nothing or B) disaster or C) something altogether beyond your control. You'll think about that all the way home; the idea will tug at your mind until you see her next.

At the moment though, you rely on her and her alone. You rely on her mouth, the warmth of her tongue, her touch that destroys your senses and abandons you without another thought. She is like that, you think – charming, playful, brutal. The combination makes your head spin with imperfect desire, and you kiss her harder, faster.

This isn't easy, you tell yourself, nor is this what you want. You want her, but she's just as far away from this room as you are. You want to tell her – tell her that she's more to you than this. This is just late nights spent under cool sheets, the Atlantic slamming against the windows, dark and chaotic and indifferent. She is more. She doesn't want to hear that though, maybe because she is just as fragile as you are – exactly like you save the curly hair and the devil's smirk. At the base of this is only this impossible loneliness that you have known your whole life, this lifetime and the previous. This is now, and this is back when you first discovered pain and emptiness and this terrible yearning.

You feel a heavy weight on your shoulders; the tension seizes your muscles sharp and raw as you thrust inside of her. Your breath is erratic; you gasp for cold air, and it burns your lungs like smoke and ash and something so dead you have to shut your eyes to keep the darkness out.

Her arms circle your torso, ever-protecting and so like her. Her hands are hot on your skin; they tear you down, violent, reckless, as she pushes harder against you. You come, a darkness pouring over you. Your nerves fray like the ends of an ancient winter scarf.

You lie there, next to her, shaking. She pulls the sheets over you, smoothes out the crinkles. Her hair tickles your neck as she kisses your cheek, and it's soft and longing, her lips against your skin a moment longer than is typical. You face her, teary-eyed, a smile that is partially present and absent. She doesn't smile back. What's your name, son? Do you know who you are?

"Come back to me," she says. "You're so far away. Come back to me."

But you don't know where you are, can't begin to sort out where you have been, and you certainly, of all things, don't know where you are going. Come back to me, she says, still. Her voice isn't quite there. You ache; it's quiet, and her breath is light and bright in the dark.

three An Oscar-worthy performance

She pretends. She's always been very good at that.

She snaps on a pair of latex gloves in the middle of mid-morning Fulton traffic. She tosses her curly hair over a shoulder and bends to examine the blood on the curb, blood in the sewer. The asphalt has a dark drip-drop stain.

You watch her behind your partially raised camera. She pretends. She's always been a good actor.

She catches you staring.

"What?" she asks above the city noise. "What're you thinking about?"

"Thinking?"

"Yeah. Thinking, Mac. You have that look on your face." It almost sounds accusing. She's accusing you of thinking.

"I'm thinking that we have two bleeders." You point to the blood spatter. "The pool over there. The direction of the blood drops – it's all over the place." Point. "That's the victim's blood. This here, though, it doesn't add up, that's all."

"Two bleeders." She nods as she surveys the scene. "You might be on to something. Not much." She kids as she stands, surrounded by blood, and her eyes twinkle. "But I suppose it's something to start with."

She smirks at you.

"Sure," you answer. Your stomach turns as she looks away. "Why don't you let Flack know. He can keep an eye on any suspicious patients in the borough ERs."

Danny Messer appears – suddenly. "Mornin'. Traffic's a bitch today."

She rolls her eyes blatantly. "As always. You live in this borough, and you're still making excuses."

"That's harsh." He grins back. "What do we have here?"

"Dead guy," she answers. She gestures across the street to the body being zipped into its bag.

"Yeah, I figured. But thanks."

"Anytime." She flips open her phone. "Flack. Keep an eye out on the Brooklyn ERs for me, would you?"

Danny frowns at the scene, then turns to you. "Two vics?"

"Not necessarily. Two bleeders – at least."

"Ah."

"Swab. Take them back to the lab. Let's get some hits."

He makes a face. "I spent forty minutes in traffic and only get two minutes at the scene?"

Stella turns back and puts an arm around his shoulders affectionately. "Aw, poor Danny," she says, her voice dripping with sugar.

He shrugs out her embrace. "Yeah, whatever." He sets his case down on the pavement and opens it as you snap another picture of the curb. "How was your date last night?" he asks her rather casually.

Nothing fazes her, you realize.

She blinks. "Who told you I had a date?"

"Hawkes."

"That bastard. He lied."

Danny laughs. "So, does that mean you're still seeing Frankenstein?"

"His name is Frankie."

You look up at her, and she's smiling. She's always been a very good actor. You envy her. You almost hate her for it.

"And you're still seeing that twig from Brooklyn Heights, right?" she shoots back without a beat, playfully.

"Who told you that?"

Stella's smile grows wider. "Hawkes."

Danny groans as he swabs the edge of the sewer. "That bastard."

"Yeah. As if we expected anything less."

"You love him?"

She raises an eyebrow. "Who? Hawkes? Sure."

"Frankenstein, Stella."

"Frankie?" She thinks about it for a brief moment. "We've been going out for a few months now."

"Yeah, so?" Danny waits.

You wait, your stomach making another turn.

"So," she answers, "I don't think it's any of your business. Now run the samples back to the lab." She swats his arm, and he feigns hurt.

"All right, all right," he says as he walks away from the scene. "Rain check on the nasty little details, Bonasera."

"Because you don't have any of your own?" She winks.

Danny places a hand on his chest dramatically. "Last twist of the knife. I'll see you back at the lab."

Stella turns to you then, eyes bright. She doesn't smile at you though. "Flack is checking the ERs as we speak. I don’t think the suspect will turn up, but he’s checking."

You don't answer as you take another picture.

You're not a terrible actor yourself.

four This strange morning routine

And so the cycle begins: the daylight shatters the morning, loud and disrupting, rude. You are half-dressed.

You button your shirt as she walks, naked, to the master bathroom. The shower runs, a thin hiss fills the air, and the sound falls lonely upon your ears, and this routine has to stop.

You close your eyes, chew your lower lip in thought. You finish buttoning your shirt and flatten your mussed up hair with shaking hands as you make your way across the bedroom. You stand at the entrance of the bathroom.

"Stella." Your voice is soft, injured almost.

This routine has to stop, you think again.

"Stella?"

"Yeah?"

This has to stop. Your tongue practices the words, tasting the bile of the sentence, sharp, and This has to stop. I can't. I won't. You search for the end of your thought. Do this to you anymore? Do this to myself anymore?

She drops something; it clatters against the porcelain tub.

You lean forward slightly. "What was that?"

"Hairbrush." She pauses for a moment. "Did you want to say something?"

"When?"

"Just now."

You listen to the water running; the constancy of the sound makes you think she is simply standing still, waiting for your voice to surface. You scramble for your words and thoughts and apologies and maybe accusations, too.

"Mac? You still there?"

You swallow. "Yes."

She waits. This can't happen again. You watch the steam blur the mirror, slowly, delicately. We shouldn't –

She opens the sliding glass door of the shower and pokes her head out. "Mac?"

"Yeah."

"Well, did you – "

"Nothing." You scratch the back of your neck. "I just wanted to let you know I'm heading out. I'll see you at the lab." You turn on your heels, then stop, turn around to face the door again. "Should I take the Kleinman file with me? It's on your coffee table."

"No, it's okay." she answers, returning to her shower. "I'll bring it. I wanted to look over the neighbor's witness report over breakfast anyway."

You shuffle on your feet for half a moment and linger at the bathroom door just on the other side of the threshold. The water is shut off. You catch a glimpse of her body's silhouette through the distorted glass panel. You avert your eyes as the door slides open again.

"You think the neighbor's account is reliable?" you ask.

"Mac, come on, you know all witness accounts are rather unreliable."

"Yes, to a certain extent," you answer.

"To a certain extent," she agrees. "Still, what he said about Petri's behavior seems baseless. Biased. I mean, for Christ's sake, it matched every piece of evidence we had. Something's fishy about that."

"You think he's in on it? With Somberg?" you challenge gently.

"We've seen it before, Mac. Certainly wouldn't be the first time."

"Sure. You looking for anything in particular in the statement?"

"You know I don't do that," she says as she grabs a second towel from its rack.

"Okay."

"I just want to go over that one part again. See if we missed something. I mean he was the one who discovered the body, and the last person to see the vic alive." She pauses and looks around, her eyes ever-avoiding yours.

"You think that means something?"

She squints at you. "Mac, quit playing the devil's defense attorney. You know everything means something."

"Yeah. I guess I just don't want you going over it for the sixth time in two days. Your judgment, you know –" You stop talking when she doesn't look away from you. "Well," you say, "I don't need to tell you."

She smirks, and there's hurt there – faint, but there – as if you don't trust her. "Right. Of course."

"Of course. Right," you answer slowly.

"It's late, Mac. You better get going. You're never going to make it back downtown if you don't leave now."

Her face disappears behind her hair.

"Okay. Well, if I'm not in my office, just leave the file on my desk." You frown gently before adding softly, "Please."

"Sure," she says. "But I'll probably find you either way sometime during the shift."

You stare at tiny water droplets on the tiled bathroom floor. "You always do," you murmur.

She glances up, distracted. "Hmm?"

"You always do," you repeat. "Find me, I mean."

Your gazes meet, and you hold your breath. She looks away first. She brushes curls away from her face in the mirror, hooking them behind her ears.

"Seriously," she says, "you better get going. You should have left fifteen minutes ago. And I need to get dressed, head across the street for breakfast." She moves past you back to the bedroom, her wet hair whipping by, teasing you with the fleeting scent of papaya and mango.

"Yeah." You pull on your suit jacket, and you toy with the keys in your pocket. "I'll see you later then," you add as walk toward the bedroom door.

You pause though – very, very briefly – as if waiting for her reply. It never comes.

five Take it out on me

You meet for an early breakfast. It's a cheap little diner on the East Side, and it's just minutes after sunrise. The cook is still tying his apron around his waist, and the manager is pouring you coffee, making small talk.

"How are you? Early day, huh?"

Stella smiles, stirring fresh cream into her mug. "Thanks. And can I get an egg salad on rye? Actually, do you have pumpernickel? Okay, great, yes, on pumpernickel then." She looks at you. "And he'll have two eggs – poached – on dry, burnt toast. Burnt. Like, almost black."

The manager turns to you to confirm.

"What she said."

"Burnt toast causes cancer, ya know," the manager says helpfully as he begins to walk away.

You shrug. "Of course. What doesn't?"

A silence falls, and you shift in your chair, uneasy and restless.

"How's everything with your apartment going?"

She raises her eyes. "It's not. The landlord and insurance and – well, you know."

"Yeah."

"Been sorting through my shit. It's – it's killing me, really."

"Need any help with anything?" you say gently.

Her eyes. "No. I'm fine. Just one day at a time, blah blah." She waves a hand dismissively.

You pause to take a gulp of your coffee, looking away as you do so. "I still don't know why you're staying at that hotel," and it surprises both of you that the words came out so casually and bitterly.

Her eyes again. "I'm not actually. Turns out Hawkes knows a guy who knows a guy who's subleting his place for a month."

"Where?"

"West side. 94th and Columbus."

"So, you take the 1, 2, 3 trains?"

"No, the Blue or Orange. Usually the Blue. A or C."

The emptiness of the conversation makes you ache. When did it get like this?

You think for a moment. "You know, that's not that far from my place. I told you you can stay with me. Why don't you just save yourself the month's rent?"

"I sno–"

"You don't snore."

"I –"

"Here we are." The newly arrived waitress brings your breakfast, smiling sleepily. "Egg salad, pumpernickel. Poached eggs, burnt toast." She grins playfully your way. "That toast'll kill you sooner or later."

"Yes, thank you," you mutter quickly, indifferently.

The waitress shrugs. Stella recovers for you. "Thanks," she says warmly as you stare at the table. "Can I get some more coffee? And a glass of grapefruit juice? Thank you. Thanks."

Stella watches you pointedly as the waitress walks away.

"We were saying?"

"We were saying we both know you don't snore."

"Ah, yes. Anyway, you were very kind to offer your place, Mac."

"Coffee," the waitress breaks in again. "Grapefruit juice. Anything else for you folks?"

"Nothing, thanks."

"All right. Enjoy."

Stella digs into her egg salad without waiting for you. "That was sweet of you. I mean that. And I really appreciate it." Nonchalantly. "And I didn't mean to brush you off like that the other day when you offered. I was distracted – obviously. I don't need to tell you that."

"No, but you still haven't told me anything. You're not saying anything."

She continues eating, concentrating too much on her plate. She sets down her fork suddenly. "What do you want me to say, Mac?"

"The truth. The truth would be nice. For a change."

She shakes her head. "Fuck you. My apartment burned down less than 72 hours ago, and you're giving me this bullshit?"

"We said we would keep this – this thing between us – out of work."

"Yes. We did say that, so that's what I'm doing. That's what we agreed, and that's what I'm doing. So, no, I'm not going to stay with you because that would be mixing this life with work life, and you, Mac, you have to keep the boundaries up and know what is what. Frankly, I don't even know why you bothered offering in the first place when you do love your precious boundaries so much." She says this all in one breath.

"I wanted you to know I'm here for you," you answer flatly.

She softens. "I know. I know that. This is just – this is just getting dangerous. The lines are beginning to blur too much and –"

"Not that anyone would know. You're a good actor, Stella. Too good."

"Yeah, you too." And there's faint venom in her voice.

"It's becoming second nature, really," you admit, trying to change the tone of the conversation. "It's becoming so easy to pretend. And maybe I don't want that. I don't want it to be like that."

"What, you want us to be like Danny and Lindsey?" She raises an eyebrow.

You share a quiet laugh, and it feels good to see her smile for a moment because it's less complex to joke than to confront. "God, no. Not like Danny and Lindsey. We've been doing this too long anyway."

"Amen to that," she sighs, returning to her former seriousness. "Mac, this isn't easy. It never was. But I just think I need some space right now. I need some time to get my apartment back together, to figure out all that shit. I think we should take a break from this. I need some space, Mac."

You stare out the diner window. The sun is blasting between the buildings. So many objections, truths and half-truths, thoughts, and not one comes close to being voiced.

"Yeah," you say plainly, "You're probably right."

You finish your cold breakfast in silence, and she doesn't look you in the eye again. Pretending. Avoiding. That distinction is slipping.

six Next time

You don't know what you're doing here. Still, when the bartender refills your drink, hands it back to you, you accept it. She doesn't refuse her third whatever-it-is either.

You manage the drive back to her place. She is balancing between drunken lethargy and sober hyperactivity. She shifts restlessly in the passenger seat as you wait at the last red light before her street, her apartment.

Redemption and resurrection from this city are within reach, bright lights and alcohol, devils in your mind, devils in your bed.

"Want to come in for a bit?" She stares at you pointedly. "You should sober up some more."

You blink. "I'm sober. Very."

"Mac." She moves toward you, if only slightly. "Come in."

And then, you're back to where you've been afraid to be – sitting sprawled on her couch, eyes closed, with her body straddled over your lap. You tilt your head back against a cushion, and she leans forward, kisses you hard. Your hands tighten on her waist.

"We have to stop doing this," she says, her lips against your throat. Her hands are undoing your belt though, and yours are sliding under her shirt.

The television is on. The late evening news. You squint. You don't remember her turning it on (maybe you're not as sober as you think), but the faint blue light ghosts off her fair skin. Old and fresh scars, scars you can't see.

She smells like formaldehyde and latex and smoke. And her kiss. Her kiss tastes like bourbon and cheap beer, and then her tears come. You follow her lead, as you always do, pretending that they're not there, that they're not on your tongue. Yet, for a moment, you try to stop. You look up, meeting her gaze. The sadness on her face makes you want to cry yourself. But you don't stop. She doesn't let you. She pushes closer into you instead, grabs fistfuls of your hair, and you don't have another chance to catch your breath.

And this is your relationship, you realize. This. The easy equation: sex plus alcohol (in parentheses) multiplied by emptiness. Maybe loneliness should be thrown in there, too, you think between ragged moans and steady thrusts.

"This is what we do," she gasps into your mouth. Her words express your thoughts with twice the cruelty. "This. Fucking during the news, between the world report and the weather prediction – the past and the future."

A final thrust makes her words un-interpretable, and you're thankful for that because maybe it's all just too much for you to handle. She concedes, lets herself fall into you, silent.

The length of the couch is too short to accommodate your height comfortably, but you don't move. She adjusts a heavy wool blanket over you, then pulls it over herself. You press your lips against her forehead, except it's not quite a kiss. She falls asleep quickly, leaving you to the shadows of the room and the quiet of the street. You watch the sports roundup – another glorious and misguided loss added to the stat books. So it goes, your head and heart say.

You watch the way the TV light flickers across her face and wonder when this whole thing is going to tear you down and ruin you, do its damage and leave both of you irreparably broken.

You run your fingertips over her palm. Calluses like yours from gripping guns. You study the way her hand falls naturally: thumb back, forefinger straight but slightly bent, the rest of her fingers folded and curved together. Bringing back the hammer on an invisible Sig-sauer.

Too many close calls lately. You think of Drew Bedford, and you have to stop yourself. And god, you are so sleepy, so tired….

A sudden chill wakes you. You hadn't planned on sleeping. Through strained vision, you turn and watch Stella pad softly to the kitchen, the blanket wrapped around her shoulders, dragging lightly across the floors, trailing her footsteps. In the half-dark, you sit up, rubbing your eyes with the heels of your hands.

She returns to you, a smirk on her face.

"Sorry I woke you." she says. She doesn't sound apologetic. She hands you a glass, then sits, her body warm against yours. "I think I'm going to go to bed."

"You should. It's almost three," you answer evenly between gulps of cool water.

"Are you staying?" The calm and neutral tone does not surprise you anymore. Most evenings, you stay. Sometimes it is just late or early enough for you to drive home.

"I think I'll go home."

She doesn't argue. Without self-consciousness, you dress under the careful supervision of her eyes.

You turn at the front door. "I'll see you in the morning." You pause thoughtfully, dramatically, your hand on the door knob. "We'll get Rubenstein. I'm not worried about it. You shouldn't be either. Tomorrow. Go over the evidence again, do what we do, and we'll get him."

She attempts a smile as she makes her way across the living room to you. "Yeah. Tomorrow."

You learn to lie to yourself, to her. It makes it easier to get through the day. Maybe she knows it, too – knew it before, after, all along.

"Get some rest, Stella," you say anyway.

"You too."

You exchange a distant look, and your chest nearly bursts with hurt and regret. Next time, you think as she closes the door softly after you.

Next time, we'll get it right. The past. The future. This.

the end
(May 2008)