Regret

As a Marine, Mac was trained not to think about the past, not to torture himself with 'what ifs', to focus on the present and to get the job done.

But there are times, when it's late and he should be asleep, when he's at the office sorting through paperwork, his mind drifts. During these times it's not combat, it's not his father, it's not even the case he's working on that he finds himself thinking about. It's one Detective no longer on his team, no longer on the force: Danny Messer.

It's been over a year since Mac filed the paperwork, demoting him to homicide division, not even having the guts to tell him. Mac's gone over the reasons why he did it, again and again but with time they've become thin. Sure Danny could be disobedient but he always stayed within the law, unlike Aiden, and that still hurts Mac to think about. But it's odd because whenever Mac thinks back to Aiden's death, he can only remember seeing the tears in Danny's eyes and that's what hurts him the most.

Maybe Mac is just exhausted, none of this would have ever happened if Danny was capable of following orders, if he didn't question people without asking, if he didn't go places they didn't have a warrant for yet. Danny was impatient and Mac couldn't think how to teach him, discipline wasn't enough, so in the end he just handed Danny over to somebody else, to become somebody else's problem.

Mac recalls how Danny begged for his job, begged for one more chance, begged for Mac to forgive him. Mac refused to see how personal this was, Danny took everything personally. Mac knew he'd earned Danny's respect and then for him to just reject Danny like that...

It wasn't a rejection, it was just supposed to be a lesson. Danny would learn some patience, respect for the boundaries, gain some self-control and within six months or so, Mac would gladly have welcomed Danny back, grateful for his scientific knowledge and his intuition. That's what was supposed to happen.

Instead, Danny got himself shot during his fifth week as a homicide detective. He was antagonising a man, suspected of killing his daughter but had gotten off on a technicality. With the bullet they pulled out of Danny's body the man would go away for life. Danny had done good, in his own way.

Danny survived, barely but he would never be the same again, he could never be a field agent and Danny never was a fan of the paperwork. Mac had so wanted to tell Danny to come back, work in the lab full time, but something stopped him. He couldn't face Danny.

Mac learned from Don that Danny fell into a depression after that: wouldn't leave his house, wouldn't answer the phone, eventually even Don gave up on him as a lost cause. Mac wouldn't put it passed Danny to have... a part of him thinks Danny wanted to get shot, not just for the bullet. He can still remember, the last conversation he had with Danny, Danny doing all the talking, "You might as well take my gun and shoot me with it, I'm nothing without this, without you."

Mac sometimes feels the same about Danny. Without Danny, everything seems alot smoother in his life and for a while he was grateful, then he realised he was just going through the motions. Mac has come to realise that part of the reason he was so willing to give Danny away was because Danny made him feel, everything was brighter, more intense with Danny and that scared Mac. Now he misses it.

He dreams. Awake or asleep, he dreams Danny is with him. Maybe not as co-workers, Mac sticks by his decisions that Danny needed to learn some more self-control before being the best crime scene investigator he could be. In his dreams it's not about work. It's about friendship, a powerful connection. Danny's always making him smile, or think, he's making him happy and that's a feeling Mac had almost forgotten.

Mac's biggest regret isn't as Danny's ex-employer, it's the fact he never became his friend.