Authors note: Thanks to Nikki for betaing.
DISCALIMER: I don't own CSI Miami and i don't make any money from it
I'm not like my father.
'I am not like my father, not like him,' Calleigh thought as she was sitting on a bar stool throwing down another shot of tequila.
"You want another one, ma'am?" the bar keeper asked her.
"You know it, Joe," she whispered as silent tears started to fall from her eyes.
"Sure you don't want me to call a cab to get you home?" he asked looking at her with worried eyes. She seemed more upset than usual.
"No, I can't he's there," she said so low that he could hardly hear her voice.
"Wanna talk about it?" he asked poring a glass for each of them.
"If you are sure you got the time," she said.
"I got anything, but time," he said and smiled at her.
It had started about six months back or even further actually. Calleigh tried to remember when exactly she drank for the first time and concluded it when she was about fifteen at one of her brothers home-alone parties. She didn't really like it back then, but she did it because everyone else was.
She didn't drink all too often back then, mostly because she knew the effects if you drank too much, her daddy had taught her well. He changed between good and evil in young eyes.
The few times that he was not drinking, he was a very loving father that took care of his family and Calleigh was his little princess as she always was.
But when he drank he was a very unpleasant man, which his children learned to fear.
Maybe that was why Calleigh, at first didn't want to drink, but one thing lead to another and she learned that drinking can also things fun.
When she moved away and started at the university, she was reading during the day and partying at night. How she really had managed that she didn't really know, yet she did.
It had come to her not having time to sleep it off, which meant she had arrived drunk to class.
At least that was until one of the professors took action and kicked her out and threatened she couldn't come back if she didn't get her acts together. She, of course, had told him that he couldn't do that as there were a lot of students that were worse and even with that habit she was still in the top of her class along with her boyfriend Jake.
He, on the other hand, said he could or at least from his classes which was a requirement in order for her to get her diploma. Calleigh, who once understood he was serious, stopped with the heavy drinking and partying, but she did of course not mind a glass of wine with Jake every now and then.
In time the two young students graduated and got jobs in the police department and nothing could make them happier, at least that was what she thought until his job started to consist of going undercover to bust out major drug leagues.
Calleigh had been sitting home alone night after night wondering how her prince charming was and worrying if he was OK until she couldn't take it any longer, and found comfort in the bottle, but she of course made sure no one at work knew what was going on.
One day she ran into the handsome officer Caine after being hired at the Miami Dade crime lab. He saw her for all that she was and wanted to be, good and bad and he helped her out of her darkness helping her out of her alcohol haze to become his right hand and later on his co-supervisor.
There wasn't a man in this world that Calleigh respected more than Caine, not even her current boyfriend Eric.
She looked at the bar keeper saying, "I don't, at this point even know why I am with him. At first it was fun and safe because he really cares for me, always has, always will. And he loves me deeply. I could hardly wait to see him at work and to see him after, but then everything changed."
"Why do you think that is?" he asked looking at her with kind brown eyes.
"I dunno exactly, I think it just became too much and that now I can't find any time to myself," she answered with a sigh.
"Have you tried to tell him how you feel?" he asked.
"No I have not, it's simply too hard as I don't want to hurt him," she answered with another heavy sigh.
"I see, and being with him for the wrong reasons is much better?" he said.
"I- I don't know to be honest, and I really have to go," she said as she got up on unsteady legs and started to walk towards the door and/when he yelled, "Do you want me to call someone to pick you up?"
"No, no, I'll just take a cab," she said with a sigh getting outside.
"So where to?" the cab driver asked after she had gotten inside.
Without thinking Calleigh gave him Horatio's address before slowly closing her eyes. She didn't wake up before the driver said, "Miss, we are here."
"Thank you," she said and paid him before getting out.
On very shaky legs, she walked up to the house and rang the doorbell to have Horatio appear a moment later saying, "Calleigh, what are you doing here?"
"I really don't know," she stuttered.
As he could feel her breath he said, "You have been drinking."
"I have, but it was off duty so it's really nunna your concern," she said.
"When you ring my doorbell at three in the morning it becomes my concern," he said.
She didn't know what to say to that, but he let her in before asking, "Calleigh, are you OK?"
"Fine…just fine," she answered.
"Are you sure about that, it's not like you to get drunk on a job night," he said.
"Needed to unwind," she said.
"Eric is not treating you badly is he?" he asked concerned as they sat down on his couch.
"No, he's… he's not," she answered.
"Then what are you doing here this time of night?" he asked.
"I had nowhere else to go as he's home," she answered, somehow managing to held her tears back.
"So I take it things aren't going to well after all?" he said, in a questioning tone, with a sigh.
"Do we have to talk about it, I mean it's not like I ever let it inflict my work," she said.
"How long has this been going on?" he asked.
She figured as she was there she might as well tell him the truth and said, "Six months."
He nodded and said, "I do assume that you know that now that you have told me this, it can not go unrecognized."
"It's not that much," she answered, looking away.
"Calleigh, we have been through this once before and I don't want you to…" he stopped.
"End up like my father? Horatio you know I am nothing like him," she answered.
"Perhaps not, but here we are again and again you have been drinking. Why did you even come here?" he asked her.
"Because I needed a place to stay for the night, please don't send me away," she practically begged him.
Horatio saw the desperation in her eyes and said, "Fine you can stay, but tomorrow we need to have a serious talk."
"I am OK with that," she said even thought she wasn't.
"I'm going to bed, you can sleep here," he said nodding towards the couch as he left her and only by doing so she knew she screwed up big time. Only right then she was too tired to even care so she just closed her eyes and fell to sleep.
It was early morning and Horatio was sitting on a chair close by looking at Calleigh. She was still sleeping heavily. This was not the first time she had done this, nor did he think it would be the last. Horatio Caine was not a stupid man he, and had suspected that her drinking had started again. His reasonings for that were that she had come in more tired to work than was usual and that he had found her sleeping in her office once or twice, not that he had interrupted her sweet sleep as he found it adorable. Yet, knowing her earlier habits, he, of course, had no trouble adding it up. He really didn't like it, mostly because he was afraid she might harm herself in one way or another.
He knew that high pressure was the reason the first time, but he couldn't seem to find a good reason now.
His thoughts however got interrupted by her saying, "Horatio, are you watching me?"
"I am yes. So want to tell me what this is really about?" he asked just like that.
She was just about to say something when her phone started to ring and she said, "Hi Eric. No I am fine, I am at Horatio's. No, no, no, I didn't do that and I don't know how you can even say that. Fine, bye."
Horatio looked at her upset face and said, "So I take it that didn't go very well."
"No. Apparently he thinks I slept with you since I didn't come home last night and I am here now," she said rolling her emerald green eyes.
"How are you feeling?" he asked.
"Hungover, relieved, confused," she answered.
He nodded as she continued, "And to answer your previous question, it all became too much and I needed an outlet."
"Thought that was why you were running," he said and smiled at her.
"It is," she answered with a yawn.
"You need to rest as I don't want to risk evidence being compromised due to your previous actions," he said.
"Handsome, don't you trust me?" she asked a bit surprised.
"You know I do, it's just the drinking I don't like, no matter how good you are and how much I trust you, even you can have bad judgment under the influence," he said.
"I suppose you are right and I really want to stop as I don't want to hurt people or contaminate evidence, but it's really hard you know," she said with a sigh.
"I know which is why I am going to help you every step of the way," he said as he slowly took her hands in his.
"Really you would do that. Why?" she asked looking at him with wondering eyes.
"Because I care about you and I need my co-supervisor to stay off the bottle," he said remembering he had said the same years back, before she became his co-supervisor.
She nodded in a serious way not replaying, her eyes were tired and her head aching and all she wanted to do were to hide away and just sleep. She, of course, knew she couldn't do that or rather let herself do that.
Horatio looked back at the young woman he had known for so many years. He really did care about her in so many ways and for so many reasons.
Right now she looked both tired and sad almost like she could fall apart any second. He was wondering if it would be inappropriate if he took her in his arm and just help her only for a second. Slowly he moved closer doing just that and as his arms wrapped around her she couldn't hold her tears back any longer.
"Shhh," he soothed her as he gently caressed her backside.
"But I'm horrible, just like him," she cried, hiding in him.
"No you are not, and I will not have you think that as you are so much more," he said.
"Horatio, I'm just so tired," she whispered.
"I know sweetheart and I really as I said earlier think you need rest," he said.
"Don't leave me," she whispered slowly closing her eyes and holding on to him.
"Never," he thought as he had no desire to do so.
"I love you, I never realized it before, but I do," Calleigh thought looking at the man resting next to her in his bed.
She had always cared deeply for him in every way and respected him, but it was not until that moment, when she watched him that sleep she realized this and understood what had been missing for so long.
Maybe that's why it hadn't worked with Eric, because she had loved someone else all along, she just didn't know it yet. But now she did and she knew she wanted to spend the rest of her life with the man next to her. Her savior.
As that was what he was, for the second time he had saved her from doing something that could have ended in disaster. He had offered to help her through it, something she had no intentions of declining.
"I love you," she whispered gently letting her lips brush upon his.
"I love you too," he said as he slowly opened his eyes and looked at her, his Calleigh, his light and in many ways his savior.
Feedback always welcome and very much appriciated :o)