Title;; Fall Away

Author;; CSI-Nikki

Category;; Drama

Rating;; PG-13

Disclaimer;; I do not own CSI: Miami or any of the characters. Nor do I own "Fall Away" by the Fray. The only thing I own is Riley Dakona or any other characters you do not recognize from show.

Info;; Just to get a better feel for my OC character, Riley Dakona, before I write a full story with her and to see if people like her, I decided to write a quick songfic about what Riley is doing or thinking about in the hospital waiting room. I left some open questions to make it seem interesting enough to make people want to read the full story when I write it from the beginning. (Post "No Man's Land") (Song is "Fall Away" by The Fray)

Note;; The song itself doesn't fit this story right now, but once I do the full story, it'll make sense why I picked this song for this one-shot.

You swear you recall nothing at all
That could make you come back down
You made up your mind to leave it all behind
Now you're forced to fight it out

Riley Dakona paced the hospital waiting room floor over and over again – back and forth – checked with the nurse at the front desk of the ER to get any updated information and when she got none, she'd go back to the waiting room and pace. She stopped for a second when Ryan Wolfe finally got up and walked over to her, lightly putting his hand on her shoulder.

"Riley." He started, still leaving his hand on her shoulder. "You should sit down."

She stopped and turned to look at her new friend. "Yeah… yeah. I'm good. I'm… I'm perfectly fine."

"I didn't ask how you where, I told you to sit down…" he looked at her, silently pleading to her to just relax, pacing wasn't going to do anything. "He's going to be fine, Lauren. Ok?"

"Yeah… I don't know." She mumbled and slowly let him led her over to an empty chair before sitting down next to her. "I don't know, Ryan. The doctors won't tell me anything at all… and I know when they tell you nothing what so ever, most of the time it doesn't look good…" she shook her head. "No one wants to be the one to tell you the bad news."

Ryan sighed and looked over to where Calleigh, Alexx and Horatio where seated. Horatio was leaned forward with his head in his hands while Calleigh was leaning all the way back in the chair with her head against the wall and her eyes closed – not sleeping, just trying to relax. Alexx was playing with her cell phone, clearly trying to decide if she should call someone or not.


You fall away from your past
But it's following you

Riley was sitting back in her seat with her feet resting on her chair, her body leaning forward so she could hug her knees. She let out a deep breath before standing up in a huff. "I can't do this!" she said loud enough to get her fellow CSI's to look over at her and even a passing nurse looked over at her.

"Riley, honey" Alexx started, looking over at the CSI. "Come here, just calm down for a minute and try to re-"

"No! No, Alexx. I can't. Not that I don't want to, but I just can't." she shook her head. "When Speedle died, I left town remember?" she shook her head and let her arms drop to her sides. "I can't handle things like this! I can deal with death and telling people that their loved ones are gone all day but the minute its someone I care about, I lose it completely. And suddenly all I want to do so leave this place and go down the street to a bar and drink my problems away. And yes, I'm a crappy friend to Eric, to all of you to want to do that so bad, but I don't know what to do." She took a deep breath, staring at Alexx.

"Sweet heart. No, you're not a bad friend to anyone. You're here aren't you? You not at the bad, you're here. You're a good friend,"

"I'd do anything to make this whole day start over and change something, ya know? Make it end where no ones gets shot, no one has to be here and everyone goes home at the end of the day and wakes up tomorrow and go to work just to do it all over again just like yesterday and the day before and the day before that."

You left something undone, it's now your rerun
It's the one you can't erase
You should have made it right, so you wouldn't have to fight
To put a smile back on your face

After Riley forced herself to calm down again and sit back down, Calleigh walked over to her a little bit later. "Riley, Come on. Lets go down stairs and get some water or something to eat. I haven't had anything to eat all day and I'm sure you haven't ether"

"Uh…" she started, looking up at Calleigh. "I don't know if I can eat, but I'll try."

"Alright, come on. We'll be back in no time, ok?"

"Yeah." Riley stood up and followed Calleigh out of the waiting room and to the elevator. Within minutes they where downstairs in the little hospital cafeteria. But nether woman could eat anything, they where both to worried to eat anything. Riley wasn't even sure if she'd be able to keep anything down if she did eat.

"Calleigh?" Riley started once they got back in to the elevator to go back upstairs.

Calleigh looked over at the younger dark haired woman. "Mm-hmm?"

She took a minute, wondering if she should reply or not. "Would I be horrible if I said I want to leave and just go home and try to forgot today even happened?"

Calleigh waited for a minute, clearly thing to think of the best way to reply to her. "No, you'd be human." She paused. "If you really want to go home, no one will hold it against you."

Riley nodded. "Its not that. I don't want to be here if its bad news, you know? Calleigh, I'm horrible, When you called and told me about what happened, I actually wished I never even came back to Miami." She felt tears start to well up in her eyes, but she wouldn't let them fall. "I can't do this again, Cal." She added. "Not again."

You fall away from your past
But it's following you
You fall away

Once they got back to the waiting room, Riley checked with Ryan if they heard anything and he simply told her no. She sat back down next to him and leaned forward, head in her hands. "I should have done something,"

"What are you talking about?" Ryan asked, looking back over at her. "You didn't know this would happened, you weren't even there, remember?"

"No, I wasn't there but I talked to him right before he left to go meet Horatio in that parking lot… and I just had a bad feeling. I don't know what it was, but I had a really bad feeling." She shook her head. "I know that I sound crazy right now, but I feel like I could have done something to change what happened or something." She almost wanted to laugh at how insane it sounded.

Ryan watched her for a minute, unsure of what to say in reply to that. "Ril-"

She stopped him. "Don't say anything. Its hard to explain." She forced a sad smile. "Really, really hard to explain,"

Something I've done that I can't outrun
Maybe you should wait maybe you should run
But there's something you've said that can't be undone

Tiredly, Riley stood up and moved over to take a seat next to Horatio. "You couldn't have done anything, ya know?" she said, not looking at him – but even though she was staring at the floor, he knew she was talking to him.

"I-" he started, but she cut him off.

"You guys where ambushed, no one knew this would happen. Don't feel guilty, Horatio, you really couldn't have done anything more. You did call and have them bring him here, didn't you? That's more then what I would or could have done. I most likely would have froze up…" she shrugged, now looking over and making eye contact with her boss. "Plus, you where the one who put yourself in the line of fire by getting over there and getting him behind that car after he got shot the first time…"

Horatio nodded and let out a heavy sigh. "Not like it did very much good…"

"Trust me, if you didn't it could be a lot worse." She sighed and looked back at the floor. "Again, something I would have never been able to do." She mumbled. "You couldn't have done anything more then you did, Horatio."

And you fall away from your past
But It's following you
You fall away
It's following you