Angry

Written by Alekat

Disclaimer: These characters do not belong to me. I'm just borrowing them for a little while.

Rating: T

Pairing: S/C

Spoilers: "Lost Son" Note if you haven't seen the episode you might not want to read this.

Author's Note: After I watched the episode, I knew this had to be written. So I wrote it out and sent it to my beta, Miss Nit Picky and she added her feelings and here's what we have. Thanks MNP for all your help. I'm about all cried out now that the show's over and I've written this..

………..

Eric was sitting in the break room when Calleigh made her way to the coffee pot. He watched her moving in an almost mechanical rhythm. She had not noticed him or even looked around the room. Her focus narrowed in on the coffee pot. He had been watching her closely for the past few days. He had noticed the subtle changes in her appearance, the severe ponytail that had been a thing of the past was now back in place along with a dour expression on her face. Her teeth seemed to be clenched in frustration as she poured the hot liquid. She seemed to be in a hellish world known only to her or someone such as himself who was privy to some very secretive information.

He knew she had not taken the time to process the death of their friend and as far as he knew she had not made her mandatory visit to the staff psychologist that Horatio had ordered for each of Tim's coworkers. Of course, Horatio had not yet seen the psychologist either. Eric had made his visit first and gotten it over with. It didn't help but at least it was out of the way.

Calleigh turned to look in Eric's direction but stared just above his left shoulder causing Eric to look behind him to see that Calleigh was watching Horatio talk to Tim's Parents. She could see the pain etched into their faces as they talked with Horatio. The knowledge that they had been the last one's to touch his things burned at her soul; ripped her heart already broken heart to shreds. Her only solace was the expression on Tim's mother's face and the way she kept gently touching her cheek with a Kleenex ever so subtly. Actions that led Calleigh to believe that these last days were taking their toll on the older woman as well.

Calleigh shuttered to think of what it must be like for them as she watched Tim's father gently take his wife's hand and squeeze, softly trapping her rosary between their clasped hands. The Speedle's had stayed in town an extra week to close out Tim's apartment and final business before heading back to New York taking with them the last remnants of a man she had grown to love; a man she had intended a future with, children with; none of which they knew.

Eric looked back around in time to see Calleigh wipe a stray tear and throw the coffee mug, which happened to be Tim's, down in the sink. The black ceramic mug emblazoned with the words 'Dazed and Confused' in purple squiggly letters shattered in a million pieces as she stomped out of the room and down the hall away from their boss and his visitors.

Eric shook his head side to side as he watched as Calleigh pushed Valera aside and then slammed the door to Tyler's electronics lab.

Inside the lab, Tyler looked up to see what the commotion was. Realizing it was Calleigh, he turned off the tape he was working on and turned his chair to face her. She was leaned against the door, her eyes unfocused and her hands flat against the door while her chest was heaving from her exertion.

"Calleigh?" He questioned a compassionate tone in his voice. "Do you want to talk about what's bothering you?"

"Shut up Tyler." She barked her eyes flashing with immediate anger directed toward him as she crossed her arms over her chest reminiscent of the way Tim would hug her from time to time. "I don't want to hear it!"

He nodded and turned around knowing if she wanted to talk she would. If not maybe her gun wasn't loaded and she wouldn't shoot him. He cringed when he thought about her gun. Calleigh always kept her gun loaded.

She quietly opened the door and stepped into the hall leaving Tyler to his work. He breathed a sigh of relief when the door clicked into place signaling her exit. The entire lab had been in a perpetual state of fear and shock for the past week. Speedle's death had taken a toll on the primary CSI team. Horatio was holding the team together but everyone on day shift not on the team had to walk on eggshells. H was snapping at everyone. Eric was snarling at the drop of hat and Calleigh was in a complete state of denial that was rolling off her in angry waves.

It was unfair of Speedle to leave such disarray in his wake. He had been a contributing member to the team but as IAB had ruled also a slacker. He had kept his weapon in poor maintenance and although he did his DNA and Trace well it did not clear him of negligence. This ruling had come down on the entire team as everyone's fault. Those who worked with him not only were being second-guessed from the powers that be, they were second-guessing their own work. All because of their lack of knowledge that a coworker was slacking in his performance so badly.

Calleigh made it to the door to the ballistics lab before her pager started beeping. She jerked it from her belt and looked at the display. Horatio was paging her to a scene. She stepped into her lab and grabbed her kit and headed toward the garage. People between the lab and her destination moved as she swept down the hall at an unusually brisk pace, the click of her heel beats keeping rhythm with the cacophony of bumps and hits to her kit as it jarred off desks and hit several doorjambs before she left the building.

She was on a mission when she stepped out of the CSI Hummer a few minutes later at the crime scene. Horatio was already there looking as together and in control as always. This sight drove her insane. She was angry at the world for the injustice of Tim's death and yet here stood Horatio at a similar scene looking for the entire world like he didn't have a care. His ability to digest a crime scene like it was a piece of chicken at dinner bothered her especially now that every time she looked at a body she saw flashes back to that damn jewelry store and Tim's lifeless body lying amidst a wide puddle of crimson red blood. His blood.

She dropped her kit on the floor alerting Horatio to her presence. He looked thoughtfully toward her. He was worried about his ballistics expert. She had not shed a tear in his presence and if he suspected correctly she had not cried one bit. He knew she was on the edge but there wasn't a thing he could do except sit by and wait until she was ready to let it all out.

"Calleigh, I need you to process the body for GSR." Horatio spoke slowly methodically as he watched Calleigh focus on the victim, a young man in his thirties with the same body structure and hair color as Speed's.

She nodded and knelt next to the body. She blinked her eyes a couple of times to clear the image of Tim lying in the same state a little over a week earlier. She reached into her kit and pulled out a pair of latex gloves. Snapping them in place she surveyed the scene before her and then reached back into her kit and pulled out her blue light. His blue light.

Horatio was studying a slip of paper just feet away from Calleigh when the blue light sailed past his head and hit the wall. He turned to see Calleigh standing dead still her hands palm up in front of her shaking and she was muttering under her breath.

He looked at the two officers who were also in the room with them and said softly, "Clear the room. Give us some space."

The officers nodded respectfully and stepped out the door and closed it behind them.

"Calleigh." He moved cautiously toward her but she didn't move. She just kept mumbling incoherent sentences.

He caught snippets of her words occasionally, "…damn you..why…why didn't you … I told…..Horatio told you… why…I hate you…..no I love you…… .. damn light.. you couldn't even keep batteries in your light… damn you Tim.. .. how do I .." She stopped her murmurings long enough to sniff back a few tears.

Horatio reached out to touch her but she jerked her hands back, "DON'T! TOUCH! ME!!" He jerked his hands back and held them up in deference to her request.

"It's okay Cal. I'm right here." Horatio's low tone did nothing to ease her anger or her fear.

"NO! He's gone!!" She shook her head as the tears began to fall gently down her cheeks. "It's all his fault. He's gone!" She looked directly into Horatio's eyes, "Why did he have to go and do something stupid like that? Did he not love us enough? Did he not love me enough?"

Horatio's heart was breaking for her. She and Tim and Eric were like family. They fought like siblings and protected each other in the same manner now one was gone and the other two had to go on. "Of course he loved us. He just made a mistake Calleigh."

"Damn him, Horatio!" She kicked her kit over and the contents spilled on the floor causing her more heartache as she realized Tim had been in her kit and gotten more than just her light before his last case.

He was always borrowing her supplies but as she knelt next to the mess on the floor she realized he had left something in its place. He had left her a note. She picked the paper up and read silently as Horatio looked on. He could see what the note said but he wasn't trying to read it.

Judging from the note H Realized he had been mistaken about the love between Calleigh and Speed. He watched her teardrops fall to the paper in her hands. He watched her sadness smear the ink that spelled out a declaration from the heart, to a woman worthy of the promise, from a man whose heart could beat no more.

The End