The Edge of Darkness

MissLucy21

AN: No, you're not crazy. This had been All These Things, and I haven't changed anything except the title and the front quote to chapter 1. See, what happened was as I got the story down on paper, I realized that it wasn't going to work the way I thought. I had chosen the title All These Things and the song that had gone with it for a very specific reason, and this story just wasn't going to get to part that it applied to smoothly. Apparently, there are three stories here- I didn't realize. So, I changed the title. If you read chapters 1-3 of All These Things, you can skip to chapter 4 and you won't have missed anything. It's still the sequel to Blind Memory. I still don't own anything you recognize.

The timeline is this: Chapter 1 begins in the interlude between Chapters 14 and 15 of Blind Memory (you might want to read that first, if you haven't, otherwise this is not going to make any sense). It is Tuesday, September 21, 2004. Chapter 14 of Blind Memory begins at about 1:30 in the afternoon, and Chapter 15 takes place around 6pm. Chapter 1 of The Edge of Darkness begins about half an hour prior to that. The story as it unfolds overlaps Chapter 15 and will eventually (at some point, I haven't quite gotten there yet, but I know it's coming) continue past where Chapter 15 ends.

Sorry for the confusion. But as one of my favorite authors says, "The author always reserves the right to have a Better Idea". I really do think it will be better this way. Thanks for hanging in there with me!

secure yourself to heaven
hold on tight, the night has come

"Secure Yourself", Indigo Girls

"Hey, I'm back," Calleigh said, breezing into the layout room where she expected to find Tim. "Tim?" she asked, frowning as she encountered the empty room. "Huh."

She glanced down at her watch. 5:35. Tim only had 25 minutes before he'd get kicked out for the day. She'd expected to find him working furiously and was surprised that he wasn't. "Well, all right then," she muttered as she turned around to head down the hall towards the office they shared. Maybe he was in there.

The office was also empty, but can of soda and open files on Tim's desk told her he hadn't gone home for the day yet. "Hmmm," she said, tapping her lip. She walked back to the layout room to see if he'd just stepped out of the room and she'd missed him. No Tim, but plenty of evidence that he'd been working in there. She idly picked up a piece of paper covered in his most careless handwriting and squinted at it, trying to decipher it. He had obviously been in the middle of something, because otherwise he would have made a legible copy for the file. He always left legible notes, just in case. They all did. Shaking her head at the mystery paper, she walked up to the lounge.

The lounge was empty except for Valera, who was staring at the microwave as it cooked her dinner. "Hey, Valera, have you seen Speed?" she asked.

Valera looked up, surprised. "No, not all afternoon," she said, after a moment of thought.

"Ok, thanks," Calleigh said. Well, that wasn't necessarily surprising, she thought. If Tim had been holed up in the layout room all afternoon, like it appeared he had, then it was fairly likely no one had seen him. But if he'd left the building, then Horatio would have had to known he'd gone, she realized. She nodded to herself as she walked up the stairs to Horatio's office.

He wasn't there, but she caught sight of him walking down the hall from the opposite direction with a look on his face that told her he'd been in a meeting that had lasted entirely too long. "Hey," she said.

"Hi," he said, quirking an eyebrow at her as he walked towards his office where she was standing. "What's up?"

"Have you seen Tim?" she asked. "I thought he'd be downstairs, but he's nowhere to be found."

"You mean they're not back yet?" Horatio asked, pausing as he unlocked his office door.

Calleigh shook her head. "Back from where?"

"Speed and Eric went to go check on a possible lead. Damnit, I told him to call if they were going to be out for more than two hours," Horatio sighed.

"Did you tell them both that, or just Tim?" Calleigh asked as she followed him into his office. "I know Tim promised to try and behave, but he's really not known for keeping good track of time when he gets involved in something…"

"They were both standing right here," Horatio said, pulling out his cell phone. "No messages," he sighed. He dialed a number and listened for a moment. "He's not picking up," he said, hitting a button and dialing another number. "Neither is Eric," he said after another moment.

Calleigh frowned. "Ok, Tim not picking up I can almost see, but not Eric."

"No," Horatio agreed. "I don't like this."

"Do you know where they went?" she asked.

"Not entirely. North of the city, across town. I should have asked for the address," he sighed.

"Maybe it's downstairs. He has papers all over the table down there, it's probably in one of those," she said, turning to lead the way back down to the layout room.

They both shuffled through the papers on the table, trying to figure out Tim's sense of order. "This looks like a list he was working on yesterday," Calleigh said, plucking a sheet torn off of a legal pad from the top of a pile.

"This might be it," Horatio said, picking up another sheet, "But I don't know if I can read it."

"Well, let's see," Calleigh said. They compared the two pages. "I think this is the legible copy of that one," she said.

"Probably. Let's see…" Horatio ran his finger down the page. "Here we go, I wonder if this is it," he said, pointing to an entry towards the bottom of his page that was starred.

Calleigh looked over her sheet until she found something towards the middle that looked similar. "Up past the airport?" she asked.

"Looks it. Near the turnpike," he said, nodding. "All right, I'm going to go check this out."

"Want me to come?" she asked.

"No, stay here in case one of them checks in. I'll tell Pamela to route calls to you. Just in case something happened to the phones," he said.

Calleigh didn't think that was terribly likely, but she nodded anyway. "All right. I'll stay here."

"Good. Keep looking through this stuff, in case we've got the wrong address. I'll call you when I get out there," he said.

"Right." She watched him leave the layout room before turning back to the papers.

She'd been sorting through things for about 20 minutes when Yelena poked her head into the room. "Calleigh, do you know where Horatio is?"

She looked up. "He went out to check on something Tim and Eric were doing. Why?" she asked.

Yelena walked into the room and seemed to steel herself. "Dispatch just got a screamer page from Tim's pager a few minutes ago," she said slowly.

Calleigh leaned heavily against the table. "Have they traced it?" she asked, worriedly.

"They have an address north of the city, near the airport. Is that where Horatio thought they would be?" Yelena asked.

Calleigh nodded, relaxing slight. Horatio would be nearly there, then. "That's where we thought they were, yes. Do we know anything?"

Yelena shook her head. "I'm sorry, no, not yet. Dispatch tried to raise their radio, and they tried to raise John Hagen's radio as well, but didn't get a response from either."

"Horatio couldn't get Tim or Eric on their cell phones," Calleigh said, closing her eyes. "Oh, God."

Yelena reached out and gripped her arm. "Calleigh, someone had to be well enough to use the emergency button on the pager. It might yet be all right."

"You're right. We should call Horatio and let him know he's headed the right way," she said, slowly.

"I called Frank already; he was working up that way," Yelena said.

"Ok, good. Would you call Horatio, please," Calleigh asked, standing up. "I have to go tell Alexx what's going on. She's…Tim is her responsibility," she explained.

Yelena nodded. "I will call Horatio. You get Alexx."

"Right," Calleigh said, firmly. It might yet be all right. But she didn't think so.