Author's Note: It just came to me. Argh. I need to be studying, so I'm going to do that now. It's...different than the last story, but you all know me well enough by now to understand that it's going to be E/C. Because nothing else makes sense. So, read. Review. Eat some chocolate. Have a great day.

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"Wolfe!" Eric was up to his neck in pieces of metal, shards of glass…it all needed to be printed. "You busy, man?"

"No, not really, what's up?" Ryan figured he knew exactly what was up. Eric wanted help, but a few things were going to have to change first.

"I've gotta have all this stuff printed and analyzed by end of business or Bubba Jim Matthews walks." He wiped the sweat off his forehead with his sleeve and sighed. "Who names their kid 'Bubba,' anyway?"

"That's his real name?" Ryan was already snapping on gloves and organizing the pieces of glass by color. Sometimes his obsessive compulsive tendencies came in handy.

Three hours later the piles were significantly smaller, but it was slow going, and they still had nothing. No prints. No DNA. Nothing. Bubba Jim's life expectancy was about to significantly increase if they didn't find something soon.

"Damn it!" Eric threw his gloves across the room angrily. "It's got to be here. Something. Anything. All we need is a partial match to hold him overnight."

"You boys gonna be finished any time soon?" Calleigh poked her head in the doorway.

"Does it look like it?" Eric grumbled.

"Well, I was just wondering," She smiled at him, ignoring his bad attitude, sat down on the bench beside him. "If you two needed any help."

"Ah. Calleigh, you're a godsend." Ryan flirted with her clumsily, but still. He was cute.

"You finish up with that multi-round?" Eric appreciated her help, but his mind was a little too occupied to be bothered with pleasantries right now.

"What can I say?" Calleigh was oddly unphased by his bad mood. "I'm efficient!"

"What was it?" Ryan had heard the rumors, but wanted his information first hand.

"Quadrangle buckshot." She answered, but didn't look at him.

"Phew." Ryan exhaled. "Nice. Somebody knows what they're doing."

They worked in relative silence for almost an hour before Eric finally smiled again. "Guys." He motioned to his companions. "Guys, I've got it. Check it out." He held up a freshly dusted shard of glass with a pair of forceps.

Calleigh's attention wasn't on the glass, though, it was on Eric. His smug smirk was back – almost like old times. It had been a while since she'd seen that look on his face, and the truth was, she'd missed it. Work just wasn't as fun without his smiling face or his amusing quips. Something had been bothering him recently, but she had no idea what it was. He wasn't looking to tell her, either, and she tried not to feel the sting of that particular fact.

"Lift it and run it." She suggested, as if he didn't know the protocol already.

"Yeah." He took the materials she held out to him and flashed her his knee-weakening grin. "Thanks."

"It's what I do." She teased, earning her a soft chuckle as well as a fleeting smile.

He photographed it, uploaded the image, and entered it into the system, hitting 'search,' and sitting back while the program worked its magic. Ryan and Calleigh were still hard at work, just in case, and he took a moment to observe his companions. Ryan had grown up a lot since he'd joined the team. The young man he'd once resented, seen as a poor replacement for his best friend had, in fact, become a relatively good friend of his. Also, he'd really grown into a good CSI, and Eric respected the work he'd put into mastering his trade.

That brought him to Calleigh. Her head was down and she was concentrating hard on the pile of evidence in front of her. Watching Calleigh was kind of a hobby of Eric's. Had been for a while. Sometimes he wondered if she ever knew he watched her, but if she did, at least she had the grace to pretend like she didn't notice. She was graceful. Always graceful. Her movements were fluid, one easily flowing into the next. She made everything look effortless.

The computer beeped a few times as it completed comparing the sample against prints in the database. "We've got a match. One Bubba Jim Matthews. Sorry, Bubba. You're going to be enjoying a ten by ten cell for the next twenty-five to life." Eric said dryly, not actually apologetic at all. There were very few things in Eric Delko's life that he had absolutely no patience for at all. Men who beat their wives. Rapists. Child molesters. These all made the top of Eric's "not fit for human interaction" list. And Bubba Jim met all three wickets, so would be receiving no sympathy from Eric. None.

"Looks like my work here is done!" Calleigh said cheerfully as she stood up. "You need anything else?"

"Nah. I've got it. Thanks." Eric was a little distracted, and didn't give her his full attention. Calleigh noticed this, and was confused by it. He usually looked her straight in the eye when he spoke to her. She hesitated outside the door for Ryan to leave, then turned to go back into the lab, but she paused in the doorway. Eric was not okay. Hadn't been for a while, but this was bad. He was just sitting, staring into space.

"Eric." She said softly, almost whispering. He didn't seem to hear her, so she inched toward him. His back was to her, but she had a good enough view of the side of his face to see the tear that was slowly making its way down to his chin. "Eric." She whispered, and placed her hand on his shoulder, drawing her hand back when he jumped out of the chair, fists up and ready for a fight.

"Easy there, cowboy." She tried to calm him, but her heart was pounding in her chest. "It's just me."

"Sorry." He sank into the just-abandoned chair and buried his face in his hands.

"Eric." She squatted down in front of him and placed a hand on his knee. "Tell me what's going on. Please."

"Nothing." He couldn't get her involved. He couldn't risk her safety, too.

"Eric." She knew him better than that.

He was about to say something when his cell phone rang.

He sent an apologetic look in Calleigh's direction as he answered it. "Delko."

She watched as his face fell, and felt her heart contract along with it.

"H., you can't be serious."

She waited a moment more.

"I'll be right there." He wiped his hands on his jeans and stood up. "Sorry, Cal. I've gotta go. H. needs me on translator duty."

"Russian?" She guessed. Half of Miami-Dade PD spoke Spanish, so that couldn't be it.

"Nope." He looked pissed about it, too.

"Why?" She followed him out to the Hummer, curious about the new gig and Horatio's mysterious phone call.

"Didn't say." Eric was pissed. "Just told me to get there ASAP." He threw his kit in the trunk and slammed it shut. "Do you need something?" He hated to be rude, but the less time he spent around her the better. It could be detrimental to her safety, and she had a tendency to…turn his brain to mush.

"I just want to make sure you're okay." She put her hand on his forearm before he shut the door. "Are you? Okay?"

"I'm fine." It was a little cross, but he was in no mood for games. "I've gotta go."

"Sure." She removed her hand and watched as he shut the door a little too harshly and sped out of the parking lot. "Sure you are."

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A/N: Chapter one...done. More to come. Maybe. That's kind of up to y'all. Yes, I'm from the south. What about it. English is the only language I know of without an accepted, distinctive form of second person plural. Unless, of course, you happen to be located south of the Mason-Dixon line.