This is a work of fan-fiction. I do not own the characters of CSI: Miami. I am just borrowing them for fun.
This piece is set during Season 5. I'm new to the fandom, so if you catch any errors or want to beta any future pieces, please drop me a line. My thanks to my husband for giving this a quick read-over for typos and to Celeste for beta-reading. I made a few changes based on her suggestions. Thanks, Celeste! Any remaining errors are mine.
Ryan Wolfe sat back from the evidence table and rubbed his eyes. This case was a particularly troubling one. A young girl had been found dead in a dumpster, no witnesses, no murder weapon, no motive. He had been staring at the various grasses and leaves found on the victim's body, trying to discern the location of the primary crime scene. So far, no luck. Obsessive-compulsive tenacity hadn't paid off yet either, but Ryan still had hope. Detailed investigations like this one focused his anxious mind and kept him from dwelling on the things that were troubling him. Like fellow CSI Eric Delko.
The young man stood and stretched. The night crew was settling in to their evening hours at the crime lab, but, unlike the day shift, the second string had fewer members and they tended to arrive at work in irregular spurts.
Ryan relished the quiet. Things had been tense since Eric had returned to work, newly shorn, with a deep scar on the back of his head from the surgery to remove the bullet. Part of a bullet, Ryan amended internally. The other piece was still lodged in his fellow CSI's temporal lobe, wreaking havoc on Eric's ability to concentrate. Calleigh had recently discovered that Eric had mistaken his hydrogen peroxide bottle for water in his kit, compromising the peroxide-luminal mixture he had used to check a suspect's hands for blood. Ryan suspected that he probably wasn't supposed to know about that, but Eric had told Natalia. Ryan had subsequently found her in the locker room, on the verge of tears, and she had confessed her worry over Eric's condition. Secrets were hard to keep in the crime lab.
Homicides hadn't tapered off while Delko was recovering, and everyone had been pulling double shifts. Things were finally starting to settle down, but Ryan just couldn't relax. It was like he was waiting for something else bad to happen. Recent months had been rough on the day shift: Alexx had nearly been blown up at the courthouse, Natalia and Maxine had been suspects in Natalia's ex-husband's murder, and then Eric had been shot. Ryan knew rationally that he could not prevent another tragedy on the team by remaining on high alert, but he couldn't quite shake the feeling that something else was desperately wrong.
Sighing, he shoved his feelings aside and headed to Horatio's office. He wanted to borrow his boss's spare ProScope. Ryan was using his own device to study the grasses and leaves; with a second ProScope, he could simultaneously examine the small trace of blood splatter found on the victim's shoes. H's door was always open if his staff needed to borrow equipment; Ryan's fellow CSI's were far more possessive of their tools.
Ryan found himself counting his steps to Horatio's door, and realized that the lack of progress on this case was bothering him more than he had thought. Tomorrow is another day, he reminded himself.
The hallway to Horatio's office was silent. Alexx must have finally convinced H to take a night off, Ryan mused. His boss had barely slept since Eric had been shot.
Without stopping to knock, Ryan pushed the door open. "H! I didn't expect to see you ..." The words died on his lips as he locked eyes with Horatio. The man sitting at the desk staring back at him wasn't Lieutenant Caine, head of the Miami-Dade crime lab. These red-rimmed eyes belonged to a man he didn't know: Mr. Caine, upstanding Miami citizen, recent widower, and concerned brother-in-law. The grief and pain etched in his deep blue eyes caused Ryan to take an involuntary step back toward the door.
Horatio shoved the wedding day photo of himself, Marisol, and Eric into a drawer before folding his hands on top of his desk. When he spoke, the man had regained his composure. "Mr. Wolfe. How can I help you?"
"H ..." Ryan swallowed over the lump in his throat. "I ... uh ... I wanted to borrow your spare ProScope."
The man silently handed the item to his employee. Ryan watched as Horatio turned away and began to sift absently through a stack of papers on his desk without really looking at any of them. With a start, Ryan realized that he had caught Horatio doing this a lot lately.
H with a nervous habit? The very thought was incomprehensible.
The man's soft, determined voice brought Ryan back to the present. "Is that all, Mr. Wolfe?" He spoke without a hint of emotion, and Ryan had to admire Horatio's ability to conceal what he was really feeling. But the nagging sense that something was wrong tugged at Ryan again.
It can't be good for him to keep bottling things up.
Ryan shifted his weight from foot to foot. "Uh, H," he stammered, looking around Horatio's office, casting about for the best way to approach this.
Horatio stared at him with impenetrable eyes of steel. "Is something wrong, Mr. Wolfe?"
Ryan shook his head. "No. It's just ..." He licked his lips anxiously and tried again. He had to blurt this out before he lost the courage to say it. "Look, if you ever need someone to talk to, I'm here."
Horatio's eyebrows lifted, and a ghost of smile crossed his face.
"I mean it, H. You can't keep blaming yourself for Eric's injury. Or for Marisol's death. You did the best you could do, the best any of us could do."
The redhead stared at him, all traces of humor gone, and Ryan's heart began to hammer. He cursed himself silently. I've said too much. He backed away toward the door as Horatio rose to face him.
The older man gave his youngest CSI a curt nod, and, just for a minute, Ryan caught a glimpse of the man behind the legend. "Thank you, Ryan."
Ryan returned the nod. He knew when he had been dismissed. "Good night, H."
"Good night, Mr. Wolfe."