CSI: Miami, Calleigh Duquesne, Tim Speedle © Jerry Bruckheimer
Repost. Fixed the file type.

The moment is sudden.

Maybe "unexpected" is a better word for it. Calleigh isn't one of those people who falls easily. She's rather cautious when it comes to who she lets herself become involved with, and normally, it's not coworkers. Jake was really her only exception there, but she never let herself become too upset with herself about the situation. He was kinda sorta gorgeous, and quite the charmer, so as far as she was concerned, there wasn't any real harm in letting herself break her own rules just the one time.

The moment is curious.

Bouncing down the steps to the forensics lab, her high heels clicking on the ground, she hums cheerily to herself and slightly bobs her head to a favorite country tune that's been stuck in her head for most of the day. She thinks on it momentarily. Toby Keith? No, Tim McGraw. That's right.

Turning the corner to the forensics lab, she spots the shadow of someone standing behind the plexiglass, and lets out a small hum of satisfaction. Eric must have beaten her there to get a head start on processing the GSR samples they recovered earlier. Yet, when she rounds the corner to the doorway, Eric isn't the one she sees.

Tim Speedle hovers behind the counter with his back turned to her, white lab coat covering his slightly hunched form. The room isn't quiet as she would expect it to be, but instead is filled with a low beating of bass coming from the CSI's headphones that are stuck firmly over his ears.

Upon seeing him, Duquesne quietly rolls her eyes in satisfaction and moves through the door to his side. As she approaches the table, she bends slightly to lean her elbows on the countertop, playfully resting her head in her hands, watching him quietly.

Speed has a q-tip in his hand and a small dropper in the other, and his eyes are focussed intently on the cotton swab end of the stick as he drips clear liquid over it. Over the noise of his headphones, he lets out a small 'hmph' of distain, and turns to place both objects down.

"Hi."

With a jump, Tim's eyes grow wide at the surprise of seeing Calleigh, and he reaches up to quickly pull the headphones down from his ears, which eject a loud blast of bass line. In a small moment of panic the q-tip drops from his hand and he reaches to his side, ripping the cord of his headset from his iPod. The music ceases.

"Jesus, Calleigh. How long have you been there?"

She can hardly hide her smile at his ridiculous reaction and bends down to pick up the q-tip, hiding her face under her blonde locks. "Long enough, handsome." She studies the cotton swab in her hand as she rises back up, before pulling her green eyes up to Speed's brown ones. "Nothing?"

The CSI lets out an irritated sigh and shakes his head, taking the q-tip from her and tossing it in the tin garbage can near his feet. "Nope. He's cleaner than a naked guy running through a carwash."

Calleigh hums in confusion and narrows her eyes a bit in thought. "That's strange, I was certain Markus was the one who would have pulled the trigger. I'll have to let Horatio know. Do you think there's any chance our shooter could have been wearing gloves?" She looks up into Speed's face, who is chewing idly on the bottom of his lip.

"It's possible," he says after a moment, "but I'll have to do a completely different test to find out. We didn't find any actual weather gloves around the crime scene or in the suspects personals, so he could have been wearing latex. Easily disposable, and they also leave a small amount of powder on the users hands. They're covered in them so they're easier to put on."

"How about I get Eric to do a wider sweep of the area to see if he can find any gloves outside of the crime scene? That way you can help me do a DNA sample of the blood we found on Markus' car." She smiles and tilts her head a bit as she reaches for her cell phone.

"Sure, sounds good." Blankly, Speed turns back to the counter and rummages with his iPod, reconnecting the wire to his headset. Self consciously, he skips past Nirvana's "Silver," that the player had stopped on, and searches for something slightly more mellow.

"Horatio and Eric are going back to the scene," the southern belle says as she walks back into the room, heels clicking. "Why don't we start processing the DNA sample from the vic and the blood we found on the car?"

Tim nods once, and places his headphones back on his head, moving one side behind his ear so he can hear. "You got it, princess."

Calleigh feels a smile tug at her lips at his name for her, and moves past him to the second counter, feeling blood rush to her face.

Carefully, she removes the q-tip of DNA from the ziplock bag by her station, and begins the process of identifying it.

A short time passes, and neither of them have spoken, when Calleigh hears a light humming from behind her. Turning slightly, she sees Tim, hanging over his work, studying it from under dark eyebrows. She notices that he seems to be working quite carefully, and is wearing an expression that she's only seen him express on rare occasions. It's a slightly blank look, as if he's somewhere else, but the emotion in his eyes is mostly wistful and somewhat morose.

Tilting her head, she turns a bit more to look at him better. "Everything okay?"

His reaction is to raise his eyes to hers smoothly and nod quietly, his nostalgic appearance never faltering, before he looks back to his slides.

Calleigh has to pull her eyes away from him as she turns back around, and somewhere inside of her, a bubbly feeling surfaces. It's not often that she works in the same room as Tim like this, she realizes, and something about it seems almost intimate. When the humming behind her gets a bit louder, she can't help but feel a smile spread across her face.

Casually, she lifts her face from her microscope and turns around again. "Don't I know that tune?"

"Probably," Speed replies just as casually, "I'd be kinda upset if you didn't, it's a good one."

"It sounds older," Calleigh replies. "Definitely not Skynyrd or any of the other stuff you listen to."

Lifting his hand to his microscope, Speed turns the left dial thoughtlessly. "There's some weird substance in this chick's blood. I might have to do a chemical analysis."

The southern CSI tilts her head even more, her smile returning as she questions him curiously. "Did you just avoid my comment?"

There's a short moment, and Speed sits up, leaning back on his lab stool, and gives her a blunt look. "It's Journey, okay?"

She pulls back in slight surprise. "I didn't think you had it in you."

"Yeah, well, it reminds me of my dad, and this song makes me think of New York a lot."

"Which one," she pushes curiously, only to get an even more blunt reply.

"Lights."

"Oh, I do know that one. It's really pretty."

"Cal, I'm trying to analyze this blood sample."

With a roll of her eyes and a satisfied smile, Calleigh turns back to her own microscope. "Okay, okay. I was just a little curious."

Her comment is replied with a low, but understanding 'hm' from Tim Speedle, and she smiles a bit wider.

A few short moments pass between them again, when the silence is broken. Calleigh seems to freeze in her study of the DNA slide, and she almost stops breathing. Blinking a few times, rapidly, she doesn't turn around, but sits very still, as she listens to the low rumble of the voice behind her.

"So, you think you're lonely," Speed chants quietly, hardly loud enough for her to hear. "Well, my friend, I'm lonely too. I wanna get back to my city by the bay. Hmmm-hmm-hmmmmm."

For a moment, she can't believe what she's hearing, and in a moment of question, sits up straight on her stool. A small grin tugs at the corners of her mouth as her eyes idly scan the table in front of her, for the moment, not seeing it's contents.

"It's sad, oh. There's been mornins' out on the road without you. Without your charms, oh, my, my, my."

Calleigh breaks into a full smile as Speed reaches the last few lyrics, and finds she can't help but sing quietly along with him. "When the lights go down in the city, and the sun shines on the bay, I want to be there in my city, ooh, ooh. Hmmm-hmm-hmmmmm."

The music stops with a quiet click. "Calleigh?"

Hesitantly, she turns around once more and locks eyes with Tim's dark ones, noting a small smirk pulling across his lips. "Yeah?"

He reaches up and pulls his headphones down off of his ears, tilting his head to the side a bit. "You say something?"

She grins at him kindly and shakes her head. "No. Nothing."

For a matter of moments they gaze at each other evenly, a sudden, mutual feeling moving through them both. Calleigh feels the blood rush to her face again, under the glow of Speed's gaze, and Tim can't suddenly can't help but swallow a bit.

"Okay."

Duquesne pulls her eyes away from Speed, whiskng back to her table. Her face is burning profusely, and she can only help that he didn't notice. Nervously, she takes a breath and puts her eyes back to her microscope, pushing her hair behind her ears.

Speed lets out a quiet breath that he realized he'd been holding in, and swallows again. Pulling his headphones back up over his ears, he takes a moment to skip through songs again. Subconsciously he finds his eyes moving back up to gaze at the head of blonde hair in front of him, before blinking and returning to his slides.

Curious.

That was a bit different for me. I never do CSI fics. Hope it wasn't too disappointing.