Heaven and Hell

Summary: Horatio, Horatio, where is thy conscience? OneShot, character study.

Warning: -

Set: Story-unrelated, during Season 10. Spoilers for the episode Crowned.

Disclaimer: Standards apply. Whether Shakespeare really owns his pieces might be debated but for the record, I quote him.

A/N: Christmas 2012. Have a wonderful time.

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than can be dreamt of in your philosophy.

…

It is the way he goes.

Pedophile, kidnapper, criminal – straight over the railing, his last sound a scream of terror, his last words empty promises of how he will change. He's dead before his body hits the ground. His spread-eagled body protrudes from a steel pillar, his eyes empty even in death. As it is, Horatio thinks, it is a death far too painless for the likes of him.

…

It is happening increasingly often these days.

He never thought of himself as the judge before, only as the executioner. Execution as in executioner of justice, not as in hangman. If someone needed help, he was there. If a kidnapper kidnapped a child he brought it back. If a terrorist hijacked a plane, he brought it down safely. If people were in danger, he protected them. Horatio Caine is one of the good guys. At least, he has been told so before. He isn't so sure about it himself.

Not anymore.

Suddenly, every shot he has fired, every perpetrator he has apprehended, every criminal he has caught seems to be mocking him. Because how can he be the law if he takes it into his own hands? And does he do it, really, or is it just his imagination? And how long can he continue like this without losing himself?

…

"Hey, Dad."

Kyle looks older, scruffy, somehow, his face more lined and his jaw line harder. But there still is the gleam of a boy in his eyes, hidden somewhere between the man he became and the man he will be. This is the boy Horatio learned to love, somewhere between heaven and hell, between Julie and Marisol, between cases and work. Sometimes he wonders what Kyle sees when he looks at him. He hasn't gotten younger. He doesn't see the change when he looks into the mirror but he can imagine the lines have become deeper in his face and perhaps his eyes have taken on the same weariness he sometimes feels deep down in his bones. He knows he won't be able to do his job forever – but as long as he can, he will.

"Kyle."

There are a lot of things he longs to say. He hopes they somehow transmit through the one word he utters like it is a precious treasure – his son's name, again and again. At the same time, he does not want to see him like that. He wants Kyle to sit in front of him – scruffy, unshaven, tired – and see the boy he knows who became the man he barely knows anymore. It's the only way to get to know the man, he reckons.

"It's cold tonight," he tells him and Kyle smiles and nods and tells him about the weather, his comrades and his thoughts in Iraq. Or Afganistan. Or Lybia. Horatio barely knows where his son is nowadays but he thinks he feels his presence in his heart, somewhere deep down.

A primal instinct, a father's love.

…

"Shoot to stop, not to kill."

Someone once told him – a long time ago, years ago during his training – because it was what law enforcement officers did: apprehend, stop, wound. Not kill, never kill if avoidable because it is not within their legislation. Judges judge. Juries give verdicts. Executioners execute. And Horatio is an executioner of orders – he does what he is told. He protects. Children, men and women, everyone who is in need of protection. It is not his call to say when a man should be killed. It simply isn't his decision.

"You're not God."

…

Horatio, Horatio, where is thy conscience? He wonders about it often. Has he changed? Has his view on life changed? Has he changed for the better or the worse?

…

"The scumbag is dead."

Eric and Calleigh greet him with four words and two sets of matching expressions. His brother in everything but blood and the woman who has been working with him for longer than he can tell. The two people who know him best, know him longest, the two people he trusts more than anyone else.

"What about the kid?"

"We've got it. The counselor is with her – she'll be fine. She was unconscious for most of the time."

"Good."

Eric gives him a pat on the shoulder, Calleigh's hand touches his arm briefly. Horatio isn't sure whether this sentiment expressed alludes to the dead kidnapper or the wellbeing of the girl. He isn't sure whether his friends and colleagues think he has to be reassured or whether they want to show him they are with him, all the way, no matter what he becomes. He thinks it might be a bit of both. Or perhaps they just are there, unconsciously, gravitating towards him because they feel how he feels even though he never told anyone. It's what everyone needs, this quiet assurance that one isn't alone. Horatio is glad.

"There's work for us to do."

…

It is not like he remembers it all in detail.

Not like all the faces of the people he saw die stand before his eyes at night, not as if he knows every name of every person he shot. Not as if he doesn't know that sometimes, law isn't unfailable. How many people has he watched walk away smiling when clearly they were guilty as charged. It is not as if he agonizes over it night after night, alone in a dark room. With Marisol, nightmares and insomnia were kept at bay. Without her, nights are long expanses of darkness. Sometimes he blackens out, tired and exhausted, sometimes he stays awake for hours and hours. Those stretches of time have become fewer since Kyle came into his life – as if his body decided he had a reason to recover, that a night was just to gather strength in order to be able to see his son the next day, nothing more. Now, time seems to reverse again.

Details always were his weak point, his clear recollection of them a reason why he does his job so well and why it haunts him, night after night.

...

He's not a hangman.

And the gun is cold in his hand. The situation speeds past, too fast to follow, too fast to think, so he does what he always did. React. And at the end of the day someone is dead, and someone is safe. Does the one count for the other? At the end of the day someone leaves and someone remains, and perhaps he is just so damn scared that he will be the one who is left that he refuses to think about it. As he refuses to admit he is afraid of what he is becoming.

And they walk away and away and away.