A/N: Just a fragment I wrote during Maths class today... hope you like it!

Disclaimer: I don't own anything related to CSI...

Raindrops

The rain was pouring. I mean pouring. Stella looked at the man who was just putting his cell phone back in his pocket and who was just raising his hand for a taxi.
"You can lower your hand. They won't stop anyway" she said. The man turned around.
"Stella" he said, happily surprised. "What are you doing here?"
"I wanted to talk to you, Horatio" she said. "About that Stetler. He – what he does really gets to you, doesn't it?"
Horatio nodded slowly, not wanting to give away too much information. For what?
"C'mon, let's head back for the lab. You'll drown out here."
"What's to survive for anyway, if everyone I love is being killed and the only thing that keeps me alive are the hurdles Stetler sets for me? I'm beginning to think that if I were dead, others would keep on living."
"No" Stella said firmly. "Don't be ridiculous. Miami needs you. What's left of everyone you cared for, they need you" she dropped the volume of her voice. "I need you."
Horatio looked Stella in the eyes. Had he ever noticed before how much she looked like Yelina and at the same time looked so different? Had he never really noticed how he actually felt about her? Sure, he wasn't blind for female beauty – he still was a man – but how could he have missed how much Stella stood out? "Everyone is being killed, Stella" he said, his voice being weak. "Life's only a shard of what it used to be." How could he have failed to notice that these years with CSI, all these years of being confronted with unnecessary deaths and all those years of keeping his head up straight, had shattered and killed his passion and spirit for living to a shard of the zeal he used to posses? Stella looked at him, and he even failed to notice the concern that lay so obvious in her eyes. She grabbed him by the arm and led the way to hopefully some answers…