Fried Eggs And Other Small Tragedies
By Carolina

As he made his way through the lab that afternoon, Ryan blatantly shot his watch an annoyed look and sighed.

7 o'clock. Normal people (as normal as they got in Miami) were probably all home by now, home with their families, enjoying dinner, maybe getting ready to watch a movie. Normal people didn't stay at work until 7 pm, mainly because they had other normal people to go home to, normal kids, perhaps a normal dog... He'd realized long before that he'd never be a part of the normal crowd. Normal just wasn't a word that belonged in his vernacular or his lifestyle, and having been his choice to become a cop and then later a CSI, he was more than okay with that.

Most of the time.

Not when the mayor's nephew gets gunned down in a drug related shootout, when he has hundreds of people breathing down his neck and urging him to solve the case as quickly as humanly possible. That's when he envied the normal people with their normal lives and their normal nine-to-five jobs. He wouldn't be a part of that crowd, ever, but sometimes he wondered what it would be like.

He walked into the DNA lab and upon finding it empty he sighed again. Valera's favorite microscope sat there abandoned, and as Ryan walked closer he spotted a broken glass slide on the counter next to it. He frowned at it, fighting the urge to clean it up, but fearing possible contamination he merely walked over to the IN box and went through the files it contained.

And there was his. Right at the bottom of the pile.

He ran his hands through his face to control his ill temper and looked around, quickly noticing the door to the supply room was open. He approached the room and walked in a little hesitantly, and upon doing so he thought he heard something weird, some kind of mouse squeaking. He walked around the boxes and boxes of supplies, all the way to the back of the room, and in the corner he finally spotted Valera, sitting on the floor Indian style, looking at her shoes miserably.

"Valera?"

She looked up quickly and appeared both surprised and annoyed to see him before she looked down again and wiped her face with the sleeve of her lab coat. Ryan grimaced at the action.

"Ryan, what are you doing here?"

He frowned at her, both worried and curious because even though her face was red and her eyes puffy, she sounded completely normal. "I was just—" She sniffed again and he stopped. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," she said convincingly. "I just—I was just thinking about that movie."

"What movie?"

"That—" she began lamely, waving her hand dismissively, "whatever, Julia Roberts thing."

Ryan ran the titles through his head, though he wasn't very familiar with Julia Roberts' filmography. There was only one movie he knew for a fact everyone cried to. Everyone but him, of course. He was much too strong and manly-like to get emotional over such nonsense and besides, he really did have something in his eye that one time.

"Steel Magnolias?" he said. "The one where she dies?"

Valera looked up, shocked. "She dies?" she said loudly and sighed. "Great."

"Sorry," Ryan said, ducking his head and coming over to sit next to her. When she sniffed again, her eyes watering, he knew there was more to it than some sappy movie. "But you're not crying because of that."

She didn't say anything, but looked away and sniffed again, looking like a five year old on a time out.

"Did something happen?"

"No," she said, somewhat annoyed, though he wondered if she was mostly annoyed at herself.

Ryan nodded. "Guy?"

She rolled her eyes and shook her head, somewhat offended by his assumption, but the fact that she didn't deny it gave him his answer.

"Oh," Ryan said, looking away and feeling awkward. He'd never been good at this, at talking to girls about their feelings and their asshole boyfriends and reassuring them everything was going to be alright. Mainly because nothing was ever alright. Because nice girls were nice girls and assholes were assholes, and that would never change, and for as long as nice girls and assholes got together the outcome would always be the same.

"Want me to go get Calleigh?" he said as sympathetically as he could, mainly trying to conceal that feeling of helplessness.

"No," Valera said quickly. "Calleigh will just think I'm being stupid."

Ryan nodded, giving her that. If he was bad at giving girls the your boyfriend is an ass but you're gonna be okay pep talk, Calleigh was probably worse. "Natalia?"

She chuckled bitterly and at the mere mention of the name more tears sprung from her eyes. Ryan nodded understandingly.

"Nick."

"It's stupid," she said softly.

"Yeah, it is," he sighed, frustrated. "He was a jerk, Valera."

"I know."

"I don't get it," Ryan said, starting to feel angry. "What is it about these guys? Is it the tattoos or the bikes, or is there something particularly erotic about living in fear of your life that I don't get? I mean really, I really wanna know what is it about these assholes that girls love so much. Meanwhile, nice, honest, good guys sit at home, alone, waiting for the phone to ring. How does that work? What is the logic behind it?"

But Valera didn't seem to be hearing him, and if she was she didn't react much. She merely stared at the floor contemplatively as he ranted beside her, and if she were paying attention she would've taken offense to his rant, but her mind was miles away and she was too tired.

"You know how we always call people stupid when they kill someone by accident and don't call 911?" she finally said, feeling angsty and tired and numb all at once.

Ryan stopped and looked at her, and realizing perhaps his assumptions had been wrong he softened up a bit, understanding finally why she was hiding in the back of the supply room, crying. He sighed and looked at her hands, and though logic and popular culture dictated he should probably put his arm around her or hold her hand at that point, he didn't move.

"You were scared."

"I know better," she said, irate. "All I had to do was call Horatio and it would've been okay, you know? And Nick would be alive."

"Valera," Ryan sighed, shifting in place and looking around the dark room. "It's not your fault."

"Isn't it?" Valera shook her head adamantly. "If I'd just called 911... he would've been arrested and Murdock wouldn't have gotten to him. He wouldn't have died."

Ryan thought about it for a moment, bringing his knees up and resting his arms on them. He looked ahead, trying to think of a good argument, but after a moment he realized there probably wasn't one and he just nodded. "That's true," he said softly.

She chuckled mirthlessly and looked at him. "You always know what to say, don't you?"

"I don't know what you want me to say, Valera," Ryan said. "I mean, you're getting upset over something you can't change."

She shook her head, biting her lip out of frustration. Hell, not that sitting there alone and crying during her shift was going to solve anything, but it'd been a week since Nick died and she found she couldn't do much else. At night she couldn't sleep, couldn't erase the image of him lying on the floor, motionless. She still couldn't forget, as much as she tried, the panic that burst inside of her when she thought she'd killed him. She still felt the cold metal of the cuffs as they escorted her to a holding cell and she recalled sitting there, alone, thinking she would spend the rest of her life behind bars.

Not exactly the best day of her life.

Mostly she still couldn't figure out why she ran. She was sure there was some psychological explanation for it, the fight or flight theory, but psychology doesn't really apply when you work in law enforcement, when you've been told over and over again what to do during a real emergency. It was okay when other people panicked and ran. Not particularly okay, but somehow understandable. People get scared, and when people get scared they run.

But she knew better. She knew the consequences. She knew what would happen if she got in her car and drove away. She knew it as she drove back to the lab, as she walked into the building like nothing happened and avoided eye contact with everyone and resumed her duties. She knew it would only be a matter of hours before they figured it out, because they always figured it out. It would be a fingerprint, or a DNA contribution, or her hair, her lipstick on his skin...

It would come back to her, she'd known it all along, and yet she still couldn't understand why she ran.

"Look, I'm Captain Screw Up. Not a week goes by that I don't mess something up," Ryan said, scaring her thoughts away. "If I spent all my time wondering what if--"

"This is different, Ryan. Nobody's ever died because you messed up."

"True," he said, starting to feel some of her frustration. He finally sighed and said definitively, "Valera, Nick died because Jeff Murdock killed him, not because you did or didn't call 911. I mean, you could've called Horatio or the cops... maybe he'd still be alive, I don't know, but you can't hold yourself accountable for other people's actions."

"I know I didn't kill him," Valera explained. "But if I'd done the right thing I could've prevented it."

Ryan pressed his lips together, wanting to offer her some form of vindication, excuse her actions, prove she was wrong, but the truth was he wasn't entirely sure that she was wrong. And he knew it was also useless to live wondering what if, but he also understood her obsession with wanting to know the answers, with wanting to turn back time and go back and do everything right.

He'd messed up in his life, more times than he could count. He wasn't a stranger to regret. He knew, even now, years after it happened, that if he'd told Horatio that one time that the evidence he presented him with had been discovered by Delko and not himself, he and Eric would be on much better terms, none of their subsequent altercations had occurred and who knows, he probably wouldn't have gotten that nail in his eye. Fate had a funny way of doing things. But he also knew that obsessing over the past was a waste of time and energy.

So he nodded morosely. "Maybe."

Valera looked at him and smiled. "That still doesn't make me feel better."

He returned the smile and looked down. "I don't wanna lie to you, Valera," Ryan said. "I guess it's just something you learn to live with."

She nodded, looking down and taking a deep breath. "Yeah."

He looked at her, and though she still seemed a bit under the weather at least she wasn't crying and using her lab coat as a Kleenex, which was all he wanted.

"Come on." Ryan stood up, offering a hand and when she took it (a little reluctantly) he pulled her onto her feet. She started to walk away but he held her hand, and when she looked at him, her eyes big and red and still looking scared and small, he got the strange feeling he was looking at Valera for the first time in his life.

"You're a good person," he said, squeezing her hand. "That's the bottom line."

She smiled at him, feeling fresh tears in her eyes and feeling a little overwhelmed she leaned into him, kissing the corner of his mouth before she snaked her arms around his neck. "Thank you, Ryan."

He stood there motionless and awkwardly for a moment, not knowing what to say or do, and when he finally put his hands on the small of her back she pulled away, a brighter smile on her face. "I'm gonna take a break and then work on your sample, okay?"

Ryan nodded at her and she took off, leaving him alone in the supply room, and still feeling her lips on the corner of his mouth he couldn't help feeling greatly confused, albeit if he wanted to admit it, also a tad... alright.

Hmm.