A/N: This story feels as out of character as anything I've ever read on this site, but creative license and all that, right? If you notice a typo, or something about this story rubs you the wrong way, just let me know and I'll fix it.
Extended summary: Ryan has been alienated for one reason or another and has decided to resign from the Crime Lab.
Disclaimer: I do not own anything recognizable in this story—the characters of CSI: Miami or Chris Daugherty's song, Going Home.
Ryan Wolfe is going home.
It isn't like he hasn't tried to fit in here. Maybe he's tried too hard. Whatever he's done wrong has only been accentuated by Eric's head injury.
And Speedle's death.
Any mistake he makes is blown out of proportion, not including his failure to notify the others that he's getting ready to leave. Yet.
Maybe, if he tells them, they will ask why, instead of glaring at him every time he steps into any room of the lab. And it isn't just his superiors: it's also the underlings, the "lab rats," the people he desperately wishes he could blend in with.
"I'm staring out into the night," he sings softly as he packs his small gym bag, "trying to hide the pain." The pain of being an outcast, but no one will ever hear him admit just how much it hurts.
"I'm going to the place where love and feeling good don't ever cost a thing." It's taking a toll on him, larger than he can handle and that's what hurts. He's a failure.
"And the pain you feel's a different kind of pain." Maybe, at home, the pain of his last three years will disappear when he burns himself with that damn waffle-maker his mother gave him for his last birthday. God knows he hates waffles almost as much as he hates himself.
"I'm going home," his voice is cracking but that's okay, no one's going to hear him now.
No one ever listens to him anyway.
"Back to the place where I belong." As if. If he had belonged anywhere it should have been here. "And where your love has always been enough for me." Again, if that's so, why is he running from here?
"I'm not running from. No, I think you got me all wrong," yeah, he's walking. Not running, walking. Walking, damn it!
"I don't regret this life I chose for me." No, he doesn't, not really. At least, he doesn't until he thinks of Eric's accusatory glare when he offered Calleigh his arm at her wedding.
"But these places and these faces are getting old." Too true. If only he hadn't spoken to Erika Sikes. If only he hadn't gambled at all. If only he'd never become a criminologist. If only, if only, if only! Too many "if only's" and not enough trust. Even Horatio should be glad he's leaving, right?
"So I'm going home," a good answer to any unasked questions. Yes, a good answer.
"Well, I'm going home." Definitely not a good answer, he thinks as his bag falls from his limp hand. The hand Eric shut in the door, the hand he punched Horatio with twenty minutes before he ran here. The hand Calleigh kissed before she left with her groom.
"The miles are getting longer, it seems," yeah, that's true; the hallway stretches out before him, and still he doesn't bend to pick up his black bag, "the closer I get to you." As if. Or maybe that's true too?
"I've not always been the best man or friend for you," how long can that damn hallway get?! He already feels like his head's going to fall off if he sees any of his coworkers, why does he have to conquer a labyrinth of a locker room? "But your love remains true. And I don't know why. You always seem to give me another try." Well, at least he's run out of second chances from Horatio. Punching someone does that to you, he thinks as he feels the strength in his legs give out. And he's not made an impression on the length of the corridor.
"So I'm going home," singing makes his throat hurt, and he wishes he hadn't started: his OCD won't let him stop, "back to the place where I belong. And where your love has always been enough for me. I'm not running from. No, I think you've got me all wrong. I don't regret this life I chose for me. But these places and these faces are getting old."
This isn't what he wished for, is it? No, certainly not, just the little clause "I want to go home" makes it true. He slides down the wall, trying to hold his breath, stop the singing. It doesn't work.
"Be careful what you wish for," he's always wanted to be a criminologist. Hell, he'd even taken a damn biology course at the college. "'Cause you just might get it all. You just might get it all. And then some you don't want." He'd gotten the job, at the cost of another's life. He wasn't the one to kill Tim Speedle, but he feels like he might have been the one to pull the trigger, or sabotage the gun. Maybe that's why Eric hates him again, now that he's forgotten to be nice.
"Be careful what you wish for. 'Cause you just might get it all. You just might get it all, yeah." So what if his voice is getting louder? The hallway masks his pathetic voice anyway. It always has.
"Oh, well, I'm going home. Back to the place where I belong. And where your love has always been enough for me. I'm not running from. No, I think you've got me all wrong. I don't regret this life I chose for me. But these places and these faces are getting old. I said these places and these faces are getting old. So I'm going home." Finally, he bends to pick up his little, black gym bag. The hallway shrinks back to normal as his voice peters out on the last words, "I'm going home," and he finally makes it up the stairs and out into the unnaturally bright Miami day, his hand shading his eyes.
He doesn't notice Calleigh and Horatio watching him from the windows. He doesn't notice Natalia and Eric staring at him through the doors he has just shoved out of his way. He doesn't notice Alexx and Frank carefully watching him from the stairs behind him as he walks out of the shadow of the crime lab, sunlight dancing around him like a halo, the fading echo of his voice, "I'm going home" reverberating as if an angel is singing. And then he is gone, and no one, not even he knows if he is going to be okay, but at least he's going home.