Chapter One

"I thought I would never be able to forget your face. The way you smiled, they way your eyes shined when you cried, the way that vein pulsed in your forehead when you were angry. I thought I would forever be able to recall every detail about your face. Now that I can't see it I'm starting to wonder if I was ever really looking at you."


Eighteen Months Later

The doctor peered into Ryan's right eye and sighed. "I'm sorry, Mr. Wolfe, but it seems the infection has spread to your optic nerve."

"What does that mean?" Jessica asked, carefully holding Ryan's hand.

"It means that if we can't get this under control you're going to loose the sight in that eye," the doctor explained.

A straggled breath escaped Ryan's lips as his face grew pale. "I can't go blind," he muttered, "I just can't."

"I'm sorry, Mr. Wolfe, we've done all we can," the doctor said with a hard expression. "Now if you had actually come in when you first started having problems we could have possibly saved your eye sight."

"Are you trying to say this is my fault?" Ryan snapped.

"Actually, yes, it is your fault." the doctor retorted, "If you had mentioned that you were having troubles with your eye then we could have started treatment sooner and maybe you would still be able to see."

"Oh god," Ryan gasped as he buried his face in his hands.

Jessica gently pulled his hands from his face and looked into his eyes. His right eye was red and runny. Why she hadn't noticed something was wrong was beyond her.

"Everything's going to work out, Ryan," she gently whispered. "We'll get through this, together."

Ryan silently nodded his head as he followed her from the room.

They were quiet as Jessica drove them home. She glanced at Ryan and wondered what he was thinking.

"How did it happen?" she whispered.

"I was shot in the eye with a nail gun at a crime scene," Ryan quietly said. "I went in without back-up. There was a woman hiding in a closet and she accidentally shot me with the nail gun. It missed my eye, but only by a fraction of a centimeter. I got a pretty bad infection about a couple of months after it happened."

"And you ignored it then," Jessica quietly muttered, "Just like you did now."

"Yeah, I fucked myself over because I'm afraid of the doctor," Ryan mumbled.

Jessica reached over and gently held his hand. "I still love you, though," she whispered.

He smiled and kissed her knuckles. "Thanks Jess," he whispered.


Horatio sighed as he read over the paperwork in his hand. "So Ryan ignored the fact that he was having trouble seeing and it resulted in this infection that could possibly take his eye sight in that eye."

"Yeah, he did," Jessica quietly said.

"Well I'll see what Internal Affairs says about this disability request, but I don't think they'll approve it until he actually goes blind," Horatio said as he signed the form.

"I'm sorry, Dad," she whispered, "I should have noticed something was wrong with him. He couldn't find his phone last week when it was right next to his hand. I should have known."

"You can't blame yourself for this, Jessie Bug," Horatio soothingly said as he walked over to her. "These things happen. You're just going to have to figure out how to move forward from this point and make the best of it."

"My husband is going blind and will be out of work soon," Jessica muttered as Horatio rubbed her arms. "I guess he can be a stay at home dad now," she said somberly with a shrug.

"You'll work it out, Bug," Horatio gently whispered. "You always do."


"Amanda?" Ryan said as he walked into his living room. "Jess, where's Maddy?"

"She's right next to you, Ryan," Jessica quietly said.

"Where?" Ryan asked, turning his head.

"Just keep looking," Jessica somberly muttered.

Ryan turned completely around until he could finally see his daughter. He knelt down and smiled at her, gently stroking her brown hair. "Hey Maddy, ready for bed?"

"I'm Ally, Daddy," his daughter said.

A pain stabbed in Ryan's gut as he realized he called his daughter by the wrong name. "Sorry Ally," he whispered, picking her up.

"They are identical, Ryan," Jessica quietly said, "Anyone could have made the mistake."

"Yeah, but you're not going blind in one eye," Ryan muttered as he left the room.


"So that's it? You're just going to quit without even trying to get disability?" Jessica asked her husband over breakfast.

"I can't do this anymore," Ryan quietly said. "I can't even tell which daughter I'm talking to. How am I supposed to even try and figure out a crime scene?"

"Ryan, I know you don't want to hear it but just try and hold out. Maybe you won't loose your sight and you'll be just fine."

"You just want me to wait so I can get disability," Ryan muttered.

"No, that's not it at all," Jessica snapped. "I don't want you to go blind. I don't want you to quit your job. I know you love your work, that's why you've stuck with it all these years. You just have to give the drugs some time. It's not going to fix anything overnight. You have a massive infection in your eye, Ryan. You're going to be in pain for quite awhile."

Ryan was silent as he stared at his cup of coffee. Jessica sighed and held her own cup between her palms.

"I just wish I knew what was going to happen," Ryan whispered.