CSI: Miami
Horatio/OC
Disclaimer: I own nothing of CSI: Miami, I do not know anyone connected with the show or with CBS and they do not know me, all of which is a shame.
Elizabeth helps Horatio, Delko, Cooper and Tripp solve a crime, using her peculiar 'talent'.
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The 'Talent' – Ch 2
Then, one afternoon, Horatio discovered Elizabeth near to tears, leaning against a wall close to his office. Hands to her ears, nearly doubled over, she squealed to him, "Oh Horatio! Is that somebody's idea of fun? Listening to noise like that?" Brokenly, in her rapid drawl, she explained that, walking past the Audio/Visual lab, some loud sound had all but knocked her senseless.
Not being able to gain any more information, leaving her resting on a couch in his office, a very puzzled Horatio headed back down the stairs to the A/V room. He knew what was supposed to be going on in there, but, from Elizabeth's reaction, something must have gone terribly awry.
Meanwhile, in the A/V lab, for the last half hour, Delko and Cooper had been trying to analyze some of the sounds behind a voice on a phone message. A kidnapper had given a young woman's husband a mere twelve hours to pay up or risk receiving one of her fingers in the mail. Behind the specific pay-off instructions, they could hear a great deal of traffic and other sounds, which they were trying to identify. After Cooper had digitally isolated and separated the noises, both heard the heavy thud of what they had decided was a pile driver. They hoped to be able to hear something distinctive enough in either that sound or in the surrounding traffic noises to be able to identify the location but, so far, had failed. Delko had found that five different pile drivers were in operation in Dade County, that day, widely spread apart, and neither had any clue to which one they were hearing.
Rounding the corner, in a fast-paced walk, Horatio could see the glass walls around the room vibrating in syncopation to the noise inside. Raising his voice as he entered, he asked, "Gentlemen, what's the progress?"
"Nada, H," said Delko, shaking his head with a discouraged look. Cooper turned in his chair and shrugged his shoulders in agreement. Delko continued, "We've been trying to find something, maybe behind the pile driver sound that tells us where it is, but there doesn't seem to be anything but traffic noise you'd hear anywhere. I'm thinking we're going to have to pick a couple places, go out there, and run a sound comparison. We don't have time to go to all five locations. I don't think we have a chance, unless we get it right the first or second time."
"Have you been playing this any differently or louder than what I'm hearing now, by any chance?" Hands on his hips, he turned his head to one side, looking away from the young men, his jaw thrust forward ever so slightly.
The two looked at each other questioningly, then back at their boss, and shook their heads. They knew from the body language that he was annoyed with them.
"I haven't touched the volume control or the analog set for at least twenty minutes, since we started this sequence," said Cooper. "I run it, we talk, I run it again, same thing, over and over."
"Why, what's wrong?" asked Eric.
"I just found Elizabeth, practically in shock, in the hallway. She wondered why you'd be playing the sound of the pile driver from over in front of the Miami Arena, at full blast?"
Cooper looked back to Eric, worry playing at his youthful face. "We're playing it at the decibels one would hear on the street, no louder."
Delko immediately asked, "She knows what the sound is and where it is? How?" He signaled at Cooper to cut the playback.
Realizing that the import of the information probably outweighed the injury, for the moment, Horatio turned around saying, "Don't turn that back on. I'm bringing her in here."
Two minutes later, eyes wide, holding onto Horatio's hand, cuddled into the crook of his arm, Elizabeth unwillingly entered the lab.
After receiving permission, the CSI Lieutenant asked Cooper to play the sound again, at minimal volume.
Raising her head in relief, Elizabeth explained, "Yes, I can stand that. Okay, can you hear that high-pitched, fast clunking sound, as the driver is being pulled up? I don't know, but I'm guessing there's something, maybe broken, inside the casing. Anyway, to me, that sound feels like a heavy chain inside my esophagus is being jerked out every time the thing goes up. Then, that thud, when the driver hits the pile? That's like a fist, hitting right at the front of my throat where it meets my chest, hard enough to close off my breathing! I know what the sound is because I get coffee at a place near there, almost every morning. Well, I used to; I quit going there while they're using that thing!"
Horatio directed, "Okay, we have a location. It could be nothing, but it's all we've got, right now. Take Wolfe, please, and go over there, see what you can find. You need to search a radius of at least four blocks, Eric!"
Delko's path was blocked by Frank Tripp at the doorway. In spite of his six-foot-four height, his jaw seemed to hang nearly to the floor as he waved a small packet in his hand. "Just got another recording, Horatio, same guy."
Before anyone else could move, Cooper jumped up, grabbed the tape, and slapped it into a machine.
A voice droned out, "You have four hours before I snip, snip. Which one should I pick? The ring finger? The pinky? Maybe the thumb?"
Without thinking, Elizabeth said, "That's a different location. Three blocks away, over by the American Airlines Arena, on the Port Boulevard side."
Everyone stared at her, but Delko reacted first with a lopsided grin and a shake of his head. "Uh, how can you tell the location so precisely? It just sounds like traffic, to me."
Raising her head proudly, which only southerners can seem to do effectively, she confidently answered. "Part of my 'condition' is caused because my hearing is as sensitive as a bat's." Her next comments were directed at Horatio. "The sound of the traffic coming down from the bridge, echoing off of the arena building is fairly distinctive in itself, but did you hear that sound of bells and the high pitched whistle?"
Horatio had not heard those sounds and, looking at the other three men, saw that only Cooper appeared as if he thought he'd heard something.
"Two vendors, the ones with those little wheeled carts, have places on that corner. The ice cream man has a line of bells that he runs his finger back and forth across, and the hot dog man blows a whistle. I go to the book fairs at the arena and I love the ice cream from that one man."
Smiling his 'evidence found' smile, Horatio turned. "Eric, Frank, you heard her. I'm betting our victim is in the area between the two arenas. Take a team, please, and get started on a search."
Before the mystified Detective Tripp could question taking a civilian's word, he was hustled out by Delko.
&&&
When Horatio told Elizabeth, late that night, that they'd found the young woman, bruised but alive and unhurt, and taken the captor into custody, all because of her talent, that she was lucky to have it, her terse reply, "You'd think so, wouldn't you?" puzzled him but didn't stop his grateful thanks.
&&&
Walking through the lab, several days later, bringing lunch, Elizabeth had heard Calleigh shout, "Two shots!" but not knowing what that meant, had not thought to cover her ears, as she'd passed the firing range.
Moments later, Horatio looked up from his desk to see her staggering in, teary-eyed and in distress. Hearing her explanation, he unthinkingly blurted out, "But at the concert, you seemed excited by the cannon fire." Clearly, she was in pain, so there was no question in his mind that she had been injured, but understanding how it had happened, particularly in his world, eluded him.
"I know. I wish I could explain it, Horatio. For some reason, I can often tolerate loud noise when it's in concert with music. Remember, too, those guns were at a distance, as were the fireworks, and more-or-less drowned out by the playing. This, though…" She kept looking around as if afraid of another attack. "It was so raw, so unadulterated, and so close! It's funny, in a way, because that sound is like an explosion in my chest and, as wounded as I feel, there's no blood!" She weakly attempted to laugh and failed. A few moments later, she canceled their lunch date and returned to her library.
Two weeks later, out for a CSI picnic for the graveyard and day shifts, she apologetically begged him to take her home just as the baseball game between the Caines and the Nighthawks was getting fun.
Horatio had wanted to suggest she could just move, sit further away from the noise, but she was so obviously upset, he didn't. Sorely disappointed to miss the game, he took her home.
On the way, she tried to explain how some of the more strident voices of the players and observers, throwing the good-natured, but rather loud, jibes at each other felt like small saw-toothed knife blades ripping at the right side of her neck just above her shoulder. "It wasn't all of them, but some of those people had voices that I swear could be used to peel wallpaper!" She went on to say that even the crack of the bat hitting the ball was as if a dagger were being plunged into her chest.
That night, spooned together after some very satisfying lovemaking, she asked him about how he became a criminalist. Since it seemed to come out of the blue, he asked why she wanted to know.
"Partly because I'm curious, but mostly just to hear you talk. Your voice, Horatio, feels like a warm, gentle hand is massaging my insides about here," she pulled his hand to the front of her waist, "only way deep. It's a wonderful feeling. Also, when you're this close to me, it sends a thrumming feeling right down to between my legs that's almost as nice as the Eighteen-twelve."
"You mean to tell me that all I have to do to get you hot and bothered is talk to you?"
Pausing, as if just realizing the truth to his words, she finally answered, "Pretty much, yes."
He nuzzled into her hair. "Just tell you how I became a crime scene investigator and this would, uh, tickle your fancy?"
She giggled and moaned. "Even as you speak, my dear. Actually, you could read me names out of the phone book, say anything at all, but I thought it might be easier for you to tell me something about yourself. "
"I could call you at work, one day," he persisted, "and read you a list of vital statistics on crime in Miami, and you'd get off, and no one on my side would be the wiser?"
Through her laughter, she managed to say, "Interesting as those statistics might be, I assure you, I'd hang up before I'd allow you to embarrass me in front of my colleagues."
Of all the pleasures he knew how to give a woman, this was a first for Horatio. He began murmuring quietly, recounting his early years on the Bomb Squad and what led to his pursuit of a career as a CSI. After a while, she turned around in his arms and was doing with her hands, her body, and her lips what she declared he'd just done for her with his voice.
His first inkling that something in the relationship was not entirely right was the evening she said, "Let's be old fogies and start using my little Caddy to go out on dates." She drove a well kept 1996 Cadillac that was so well insulated you couldn't even hear the tires on the road at highway speeds. "Fun as it is to ride in your little TR4, my dear; I don't think I can take the noise, any more!"
Shortly after that, their schedules conflicted so much that they hardly saw each other for a couple of weeks. She didn't come to the Lab anymore, after the gun incident, and he seldom got off work until late, though they did talk on the phone. He didn't even take notice that he was doing all of the calling either. One afternoon, Elizabeth mentioned she had taken the late Thursday shift at the library, and wasn't leaving until nine o'clock that night, which happened to fit right in with Horatio's late running schedule for that day. He'd told her he'd meet her at the 'lair', as her coworkers called it, so she wouldn't have to go out to her car alone. Her hesitant and subdued thanks should have given him a clue that something was up, but didn't.
In the heart of the old building that night, he stood leaning against the doorframe of her office, otherwise known as her lair, waiting while she prepared to leave. Now, as on previous visits, he had the idea that this space was her 'Dome of Stillness', her island of silence within a silent world. Considering that this was a library, where quiet was the rule, the concept almost humorous. He again noted the prominence of a small sign on her desk, which read, "No Noise is Good Noise".
While she closed down her computer, he became aware that she seemed a little 'too busy' doing such a simple process, was too involved even to look at him. Wondering what was up, just to get her attention, he remarked, "You know, it's so quiet in here, tonight, I can hear my ears ring."
"Quite a difference from the lab."
Horatio knew there was a hidden message in the reply but needed more clues to decode it. Without realizing his habit, he dropped his chin, as he did when he felt uncomfortable. "Difference between a library and a crime investigation laboratory, I guess."
"Worlds apart. Come on, out the back way. My car is in the lot." She flicked off the lights, shouldering her purse and hurriedly brushed past him.
Several times, on the brief walk, Horatio tried light conversation, asked how her day went and remarked on the progress of the kidnapping case that she had helped break, but received only single word replies, so he decided to wait for whatever it was that was on her mind to come out in its own time.
Opening the car, she threw her purse to the passenger seat, closed the door without getting in, and turned to face him. Leaning against the door, she started playing with her keys, looking wordlessly into his face.
Usually, this was an invitation for a kiss, but tonight, he was sure it was her way of considering her next words. Taking one of her hands, stilling the nervous chinking sound, Horatio spread his legs slightly, and patiently allowed the seconds to tick by.
"I've been thinking, Horatio." After another silent moment, she continued. "About my condition, or ability, or whatever you want to call it, and how it's affecting our relationship. I'm never going to get over it, you know." She angrily rebutted the unspoken argument, "Its not mental, not something I can talk about to a counselor, get 'cured of'." Desperation increased the volume of her voice, "I can't adjust my thinking, and can't just accept it and forget about it; I can't get used to the wounding, physical pain that so many sounds cause me."
"I don't think I've said anything but how much I admire your talent."
A hissing, derisive sound escaped from her lips. "You call it a talent when it's been of use to you but, really, how much admiration did you feel when you had to leave that picnic? How great is it to know I'm afraid to visit you at your work, now, afraid of what will assault me, next? I'm betting that, even outside of the lab, if I'm around you long enough, I'll hear plenty more gunfire, explosions, and who knows what else? True?"
"Not necessarily. Besides, you risk that anytime." He knew he was backpedaling.
She waved her arms in her dilemma. "It's more likely with you! Just the thought of some deafening, mind-shattering noise, coming at me at any moment, drives me crazy because I know it will hurt so much! Plus the fact that you can't take me to nightclubs because I can't take of the volume of the music played there, we can't go out to movies for the same reason, and can't even drive together in your car. I don't imagine for a minute that you enjoy these restrictions! I have to limit my life, but I'm content to do so. You can't limit your life and do your job! Yes, I accept that the world is full of noise, and that much of that noise is part of what you do, but I can't let it, no, I'll be damned if I'm going to invite it to be part of my life!" Coming to her point, helplessly shaking her head, "I'm sorry, Horatio, my dear, I adore you, but it's all getting to be more than I can take. For your sake as well as for mine, I can't see you any more."
Looking into her determined face, he swallowed dryly. She was not asking for release nor was she looking to him to for answers to the problem; she was making a flat statement that required no reply, brooked no rebuttal. Her announcement, he abruptly realized, was not unexpected, but it saddened him, greatly.
He hadn't recognized the signals for what they were until now, and suddenly, understanding depths of her frustration, he realized why he'd remained so ignorant; more than a satisfying physical relationship, even more than the unexpected benefit to his lab, he thought he had truly found someone whose interests and intelligence seemed to equivalent his own. She was an equal he didn't have to look out for, a peer with whom he could share without detailed explanation. He hadn't wanted to think that it wasn't the same for her. He thought he would have willingly changed a great deal of his life for her, but the problem was, he knew, he still had no concept of her sensitivity, could not grasp what difficulties she lived with. He had no idea what to change or how. Sure that she was aware that he was certainly willing to learn how to make adjustments, she, apparently, couldn't afford to endure the time those adjustments might take, was unwilling to risk the damage to herself, meanwhile. He just didn't really understand.
They stood by her car for some time, surrounded by the sounds of the night; the noise from the street, car stereos turned up so loud that Horatio could feel the vibration through his shoes, sirens moaning their high-pitched screams, wound around his ears, voices of people arguing from a block down the way, echoed sharply against buildings, a child's wailing cry accented it all. He reflected on what these common sounds might be doing to her, what pain she was tolerating to stand there with him.
As if in answer, Elizabeth abruptly pushed herself erect, turned and got into her car. Horatio waited until he heard the soft thunk of the door being locked, and reluctantly stepped back. While she started the engine, he looked right and then left as his hands, brushing his jacket back, settled on his hips.
In the second it took to shift his weight, from his heels to the balls of his feet, he understood her decision. Maybe he didn't understand exactly what she was going through, but he did get that she had limits of tolerance. He, himself, had limits, as Rebecca Nevins had found out a couple of years ago when, as State's Attorney, she'd worked to release a cop-killer back onto the streets. Rebecca, in working to convict another cop killer, had worked out a deal with the young man, but Horatio knew, there were other ways. He'd even invited her to do it differently and she'd refused. He couldn't be social with a woman, no matter how attractive, who worked to make his job, his life, harder. He and Elizabeth looked at each other one more time, before he watched her drive off.
After that night, for a while, he occasionally looked for sounds he knew she could identify, looked for excuses to see her again, subjects he knew were of interest to her, even considered seeking an outdoor concert featuring the "1812 Overture," or her next favorite, "The Ride of the Valkyries." He reminisced on what it was like to be with her, in a crowd, holding her, surrounded by music, feeling her struggle in an overload of sexual excitement, and wanted to feel the vicarious thrill, again, wanted to be able to maintain a connection with this most unusual woman, and knew it was just not possible.
