He wasn't sure which was worse; the throbbing pain in his head, or the dull, continuous pain in his back. But at least the pain in his head was manageable; as long as he didn't move, he could stomach it.

But that was the problem: he could deal with it only as long as he didn't move. As long as he didn't move, he remained on his back on the couch where he'd slept the night before. Why? In his half-awake state, the reason eluded him, not that he tried very hard to find it. That would just make the pain worse.

This couch had never been good for Tim's back. And after sleeping on it, it was as though with every breath he took, a knife was slowly being twisted into his back.

His eyes still closed, Tim simply lay there, enduring the pain; pain that only seemed to intensify as the last wisps of sleep completely left him. It was his own damn fault; why shouldn't he face the consequences, no matter how painful? He was the one who'd tried to chase away his heartache with a bottle of tequila the night before; he deserved the headache. He was the one who had fallen asleep on the couch; he deserved the backache.

He deserved the pain that coursed through his body every time those thoughts of her would cross his mind. But unlike a headache or a backache, that was not pain that could be lessened with a couple of pills. It wasn't even a pain that faded away over time; quite the contrary. With every day that passed, it grew more and more intense. It was like no pain he'd ever felt before, but then again, he'd never fallen so deeply in love with anyone else before.

In the beginning, Tim had hoped it would fade. After all, he wasn't seeing her every single day anymore. He didn't get to hear the sweet lilt of her voice anymore. He wouldn't pass her in the hallways anymore; no longer would he be taunted by her intoxicating scent; no longer would her soft blonde locks call out to his fingers.

He would never get to see her again. And though he knew it would hurt, he had thought that perhaps being away from her would allow his heart to heal. He could move on.

Never before in his life had he been so utterly wrong.

His heartache hadn't faded in the slightest since he had left Miami; since he had left Calleigh. He hadn't seen her in three years. And while his heartache refused to fade, the same could not be said about his memories.

Despite how tightly he tried to hold on, Calleigh was slipping away from him. In the beginning, her face never left his mind. But as the days went on, it was becoming harder and harder to remember her beautiful smile, the way her green eyes never failed to sparkle, her scent, her voice - it was getting harder to remember her, and that only seemed to tear what was left of Tim's heart into smaller and smaller pieces.

The only thing that ever seemed to help was writing the letters. Putting his thoughts on paper helped him remember; while his pen skated across the paper, he felt connected to her in some way. While he was writing, he didn't linger on the fact that she would never read his words. He didn't linger on the fact that once he slipped the letter into the envelope, it would make a quick trip to the fireplace, or to the shredder if it were a warm summer night, too warm for a fire.

As the year had only just slipped into September, of course it was too warm for a fire, and had been for quite some time. Normally, Tim preferred the warmth of summer to the dead cold of winter, but in his mind he found it more poetic to watch the words of his heart burn away in the fire than to slip them in the shredder and watch them be ripped into neat shreds in less than a few seconds.

But the night before, he had done neither, to the best of his knowledge. As far as he knew, he'd left the sealed letter he'd written the night before on the coffee table in front of the couch.

Hadn't he?

A rush of dread surged quickly through Tim, and, fully awakened at last, his eyes shot open. Big mistake, that. He'd neglected to close the blinds the night before, and the late morning sun was shining through with a vengeance. Lifting a hand to block out the light, Tim gave a groan, clenching his teeth as he rose to a sitting position. He rubbed at his eyes as a tired yawn escaped him.

The more he thought about the letter, the more uneasy he became. Now that he thought about it, he couldn't exactly remember what he had done with it. With one hand acting as a shield, Tim finally opened his eyes, groaning as the sunlight still managed to blind him.

But the sunlight and the pain in his head became the least of his problems. As his eyes focused, a cold weight dropped into his stomach.

The letter he'd hoped he'd find on the table was not there.

Calmly at first, he reached out and moved the few magazines that littered the table. Why he'd kept them, Tim didn't know; he'd never really read them. The only purpose they served was to clutter up his coffee table. He allowed himself a chuckle; that clutter wouldn't last five seconds if Calleigh were around.

As soon as it'd come, his moment of amusement dissipated again and his uneasiness returned, increasing as he realized the letter was not hiding beneath anything on the table. Head and back pain forgotten, Tim jumped up from the couch, surveying the surrounding area. Yesterday really had been a bad day, if the condition of the floor around the couch was any indication. It wasn't exactly messy; it wasn't sloppy, it was just…cluttered. Disordered, like a desktop.

But Tim knew without even looking that there was no letter anywhere in that disordered mess. On the floor beside the couch resided a couple of pens, some extra paper, and the empty tequila bottle, but no letter. Frustration mounting within him, Tim raked his fingers through his unruly hair, trying desperately to remember what had happened the night before.

It was ironic, really. He couldn't be the man who got drunk and woke up with a strange woman in his bed. No, he had to be the man who got drunk and poured the deepest secrets of his heart onto paper. A paper which he obviously couldn't keep track of.

With a groan, he racked his brain, ignoring the returning pain in his head. But much of the night remained a blur. He remembered sitting down on the couch. He remembered starting the letter; he remembered the pain that shot through his heart as he began writing. It was unbearable, even worse than the physical pain he was currently in.

But Tim had been in no shape for emotional pain last night. It was getting to be that time of year again; a time of year filled with regrets, with sorrow. That pain ate at him deeply enough; he didn't need any more, and so desperately he'd tried to dull that pain.

He remembered skulking into the kitchen, and emerging minutes later with a bottle of tequila. He remembered the way he'd welcomed its burn in his throat; he remembered the blessed numbness it seemed to assemble around his heart.

It was a numbness that crumbled though, as the deepest desires of his heart seeped their way to the surface.

He remembered writing; his memory clung to every single word of that letter. But the details from there were fuzzy. Vaguely he remembered finding the tequila bottle empty, though he hadn't been sure if he'd drunk that much or if he'd spilled that much. He did remember jarring the bottle by accident; he did remember scowling at the stickiness it created.

Vaguely he remembered slipping that letter into an envelope. But he didn't put the pen down like every other night. Instead, he continued writing, formulating an all-too familiar address on the front of the envelope.

Vaguely he remembered walking outside, into the cool night air --

Outside. Tim's breath caught in his throat. It had been past midnight, but he certainly remembered going outside. And for what?

The answer was obvious. What did anybody do with a stamped, addressed letter?

Late last night, his mind in a tequila induced haze, Tim had slipped on a pair of shoes and taken the letter outside. He had taken the letter outside and slipped it into the mailbox, along with a credit card payment he'd been meaning to mail for awhile. After that, he'd come back inside and obviously gone to sleep on the couch, though he didn't quite remember that part.

Cursing under his breath, Tim heavily lowered himself back to the couch, his face in his hands. If anything, he should've expected something like this would happen. He'd tried to lessen the pain, the pain he knew he deserved, and in the end, he'd only caused himself more pain.

Not to mention he'd made the biggest mistake of his life. He'd actually mailed one of his letters to Calleigh. In a few days, she was going to open her mailbox and find a letter from a man who'd been dead for three years. And, if she believed what she was reading, she was going to realize that he wasn't actually dead.

And if she dug far enough; if she went to the right people, Tim knew it wouldn't take long for her to deduce the truth. She was intelligent; it was one of the things Tim had always loved about her. But at this point, it was the one thing that could work against her.

The Calleigh he knew never stopped looking until she found an answer. She was persistent, and, in Tim's memory, very persuasive. With that beautiful smile and adorable accent of hers, she could coax the truth out of anyone - it'd certainly worked on him enough times.

But if she was too persistent; if she asked around too much, Calleigh could end up putting herself in danger. All because Tim had selfishly needed to ease his heartache. He hadn't understood it at the time, and it still didn't make much sense to him, but apparently it'd made sense to somebody. He'd been working a high profile case alongside the Feds for a few years, a case which all of a sudden went south. A lot happened in a short amount of time, and, according to the Feds, Tim had been in serious danger. Honestly, he'd thought it sounded ridiculous. It just didn't make sense that the only way to stay alive was, in every respect, for him to die.

Everyday, without fail, he'd questioned whether it was worth it. He'd lost his identity. He'd lost his friends, his home. He'd lost a job that, while he'd shrug it off as "just a paycheck," he'd actually enjoyed it. He'd had to sever all contact to everybody he knew, in order to keep his secret, as well as to keep them safe. Above all, he'd lost the one woman he'd ever honestly loved.

If he'd known what it would be like to lose all that, he would've never gone along with the plan. Why did he really need to stay alive anyway? Death would've been preferable to living for nothing.

And besides, if he'd really died, he wouldn't be able to spend every night pining after a woman he'd never see again. He wouldn't be writing her letters; there would be zero chance of her ever receiving one. And if she never received a letter, there would be no question in her mind that he was really dead. She wouldn't be in danger, just from wondering if he was really alive or not.

He wasn't worried about her knowing, exactly. He wished she could know everything; it was why he wrote the letters. He was worried about her wondering. She was, after all, Calleigh Duquesne, and, just like Tim himself, she didn't like unanswered questions. He was worried about Calleigh wondering, and quite possibly asking the wrong person. After all, Tim knew if he'd received a letter like that, it would eat at him until he did figure out the truth.

If something happened to her because Tim got drunk and sent a letter to her, he'd never be able to live with himself.

He didn't know how he was going to do it, exactly, but Tim knew he had to get that letter back, before Calleigh could read it.

An idea struck him, and once more he shot up from the couch, again groaning in pain as both his head and back protested. But Tim ignored it as best he could and slipped on the same pair of shoes he'd worn the night before. Quickly he made his way to the front door, throwing it open with a little more force than was needed. An unwelcome blast of sunlight had him squinting his eyes, but like the throbbing in his head he ignored it, mentally crossing his fingers as he strode toward his mailbox.

Maybe the mail was late today.

There was always a chance the letter could still be there. Maybe it had stuck to the bottom of the mailbox.

"Please let it be there," Tim muttered, reaching the mailbox. With a shaking hand he gripped the door, and with a deep breath, he yanked it open.

But like the bottle of tequila, it was empty.

Again he cursed quietly, slowly closing the door of the mailbox. For a moment, Tim let the severity of his predicament set in. His letter was somewhere in the mail system, possibly already on its way to Miami. On its way to Calleigh; his Calleigh; his Calleigh who, in a couple of days, would know that he considered her "his" Calleigh.

His Calleigh, who, in a couple of days, would know that he was alive.

Frustration mounting, Tim slammed his hand against the side of the mailbox. He'd really screwed up this time.

But…maybe there was something he could do.

He knew he couldn't intercept the letter before it got to Miami. But perhaps he could beat it there. Maybe he could beat it there and get the letter out of Calleigh's mailbox before she ever even saw it. And since Calleigh would be at work, it was a flawless plan, really.

With a sigh, Tim turned away from his mailbox and headed back inside to pack a change of clothes and to call the airport to book a flight, since it looked like he was headed back to Miami.

By the time he was ready to leave, Tim had planned everything.

Only, he'd neglected to plan what he would do if he was indeed too late.