Thanks again for the reviews! I put a bit more angst in this chapter; hopefully you all like it.

Chapter 4

Refusals

Calleigh's head was killing her. That was the first thing she noticed as she drifted back into the world. She heard muffled voices surrounding her; she couldn't quite make them out at the moment. She then became conscious of the rest of her body. Someone had their hand on her shoulder, rubbing their thumb against it. Someone was applying pressure to her head, she wanted to tell them to stop, but she hadn't yet found her voice or opened her eyes.

"Doctor?" she heard Horatio's voice ask as the voices became clearer.

"Her pulse is normal, but I can't be sure if her brain has been damaged at all because of this," she heard Tom's voice reply. She felt someone take her hand, she recognized the hands warmth and how it felt against hers. It was Eric's hand.

"She'll be fine, Eric," Horatio said, trying assuring, though he didn't have that same certainty he had when arresting a murderer. "The paramedic's should be here shortly."

Paramedic's? Calleigh thought, she wouldn't have any part of it.

"That won't be necessary," Calleigh mumbled as she blinked open her eyes. Eric was on one side of her, looking relieved as she came to. Horatio was next to Eric, also relaxing as she awoke and Tom was on her other side; he was the one applying pressure to her head.

"Cal," Eric sighed in relief.

She smiled at him, slightly, and gave his hand a gentle, reassuring, squeeze. She tried to raise herself up, Tom took off the clothe he had been using to apply pressure to her head as she did so, but Eric gently pushed down on her shoulder, making it impossible to move.

"You need to stay down," Eric said, Calleigh saw the sure fear in his eyes.

"I'm okay," Calleigh said.

Calleigh had been through worse, a few moments of unconsciousness and a slight headache wasn't going to slow her down.

"Are you sure?" Tom asked.

"Positive," Calleigh said.

"Any blurred vision?"

Calleigh shook her head, but stopped almost instantly, that wasn't helping her headache.

"Calleigh, I think it's a good idea for you to wait for the paramedic's," Horatio tried to convince her.

Calleigh knew they were just trying to make sure she was safe, but this was annoying her. She, for once, wanted control of her body and what it was able to do. It should be her choice if she wanted to produce children or not, it should be for her to say if her head was okay or not and it should certainly be her choice if she wanted to go to the hospital or stay at work. Calleigh broke passed Eric's hand on her shoulder and rose herself up, her head started to throb more, but she ignored it.

"I'm fine," she said, firmly. The others just gave her an exasperated look. If MDPD had a dime for every time Calleigh said "I'm fine" when she wasn't, the crime lab would have more money than Bill Gates.

Horatio and Eric looked at Tom, both looking at him as though he should be saying something medically relevant to get her to stay down. But Tom didn't seem to have anything to say. It was times like these when Alexx would become especially missed; she wouldn't have even let Calleigh move an inch until the paramedics arrived if she were here. Unfortunately, she was gone and they could all but hear the gears in Calleigh's head cranking.

Calleigh was thinking back to before the incident, it was a bit cloudy at first but it soon came flooding back to her. She remembered Mike. What happened to Mike? She turned to the table to see the empty baby carrier on the table. Her heart sank and her stomach started flipping.

"What happened to Mike?" she was almost afraid to ask, but she did anyway.

The three looked at her, apprehensively, as they were inwardly debating whether or not to tell her something. Calleigh made it easier on them.

"They took him?" she inferred.

Not looking at her, Eric nodded.

Something inside Calleigh began to hurt, how could she have let this happen? She was supposed to be watching him and…now he's gone.

Guess Ryan was wrong, her mind kept repeating to her.

"Then why the hell are we standing around for?" Calleigh asked, wanting to get to work ASAP, the pushed herself off the ground as Eric slowly pulled her up. Vertigo hit Calleigh, a result from having her head being hit. She stumbled slightly as everything spun before it started to return to normal. But as she stumbled, the three became more anxious to tell her to wait for the medic's, Eric wrapped his arm around her shoulders to keep her from falling back down. She put her hand on his, to try and reassure him before sliding out of his touch as she headed out the door.

"Stubborn, isn't she?" Tom stated the obvious.

Well, Calleigh may have been stubborn, but she wasn't an idiot. She knew she had been injured and needed to take some medical precautions, once they found Mike she'd go to the doctor. She walked into the break room and opened the drawer that held the office first-aid kit. She put it on the counter next to the sink as opened the lid. She pulled a large bandage, anti-bacterial gel and a packet of Tylenol out of the box before closing it and putting it back were she had found it.

She saw Eric enter the break room out of the corner of her eye, knowing he was there to convince her to go to the hospital, she didn't look up. She picked up a nearby spoon and turned it so the convex side was curving out towards her, using it as a mirror, she saw the dried blood around her wound. That was defiantly not going to help the healing process. She tore a piece of paper towel off the roll over the sink; she ran water over it before beginning to clean the black with time blood.

Eric was at her side and opened his mouth to speak, but Calleigh cut him off before he could say anything.

"Has an Amber Alert been issued?" Calleigh asked.

At first, Eric seemed reluctant to tell her anything, but in the end he did.

"Yeah," he nodded.

Calleigh looked at herself in the spoon's reflection, being sure she got all the blood before getting another piece of paper towel to dry the water on her face.

"Did we get any video footage, a description of the suspects car? Anything?" Calleigh asked, hopefully as she began to apply the anti-bacterial gel to the gash, wincing slightly as the alcohol seeped into the tender flesh.

"The car was found four blocks from here, they must have known we were coming after them and decided to find other means of transportation. We brought it back here, Wolfe is getting the evidence from it now," Eric said, looking over Calleigh with worried eyes.

Calleigh nodded as she picked up the white bandage and removed the paper from around the edges to reveal the stickiness of the tape around the slab of gauze.

"We get anything else?" she asked, as she awkwardly tried to hold the spoon and apply the bandage at the same time, not wanting to miss any of the ugly cut.

Eric took the bandage from her and gently turned her to face him. He brushed the hairs from her face and tucked them behind her ear. He laid the gauze across the fresh wound.

"We're watching for any activity on credit cards, hopefully, we'll get something," Eric said, smoothing the tape, gently, with his fingers to get rid of any air bubbles. "We…um…also have footage of the bastards who did this to you and took Mike. Nice kick, by the way," he said, sliding his fingertips from her forehead to along her jaw line.

Calleigh looked down before turning back to the counter.

"If it were nice, they wouldn't have gotten away and we wouldn't have a problem right now," Calleigh sighed, eyes focused on opening the Tylenol packets.

Eric slid over to her and wrapped his arm around her shoulders as she filled a glass with water.

"You know this isn't your fault, right?"

"Eric, I was the one watching him," Calleigh said before popping the pills and taking a gulp of water.

"That doesn't make it your fault," he attempted to comfort her.

Calleigh sighed and put the empty glass next to the sink, hoping the pills would take effect soon.

"What about the bomber, have you guys questioned him? He may know something," Calleigh asked, changing the subject.

Eric looked down at Calleigh, she obviously felt guilty about Mike being missing and that she was wanting to help, but Eric was worried that she was going to overwork herself and cause herself more harm.

"Eric?" she asked after she waited for an answer that never came.

"Calleigh, please, just go to the hospital," Eric reasoned.

"I'm fine," Calleigh said for what felt like the thousandth time.

"You can't know that," Eric said. "You can have a concussion for all we know."

"And it can wait…I'll go to the hospital once we find Mike," Calleigh tried to compromise, guilt was swimming through her veins at the thought of him with those people.

Eric looked at her, worriedly.

"You'd probably work better if you went now," Eric said, but the words sounded more like "I'd be less worried if you went now."

"I'll go later," Calleigh promised as she walked out of Eric's arm around her shoulder and made her way for the door. If Eric wasn't going to answer her questions, she was going to find somebody who will.

But Eric was able to slide his hand down to her wrist, before she was completely out of his arms, and gently pulled her back into him. Calleigh's eyes met his brown ones. They were full of the comfort and understanding, which part of Calleigh knew she needed, but she didn't want to except. Not right this second.

"At least go home and rest for a couple of hours," Eric tried to convince her, again, to just take it easy.

"I don't need to rest," Calleigh said, softly yet determined. "I need to get to work."

Sliding out of his grip, she made her way towards the door. "This kid is in danger, I'm not just going to sit around," she said, not turning around as she opened the door and walked into the hall.

Natalia and Frank were sitting in front of Brain Oakland; he had in brought back in for interrogation because he had to know something…hopefully.

"You three've got a pretty good scheme going, don't you?" Natalia accused as she slid into the chair across from Oakland.

"What are you talking about?" Oakland scoffed.

"You know exactly what we're talking about, smart-ass," Frank growled.

"The bombing wasn't just a bombing was it?" Natalia asked. "It was a plan for a kidnapping."

Oakland didn't say anything; he just starred at his handcuffed hands on the table.

"Listen," Natalia warned. "You've killed three people in one day, now you are with holding information in a kidnapping and, those two kidnappers, beat up our ballistics expert pretty bad. That makes you an accessory to kidnapping and the assault of a police officer. Unless you're lucky, you can looking at death row unless you want to help yourself."

"So, if you had the sense of a sock puppet you'd start talking," Frank said in his Texan way.

Oakland hesitated for a second, but then he took a deep breath and started talking.

"The truth is," Oakland started, he hesitated again and continued. "The truth is…Rick and Sean are half-brothers."

"And?" Natalia asked, knowing there had to be more to this story.

"And…they think that Mike is their brother too," Oakland admitted.

Natalia and Frank exchanged the look, the look CSI's normally gave each other when they had found either A.) Motive, B.) A curveball, or C.) Both. Right now, the answer was C.

"And what would give them that idea?" Frank asked.

"Sean and Ricky both grew up without a dad, Sean became curious and got his birth certificate. His father's name was listed as Keith Walters, Sean did some digging and found out about Ricky," Oakland obviously was desperate to not dig his grave any deeper.

"How long ago?"

"About a year-and-a-half, maybe…anyway, they found out as much about their dad as they could…somehow, about three months ago, they found out he was living in the gables and that he had a son …Sean, especially, seemed determined to get close to Mike. They knew that Walters probably wouldn't even get close to him, so we came up with this plan."

"The plan being you blow up a park and you go to jail?" Natalia asked, questioning this guy's sanity.

"It wasn't supposed to go down exactly like that."

"Then how was it supposed to go down?" Frank chimed in.

"You know what?" Oakland rose to his feet. "I've said enough…if you want to know more talk to my lawyer."

"I'll run DNA," Natalia said to Horatio as they talked aside in the hallway as she informed him of the interrogation. "See if we get a paternal match on DNA from the kidnappers and Mike."

"Do that," Horatio said. "Did Oakland happen to say where they'd be taking him?"

"No, but Ryan is still in the garage, I'll call and see if he's got anything," Natalia said as she started and to pull out her cell phone. Horatio was looking past her shoulder as the elevator door opened in his sight, Ryan stepped out and came towards the two. "I'd put a hold on that, Ms. Boa Vista…what did we find Mr. Wolfe?" as Natalia turned to face Ryan as he came closer.

"H, Calleigh and I ripped that car a part and we found nothing," Ryan sighed.

"Okay then, this is what we do," Horatio said, becoming anxious by the lack of evidence they had on this case. "Eric is keeping an eye out for credit card activity, Calleigh may get lucky in the garage, lets run this DNA to confirm Oakland's story and run from there," Horatio said before walking toward the elevator.

"What about you?" Ryan asked, knowing Horatio to be up to something.

"Mr. Wolfe, I," Horatio said as he pressed the button to the lobby. "Am going to catch up with Frank before he leaves without me."

The elevators closed as Horatio put his hands on his hips.

"Frank leaves without him?" Ryan asked Natalia.

"They're meeting Mike's parents at the airport," Natalia said, the words burning with emotion at the thought of his parent's faces when they get the news.

The faces were in fact terrible to witness. Horatio tried to be gentle to inform the parents, whose plane had left before they had gotten the bad news. One of the airport workers escorted the distraught parents, Frank and Horatio to an empty conference room.

"Mr. and Mrs. Walters," Horatio addressed them by their surname, tenderly. "We are going to do everything in our power to get your son back."

Rebecca Walters just continued to sob into her husband's shoulder, the poor woman had already lost her sister and could lose her son all in the same day. They did have a few questions for Keith Walters; he was the assumed biological father of the kidnappers, after all. But he was comforting his wife and he too seemed lost. Now wasn't the time.

"So, supposedly, they're all related?" Ryan tried to get his facts right as Natalia ran the DNA from Byrd and compared it to Orlando's.

"Supposedly being the operative word," Natalia nodded as the results printed out, she looked over them for a few moments. "Oakland was right, the paternal DNA is a match…the two of them are related."

"And what about Mike, is he related?" Ryan asked.

"I don't have any DNA from Mike to run it against," Natalia sighed. "I guess we have to wait for his parents to get here so we can get one of the possessions from the home or get a warrant."

"Both of which will take to long," Ryan said, crossing his arms and thinking hard. "You know, I don't get how Oakland got in this scheme," Ryan mused, hoping to get some sort of epiphany.

"I know, I've checked and he has no relation to anybody in this case but he is willing to throw a grenade and go to jail."

"Maybe he was trying to be a good friend and didn't think he was going to get caught," Ryan guessed.

There were a few moments of silence, looking and feeling down, until Ryan did get an epiphany.

"We do have DNA," Ryan looked up.

Natalia looked at him.

"Um…we do?" she asked, confused.

"We might," Ryan grinned, pulling out his phone.

She looked in the glove compartment, under the seats, in the engine and everywhere she could think of ten times, Calleigh still couldn't get anything from this stupid car. Hopefully, someone was doing their job better than she was doing hers. In one day she had been assaulted, lost someone else's child to kidnappers and now couldn't find any evidence. This was becoming, no it all ready was, a rotten day.

Her phone began to ring; it hurt her head a bit. The painkillers had helped numb it, slightly, but the underlying pain was still there. She pulled her phone out and looked at the caller ID. It was Ryan.

Her mind went back to the last time Ryan had called, moments before Mike was taken.

Calleigh chuckled as Mike fell back to sleep as she placed him in his carrier on the table. She had no idea how long she had been cradling Mike, but it was a good feeling. A feeling governed somewhat by the sadness she had felt with every home test for the last five years. Shaking those thoughts out of her head, she answered her phone before checking to see who was calling.

"Delko?" she answered.

"Hey, Calleigh, its Ryan. I just called to tell you that this case has closed," he said, she could almost hear the smile in his voice at the knowledge of putting another killer behind bars.

"So the blood was Oakland's?" she inferred, thinking of the only blood sample they had.

"The one and only…but Horatio thinks that his buddies may have something to do with the bombing, so I'm going through all the evidence to see if I can get anything else," Ryan explained. "It's going to take me awhile though, there is too much debris for one person."

Calleigh got the very subtle hint that he needed help, but she couldn't leave Mike here alone and she couldn't take him up to the lab.

"Well, I'll be up to help in a few I'm still waiting for Mike's parents to pick him up," Calleigh said, their flight had been delayed for some reason at the airport and still hadn't been able to come back to Miami.

"He doing okay?" Ryan asked.

"Yeah, he's fine."

"Well, Marry Poppins, whenever you are ready to switch back to Sarah Connor feel free to join me in trace," Ryan joked, obviously still getting a kick that beneath all the steel, hidden emotions and gun skills that made any felon cringe, Calleigh somehow was able to have womanly instinct's.

Calleigh did have a soft, nurturing side; she just didn't let many know about it in fear of them using it as weakness. She took comfort in knowing that, on the out times her guard did fall, that Eric wouldn't think her weak or hold it against her later. It had taken her awhile to reach that level with him, but they were there now and she was comfortable with it.

"Ha, ha, funny Ryan," Calleigh rolled her eyes at the two characters who couldn't be more different yet Ryan somehow seemed to think summed her up perfectly. Calleigh worried about the way his mind worked sometimes.

"Nice to know I can make you laugh…even if the laughter is fake," Ryan chuckled. "I'll see you once Mike gets picked up."

"Okay, I'll see you in a few," Calleigh smiled as she hung up her phone.

She had no idea how disastrous the minutes to follow would be.

Calleigh snapped her mind back and answered the phone.

"What's up?" Calleigh asked.

"You find anything new?" Ryan asked.

"What do you think?" Calleigh sighed, exaggerated. Calleigh had been doing this job long enough to know that every minute, every second, counted. She also knew that they didn't have much to go on and that time was wearing thin.

"I think if you come up to DNA right now it could be helpful," Ryan said.

Calleigh's ears perked up at this; her system felt like it had started to run on jet fuel it was thinking so fast.

"What do you mean?" Calleigh asked.

"I'll explain once you get up here," Ryan said.

"I'll be there in two minutes," Calleigh said, hanging up her phone, snapping off her gloves and putting up lab coat as she rushed out of the garage.

"How's she doing?" Natalia asked Ryan once he closed his phone.

"She's fine," Ryan shrugged.

Natalia gave him a look as if to say he was crazy for buying that, no one is one hundred percent fine after being slammed into a table, especially not under these circumstances.

Ryan noticed the look.

"Well, so she says," Ryan amended.

"Poor Calleigh," Natalia sighed.

"Yeah," Ryan agreed, softly.

They both knew that if Calleigh had ever figured out they said that she would show them some of her classic "Southern Hospitality" but she wasn't here right now, and she'd never have to know.

"So, would you mind sharing with me this flash of genius you just had?" Natalia suggested, getting down to business.

"Oh, yeah," Ryan said, snapping back. "Well, Calleigh was holding Mike before he the…um…" he cleared his throat. "The incident and so maybe a few-."

"Hairs could have fallen onto Calleigh," Natalia nodded. "But do you really think it clung to her for the past," Natalia looked at her watch. "Two-and-a-half hours?"

Ryan shrugged.

"It's better than nothing," he said.

"Hey," Calleigh greeted as she came into DNA. "What did you guys find?"

Natalia and Ryan explained everything as fast as possible, from the information from the interrogation to Ryan's idea.

"…Hopefully, the hair is still stuck to your jacket," Ryan said.

"More importantly, the DNA," Natalia said.

Calleigh nodded.

"It's worth a shot," Calleigh said.

Frank, Horatio and the Walters's were driving to MDPD where they would be able to ask Mr. Walters some questions, and where they would hopefully get some answers.

"Do you have any leads?" Mr. Walters asked from the back seat, his wife's head against his shoulder, her face scrunched with only the deepest of emotional pain.

Horatio and Frank both knew that they couldn't give too much information, not when a key component of the case could potentially be sitting in the back seat.

"A few," Horatio said, solemnly from the passenger seat. At that exact moment, ironically enough, Horatio's cell phone buzzed. He pulled it out of his pocket to see he had a new text message from Natalia.

The message read: H, they are all related.

Horatio nodded towards Frank, who nodded back in understanding. So, the man in the backseat was father to Ricky Byrd, Sean Orlando and Mike Walters.

"Quite a few," Horatio answered again.

Back at MDPD, Eric and Horatio finally had their chance to talk to Keith Walters in one of the interrogation rooms while his wife waited outside.

"Do you recognize these two?" Eric asked, sliding the mug shots of Ricky Byrd and Sean Orlando across the table for Mr. Walters to see. He glanced at them for a second or two, before looking up.

"No, I don't," he said, his words running over one another. "How is this going to help get my son back?"

"Those two, actually, took your son," Horatio replied, looking at the table.

"What? Then why the hell are you talking to me?" Mr. Walters shouted.

"We don't know where they are," Horatio said, matter-of-factly.

"But what we do know is," Eric said. "Is that you are their biological father."

There was a moment of silence as Mr. Walters starred at the pictures.

"Care to explain?" Horatio asked.

Calleigh walked passed the interrogation room next to the one she and Mike had been in earlier that day, inside was Horatio and Eric talking to Mr. Walters. He was the father, no denying it, the DNA didn't lie…it never did. This guy had to know something; at least they were hoping. Ryan and Frank were monitoring credit card activity, but Calleigh had very pessimistic feelings towards that panning out. These guys may have been total assholes, but they were smart and Calleigh would bet all her guns that they weren't going to use credit cards anytime soon.

Tearing her eyes away from the interrogation, Calleigh began to walk down the hall towards yet another interrogation room, this time she was going to help Natalia take a crack at Oakland.

"What did Walters say?" Ryan asked as Horatio and Eric approached each other in the hallway when their interrogation had finished.

"All he had to say was that he had one too many one night stands during college," Eric shrugged.

"Is that true?" Ryan asked.

"Tripp's contacting their moms, so we should know soon," Eric said.

"And Calleigh and Natalia are still trying to break Oakland, did he find himself a lawyer?" Horatio asked.

"No, he didn't," said the voice of Natalia as the two female CSI's approached the others. "And he gave up the right to have one appointed to him, so he decided to be his own lawyer."

"And how did that go?" Ryan scoffed at Oakland's stupidity.

"For him, not so well," Calleigh said. "For us, great. We were actually able to get something from him."

"What?" Eric asked.

"He said the reason that he helped out on the kidnapping was because Byrd and Orlando claimed to have tons of money and after they told him their sob story he was willing to help and they would bail him out later-," Natalia started to say.

"Wait, you mean they knew he was going to get arrested?" Ryan asked.

"They knew Mike would be here eventually. He threw the grenade, made sure we saw him at the scene, the other two stood outside the tape, wanting to get caught so we could drag them in," Natalia said.

"So we were pawns in their game," Horatio inferred.

"We played right into it," Calleigh sighed.

"But we checked their bank accounts and they don't have what you would call 'tons of money,'" Ryan said.

"They lied to Oakland, too," Calleigh shrugged.

Ring! Ring! Ring!

The sound of Horatio's cell phone rang out; he pulled it out of his pocket and put it to his ear.

"Caine?" Horatio asked into his phone the same time Frank approached the group.

"Walter's was telling the truth about the creation of Byrd and Orlando," Frank said.

"Well, that means we know everything except for where they are," Natalia sighed.

"That's where you are wrong, Ms. Boa Vista," Horatio said as he started to march toward the elevator.

"We know where they are?" Eric asked as they all followed Horatio.

"Sure do," Horatio said. "Frank, get a unit and tell them to get to Dade Memorial ASAP."

"I'm on it," Frank said as he made a left and pulled out his cell phone.

"Dade Memorial?" Natalia questioned.

"Apparently, someone matching their descriptions just checked in with an injury," Horatio said as the five loaded the elevator.

"What injury?" Ryan asked.

Horatio pulled out his sunglasses and held them in his hands.

"Bruised ribs…and a cracked knee," Horatio said, looking over at Calleigh. Calleigh couldn't help but smirk at the fact she had landed one of those bastards in the hospital.

Thanks for reading!

BTW: Extra special thanks to eric-calleighfreak for giving me the idea to type in the word "interview" on Google. I've been searching constantly, but didn't type in that one keyword...much thanks! Adam is returning because of the fans (yeah, us, that's right! lol) and because he and CBS were able to agree on a contract. And get this, he there is a possibility he might write and/or direct an episode next season! Can't wait!