A/N: I do not own CSI Miami or any of it's characters, affiliates...etc. This is just my imagination running with it! I hope you all enjoy!

Chapter Four

They're With Me

When she woke up again, there was a nurse in there taking her vitals. Not moving, she stared at him for a long moment. "Hey sweetie. I'm just checking your vital signs. I'll be out of your hair in just a second and you can go back to sleep."

"Where's the cop...Caine?" she whispered.

"He'll be back in a little bit. He said he had to go check on something."

Closing her eyes, she pretended she was asleep until he left. Once he was gone, she surveyed her situation and looked at the clock. She glanced out the window. It was nine. At night. She looked up at the little dry erase board that showed who was what and hours. Shift change was in half an hour.

Getting out of the bed, being sure to move slowly, she walked to the little make shift closet they had there and found the dress she'd been wearing that night. Damn. Okay, she could do this. Turning off the monitors so they wouldn't be notified when they started beeping at the desk, she got dressed as quickly as she could and waited to make her move. Leaving the bathroom light on so that someone would think she was in there, she looked around after opening the door, and made her way down to the staircase.

She was on the third floor. Dammit. What was she going to do? How was she going to fix this now? She had to get back to the house, but would anyone be at the house? Was Si right? Had that even happened? She needed to find out. She needed to get her bearings straight.

She didn't know why she was running. She just knew that she had to get out of that hospital. What if her father or mother came for her? What if they were at home? What was she going to do then? No. She couldn't go home. So where could she go? And what was she going to do when she got there? So many questions.

Making it to the woods that bordered the hospital, she ducked into the trees and started walking. Where to exactly, she had no clue. But she was walking. After an hour and a half of wandering aimlessly, she sat down. Where was she? Was she lost in the glades? No, she hadn't hit water. But there were definitely a lot of trees.

Walking into the hospital, Horatio's heart dropped when he looked in her room. "Excuse me? Where is this patient?"

"I'm sorry who?" one nurse asked, confused.

"Lee. Lee Hartford. She was here three hours ago. Where is she now?"

"I don't know. I just started fifteen minutes ago and I haven't made my rounds yet. It gets kind of crazy at shift change. Let me check with William. He was the nurse assigned to her." and she disappeared. Coming back she had a look of worry on her face. "She was just there. He said he just checked her out half an hour ago."

"Well she's gone now!" he said, trying to keep himself from panicking. A million questions ran through his head. Was she taken? Had her father gotten to her, even though he was locked up? Or worse yet, had she gotten up and walked out? Grabbing the doctor that was now trying to figure out what was going on, he held his arm. "Look at her chart. Tell me what her danger areas are and what she's got going on?"

After another fifteen minutes of the doctor explaining everything, he glanced at his watch and walked outside. Grabbing his cell he called Walter. "Hey. How cold is it supposed to get tonight?"

"I don't know, forty five I think? Why?"

"She's gone."

"Oh hell man!"

"Can you meet me at the hospital? And get a chopper in the air with thermal radar. There's woods behind here and she can't have gone far. The doctor said she would be in a weakened state as it was."

"Alright H. I'll get them up. See you in ten."

"See you in ten." he replied. He didn't know what was going through her head. But what worried him was the fact that the doctor said, with any drug overdose, the immune system is compromised and it wouldn't take much to put her back in the hospital. He prayed he was wrong, and that she wasn't in the woods.

Leaned back against the tree that she'd stopped at earlier, she closed her eyes for just a second and she swore she heard someone calling her name. Opening her eyes instantly she stood, and pushed herself further into the trees. It was no doubt her father looking for her, with a whole team of people. There's no telling how pissed off he was going to be at her for expending so much money and energy looking for her. She couldn't let him find her. She couldn't let anyone find her.

She was freezing. Falling face first into the mud, she almost stayed there until Simone appeared again. "Si?"

"Don't you give up. They're looking for you. You don't lay down and give up. I told you yesterday it wasn't your time. You didn't listen to me then."

"I'm tired. I don't want to keep running. I'm cold."

"Then stay where you are. But get out of the mud. You're going to drown yourself."

Getting up on her knees, she crawled for a ways before hitting the bottom of another tree and laying down on her side. It was then that she realized that it was raining. Looking up, she realized sadly, her sister was gone. Had she ever really been there, or had it been just like her dream? She closed her eyes, giving in to her need to sleep.

Walking across the empty field, a familiar voice sounded across his radio. "H. We've got a shoe. We're about quarter of a mile South of you."

"I'm on my way." and he trudged his way through the marsh, heading just a little farther South than they had indicated.

Another voice came over the radio. "We've got something showing up on thermal. I can see you Lieutenant Caine. You're the closest one. Looks like it is about five hundred feet directly in front of you."

That's when he spotted her, laid down against the base of a tree. Grabbing his radio he pushed the button. "I've got her. Keep coming this way. Get me the paramedics now." he shouted.

Running as fast as he could toward the figure on the ground, he reached her and dropped instantly. "Lee? Sweetheart?"

She was freezing. When her eyes opened, the only thing she could focus on was the body in front of her face. Nothing looked normal. Everything was blurred in her vision and nothing made sense. A warm hand touched her cheek. "Caine?" She had no idea why that name came to her head, but the touch was warm. Was soft. Wasn't harmful or cold like her father's. Sitting up, she struggled to get past what she couldn't understand.

"Easy sweetheart. Are you alright? How did you get all the way out here."

"I had to - run." she whispered, shivering. Then something warm was being placed around her shoulders. "Had to - get away. Can't let...can't let him - find me."

Sitting beside her, he wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her shaking frame into his chest to try and keep her warm until someone got there. She had no resistance in her at all, which told him she was growing weaker from running. She still needed to be in the hospital. The Xanax was out of her system, but there were other things wrong, that she needed to recuperate from. And betting she was hypothermic as well as wet, definitely didn't set well with him.

She opened her eyes as people started to rush her and she started breathing hard. Holding her firm, Horatio wiped the hair from her face. "Easy. They're with me. No one's going to hurt you. You can trust me. These are the good guys."

Closing her eyes again she thought back to what Si had said. She'd told her the same thing. That he was a good guy and she could trust him. Had it been real? Having no energy to fight any longer, she just let whatever happen, happen. She was loaded onto a stretcher and carried through the woods to a waiting ambulance. She stayed awake the entire time, but never said a word, never smiled, or frowned, or gave any indication she was aware of what was going on around her. Letting her head fall to the side, she realized dully that the cops suit coat was still on her, and she could smell whatever cologne it had been that he'd used that morning.

Finally closing her eyes, she felt everything being done as they'd stuck more needles in her arms, and put a mask over her nose and mouth, helping her breathe. She could hear a million voices all around her and none of it made sense. She heard the cop talking to someone about her vital signs and then to the other cop that had been there that day talking to her father.

Feeling the hand in hers squeeze, she latched onto that with everything she had. It was warm and comforting. She was so used to not having warm, and comforting was a joke when it came to someone else trying to help her. It just didn't happen. She didn't have it, and hadn't since her sister.

A tear rolled down her face and she felt a soft touch, wipe it away. She heard a breath of a voice to her side and felt her hand squeeze. "You are safe Lee. I won't let anything happen to you."

Remembering what her sister had told her, she took a deep breath. "You can trust him. He's a good guy. - He's not scared of him Lee Lee. He's the real deal." Swallowing hard, she opened her eyes and looked into his face. Maybe he was the real deal. Maybe her sister had been right. Maybe he wouldn't say one thing then do another. Maybe...maybe...her eyes started closing and monitors started beeping wildly as her body went completely lax.

Horatio looked up as the monitors started showing her heart rate and blood pressure both increase, both symptoms of hypothermia. Just a few hours ago, they were worried because it had bottomed out, and he wondered what it was going to do to her physically with the trying to get it going up and down constantly. He listened as they shouted and yelled and he never left her side.