Caution To The Wind

Missed Opportunities

"Timmy you've been holding out on me," Alexx remarked. She was kneeling over a female body sprawled on the sidewalk in front of the ATM, checking for evidence of trauma and cause of death, while Tim photographed the scene.

"What do you mean?" he asked, confused by her comment. He moved the camera out of the way so he could get a better look at her.

"Eric tells me he's met your new girlfriend, the one you've told me nothing about," she chastised.

He groaned. Figured Eric wouldn't be able to keep his mouth shut. He should never have let Delko talk him into that double date. Delko had been pestering him to meet Amy ever since he found out Tim had called her. He acted like Tim had never been out with a girl before. The two had hit it off right away. Eric liked Amy, maybe more than Tim did. He thought the two were a good match. Tim wasn't quite sure he agreed with that assessment.

"She's not exactly my girlfriend," he replied and went back to snapping photos, knowing Alexx wasn't going to let this rest.

"What exactly does that mean, she's not 'exactly' your girlfriend?" she asked, looking at him from under arched eyebrows.

"We've just gone out a few times. It's nothing serious." Alexx answered that statement with a scrutinizing look. "It's really nothing." He shrugged matter of factly.

"It's really nothing," she repeated. He didn't like the sound of that.

"What?" he asked, dreading her answer?

"So why are you dating a girl that your friend seems more enthusiastic about than you do?" she asked bluntly. "And does this girl agree with you, that it's 'really nothing'?"

Good questions. Figures Alexx would hit the nail on the head. He could always count on her to be straight with him, even when he didn't want to hear it. These were questions he'd been asking himself lately. Honestly, he didn't know what he wanted. He got lonely sometimes and liked going out, but with Amy, it always felt more like friends. And it felt like work, at least for him. There was just no spark between them.

He gave an impatient shrug. It was time for this conversation to be over. "I don't know," he said resignedly.

"Well Baby, maybe you better figure that out," she told him.

She was right. He exhaled heavily and wandered over to the ATM where Delko was dusting for prints. If Delko thought Amy was his girlfriend, was there a good chance Amy thought that as well? She was too nice for him to be anything less than honest with her. He shouldn't have let it get this far. Whatever it was he was looking for, he hadn't found it with Amy. Just as well, he thought, he didn't want a girlfriend anyway. She was a distraction, maybe, but nothing more than that.

CTTW CTTW CTTW

He leaned on the counter watching the coffee maker slowly drip. This was shaping up to be one of the worst weeks. If he closed his eyes it would be all over. He had just worked his second double and he was feeling the effects full on. He was irritable with just about everyone and didn't care. To top it off, he'd finally seen Amy on his only free night and told her that 'friends' was all he wanted. She admitted to him that his disclosure came as no surprise. In her opinion he was always preoccupied and often distant. She confessed she barely knew him at all. At first her comments surprised him, but he knew she spoke the truth. He hadn't invested much of himself in the relationship, because he never really wanted one, at least not with her. It was over, that was all that mattered.

Right now, the only thing he needed was caffeine to help keep him awake for the ride home or Alexx was going to be seeing his body on her table. Horatio graciously decided to send he and Delko home for some rest after they spent the past 27 hours working. He had no choice; they were both about to keel over.

The two of them got called in at 4:00 AM for three dead high school students, found, where else, but on the beach. Looked like a party gone very wrong. Three dead bodies, three different causes of death. They were at the beach until nightfall, collecting evidence and processing the site. It was just the two of them because Calleigh was out of town giving a lecture; Horatio was stuck in court and then had another case to work. The night shift was no help because they had their own cases to deal with. The pair still had quite a lot to do this morning, but it could wait a few hours while they slept.

"Good morning," a cheerful voice behind him drawled. He grunted a response. "I'm glad there's coffee," she chirped. She sidled up next to him and he quickly moved out of her way, but not before he saw the look of distaste cross her face. "You know Tim, it wouldn't be a bad idea if you kept a change of clothes in your locker for these mornings," she said as she wrinkled her nose, "that you don't seem to make it home first. It's not a very professional look you're sporting." She had a tightlipped smile in place as she spoke.

He raised both eyebrows and looked at her with narrow, darkened eyes. Choosing to ignore her comment, he plopped himself down on the couch to sip the hot brew.

Of course, she thought he was showing up after a night of... of who knows what. He took stock of himself as he rubbed the day old stubble on his face. His clothes were wrinkled and not quite clean. He was also not exactly the best smelling inhabitant in the room. Besides his day old odor, there was a faint whiff of beer on him, complements of Delko spilling one of the half drunk bottles of evidence on him. Why wouldn't she think the worst of him, she had no reason not to. He supposed he could tell her he'd worked all night, but there seemed to be no point.

A weary Delko chose that moment to drag himself into the room. "I'm starving. Let's get breakfast. I'll drive."

"Yeah, okay," Tim mumbled and gulped down the rest of his coffee.

"I gotta drop these files off. Meet me in the locker room," Eric told him.

"Wait a minute, you're leaving?" Calleigh asked, confused.

"Yeah, you're on your own till this afternoon," Eric replied with a feeble chuckle.

"Why do you get to go out to breakfast and have the morning off?" she persisted.

"Cause we've been here since 4 AM yesterday," he emphasized, "and someone thought we might want to sleep, for at least a couple hours. We'll be back soon. Hope your day is better than ours was yesterday," he told her with a tired smirk before leaving the room.

She looked over at Tim who was rinsing his cup in the sink. "I'm sorry about what I said earlier. I didn't know you had been here all night," she said, clearly embarrassed. "You must be exhausted." Their eyes met briefly, but he looked away, not caring to see the concern that had replaced her earlier disgust.

"Doesn't matter," he said, because it no longer did. She could think what she wanted; he was tired of thinking about her all the time. He left the room without another word.

CTTW CTTW CTTW

Horatio handed out the day's assignments and once again Tim was paired up with Delko. Over the past couple of weeks, he noticed he didn't work often with Calleigh. He wasn't sure if it was coincidence or whether Horatio had observed some tension between the two. It wasn't Calleigh's fault, she had gone out her way to be nice to him since that morning in the break room, but he needed to steer clear of her for awhile. He didn't know why, she just bugged him, like a splinter under the skin.

She had even invited him to lunch with her, kind of out of the blue. He was busy at the time, so he had an excuse, not that she looked like she believed him. Truthfully, he could've gone with her, he wasn't doing anything that couldn't wait. But he still couldn't bring himself to be alone with her.

Tim and Eric got handed a crime scene across town, a foiled grocery store robbery that left one dead and one wounded. The alleged robber was dead, so this case wouldn't take much time to close. After finishing at the site, Tim headed to trace while Eric headed to autopsy.

"Hey. I got the report from Alexx and I got hits off the prints. This is all for you now. I gotta go take over for Calleigh at that gang shooting," Eric said, handing Tim files after joining him in the lab.

"Why?" Tim asked, noticing the anxiety on his friend's face.

Eric shot him a look of surprise. "You didn't hear?" Tim shook his head. He hadn't left the lab since getting back. "Someone took a shot at her while they were finishing up at the scene of that gang murder," Eric told him, not disguising his fury. Hearing the words, Tim took a sharp intake of breath and felt his stomach lurch. He didn't want to imagine her hurt or worse...

"She okay?" he asked in a choked voice. A wave of apprehension coursed through him and he fought to keep his emotions under control.

Eric nodded vigorously. "Yeah. She's fine, just grazed her upper arm. The next bullet missed her and hit the witness she was questioning. Killed the witness, a young woman who was probably the intended target all along. H made Calleigh get checked out, despite her protests. You know Calleigh, nothing is ever really wrong." Tim nodded, still trying to get the image of someone taking a shot at Calleigh out of his mind. "H thought she was more shaken up then she let on, so he wanted her to go home. But I doubt that she will." Listening to Eric, his voice and rapid speech led Tim to believe that he was pretty shaken up as well.

Tim spent the remainder of the day trying not to think about Calleigh and coming up with any excuse he could not to go see her. Why was it that the minute he got his head finally cleared of her, she was back on his mind again? Of course, he reasoned, if someone had taken a shot at H or Delko, he'd be concerned about them as well. He just wouldn't be thinking of reasons not to go see them. Somehow everything was different where Calleigh was concerned. Finally, by late afternoon, he could no longer talk himself out of seeing her. He had to know she was okay.

He spotted her in the hallway talking to Horatio. Her back was to him, but he could see the bandage on her left upper arm. Otherwise she seemed unhurt and he exhaled a deep breath of relief. Standing with his head tilted towards her, Horatio was wearing his soothing, comfort expression as he spoke. Tim decided this wasn't a good time to intrude and went back to his lab.

Leaving work late that evening, Tim took a different route home than he normally did. This drive took him suspiciously close to Calleigh's apartment, more specifically, to the beach he knew she frequented. Something told him if he parked his bike and walked along the shoreline, he'd find her. He'd find her standing in front of the ocean looking for a place to disappear, or maybe just trying to forget. In his mind, he could see her standing small and alone in front of the vastness of the sea. She'd tell everyone she was 'fine' and probably do a good job of convincing them, but he knew she probably wasn't.

He thought about stopping, but he didn't. He was worried about her, but he was more worried about what might happen if he found her. That was just something he couldn't deal with. Turning the bike around, he sped off in the direction from which he came.

tbc