Family Matters
Ryan looked at the stubborn seventeen-year-old and knew he didn't have a choice.
"Okay" he said "But stay behind me".
Amylia nodded and got out of the car too. She followed Ryan to the house, on tiptoes.
Ryan slowly opened the door. On tiptoes he sneaked in, his gun pointing at the room where the flashlight beam was coming from. Amylia followed him. Somehow, this felt pretty exciting. Or at least she was excited. She tried to make not a sound.
"Beware of that doorstep" she whispered to Ryan. "It creaks."
Ryan nodded and turned around the corner, pointing his gun in the room behind the doorframe. It was empty. Or at least, no burglars in there. Though Amylia did notice something.
"This is my room" she whispered. "And those bastards took my laptop!"
How did they dare to take her laptop? Amylia hated the burglars even more now. She spent half her time on that laptop, all important things for school were on it, everything that was even the smallest bit of value to her when it came to documents was on it.
Ryan nodded and moved over to another room, which was also cleared soon and then they moved to the living room. Two men wearing black, carrying a bag, were trying to make their way trough an open window.
"Miami-Dade Police" he shouted.
"Shit!" one of the burglars said and he quickly fled. The other one looked at Ryan, paralyzed. Then he too fled through the window. Ryan shot him in the leg.
Amylia was startled by the gunshot, but soon looked at Ryan.
"I think we have to call Horatio now, don't we?" she asked. Ryan nodded slowly.
Oops. This was never supposed to happen. But Amylia was pretty sure she had locked the door before leaving.
"This is now a crime scene" Ryan said to her. She nodded.
"Yeah. We should go outside." Amylia grabbed her cell phone from her purse and looked at Ryan. "I'll call him. It'd be pretty weird if you'd call him about a burglary that took place here. He might get weird thoughts." She laughed, partly because she was relieved the burglars were gone, partly insecure about what Horatio would say.
Horatio was just locking his office when his cell phone rang. The display said Amylia was calling him. What could be wrong? Wasn't she out for drinks with someone? Or was there nothing wrong and was she just calling him?
Amylia and Ryan stood on the grass in front of the house, making sure they didn't disturb anything more than they already had.
Horatio accepted the call.
"Horatio" he said.
"Hey, it's me"
"I know"
"Yeah. Something has happened."
Okay. So this needed some questioning. "What happened?"
"Well, I – I was brought home from drinks and then we noticed flashlights and the door was open so we went in and noticed burglars and they fled and he shot them in the leg and now they're gone and they stole my laptop and some other things!" His daughter sounded pretty scared. Horatio knew he had to calm her down.
"Calm down, sweetie. I'll come over. But – you went into the house? Have I never told you to wait for the police?"
Amylia giggled a little insecure. "Yeah, well… come over and you'll know that the police was already here" she looked at Ryan and ended the conversation. "I'm going to have to explain it" she said.
"No." he said. "WE are going to explain it."
Yelina paid for her coffee and left. She had made a decision. She would visit him tonight. After all, they hadn't seen each other in ages and she wanted to see him, knowing that he might wanted to see her too.
Horatio left the lab and got into one of the Hummers. He would first take a look at his house that was now a crime scene, before calling in the other CSIs if that was even necessary. It was Ryan's day off, and he didn't want to disturb Calleigh, who was working on some cases in the Ballistics lab. Eric and Natalia were both involved in another case, so he didn't want to call them in either. And although he hardly did any lab work lately, nor any crime scene investigation, just supervising, he still hadn't lost his skills so he could process a crime scene on his own, he was pretty sure of that.
He was only the smallest bit surprised to find Ryan together with Amylia at his home. Somehow, he had already guessed that she'd be out for drinks with him. After all, they apparently liked each other a lot and it had been Ryan's day off. And Amylia had told him over the phone that the police was already here. Indeed. Horatio got out of the Hummer and looked at both.
"Mr. Wolfe" he greeted the CSI.
"Horatio" Ryan said, looking a bit nervous.
Uh-oh. Amylia was pretty scared this would turn out wrong. Maybe it wouldn't, but she still felt she should say something.
"Dad" she said to Horatio. He looked at her. "Dad" she repeated. "I- I…" oh shoot. What was she going to say?
The three of them fell silent, Amylia embarrassed for not knowing what to say, Ryan nervous for Horatio's reaction and Horatio awaiting Amylia's comment.
Ryan reached for Amylia's hand and squeezed it a little.
"Horatio?" a voice that was familiar to Horatio sounded. Now he was really surprised. Horatio turned around and looked right in the chocolate brown eyes of a Latina woman.
"Yelina" he said. She smiled.
"What happened?" she asked, referring to Ryan and Amylia.
Amylia took a step forward and offered Yelina a hand.
"Amylia Caine" she introduced herself.
Yelina looked at Horatio. He slowly nodded.
"She's my daughter, from New York. From when I was married to Samantha"
Yelina understood. "You sent me a few letters trying to explain things back then"
"I did"
Yelina tried to smile and looked at Amylia and Ryan holding hands, absorbed in their own conversation.
"They make a cute couple" she said. Horatio looked at them, too, and then looked back at Yelina.
"They do. But Ryan must understand she is still a minor"
"I think he does understand that. He seems so sweet to her, don't you think? And love doesn't understand the concept of age, does it?"
For once, Horatio couldn't think of a reply to this very true one-liner that could be of his own thoughts, if the situation hadn't been this way, and admitted this by jumping to another subject.
"How's Ray?"
"He's fine. We're fine." She said. There was something about the way she said it that made Horatio wonder something.
"Who found out, Yelina?" he asked seriously. She looked him in his bright blue eyes and knew she just couldn't lie.
"Rick knows we're back in Miami" she whispered. Horatio nodded.
"Let me worry about him. But right now I have a crime scene to process. Mr. Wolfe?"
The two men collected their kits, Horatio from the Hummer, Ryan from his own car. They then entered the house.
Amylia walked over to Yelina.
"This makes us family, doesn't it?" Amylia asked to break the ice. Yelina looked at the young woman.
"Apparently. I think you have much more family than you're aware of" Yelina warned her. "My-" she took a deep breath. "My now dead husband had quite an eye for the women."
"Did he?" Amylia smiled. "Don't worry, I'm from New York. Takes some really pretty stupid things to surprise me."
"Well, some pretty surprising things are being said about the Caine-family and as always, truth is much weirder than reality".
"Yeah, well, I don't think anything in the coming couple of years can surprise me" Amylia said, stubborn as she was.
"So it seems" Yelina said absently-minded. Amylia laughed, guessing perfectly right what Yelina was thinking about.
"Don't think I didn't see it. 'Cause I saw it. Just takes a push in the right direction." She said. "Some men just need more than one push"
Yelina just nodded, consumed by her thoughts.
Horatio swabbed the blood droplets while Ryan photographed the window through which the burglars had left.
"Horatio" Ryan started. "I really like Amylia"
Horatio looked at the young CSI. On duty, this CSI was his responsibility. Perhaps not professionally, but Horatio felt it that way. He felt that way about all his CSIs. Amylia was his daughter, and all her life, she would be at least partly his responsibility. He felt this that way. Perhaps this would turn out right. No, it just would. No perhaps, no maybe. It would turn out just fine.
"It's okay" he said. It's all right, yes, all right. No worries. No needless insomnia. Horatio now just had to worry about Yelina. He smiled to himself and got back to swabbing the scene. Some things just never changed. One of those things was the peace between two CSI processing a scene of a crime.
A/N: If you're wondering whether this is the end, it's not. I just wanted a decent ending for this chapter, a chapter that was quite important to me…
