Standing by the corner of the reception desk, he had planned to hand over his visitor's pass and leave, but the scene that drew his attention across the hall, brought that idea to a stand still. Delko, a regular pain in his ass, but not nearly as bad as the ever elusive Horatio Caine jogged up to the latter with a frantic look in his eyes. He wasn't quite sure what he was watching, but with the curious absence of Miami Dade's resident Ballistics expert and the exchange before him that was leading Delko to the elevator; questions swirled in his head.

Horatio had told him that Miss Duquense had a 'family emergency' that she was dealing with that weekend and while, due to Calleigh's flawless record, he didn't really question that - he did have suspicions. Now with Delko disappearing from the lab, suddenly, he felt that the entire staff was keeping something very damaging to themselves. He'd suspected Calleigh and Delko for some time, they were close and sometimes they were too close. He'd seen through glass walls, a touch of hands, a smile, small gifts exchanged in private before all members of the lab converged on the break-room to give and receive Secret Santa presents.

But these weren't kisses or stolen moments, they weren't cases compromised by distraction or bias. And in between Calleigh's abismal relationship with the late John Hagen and her questionable actions in regards to Jake Berkeley, Eric had his fair share of girlfriends that paraded around the reception desk in their stilettos and short dresses - misdirection maybe? He needed more, he needed to know. After all, his naturally curious nature and strict adherence to the rules was why he was so good at his job, regardless that it was the last job he'd wanted.

The doors of the elevator closed with a thud and he took that as his cue to cross the lobby to the man that had caused the majority of his migraines, nodding his head in greeting as he pointed toward the man who was no longer there. "Where's Delko off to?"

"Rick," Horatio looked down to his feet. "is there something I can do for you?"

"A little explanation would be nice. You see, my issue is that your team seems to be pretty careless about the hours they keep, the cases they work. Officer Duquesne hasn't worked the field in over two months."

Horatio held back his anger carefully, taking a breath and pressing his lips together before looking up at Rick. "I assure you, Rick, that Calleigh is meeting the workload I have approved for her. The details of her shortened hours and the personal circumstances she is dealing with, are not your concern."

"Well, that's where you'd be wrong, Horatio." Rick dipped his head. "the proper functioning of this lab is my main concern and when it's CSIs are lagging, I need to be on top of it. I can't do that, if I'm not informed."

"Trust me, Rick," Horatio clenched his teeth, twirling his sunglasses around his fingers. "you are as informed as you need to be."

"Of course I am," He nodded with a touch of sarcasm in his tone. "which is why you're refusing to explain to me why Delko's just dashed out of here?"

"He has a family emergency that needs to be dealt with, the rest of my team are more than capable of handling the rest of the evidence."

"Ah huh," Rick looked up and down the hall, resting his hands on his hips. "this family emergency wouldn't happen to coincide with the Duquesne family emergency you informed me of yesterday, for any particular reason, would it?"

"Are you intending to infer something, Rick?" Horatio did his best to keep his voice level and calm. Rick knew that he wasn't going to give them up. He'd let his own job suffer, before he sold out his team and Rick did respect him for that, he did, he just couldn't condone it.

"No," He held up his hands. "I'm inferring nothing. Just warning you," He lowered his voice. "don't take the fall for them, Horatio."

"I assure you, Rick," Horatio turned to walk away from him, throwing one last comment over his shoulder. "I have no idea what you mean."

Horatio left him standing in the center of the lobby, staring after him with a stern expression and a strong distaste in his mouth. Something strange was going on here and what had eaten at him the most, was the fact that with every monthly visit he'd made to the lab for the past five months, he'd seen hide nor hair of Calleigh Duquesne and he'd be remiss to say that that didn't trouble him.


I will be your hero, baby.
I can kiss away the pain.
I will stand by you forever.
You can take, my breath away.

~ Hero, Enrique Iglesias


Jumping down from the Hummer, Eric made his way as quickly as he could into the house. As soon as he opened the door he saw her standing there, her feet bare and wearing nothing but a pair of loose-fitting shorts and an over-sized grey sweater. Too many times in the last few months, had he looked at her only to realise with surprise how small she really was. She was so powerful, so bold and seeing her this physically and emotionally small, broke his heart. He dropped his keys onto the side table and he'd barely turned back to her before her arms were wrapped tightly around his waist and her face was buried into his chest.

He could feel her shaking slightly with tears and as that telltale warmth pricked at the corners of his eyes, he wrapped his arms around her.

He pressed his large palms soothingly to the back of her head. He ran his fingers along the smooth silk of her scarf and slowly he felt her tears abate, but she stayed wrapped in his arms. He tried to pull her away, so that he could see her face, but Calleigh held on tighter. She buried her face further into his shirt and he closed his eyes tightly at the strangled sob that sounded from her.

"Cal," He whispered, but she just held on tighter. Gently, he moved her arms from his waist to around his neck and with strong hands, he lifted her up into his arms, smiling into her shoulder as she wrapped her legs around his waist and let him carry her. He moved them into the livingroom, holding her carefully with his broad hands at her waist as he lowered the pair of them into the soft cushions of the couch, doing his very best not to break the embrace. As soon as he was down, Calleigh uncurled her legs, sliding them across his lap so that she could curl her whole body into his. It was only when holding her like that, that he really appreciated her size and how she fit so perfectly into his arms. So that he could hold her, all of her, and feel as though every inch of her was safe with him.

"Cal, what happened?" He questioned, placing a soft kiss at the corner of her eye.

"I think," She choked. "I think I told my Mom I didn't want her in my life."

"Oh, babe," He held her head as she wept into his chest again, shaking with sobs and small sounds.

"I was so horrible to her, Eric," She continued through her tears. "I just, let it all out and she looked so hurt and I just," She stopped herself, not honestly sure how she'd felt when her mother couldn't answer her. When her own mother, couldn't tell her if she was coming to her only daughter's wedding. And it had only made matters worse, when she'd awoken that morning to a low-fat muffin sitting on the corner of the kitchen counter with a brief note beside it. She hadn't mentioned anything Calleigh had spoken about the night before, she hadn't addressed it at all and worse yet, she wasn't there, when Calleigh left the house for her eight-thirty flight. She'd driven away from her empty childhood home as lost and alone as she'd felt that first time she'd driven away with everything she owned in the back of a rusty old truck, leaving an empty house for a crowded University where she could disappear for a while.

"What did you say?" He ran his fingers along her arm, content to sit there and hold her whether she answered his question or not.

"Nothing in particular," She kissed his chest. "everything that's ever bothered me. I gave her a choice, Eric, and I'm terrified that it's one i'm going to regret."

"Do you want to tell me what that was?"

She shrugged, closing her eyes as she focused on the feeling of his fingers along the bared part of her shoulder. "I told her she could come to the wedding, if she could accept how bad it was back then. If she could admit it. But Eric," She rolled her head back, resting it in the crook of his shoulder so that she could meet his eyes. "she didn't say anything. I asked her if she would come and she couldn't answer me. I'm just so scared that I went too far."

"But, Cal, you told her how you feel. How can she fault you for that?"

"You don't know her, Eric," She shook her head.

"No, but I know you. You wouldn't have said anything that wasn't true and maybe she was just stunned, scared or surprised that you were hurting so much. Maybe she'll see the truth or she'll call and she'll want to talk about it, you never know."

Calleigh smiled at the hopeful look in his eyes and patted her small hand against his chest, gently. "You're such an optimist, Eric."

He chuckled. "It's why you love me."

"Oh, well, it's one of the reasons I like you. I have other reasons why I love you." She grinned softly, burying herself further into his embrace and snuggling right down into his warmth. "This is one of them."

Eric kissed the top of her head, happy to hold her for th rest of the day if only he could. He didn't want to move, but he knew that if he didn't go back to work eventually, Horatio would be forced to stop looking the other way. There was only so far he could push the man, and staying away the whole day, spending it with Calleigh wrapped in his arms, was something Horatio was happy they shared, but wouldn't be happy he was doing instead of solving the case. He revelled in the moment for as long as he could, smiling at the small sounds Calleigh made as she drifted in and out of that sleepy state between awake and completely out. She wasn't sleeping and certainly wasn't trying too, but she was so comfortable and comforted after the tumultuous conversation with her mother, that she didn't want to move and hated it when he kissed her head again and told her he needed to get back to work.

"Will you take me with you?" Calleigh asked, slipping her legs off his lap and dangling her feet off the large couch, not even touching the floor.

"Cal, are you sure you want to go in to work?" He stood up, still holding one of her hands. "You've still got the day off, you can rest."

"I don't want to." She sighed, pulling herself to her feet. "I just want to be in my lab. I need to do something."

He nodded, pulling her towards him and holding her in a tight hug. "Alright, you go get dressed and I'll wait here."


It may sound absurd,
But don't be naive.
Even heroes have,
the right to bleed.

~Superman, Five For Fighting


Rick watched her step off the elevator. She crossed the lobby and collected her messages, throwing him a curious glance before attempting to step past him. But he was quick, he stepped into her path, immediately stopping her and she looked up at him with a frown. She took a step back, clasping her messages in her hands in front of her as she stared up at him. She looked different, he noticed. And it wasn't just that she'd donned Jeans and a printed t-shirt as opposed to her regular professional suit. She looked thinner and tired and for a moment, he felt sorry for her. But whenever confronted by Calleigh Duquesne, he always felt intensely defensive. She had a skill in bringing that side out in him because her own defiance was always so raw, so justified and stunningly dignified.

"What do you want, Rick?" She questioned and he ducked his head, never able to dip his eyes low enough to meet hers if ever she refused to look at him. Which didn't happen often.

"You look different, Calleigh," He noted. "That's an interesting fashion choice." He pointed to her scarf and Calleigh's eyes darted across the lab.

"It's not a choice, Rick," She muttered and attempted to push past him. "I don't have time for this." She tried to head to her lab again, but his hand at her elbow stopped her and she spun back around, meeting his eyes for a moment as she now faced the doors of the elevator with him between her and every different choice of escape.

"I'm not finished talking to you."

"I'm not on duty today, Rick, so whatever you've got to say can wait until I am." She tried to turn, but he stopped her again.

"I just want to know what's so important that you feel you don't have to work as hard as the rest of your team?"

Calleigh's brow furrowed and her shoulders straightened. "Excuse me?"

"Your workload, Calleigh. You haven't been in the field for over two months, your name hasn't come up on any casework not related to ballistics and you just expect your teammates to pick up your slack, is that it?"

Calleigh narrowed her eyes, doing her best to fight off tears. "How dare you." She edged back, barely containing her fragile composure. She didn't need this. This kind of affront was the last thing she needed when all she'd come to the lab for was to bury herself in cold paperwork and hide in what she loved, waiting for Eric to finish with the case.

"How dare I? Miss Duquesne, rookies have closed more cases than you over the past few months and you're saying, how dare I? You should be surprised I haven't suspended you."

"You don't know what you're talking about, Rick." Her voice was suddenly small and while Rick did recognise the reddening at the corners of her eyes, he didn't stop.


Eric watched the numbers tick over on the elevator. He'd waited for a good few minutes down in the parking garage, doing his best to look as though they hadn't arrived together. He let her go before him, hoping that by the time he reached reception she would be in her lab and happy to be there, looking over her guns and her old cases. But as he stepped off the elevator, what greeted him was the last thing he'd expected and the very last thing he wanted to see that day.

"I don't know what I'm talking about? How about your teammates working overtime that they don't have because you're too busy taking time out for yourself. And you've been late to work more times this month than Delko has in the past year."

Eric saw her jaw clench as Stetler berated her. A part of him wondered if Rick would be treating her that way, if he had any idea what she was going through. But as far as he was concerned, Rick was a robot and a boring one at that. He didn't understand compassion. To him, he was a vessel that carried with him, reprimand, cruelty and a strong dislike for anything that stepped outside the symmetrical pattern of rules and guidelines that governed the little unreal world inside his head. Basically, anyone who outwardly respected Horatio Caine.

"You want to know what's going on with me?" He heard Calleigh blurt loudly, in that broken down, near to tears, voice. He knew he shouldn't have let her come in to work that afternoon. He should have encouraged her to stay home and sleep it off, but she was stubborn and he had so much trouble refusing her when she'd look up at him with those large green eyes and that saddened pout. He watched her, noticing how her hands shook and she pointed her chin defiantly to the sky. She was holding it together by a thread and he couldn't just stand there and watch that thread snap.

As he took a few steps towards them and noticed everyone around them had stopped to watch them as their voices raised higher, he feared that he may have been just a few seconds too late as her hand rose - as if in slow motion - and pulled her scarf from her head.

Eric stopped dead in his tracks.

Only at night, when they were alone in their bed with just the moon to light the room, did she ever remove her scarf. While she'd said she'd come to terms with it, he knew that she still wasn't comfortable with it considering she'd always been known for her long, sweeping blond hair. She'd always been known for that stereotypical beauty that looked so regular from far away, until you got up close to her and realised that there was so much more to her beauty than a first glance could do justice. He knew, watching her lips quiver in anger and frustration, that she had to have reached the end of her rope, to take it so far.

Rick was staring at her, not quite sure what he was looking at. She was bald, okay, but what did that mean to him? He cast his eyes across the hall to the surprised faces of the lab-techs, the men trying to look everywhere but at her and the women with hand's pressed to their mouths in stunned silence. He couldn't help but feel as though he was stuck in the center of a secret he was supposed to know. And he didn't like that. "What is this?" He questioned, lowering his voice and Calleigh arched pack.

"What is this?" She answered indignantly. "You come in here, accusing me of something you don't understand. You go over Horatio's head and berate me for the work he has approved for me. You have no right." Calleigh gripped the scarf tightly in her hand, letting her tears sound in her voice but not fall from her eyes. "I have been trying. I have been doing everything I can to continue to work and I didn't have to," She laughed bitterly in his face. "But you know, Cancer isn't a death sentance anymore, Rick. But heaven help you'd understand the agony i've gone through over these past few months. All you care about is your stupid protocols. We're not people to you, we're not real. You only ever see what you want to see."

Eric ran up to her side, grabbing the scarf from her hand and stepping between her and Stetler. He pressed the scarf to her chest, gripping her upper arm gently but firmly as she looked up in his eyes. "Cal, come on." He urged for her ears only, gesturing to her lab with his eyes and she relented slowly, glancing at Rick's rather flabbergasted expression over his shoulder as she ducked her head and slowly started to back up. "I'll handle this, alright," He smiled down at her and she nodded, suddenly feeling all of the eyes on her and wishing that she hadn't so hastily removed the one thing that helped her maintain her confidence.

"Again, using your coworkers to deal with your obligations." The IAB agent quiped without thinking.

Eric didn't know where it'd come from, but his first instinct was to swing around and knock the man out with a right-hook and before even realising that he'd moved, Eric could feel that hot sting across his knuckles as Rick tumbled to the floor. Rick clutched his jaw, staring up as Eric stood over him, his shoulders heaving and his nostrils flaring, looking down at Rick. It was then that he realised that he'd likely just made the most stupid, reckless decision of his entire career.

"Eric!" Calleigh shouted, gripping his arm from behind as Horatio appeared beside them.

"Eric, you need to back away." Horatio told him. Calleigh tugged on his arm, pulling him towards her lab as the crowd continued to grow. Even though everything else had blacked out all he could see or feel was the protective look in Horatio's eyes and the small hands trying to pull him towards the ballistics lab.

Horatio stood still, watching Rick slowly scrape himself up off the floor, holding his glasses in his hands and not lifting a finger to help the man stand. "I'm pressing charges." Rick wiped at the blood on his lip, pointing accusingly at the pair disappearing through the crowd.

"That'd be a mistake, Rick." Horatio answered in that calm, even tone.

"Is that so?"

"That's so."

Rick clenched his teeth together, taking a few steps backwards on his retreat to the elevator as he pointed at Horatio, licking his lip as it continued to throb. "I'll see that Delko's thrown off the force."


"Eric that was stupid, you shouldn't have done that." Calleigh whispered sharply, slipping into her stool as Eric took the scarf from her hand.

"I know." He answered, gently lifting the scarf to her head and carefully wrapping it, tying it below her right ear. He took a chance on laying a kiss on her forehead, but when Calleigh lent into him, he smiled against her skin and pulled her into his arms. "I'm sorry."

"Everything's screwed up, isn't it?" She sighed, grateful that he'd stepped in on the fight she was losing the energy to fight, but scared that he'd just made an annoying matter dangerously worse.

"No," The pair of them turned their heads to see Horatio standing in the door way, looking down at the floor. He crossed the room to them and while they each tensed, they knew that in his presence, the hold they had on each other didn't necessary have to fall away. Especially not right now. "it's not." He finished, looking up at them.

"He's going to press charges, H."

"But he's not going to win," Horatio smiled faintly, noting the scarf safely back on Calleigh's head, as he smiled kindly down at her. "I'm not going to let that happen."

"Horatio," Calleigh started, but with a gentle look, he silenced her.

"Here's what I want you to do. Eric, I'm going to put you on one week's suspension with pay. I don't want you to say anything to IAB without coming to me first and I'll deal with Stetler."

"What if I do get charged, H? As far as witnesses are concerned, I hit him without reason. It's not like he was picking a fight." Eric felt Calleigh's hand grip his and he looked down at her for a moment, sharing a glance with her.

"He was out of line, Eric, and I'm sure any witness will side with you on that. Go home."

He hesitated, looking between Calleigh and Horatio before he nodded slowly, tugging on Calleigh's hand until she stood. "I'm sorry, H." Eric said softly and Horatio nodded as he encouraged them to leave with a dip of his head. Calleigh brushed her hand along his forearm gratefully as they left and he smiled down at her, nodding his head and turning to watch them as they walked, hands apart until they reached the elevator and disappeared.

TBC.