Miami, Present day:

Sitting on a wooden bench, coffee in one hand and pastrami sandwich in the other, Calleigh could not deny that it felt good to be out of the lab and out of the office that had begun to feel more like a prison cell than a place of work.

She looked up to the clear blue sky and let out a contented sigh, watching as the birds soared through the air, busying themselves with whatever it was that they did in the midday heat in Miami.

"When was the last time you relaxed, sugar?" Alexx asked softly as she took a sip of her double mocha latte before placing it back down in the bench beside her.

She was puzzled by the doctor's question.

"I don't understand what you mean."

"When I came to your office it seemed as if you had the weight of the world on your shoulders. Tell me what's wrong, honey."

She wanted to, her heart ached to tell Alexx everything that Horatio had told her in the past few months but she knew that to do so would betray his trust in her in the worst possible way.

Yet she knew that she couldn't keep dealing with this on her own, things had become much harder since Kyle had returned to his posting in the Army. Even though geographically he was not that far away the loss of his presence was felt deeply by Horatio, and by extension, her too.

"It's complicated, Alexx," she replied evasively, keeping her gaze centred on a scruffy-looking dog chasing a Frisbee across the lush green grass of the park.

"How so?"

"Horatio, he's been through so much…..I guess I just question sometimes whether I'm doing him more harm than good."

The other woman had to force herself not to aspirate the coffee in her mouth as she let out a choked cough.

"Honey, he wouldn't have got this far without you. You're one of the reasons he's even here at all."

"He told me this morning that he was going to move back to his place until I begged him not to. What if I'm just holding him back, what if he's better off without me?"

"I seriously doubt that, Cal. Whether he realises it or not, he's needed your strength over these last few weeks. He cares about you a great deal, you know that, right?"

"I care about him too, maybe too much. Maybe I'm not what he needs right now?"

"He needs you, girl. Trust me."

She looked at her friend and former colleague, a look of pitiful desperation on her face.

"He's trying so hard to put a brave face on it, to pretend that he's okay when I know that he's not. Every time I try to get him to open up he just shuts down and changes the subject. He needs to talk about what happened, Alexx, it's eating him up inside."


Flashback. Miami, 10 weeks ago:

Alexx entered her patient's room and was pleasantly surprised to find him awake and alert, certainly an improvement on the last few weeks at any rate. Horatio had been transferred from the ICU yesterday and was now ensconced in a private room on the regular ward; but the change of scenery had done nothing to improve the redhead's distant mood.

"Hey there, sugar," she said as she picked up the chart at the end of the bed.

"Alexx," he returned curtly as he tried to shuffle up the bed and found himself unable to.

He mumbled his thanks as Alexx adjusted the head of the bed and the pillows to allow him to find a more comfortable position.

"How's the patient feeling today?" she teased as she placed a hand on his arm.

"Fine," he said without looking at her, a scowl marring his handsome face.

His surly demeanour sent alarm bells ringing in her head as she took a look at the readings on the monitor beside the bed.

"Are you sure you're not in pain, do you feel unwell?" she questioned as she placed her open palm to his forehead.

He swatted it away and gave her a patented 'Horatio' glare.

"I told you, I'm fine."

All he wanted was for her to leave him alone to wallow in his misery, having been haunted by yet another memory of his sordid past; he wanted nothing more than to be left to his own devices.

The memories and dreams were haunting him with alarming regularity as he was bombarded with horrific images, some genuine and real, others figments of his overworked imagination.

Every time he closed his eyes he could see their faces, sometimes it was those of his captors and others it would be of Lori, Kyle or Robin, always the face of someone accusing him of not doing enough, berating him for the choices he had made all those years ago.

It was hard enough living through those dark days the first time, but to have your history spelled out for you in front of the people who cared about you was all the more worse. Twice he had been forced to confront those feelings of loneliness, bitterness and anger as the memories of his time as a pawn of the FBI sprang back fresh in his mind.

How could any of them bear to look at him now? Now that they knew what he had done and what had been done to him, he knew that they would see him as less of a man. After all, that was how he viewed himself.

So much of his past had returned to his conscious thoughts that he found it hard to understand how he should react to the people around him. Half of him still felt like John Kelly while the other half of his personality tried to force its domination as the stoic Lieutenant Caine.

His head was in a spin, he simply had no idea how to find a balance between his past and his present. He felt as if he were being pulled in two different directions as he listened to the words of his colleagues as they told him that he was getting better, stronger each day.

The truth was that as he recovered from his injuries and became more coherent he simply became more confused about his emotions as the images from his past battered him more with each passing day.

He felt Alexx place her warm hand on his arm once more and give it a light squeeze.

"I'm here if you want to talk, sugar."

He closed his eyes and feigned tiredness knowing that the longer he kept his eyes open and stayed in her presence the weaker he would feel. It would only take one look into her soulful brown eyes to fall to pieces and admit everything to her. He couldn't do it; he couldn't let her see what he really was. She would think less of him if she knew the truth and he knew he simply couldn't stand to lose the friendship they had both worked so hard to cultivate.

She watched him as he lay on the bed with his eyes closed. She knew him too well, it was obvious to her that he was faking his fatigue and that it was simply a ploy to get her to leave. It was his way of signalling that the conversation was over.

She left the room with a sigh, hoping that when the redhead did finally fall asleep that he would not be plagued with yet more nightmares, the sound of his tortured screams from the night before still registering in her ears.


Present day, Miami:

"Is he still having nightmares?" Alexx asked as she finished her sandwich and drained the last of her coffee.

"Most nights," the other woman responded quietly as she followed suit.

"Any luck getting him to talk to anyone about it?"

"You mean professionally?"

Alexx nodded her head.

"No, he point-blank refuses."

"But he passed a psych evaluation at the department?"

Calleigh let out a soft snort.

"He's been through more of those evaluations than the rest of us put together. He knows exactly what to tell them to get reinstated."

"Do you think he's ready to return to duty?"

"He's passed the physical and the psych evaluation, as far as the department is concerned, he's fit for duty."

"But you have your doubts?" the doctor pressed.

"Not doubts, so much. He's had so many flashbacks since we found him, I just worry that one will hit him at the wrong moment. All it takes is a split-second to be distracted in this job and your life could be over, literally."

"You could give him desk duty, you're still technically in charge," Alexx suggested.

The other woman let out a small gasp of shock.

"I couldn't do that to him. It would destroy him. He'd think I don't trust him!"

"Do you?"

"Of course I do, I trust him with my life, Alexx."

"And the lives of your colleagues?"

She was astonished by what the doctor was insinuating, that Horatio was some kind of liability to the team. She knew the man too well, it was obvious that he would remove himself from duty if he felt that were the case. She had never had reason to doubt Horatio before and she was damn sure that she wasn't going to start now.