I got the title and the idea for this chapter from a book I read awhile ago. I'll try to update quicker this time. Enjoy!


Unnatural Exposure


Ryan ran after the men with Walter. Walter had the advantage of being able to take two of them because of his size, but Ryan was struggling, due slightly because of his small stature. He took off after the last suspect and chased him down an alley. He yelled for the man to stop and he refused. Ryan almost had him and grabbed his arm. The man turned and sprayed Ryan in the face with pepper spray and Ryan screamed and clawed at his face. The man ran off, leaving Ryan withering in pain on the ground. He heard Walter yell into his phone, stating he needed medical assistance, as he approached Ryan.

"Wolfe, what happened?"

"He just shot me in the eyes with pepper spray," Ryan hissed as he rubbed at his eyes.

"Are you alright?" Walter inquired as he helped the blind Ryan to his feet.

"Yeah, I'll be fine," Ryan said, "It just burns like hell."

Horatio drove up to the scene to find paramedics pouring water onto Ryan's red and irritated face. "Ryan, are you alright?" he asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Ryan said again, "The guy sprayed me with pepper spray and got away."

"You don't have any allergies to pepper spray, do you, Officer Wolfe?" the paramedic inquired.

"No, not that I'm aware of," Ryan told him, "I just wish the burning would stop."

"It might take awhile depending on how much he sprayed you with and your sensitivity to the product," the paramedic informed him. "You should be fine in an hour or so. Can you open your eyes?"

Ryan's eyelids fluttered as he struggled to open them. He blinked a few times and looked around. His eyes were completely bloodshot and they watered lightly. "Yeah, but the light's really bright," he said as he closed his eyes again.

"Here, wear these," Horatio said, handing him his sunglasses.

"Are you sure, H?" Ryan hesitantly asked as he accepted the sunglasses from Horatio.

"Yes, I'll be fine," Horatio insisted.

Ryan placed the sunglasses on his face and slowly opened his eyes. "Much better," he muttered as he blinked. "How do I look?" he asked with a smile.

"Like a dork," Walter said. "H looks much better in them."

"Watch it, Wally," Ryan said, "That's my future father you're hitting on."

Walter's face flushed and he turned and walked away, muttering "That's mean," under his breath.

"Alright, let's get back to the lab," Horatio said, "We've got a lot of work to do."

"Damn, no getting out of this one," Ryan chuckled as he followed Horatio. "H, where's the Hummer? I can't see it."

"Over here, Ray Charles," Horatio chuckled.

"Hey, I'm not Ray Charles," Ryan laughed, "I so can't play piano, eye sight or not."


Horatio looked at Ryan perplexed as he walked into the layout room later that day. He was wearing a hoodie with the hood pulled up and his arms crossed tightly against his chest. He shivered slightly and sniffled, rubbing his nose with a tissue.

"Ryan, are you alright?" Horatio inquired.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Ryan responded in a scratchy voice, "I think I'm just getting a cold, that's all."

Horatio looked at Ryan's still bloodshot eyes and his flushed cheeks. He gently placed his hand on Ryan's cheek and then his neck. "Ryan, you're burning up," he said concerned, "Are you sure you're alright?"

"I don't know," Ryan said in a small voice, "I'm cold and achy and my eyes burn and my nose won't stop running. To be honest, I feel like shit."

"You look terrible," Horatio said, "You need to go to a doctor. Come on, I'm taking you right now."

"H, we can't just leave the case now," Ryan protested.

"Ryan, we're no closer to figuring this out then we were five hours ago," Horatio insisted. "Now pack this up and let's go. I don't want you driving yourself with your eyes all screwed up."

"Fine, just let me drop these samples off to Travers before we go," Ryan said.

"What are they samples of?" Horatio inquired as they walked through the hall.

"Blood, soil, and I took a swab from the pepper spray can Walter recovered on one of the other suspects," Ryan explained, "We want to see if it matches the stuff we found on the victim."

"The victim was maced, too?" Horatio asked.

"Yeah and badly, too," Ryan said. "He makes my face right now look good."

Horatio chuckled and patted his shoulder. "That's my boy," he quietly said.


Dr. Brown looked into Ryan's throat and listened to his heart. He took his temperature and blood pressure, along with a throat cloture and some blood samples.

"Well, Mr. Wolfe, it looks like you have the flu," Dr. Brown said.

"But I was fine this morning," Ryan managed to say through his sore throat.

"The flu can hit hard at any given moment," Dr. Brown explained as he wrote down a prescription. "This should help. Unfortunately there isn't an antibiotic that can cure the flu, but this will help you get better faster. If you're not better in a week call me."

Ryan accepted the paper as he began to scratch his back. "Will you take a look at this for me while I'm here?" Ryan inquired, "It started to itch on the way here."

"Absolutely," Dr. Brown said as he walked around the table.

Horatio's phone rang and he excused himself into the hall. "Travers, what have you got for me?" he inquired as he answered.

"Horatio, we have a massive problem!" Travers loudly exclaimed.

Horatio could hear an alarm going off in the background and people screaming in panic. "Travers, what's going on?"

"That pepper spray Ryan had me analyze didn't just have mace in it," Travers explained, "There was also a live virus."

"What kind of virus, Travers?" Horatio asked as he walked back towards the room where Ryan and Dr. Brown were. "Like a flu virus? That H1N1 virus that's been going around?"

"Worse, something no one's seen for decades, maybe even centuries."

Horatio could hear the panic in Travers's voice as he spoke. "What is it, Travers?"

Travers was silent for a moment and Horatio heard him swallow nervously. "Small pox," he quietly said, "There was a live sample of the small pox virus in that can."

Panic swept through Horatio's veins and he looked into the small window on the door of the examination room. Ryan had taken off his shirt and was shivering on the table. Long streaks of a reddish colored rash were exposed on his skin and Dr. Brown looked towards the door. Their eyes met and both knew what it meant.


Ryan watched as the men in the biohazard suits pushed him down a bright hall. He had an oxygen mask on and he felt like his body was on fire. His throat felt like it was swollen shut and he couldn't form the words to ask his questions. They were yelling to each other and other people Ryan couldn't see. His heart pounded as he became more and more frightened.

"Lift him onto the bed, on the count of three. Ready? One, two, three!"

"Get an IV in, he needs more fluids!"

"He needs something for the fever before his brain fries!"

"Get a vaccination in here!"

"But he's already infected."

"It can't do any harm."

"It might even help him at this point."

"Doctor, do you want us to give him an antibiotic?"

"You can try. I don't know if anything will work. Antibiotics don't kill viruses."

Someone cut through Ryan's shirt with a pair of scissors and cold, wet clothes were thrown onto his burning skin. Something sharp in his arm made him pull away, but he was too weak and his fingers barely twitched.

It was in that moment Ryan realized he had something more than just the flu.


Hundreds of people were filed into the Center for Disease Control in Ft. Lauderdale. MDPD employees and a dozen staff members from Miami Family Practice. Each was given a small pox vaccination, in hopes they wouldn't fall ill to the highly contagious and deadly virus. The Miami Dade Crime Lab was quarantined and blocked off until the building could properly be cleaned. Dozens of lab workers and CSIs worried about evidence being compromised and killers going loose because of the virus out break.

Horatio sat on the bed in the quarantine room that he would be inhabiting for the next three days. He watched the nurse clad in a haz mat suit carefully make a half inch incision on his left shoulder and drop an eye dropper full of the vaccine into the incision. She placed a piece of gauze and a band aide over the incision and discarded the eye dropper in the trash.

"Why can't I have a Spiderman band aide?" Horatio asked, "They let me have one when I got my last tetanus shot."

"Sorry Lieutenant, no Spiderman band aides here," the nurse blandly said.

"What about Green Lantern?" Horatio continued as he pulled the scrub shirt over his head.

"Lieutenant, you should be at least thankful that we're allowing you to wear scrubs instead of a hospital gown," the nurse said annoyed.

"Well sorry my lab discovered a live small pox virus before it wiped out all of Miami," Horatio sarcastically said. "Didn't mean to make your job easier."


Horatio flipped through the channels on the TV in his room. He was bored out of his mind and his head hurt. He had been quarantined for two days and was showing none of the symptoms of small pox. He wanted to see Ryan but the doctors refused to let him out of his room.

A nurse in a haz mat suit walked in and Horatio sighed and set down the remote. She hooked up her airline to a flexible blue tube hanging from the ceiling.

"How are you doing today, Lieutenant Caine?" she asked him as she began the first of her daily check ups.

"Fine as usually, Kim," Horatio said. "When can I see my son?"

"Lieutenant, Officer Wolfe isn't your son, so I'm sorry to say you can't see him until you're done with your quarantine time."

"Has anyone else gotten sick?" Horatio inquired as she shined a light into his eyes.

"Only Wolfe so far," Kim said. "He's the only one with any symptoms. Your lab brought in the can of pepper spray and we've been running some tests on it."

"Have you found anything?" Horatio asked.

"Well we did manage to contact the manufacture and have them recall all of their product." Kim explained, "There have been a few other cans with the virus in it, but not many."

"Do you think this was a biological attack?" Horatio asked her.

Kim looked at him with worried eyes. "I don't know, Lieutenant, that's not my job."

"You're right, it's my job," Horatio said as he leaned back in his bed again.


Horatio walked through the halls of the CDC, finally free after three grueling days. He found Eric waiting in the hall.

"H," he said as Horatio approached, "They're allowing me to see Ryan, too. Have you heard anything about his condition?"

"No Eric, I haven't," Horatio said disappointed. "I begged them to let me see him but they refused."

A CDC specialist led them into the room where they could suit up in their biohazard suits. They followed him through a door into a small room. He looked at them and spoke.

"You cannot touch him with your bare hands or have any skin exposed." He explained, "You need to hook up your airline to an oxygen line hanging from the ceiling, they'll be the blue ones you've seen your nurses and doctors using. You can't bring anything to him or take anything out."

"We understand," Horatio said, "Can we see him now?"

The CDC specialist nodded his head. "He's through these doors."

They walked through the set of double doors and into a small quarantine room. Two nurses and a doctor huddled around a bed, running tests and taking samples. Ryan was lying on the bed, looking half dead. His eyes were bloodshot and watery and his skin tacky with sweat. He was pale and looked thinner than he had three days prior. He was visibly shaking as the monitor read 102.4 degrees. But it was the rash that stuck out the most.

Most of the CDC workers had only heard or seen pictures of the small pox rash, but there it was, a living, breathing example on Ryan's skin. Long reddish colored patches streaked his skin. Bubbly welts were present on his body amongst the rash.

Ryan turned his head towards Horatio as he walked in. He looked up at him with pain in his eyes.

"I'm going to die, H," he croaked.

Horatio shook his head and held his hand through the glove on his suit. "No you're not, Ryan," he reassuringly said, "You're going to be just fine."

Ryan's eyes lolled shut and he slowly opened them again. "I don't feel that way," he whispered as he fell back to sleep.

Horatio's hand shook as he lowered Ryan's arm back to the bed. He looked at Ryan's sleeping face and felt his eyes begin to water. The CDC specialist was leading them out when Ryan suddenly cried out.

"Jessie!" he screamed, his eyes snapping open and his body lurching forward. "Jessie, help me!"

The nurses carefully leaned him back into his bed and soothingly whispered to him. Ryan cried and struggled against them. "Jessie!" he cried out as the tears ran down his face.


Eric and Horatio shed their haz mat suits in a sterile room after walking through the three part sterilization shower.

"I'm sorry, Lieutenant," the CDC specialist named Kevin said, "That's the best he's looked since he got here."

Horatio nodded his head and fought off the tears he felt threatening to fall. "Is that supposed to reassure me that he's going to be alright?" Horatio quietly asked.

Kevin shrugged his shoulders. "I'm sorry, Lieutenant, but that's the best I can do."

"Well you're doing a terrible job," Horatio said as he walked out of the room.

Eric watched him leave and felt his heart twist. "I'm sorry about him," he quietly said, "He and Ryan have a special relationship."

"Really?" the CDC worker inquired, "How so?"

"Ryan's dating Horatio's daughter, Jessica. Horatio's become rather attached to Ryan in the last few months."

"Jessica? Did you say her name was Jessica?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Because Ryan's been screaming for someone named Jessie ever since he got here."


Ryan watched the people walk around his room. His eyes burned but he knew if he kept them open he would appear. He would show his self and reassure Ryan that the pain would end soon.

Sure enough he appeared at the foot of Ryan's bed. He looked at him with his sad brown eyes and watched him suffer. Ryan wanted to ask him to end it all. Ryan didn't know if he could do that, but Ryan figured he could do something.

There had to be a reason he kept appearing.


Horatio watched Ryan through the glass of his hospital room in the CDC. It had been a week since Ryan was diagnosed with small pox and his condition wasn't getting any better.

The doctor walked up to him and looked at him with a concerned expression. "Lieutenant," he said.

Horatio didn't turn to face him. His gaze remained fixed on Ryan as he spoke. "How is he?"

"Not good, Lieutenant," the doctor said.

"How much time does he have?" Horatio inquired, his voice shaking slightly.

"Not long, days, maybe even hours. I'm sorry, Lieutenant, we've done all we could."

Horatio felt himself shake all over. His heart twisted at the thought of what he had to do.


Ryan struggled with every breath he took. His lungs rattled and his throat burned. His skin itched but he didn't have the energy to even move his arms. He was shirtless and was lying in his bed in just a pair of scrub pants. He started to shake and tried to pull the blanket over him but he was too weak. He felt tears run down his face and wished the pain would go away.

A nurse walked in but Ryan couldn't see her because he couldn't even open his eyes. He felt a gloved hand touch his forehead and his chest.

"How are you feeling today, Ryan?" the familiar voice asked him.

Ryan's eyes fluttered open and he looked at the white suit. His throat felt like it was swollen shut. His arm shook as he raised it to his face. "Bad!" he signed to her.

"He said he's feels bad," Horatio's voice sounded from somewhere on an intercom.

"I'm sorry to hear that, Mr. Wolfe," the nurse said as she pulled the blanket over his bare chest. "You have someone who wants to talk to you."

Ryan looked at her through squinted eyes. "Who?"

"He wants to know who," Horatio sounded again.

The nurse smiled at him. "A young lady who's missed you very much." She walked over to the phone and hit a button. "Ok you're on," she said out loud.

There was silence for a moment and then Ryan heard a small sob. "Ryan?"

Ryan took in a deep straggled breath. "Jessica?" he croaked out, "Is that you, love?"

"Yeah Ryan, it's me, pumpkin," Jessica small voice said. "How are you feeling?"

"I'm dying, Jessica," Ryan managed. "I have small pox. I'm dying, Jess. I'm sorry."

"Ryan, I'm coming home right now," Jessica said. "I need to be with you."

"No Jess, don't come back now," Ryan gasped, "Stay where ever you are."

"No Ryan, I'm coming home tonight."

"No you're not," Ryan quietly demanded. "I don't want you to see me this way. I want you to remember me the way I was, not this horrible thing I've become. I want you to stay where you are. I want you to stay safe and healthy. I'm begging you, Jessica, please don't come home until my funeral. I don't want you to see me die."

Jessica's voice was small and weak on the other end as she cried. "Please don't leave me, Ryan, I can't live without you."

"I'm sorry Jessica," Ryan whispered, "I'm sorry I'm giving up. I don't want to leave you but I don't think I have a choice. I love you Jessica. Don't ever forget me."

Jessica's sobs were a little louder as she listened. "I love you, too, pumpkin," she weakly whispered.

"Good-bye Jessica," Ryan said, "You're the greatest woman I've ever met and I love you so much."

"I love you Ryan," Jessica said, "I'll never forget you as long as I live."

Ryan heard the line click and a dial tone ring out as his eyes began to drift shut. He looked at the end of his bed and saw him standing there, his brown eyes full of sorrow.


Eric walked up to find Horatio standing at the window that looked into Ryan's room. His eyes were red and he sniffed.

"H, how's he doing?" Eric inquired.

Horatio shook his head and his bottom lip quivered. "I called Jessica," he quietly said, "I had to tell her. The doctors let her talk to Ryan. She tried to come home but he refused. He doesn't want her to see him like this, all horrid and dying."

"How much time does he have?" Eric quietly asked.

A single tear ran down Horatio's cheek. "Hours, a day at the most," he said.

Eric reached out and gently touched Horatio's arm. Horatio finally broke down and the tears started streaming down his face. Eric pulled him into his arms and held Horatio as he cried.


Ryan slowly opened his eyes and looked towards the end of his bed. He was standing there again, watching him. Ryan's arms shook as he pulled himself up to get a better look at him.

"Why are you here?" he croaked out.

He shook his head and vanished. Ryan's head pounded and anger filled him as he stared at the spot where he had been standing. He screamed out an animalistic sound at the frustration of not knowing anything anymore. Tears streamed down his face as he cried from the pain.

"Jesse!" he screamed, "Come back Jesse!"


Horatio watched Ryan with tears streaming down his face as Ryan cried out Jessica's name. He was in so much pain and he was so weak.

The monitors hooked up to Ryan started beeping erratically as Ryan fell back onto his bed. He started shaking uncontrollably as his eyes rolled into the back of his head. Suited nurses and doctor rushed into the room and began yelling at each other as they worked on Ryan, trying to save his life. They began injecting him with different fluids and placed an oxygen mask over his face. Then Ryan's body stopped moving and a long monotone rang out from his heart monitor.

The doctor stopped and looked at the monitor. He nodded at one of the nurses and she turned and began unplugging equipment. Another nurse brought in a thick orange body bag. They began wrapping the bag around Ryan's body and he disappeared from sight. They zipped it up and Ryan was gone.

Horatio had his arm leaning against the glass with his forehead resting against it, sobbing uncontrollably. Eric lifted his cell phone to his ear and listened to the ringing.

"Jessica," he practically whispered, "I'm so sorry."