Calleigh threw her purse down on the counter in her kitchen with a resounding thump. As days went, this had been longer and harder than she had been expecting. Sure, it didn't help that she got next to no sleep last night, but the fact that she had visitor after visitor come knocking on her door all morning did nothing to ease the weariness within her.
She'd relished the chance to get back out in the field, Eric's timely appearance in the supervisor's office had turned a day that had all the hallmarks of being disastrous into one that was now just bone-achingly tiring. Twisting her neck from side to side, she could feel the tension of the last few weeks taking up residence in her overworked and overstressed body. The thought of a massage sounded more than a little tempting, she smiled at the image of Horatio giving her a sensual rub with those large and experienced hands of his...
The fantasy was short lived as she realised that he was no longer there, no longer a part of her life.
Eric had poked and prodded at her, trying to get her to open up and admit to what was troubling her so. She steadfastly refused to tell him, to voice those words would mean that some small part of her was admitting to what had happened. No, it was better to ignore those horrible feelings and put on a brave face for the benefit of those around her. It had become something that she was so good at, having had to learn the art of deception at an early age.
When her father's battles with alcohol became more obvious, Calleigh Duquesne had to quickly learn how to cover for her errant father. Becoming a teenager meant that she had been cursed with a higher level of awareness than she'd had when she'd been a child. The innocence of her youth had gone, replaced with a sense of duty to her unpredictable father and emotionally confused mother.
The other girls at school would often ask why her father never made it to the parent/teacher evenings at their high school. She would lie and tell them that he was too busy working on a major case to be able to attend her school functions, when the simple truth was that he was more likely to be found drinking away his remaining brain cells in a local bar. Other times, he had simply passed out at home or in his office. Still, the fact remained that Kenwall Duquesne was rarely sober enough to not be an embarrassment to his only daughter.
Her perkiness became her coping mechanism, smiling through the pain so that others did not feel compelled to look too far beneath the surface. She'd read somewhere once, that those who seemed to be happy and bright were often those who suffered heartache and pain the most. Perhaps there were other people like her, people who chose to paint a smile on their face to hide the truth behind the lies.
It was a part of human nature that others would not question you if you appeared happy to the outside world. The most you would get would be an odd look or a frown from people who were too weighed down with their own issues to care about yours. Other people didn't understand why some folks chose to smile instead of moping at their lot in life. Often, it would be considered that you were somehow mentally unstable if you smiled, even in the most trying of circumstances. Most people could just not get their head around the notion of not looking as if they were permanently miserable.
Misery loves company.
Perhaps that was why even complete strangers would feel obligated to ask what was troubling you, certainly if you looked upset, anyway. If you looked as miserable as the person next to you, they would be compelled to ask what it was that had saddened you in the first place, as if they were trying to compare notes or ascertain whether their pain and suffering was worse than yours. Jealousy, contempt and just the plain old notion of being nosey, meant that other people would want to know all about your problems, if only to reassure themselves that they were not the only ones who were suffering.
No, if you looked happy and contented, people would never ask you why. Asking people why they were in such good spirits would inevitably make them feel jealous that their own life wasn't going so well. For all the good that other people were capable of, the seedier side of humanity served to show that we all coveted that which we did not have. Most folks had enough social grace to not let their disdain for the fortune of others dictate their behaviour, and so this meant that they would give you a tight smile, perhaps a nod of the head, and go on their way, all the while cursing you for your sunny disposition.
It had been a lesson that she had learned at a young age, and one that had served her well throughout her life. There were only a precious few people who were ever privy to the real Calleigh Duquesne, hidden beneath the image of the happy-go-lucky bullet girl from Louisiana, and one by one, they had disappeared from her life. She'd given her heart to so few, she'd opened up to Horatio...and he'd left her.
Those were the thoughts that had been swirling around her head all afternoon as she battled vainly with her own mental anguish and forced herself to concentrate on the case. At least the good-natured teasing between Natalia and Walter had served to lighten her mood a little.
Walter Simmons had been a breath of fresh air from the moment that he'd transferred from the night shift. There was just something eminently likeable about the man whose smile was as big as his hefty frame. Tall and stocky, Walter's build belied the grace with which he worked crime scenes, and his ability as a CSI had never been in question. He also seemed to bring an air of joviality when he entered a room, his humour and enthusiasm for the job were infectious, and certainly something the team had needed when he first joined them.
Still, she could not shake the feeling that Walter was itching to say something, yet for some reason felt he could not. She attempted to shake the thoughts from her mind as she watched her three colleagues engage in easy banter as they worked the evidence. Two bodies had already been removed from what was left of the three story building, along with the burned corpse of what the team had assumed was a dog, the house owner's beloved pet perhaps. Some might have frowned upon the three investigators and their teasing repartee, but she knew from experience that sometimes it was the best way to counter the horrific images that they would be exposed to on a daily basis.
She'd kept to the perimeter of the scene for the most part, watching on with interest as she witnessed her team doing the job that came so naturally to them.
It's not your team, she berated herself internally, it's Horatio's.
But the truth was that it hadn't been Horatio's team for months. Not since his head injury had robbed him of nearly twenty year's worth of memories. Since that fateful day that he'd collapsed in his office, she had been thrust into the position of leader, and it had not been something that had come naturally to her.
She'd tripped and stumbled repeatedly as she tried in vain to separate her heart from her head. No matter how hard she tried, she had often ended up failing miserably on all fronts. She had been unable to protect Horatio from the Malucci's, she'd been too blind to see how closely her and the team were being followed, and had been naïve in the notion that the people after Horatio would not attack when it was least expected. Even worse, she had been unable to corral the team together after he had been abducted, they had all floundered in their panic to find him, instead of concentrating on the job at hand and the basics that he himself had taught them.
Those long weeks after his rescue were harder than she ever imagined they could be, Horatio had been angry and bitter, before veering wildly to being meek and pitiful. She loved him, but he had been more than she could bear at times as he tried to find his way back to the man he used to be. She herself had swung between being understanding and patient, to cold and harsh with him as his frustration with his own frailties chipped away at her too.
She had hoped that his return to the Lab would help him regain some of that lost ground of the last few months. Horatio had been insistent that he made his return as soon as possible, refusing to listen to the advice of either her or Alexx as they cautioned him against trying to take on too much too soon. He'd been resolute in his position though, and had steeled himself for the onslaught of emotions and memories that he had known would come.
Those few short weeks had been nothing short of a nightmare for the most part. Horatio had been distracted and unfocused at best, faltering from one near miss to the next as he tried to fool himself and others that he was ok. She had not been much better herself, it was only now, with the benefit of hindsight, that she began to realise that perhaps she had been holding on to him a little too tightly.
The choices that she had made had been with the best of intentions, but it was becoming painfully obvious to her that she was causing the man she loved more harm than good. Each time he tried to take a step forward by himself, she had caught him by the sleeve and dragged him back towards her, the overwhelming need to protect continually overriding her rational thinking when it came to him.
The team had not been much better either, and perhaps that was her fault too. She had clung on to Horatio too tightly, not giving him the space to breathe and make his own choices, to the point that he had become indecisive and unsure of himself, questioning himself time and again, asking pointless questions that didn't even warrant answers.
The majority of the team had kept asking him how he was, whether he was ok, and had treated him like he was fragile. Had he become used to being cared for and coddled so much that he had lost sight of what it was that made him Horatio? They had all treated him as if he would break at any second, then found themselves disappointed when he was unable to live up to their previous expectations of him. She realised now that they had all been guilty of holding back the man that they had sworn to stand by.
Horatio's sense of unease since his return had filtered through the rest of the team as they descended into harsh words and mindless arguments, acting as if they were children being denied their favourite toy. Even in the last few days, she had heard rumblings from some of her colleagues in the Department that things had not been easy since Horatio had come back. It had been something that had played on her mind this afternoon as she watched her three colleagues go about their work. They somehow seemed lighter, more jovial and friendly towards each other, more at ease than they had been in weeks.
It suddenly occurred to her that maybe, with Horatio temporarily out of the picture, that the pressure within the team had lightened. She had been careful to not give anything away in regards to Horatio's absence, bar the minimum amount of information possible, and it seemed as if her colleagues had taken her words at face value. Now that they were no longer having to deal with the uncertainty and constant concern for their leader, they were able to better concentrate on the task at hand. The whole team were a family, and when one of their own was injured or hurting, it had a negative effect on the rest of them as their concern for their colleague battled for position with their daily jobs for their full attention. And it was that distracted nature that had caused them all to fail as a family, and more importantly, as a team of crime scene investigators.
Eric had again tried to wheedle information from her, he knew her too well not to recognise the wearied tone in her voice as she spoke, despite plastering that perky smile on her face. His repeated questioning of her had bordered on becoming irritating, perhaps he had a right to know what was happening. Horatio was his brother in law after all. And so she had told him as much as she was willing to divulge, that he had returned to New York and would be there for a number of days. She neglected to add the fact that Horatio had left her too, with no promise that he would ever return to her side.
Her former lover had looked at her with those loving brown eyes of his, his plump lips forming a frown as he regarded her sadly. She felt as if she didn't deserve his compassion or understanding, yet he had promised her a shoulder to lean on should she ever need it. But to explain her current situation to him would be awkward at best, how could she discuss her current lover with her former, especially considering how close to the two men were? She felt bad for keeping such things from him, maybe he did have a right to know what was going on. But that would be for Horatio to tell him, not her.
After supervising the return of evidence from the arson case back to the Lab, she had instructed the rest of the team to call it a day. It was already ten minutes past the end of their shift, the last thing she needed was another lecture from her superiors about unapproved overtime rates. The evidence that they had collected could wait until tomorrow, there had been no survivors from the house fire and besides, most of the trace that they had collected would need to be examined by the arson investigators from the Fire Department too.
She had gladly picked up her purse and locked the supervisor's office as quickly as she could, almost jogging in her haste to get away from the building. Now that she'd returned home to her cold and empty house, she suddenly wondered why she had been so keen to return here in the first place.
Flicking on the lights, she made her way over to the coffee pot and began going through the motions of making herself a drink. She found herself drinking coffee just like Horatio had, hot, black and bitter. She'd made so many cups of his favourite beverage since he'd started living with her, and she'd often needed the caffeine hit as much as he did after the countless nights of shaking him awake as his demons hounded him, even in unconsciousness.
Casting her eyes down to the floor, she was dismayed to find that Moses had not touched his breakfast. The feline creature had slept on the bed last night, curling up into a ball as he made himself comfortable on the pillow that his beloved redheaded master slept on. She had tried everything to get Moses to move from his position this morning, but the cat steadfastly refused, showing a stubborn streak that reminded her of the man who had been in her bed only a day before.
Climbing the stairs, she slowly made her way into the bedroom to find Moses still curled up on his master's pillow. "Hey there, kitty," she crooned as she sat down beside the cat and reached out a hand to stroke his small head. The cat meowed sadly in response and looked at her with those wide green eyes of his before resting his head against his paws once more.
She sighed deeply, continuing to fuss Moses in the way that Horatio used to. Nothing seemed to work, as the cat continued to look forlorn, ignoring her attempts to brighten his mood. "I miss him too, you know," she said quietly as she felt the tears brimming in her eyes. "He won't be gone for long, I promise you." Yet she knew that it was a promise that she might not be able to keep. What if Horatio never came back to her? What if he decided that he was better off without her?
No. He's coming back.
Feeling blue would not do either of them any good. She had to trust that Horatio was making the right decision. She had sworn to stand by him, no matter what, yet she hadn't fully realised just what such a show of faith in him would entail. Taking a deep breath, she collected Moses in her arms and kissed the top of his head, determined that the cat would not fall into the same pit of despair that Horatio had. "Come on," she told the cat as she rubbed behind his ears, "What's your daddy gonna think when he comes back and you're all skin and bones. He won't be happy, will he?"
She wasn't even sure that emotional blackmail on a cat would work, she was willing to give anything a try though. Moses cocked his head at her quizzically, she stamped down on the sob that threatened to tear from her throat and forced herself to smile as the cat rubbed his head against her face and purred deeply. It was as if Moses was the only piece of Horatio that she still had left to hold on to, apart from the memories of the few short months that they had been together. Both she and Moses would stick together, helping each other through the dark days that were to come. The two of them would give comfort to the other, sustaining them for what lay ahead.