Title: At the End of the Day

Timeline: Post ep.7x01, "Resurrection"

Rating: K+

"Helluva day, huh?"

Delko stared vacantly into his beer as Calleigh climbed up to sit on the bar stool beside him. A drink was just what the woman needed. A stiff one.

She sighed tiredly. "No kidding.

Today was a day to top all days. Horatio came back from the grave. Wolfe betrayed their trust, kind of. The fact that they weren't surprised Wolfe lied—that was the most disturbing of today's revelations. Horatio was alive again, but their distrust of Ryan? That would stick around for a while.

Other than a few words uttered to the bartender, Eric and Calleigh sat in burdened silence, each lost in thoughts of a day that had tested them to their breaking points.

"Jake came back today," Cal said after a while. Eric couldn't pin the exact emotion behind her voice, and that worried him. He also couldn't decipher the myriad emotions that flooded him with four little words.

"Yeah?

"Yeah." After thirty minutes of sitting beside him at the bar, Calleigh looked her partner in the eyes for the first time. "He rejoined his detail with the Crypt Kings."

Eric mulled over her words, wondering about the concern in her voice, scrutinizing the slight frustration he heard there. "What happened?"

"Oh, you know," Calleigh shrugged. A sarcastic edge crept into her tone that Eric didn't miss. "He confessed to involvement in the shootout, then he blew his undercover op to bring me the weapons used. Oh yeah, and ATF is shipping him off to some secret location."

Eric responded carefully. "That's a big sacrifice to make for you."

Cal looked down at her fingers, playing with the napkin under her glass, before she spoke. "That's what I said." Her gaze returned to her friend's. "He asked me to wait, you know."

Eric swallowed hard. He didn't want to seem too interested, or too eager, or too anything, even though he knew Calleigh could see right through him. He glanced into the distance to keep his eyes from giving him away.

"That so?"

She simply nodded and took another swig of her beer, setting it down a little harsher than she intended. The silence grew heavily between them, again, and finally Eric prodded further.

"What did you tell him?"

Calleigh didn't answer him right away, but when she did, Eric saw truth, and a little relief, in her eyes. "I told him I was done waiting."

Eric's eyes narrowed a bit as he studied her face. "You needed that, didn't you?"

"Closure was good," she stated with a small, decisive nod.

"Good," he said.

Eric held up his beer in a toast, which Calleigh met with a quiet 'clink.' They spent the rest of the night staring at nothing, saying nothing, just drowning in the smoke and haze of the noisy bar. By the time they went their separate ways, the day was behind them.

Tomorrow, it would start all over.