Panic
Calleigh's POV:
Calleigh hurried away from the fingerprint lab as quickly as possible without running. Her heart was pounding in her chest and her hands shook. She was in a complete panic over her actions with Eric. She just wanted to let him know he was doing fine and instead she kissed him...in the middle of the glass walled lab. Someone must have seen. How could they not? There are no private moments, no secrets when you have glass walls. How could she have been so careless to let her feelings go completely on display in public, at work, of all places? And, why couldn't the ground just open up and swallow her whole?
She paced firearms for a good long while before she could calm down enough to focus on the case at hand. That no one entered or paged her was a good sign, as far as she was concerned. Maybe no one saw. Calleigh knew that she still had to work with Eric and she needed to reign in her feelings for him even tighter if she didn't want another public display just like that again. She desperately wanted to tell him how she felt about him but that fear of being hurt again constantly gnawed at her.
Jake wasn't the only one that had hurt her in the past. He was just the one that hurt the most. She really had been head over heels in love with him when he chose his career over her. He chose the excitement and danger of undercover work over working his way through the ranks of the police department to finally become a detective and to deepening his relationship with her. She remembered the heart searing pain of that final conversation when he told her about starting UC. He said that he loved her, but he couldn't face putting her in danger if his cover was ever blown. He said that it wouldn't be fair to her to have to wait for him for maybe months on end, to have just a couple of hours together before he'd have to go back in. He had made it sound like it was all about her, but she knew better. He hated patrol and the routine beat. He only came truly alive when he was faced with apprehending a dangerous suspect. So, in the end, he chose excitement and danger over her love and shattered her heart into a million pieces. She vowed to never let someone in so deep and hurt her like that again.
She had been devastated and only a select few knew what had gone on. To others, it just seemed like she had a renewed interest in her work. In the end, her lack of distraction and passion for science lead her to the New Orleans Crime Lab and her reputation for being a wunderkind with firearms brought her to the notice of Megan Donner in Miami. She sent Horatio to recruit her and that had been the answer to end the lingering pain of having the constant reminder of Jake no longer being in her life.
The move to Miami had been easy. Horatio had proven to be a good friend and had helped her find her first apartment and helped move her in. He seemed to understand and appreciate her abilities and really seemed to sense what she could become. To that end, he left the remainder of her training to Tim Speedle, who was a wunderkind in his own right. They had an easy friendship, the two wunderkinds, behaving more like siblings than co-workers, teasing and laughing. Eric joined the team a year or two later and even though she had fallen in love with him in an instant, it was easy to ignore her feelings for him. They had plenty of time to let any relationship develop and she was in no hurry. With her new life in a new city, new job and new friends, she could put New Orleans and Jake out of her mind for good.
Over time, relationships came and went, nothing ever serious until John wandered in. He was good at his job and a meticulous detective, thirsty for justice. His kindness and care for her when she was being targeted by Hank Kerner touched her deeply and she felt a slight crack in the walls she had built around her heart. When he asked her out a couple of weeks later, she said yes. Looking back, the relationship was good for a while, but things just started going wrong.
She noticed that he wasn't just protective over her, but possessive and even though she could out shoot him any time she wanted, he sometimes overlooked her abilities and her intelligence and conveniently forgot that she was a cop first and then became a CSI. The last straw in an already crumbling relationship was when he found her dad, the father that he had so easily dismissed as "an old man trying to pull himself up out of the bottle", in a bar and brought him, not to her home, but to the Lab, where any number of things could have gone wrong. After he had helped her get her dad home, they had argued and ended the relationship that very night. It had hurt, but she hadn't invested her whole heart in that relationship so with very little time, the pain had passed.
It was easy to ignore John's repeated attempts at getting back together with her when he returned to work after being out on leave for having a "bad back", which was cop speak for not being able to pass the department psych evaluation, the same one that she had to pass after Tim had been killed in the line of duty and the very same evaluation she had to pass after John had committed suicide in front of her right on her firing range. She still had nightmares about it and still woke up in a cold sweat, tears streaming down her face. She still felt partially responsible for his suicide. Her rejection of his advances had probably contributed to his already failing psyche. Seeing someone she had once cared very much for commit suicide within a few short months of losing Tim almost broke her. Almost. Despite her torn and bleeding heart, she held herself up and passed the evaluation the very next day without talking to anyone but Eric about it. He and Horatio were the only ones that knew how torn up she was over the whole thing. Horatio had understood and had approved her transfer to Tox without a word, giving her both time and space to heal.
Peter Elliot and his surprise engagement to Monica West had hurt, but not nearly as bad as it probably should have. She was still too numb from both Tim's and John's violent ends to be more than a little hurt and relatively angry. It turned out that Monica was dirty and got herself not only disbarred, but a jail term for trying to dishonestly bring the Lab down.
Throwing herself into her work was, by then, a natural way for her to deal, or not, with her feelings so she willingly shouldered the increasing burden of running the Lab as Horatio drew further and further into himself, even walking face first into what could have been several fatal encounters almost as if he wanted to be killed. She was worried about him, but other pressing business diverted her attention from him until she realized that they, who for so many years, worked side by side, hadn't even been in the same room or on the same investigation for months.
And through it all there had been Eric, who, having his own issues with Tim's death and his sister's cancer and then murder, never stopped checking in with her and she with him. They initially drifted apart after Tim's death and Ryan's hiring. She was so focused on training Ryan that Eric had slipped through the cracks and gotten himself into deep trouble. For her, it was like a slap upside the head, reminding her of how much he meant to her. She reached out and felt for his hand. He was drowning in his own anger and fear, yet he grasped her hand and she convinced him to see the union shrink to help him through his pain. They rapidly reconnected after that and not only regained their old closeness, but with the advent of Marisol's murder, they drew even closer. Calleigh realised that she was deeply in love with Eric and she held him as close, no, closer in her heart than Jake had ever been. The fact that Jake had somehow ended up in Miami only served to annoy her and bring no actual pain. Her heart was given to Eric and he didn't even know it. But, she had told herself, they were young and still had time.
Then just not so long ago, Eric was shot and nearly died. He had died and had been resuscitated and would live. She came within a hair's breath of losing him forever without letting him know how she felt about him. Again, Calleigh felt her heart rip open and bleed. Time was up and she had to make her feelings for him known. And, she had just done that in the Lab and she was shaking in terror. What was she going to do? How was he going to respond? Was he going to respond? Did she guess wrong and he didn't love her? She was going to have to face the music sooner or later, so she decided sooner was better than later.
Gathering her courage, she made her way to his Lab, but found it empty when she arrived. Spying Natalia in DNA, she made her way there.
"Hey, Talia, have you seen Eric?" she asked casually.
Natalia looked away from her microscope. "He got a court summons for a competency hearing. It seems the pool boy lawyered up and Eric's injury is being called into question. Carmen Henney is involved."
Calleigh felt her temper rise. "That sleazy...I know, calm down. He's being used as a scape goat, you know that."
Natalia nodded. "I know. Horatio's heard and he's madder than a wet hen. He went off to the state bar right after he found out."
Calleigh nodded, worry for Eric's confidence in his ability to do his job utmost in her mind. "Listen, I'll be in Firearms. Let me know when Eric gets back. I want to know what went on."
"You got it, Cal," Natalia replied, eying her senior colleague carefully, knowing that there was a lot more going on between her and Eric than most folks would have guessed. She saw the kiss and, even though it had been on the cheek, there had been far more to it than a friendly little peck. It was going to be interesting to see what developed out of it.