I have a feeling DuCaine fans will enjoy this chapter...

He swallowed nervously, finding it hard to comprehend what she had just said. She didn't love him, she couldn't love him. He was a broken and twisted man with nothing to offer her except more pain and misery. "You don't mean it, Calleigh. You're confused" he told her, trying to convince her as well as himself.

"No I'm not. I've never been surer of anything in my life, I love you"

"You're tired, stressed…." He tried to think of as many reasons as he could not to believe what she was saying. She was mistaken, surely?

"I loved you the day I met you and I've fallen in love with you a little more with each day that passes" she smiled softly at him, radiating sincerity.

"You can't love someone like me, I've nothing to offer you. I'm broken" He returned his gaze to the floor.

"I don't care" she told him with conviction, "It doesn't matter to me whether you're broken, I love you just the way you are"

He closed his eyes and willed himself not to believe her, "You don't know the real me" he was fast running out of excuses as he tried to stop himself from caving in to her.

"I've seen the real you, Horatio. I don't care what you think you've done or how damaged you are, you complete me"

He felt the walls closing in around him, surely this couldn't be happening? It must be another of his nightmares, what if he was stuck in this dream with no way out. He had no way to tell if this was real or fantasy, he bolted from the room and got away from her as fast as he could. He had made it to the hallway before her soft voice stopped him in his tracks, "It doesn't matter where you run to, I'll find you"

He took a deep breath and climbed the stairs two at a time; he shut himself away in his room and sat on the bed with his head in his hands. "It's just a dream. It's just a dream" he told himself over and over. As nightmares went this had to be the worst one he had ever experienced, the pain he felt at being tortured by his deepest and darkest desires. "This isn't real" he started to repeat to himself.

She didn't know what to do at first; she just looked at the spot he had been standing in moments before. She had admitted her feelings for him and now she feared that she had pushed him over the edge. He was already emotionally unstable; he didn't need to hear her declaring her undying love for him. "How could you be so stupid?" she berated herself, "Now look what you've gone and done!" She ran a shaky hand through her hair as she considered her next move.


"It's now or never" she muttered to herself as she slowly climbed the stairs, she took a couple of deep breaths before reaching out a shaky hand to open the door to his room. She walked in without thinking and without knocking; he didn't seem to have noticed her as he sat on the bed, his hands tightly gripping his head. "Horatio?" she called out tentatively, he gave no sign that he had heard her. She walked over to the bed and sat down next to him, it was only then she could hear the mantra that he was repeating to himself under his breath. She felt as though her heart had been ripped out, seeing him in such pain. She realised that he thought he was in the middle of some cruel and twisted nightmare, that everything she had just said must not be real.

"It's just a dream. It's not real" he repeated as he squeezed his eyes shut tightly.

She placed her arm around his shoulder and tried to gently pull him towards her, "This is real, Horatio. I'm right here with you" she crooned as she rubbed her hand up and down his arm. "Feel that? That's me holding on to you and I'm never going to let you go"

He raised his head to look at her, "No. It can't be real, this isn't happening" He shook his head as if doing so would make the apparition in front of him disappear.

"This isn't a dream. It's real. I'm right here with you" She was at a loss for what else to say to make him believe her. Suddenly it came to her; she placed both of her hands on his face and brought it closer to hers. "Would you feel this if you were dreaming?" she asked him as she placed a gentle kiss on his lips.

He sat there, unable to move as his brain registered the feeling of Calleigh's soft lips on his. Slowly the fog cleared from his mind and he realised that she had just kissed him and it had been real, not a figment of his imagination. "Calleigh?"

"You with me?" she asked, trying to ascertain whether he understood what had just happened, "Do you believe I'm real now?" He could not find the words to answer her and so settled for nodding his head as best he could as she continued to hold it in her hands.

"I think I'm going mad" he muttered to no one in particular, he closed his eyes and could not help the wave of relief that washed over him when he opened them again and found her still sitting next to him.

"You're not going mad, Horatio" she reassured him as she let go of his face, "You're exhausted and you need to rest. Stay there" she told him as she got up from the bed and left the room. She came back a few moments later with a small box in her hand; he didn't even have to look at it to know what it was. She carefully popped a pill from the packet and handed it to him, "Horatio, please don't fight me. Take this and get some real sleep"

He looked at her doubtfully, aware that he agreed to take the pills for one night when she pleaded with him to earlier this evening. Now that the time had come to actually make good on his promise he suddenly felt uneasy, he could feel his pulse pounding in his ears as his heart rate increased. "Pull yourself together you old fool" he admonished himself, he had stared death in the face countless times and never wavered. Why then was a harmless looking sleeping pill more frightening than any vicious criminal he'd ever faced? "Because you won't be in control anymore" a voice in his head told him. What would happen when he was unconscious and defenceless?

She could see the internal struggle taking place in Horatio's mind as he stared at the pill in her hand. The moment seemed to stretch for eternity until he finally relented and took it from her. She handed him a glass of water as he placed the medication on his tongue, he gave her a wary look and took a gulp of water. "No way back now" he told himself as he swallowed it down along with a mouthful of water.

"Thank you" she whispered to him as she placed the glass back on the nightstand, "Why don't you lay back and get yourself comfortable?" He looked at her again, unsure at first. Finally he removed his shoes and lay back on the bed, his head resting on the pillows. She followed suit and joined him on the bed, his body tensed as she reached her arms across him and pulled him closer but soon relaxed when she rubbed soothing circles on his back as he lay on his side facing her. "Close your eyes when you're ready. I'll be right here when you wake up"

He stayed wrapped in her warm embrace as time ticked by slowly, as the sun began to set and the natural light from the windows began to dim he felt his eyes become heavier. At first he tried to fight it but he found her voice and the hypnotic circles she was rubbing on his back were sending him closer to oblivion as each minute passed. The last image he saw before sleep claimed him was her beautiful face gazing back at him, radiating love.