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Frank ran inside the burning building. He desperately looked around for Horatio. The SWAT team was trying to get their injured friends out before more of the building collapsed. Frank coughed and covered his mouth with his hand. He had to find his friend. He ran around the burnt ground like a maniac before he finally saw it.
Something or someone was lying under a door. Frank pulled the door off the prone person and bent down to take a closer look. The body was so badly burned that he couldn't see who it was… but he was about six feet tall… lying in a fetal position. Frank heard sirens approaching and a hand on his shoulder as the SWAT leader tried to pull him away.
He was too shocked to put up a fight and allowed himself to be dragged to safety. The team arrived, minus Sheldon who was with Mac in the lab, and then fire rescue arrived after them and started putting out the fire. Frank let the EMTs examine him while he stared at the bomb sight. It couldn't be his friend that was dead. Horatio couldn't be the burnt corpse.
When the fire was put out and the fire rescue workers declared that it was safe to process the scene Frank shook himself from his stupor and approached the scene. The team and Alexx were close behind him. Alexx held back tears as she knelt down next to the body.
"Alexx?" Frank asked after a while.
Silently he willed the ME to confirm that the dead body was not Horatio. It couldn't be.
"I'm not sure." She said quietly, "He's too badly burned to tell. I'll have to check with dental records."
"Alexx, that can't be…" Eric started.
"It's not H." Ryan said, "I don't believe so."
"I'll take him back to the morgue." Alexx almost whispered.
The team watched as Alexx left with the body. They had a job to do, but after Frank decided that they were too shocked to do it; he called the night shift CSIs. They were glad to be able to help. The team went back to the lab to deliver the news to Mac; they didn't look forward to that conversation.
-I-
"The house where Lieutenant Caine was allegedly held captive by Mrs. Reardon has blown up. The explosion killed three SWAT officers and injured two. The police also found a dead body among the remains of the house, but haven't yet announced if the body is Lieutenant Horatio Caine." Erica Sykes said, "As we await the results of the identification of the body we pray with the Lieutenant's family that he is not deceased. In the meantime…"
Mac switched off the TV in the break room and sat down on the couch. The body was down in the morgue and Mac refused to believe it was Horatio. Noah and Caylee were lying in their stroller and Mac stared at them. He did not think for one second that his lover was lying on an autopsy table while Alexx cut him open. He knew she was still waiting for dental records to tell who the body was, but as far as Mac was concerned; it wasn't Horatio.
Tears threatened to fall when Mac's CSI mind argued with his other mind that the possibility of it not being Horatio was slim. No one had been around to stop Missus Reardon from killing him, so why couldn't she have killed him and then blown him up? Nobody could have stopped her from doing it. Mac wiped a tear away. He couldn't give up now; there was still a small chance the body was someone else.
"Mac?"
Mac looked up to see Sheldon standing next to him. Sheldon sighed and sat down next to his friend. He looked down into the stroller and stroked Caylee's cheek. If Horatio was gone he knew that Mac would never be the same man again. He would go on for the sake of the twins, but never be the same Mac that Sheldon knew.
"Any news?" Mac asked.
"No."
"Not even about Mrs. Reardon?"
"No, I'm afraid not." Sheldon sighed.
Mac rubbed his eyes and sighed. He looked at the clock hanging on the wall and wished that Alexx would be able to give some answers soon. If the body wasn't Horatio, then his lover was still missing. Sheldon patted Mac's shoulder and stood up. He started pacing slowly and looking at the clock. It had been nearly an hour since Alexx had come back with the body. Nobody could or even wanted to imagine if it was their beloved friend and boss in the morgue. To think that the redhead had been burnt so badly made them all sick. They couldn't even begin to imagine the pain he must have been feeling while he was tortured by the obnoxious woman.
If the body was Horatio then Mac wasn't sure if he even wanted to see him. As terrible as it probably seemed Mac wanted to remember Horatio in the way he had lived, what he had looked like alive and not dead. He was afraid that if he saw the burnt corpse and it was Horatio, he would forget what the alive Horatio looked like as (far as mental images went) and therefore have that burnt corpse forever etched into his mind. He didn't want that.
"Mac, Sheldon?"
Mac and Sheldon looked towards the door where Eric stood. He waved for them to follow him. With a deep breath Mac stood up and grabbed the handle of the twin stroller. He walked quickly with it in front of him towards the morgue. Sheldon was right next to him. The team was already waiting for them when they arrived. Mac didn't want the twins to go inside the autopsy room so Sheldon offered to stay with them outside.
Mac felt his heart beat fast as he entered the autopsy room. He saw the white sheet covering the shape of a person and Alexx standing next to it.
"Meet Jimmy Warrens." Alexx said.
Mac sighed in relief and heard the team laugh quietly as they too were relieved to hear that the body didn't belong to Horatio.
"This is not Horatio, although I suspect that Mrs. Reardon wanted us to believe it was." Alexx said, "Jimmy was stabbed to death and all the burns on his body I believe are post-mortem; I have to do a more thorough autopsey to be sure of it though."
"He was dead when the house exploded." Frank said.
"Correct."
"How do you know it's Jimmy Warrens?" Ryan asked.
"Well, when I tested Horatio's dental records against the body I was extremely relieved to find that they didn't match." Alexx said, "I started checking dental records of some known small time criminals and Jimmy Warrens was one of them."
"Hey! Now I remember who he is." Frank said, "Ryan and I've met him."
"Oh yeah, we busted him for possession of an unlicensed weapon last year." Ryan said, "He has quite the rap sheet."
"And access to guns with silencers." Frank said, "Mrs. Reardon was looking for one according to our confidential informers."
"Do you think he helped her make the bomb?" Eric asked.
"Well, Jimmy was smart enough to build one, but if one knows where the look on the internet they can find that information there too." Frank said, "It's possible that Mrs. Reardon built it herself."
"This leaves one problem though." Eric said.
"Horatio is still missing." Mac said.
-I-
Mrs. Reardon was hurrying through the woods. She had already dumped Horatio in a ditch and she hoped that he would die there. After she had seen on the news that the governor wouldn't release her husband (courtesy of Erica Sykes reporting), she knew she had to do something. So she hoped to take out a lot of cops and fool them to think Horatio was dead by leaving Jimmy's dead body in the house and putting on the timer of the bomb.
She had been half-dragging Horatio through the woods, hoping to be able to use him later as leverage to get her wish. Unfortunately he had passed out and she had had no choice but to dump him in the woods and continue on her own. She had to get to the airport and escape for a while. If she left the country for a few months then Horatio (if he survived) would have the chance to recover and she could hurt him even more when she came back. Of course she wished he was already lying dead in the ditch where she had pushed him down, but in the event that he survived then she would have to get her revenge later.
She stumbled and cursed; she was sweating, her clothes were ruined and she could hear dogs barking from a distance. She hoped that it wasn't search dogs, because then they might be able to find her and Horatio.
She was still angry that she hadn't got her wish. The original plan had been to drive away in Jimmy's car (which had probably blown up too as it was standing by the house) with her husband, then take a private plane, a small one that she could fly, to New York and from there switch to yet another plane to take to the Bahamas.
And although she was glad that Erica Sykes was stupid enough to report on the news that the governor wasn't going to release her husband and by doing so risking Horatio's life as well as letting Mrs. Reardon know beforehand that the team couldn't give her what she wanted, she was also mad. Her husband's freedom was important to her and she didn't want to spend the rest of her life on the run alone. She wanted to spend it with him. Her dear husband; killer or not, she still loved him.
She could no longer hear dogs barking and smirked. She was getting further away from them and she knew that soon she'd be a free woman far away from Miami and America, in a country where they wouldn't find her.
-I-
While Alexx and her husband were taking care of Noah and Caylee, Mac was joining the search party for his lover. The perfect place to start looking had seemed to be the woods surrounding the explosion sight; only it turned out to be huge. Thanks to Mac giving the cops clothes that belonged to Horatio so the search dogs could find him, they were on their way. Everyone ran like crazy after the dogs as they sniffed for his lover. It was starting to rain and getting cold too.
"We got to hurry up! If he's out here he won't be able to stand the chilling temperature." Frank called out.
Mac didn't feel tired as he ran; he only had one thing on his mind and that was to find Horatio. The rain was really starting to pour down and Mac started to think about the different places where Horatio could be lying, if he had been dumped, if he was somewhere where deep lying maybe with his face in mud then the water could make him drown.
"We have to hurry!" Mac called out.
"We're going as fast as we can, Mac." Sheldon said, "The dogs have found his scent."
"I know, but they haven't found him yet." Mac said.
"They will."
Mac nodded. Suddenly one dog started running even faster and his master stumbled on the wet leaves, he lost his grip on the leash and the dog took off running towards a lake. Mac looked at the team and they all went pale with fear; afraid that Horatio was in the lake. They could hear the dog bark and a helicopter flying over their heads.
"The dog found him!" Someone called, "The helicopter has visual confirmation of the dog and the Lieutenant!"
"Where to?" Someone yelled.
"Straight forward!"
Mac took off like a speeding bullet and only Ryan managed to keep up with him. He was right behind the older man and they half-stumbled half-ran down a slope. Mac's heart skipped a beat as he saw it; the red hair and his lover lying in a ditch. The dog barked at him and nudged Horatio's body with his nose.
When Mac reached Horatio he knelt down next to his body and carefully cleared some leaves and dirt away from his lover's face.
"Love? Horatio can you hear me?"
"Mac, don't move him." Ryan panted as he knelt on the other side of his friend and boss.
Horatio was barely breathing; his arms were covered in blood, he had a deep gash in his head his body shook with the effects of the electrocutions; he was cold too and seemed to have a fever.
"Horatio, please open your eyes."
When the officers and the EMTs arrived Ryan tried to literally pull Mac away from Horatio. Mac didn't want to let go and it took several minutes before Ryan, with help from Sheldon, managed to pry Mac away from his lover. Mac watched in shock as the EMTs worked on Horatio. They talked into the radio and asked for an emergency helicopter. All Mac and the team could do was to watch.
Please review!
Sorry if I'm having a lot of problems with "burned/burnt", I'm not always sure which one to use.
