Author's Note: I don't own the characters. No one is paying me. Don't sue me. I appreciate the reviews, as always. I hope you enjoy this installment. Sadly, the story won't be finished by tonight, so the updates will be far and few between after this one. Sorry. School is back in session starting tomorrow. Groan. Anyway, enjoy, read, review, repeat.

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Coralee nervously joined Calleigh out front having been granted permission for an extended coffee break from Dr. Woods. She couldn't deny the excitement that made her stomach feel like butterflies were migrating through it, but she was also well aware of the degree of tension between her and her sister.

"I can drive if you want." Calleigh offered.

"Sure." That was probably best since Coralee was unfamiliar with the city.

The quick trip to the café was silent and awkward, and each girl watched the other via peripheral vision. Calleigh parked and exited the vehicle without a word, but waited briefly for Coralee to follow. The place was packed, which was not unusual – it was just annoying. Calleigh already knew what she wanted, and this gave her time to observe her surroundings. She glanced at the deli case and watched the reflection in the glass. Coralee studied the menu and rummaged in her change purse, counting coins. She counted them twice, and then glanced back up at the overhead menu.

Calleigh stepped up to the counter and quickly ordered a cinnamon dulce latte, then stepped aside a hare and asked Coralee, "What do you want?"

Coralee looked at her in surprise, eyes wide. "I beg your pardon?"

Calleigh graced her with a small smile. "It's my treat. Order whatever you want."

"You don't have to…" She shook her head.

"I invited you out here, and I know you're a starving student." Calleigh's smile was genuine now. "So go ahead and get whatever you want. It's my treat."

"Are you sure?" They both ignored the way the barista was glaring at them and the annoyed grumblings of the people in line behind them.

Calleigh nodded, and Coralee hesitated a moment longer. "Can I get an iced soy chai tea?" She was looking at Calleigh the entire time, as if waiting for her approval.

"Is that all?" The barista smacked her gum and glared at the girls.

"Do you want something to eat?" Calleigh was feeling especially generous at the moment.

"No thank you."

"That's all." She paid, and sent Coralee outside to stake out a sidewalk table. Collecting their beverages, she joined the younger girl.

"Here you go." She distributed the drinks.

"Thank you for this." Coralee raised her cup. "I can pay you back."

"I said it's my treat." Calleigh dismissed her with a wave.

Coralee nodded nervously and thanked her again. This was a cup of tea to remember.

"So." Calleigh finally began after a few silent minutes. "You're…we're…related, huh?"

"That's the story."

"That's…uh." Calleigh was never this inarticulate, and it grated on her nerves. "I don't know how to do this." She admitted.

"That's okay." Coralee couldn't blame her. "I don't either."

"Yeah."

Coralee decided to throw her a bone, so to speak. "How long have you been in Miami?"

"Ten years or so. You?"

"Since last July, so about a year."

They lapsed into silence again.

"Tell me about your name?" Calleigh had been curious about the girl's moniker for a while.

"You think I was named to sound like you, huh?" Calleigh nodded a little. "I was named after my great grandmothers. I think the similarity is more of a weird coincidence than anything planned."

"Oh, okay." That cleared up that question. What else? "How did your mom die?" She asked it softly, not wanting to hurt her.

"Cancer."

"What kind?"

"Breast cancer." Coralee swirled her straw around her cup. "It was stage four when they caught it. She never had a chance."

"Were you close?" Calleigh couldn't imagine losing her mother, even if they weren't close.

"No." Coralee shook her head. "We…we were very…different." She remembered all the fights they'd had when she was a teenager.

"You prance around here like you're something special!" Ruby yelled at her daughter. "You're not better than me."

Coralee winced as a piece of the glass she was cleaning up sliced into her finger. Her mother had a tendency to drink heavily and then throw things when she was upset. "I never said I was." She defended herself quietly.

"I see you, little girl." She had no tolerance for smart-mouthed little girls. "I see you sneaking around, making plans to leave. Go to college. You think you're too good to live here? Think you're better than this?"

"Yeah!" Coralee stood, one hand squeezing her bleeding finger in an attempt to stop the blood flow. "I think you are, too! I think you settled for what's easy, and I'm not going to do that! I'm going to go to college, and I'm not going to live in a dump or depend on 'friends' to pay my bills!"

"You ungrateful little…"

"Coralee?" Calleigh tried to get her attention.

"Sorry." She blushed.

"I'm sorry about…before." She apologized and hoped Coralee would know what she was talking about. "I had no right to yell at you like that, and I'm sorry."

"It's okay. I understand." She really did, too. "I'm sorry, too. I shouldn't have yelled at you, either."

They were silent again for a few minutes. Calleigh wanted to ask a question, but she wasn't sure how. Finally, she blurted out, "How often did you see him?"

If Coralee was surprised by the question, she didn't show it. "Every couple of months he'd come for a few days. Usually two or three."

"What did you do when he came?"

"Nothing." She was telling the truth. "They'd go grocery shopping; sometimes we'd go to the mall or something. A couple of times I got new shoes."

Calleigh suddenly felt very privileged. She'd grown up with so much, and her half-sister had done with so little. "Did he give you money?"

"He helped my mom pay bills, if that's what you mean." She hated the way she sounded. "It wasn't all bad, you know. Sometimes we'd go places. He'd take me to the park or the zoo. One time we all went to…" She trailed off, worried that Calleigh wouldn't be happy hearing about 'family' vacations with her father.

"It's okay." Calleigh urged her to continue. "We can talk about it."

"We went to New Orleans once. For the weekend." She smiled at the memory. "We did all the touristy stuff, you know? Bourbon Street, toured the old homes, ate Cajun food."

"When was the last time you saw him?"

"When I was thirteen." This shocked Calleigh. "Yeah. We moved to Savannah that year, and I haven't seen him since."

"Why did you move?"

"My mom met a guy. She was going to marry him, and he was going to solve all her problems." She said drily.

"Did she? Get married?"

"No." She didn't expound on the issue and tell Calleigh about the constant string of visitors that had paraded through their house.

"So." Calleigh was at a loss as to what else to say.

"Do you like it here?" Coralee interrupted her thoughts.

"In Miami?" A nod affirmed that was correct. "I really do. It's faster than Louisiana, you know, but I like it here."

"Were you close? To him?"

"Yeah." She supposed she was. "I guess. He was…he was an alcoholic, you know?"

"I know." Alcoholism was a single constant in the lives of both of the girls.

"He'd try to get sober, but he'd fall off the wagon…a lot." She rememberd all the phone calls. "I'd get calls from bars at all hours of the night and day to come pick him up."

"I'm sorry." Her voice sounded authentic, and Calleigh didn't doubt that she meant it. "That must have been hard on you."

"It was." She couldn't believe that she was having this conversation with anyone, much less Coralee. It just seemed right. "I hated it." She lifted her head and met her sister's eyes. "He was always drunk. He'd go to the bar after work and come home drunk. He'd show up at my school drunk and make a scene. He was drunk on holidays, birthdays. He was always drunk. I'm sad he died, but part of me…part of me is glad I don't have to…deal with that…anymore." She laughed nervously and added. "I can't believe I just said that."

"I think I get it, though." She took a deep breath and reached across the table, gently laying her hand upon that of her sister's. "You're not glad he's dead, you're just relieved that you don't have to always worry about him anymore?" Calleigh nodded. "I felt the same way when my mom died. She…drank a lot, too."

"I'm sorry."

"No, don't be sorry." Coralee didn't want her to misunderstand her reasons for telling her this. She withdrew her hand and pushed her hair behind her ear nervously. "I…she'd been sick for so long. Not just cancer…she was always sick. She was always drunk. I was always worried that she'd get alcohol poisoning or get in a car accident or something, or kill someone when she was driving drunk. When she died, it was like I didn't have to worry about all that anymore. I was still sad, but I felt kind of liberated. I didn't have to be on edge all the time."

Calleigh hadn't been able to articulate it that well, but she immediately agreed with the sentiments. She was sad. She missed her father. She missed their talks, their trips. She didn't miss the nagging fear, the late night trips to bars. "I get that. I really do."

She smiled at Coralee for a moment, and decided to change the subject to something more cheerful. "You're in medical school, huh? That sounds pretty tough."

"It is. It really is, but I like it. I have to do it to get where I want to go."

"Where is that?"

"Here." She said simply. "Well, maybe not HERE specifically, but a coroner's office somewhere, you know. I think I like forensic pathology."

"Good." Coralee had just answered her next two questions, and it took her moment to think up new ones. "Do you have any hobbies or anything?"

Coralee laughed out loud at this. "I had a life, but my med school ate it." Calleigh chuckled a little as well. "No, I uh…I HAD hobbies. Back when I had free time. I used to run a lot. I used to read. And cook. And…hike. And swim. I'm on an intramural soccer team at school."

"You swim competitively?"

"Swam. Past tense." She corrected. "Haven't really done much of that since high school."

"What did you swim?"

"What event?"

"Yeah."

"One hundred meter butterfly. And some relays."

Calleigh was stunned. This tiny little thing swam a stroke that difficult. "Seriously?"

"Yeah. I loved it."

She was going to have to remember to tell Eric this. He would, no doubt, want to talk to Coralee about this.

"What kind of books do you read?"

"Um. History." She said sheepishly. "I love history. And memoirs and biographies. Travelogues. And classics."

This impressed Calleigh, because she hadn't expected these kinds of responses.

"What about you?" Coralee wanted to get to know Calleigh better as well. "Hobbies?"

"I read." She felt a little silly now. "Not history and stuff, but more novels. Not Harlequin, but…popular stuff. I cook, but only occasionally. Actually, I cook a lot more now than I did before." Eric's skill in the kitchen had driven Calleigh back into her cookbooks as well. She was never one to be shown up by a boy, even if she loved him. "I run, but I don't really like it. It's more of a necessary evil. You actually LIKE running?"

"Yeah, I really do." Her face lit up. "It's so relaxing. I can just…clear my head and not think for a while. It's nice."

"Huh." She'd never thought about it that way before. "I'm kind of a gun fiend." She joked. "I, uh, shoot a lot. That's what I do to relax."

"Isn't that kind of like work?" Coralee saw the irony in personal and professional life overlapping so much.

"A little, but I don't mind. I love my job. Usually."

"That's good."

"Yeah." She continued the list. "I like movies, but not the one's Eric likes. He mocks my chick flicks."

Coralee's ears perked up at the mention of Eric. This was a topic of conversation she could use to her advantage. "How long have you two been dating?" This should keep Calleigh talking.

"Um. Since October."

Well, that was a shorter answer than she'd anticipated, so she tried again. "He seems really nice. You two are a really cute couple."

"Thanks." Calleigh was touched by the complement. "He's great. I'm really lucky."

"How long have you known him?"

"Seven years."

"Wow! And you've only been together for a few months?" Coralee wouldn't have waited that long to date a man that caring and gorgeous.

"It was a process." Calleigh wasn't sure she could adequately explain it to herself, let alone another person. "We had to get to the right place. What about you? Boyfriend?"

"No." Coralee was suddenly shy.

"Coralee?" Calleigh did not miss the change of demeanor. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"I was married." She raised her head and looked her sister in the eye. "For a while."

"What happened?"

"We're divorced now."

That wasn't exactly what Calleigh had been fishing for, so she tried again. "Your idea or his?"

"Mine." She nodded. "Definitely mine. We just...we got married too young. I didn't know what I wanted. I was just looking for...something. I don't know. He wasn't it. When I figured that out, I filed for divorce."

"How did he take that?" Calleigh wondered if her absent father had anything to do with Coralee rushing into marriage with an unsavory character.

"Not too well." Coralee admitted. "He…uh…he was very…adamant about not letting that happen."

"What did he do?"

"He, ahh, tried to change my mind."

"By…force?"

"Yeah." She hurriedly continued. "He tried to total my car, called me all the time, showed up at my work. That kind of stuff."

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine."

"No, really." This was a game Calleigh was a pro at. Hell, she'd practically invented the 'I'm fine' game. "Are you okay? Does he still bother you?"

"Sometimes." Coralee admitted, surprised she didn't know all of this already.

Calleigh burned a little with an anger that surprised her. "Have you talked to the police?"

"Yeah. They can't do anything."

Calleigh remained silent for a second, pondering if her next move was smart of not. "Do you…are you able to protect yourself?"

"I'm fine." Coralee assured her.

"That's not what I meant." Calleigh couldn't help herself; her heart went out to…her sister. "I mean, do you have a gun or something. For personal protection. In case he gets into your house?"

"Um, no."

"Do you know how to shoot?"

"No."

"Do you want to learn?" It was a stretch, but this was something Calleigh could do. This she was good at.

"I guess."

"I can teach you." This first conversation had taken an unexpected detour, and Calleigh found that she didn't dislike Coralee as much as she thought she would. She was easy to talk to, and she didn't seem to harbor any malice toward Calleigh. "Do you think he'd hurt you? Is he armed?"

"He has a few pistols and some shotguns for hunting and stuff."

"Do you think he'd ever use them?"

"I really hope not."

"I'll teach you. I have a 9mm you can have. We'll get you your permit so it's all legitimate."

"You'd do that?" The tea was a big enough surprise, and she certainly hadn't expected this kind of generosity.

"Sure."

"Wow." Coralee was touched. "Thanks."

"No problem." She checked her watch. "We should probably get back.

"Yeah, okay." She couldn't believe it. She'd just had a real conversation with her sister. A real, civil conversation.

"We should do this again sometime." Calleigh offered after they got out of the car to go into the lab again.

"I'd like that." She was soaring on air.

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You know what to do!