Kept by ourselves in silence and apart, The secret anniversaries of the heart.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

****

"Calleigh, I wanted to tell you . . . " Horatio broke off at the sight of her blazing eyes. "What's wrong?"

"What's wrong? YOU'RE asking ME what's wrong?!?!?" Calleigh felt like grabbing his shoulders and banging his head against the wall to try to knock some sense into it.

"What are you talking about?" The confusion in his eyes was real, and it made her even madder.

Eric Delko came sailing into the break room, came to a screeching halt halfway to the coffee pot, and looked slowly from one to the other of them. "Uh. . . is everything okay?"

"Fine," Calleigh snapped. "Horatio, could I talk to you in your office for a minute, please?" She had to get him to some more private location; you couldn't kill your boss in the break room with a coworker watching.

"Sure." Ever the gentleman, he paused to let her precede him out the door. She grabbed his arm and half dragged him out of the break room and down the hall. Behind them, Delko stood staring, his cup of coffee forgotten.

Calleigh managed to keep silent until they were in his office with the door safely shut. Then she exploded. "Just who the hell do you think you are, Horatio Caine? Are you trying to kill yourself before you reach 50?"

"Calleigh, what . . ."

"I've checked the records. Every year, you take this week off just so you can fall apart with no one else watching. You have to relive it all alone. 28 years, and you've spent it all alone. Can't you admit, just once, that you can't deal with something? That you need other people?"

She saw the mental pieces click together instantly, but the look in his eyes surprised her. She had expected anger, fear at being found out, or denial. What she saw was even more pain than they had held before and a sort of shocked sense of injustice and betrayal. He said nothing. After a minute she went on.

"Are you too proud to admit you can't deal with something? Is that it?" She knew that was wrong before the words were out of her mouth. Horatio's self-sufficiency had always seemed like a wall, even before she knew what was behind it. And a wall was only there to conceal something. Simple pride would not have required a front. He still said nothing, and Calleigh shifted tacks. "What is it, then? Why shut yourself off from the world?"

He moved then, slowly walking around the corner of his desk and collapsing into the chair. His eyes shifted sideways, resting on the picture of his mother for a minute, as if he were memorizing her face, drinking in her features. My God, thought Calleigh, he doesn't remember what she looked like. He only remembers her face dead. Her anger drained away instantly, replaced by pure pity.

"Look, I wasn't trying to drag out all your secrets to parade them in the open. I was just concerned about you. So I did some checking around today." He still just sat there looking at the picture. "Say something, Horatio. Yell at me if you want, but say something."

He did not yell. His voice was even softer than usual, barely audible. "How did you piece it all together?"

"I was looking at your picture last night, when I first found you asleep." She reached out to pick it up, then stopped at the momentary panic in his eyes and left it where he could see it. "Later, I was wondering what you would have nightmares about, what you could have seen that was so frightening. I thought maybe it had to do with your family, since you had never mentioned them. So today, I asked Alexx . . . "

"You told Alexx about last night?" He was stunned.

"No," she assured him quickly. "No one else knows about last night. I just asked her if she knew about your parents. I didn't tell her why. She's worried about you too, though. She knew something was wrong. Anyway, when she mentioned your mother, I got the date of her death by calling around to cemeteries. When I found out it was yesterday, I knew that was what you were dreaming about, so I pulled the file from the archives." She dropped into the visitor's chair to bring her eyes level with his. "I just wanted to know what you were going through, to share it with you." She shuddered herself, remembering those pictures.

"You always were a good investigator." It was an effort to lighten the mood, but the smile was weak and never reached his eyes. "So you know everything."

"No," she said firmly. "I've only seen a file. I can't imagine going through that in real life." His eyes went back to the picture, and she gave him a moment. "But, Horatio," she said finally, leaning forward a bit, "I'd like to share it. Not for my curiosity but for your sake. I want to be there for you. Why do you never share yourself without limits? Is it because you're afraid of getting hurt? Of being vulnerable?" That was part of the answer - she saw the partial acknowledgement in his eyes - but not the biggest part. "What is it, then?"

His eyes went everywhere else in the room, not meeting hers, but she just sat waiting, letting the question hang there. She was terrified that he would just leave it hovering unanswered forever between them, but the next words had to come from him. Finally, he spoke so softly that she wasn't sure she had heard him correctly. "I'm afraid others will get hurt."

"What?" She leaned forward slightly, trying to meet his eyes, and the intercom on his desk suddenly squawked into life.

"Horatio."

He cleared his throat and replied in his usual voice. "Yes."

"Mr. Davis has arrived, and he's down in the interrogation room."

"Thank you, Deanna. I'll be right down." He looked at his mother's picture for a long moment, then stood up slowly, moving like he was 90 instead of 45. His tiredness and pain went straight to Calleigh's heart. She wanted to touch him, to hug him, lend him some of her strength, yet was terrified that he would pull back.

"Horatio?"

He paused at the door and looked back at her. "What?" No more, the eyes pleaded. Don't ask me anything more.

"What was it you were going to tell me?"

His eyes met hers directly. "I wanted to thank you for helping me get through last night." He turned and left, leaving Calleigh sitting in the visitor's chair. Oh hell, she thought. The admission was a monumental step for him, a step he had been taking on his own, and she had dragged him to the edge of the mountain and thrown him off violently instead. She was suddenly angry again, and this time, all her fury was at herself.

****

Al Humphries and Horatio shared the couch in Al's living room, a mostly empty pizza box in between them. Al had had to practically force him to eat it, but once he started, he was hungry. Come to think of it, he couldn't remember the last time he ate. "Anyway," said Horatio, "I was thinking, what did she do yesterday? It's so strange for her to not let someone in. She would usually let anyone in, so maybe she had seen him earlier that day and knew to expect trouble. Or seen someone else connected to him." He gulped down a drink from the Coke on the coffee table. "So I tried to track down what she did yesterday. She usually works . . . worked in the mornings. She had a part-time job, but her boss said she called in yesterday and asked for the day off. She didn't mention anything about it to me, so she must have decided after Ray and I left for school."

Or just not told you, thought Al, but the boy heard the thought and answered it. "She would have told me. Or I would have known she was keeping something back."

"Did anything odd happen that morning before you left, then? Something that might have changed her mind?" Al pushed the pizza box toward Horatio. "Take that last piece." He could swear that the kid looked thinner than he had just a day ago, as if his frame had fallen in, and he didn't have much to spare. "Don't answer me for a second, just eat it and think about the question." Horatio had been thinking about the question all day and already had his answer, but Al wanted to give him a moment. He wondered again if he was doing the right thing. His superior would have a fit if he knew that Al was sharing the investigation with a 17-year-old kid, particularly a relative of the victim's, but Horatio needed to be doing something. There was such a fierce intensity in him, Al was afraid he would self-destruct without something productive to do. And he was actually helping. Al himself had long since stopped thinking of him as just a kid. Horatio had the sharpest mind and the best observation skills he had run into in a long time.

Horatio finished the last piece of pizza and sat back. "We always talked for half an hour in the mornings, before Ray got up. The only thing unusual from yesterday was that we were both concerned about Ray's new friends."

"What new friends?"

"There's a group at school, not quite a gang really, but they associate with one sometimes. A real gang, I mean, of kids not in school. On the outside. It's that level we were afraid Ray would get to. They're into drugs, I think."

"So she was afraid of your brother's new friends' friends?"

"Right. I don't know how she would have known where to find them, but what if she went looking for the gang, to tell them to stay away from Ray? One of them followed her home, then went back to report to the rest of them, and the leader broke in later to kill her." He gulped down another swallow of Coke.

"Why do you think there was a delay between them following her home and the attack? Why not break in then?"

"She was doing dishes. She'd been home a while."

Al shook his head again in admiration; he'd forgotten the dishes. He leaned forward a bit. "Horatio, do you know the names of these kids?"

"The ones in the gang, no. Wouldn't they have nicknames?" Al nodded, and Horatio went on. "I'd know several of them by sight; they come around school way before class to deal drugs, and I see them on street corners sometimes. The kids still in school, the in-between gang, I know. Those are the ones Ray was starting to hang out with."

"Write down their names, and their parents' names if you know them." Al passed over a pad and a pen. "Tell me something, can you honestly see your mother doing that? Going out to face down a drug-dealing gang alone?"

Horatio hesitated for a long moment, finishing writing the list. "Yes," he said finally. "She had more courage than anyone I know." He gulped down the last of his drink, and Al stood up, taking the glass.

"I'll go get us a refill, okay?" He put a hand on Horatio's shoulder for a minute, then picked up the glasses and went into the kitchen. Horatio heard the phone ring but tuned out the one-sided conversation that followed. Such a normal thing, answering the phone. He wondered if his life would ever get back to normal again. Probably not, he decided, because she would never be there again. He sat staring into space for several minutes, then picked up the empty pizza box. Slowly he folded the cardboard box in half, then folded it again, then again, compacting it down further each time, applying all the pressure he could until he was left with one tight square at the end, then still tried to compress it even further, making it smaller, forcing out all the air, trying to make it into nothing.

But he did not cry.

****

"Horatio?" Calleigh spoke softly, and she stayed in the door of his office. He was at his desk, staring at the hourglass which had been given to him by Belle King. She knew he wasn't asleep, but his eyes were totally unfocused, and she didn't want to startle him back to himself too quickly this time. There had to be a limit to the number of times he could run into his desk without hurting himself. "Horatio."

Finally, his head lifted, and his eyes focused. If she had had any doubts at all that his ordeal hadn't ended with last night, they were dispelled when he met her eyes. She held a cup of coffee in each hand, and she placed one on his desk, saying, "I brought you a peace offering."

He half smiled. "None needed, but I never turn down a cup of coffee."

"I know." She dropped into the chair across from him and took a sip from her own cup. "How did the interview with Mr. Davis go?"

"He said he did have an alibi for all night the night before last, but he refused to tell who it was. Too much of a gentleman, he said." The last word was dripping with sarcasm.

"But you don't believe him." It wasn't a question.

"He's hiding something, Calleigh. And his grief rang hollow to me. He did give a DNA sample, though. Speed's going to compare it to the blood on the victim."

"Might be an easy wrap-up then." He shook his head, then took a few more swallows of coffee.

"Something's not right, though. All of the pieces aren't there yet. I think he's involved, but I'm not sure he did it."

"We'll get it worked out, eventually," she reassured him. "We always do." He finished off his cup of coffee, and Calleigh stood up, taking the empty mug along with her own. "Actually, I came in to say good night. I'm wrapping it up for the day."

"Is it quitting time?" He looked at his own watch and was surprised to find that it read 7:30.

"Long past."

"You get a good night's sleep tonight, Calleigh. At home, in bed."

"I intend to," she assured him. "Don't work too late yourself, you hear?"

"Not much longer." He pulled the file on his desk back over toward him.

"See you tomorrow, then."

"See you tomorrow."

Calleigh left his office and went back to the break room to wash both cups. She knew that Horatio would never let her stay with him tonight. He blamed himself that she had spent last night on the floor. He was far too perceptive to accept a lie, so she had told him the honest truth about her plans. Tonight, she did intend to go home and sleep in her own bed, which is why she had laced the coffee she had given him with a heavy dose of Seconal.

She waited 20 minutes, clearing up the last of the day's clutter from her work area, then slipped back down to his office. She crossed over to him and took his pulse. It was a bit slow, but strong and steady. Reassured that he was safely out for the next several hours, she arranged his arms as comfortably as she could and pillowed his head on them. She caught Rosalind smiling at her from the picture on his desk and smiled back. "Tell me, Rosalind, was he as hard headed when he was a kid?" She smoothed a stray lock of red hair down, then, unable to resist, she bent over and kissed him. "Horatio Caine, you are the finest man I've ever known. And the biggest fool at times." She stood there stroking his hair for a moment, then reluctantly backed away to keep her own promise. At the door of the office, she looked back at him, just watching him breathe for a few minutes. "Good night, Horatio. Sleep well." She switched out the light and left.