Title: Isolation (4/4) (Second story in an ongoing series that began with "Blood Ties.")

Disclaimer: Don't own anything to do with CSI: Miami, and all you'd get if you sued me is a laptop and a couple pairs of really nice shoes. Hardly seems worth it, right?

Rating: PG-13

Pairings: Eric/Maria (OC) slight Tim/Calleigh

Feedback: Your feedback = my inspiration = more frequent updates.



Soundtrack (Music I was listening to while writing this part/lyrics that appear in this part.): "Friends and Family," by Trik Turner.)

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Cause every moment counts from the good times to the bad

I don't have time to envy those that got things I've never had

Cause the one thing most important is the one we take for granted

And until your life is on that line

I think it's the way god had planned it

To open up your eyes and make you realize...

...Cause all I need is the air that I breath

And my friends and family to believe in me

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"So, you're gonna be fine?" Calleigh asked.

"Yeah, just a few stitches." Eric replied. "And I've got to stay here overnight. They had a tube in there to drain out the blood, and they gave me something to take down the swelling and told me to take iteasy for a few days."

"You got lucky, man." Tim said. "I mean, you got hit in the head. Not like you keep anything in there, right?"

"I've been awake for about ten minutes and I'm already being abused. I'm either in hell, or I made it." Eric chuckled. "So, where's Maria? She pissed at me or something?"

Calleigh took a deep breath. She'd known that Eric would ask about Maria sooner or later. But she didn't want to tell him. She had promised him that Maria was going to be all right.

Luckily, Tim cut in. "Uh, listen, Delko, Maria's here, but...she's in the ICU. We don't know exactly how it happened, we think maybe she was fighting back...she got cut. She lost a lot of blood. They did a few transfusions, but she's still unconcious, and they don't know if she suffered any kind of permenant damage."

"Shit." Eric said after a minute. "But...she is gonna live, right?"

"Yeah." Calleigh replied. "The doctors seem to think so. But she was bleeding for a long time. There could be some damage to her internal organs...or even brain damage." An image flashed in her mind of her beautiful, vibrant friend confined to a wheelchair, her lively green eyes dull and glassy, her body hanging limp and useless. Her stomach lurched and she took a deep breath to ward off nausea. For a moment, she thought she would rather see Maria die than see her have to live like that. Then she pushed the thought away, hating herself for even allowing the idea to enter her mind.

"Did you get to see her yet?" Eric asked.

"No, they wouldn't let us in." Tim said. "The nurse said we'd have to wait until she's more stable."

"More waiting." Eric sighed in frustration as he leaned back. "Great."

________________________

"Lieutenant Caine?"

Horatio turned and saw a woman with long auburn hair standing behind him. She was tall, slender, and pretty, with a youthful face. But her brown eyes were tired, and made her look much older than she must have been. "I'm Marcella Stoeger...I was told to come here to pick up my daughter, Janie?"

"Mrs. Stoeger." Horatio shook the woman's outstretched hand. "Actually, Janie is at the hospital right now. There's no need to worry, she wasn't hurt. We just wanted to make sure she wasn't dehydrated, and let her talk to a child pyschologist. You'll be able to pick her up very soon, though."

Marcella's face instantly looked ten years younger, and she let out a sigh of relief. "Good. And...I heard that one of your detectives saved Janie's life? A young woman...I didn't get her name. Is she here? I'd like to meet her, and thank her."

Before Horatio could break the news that Janie's rescuer was in the hospital as well, and hadn't escaped as unscathed as Janie had, his cell phone rang. "I'm sorry, could you excuse me for just a moment?" He took out his cell phone, silently praying for good news. "Caine." After listening to Calleigh for a minute, a smile spread across his face. "All right. We'll be there soon." He turned back to Marcella. "If you'd like, Mrs. Stoeger, I could take you to see your daughter, and the woman who saved her, right now."

_______________________

"You scared the hell out of us, you know that?" Calleigh chided playfully.

"Sorry." Maria managed a weak smile. "Hell, no I'm not. Janie's okay, isn't she?"

"Yeah, she's fine." Eric confirmed, stroking Maria's hand. "She got lucky. And so did we."

"We should leave these two alone." Tim suggested to Calleigh.

"Wait a minute, you guys are ditching us?" Maria complained. "We're going to be stuck here all night."

"There's some paperwork at the lab that we've got to take care of. We'll come back later." Calleigh assured her. "I'll be back after Laura and Jade come over, and the three of us raid your closet."

"Hey, you bitches better keep your hands off my shoes, you hear me?" Maria called to her roommate's retreating form. "Do not touch the shoes!"

"I'll keep an eye on her for you." Tim chuckled as he followed Calleigh.

"Thanks, Tim!" Maria's voice seemed to be getting stronger by the minute. "And try to sneak us some Krispy Kremes or something, okay?" As soon as their colleagues were gone, she turned her head to look at Eric, who was sitting beside her bed in a wheelchair, scanning her face almost obsessively. "Hey." She reached up and placed her hand on his cheek. "I'm okay."

"I know." Eric said, kissing her palm gently. "I just need to keep reminding myself."

"Calleigh told me that you put yourself at risk, trying to stay at the scene." Maria said.

"I wanted to see you walk out of there." Eric explained. "I didn't want to leave without knowing that you were safe."

"Eric..." Maria sighed. "Come here."

Eric leaned in, expecting a kiss. Instead, what he got was a slap in the face. A surprisingly strong slap, considering the weak condition Maria was in. "Ow! What the hell?"

"Don't you ever, ever do anything that pigheaded again, you hear me?" Maria scolded. "Eric, you could have died. I could never have lived with that." Her face softened slightly and she caressed his cheek again. "On the other hand...thank you. For caring that much. Just don't ever feel the need to prove how much you care, at least not like that, ever again."

Eric smiled. "Okay." He leaned in again.

This time, a knock at the door interrupted them. "Detective Santiago? Detective Delko?" A woman leaned into the room. "Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to intrude..."

"No, it's all right." Maria said, trying to sit up, but finding that the bandages and tubes that surrounded her neck and shoulders made it impossible. "You must be Janie's mom."

"That's right. Marcella Stoeger. I just wanted to thank you, and tell you how sorry I am that my brother put both of you through so much. Although...I don't think the man you saw today was really my brother, if you know what I mean."

"I know exactly what you mean." Maria replied. "Your brother kept saying something about how 'they' were after him...does that sound familiar?"

"Yeah." Marcella sighed sadly. "Ever since we were teenagers, he's had problems. Delusions, paranoia. He refuses to get help. But maybe where he's going, he'll finally be safe from 'them.'" She stepped fully into the room. "If I had known that any of this was going to happen, I never would have left. But I was falling apart, I was doing every drug I could get my hands on...I loved Janie too much to let her see her mother like that, and Michael was such a good father...so I took off, went to live with his parents in California...and I've been clean for two years."

"You did what was best for your child, even though it couldn't have been easy to leave her." Eric spoke up. "There was no way you could have known that any of this would happen."

"I know." Marcella smiled, and the two CSIs recognized her face for the first time. She was an older, wiser version of Janie. "I should go see her, she's going to be done talking to the pyschologist soon. And Lieutenant Caine wanted to come in and see you two. I just wanted to tell you how glad I am that you're both all right...and how incredibly grateful I am."

_________________________

"Well, we have a happy ending to yesterday's hostage crisis involving a murder suspect and a Miami-Dade police detective." The reporter on the TV was saying. "Tonight, Maria Santiago and fellow crime scene investigator Eric Delko are out of the hospital and expected to make full recoveries. The little girl they saved was reunited with her mother yesterday evening, and they will be returning to California before the end of the week. Suspect Jared Lightbourne will be arraigned tomorrow morning on a number of charges-"

Maria turned off the TV and sighed as she buried her face against Eric's neck. "We're going to be hearing about this one for a while, aren't we?"

"We can ignore it." He replied, pulling her into his lap and kissing her neck, being careful to avoid the bandages that covered her stitches.

"Hey, knock it off!" The two of them looked up and saw Calleigh standing in the kitchen doorway, pizza boxes in hand. Tim stood behind her with a six pack of beer.

"What?" Maria whined. "The doctors said we had to go easy on ourselves for a few days. Didn't say anything about going easy on each other."

"Technically, she's right." Tim said to Calleigh. "But then again, who really cares about technicalities? Let's go, opposite ends of the couch."

Maria and Eric grumbled as their friends sat between them on the couch.

"This is going to be a very, very long night." Maria sighed, trying not to laugh.

___________________________

As deep as the abyss where the waters run

As deep as the land of the rising sun

You know I'm down

And even when them odds are against us

It doesn't even matter

Nothing else matters

___________________________

Next time:

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"I don't believe that you can just walk away that easily. I know you better than you think. Maybe even better than you wanted me to."

*****

"We've got a guy on the loose who's copying the M.O of the most notorious serial killer in history, and you want to talk about us?"

*****

"I shouldn't be telling you this. But you have a right to know what you're getting into, and Lord knows she's never going to tell you."

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Stay tuned…