Here's chapter 2. See chapter 1 for disclaimers, etc. Warning: On this
chapter in particular, caution is advised for the elderly, the infirm, and
those on heart medication. I do promise you a happy ending. We aren't
there yet.
***
"Be near me when my light is low."
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
***
Calleigh awoke to blackness. Not mere darkness, but blackness so weighty that she was instantly claustrophobic. She had thought she knew what darkness was, but this was an entirely different species. It threatened to crush her with its impersonal magnitude, bearing down on her from all sides, collapsing her body, but one warm point of contact reached through it like a beacon of feeling rather than light. Horatio's hand was locked securely in hers. She knew his hands, as she knew the rest of him, intimately, immediately, with no further proof required. Further proof came, though. "Calleigh. Welcome back."
"Horatio." She squeezed his hand, reassuring herself. "What happened?"
"The gun exploded. The bullet blew up in the chamber."
"Right." She remembered it now. "Horatio, what time is it?" She knew as soon as she spoke that this wasn't night, though. It was as much larger as the sun is than a candle.
"9:30 AM." He brought his other hand up to grip her hand between both of his. "Calleigh, the flash from the explosion damaged your eyes."
She tried to pull her hand free, but he refused to let go. She brought her other one up to feel the bandage over her eyes with metallic eye shields and tape across the top. "Oh my God!" She tried to dig with one finger beneath the edge, to rip off the bandage, and he captured that hand, holding both now.
"It won't help, Cal. I'm sorry." His voice shuddered in sympathy on the words. He had insisted on being the one to tell her himself, rather than the doctor, but the fact that it was right that way didn't make it easier. "They're hoping it's just temporary."
"They're hoping? Just hoping? They're doctors. They should be able to do something."
He brought her two hands together, almost as if she were praying, and wrapped both of his around both of hers to join her in her plea. "The flash burned your eyes. They're quite inflamed at the moment. The doctors want to give it a week or two, shielding them from light and using medicine to try to reduce the inflammation. When the swelling and irritation is down, and the burn has healed some, you might see perfectly well again."
"Why bother shielding them from light? I can't see anything anyway." Her voice was bitter, but she didn't try to pull her hands away from his again. Those metallic eye shields were cold, almost as impersonal as the blackness. His hands were reassuringly warm.
"It just gives them a rest. As the swelling goes down, they might try to start seeing with any stimulation. It's better to give them total rest to let as much healing take place as possible."
"Horatio, be honest with me."
"I am." She remembered a second after saying it whom she was talking to and gave his hands a half-apologetic squeeze. Of course he was being honest with her. "They don't know, Calleigh. They just don't know at this stage."
Her mind grasped desperately for something else to think about, anything to try to hold that hovering blackness at bay. "Phillip. What about Phillip?"
"He's got 2nd degree burns of his hands and arms. He was actually holding the gun. You weren't yet. He'll be okay, but he's got some healing to do. Poor man."
"Does he have anyone with him?" She grasped Horatio's hands more tightly. She couldn't imagine being alone in this, and for Phillip, she realized, it was worse. His condition could not be fully explained to him.
"His brother and his wife are there." A razor edge sliced across his voice, and a thin line of blood welled up in the tone before the wound was quickly concealed.
"What is it?"
"You'd better get some rest, Cal. We can talk later."
"Like hell. Talking is all I can do at the moment. Spill it."
She had sounded more like herself there than at any point so far, and she heard the fond, sad smile in his voice. "You're ruining a lifetime of practice, you know. I can't hide anything anymore."
"I'm not that blind. What's wrong?" Besides the obvious, but he knew what she meant. "Horatio, let me be useful for something."
He instantly gave way. "Last night, when you had left the ER, as I was on the way to your room, I ran into them in the hallway. I asked after Phillip, and they asked after you. Then, Greg Claridge told me about the gun. It was his grandfather's, an old relic, and it had been on a closet shelf for years. He didn't even know Phillip knew where it was, didn't know it was loaded, never maintained it or checked it, never put a lock on that door. Then, he pulled out his checkbook and was going to write me a check to compensate for everything, he said."
Calleigh's breath caught in her throat. "What did you do?"
"I just looked at him for a minute, and he stopped writing. I was afraid to say anything, Cal. I finally told him that I didn't want to talk to him again, that someone else would come to interview him about the case. Then I walked off."
Calleigh could imagine poor Greg Claridge, trying to buy his way out of his own negligence, nailed to the sterile hospital hallway floor by Horatio's laser glare. At least Horatio hadn't belted him right there. Thinking of those impossibly intense blue eyes, she suddenly realized that the last sight of her life might be a gun. How ironic. A few years ago, she would have thought it was appropriate, but now, as much as it would hurt, she wanted her last sight to be Horatio.
His rich voice interrupted her thoughts. "I wanted to hit him, Cal."
"It wouldn't undo anything."
"I know. But I wanted to." He smiled suddenly, and she heard it in his voice. "You know what stopped me?"
"What?"
"If I got hauled down to the station for assault, you would have woken up here alone. It's all that kept me from giving him a personal boost clear into the ER."
She smiled back at him. "I'm glad you were here. But now that I'm awake, don't go finish up with him."
"I won't. Like I said, I'll let the others deal with him."
"Maybe he'll learn something. He does care about Phillip."
His voice was still angry. "Yes, he does. But it could have been prevented so easily, Cal." He pulled one hand free and picked up something, and in the next moment, she felt a straw pressed into the corner of her mouth. "It's water."
She appreciated the notice, not to be left wondering what taste would reach her. She took several swallows gratefully. "Thanks. You said it's 9:30?"
"About 10:00, now."
The accident had happened about 4:00 Saturday afternoon. "Have you been here all night?"
"Wouldn't be anywhere else." He set the glass back down and brought his hand back up to her face, stroking her hair softly, his other hand still in hers. "Cal, there's one more thing."
"What?" Her throat tightened in anticipation of knowledge of more injuries. Yet there was no pain.
"You're pregnant."
The weight of that knowledge was even larger than the blackness but didn't make her claustrophobic. A new life. Horatio's child, inside her. "How pregnant?"
"About five weeks. You haven't been feeling sick in the mornings, have you?"
"No. In fact, I've felt great. Let's see, that would be. . . "
"February."
"February. Seems so long to wait."
"I'm sure it will seem even longer in a few months." She smiled at him, but the smile abruptly froze and shattered, like ice hit with a hammer.
"Horatio, what if I can't see? What if I never see our child?"
"You will," he insisted.
"But you said they didn't know, that they were just hoping it would come back."
"Cal, trust me on this. You will see our child with a mother's eyes, whether you can see her physically or not. It won't keep her from appreciating you, or you from appreciating her. "
She fell silent for a minute, absorbing his words, finally arriving at the last word when she had soaked up the full beauty of the others. "Her? It could be a boy, you know."
"Somehow, I don't think so. It's not that I wouldn't want a boy. I just think it's a girl."
"And what evidence are you basing that on, Lieutenant?"
"Pure instinct. The evidence will be forthcoming, though."
"If it is, we'll name her Rosalind."
"Unless you'd rather name her something else."
"I can't think of anything better. It's a lovely name." They sat there in silence and darkness for a minute, still holding hands. Though she couldn't see it, Horatio actually had his eyes closed, trying to imagine it, trying to share what she must be feeling. He couldn't do it. Light leaked in, even through closed lids, and he found himself resenting his own sight. "Horatio."
He opened his eyes. "What is it, Cal?"
"I'm hungry." And they both laughed together, and the laughter drove back the blackness a few scant feet.
***
Speed rolled up to Breeze's apartment building and dismounted from the bike. The elevator was waiting politely at the ground floor, ready for use, but he took the stairs up eight flights, wanting to punish himself somehow. Just a stupid accident, he reminded himself. Claridge caused it, not you. Right, but he was responsible for Calleigh and Horatio working that case. It had been the weekend. Speed could have, should have called the weekend shift on duty. He had called Horatio instead because, selfishly, he wanted the first string team on this one. Breeze had been rattled by finding the body. She was so unflappable usually, and Speed had suddenly seen an opportunity to impress her. Faced with the one area where he was absolutely sure of himself, where he could be the one taking the lead, not her, he had wanted to process that scene himself, while she looked on and admired his technique. So he had called Horatio, and Calleigh had been questioning witnesses on Saturday afternoon instead of lazily enjoying a well-deserved day off. Calleigh had always been like a sister to him. The thought of possibly not having her working around CSI ever again was too much to bear.
He trudged up another flight of stairs and abruptly realized that he was at the tenth floor. Retreating two levels, he entered the hallway and knocked on her door.
"S'open." The slightly muffled call still reached him. He opened the door and entered.
"I could be a burglar, you know."
"Nothing worth stealing," she mumbled. She was standing on top of a chair in front of her window, hanging curtain rods. He realized that her words were muffled because she had a mouth full of nails. She pulled out another one as he watched and starting pounding it in.
"What are you doing?"
"Hanging curtain rods. My mother's visiting next week, and she said she bet I wouldn't even have curtains in my apartment after living here almost three months. She's wrong." She removed the final nail from between her teeth, hammered it into place in the curtain rod holder, and jumped nimbly down to the floor, only to realize that he was staring at her with his mouth gaping like a fish. "What's the matter?"
"You had nails in your mouth."
"Cause I don't have three hands. Come on, Speed, I'm sure you've seen people do that before. Bet you do it yourself."
"Our vic's hobby was woodworking. Alexx thinks he was killed when some sharp object dipped in poison was put in his mouth. I bet he put nails in his mouth while he was working."
She stared at him. "You think somebody poisoned his nails?"
"It'd be a great way to kill someone. You wouldn't have to be there, so they wouldn't suspect anything. And nails taste weird anyway, so he probably wouldn't notice anything slightly different if he was focused on his project. I'm meeting Eric today to process his workshop. We'll have to be sure to check the nails." He offered her the take out sack he was carrying. "Peace offering for last night." He had cancelled their planned date and spent the whole evening at the lab processing evidence, with one quick trip by the hospital.
"Thanks. How's Calleigh?"
"H called a little while ago and said she was awake. I'll go see her tonight. Give her a little time to deal with the idea first with just him there. About the long term, they don't know. It could be temporary, or it could be forever." The word sounded like a judge's sentence.
"Did you find out anything last night?"
"Whoever handled him was wearing red fingernail polish, so it's probably a woman. She scratched it on his watch getting him out of the car. We can match the brand of polish. The poison is a weird one, but he worked at a cosmetics manufacturing company himself, and that's where you'd find it. We'll have to check his work associates. And the car had a slight transmission leak and a new tire on the right front. We can match that, when we get a car to compare it to."
She was looking at him like he was Sherlock Holmes. 24 hours ago, he would have relished it. "You're really good at this, Tim."
"I've gotta go," he said quickly. "I'm meeting Eric at the workshop."
"Okay. Let me know how Calleigh is when you see her." She kissed him, then opened the sack. "And thanks for lunch. You can be really sweet sometimes."
"Yeah. See you, Breeze." He could also be really stupid.
***
Calleigh woke up from a dream that her child was crying and she couldn't find her. The blackness immediately crowded in, the reality darker even than the dream, and she lay there trying not to move. Horatio was still holding her hand, but she could tell from the slight slackness in his fingers and from his steady breathing that he was asleep, and she didn't want to wake him. After he had fed her lunch, he had encouraged her to get some rest. She had finally agreed, realizing suddenly that he had been up himself for well over 24 hours. Maybe, now that her original wakening was over with, he would fall asleep himself once she did.
The blackness pressed in. She forced herself to lie still, not to tighten up her grip on Horatio's hand, knowing he would wake up instantly. The most frightening thing about this was how impersonal it was. This blackness wasn't trying to defeat her. It just didn't notice her, was so much larger that it would crush her without a thought, like a person stepping on an ant and never being aware of it. All her life, she had fought against being helpless. All lack of control in her life had been associated with pain. She would fight anything, refuse to yield, hating to go down for the count. She could even get stubborn about ridiculously minor points. Slaying lizards, Horatio called it. "Calleigh, slaying dragons is a noble occupation, but you don't need to waste time and energy slaying lizards." She could not fight this blackness, though. If she screamed and raged and threw things at it, it simply would not notice and would still press in, oblivious to her presence, much less her resistance. Nothing she could do would help. Horatio had even had to feed her, like a baby.
She tried to focus on her other senses. The smell of the hospital was too much like that blackness. Sterile, impersonal, shutting her out. The sounds were those of people going about their work. Nurses' shoes clicked down the hall with efficient, businesslike strides, never faltering because they could see the path. Doctors walked with utter assurance, helping the other patients where they hadn't been able to help her. Occasionally a page sounded over the speakers. The air conditioning system whirred softly. She focused on Horatio's breathing, the only familiar sound near her. Steady, even, reassuring her that life went on, even through the blackness. The feel of his hand was familiar, too. The sheets of the hospital bed, however, were all wrong, too crisp, too cool, too impersonally sterile. Like that blackness. She suddenly wanted to scream, to hit some eject button and launch herself out of this hospital bed into some environment that she knew, even if she couldn't see it.
Her fingers tightened before she could stop them, and Horatio woke up instantly, returning the grip. "You okay, Cal?"
"Horatio, is there anything else wrong with me? Besides the eyes?"
"A few minor burns, and you were knocked out, but not really. Everything else is inconsequential."
"Then, please, can we get out of here? Can we go home? I need to be someplace familiar."
She could hear the sympathy in his voice. "I'll ask the doctors."
"Please, Horatio. I've got to get out of here."
He stroked her hand soothingly. "Okay. We'll go home, then."
Familiar footsteps echoed down the hall suddenly. Calleigh couldn't place whose they were, but she did realize that they were familiar. "It's Alexx," Horatio supplied, sotto voce, as the footsteps turned into the room.
"Calleigh, welcome back to the land of the living." Alexx came around the other side of the bed, wafting a smell of Chinese food along with her. She put a warm hand on Calleigh's arm, squeezing it.
"Thanks, Alexx. Did you bring something to eat? I just ate lunch already a little while ago."
"This isn't for you. I assumed they had fed you. It's for Horatio." The sack crinkled as she handed it across, and Calleigh felt the trail of its warmth momentarily as it crossed the bed. "I was working it out, and I'll bet you haven't eaten since lunch yesterday."
"You're wrong," said Horatio smoothly. Calleigh could almost feel Alexx's dubious maternal glare.
"When did you eat, then?"
"I forgot to eat lunch yesterday. We were working the case, and Adele and I never got around to it."
Calleigh pulled her hand firmly out of his to free it up. "Eat. You should have said something, Horatio. Sitting here all that time feeding me." All they had had for breakfast yesterday was a bagel grabbed as they bolted out the door.
"You hadn't eaten since yesterday either." The sack rustled, and she heard the food containers being opened. Alexx kept her own hand on Calleigh's arm, as if she realized how important that one point of living contact through the blackness was.
"How are you doing, Calleigh?" The voice matched her so well, Calleigh thought. Absolutely oozing compassion. You knew who Alexx was immediately, just hearing her.
"I'm hanging in there. Not like I have much choice." She heard Horatio shift and stopped him before he could put something down to grab her hand again. "Keep eating, Horatio."
"You're ganging up on me," he protested, but she heard the scrape of the fork against the side of the plastic container as he fished up another bite.
"You'd better believe it," said Alexx. "Somebody's got to look after you. You never do it yourself."
"That's not true," he said. "Just yesterday morning, Cal and I both decided to sleep in because we were so tired after last week."
"And did you?"
"No, we went out on this case. Okay, bad example."
"Shut up and eat," said Calleigh. "Alexx, tell me honestly, what do I look like?"
"Like a female version of the Lone Ranger, with a white mask across your eyes."
"These metal shields aren't too weird? I feel like a bug. Or like C3PO."
"No, they have white tape across the top of them. Looks just like bandages, not like a robot. It doesn't look as bad as it feels."
"Thanks," Calleigh said, relieved. "I asked him, but he just said I still looked beautiful."
"You do," Horatio put in.
"Keep eating," sang out Alexx and Calleigh in chorus.
"What's going on with the case?"
Alexx brought Calleigh up to date, with an occasional aside to Horatio ("All of it. You're not done yet"). As she finished, Horatio set the containers aside and stood up, giving Calleigh's arm a reassuring squeeze.
"I'm going to go talk to the doctors, Cal. Alexx will be here."
"Go on," she said. "I'll be a lot better once we get home." He left the room, and she realized with a momentary surge of pleasure that she knew his footsteps. Even in the blackness, she would recognize them. As soon as he was safely down the hall, she said, "Alexx, how is he holding up?"
"He looks half dead on his feet. I don't imagine he got any sleep last night."
"He was sitting here with me." She shivered. "I would have hated to wake up without him here, though."
"I tried to talk him into shifts, but he wouldn't do it."
Selfishly, Calleigh was glad he wouldn't do it. "We're going home now. Once we get there, I'll make sure we go to bed early. I'll tell him I'm exhausted and just want to sleep in my own bed."
"Are you sure you feel up to going home?"
"I feel fine, just frustrated. But I'll go crazy here in the hospital. I've got to get someplace that's familiar." Alexx squeezed her hand. "Alexx, what do you think the chances are of me seeing again?"
There was a long pause. "I'd hate to make a guess, honey. There are too many variables. They don't know how bad the damage is yet, and they won't for a little while. It's impossible to say right now. Either way is a realistic possibility."
Calleigh relented. If Alexx could honestly give her a percentage, she would have. She switched subjects. "Horatio's convinced we're going to have a girl."
"Have you talked about names?"
"If it is a girl, we'll name her Rosalind, after his mother." Calleigh felt Alexx's hand twitch sharply in hers suddenly. "What's wrong?"
Alexx hesitated for a minute, then said, "I found his mother's case file recently. I saw those pictures." She left Speed and Eric out of it for the moment.
"Don't ever mention that to him, Alexx."
"I don't intend to. How is he doing, though? What a thing to happen to a 17-year-old kid!"
It was Calleigh's turn to hesitate. "He's dealing with it. I doubt he'll ever totally get over it, but we're making progress. He still dreams about it sometimes, but it's getting less often." All except for the first week of April, but she wasn't about to open that can of worms, especially not with Horatio's feet approaching down the hall again, even though she suddenly suspected that Alexx knew more than she was telling. She changed the subject again. "February seems so long to wait." She suddenly felt an overwhelming surge of gratitude toward Alexx, letting her have a normal, friend-to-friend conversation instead of treating her like everything had changed.
"It will be worth it, though," said Alexx. "To hold your own baby. One of life's top moments, Calleigh."
Horatio re-entered the room. "Okay, we can go. Will you give us a ride, Alexx?"
"Gladly."
"Did the doctors put up much of a fight?" Calleigh wondered.
"Not too bad. Only lizards, not dragons." Calleigh burst out laughing, and Alexx smiled at Horatio. He understood how much laughter helped. Alexx only hoped they could keep laughing. Calleigh had a long, hard road ahead of her, and going home wouldn't change that.
***
Eric pulled open the workshop cabinet and whistled softly. Nails of all sorts and sizes were there. "Look at this, Speed. How could anyone know which ones he would use that night?"
"Maybe they didn't. Just figured he would get down to the poisoned ones sooner or later."
"Then they'd have to keep checking by to see if the body needed to be dumped. That's getting too risky. You realize that the nails we want are probably the ones that aren't here. The killer would have taken them. Unless they're all poisoned." He started collecting samples to check.
"Maybe we're going about this wrong," said Speed. "If he had nails in his mouth when the convulsions started, he would have fallen, and they would have rolled. Maybe the killer missed one cleaning up." He knelt and started peering under tables and tool boxes. Eric's cell phone rang. By the time he had finished the conversation, Speed was halfway down the room. "Who was that?"
"Alexx." Eric started working around the room the other way. "She took H and Calleigh home."
Speed straightened up abruptly under a table and banged his head. "Damn. Should she be going home yet?"
"Alexx said she wanted to be some place familiar." Eric shook his head. "Can you imagine that, not seeing anything?"
Speed had been trying to most of the day. "No."
"Anyway, Alexx wanted us to not go over there tonight. She said they both needed some rest." He gave a soft sound of victory suddenly and scrambled underneath a sawhorse, picking up a nail. "Got it, Speed."
"Could be a random nail."
"It's got blood on it." Speed came to join him, studying the nail. "I bet this is the one that cut him."
"Must be." Speed looked around the shop, judging distances. "So I process 25 feet on my hands and knees while you're on the phone, and then you process 5 feet and find the murder weapon."
Eric flashed a grin. "What can I say? I'm talented." He put the nail into an evidence envelope and returned to the nail cabinet. "Now, then, we see if the box that nail came from is here." He double checked size and length. "Nope. Every other size nail in the world, but no box of those. That's got to be it. And the killer took the box. She just missed this one."
"One's all it takes to nail her," said Speed.
"You've been rehearsing that line since we started here," Eric accused.
Speed scowled at him and went over to the door, looking out. The driveway branched, part going to the house, part to the shop.
"Slight transmission leak. We can put the same car here that was at the ditch." He glanced at the house. "That can't be 40 feet. You'd think a car pulling in at night would be noticed."
Eric joined him in the doorway. "From what H said, she wouldn't notice the Marines marching up the driveway. She didn't even notice her husband was missing. And women say we don't notice things."
Speed shook his head. "You can never figure out women."
"Takes a higher tech lab than we've got," Eric agreed. "Let's get back to CSI with this nail. Since we can't see Calleigh tonight, we might as well work. Or do you have a date?"
"No," said Speed. "Let's go." They relocked the shop and headed for their Hummer.
***
Calleigh and Horatio sat at their kitchen table, eating the soup that Alexx had heated up before she left. Calleigh felt a little better. The sounds and smells here, the feel of the chair, were familiar. And she was at least feeding herself this time. Even as she thought it, she reached for her glass, misjudged where she had left it, and knocked it over.
"It's okay." Horatio jumped up, returning with paper towels to mop up the spill. "I've got it."
Calleigh dropped her spoon into her bowl, suddenly losing all appetite. "Is this what it's going to be like?"
"No." The conviction in his voice was rock solid. "You'll adapt to it if you have to. And you may not have to."
The future suddenly loomed too large to be faced at the moment. "Horatio, could we just go to bed? I feel like I've dealt with as much as I can today." And he was exhausted himself, she knew, even though he wouldn't admit it.
"More than anyone should have to deal with in one day." He pulled her up and kissed her forehead gently, over the bandage. "It will be all right, Cal," he promised her. They headed down the hall, her hand locked in the crook of his elbow. He sat her down on her side of the bed, and she started to undress. At least she could do that still, and she was grateful to him for not doing it for her. When she was done, she climbed into bed, settling between her own familiar sheets. She suddenly was exhausted herself, even though she had suggested this for his sake. She hated losing the physical contact, but she could hear him moving around, getting ready for bed himself, and soon he climbed in beside her. She snuggled against him, relieved that they were no longer separated by hospital bed rails. The warmth of him reached through the blackness and thawed her fear a bit.
She backed off suddenly and reached up, letting her hands travel across his face. He held perfectly still, realizing what she was doing. There was nothing sexual in it, just reassurance that she knew him, that in the darkness she wouldn't lose sight of what he looked like. Her hands explored carefully, tenderly, with an infinite care for detail that she had never bothered to utilize touching him before. The firm chin, the sensitive lips. She reached his nose. Some people had a chin of character, as he did himself, but he also had a nose of character, she thought. Straightforward, unyielding, honest. She ran her fingertips over his beautiful eyes, gently pressing on the closed lids, feeling each of the lashes. She could also feel the tiny lines at the corners of his eyes, like the ones at the corners of his mouth. Battle scars from his war with the deceit in the world. She rubbed his temples gently, feeling the tension in them. He really was exhausted. She felt the 4-inch scar down the very right edge of his face, like a brand signifying compassion and selflessness. It wasn't as noticeable in appearance after a year, but she still loved that scar. Thinking about it, she let her hands travel further back, through the silky red hair, finding the other scar on the right side, just behind the first one, hidden by his hair but obvious to feel, where the doctors had removed a piece of his skull after the bridge collapse to repair the damage and then reset it with bone clips. Her hand paused there, then explored farther, feeling out the shape of his noble head, the thick silkiness of his hair. Finally, her two hands met behind his head and locked, and she pulled it over against hers. Yes, she knew him. Every inch of him. And she might never see him again.
It was this thought, larger than all other thoughts of the day, that suddenly broke her down. And it was then that she discovered for the first time that she couldn't cry. Her eyes had medicated ointment in them which the doctors had added to twice already that day, and Horatio would have to do it again in the morning. It was spread thickly across her eyes, making them feel like they were coated with a half-inch thick layer of jelly, and either that or the inflammation and damage prevented the flow of tears. Her shoulders quivered, but the tears would not spill over. The blackness dammed them up effortlessly, impersonally. "I can't even cry, Horatio," she whispered, and the tears reached her voice at least, even if they could not find their way out. He wound his arms around her tightly, crushing her gently to him, and she felt the sudden dampness against her forehead over the bandage and knew that he was crying for her.
***
"Be near me when my light is low."
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
***
Calleigh awoke to blackness. Not mere darkness, but blackness so weighty that she was instantly claustrophobic. She had thought she knew what darkness was, but this was an entirely different species. It threatened to crush her with its impersonal magnitude, bearing down on her from all sides, collapsing her body, but one warm point of contact reached through it like a beacon of feeling rather than light. Horatio's hand was locked securely in hers. She knew his hands, as she knew the rest of him, intimately, immediately, with no further proof required. Further proof came, though. "Calleigh. Welcome back."
"Horatio." She squeezed his hand, reassuring herself. "What happened?"
"The gun exploded. The bullet blew up in the chamber."
"Right." She remembered it now. "Horatio, what time is it?" She knew as soon as she spoke that this wasn't night, though. It was as much larger as the sun is than a candle.
"9:30 AM." He brought his other hand up to grip her hand between both of his. "Calleigh, the flash from the explosion damaged your eyes."
She tried to pull her hand free, but he refused to let go. She brought her other one up to feel the bandage over her eyes with metallic eye shields and tape across the top. "Oh my God!" She tried to dig with one finger beneath the edge, to rip off the bandage, and he captured that hand, holding both now.
"It won't help, Cal. I'm sorry." His voice shuddered in sympathy on the words. He had insisted on being the one to tell her himself, rather than the doctor, but the fact that it was right that way didn't make it easier. "They're hoping it's just temporary."
"They're hoping? Just hoping? They're doctors. They should be able to do something."
He brought her two hands together, almost as if she were praying, and wrapped both of his around both of hers to join her in her plea. "The flash burned your eyes. They're quite inflamed at the moment. The doctors want to give it a week or two, shielding them from light and using medicine to try to reduce the inflammation. When the swelling and irritation is down, and the burn has healed some, you might see perfectly well again."
"Why bother shielding them from light? I can't see anything anyway." Her voice was bitter, but she didn't try to pull her hands away from his again. Those metallic eye shields were cold, almost as impersonal as the blackness. His hands were reassuringly warm.
"It just gives them a rest. As the swelling goes down, they might try to start seeing with any stimulation. It's better to give them total rest to let as much healing take place as possible."
"Horatio, be honest with me."
"I am." She remembered a second after saying it whom she was talking to and gave his hands a half-apologetic squeeze. Of course he was being honest with her. "They don't know, Calleigh. They just don't know at this stage."
Her mind grasped desperately for something else to think about, anything to try to hold that hovering blackness at bay. "Phillip. What about Phillip?"
"He's got 2nd degree burns of his hands and arms. He was actually holding the gun. You weren't yet. He'll be okay, but he's got some healing to do. Poor man."
"Does he have anyone with him?" She grasped Horatio's hands more tightly. She couldn't imagine being alone in this, and for Phillip, she realized, it was worse. His condition could not be fully explained to him.
"His brother and his wife are there." A razor edge sliced across his voice, and a thin line of blood welled up in the tone before the wound was quickly concealed.
"What is it?"
"You'd better get some rest, Cal. We can talk later."
"Like hell. Talking is all I can do at the moment. Spill it."
She had sounded more like herself there than at any point so far, and she heard the fond, sad smile in his voice. "You're ruining a lifetime of practice, you know. I can't hide anything anymore."
"I'm not that blind. What's wrong?" Besides the obvious, but he knew what she meant. "Horatio, let me be useful for something."
He instantly gave way. "Last night, when you had left the ER, as I was on the way to your room, I ran into them in the hallway. I asked after Phillip, and they asked after you. Then, Greg Claridge told me about the gun. It was his grandfather's, an old relic, and it had been on a closet shelf for years. He didn't even know Phillip knew where it was, didn't know it was loaded, never maintained it or checked it, never put a lock on that door. Then, he pulled out his checkbook and was going to write me a check to compensate for everything, he said."
Calleigh's breath caught in her throat. "What did you do?"
"I just looked at him for a minute, and he stopped writing. I was afraid to say anything, Cal. I finally told him that I didn't want to talk to him again, that someone else would come to interview him about the case. Then I walked off."
Calleigh could imagine poor Greg Claridge, trying to buy his way out of his own negligence, nailed to the sterile hospital hallway floor by Horatio's laser glare. At least Horatio hadn't belted him right there. Thinking of those impossibly intense blue eyes, she suddenly realized that the last sight of her life might be a gun. How ironic. A few years ago, she would have thought it was appropriate, but now, as much as it would hurt, she wanted her last sight to be Horatio.
His rich voice interrupted her thoughts. "I wanted to hit him, Cal."
"It wouldn't undo anything."
"I know. But I wanted to." He smiled suddenly, and she heard it in his voice. "You know what stopped me?"
"What?"
"If I got hauled down to the station for assault, you would have woken up here alone. It's all that kept me from giving him a personal boost clear into the ER."
She smiled back at him. "I'm glad you were here. But now that I'm awake, don't go finish up with him."
"I won't. Like I said, I'll let the others deal with him."
"Maybe he'll learn something. He does care about Phillip."
His voice was still angry. "Yes, he does. But it could have been prevented so easily, Cal." He pulled one hand free and picked up something, and in the next moment, she felt a straw pressed into the corner of her mouth. "It's water."
She appreciated the notice, not to be left wondering what taste would reach her. She took several swallows gratefully. "Thanks. You said it's 9:30?"
"About 10:00, now."
The accident had happened about 4:00 Saturday afternoon. "Have you been here all night?"
"Wouldn't be anywhere else." He set the glass back down and brought his hand back up to her face, stroking her hair softly, his other hand still in hers. "Cal, there's one more thing."
"What?" Her throat tightened in anticipation of knowledge of more injuries. Yet there was no pain.
"You're pregnant."
The weight of that knowledge was even larger than the blackness but didn't make her claustrophobic. A new life. Horatio's child, inside her. "How pregnant?"
"About five weeks. You haven't been feeling sick in the mornings, have you?"
"No. In fact, I've felt great. Let's see, that would be. . . "
"February."
"February. Seems so long to wait."
"I'm sure it will seem even longer in a few months." She smiled at him, but the smile abruptly froze and shattered, like ice hit with a hammer.
"Horatio, what if I can't see? What if I never see our child?"
"You will," he insisted.
"But you said they didn't know, that they were just hoping it would come back."
"Cal, trust me on this. You will see our child with a mother's eyes, whether you can see her physically or not. It won't keep her from appreciating you, or you from appreciating her. "
She fell silent for a minute, absorbing his words, finally arriving at the last word when she had soaked up the full beauty of the others. "Her? It could be a boy, you know."
"Somehow, I don't think so. It's not that I wouldn't want a boy. I just think it's a girl."
"And what evidence are you basing that on, Lieutenant?"
"Pure instinct. The evidence will be forthcoming, though."
"If it is, we'll name her Rosalind."
"Unless you'd rather name her something else."
"I can't think of anything better. It's a lovely name." They sat there in silence and darkness for a minute, still holding hands. Though she couldn't see it, Horatio actually had his eyes closed, trying to imagine it, trying to share what she must be feeling. He couldn't do it. Light leaked in, even through closed lids, and he found himself resenting his own sight. "Horatio."
He opened his eyes. "What is it, Cal?"
"I'm hungry." And they both laughed together, and the laughter drove back the blackness a few scant feet.
***
Speed rolled up to Breeze's apartment building and dismounted from the bike. The elevator was waiting politely at the ground floor, ready for use, but he took the stairs up eight flights, wanting to punish himself somehow. Just a stupid accident, he reminded himself. Claridge caused it, not you. Right, but he was responsible for Calleigh and Horatio working that case. It had been the weekend. Speed could have, should have called the weekend shift on duty. He had called Horatio instead because, selfishly, he wanted the first string team on this one. Breeze had been rattled by finding the body. She was so unflappable usually, and Speed had suddenly seen an opportunity to impress her. Faced with the one area where he was absolutely sure of himself, where he could be the one taking the lead, not her, he had wanted to process that scene himself, while she looked on and admired his technique. So he had called Horatio, and Calleigh had been questioning witnesses on Saturday afternoon instead of lazily enjoying a well-deserved day off. Calleigh had always been like a sister to him. The thought of possibly not having her working around CSI ever again was too much to bear.
He trudged up another flight of stairs and abruptly realized that he was at the tenth floor. Retreating two levels, he entered the hallway and knocked on her door.
"S'open." The slightly muffled call still reached him. He opened the door and entered.
"I could be a burglar, you know."
"Nothing worth stealing," she mumbled. She was standing on top of a chair in front of her window, hanging curtain rods. He realized that her words were muffled because she had a mouth full of nails. She pulled out another one as he watched and starting pounding it in.
"What are you doing?"
"Hanging curtain rods. My mother's visiting next week, and she said she bet I wouldn't even have curtains in my apartment after living here almost three months. She's wrong." She removed the final nail from between her teeth, hammered it into place in the curtain rod holder, and jumped nimbly down to the floor, only to realize that he was staring at her with his mouth gaping like a fish. "What's the matter?"
"You had nails in your mouth."
"Cause I don't have three hands. Come on, Speed, I'm sure you've seen people do that before. Bet you do it yourself."
"Our vic's hobby was woodworking. Alexx thinks he was killed when some sharp object dipped in poison was put in his mouth. I bet he put nails in his mouth while he was working."
She stared at him. "You think somebody poisoned his nails?"
"It'd be a great way to kill someone. You wouldn't have to be there, so they wouldn't suspect anything. And nails taste weird anyway, so he probably wouldn't notice anything slightly different if he was focused on his project. I'm meeting Eric today to process his workshop. We'll have to be sure to check the nails." He offered her the take out sack he was carrying. "Peace offering for last night." He had cancelled their planned date and spent the whole evening at the lab processing evidence, with one quick trip by the hospital.
"Thanks. How's Calleigh?"
"H called a little while ago and said she was awake. I'll go see her tonight. Give her a little time to deal with the idea first with just him there. About the long term, they don't know. It could be temporary, or it could be forever." The word sounded like a judge's sentence.
"Did you find out anything last night?"
"Whoever handled him was wearing red fingernail polish, so it's probably a woman. She scratched it on his watch getting him out of the car. We can match the brand of polish. The poison is a weird one, but he worked at a cosmetics manufacturing company himself, and that's where you'd find it. We'll have to check his work associates. And the car had a slight transmission leak and a new tire on the right front. We can match that, when we get a car to compare it to."
She was looking at him like he was Sherlock Holmes. 24 hours ago, he would have relished it. "You're really good at this, Tim."
"I've gotta go," he said quickly. "I'm meeting Eric at the workshop."
"Okay. Let me know how Calleigh is when you see her." She kissed him, then opened the sack. "And thanks for lunch. You can be really sweet sometimes."
"Yeah. See you, Breeze." He could also be really stupid.
***
Calleigh woke up from a dream that her child was crying and she couldn't find her. The blackness immediately crowded in, the reality darker even than the dream, and she lay there trying not to move. Horatio was still holding her hand, but she could tell from the slight slackness in his fingers and from his steady breathing that he was asleep, and she didn't want to wake him. After he had fed her lunch, he had encouraged her to get some rest. She had finally agreed, realizing suddenly that he had been up himself for well over 24 hours. Maybe, now that her original wakening was over with, he would fall asleep himself once she did.
The blackness pressed in. She forced herself to lie still, not to tighten up her grip on Horatio's hand, knowing he would wake up instantly. The most frightening thing about this was how impersonal it was. This blackness wasn't trying to defeat her. It just didn't notice her, was so much larger that it would crush her without a thought, like a person stepping on an ant and never being aware of it. All her life, she had fought against being helpless. All lack of control in her life had been associated with pain. She would fight anything, refuse to yield, hating to go down for the count. She could even get stubborn about ridiculously minor points. Slaying lizards, Horatio called it. "Calleigh, slaying dragons is a noble occupation, but you don't need to waste time and energy slaying lizards." She could not fight this blackness, though. If she screamed and raged and threw things at it, it simply would not notice and would still press in, oblivious to her presence, much less her resistance. Nothing she could do would help. Horatio had even had to feed her, like a baby.
She tried to focus on her other senses. The smell of the hospital was too much like that blackness. Sterile, impersonal, shutting her out. The sounds were those of people going about their work. Nurses' shoes clicked down the hall with efficient, businesslike strides, never faltering because they could see the path. Doctors walked with utter assurance, helping the other patients where they hadn't been able to help her. Occasionally a page sounded over the speakers. The air conditioning system whirred softly. She focused on Horatio's breathing, the only familiar sound near her. Steady, even, reassuring her that life went on, even through the blackness. The feel of his hand was familiar, too. The sheets of the hospital bed, however, were all wrong, too crisp, too cool, too impersonally sterile. Like that blackness. She suddenly wanted to scream, to hit some eject button and launch herself out of this hospital bed into some environment that she knew, even if she couldn't see it.
Her fingers tightened before she could stop them, and Horatio woke up instantly, returning the grip. "You okay, Cal?"
"Horatio, is there anything else wrong with me? Besides the eyes?"
"A few minor burns, and you were knocked out, but not really. Everything else is inconsequential."
"Then, please, can we get out of here? Can we go home? I need to be someplace familiar."
She could hear the sympathy in his voice. "I'll ask the doctors."
"Please, Horatio. I've got to get out of here."
He stroked her hand soothingly. "Okay. We'll go home, then."
Familiar footsteps echoed down the hall suddenly. Calleigh couldn't place whose they were, but she did realize that they were familiar. "It's Alexx," Horatio supplied, sotto voce, as the footsteps turned into the room.
"Calleigh, welcome back to the land of the living." Alexx came around the other side of the bed, wafting a smell of Chinese food along with her. She put a warm hand on Calleigh's arm, squeezing it.
"Thanks, Alexx. Did you bring something to eat? I just ate lunch already a little while ago."
"This isn't for you. I assumed they had fed you. It's for Horatio." The sack crinkled as she handed it across, and Calleigh felt the trail of its warmth momentarily as it crossed the bed. "I was working it out, and I'll bet you haven't eaten since lunch yesterday."
"You're wrong," said Horatio smoothly. Calleigh could almost feel Alexx's dubious maternal glare.
"When did you eat, then?"
"I forgot to eat lunch yesterday. We were working the case, and Adele and I never got around to it."
Calleigh pulled her hand firmly out of his to free it up. "Eat. You should have said something, Horatio. Sitting here all that time feeding me." All they had had for breakfast yesterday was a bagel grabbed as they bolted out the door.
"You hadn't eaten since yesterday either." The sack rustled, and she heard the food containers being opened. Alexx kept her own hand on Calleigh's arm, as if she realized how important that one point of living contact through the blackness was.
"How are you doing, Calleigh?" The voice matched her so well, Calleigh thought. Absolutely oozing compassion. You knew who Alexx was immediately, just hearing her.
"I'm hanging in there. Not like I have much choice." She heard Horatio shift and stopped him before he could put something down to grab her hand again. "Keep eating, Horatio."
"You're ganging up on me," he protested, but she heard the scrape of the fork against the side of the plastic container as he fished up another bite.
"You'd better believe it," said Alexx. "Somebody's got to look after you. You never do it yourself."
"That's not true," he said. "Just yesterday morning, Cal and I both decided to sleep in because we were so tired after last week."
"And did you?"
"No, we went out on this case. Okay, bad example."
"Shut up and eat," said Calleigh. "Alexx, tell me honestly, what do I look like?"
"Like a female version of the Lone Ranger, with a white mask across your eyes."
"These metal shields aren't too weird? I feel like a bug. Or like C3PO."
"No, they have white tape across the top of them. Looks just like bandages, not like a robot. It doesn't look as bad as it feels."
"Thanks," Calleigh said, relieved. "I asked him, but he just said I still looked beautiful."
"You do," Horatio put in.
"Keep eating," sang out Alexx and Calleigh in chorus.
"What's going on with the case?"
Alexx brought Calleigh up to date, with an occasional aside to Horatio ("All of it. You're not done yet"). As she finished, Horatio set the containers aside and stood up, giving Calleigh's arm a reassuring squeeze.
"I'm going to go talk to the doctors, Cal. Alexx will be here."
"Go on," she said. "I'll be a lot better once we get home." He left the room, and she realized with a momentary surge of pleasure that she knew his footsteps. Even in the blackness, she would recognize them. As soon as he was safely down the hall, she said, "Alexx, how is he holding up?"
"He looks half dead on his feet. I don't imagine he got any sleep last night."
"He was sitting here with me." She shivered. "I would have hated to wake up without him here, though."
"I tried to talk him into shifts, but he wouldn't do it."
Selfishly, Calleigh was glad he wouldn't do it. "We're going home now. Once we get there, I'll make sure we go to bed early. I'll tell him I'm exhausted and just want to sleep in my own bed."
"Are you sure you feel up to going home?"
"I feel fine, just frustrated. But I'll go crazy here in the hospital. I've got to get someplace that's familiar." Alexx squeezed her hand. "Alexx, what do you think the chances are of me seeing again?"
There was a long pause. "I'd hate to make a guess, honey. There are too many variables. They don't know how bad the damage is yet, and they won't for a little while. It's impossible to say right now. Either way is a realistic possibility."
Calleigh relented. If Alexx could honestly give her a percentage, she would have. She switched subjects. "Horatio's convinced we're going to have a girl."
"Have you talked about names?"
"If it is a girl, we'll name her Rosalind, after his mother." Calleigh felt Alexx's hand twitch sharply in hers suddenly. "What's wrong?"
Alexx hesitated for a minute, then said, "I found his mother's case file recently. I saw those pictures." She left Speed and Eric out of it for the moment.
"Don't ever mention that to him, Alexx."
"I don't intend to. How is he doing, though? What a thing to happen to a 17-year-old kid!"
It was Calleigh's turn to hesitate. "He's dealing with it. I doubt he'll ever totally get over it, but we're making progress. He still dreams about it sometimes, but it's getting less often." All except for the first week of April, but she wasn't about to open that can of worms, especially not with Horatio's feet approaching down the hall again, even though she suddenly suspected that Alexx knew more than she was telling. She changed the subject again. "February seems so long to wait." She suddenly felt an overwhelming surge of gratitude toward Alexx, letting her have a normal, friend-to-friend conversation instead of treating her like everything had changed.
"It will be worth it, though," said Alexx. "To hold your own baby. One of life's top moments, Calleigh."
Horatio re-entered the room. "Okay, we can go. Will you give us a ride, Alexx?"
"Gladly."
"Did the doctors put up much of a fight?" Calleigh wondered.
"Not too bad. Only lizards, not dragons." Calleigh burst out laughing, and Alexx smiled at Horatio. He understood how much laughter helped. Alexx only hoped they could keep laughing. Calleigh had a long, hard road ahead of her, and going home wouldn't change that.
***
Eric pulled open the workshop cabinet and whistled softly. Nails of all sorts and sizes were there. "Look at this, Speed. How could anyone know which ones he would use that night?"
"Maybe they didn't. Just figured he would get down to the poisoned ones sooner or later."
"Then they'd have to keep checking by to see if the body needed to be dumped. That's getting too risky. You realize that the nails we want are probably the ones that aren't here. The killer would have taken them. Unless they're all poisoned." He started collecting samples to check.
"Maybe we're going about this wrong," said Speed. "If he had nails in his mouth when the convulsions started, he would have fallen, and they would have rolled. Maybe the killer missed one cleaning up." He knelt and started peering under tables and tool boxes. Eric's cell phone rang. By the time he had finished the conversation, Speed was halfway down the room. "Who was that?"
"Alexx." Eric started working around the room the other way. "She took H and Calleigh home."
Speed straightened up abruptly under a table and banged his head. "Damn. Should she be going home yet?"
"Alexx said she wanted to be some place familiar." Eric shook his head. "Can you imagine that, not seeing anything?"
Speed had been trying to most of the day. "No."
"Anyway, Alexx wanted us to not go over there tonight. She said they both needed some rest." He gave a soft sound of victory suddenly and scrambled underneath a sawhorse, picking up a nail. "Got it, Speed."
"Could be a random nail."
"It's got blood on it." Speed came to join him, studying the nail. "I bet this is the one that cut him."
"Must be." Speed looked around the shop, judging distances. "So I process 25 feet on my hands and knees while you're on the phone, and then you process 5 feet and find the murder weapon."
Eric flashed a grin. "What can I say? I'm talented." He put the nail into an evidence envelope and returned to the nail cabinet. "Now, then, we see if the box that nail came from is here." He double checked size and length. "Nope. Every other size nail in the world, but no box of those. That's got to be it. And the killer took the box. She just missed this one."
"One's all it takes to nail her," said Speed.
"You've been rehearsing that line since we started here," Eric accused.
Speed scowled at him and went over to the door, looking out. The driveway branched, part going to the house, part to the shop.
"Slight transmission leak. We can put the same car here that was at the ditch." He glanced at the house. "That can't be 40 feet. You'd think a car pulling in at night would be noticed."
Eric joined him in the doorway. "From what H said, she wouldn't notice the Marines marching up the driveway. She didn't even notice her husband was missing. And women say we don't notice things."
Speed shook his head. "You can never figure out women."
"Takes a higher tech lab than we've got," Eric agreed. "Let's get back to CSI with this nail. Since we can't see Calleigh tonight, we might as well work. Or do you have a date?"
"No," said Speed. "Let's go." They relocked the shop and headed for their Hummer.
***
Calleigh and Horatio sat at their kitchen table, eating the soup that Alexx had heated up before she left. Calleigh felt a little better. The sounds and smells here, the feel of the chair, were familiar. And she was at least feeding herself this time. Even as she thought it, she reached for her glass, misjudged where she had left it, and knocked it over.
"It's okay." Horatio jumped up, returning with paper towels to mop up the spill. "I've got it."
Calleigh dropped her spoon into her bowl, suddenly losing all appetite. "Is this what it's going to be like?"
"No." The conviction in his voice was rock solid. "You'll adapt to it if you have to. And you may not have to."
The future suddenly loomed too large to be faced at the moment. "Horatio, could we just go to bed? I feel like I've dealt with as much as I can today." And he was exhausted himself, she knew, even though he wouldn't admit it.
"More than anyone should have to deal with in one day." He pulled her up and kissed her forehead gently, over the bandage. "It will be all right, Cal," he promised her. They headed down the hall, her hand locked in the crook of his elbow. He sat her down on her side of the bed, and she started to undress. At least she could do that still, and she was grateful to him for not doing it for her. When she was done, she climbed into bed, settling between her own familiar sheets. She suddenly was exhausted herself, even though she had suggested this for his sake. She hated losing the physical contact, but she could hear him moving around, getting ready for bed himself, and soon he climbed in beside her. She snuggled against him, relieved that they were no longer separated by hospital bed rails. The warmth of him reached through the blackness and thawed her fear a bit.
She backed off suddenly and reached up, letting her hands travel across his face. He held perfectly still, realizing what she was doing. There was nothing sexual in it, just reassurance that she knew him, that in the darkness she wouldn't lose sight of what he looked like. Her hands explored carefully, tenderly, with an infinite care for detail that she had never bothered to utilize touching him before. The firm chin, the sensitive lips. She reached his nose. Some people had a chin of character, as he did himself, but he also had a nose of character, she thought. Straightforward, unyielding, honest. She ran her fingertips over his beautiful eyes, gently pressing on the closed lids, feeling each of the lashes. She could also feel the tiny lines at the corners of his eyes, like the ones at the corners of his mouth. Battle scars from his war with the deceit in the world. She rubbed his temples gently, feeling the tension in them. He really was exhausted. She felt the 4-inch scar down the very right edge of his face, like a brand signifying compassion and selflessness. It wasn't as noticeable in appearance after a year, but she still loved that scar. Thinking about it, she let her hands travel further back, through the silky red hair, finding the other scar on the right side, just behind the first one, hidden by his hair but obvious to feel, where the doctors had removed a piece of his skull after the bridge collapse to repair the damage and then reset it with bone clips. Her hand paused there, then explored farther, feeling out the shape of his noble head, the thick silkiness of his hair. Finally, her two hands met behind his head and locked, and she pulled it over against hers. Yes, she knew him. Every inch of him. And she might never see him again.
It was this thought, larger than all other thoughts of the day, that suddenly broke her down. And it was then that she discovered for the first time that she couldn't cry. Her eyes had medicated ointment in them which the doctors had added to twice already that day, and Horatio would have to do it again in the morning. It was spread thickly across her eyes, making them feel like they were coated with a half-inch thick layer of jelly, and either that or the inflammation and damage prevented the flow of tears. Her shoulders quivered, but the tears would not spill over. The blackness dammed them up effortlessly, impersonally. "I can't even cry, Horatio," she whispered, and the tears reached her voice at least, even if they could not find their way out. He wound his arms around her tightly, crushing her gently to him, and she felt the sudden dampness against her forehead over the bandage and knew that he was crying for her.