Calleigh felt as though she was lost in time. Every day was exactly the same as the one before. She had been home for a month and was still officially confined to bedrest. The boredom made her grumpy and irritable and she couldn't stand anyone's company for longer than ten minutes at a time.

Enough was enough, she decided one morning, and surprised everyone by appearing downstairs for breakfast. Marjorie immediately rose from the table and tried to usher her back upstairs. She shook her head and sat down.

"Calleigh, honey, you shouldn't be up. You're still recovering."

"I'll take it easy."

Marjorie regarded her daughter with a critical eye. Eventually, she nodded. "Alright. But as soon as you're tired, it's back to bed."

"Mother! I'm not a baby."

"When you have children . . ." Marjorie stopped, then smiled. "No, you're not. Sometimes I wish you were. You've grown up so quickly. And one day, hopefully one day soon—I'm not going to live forever—one day you'll understand that mothers will always worry about their children."

She came to stand behind Calleigh's chair and brushed her hair away from her face. Calleigh had to smile; she guessed correctly that her mother was only too happy to be looking after her again.

"Oh," Marjorie said. "I almost forgot. Your brother called this morning. He's just got back from Africa. He said he'll come by in a couple of days."

"Africa? I thought he was in India."

"He might have said India. It was a bad connection."

Calleigh grinned; glad she would see her baby brother soon. As children, Calleigh had found escape in guns and Thomas had turned to photography. He told her he wanted to capture beauty, and he gave the best photographs to her because he wanted her life to be beautiful. He was still looking for beauty, and he still sent her his best work.

* * *

It was strange for Horatio to walk into the ballistics lab and see someone else's head bent over a microscope. Aaron Stuckey, Calleigh's temporary replacement, was competent and hard working, but he didn't hold a candle to the woman whose position he now occupied. It was unfair of the others to constantly compare him to Calleigh, but it was completely unintentional. Everyone tried to include him yet no one could forget that he was there because Calleigh wasn't.

Horatio spoke to Calleigh almost every week. Their conversations were light and short. He knew better than to push her. Alexx spoke to Calleigh more often, and he would ask her how Calleigh really was. She always said, "Fine," no matter how hard Horatio pressed for more information.

* * *

Calleigh rocked gently in the garden swing, enjoying being outside. Thomas sat cross-legged on the grass in front of her. He had let his hair grow while he was away, and now it hung to his shoulders. He was as dark as Calleigh was fair, and more tanned than usual from hours spent in the sun.

"So, how long are you planning to hide out here?" Thomas had always been able to read her.

"What makes you think I'm hiding?"

He smiled and squinted up at her. "I can't think of any other reason why you'd spend so much time here."

"Well, maybe 'cause I've been in bed for a month and unable to go anywhere."

"So you're not hiding from anyone in Miami, say, a certain lieutenant?"

She blushed, but couldn't deny it. "I knew I shouldn't have told you."

"So it's true?"

"Tommy . . ." He took a photo as she smiled. "You still working with that piece of crap?" she asked, her tone light and teasing.

"Hey, watch what you're calling a piece of crap."

She laughed. "Did you find what you were looking for in India?"

He nodded, growing serious, sad, as if a shadow had fallen over him. "Yes. Her name's Arundhati."

"So when do I get to meet her?"

"You don't. She's married."

"Oh." Calleigh knelt on the grass. "I'm sorry."

Thomas shrugged. "It doesn't matter. She's happy. That's all I want."

Calleigh didn't know what to say. She took her brother's hand and saw the faded scars on his wrist. She looked up, her mouth open in shock. "Tommy—" She found matching scars on the other arm.

"I was depressed for a while, after I came back from Ethiopia. I felt like I was drowning in ugliness. The doctors diagnosed me as manic-depressive. Instead of going for counseling, I went to India." He smiled, trying to make light of his pain. Calleigh wasn't having any of it.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

He shrugged. "Guess we didn't come out of childhood as unscathed as we thought. I'm seriously screwed up and you're incapable of trusting anyone."

She ignored the second part of his sentence. "How many times did you try?"

"Twice."

Calleigh put her arms around him and they sat in silence for a long time. "Tell me about Arundhati," she said later.

"She's beautiful, Cal. I was in a market in Delhi and I saw her buying fruit. It seemed like where she stood was brighter than anywhere else. Her laugh was like music and she tasted like jasmine—"

"Whoa! Too much information." Calleigh laughed.

"Every time I left her, I ached to turn around and kiss her one more time. And when she smiled, she made my spine tingle."

"So why'd she marry someone else?"

"Because I'm not Muslim." Thomas plucked at the grass, his hand shaking slightly. "Have you ever felt that way about someone?"

Calleigh let him turn the conversation away from himself. "Yeah. Yeah, I have."

"This Horatio you're always telling me about?"

She nodded. "To be honest, I'm not sure how I feel about him. If we were to become involved, it would complicate things at work."

"Could you picture your life without him in it?"

Calleigh smiled. "Hey, I'm the older sister. I'm supposed to be the one to give advice."

"Dinner's ready!" Marjorie called.

Calleigh and Thomas looked at each other. For a moment they were children again. Thomas pushed Calleigh to the ground, tickling her mercilessly. She shrieked with laughter.

"'Fess up, Cal. Can you?"

"Thomas Duquesne! If you hurt your sister . . ."

Still laughing, he released her and helped her up. "You okay?"

"Yep."

Arm in arm, they walked back to the house. Thomas' last question played on Calleigh's mind: Could you picture your life without him in it?

No, she thought. But she still wasn't ready to go back to Miami.