Title: Extractions
Disclaimer: Obviously the characters belong to CBS. If they belonged to me, they'd behave like this.
Rating: PG-13 for language, adult situations and drug related content.
Pairing: Reality. (H/C for those of you who still need the translation)
Spoilers: Big Brother
Comments: I know, long time no story. Sorry. I made the choice to wait and this underwent major revision after BB aired. Next time, though, I think I'll let CBS go their way and I'll go mine. Anyway, here's the follow up to "No Hummingbirds, Horatio". Please R&R.
"Hey." She was surprised to find him there in the nondescript hallway outside her apartment, leaning against the wall. The metallic brown shirt was her favorite.
"Hey." He didn't look at her, just fiddled with his phone like he always did when he didn't want to make eye contact. "I ... uh ... I came to ask a favor."
"Sure. C'mon in." She opened the door wider and he came inside, hesitating between steps, his cat like grace misplaced for once. Calleigh wondered where he'd left it. She gestured towards the couch and he sat down carefully, awkwardly, one arm pressed against his side.
He was hurting, that much was obvious at a glance. Calleigh just wasn't sure exactly how. Physically? Emotionally? With Horatio was one really any worse than the other? Or was she jumping the gun here? Maybe he was just tired.
That was probably it, she decided. It had been a hell of a week, after all. "When's the last time you got any sleep?" she asked gently.
He actually had to stop and think about it. "Now that you mention it, last night did kind of get away on me," he admitted with a double shrug, shoulders and eyebrows together.
Calleigh sighed. "So what was it you wanted to ask me?"
"You know what?" Horatio drew in a long, steadying breath and let it out slowly, controlled. "I shouldn't have come. I'm sorry to have bothered you so late. We can talk Monday." Decision made, apology over with, Horatio started to get up. Calleigh stopped him with a hand, squeezing his knee.
"Oh, no, you don't," she admonished, "not after an entrance like that. So what's the favor?"
After a moment's thought Horatio allowed himself to settle back into the soft caress of Calleigh's couch cushions. Suddenly he was all business, his voice smooth and professional. "I need you to extract a bullet for me. Unofficially, and without anyone else's knowledge."
"Well yeah, that's not going to be any kind of a pro ...." Calleigh's voice trailed off as she put two and two together. "Oh, Sweet Jesus, Horatio. Let me see it."
She was instantly on her knees in front of him, reaching inside his suit jacket. There was a folded towel pressed up against his shirt; when he relaxed his arm it fell to one side, heavy with wet blood. Suddenly there was blood on her hands too, Horatio's blood, and Calleigh really couldn't tell how badly he was hit.
"I'll drive you," she offered breathlessly, her hands trembling so much that she was hurting him without knowing it. "Mount Sinai Emergency is ten minutes from here."
But Horatio was all ready shaking his head. "Calleigh, I can't do that." Those hypnotic indigo eyes grabbed onto hers, drew her in and refused to let go.
"Why not?" she demanded, fighting the pull for all she was worth.
"It's a gunshot wound. There'll be a thousand questions and right now I can't afford to answer one of them." Horatio smiled ruefully, realizing how cryptic he sounded, even to his own ears. "I'm sorry, Calleigh. I know this isn't fair to you, but I'm fast running out of options here, and I thought ... well ... is there any way you can do this for me?"
She drew in a steadying breath, screaming at herself not to be stupid but saying the words out loud anyhow. "I'll clean it up and take a look. If I think I can remove the bullet safely, if it's a flesh wound and not too deep, then okay. Otherwise we go to the hospital, no arguments. Deal?"
Horatio sagged, relief and exhaustion mingling. "Deal. Thank you."
"I'll go get a few things ready. Stay here, nice and quiet, okay?"
"Okay." He laid his head on the back of the couch and squeezed a slow smile up at her. "Could I have a drink of water, please?"
When she came back from the kitchen with the glass and a handful of aspirin, Horatio's eyes were closed. She touched his shoulder and he reacted like someone waking up out of a sound sleep. Groggy, he shook his head as if he was trying to clear out cobwebs, and when he reached for the water his hand wasn't all that steady.
"Are you passing out on me?" Calleigh sat down and gave him a hand with the water. "Horatio, you've lost a lot of blood. Let's call an ambulance."
"Calleigh, I can't go to the hospital. I just can't. Please, you have to trust me. This might be my only chance."
"Only chance of what?" Calleigh set the glass of water down and took Horatio's hand in her own. "I do trust you, more than you probably know. But if you want my help then you're going to have to trust me, you're going to have to tell me the truth about what's going on."
"I'm close to finding out the truth about Raymond," he said without hesitation, and the intensity in his voice took Calleigh's breath away. "I wasn't planning on involving anyone else at this point but I can't do it alone, not now, not like this." Horatio swallowed hard. "Will you help me, Calleigh?"
"Yes," she said instantly, "I will help you. If you tell me what's going on." It was a surprisingly easy decision after all. For Horatio the pain called Raymond was far worse than a gunshot wound could ever be and Calleigh knew it.
Horatio sighed, looking for energy and a place to start.
"Not now." Calleigh put a finger over his lips. "We'll talk later." She helped him with the glass again, and the aspirin, and he chuckled down in his throat after he swallowed them.
"I know. But they might help a little bit," she lied, and he just nodded, his eyes falling shut, too weary even to say the automatic thank you that was always on his lips.
Calleigh hurried down the hallway and was back in a couple of minutes. She found Horatio still groggy but after a couple of tries she got him up on his feet and pulled his unresisting arm around her shoulders. "C'mon, Handsome," she teased, hoping to perk him up, "let's go to the bedroom."
Horatio didn't even crack a smile, he just leaned into Calleigh's slight frame as much as he dared and they started off in slow motion down the hallway. To Horatio the short row of doors seemed endless. He felt like he was walking underwater and his legs were strangely heavy and hard to lift. A couple of times he started to sag and Calleigh staggered under the extra weight.
"Sorry," he apologized through clenched teeth, and then lost his legs entirely. They both almost went down, but he made a frantic grab for a doorframe with his good hand and managed to stay on his feet.
"Shut up and walk," Calleigh shot back, concentrating on getting as far as the bed without losing her balance.
When they finally got there Horatio simply sank down on the edge of the bed and let Calleigh undress him. The jacket and shirt went first, then she undid his belt and slid it through the loops, freeing his holstered weapon and placing it on the dresser. Horatio worked his shoes loose and kicked them off, then looked down wearily at his pants.
"You undo 'em an' I'll pull 'em off," Calleigh suggested in her best southern drawl. Horatio was too exhausted to argue; he just raised an eyebrow and did as he was told.
"You want me on my side?" he asked as the pants hit the floor.
"Uh huh. I think that's best. Not too far up; I want your arms above your head." She gave him a hand getting settled, and while she placed his arms the way she wanted them Horatio had a great close up view of the stuff Calleigh had arranged neatly on the bedside table. He recognized a lot of it from her forensics kit ... a long metal probe, three tweezers of varying lengths, alcohol, a generous supply of cotton and gauze, a six inch stack of white towels and a limp pile of the ever present latex gloves.
There was nothing unexpected there but looking at it all laid out wasn't helping Horatio's mental state much. Bending close Calleigh could hear his rapid breathing, twice as fast as normal, and she knew he was anticipating the pain. She wasn't doing much better herself; her own heart was racing out of control.
Okay, Duquesne, she lectured herself, you're the professional here. That's what Horatio's counting on, so it's simple isn't it? Don't let him down.
Calleigh took a deep breath and pulled on the gloves, snapping the latex at her wrists. It was strictly a habit, one Horatio shared with her, but this time when she did it the sound made him flinch.
"Here we go," Calleigh told him, and he saw her reach for the alcohol. "Hang on."
It stung way worse than it should have. He hadn't meant to groan out loud but it just got past him somehow and he did his best to turn it into a growl instead.
"I know. I know." Calleigh kept on saying it, over and over, as she cleaned and sterilized the area around the wound, but the pain she was causing didn't stop her from doing a thorough job. Finally she was done to her satisfaction and bent over for a closer look. Horatio felt her fingers probing unpleasantly; he swallowed with difficulty and concentrated on slowing down his erratic breathing to some semblance of normal.
"It's a flesh wound," she confirmed, her head popping back up into Horatio's line of sight. "The bullet slipped right in between the ribs, nice and clean, but I still need to see how deep it is. If you can hold really still it'll help."
Now there was the understatement of the year. Horatio wanted to laugh but Calleigh wasn't wasting any time. She guided the tip of the probe in and he held his breath, waiting for the pain to catch up to what she was doing. Oddly enough it didn't. Horatio worked hard on not moving.
"Good job," Calleigh muttered.
"Steady hands," he countered, and she flinched at the unexpected sound of his voice. Horatio sucked a lung full of air past clenched teeth as cold metal touched the raw edges of the wound.
"Who told you to talk?" she snapped, and a moment later, "God, I wish Alexx was here," but they both knew it was an idle wish. Alexx had a husband and kids; neither of them would have dreamed of getting her even remotely involved in something like this.
Like a jolt of electricity the probe touched the bullet. Horatio locked his jaw tight and didn't make a sound as Calleigh very delicately backed it out.
"It's doable, but just barely," she reported, showing him the probe. Horatio couldn't help flinching. Five inches had never looked quite that long before.
"You sure you want to go through with this?" Calleigh asked softly, her eyes pleading with him to change his mind. "They have morphine at the hospital you know."
"Wicked temptress," he scolded, trying to make her smile, but she didn't, and he reached for her hand, holding tight. "You said it yourself, Calleigh. It's doable. So do it. This is what you're good at," he reminded her.
"Well, it's just that it's easier digging them out of a gel block than it is digging them out of you," she complained as she peeled his fingers loose from her hand and repositioned his arm.
"Excuses, excuses." Horatio watched her slender, gloved hand hesitate over the tweezers and then select the longest one. He closed his eyes.
In Calleigh's steady hand the tweezers weren't much worse going in that the probe had been. There was a stabbing sensation when she got to the bullet and pressure when she started to open the tweezers. The pressure rapidly disintegrated into searing pain as she dislodged the bullet and started to back it out. Horatio's eyes popped wide open. He sucked in a ragged breath of air, needed to pull away and knew he couldn't, clenched his fists instead. His nails dug painfully into the palms of his hands and he wished Calleigh had given him something to grab onto. Or a stick to bite down on, like in the old westerns, he thought, almost hysterical as he tried to distract himself with whatever silly thought came next.
Calleigh's sure hand drew the bullet steadily out. "Almost there," he heard her whisper. "Hang on, Handsome. Almost there."
He did his best, for Calleigh's sake, but he just couldn't. Horatio closed his eyes and left her all alone.
***
She said his name softly, then again, louder, when he didn't react. "Horatio!"
"What?" he mumbled through a mouth full of cotton.
"I'm having trouble stopping the bleeding. I need you to roll over onto your back," she said, sounding rather urgent.
"On my back," he muttered fuzzily. "No problem." His body felt like it weighed a thousand pounds but Calleigh's gentle hands were helping and he somehow managed it, hearing himself groan as he half-fell, half-rolled over.
"Okay. That's good." Calleigh's hand was trembling now; he could feel it as her fingers brushed his forehead briefly, smoothing his hair back. "Rest now, but stay awake for me, okay? You scared me to death."
"Mmm hmm. Sorry. Didn't mean to pass out on you."
"Shhh. Rest, Horatio."
He could feel her doing something down where the wound was, there was pressure but not nearly as much pain as before. "Doesn't hurt as much. You done?" he wondered after awhile, feeling kind of muddled up and not liking it one bit.
"Yes," Calleigh said breathlessly, folding a towel. "I'm sorry, I thought you knew. It's over, it's out." She pressed the towel, the third in as many minutes, firmly against his side. "Now if you'll just quit bleeding I think everything'll be fine."
"Do my best. " He could hear the words slurring together but his tongue simply refused to cooperate. "I feel like I have a hangover," he came up with, and heard her giggle at the unexpected comment. It was a good sound and Horatio struggled to think of something else to say that Calleigh would find funny but his brain wasn't behaving any better than his tongue. Once again it let him down, and he lost consciousness.
***
The next time Horatio woke up his head was clearer and Calleigh was piling blankets on top of him.
"Why am I so cold?" he wondered, shivering out of control.
"I think you're going into shock," she told him, tucking him in up to his chin and touching his hair. "Maybe we should call that ambulance after all. What do you think?"
"Am I still bleeding?" he managed to ask, his teeth chattering against one another.
"Not much." She shook her head. "Horatio, I honestly think it'll be all right. That part of it, anyway."
"Okay, then. Good job," he said softly, around a dry mouth. "See? I told you you could do it."
"Thirsty?" she asked, and when he nodded Calleigh picked up a glass of water with a straw she'd managed to find somewhere in the kitchen. "You have a fever," she told him as she held the glass and he slowly sipped the water. "It's not that high, but I'm worried about infection. You need antibiotics."
"We can worry about that tomorrow. What I need right now is some sleep. Do you think you can help me out with that?"
For a crazy instant she thought he was asking for a sleeping pill, and then his hand emerged from under the blankets and patted the bed next to him. "I'm really cold," he invited.
Calleigh put the glass down and slipped easily in next to him. She snuggled up cautiously to his good side and rested her head on his shoulder. His strong, slender frame was absolutely racked with shivering but gradually, as she held him, it subsided. Bit by bit the tension evaporated from in his body until he finally relaxed completely and she felt him drift away.
It wasn't unconsciousness this time, just the delicious oblivion of sleep.
***
"I have no idea where to start," he admitted.
It was dark in Calleigh's bedroom; the clock radio said 4:45. She sat up and the tips of her white gold hair brushed his face as she leaned over him to switch on the bedside lamp. Calleigh pummeled a pillow into shape behind her back, settled against it and simply waited without saying a thing.
Too sore to sit up Horatio was virtually a captive in her bed, not exactly the place or the time he would have picked to say what he was about to say. He pillowed his head on one arm so he could see the profile of her face. There was no way of getting out of this one and, by the looks of it, Calleigh wasn't going to let him off easy. He opened his mouth, thought for a second and then closed it again without speaking.
"How about starting with the methamphetamine I found in your bathroom a couple of months ago?" she suggested sweetly, crossing her arms in front of her chest and still refusing to look at him.
"I'm curious," he countered. "How do you know the crank's connected to this?"
Softly, she sighed. "Nice try. This is about Raymond, right? Two and two, Horatio."
When he didn't say anything for a long time, Calleigh turned her head and all the hurt in the world was right there in bed beside her. Horatio had that wounded look on his face, in his eyes, the one that went all the way down to his soul and didn't give a damn who noticed. It happened rarely and, as always, it made her want to take him safe in her arms and hug the hurt away. Calleigh fiercely resisted the temptation, perhaps a little more so than usual
"Yesterday we found out who killed your brother," she reminded him gently, "and we have the evidence to convict him. I thought that it would help, that it would give you some peace."
"It does. But it's not finished."
Understanding dawned like the Miami sun. Of course it wasn't finished. The murder was solved, that was all, the evidence box sealed shut with yellow tape and filed away on a different shelf. Whether Raymond was a dirty cop or not was still open for debate.
Horatio took a deep breath. "For once and for all I'm going to find out the truth, Calleigh. No matter what it takes and no matter who it hurts." He said it as if the hurt was all ready a fact, his voice harsh like Hummer wheels grating over gravel. "I grew up with Raymond – in the same house for God's sake. I knew him as well as I know myself. And there is no way in hell that my baby brother was a dirty cop."
"Okay. I can accept that." Calleigh said it instantly. She knew how faultlessly loyal Horatio was to his friends. The emotion that he felt for family, for flesh and blood – for Raymond – had to be totally overwhelming. "So tell me what you've been doing," she invited. "Let me in."
"Just getting to know some people, gaining their confidence," came the polished, pat answer, the one that avoided everything. But Calleigh was willing to go along for the moment in the hope that Horatio would open up eventually and tell her the rest.
"How long has this been going on?" she asked, angling her body a little bit towards him, drawing him along.
"A little over a year. I've managed to get myself in pretty tight with some of the people that Ray was close to right around the time of his death."
"You mean people like Chaz? And Susie?"
The first name got not much reaction at all. The second did, but Horatio shrugged off something that hurt a whole lot and kept on going. "No, actually," he answered, surprising her. "I'm talking about people close to the top of the whole operation, someplace the likes of Chaz or Susie would never get."
"And the crank?" Calleigh held her breath.
Horatio sighed. "Trust doesn't come easily to the shadow people, Calleigh. You know that. The crank makes me that little bit more believable. It's just enough to push it over the top."
Calleigh's voice was trembling. "Horatio, just tell me you haven't ..."
"I'm dealing, Calleigh." Horatio looked a little shocked at the sudden starkness of what he'd said, as if he himself was realizing it for the first time. "Hell. I'm selling the stuff."
For a moment she just sat there in the bed, blank and speechless, staring past him at the wall. "Well," she began tentatively, when she found her tongue again, "this is going to sound bad, but that's better than what I expected I hear." She looked at him strangely, thinking about the kind of man he was. "How an earth do you justify that, Horatio? To yourself, I mean?"
"They're meth heads, Calleigh," he protested, "they're wasted. They think I drowned my own baby brother in bathtub meth, for God's sake." Horatio did the laugh, the one deep down in his throat that never got anywhere near his eyes. "And if my conscience bothers me once in awhile I visit Raymond's grave. Or I go over to Yelina's and throw a baseball with Ray Jr." He shrugged, his voice completely devoid of emotion. "Either works."
"This a very dangerous game you're playing, Horatio," Calleigh warned him. "You're not working narco undercover like Raymond was. He had an excuse, an out, in case he got caught. You don't."
"I know that," he said wearily. "I just don't care."
"Okay, fine, I don't care either. To hell with selling it!" Calleigh longed to reach out and touch him, to hold him close and soothe his pain, but there was something she absolutely had to know first. "I know you, Horatio. I know how far you'd be willing to go, and to tell you the truth it makes me sick inside. So just answer my question and get it over with. Have you and Tina had that first date yet, or are you saving it for sometime special?"
Horatio reached over and took her hand in both of his, surprised to find it colder than his was. She didn't pull it back, though, that was something at least. He thought very carefully about what to say next. "Since that day you ransacked my bathroom," he began, "I've been doing a lot of thinking ..."
"Me too," she interrupted instantly. "I told you then I'd be willing to explore the feelings we had for each other, remember?"
Horatio nodded, his eyes sad and searching. "I'm not likely to forget that anytime in the near future," he admitted softly, "but we haven't explored a damn thing, have we, Calleigh?"
"No we haven't. We're not going to," she informed him, almost coldly, "not until you tell me everything. Everything," she emphasized. "You say you've been doing a lot of thinking. Well, so have I, and I'm not willing to start a new relationship with anything other than total honesty. God only knows I've made that mistake often enough. I refuse to do it again." Gently but firmly Calleigh pulled her hand away.
Horatio actually flinched. At that moment Calleigh's decision hurt a lot more than the gunshot wound in his side did. "I'm so sorry," he whispered. "I've wanted to share it with you, so much. It would make everything easier." Horatio shook his head. "It simply wouldn't be fair to ask for your help."
Calleigh's anger vanished. She squirmed around on the bed until she was facing him fully, reached out and tenderly touched the forbidden red hair. "Horatio, I can't believe you even thought you had to ask. I just pulled a bullet out of your side. Of course I'll help. I thought I all ready had."
"You have," he was quick to reassure her, "very much. But this isn't about my getting shot. When you're wholesaling dope it's more or less an occupational hazard." Horatio grimly shrugged it off. "It was just lousy timing is all, it's not important otherwise."
Calleigh opened her mouth to protest but he waved it away, needing to finish. "I won't lie to you, Calleigh. Faking it isn't easy. Ray knew that, he tried to explain it to me once and I didn't understand." Horatio sighed. "Now I do." He hadn't felt this exhausted or this defeated in a decade. His eyes went far away and didn't come back. Calleigh could only imagine what they were seeing.
"Tweaking's the hardest part," he said, somewhat out loud, reliving it in his mind. "To fake, I mean. It just goes on forever." His eyes came back to reality with a snap so desperate it was almost audible. "Calleigh, I'm not a particularly good actor. I need an edge, something to convince them beyond a doubt, and I ... well ... I was wondering if you would help me with that. You know ... afterwards," he finished vaguely.
"You're asking if I'll help you ... afterwards?" Calleigh digested the ominous last word for a long minute and she worded her response precisely in her head before she spoke out loud. She needed to be absolutely certain she had the facts straight because, if she did, Calleigh had every intention of putting her hands around his throat and strangling him to death for even considering anything this stupid.
"Pick up the pieces, you mean?" she ventured at last. "Wait calmly while you get yourself addicted in order to gain the trust of these bastards and then be there for you when it's all over? Watch while you go through withdrawal? Hold your hand, Horatio? Is that what you want from me?"
He winced. "Something like that. It does sound a little selfish, in retrospect."
"Horatio, I don't care about that!" Impatiently Calleigh pushed her hair back from her face and held it there. "Be as selfish as you want -- you're entitled." She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, steadying herself for what she had to say. "What I want to know is, will my answer make a difference to your decision? If -- right here and now -- I say no, that I won't help you through this afterward, will you reconsider?" Her eyes pleaded with him. "Because that's my answer. No. I will not be a part of it. I'll help you in any other way that I can, but if you decide do anything so incredibly stupid as this, you're on your own."
Horatio stayed silent. He couldn't quite meet her eyes with his, and when Calleigh put a finger under his chin and guided his face towards her she could see the unshed tears polishing the sapphire eyes into diamond. Realization hit like a ton of bricks.
"It's too late, isn't it?" In her heart she knew it was true but she needed to hear him say it out loud.
He didn't. He just nodded, his beautiful blue eyes horribly empty.
"I should go." Horatio made a move to sit up.
Calleigh stopped him with a hand on his chest. "Don't. You'll just start bleeding again. What'll that prove?" she asked bitterly.
"Calleigh, I can't just ..."
"Is Tina as good as they say?" she whispered, tears running unnoticed down her cheeks.
"Don't believe everything you hear." Horatio tried to smile but all that happened was a twitch at one corner of his lips. "Tina's a bitch."