And the conclusion. See part 1 for disclaimers, etc. Thanks for all the
feedback.
***
"And being warned in a dream . . ."
The Bible, Matthew 2:12
***
Horatio appeared at the end of the alley a few minutes later, with Speed lagging a bit further behind. Their guns drawn, they started down the alley together. Horatio spotted the still swinging door instantly and indicated it with a nod. They flattened themselves on either side of it against the building, then, on Horatio's count, burst through, guns ready.
The building echoed emptiness. It had been some sort of restaurant or bar at one point, but that point was long past. Dust was the only customer now. Old tables filled the open space. The bar stretched along the right side of the long room, and Horatio edged that way, suddenly pouncing around the end to look behind it, ready for a shot. There was nothing to shoot.
Speed edged up behind him. "You sure he came in here, H?" Horatio did not answer, and Speed glanced at his boss. Horatio was standing there with his head tilted slightly in his familiar analytical pose, his eyes traveling slowly around the room as if he were using them to process the scene with some personal, built-in microscope. Much stronger than the analysis, though, was an air of mingled amazement and confusion. The combination was so unusual for Horatio, who never seemed off balance to Speed, that the trace expert forgot all about the perp and lowered his own gun. "H? You okay?" Horatio didn't even seem to hear. Maybe he was hurt worse than he'd seemed today. Speed reached out and gripped his arm carefully above the elbow, both to get his attention and to support him if he needed it. "Horatio!"
The blue eyes finished their sweep of the room and ended up on Speed almost by default, having looked at everything else. They still looked startled more than anything. "What is it, Speed?" He sounded like he was responding to a question back at CSI, his tone politely routine.
"Are you okay?" Speed was becoming more and more convinced that he wasn't. He'd never seen Horatio zone out in the middle of a chase before.
"Fine," he said as if discussing the weather. He took one more sweeping scan of the building, faster this time, then abruptly snapped back to his usual competent self so quickly that Speed was the one left confused. Horatio's voice was even quieter than usual but dripping with intensity. "Okay, Speed. I want you to stay right with me. Watch out for broken chairs and table legs on the floor, and don't trip over anything. At the back of that balcony up there, in the far end we can't see, there are two old bathrooms. The perp is in the men's. He's in the far stall, sitting on the back of the toilet with his feet up so nothing will show underneath. He's got a gun, and he's scared enough to use it. Stay right with me and follow my lead."
Speed gaped at him. "What?"
Horatio gave up on the explanation. This wasn't the time for it. "Stick close." He crept up the stairs on cat feet, with Speed trying to reproduce his stealth and not coming close. Horatio deliberately went slowly, though, forcing himself to not forge on ahead. He headed directly for the men's, homing in with some radar invisible to Speed, not even glancing at the rest of the balcony. He paused at the door, gun ready, and looked to make sure Speed had his prepared, too. They softly entered the bathroom. Horatio didn't even stoop to look under the doors. Instead, he spoke with rock-solid authority, keeping his gun trained on the last stall door, indicating with one look that Speed should do the same. "Rob Duncan, I know you're sitting there with your gun in that last stall. There are two of us out here, and you can't possibly get past both of us. Slide the gun out underneath the door." Nothing happened. Horatio gave it five seconds, then fired his own gun at a slight angle across the stall door, barely piercing the door at the far side to bury a bullet in the wall just inside the stall. "That shot missed you. The next one will angle a little further in. The next one will go further than that. I'll keep going as long as I have to, and I have plenty of ammunition. It's your move, Rob."
A few seconds of silence, and then there was an abrupt scuffling sound, like a 170-pound rat. Two feet dropped into view below the stall door. "Put the gun on the floor and push it out gently with your foot," Horatio instructed. A hand descended with the gun, and the foot nudged it out underneath the stall door. "Get it, Speed. And Rob, I'm still covering you, so don't try to go for him." Speed edged cautiously forward and retrieved the gun, then handed it to Horatio. "Okay, Rob, now come out slowly with your hands up." One very scared perp slowly exited the stall. His face was whiter than toothpaste. That one shot plowing into the wall a few scant feet in front of him had killed his resistance. Only the fear was left alive. Horatio nodded to Speed, and Speed worked his way around behind him and snapped the cuffs on, glad that Horatio had made sure they both had handcuffs with them on their manhunt today. Horatio kept covering the perp, a gun in each hand, his arms steady as rocks in spite of the fact that he was suddenly becoming aware just how much they were killing him.
Speed marched the secured perp forward, and Horatio backed away, keeping him covered. Rob Duncan stared at him as he exited the bathroom. "How did you know I was there?"
Horatio gave him an icy smile. "I'm smarter than you are. The law always is."
***
They were outside the building in the alley, with Duncan sitting with his back to the wall. . Horatio kept him covered while Speed called for reinforcements. The trace expert snapped the cell phone shut and edged up close to his boss. "They're coming, H."
"Cover him, would you?" Horatio finally let his throbbing arms relax, holstering his own gun and pocketing the perp's. Duncan wouldn't be trying anything. He was still looking at Horatio with a stunned expression. Horatio didn't want to prop himself against the wall with Duncan watching, so he stayed upright, but the release of just putting the guns down was incredible. He gave himself a couple of seconds, then backed off a few feet and slowly pried his own cell phone out of his pocket.
"Hi, Handsome." Her voice, as always, gave him strength. He straightened up a bit more.
"Hi. I just wanted to let you know right away, we caught our perp. We just cornered him in an old abandoned bar, and everything's okay."
There was a good five seconds of silence, and Calleigh's voice was fragile, hung with icicles, when she finally responded. "In an old abandoned bar?"
"And everything's okay," he emphasized. "Speed and I went up together to the balcony and found him hiding in the restroom in the last stall."
Calleigh let out a shuddering sigh. They each held their phones for a good minute of silence. Words weren't needed for that conversation. In the distance, Horatio heard the first sirens. "I've got to go, Cal," he said. "I'll see you later."
The icicles slowly broke away from her and shattered harmlessly into tiny fragments. "Yes, you will," she said fervently. "I love you, Horatio."
"I love you, too. Talk to you later."
He snapped the phone shut as the police cars entered the alley. Duncan was quickly put in the back seat of one of them, and after some preliminary statements, Horatio and Speed headed back to their Hummer. The rest of the processing would take place down at headquarters. They walked slowly over the path that they had raced along 30 minutes before. Horatio reversed their route automatically, without thinking, and Speed silently trailed him, looking at his boss's granite features. "H?" he asked finally.
"What is it, Speed?" The exact same words, in the exact same tone, that he had used back in the bar, as if this whole day were simply routine.
"Um, had you ever been in that building before?"
"Nope, I've never seen it in my life." There was the faintest emphasis on the second word, but Speed didn't notice.
"So, how did you know where he was hiding? How did you know the layout?"
Horatio smiled at him as they reached the Hummer. "Just a hunch," he said, and Speed knew he wouldn't get any more answer than that out of him. Speed disabled the security system, and Horatio climbed into the vehicle slowly. As the Hummer pulled out, he suddenly decided to change plans. He had meant to go see Mrs. Martin again tonight after everything else was done, to tell her the case was finished, but he wasn't sure how much he would have left by then, considering how he felt now. She deserved more than the dregs of him. "Speed, let's make a quick side trip on the way back. We're going to go see Paul Martin's widow." He gave the address.
Speed's hand hovered uncertainly over the turn signal. "H, they'll be waiting for us back at headquarters to do all the paperwork."
"That's right, they will," Horatio agreed.
Speed sighed and flipped on the blinker. The Hummer turned its massive shoulder to those waiting at headquarters and headed for Mrs. Martin's home. Horatio leaned his head back against the headrest and tried to gather his energy, getting enough of a grip on himself to be free to reach out to her without distraction. Speed kept glancing over at him out of the corner of his eye, trying to work out exactly what had happened back there, watching Horatio as much as he was watching the road. Finally, with a mental shrug, he gave up on it. Horatio was just uncanny at times.
***
Much later that night, Horatio found himself up in his office filling out the final reports to sign off on the pharmacy cases. The last few hours had had far too much paperwork for his tastes. After seeing Mrs. Martin, he and Speed had given statements at HQ to finish the booking on Rob Duncan. Calleigh had called him right at the end of that process to remind him to take some more pills. He had ducked out to the nearest water fountain to do so, and that was when the minions of bureaucracy caught up with him. They required their official reports and forms filled out on the explosion, they had been looking for him all day, and the fact that the case was now solved made no difference to them at all. The fact that a report is no longer pertinent to an investigation is no reason to the bureaucratic mind why it should not be made. Calleigh at least had sounded apologetic on the phone when he had complained about his plight. She was just finishing her final report on the gang shoot out, and then she had some quick shopping to do, she said, but if he wasn't free by the time she got back, she would come rescue him. The bureaucrats were much less sympathetic. No matter what else he had been doing all day, surely it couldn't have been more important than his report to them.
After an hour and a half with them, he finally made it over to CSI. Calleigh wasn't back yet, and he hauled himself up the stairs to his office, wondering hazily if the budget for next year might allow him to replace them with an escalator. He settled himself behind his desk and started working through the reports there. This was the paperwork that did matter, evidence logs, CSI reports, things that would be crucial in successful prosecution of Alvarez and Duncan. Horatio started processing it, forcing himself to be as thorough and painstaking as he could be. The two officers who had died on this case deserved that much and more, but that much, at least, he could give them.
The problem he quickly discovered was that it hurt horribly to rest his arms against the desk. He hadn't done much writing today until the last few hours, so he hadn't realized until then what the hard surface would feel like with both arms extensively stitched up. Horatio clenched his teeth and pushed on past it, but it stubbornly refused to just be ignored. He kept working anyway.
He sifted through the reports from the different CSIs on the case. Eric had processed the explosion site that day, and his conclusion was definite. Like many home-made meth shops, it had been an accident waiting to happen. Too many chemicals too close together with too few precautions. Eric had found broken bits of glass with residue of multiple components. They hadn't done their dishes very thoroughly. Sunlight added to the equation had proven fatal at an unfortunate moment, but there was no deliberate timing there. Snake would have been as surprised as the police were if he had time to think about it.
Alexx's autopsy reports received careful attention. Snake and Martin's partner had died instantly, but Paul Martin's report was of the most interest to him. Alexx's calm, unhurried handwriting told the story. Multiple arteries severed . . . massive blood loss . . . irreparable damage. Horatio read over the last two words several times. Irreparable damage. That was what crime did all too often. But he could still try, as he had done. "Sorry, Paul," he said aloud, but there wasn't guilt in it any more, just regret. He finished with Alexx's report, signing off in the places needed, transferring a condensed version of the findings to his own official case report.
Calleigh found him there a little later and stood in the doorway to his office watching him for a minute before he realized she was there, which fact itself spoke volumes to her. She studied his face, which was even paler than usual, and the fine lines of pain around his mouth and quickly made a fairly accurate assessment of how he was feeling. "Hey, Handsome," she said finally.
He looked up, and the smile transformed his face, almost making her forget for a minute how tired he was. "Hey yourself. All finished?"
"Finally. High time you were finished, too. Come on, Horatio. Let's go home."
His lips tightened stubbornly. "Not yet."
Calleigh sighed and set down her package. "Come on. It will still be there in the morning. You've done enough for today."
"Wrong. It won't still be here in the morning, because it will be finished tonight. I already talked to Mrs. Martin and promised her all the loose ends would be tied up tonight. I've got to finish this, Cal."
Calleigh started to push the issue, then caught herself at it, remembering Alexx's words. She pulled out a chair in front of his desk and settled into it. "Okay, but do you mind if I sit here and watch you?" If he actually fell out of his chair, she would at least be the first to know that way.
He grinned. "Not at all. I think I've got an advantage in that activity, though." His eyes ran over her appreciatively. Pregnancy was making her even more beautiful, he thought.
"I beg to differ," Calleigh insisted. He actually wasn't looking at his best at all, tired and under an obvious strain, but sitting there doggedly finishing up the case, putting others ahead of himself, he looked absolutely like Horatio, and she couldn't imagine anything in the world more beautiful. She sat there just admiring him for several minutes. He kept working on his report, but he felt her eyes on him, and his smile stayed. She finally did notice how much he was trying to keep his arms from touching the desk while writing, and she stood up suddenly, taking her jacket off and coming around the corner of the desk. "Sit back a second, Horatio."
"Why?" His puzzled blue eyes switched to gratitude as she folded the jacket into a pad and placed it across the front of his desk.
"Try that," she said. "Any better?"
He rested his arms across the jacket instead of the hard surface. It was a small improvement. "Mmm hmm. Thanks."
She kissed him affectionately, then went back around to the front of the desk. What she really wanted to do was to drag him out of here bodily and take him home, but she knew he wouldn't leave until he was done. Delaying him would only put off going home that much more.
He kept working for another half hour, then sat back, giving his arms a break for a minute. He found her eyes on him worriedly and gave her a reassuring grin. "Did you get your shopping done?"
"Yes." She'd forgotten about it since entering the office. She got up and retrieved her package from just inside the door.
"What did you have to get?"
"A present for you, actually, but it's not wrapped yet." She hesitated as it occurred to her that wrapping it would only force him to unwrap it, which wouldn't be much of a gift to him at the moment.
"A present? What's the occasion?"
"We're both alive, and we're married."
He nodded thoughtfully. "Good occasion. We should celebrate it more often."
"You're right, we should. Here, forget wrapping it." She pulled the box out of the sack. Maybe it would give him a bit of an energy lift.
Horatio looked puzzled, which she had expected. This would require some explanation. She removed the gift from its clear-fronted box herself and stood it on his desk alongside the paperwork. It was a model of a horse, not a toy but a realistic replica in every detail. It was a white horse with darker gray on the legs and muzzle, a powerful horse with an air of nobility, with arched neck and high-stepping hooves, looking like a chess piece come to life and completed. "A horse?" Horatio asked.
"A white horse," she specified. "When I was a kid, I used to read these stories where the handsome prince would come for the princess, or where the knight in shining armor would rescue the damsel in distress. I would dream of it happening to me someday. And for some reason, they were always on a white horse. So I decided to give you a white horse, Horatio. Because what I've got now is even better than what they had."
Understanding started to dawn in his eyes. "I'm not a knight in shining armor, Calleigh."
Privately, she disputed it. Shining armor could take many forms, after all. But that wasn't what he needed to hear at the moment. "I know. That's why there isn't a knight in shining armor along with it. Just the horse. No knight required." She leaned forward slightly, meeting his eyes directly over the desk. "You complete the picture perfectly, Horatio, exactly like you are. All of my dreams came true, and they even improved on the way. I've realized that what I really wanted, all my life, wasn't a knight. It was you. Don't ever doubt that, Horatio. If I could, I wouldn't change anything." She reached out to touch the horse. "It reminded me of you." It really did, from the granite lines to the power to the noble grace. Calleigh had been looking for a white horse that was neither stylized nor a toy, but Lisa had suggested this specific white horse, and she had been right.
He was touched. "Thank you, Calleigh," he said, eyes moist. "Reality has improved on my dreams, too."
She returned his smile. "And think of Rosalind."
"I can't wait," he said. "Just seeing her with you will be a dream come true."
Seeing her with him would be the dream come true, Calleigh thought. And thinking of dreams coming true abruptly reminded her of the abandoned bar that day. It was like getting hit in the face with a bucket of cold water. I actually resisted telling him, she thought. If I hadn't told him.
"You did tell me, though," he answered the thought, and she looked up from her clenched hands to meet his eyes.
"Horatio, how do you think that happened? It was the strangest thing."
"I don't know. I've heard of it happening occasionally, read about it, but to be faced with it is something else. Much as we try, science will never be able to explain everything." He smiled suddenly. "My mother used to pull a Shakespeare line on me whenever I would run into something that refused to be analyzed."
"Which line?"
"From Hamlet. 'There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.'"
She smiled back at him. "That's perfect for you."
"Yes, she knew me pretty well. Of course, that's no reason to stop trying to explain things."
"Of course not," she agreed.
He reached out and stroked the horse lightly. He did like it, she could tell. Even more, he understood it. "One thing, though, Cal."
"What's that?"
"If you ever have a recurring dream like that again, be sure to tell me."
"Believe me, I will. I'll wake you up to tell you, even."
"Do that." He smiled at her, then looked back at the paperwork. "Well, much as I enjoy talking with you, this report isn't going away. I do have to finish this tonight. I promised Mrs. Martin."
"I know." He gingerly propped his arms across her jacket again and resumed his work. She sat there watching him gratefully. "Horatio, is there anything I could do to help?"
He considered it, head tilted slightly. "Actually, yes, there is. You could clean my gun. That would save me doing it when we get home."
"Did you have to fire it?" Her throat tightened up again.
"Just to get his attention, Cal. It worked." He leaned back again, starting to fish it slowly out of its holster, and she came around the desk and got it out for him.
"I'm going down to get a gun cleaning kit. Back in a minute." He nodded vaguely, already lost in the paperwork again, and she hurried down to Ballistics, then hurried back, not wanting to let him out of her sight any longer than she had to. She sat in the chair in front of his desk and broke the gun down, cleaning it thoroughly, even affectionately. It had saved him today. She looked back up regularly, monitoring him. He was so tired he was sagging in his chair now until the increased pressure on his arms made him realize what he was doing and straighten up with a jerk. His handwriting was as even and controlled as ever, though, signing and sealing the case against the criminals. In a little while, when he was finished, she would take him home, put him to bed, and give him enough of a dose of painkiller to really let him sleep tonight. For now, though, she just sat in front of the desk, looking up from her own work to watch him. The horse stood guard on the desk between them in the circle of light from his desk lamp. She looked from the horse to his tired, diligent face behind it and was lost in gratitude at what she had, what they had. No fairy tale she had ever read had prepared her for the reality. He looked up regularly, too, resting his eyes on her for a few seconds, enjoying his own view. Later, she would take care of him, and he would let himself be taken care of, but for now, just sitting there, working silently together, was enough for both of them.
*** ***
If you would like to see Calleigh's gift to Horatio, go to Ebay and run a search using the three words Pluto, Lipizzaner, and Breyer. There will probably usually be at least one up for auction with a picture attached.
*** ***
On the next episode of CSI:Miami - Fearful Symmetry: "Do No Harm." Alexx's past and present collide on a case, and Horatio and Calleigh prepare for the birth of Rosalind.
***
"And being warned in a dream . . ."
The Bible, Matthew 2:12
***
Horatio appeared at the end of the alley a few minutes later, with Speed lagging a bit further behind. Their guns drawn, they started down the alley together. Horatio spotted the still swinging door instantly and indicated it with a nod. They flattened themselves on either side of it against the building, then, on Horatio's count, burst through, guns ready.
The building echoed emptiness. It had been some sort of restaurant or bar at one point, but that point was long past. Dust was the only customer now. Old tables filled the open space. The bar stretched along the right side of the long room, and Horatio edged that way, suddenly pouncing around the end to look behind it, ready for a shot. There was nothing to shoot.
Speed edged up behind him. "You sure he came in here, H?" Horatio did not answer, and Speed glanced at his boss. Horatio was standing there with his head tilted slightly in his familiar analytical pose, his eyes traveling slowly around the room as if he were using them to process the scene with some personal, built-in microscope. Much stronger than the analysis, though, was an air of mingled amazement and confusion. The combination was so unusual for Horatio, who never seemed off balance to Speed, that the trace expert forgot all about the perp and lowered his own gun. "H? You okay?" Horatio didn't even seem to hear. Maybe he was hurt worse than he'd seemed today. Speed reached out and gripped his arm carefully above the elbow, both to get his attention and to support him if he needed it. "Horatio!"
The blue eyes finished their sweep of the room and ended up on Speed almost by default, having looked at everything else. They still looked startled more than anything. "What is it, Speed?" He sounded like he was responding to a question back at CSI, his tone politely routine.
"Are you okay?" Speed was becoming more and more convinced that he wasn't. He'd never seen Horatio zone out in the middle of a chase before.
"Fine," he said as if discussing the weather. He took one more sweeping scan of the building, faster this time, then abruptly snapped back to his usual competent self so quickly that Speed was the one left confused. Horatio's voice was even quieter than usual but dripping with intensity. "Okay, Speed. I want you to stay right with me. Watch out for broken chairs and table legs on the floor, and don't trip over anything. At the back of that balcony up there, in the far end we can't see, there are two old bathrooms. The perp is in the men's. He's in the far stall, sitting on the back of the toilet with his feet up so nothing will show underneath. He's got a gun, and he's scared enough to use it. Stay right with me and follow my lead."
Speed gaped at him. "What?"
Horatio gave up on the explanation. This wasn't the time for it. "Stick close." He crept up the stairs on cat feet, with Speed trying to reproduce his stealth and not coming close. Horatio deliberately went slowly, though, forcing himself to not forge on ahead. He headed directly for the men's, homing in with some radar invisible to Speed, not even glancing at the rest of the balcony. He paused at the door, gun ready, and looked to make sure Speed had his prepared, too. They softly entered the bathroom. Horatio didn't even stoop to look under the doors. Instead, he spoke with rock-solid authority, keeping his gun trained on the last stall door, indicating with one look that Speed should do the same. "Rob Duncan, I know you're sitting there with your gun in that last stall. There are two of us out here, and you can't possibly get past both of us. Slide the gun out underneath the door." Nothing happened. Horatio gave it five seconds, then fired his own gun at a slight angle across the stall door, barely piercing the door at the far side to bury a bullet in the wall just inside the stall. "That shot missed you. The next one will angle a little further in. The next one will go further than that. I'll keep going as long as I have to, and I have plenty of ammunition. It's your move, Rob."
A few seconds of silence, and then there was an abrupt scuffling sound, like a 170-pound rat. Two feet dropped into view below the stall door. "Put the gun on the floor and push it out gently with your foot," Horatio instructed. A hand descended with the gun, and the foot nudged it out underneath the stall door. "Get it, Speed. And Rob, I'm still covering you, so don't try to go for him." Speed edged cautiously forward and retrieved the gun, then handed it to Horatio. "Okay, Rob, now come out slowly with your hands up." One very scared perp slowly exited the stall. His face was whiter than toothpaste. That one shot plowing into the wall a few scant feet in front of him had killed his resistance. Only the fear was left alive. Horatio nodded to Speed, and Speed worked his way around behind him and snapped the cuffs on, glad that Horatio had made sure they both had handcuffs with them on their manhunt today. Horatio kept covering the perp, a gun in each hand, his arms steady as rocks in spite of the fact that he was suddenly becoming aware just how much they were killing him.
Speed marched the secured perp forward, and Horatio backed away, keeping him covered. Rob Duncan stared at him as he exited the bathroom. "How did you know I was there?"
Horatio gave him an icy smile. "I'm smarter than you are. The law always is."
***
They were outside the building in the alley, with Duncan sitting with his back to the wall. . Horatio kept him covered while Speed called for reinforcements. The trace expert snapped the cell phone shut and edged up close to his boss. "They're coming, H."
"Cover him, would you?" Horatio finally let his throbbing arms relax, holstering his own gun and pocketing the perp's. Duncan wouldn't be trying anything. He was still looking at Horatio with a stunned expression. Horatio didn't want to prop himself against the wall with Duncan watching, so he stayed upright, but the release of just putting the guns down was incredible. He gave himself a couple of seconds, then backed off a few feet and slowly pried his own cell phone out of his pocket.
"Hi, Handsome." Her voice, as always, gave him strength. He straightened up a bit more.
"Hi. I just wanted to let you know right away, we caught our perp. We just cornered him in an old abandoned bar, and everything's okay."
There was a good five seconds of silence, and Calleigh's voice was fragile, hung with icicles, when she finally responded. "In an old abandoned bar?"
"And everything's okay," he emphasized. "Speed and I went up together to the balcony and found him hiding in the restroom in the last stall."
Calleigh let out a shuddering sigh. They each held their phones for a good minute of silence. Words weren't needed for that conversation. In the distance, Horatio heard the first sirens. "I've got to go, Cal," he said. "I'll see you later."
The icicles slowly broke away from her and shattered harmlessly into tiny fragments. "Yes, you will," she said fervently. "I love you, Horatio."
"I love you, too. Talk to you later."
He snapped the phone shut as the police cars entered the alley. Duncan was quickly put in the back seat of one of them, and after some preliminary statements, Horatio and Speed headed back to their Hummer. The rest of the processing would take place down at headquarters. They walked slowly over the path that they had raced along 30 minutes before. Horatio reversed their route automatically, without thinking, and Speed silently trailed him, looking at his boss's granite features. "H?" he asked finally.
"What is it, Speed?" The exact same words, in the exact same tone, that he had used back in the bar, as if this whole day were simply routine.
"Um, had you ever been in that building before?"
"Nope, I've never seen it in my life." There was the faintest emphasis on the second word, but Speed didn't notice.
"So, how did you know where he was hiding? How did you know the layout?"
Horatio smiled at him as they reached the Hummer. "Just a hunch," he said, and Speed knew he wouldn't get any more answer than that out of him. Speed disabled the security system, and Horatio climbed into the vehicle slowly. As the Hummer pulled out, he suddenly decided to change plans. He had meant to go see Mrs. Martin again tonight after everything else was done, to tell her the case was finished, but he wasn't sure how much he would have left by then, considering how he felt now. She deserved more than the dregs of him. "Speed, let's make a quick side trip on the way back. We're going to go see Paul Martin's widow." He gave the address.
Speed's hand hovered uncertainly over the turn signal. "H, they'll be waiting for us back at headquarters to do all the paperwork."
"That's right, they will," Horatio agreed.
Speed sighed and flipped on the blinker. The Hummer turned its massive shoulder to those waiting at headquarters and headed for Mrs. Martin's home. Horatio leaned his head back against the headrest and tried to gather his energy, getting enough of a grip on himself to be free to reach out to her without distraction. Speed kept glancing over at him out of the corner of his eye, trying to work out exactly what had happened back there, watching Horatio as much as he was watching the road. Finally, with a mental shrug, he gave up on it. Horatio was just uncanny at times.
***
Much later that night, Horatio found himself up in his office filling out the final reports to sign off on the pharmacy cases. The last few hours had had far too much paperwork for his tastes. After seeing Mrs. Martin, he and Speed had given statements at HQ to finish the booking on Rob Duncan. Calleigh had called him right at the end of that process to remind him to take some more pills. He had ducked out to the nearest water fountain to do so, and that was when the minions of bureaucracy caught up with him. They required their official reports and forms filled out on the explosion, they had been looking for him all day, and the fact that the case was now solved made no difference to them at all. The fact that a report is no longer pertinent to an investigation is no reason to the bureaucratic mind why it should not be made. Calleigh at least had sounded apologetic on the phone when he had complained about his plight. She was just finishing her final report on the gang shoot out, and then she had some quick shopping to do, she said, but if he wasn't free by the time she got back, she would come rescue him. The bureaucrats were much less sympathetic. No matter what else he had been doing all day, surely it couldn't have been more important than his report to them.
After an hour and a half with them, he finally made it over to CSI. Calleigh wasn't back yet, and he hauled himself up the stairs to his office, wondering hazily if the budget for next year might allow him to replace them with an escalator. He settled himself behind his desk and started working through the reports there. This was the paperwork that did matter, evidence logs, CSI reports, things that would be crucial in successful prosecution of Alvarez and Duncan. Horatio started processing it, forcing himself to be as thorough and painstaking as he could be. The two officers who had died on this case deserved that much and more, but that much, at least, he could give them.
The problem he quickly discovered was that it hurt horribly to rest his arms against the desk. He hadn't done much writing today until the last few hours, so he hadn't realized until then what the hard surface would feel like with both arms extensively stitched up. Horatio clenched his teeth and pushed on past it, but it stubbornly refused to just be ignored. He kept working anyway.
He sifted through the reports from the different CSIs on the case. Eric had processed the explosion site that day, and his conclusion was definite. Like many home-made meth shops, it had been an accident waiting to happen. Too many chemicals too close together with too few precautions. Eric had found broken bits of glass with residue of multiple components. They hadn't done their dishes very thoroughly. Sunlight added to the equation had proven fatal at an unfortunate moment, but there was no deliberate timing there. Snake would have been as surprised as the police were if he had time to think about it.
Alexx's autopsy reports received careful attention. Snake and Martin's partner had died instantly, but Paul Martin's report was of the most interest to him. Alexx's calm, unhurried handwriting told the story. Multiple arteries severed . . . massive blood loss . . . irreparable damage. Horatio read over the last two words several times. Irreparable damage. That was what crime did all too often. But he could still try, as he had done. "Sorry, Paul," he said aloud, but there wasn't guilt in it any more, just regret. He finished with Alexx's report, signing off in the places needed, transferring a condensed version of the findings to his own official case report.
Calleigh found him there a little later and stood in the doorway to his office watching him for a minute before he realized she was there, which fact itself spoke volumes to her. She studied his face, which was even paler than usual, and the fine lines of pain around his mouth and quickly made a fairly accurate assessment of how he was feeling. "Hey, Handsome," she said finally.
He looked up, and the smile transformed his face, almost making her forget for a minute how tired he was. "Hey yourself. All finished?"
"Finally. High time you were finished, too. Come on, Horatio. Let's go home."
His lips tightened stubbornly. "Not yet."
Calleigh sighed and set down her package. "Come on. It will still be there in the morning. You've done enough for today."
"Wrong. It won't still be here in the morning, because it will be finished tonight. I already talked to Mrs. Martin and promised her all the loose ends would be tied up tonight. I've got to finish this, Cal."
Calleigh started to push the issue, then caught herself at it, remembering Alexx's words. She pulled out a chair in front of his desk and settled into it. "Okay, but do you mind if I sit here and watch you?" If he actually fell out of his chair, she would at least be the first to know that way.
He grinned. "Not at all. I think I've got an advantage in that activity, though." His eyes ran over her appreciatively. Pregnancy was making her even more beautiful, he thought.
"I beg to differ," Calleigh insisted. He actually wasn't looking at his best at all, tired and under an obvious strain, but sitting there doggedly finishing up the case, putting others ahead of himself, he looked absolutely like Horatio, and she couldn't imagine anything in the world more beautiful. She sat there just admiring him for several minutes. He kept working on his report, but he felt her eyes on him, and his smile stayed. She finally did notice how much he was trying to keep his arms from touching the desk while writing, and she stood up suddenly, taking her jacket off and coming around the corner of the desk. "Sit back a second, Horatio."
"Why?" His puzzled blue eyes switched to gratitude as she folded the jacket into a pad and placed it across the front of his desk.
"Try that," she said. "Any better?"
He rested his arms across the jacket instead of the hard surface. It was a small improvement. "Mmm hmm. Thanks."
She kissed him affectionately, then went back around to the front of the desk. What she really wanted to do was to drag him out of here bodily and take him home, but she knew he wouldn't leave until he was done. Delaying him would only put off going home that much more.
He kept working for another half hour, then sat back, giving his arms a break for a minute. He found her eyes on him worriedly and gave her a reassuring grin. "Did you get your shopping done?"
"Yes." She'd forgotten about it since entering the office. She got up and retrieved her package from just inside the door.
"What did you have to get?"
"A present for you, actually, but it's not wrapped yet." She hesitated as it occurred to her that wrapping it would only force him to unwrap it, which wouldn't be much of a gift to him at the moment.
"A present? What's the occasion?"
"We're both alive, and we're married."
He nodded thoughtfully. "Good occasion. We should celebrate it more often."
"You're right, we should. Here, forget wrapping it." She pulled the box out of the sack. Maybe it would give him a bit of an energy lift.
Horatio looked puzzled, which she had expected. This would require some explanation. She removed the gift from its clear-fronted box herself and stood it on his desk alongside the paperwork. It was a model of a horse, not a toy but a realistic replica in every detail. It was a white horse with darker gray on the legs and muzzle, a powerful horse with an air of nobility, with arched neck and high-stepping hooves, looking like a chess piece come to life and completed. "A horse?" Horatio asked.
"A white horse," she specified. "When I was a kid, I used to read these stories where the handsome prince would come for the princess, or where the knight in shining armor would rescue the damsel in distress. I would dream of it happening to me someday. And for some reason, they were always on a white horse. So I decided to give you a white horse, Horatio. Because what I've got now is even better than what they had."
Understanding started to dawn in his eyes. "I'm not a knight in shining armor, Calleigh."
Privately, she disputed it. Shining armor could take many forms, after all. But that wasn't what he needed to hear at the moment. "I know. That's why there isn't a knight in shining armor along with it. Just the horse. No knight required." She leaned forward slightly, meeting his eyes directly over the desk. "You complete the picture perfectly, Horatio, exactly like you are. All of my dreams came true, and they even improved on the way. I've realized that what I really wanted, all my life, wasn't a knight. It was you. Don't ever doubt that, Horatio. If I could, I wouldn't change anything." She reached out to touch the horse. "It reminded me of you." It really did, from the granite lines to the power to the noble grace. Calleigh had been looking for a white horse that was neither stylized nor a toy, but Lisa had suggested this specific white horse, and she had been right.
He was touched. "Thank you, Calleigh," he said, eyes moist. "Reality has improved on my dreams, too."
She returned his smile. "And think of Rosalind."
"I can't wait," he said. "Just seeing her with you will be a dream come true."
Seeing her with him would be the dream come true, Calleigh thought. And thinking of dreams coming true abruptly reminded her of the abandoned bar that day. It was like getting hit in the face with a bucket of cold water. I actually resisted telling him, she thought. If I hadn't told him.
"You did tell me, though," he answered the thought, and she looked up from her clenched hands to meet his eyes.
"Horatio, how do you think that happened? It was the strangest thing."
"I don't know. I've heard of it happening occasionally, read about it, but to be faced with it is something else. Much as we try, science will never be able to explain everything." He smiled suddenly. "My mother used to pull a Shakespeare line on me whenever I would run into something that refused to be analyzed."
"Which line?"
"From Hamlet. 'There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.'"
She smiled back at him. "That's perfect for you."
"Yes, she knew me pretty well. Of course, that's no reason to stop trying to explain things."
"Of course not," she agreed.
He reached out and stroked the horse lightly. He did like it, she could tell. Even more, he understood it. "One thing, though, Cal."
"What's that?"
"If you ever have a recurring dream like that again, be sure to tell me."
"Believe me, I will. I'll wake you up to tell you, even."
"Do that." He smiled at her, then looked back at the paperwork. "Well, much as I enjoy talking with you, this report isn't going away. I do have to finish this tonight. I promised Mrs. Martin."
"I know." He gingerly propped his arms across her jacket again and resumed his work. She sat there watching him gratefully. "Horatio, is there anything I could do to help?"
He considered it, head tilted slightly. "Actually, yes, there is. You could clean my gun. That would save me doing it when we get home."
"Did you have to fire it?" Her throat tightened up again.
"Just to get his attention, Cal. It worked." He leaned back again, starting to fish it slowly out of its holster, and she came around the desk and got it out for him.
"I'm going down to get a gun cleaning kit. Back in a minute." He nodded vaguely, already lost in the paperwork again, and she hurried down to Ballistics, then hurried back, not wanting to let him out of her sight any longer than she had to. She sat in the chair in front of his desk and broke the gun down, cleaning it thoroughly, even affectionately. It had saved him today. She looked back up regularly, monitoring him. He was so tired he was sagging in his chair now until the increased pressure on his arms made him realize what he was doing and straighten up with a jerk. His handwriting was as even and controlled as ever, though, signing and sealing the case against the criminals. In a little while, when he was finished, she would take him home, put him to bed, and give him enough of a dose of painkiller to really let him sleep tonight. For now, though, she just sat in front of the desk, looking up from her own work to watch him. The horse stood guard on the desk between them in the circle of light from his desk lamp. She looked from the horse to his tired, diligent face behind it and was lost in gratitude at what she had, what they had. No fairy tale she had ever read had prepared her for the reality. He looked up regularly, too, resting his eyes on her for a few seconds, enjoying his own view. Later, she would take care of him, and he would let himself be taken care of, but for now, just sitting there, working silently together, was enough for both of them.
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If you would like to see Calleigh's gift to Horatio, go to Ebay and run a search using the three words Pluto, Lipizzaner, and Breyer. There will probably usually be at least one up for auction with a picture attached.
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On the next episode of CSI:Miami - Fearful Symmetry: "Do No Harm." Alexx's past and present collide on a case, and Horatio and Calleigh prepare for the birth of Rosalind.