Disclaimers: No, Horatio and Calleigh are not mine, they belong to others and all I'm doing is borrowing them. I hope I haven't done them any harm!
Out of Death, Life (continued)
Once at the spot Carolyn had suggested for the rose, she wasted no time in starting in on the digging. Calleigh soon found herself getting a rhythm for shoveling first sod and then earth out of the small hole, and was surprised at how quickly the hole was dug. A short break for a slug of water from the bottle she had brought, and she went back to preparing the loosened earth in the hole, carefully mixing in sterilized manure and fertilizer and breaking up clods of dirt. So intent was she on what she was doing, and on making sure that this rose would be happy in its new home, that she didn't hear the quiet footsteps behind her. Even her "sixth sense," usually so reliable, didn't warn her, and the first inkling she had that anyone was near her was the sight of two leather-gloved hands carefully holding the now-unpotted rose out to her, just above the edge of the hole she had dug for it.
She sat back, startled, and blue eyes met blue eyes. After several seconds of staring into his eyes, she said the only thing that came into her mind. "Hey. How are you?"
"I'm fine. You?"
"Fine, yeah."
"Here, I'll help you finish up." He gently placed the rose in the center of the hole, and held it steady while she filled dirt in around it. Looking at his hands, she was glad he had shown up; she hadn't thought to bring gloves, and planting a rose bare-handed wasn't always painless.
She finally finished patting the dirt in, and pushed herself off her knees to her feet. He followed suit and watched as she firmed up the newly- turned earth around the rose by methodically stamping it into place with her heel, then walked away as she stepped back and took another drink of water. As he came back towards her, she realized just how organized the garden was, and how familiar with it he was, as behind him trailed a garden hose to water in the new planting.
"Oh, good, I didn't even think about how I could water it. Thanks!"
"No problem, it took me a few visits to realize I didn't have to bring water for the plants myself, that they had a watering system here. They just camouflage it well so it doesn't intrude."
He walked away from her again, back to the spigot to turn on the water, and she took the chance to watch him unashamedly. Like her, he was dressed simply and for hard work, wearing a well-faded pair of jeans, a white T- shirt, and what she suddenly realized were work boots. She would have bet a month's salary that work boots and the ever-elegant, well-turned-out Horatio Caine would never be found in the same universe, let alone in the same place. But there they were! Extending her survey, she realized how hard he must have been working; his T-shirt was almost completely wet, and his hair was a shade darker than usual with the sweat that was running from his hairline. His jeans were quite nicely fitted, she decided, and were just at the right spot on his hips to accentuate the very sexy shape of his lean body.
As he came back towards her after turning on the water, she could see even behind his usual sunglasses that one eyebrow – and even his eyebrows were wet! – was raised. A blush rose to her cheeks as he asked slyly, "Satisfied with what you saw?"
"Oh, ummm, yeah. Yeah."
"Good. Here, you have a drink, and I'll take care of the rose for you." He proceeded to carefully water the rose in, washing the dust off the leaves and making sure that the excess soil from the hole was swept back in to fill the depression where the disturbed earth sank as it soaked up water. He finished watering in the new rose, and walked back to the spigot with the hose, taking time to water other roses as he went. When he returned to her after coiling up the hose, he took off his gloves and tucked them into his belt by his left hip. He reached over to a bucket of dark crimson roses he had set in the shade while he helped her, and pulled one out. Making sure that all the thorns were off, and that the bloom was in perfect condition, he set it beside the newly planted rosebush.
"Here, can you help me now?" He reached out one hand for her, and as she took it he picked up the bucket of roses with his other hand.
As she walked along beside him, Calleigh picked up Horatio's contemplative mood and took time to enjoy being outside next to a handsome – 'you mean very handsome,' she corrected herself – man. She followed his lead as they wandered through the rose plantings, until they stopped at a large bush covered with buds and waxy white blooms in all stages of opening. He released her hand to set down the bucket and begin tending to the older blooms. Horatio pulled a small pair of pruning shears out of his back pocket and snipped off some of the dead blooms as Calleigh looked more closely at some of the just-opening blossoms and saw the deep pink in the center of the flowers. Stepping back, she saw the marker by the bush.
"A Belle of the Ball rose, for Belle. HCC" was all it said, but Calleigh realized how deeply he had been touched by Belle King's case. He picked another rose out of the bucket, again making sure it was in perfect condition before leaving it at the foot of Belle's rosebush.
Horatio picked up the bucket as she slipped her hand back into his, and they started walking again through the peaceful garden. As the breeze blew through the garden, they repeated the scene of Horatio wordlessly tending to plants, most of them roses but also other perennials once they reached the other sections of the garden, then leaving a dark crimson rose at the foot of each plant he had tended. She realized that all of these plants probably represented cases he had been involved with during his career, and as she saw so many markers initialed simply "HCC" her love for him, and appreciation of the depth of his character, grew even more.
After an hour of silent wandering, they reached the area where the large trees had been planted, and it was clear why he had brought the Hummer into the garden. The tree he had planted had to be 5 feet tall already, with a circle of turned earth surrounding it that was probably 3 feet across. 'No wonder he's drenched, if he did that all by himself!' she thought. He guided her to a bench with subtle pressure on her hand, and collapsed with a sigh as he sat back. They both closed their eyes and turned their faces again to the sun.
"Thanks," she heard him say in a soft voice.
"You're welcome. And thank you for helping me." They both sat wordlessly, his thumb tracing random patterns on the back of her hand as they both simply enjoyed the peace. After a few minutes, she found her voice again.
"I wouldn't have figured you for a plants type of guy. But you seem to enjoy it..."
"Hmmm. I do. We see so much darkness, and so much of the worst side of humanity, and so much death, that it was literally starting to kill me. This place opened up a few years ago, and the first time I came here was for someone very close to me. It helped so much that I realized that planting something would help with all the cases. It's not a powerful statement, I know, but it's life out of death. It shows me that life does go on, and as long as these markers are here, these victims are not forgotten. Even if it's a hundred years from now, the case files are burned and we're all long since dead and buried, the memorials are still here. Which means these people have not really died."
His voice trailed off and Calleigh realized with a shock that it had been shaking on the last sentence. If it had been anyone else, she would have said that they were nearing tears, but the idea of Horatio Caine letting anyone see that much emotion was unthinkable.
She scooted closer to him, wanting to reassure him through physical contact that he was not as alone in his feelings as he appeared to think he was. She was rewarded by him releasing her hand to put his arm up around her shoulders and pull her closer to him. Even though he had been working hard in the sun, his sweat made only a slight sharp contribution to what she could smell. 'Spicy fragrance, clean sun-warmed clothing, and a hard- working man, what more could you want?' she asked herself.
"How do you decide what to plant? I couldn't think of anything but a rose, but I noticed you had planted all sorts of things."
"You know how much we know about a victim by the end of an investigation. I try to find some defining characteristic about them. It's easier with adults, Lisa was hard to pick out because she was so young, but adults generally have defined themselves. It's usually rolling around in the back of my mind from the first call-out that we get, and by the end I can usually find the right plant." He paused, and chuckled deep in his chest. She could feel the vibrations, and leaned more firmly against him. "You're going to tell me it's morbid, but I actually sometimes pick out plants for living people I know."
"No, it's not morbid, it's wonderfully thoughtful. What sort of plants, and for who?"
"Well, let's see. Alexx is easy, she'd have to be a weeping willow. I've never seen a weeping willow that wasn't providing shade and support for everyone around it, and that didn't have several birds making their homes in it. She's the mother figure for us all, and that tree is perfect for her. Speed and Delko are harder. I still haven't completely decided for Delko, but I decided Speed is a pine tree. They can take anything Mother Nature throws at them and keep growing straight up. It's astonishing, and I admire them, and him, for it. You...you were a hard one. I first thought a magnolia, and then about a week after I met you I realized that was far too stereotypical. Heaven forbid that I should need to plant it, but you're an almond tree to me."
"An almond tree? That's, well, an interesting choice."
"Actually, an almond tree with lavender planted around the base of it. Have you ever seen the almond groves in Provence?"
"You are kidding, are you not?"
"You've never seen them? We'll have to fix that sometime..." He fell into silence again as Calleigh's mind raced trying to parse that sentence for all its meanings. "Definitely will. Anyway, the first sign that there's anything going on in the spring is this absolute drift of white flowers that actually come before the tree leafs out. Then the almonds show up. And almonds, when they're on the tree, are not what you're used to seeing in the store. They have this soft, fluffy outer layer that deceives you into thinking it's this nice soft little thing. But just inside that layer is the very hard shell of the almond. That takes a lot of getting through, but then inside is the almond meat itself. And finding the heart of the almond makes all the work of getting through the outer protective layers worthwhile. And then the lavender comes into bloom a couple months after the almonds start to fruit out. They're actually planted very close to each other in Provence, so that the groves start out white in the early spring, and then in summer the lavender fields right next to them are this intense deep purple. The air shimmers above them, because it's so hot and dry in June and July, and these intense fat bees sort of lurch through the fields getting absolutely drunk on lavender. And the overlying emotion in all of it is peace; that life is going on but somewhere else, and all you have to do in the field is just stand still and be."
Calleigh felt him sitting immobile, hardly breathing, next to her, and looked up at his face. His eyes were shut, even behind the protective shield of his sunglasses, but she could tell he was waiting for a reaction.
"Wow. That is quite a picture, Handsome. You're very good with words, do you know that? Shall I tell you what kind of tree I would plant for you, although I hope I never have to?" She could feel that he had relaxed, ever so slightly, with her words.
"Mmmm. Please."
"A Japanese maple. Like the pine trees, all they want to do is just grow straight up, but at the same time they spread branches out in all directions, as if they want to reach out to everything and everyone around them. The leaves – have you ever had a Japanese maple brush your face with a sprig of leaves? – the leaves are so fine and soft, but so resilient at the same time. It's hard to damage a Japanese maple leaf. And when you first look at one of these trees, all you see is the sturdy trunk growing as straight as Nature will let it, but the more you look at it the more you see. There are some that I think I could study for years and never learn everything about." Now it was her turn to wait with tension for a response.
Wordlessly, he tightened the arm around her shoulders to pull her closer to him, and nestled her head against his firm chest. She felt him move, and realized that he had bent to place a gentle kiss on her forehead. He left his face next to her head for a minute, then said, so quietly she could barely hear him, "That is the nicest thing I have ever heard anyone tell me. Thank you, Calleigh Duquesne."
Tilting her head up, she looked into his now-open eyes, realizing but not caring that their faces were nearly touching. "I wouldn't say it if I didn't mean it. You're welcome, Horatio Caine," she whispered. Even if she had wanted to say more, she would have been unable to as his mouth descended on and claimed hers. Her lips parted reflexively, and she let her reactions sweep her into a deep, searching kiss. Seconds, minutes, hours, she could not have said how much later, he released her from the kiss, only to pull his arms tighter around her and bury his face in the hair behind her ear.
"God, Cal, I'm so sorry. That wasn't right of me to –" She more felt than heard him trying to apologize, so softly was he speaking.
In return, she tightened her arms about his broad shoulders. "The one thing you still haven't learned about Southern women, Handsome, is that we only let things go as far as we want them to. And you didn't hear me saying no, did you?"
Another chuckle erupted. "Did I really give you a chance?"
"You would have known it if I was saying no. Now, if you want to continue this 'conversation' we were having a minute ago, I think it really should be in a very private place. Not here in a public park. Yeah?"
He loosened his arms to place his hands on her shoulders and push her away from him to look searchingly into her eyes. "Cal, are you saying....? Are you sure? I mean..."
In return, she straddled his lap and leaned towards him, placing her hands on either side of his face to maintain the eye contact they had. "Another thing about Southern women is that we get what we want. And I've wanted you for way too long now. So, let this be my answer..." Abandoning speech, she leaned even closer and kissed him, a kiss that he gladly deepened when he realized what she was doing. She quit resisting gravity and let it pull her completely against him, one tiny part of her mind noting even as they kissed that certainly one part of him wanted the same thing she wanted, even if his brain still wasn't sure it was fair to her. She felt his hands roaming across her back and sliding underneath her shirt as if he wanted nothing between them, not even something as light as a T-shirt, and imitated him by pulling his shirt free of his jeans and luxuriating in the feel of his well-sprung chest under her hands.
Finally breaking the kiss, they rested against each other for a few minutes to recover. Horatio was the first to break the silence. "I think...we had better pull ourselves together and go...somewhere a bit more private, yes. Shall we?" Ever the gentleman, he helped her stand up. Still holding hands, they worked together to stow the tools and planting material in the back of his Hummer, then he led her to the passenger seat and helped her settle into the seat before giving her a sensual kiss below her ear. He went around the front of the car, and she unabashedly watched him move, reveling in the fact that he would shortly be hers. He drove them to where she had planted Lisa's rose, helped her collect the tools she had needed and stow them in the cargo area, and then they drove back to the parking lot. As he drove, she reflected that perhaps the tools would have gotten into the Hummer a lot faster if they weren't interrupting each other with caresses so often. But it was a lot more fun that way!
He pulled up in the lot so that they could empty the back of the Hummer, then walked her to her car. Turning, she leaned against him, and tilted her head up wordlessly for another kiss which was freely given. Leaning against his chest, she asked, "Horatio, where are we going?"
"I don't know. Do we need to plan out all that much more than today?"
"I didn't mean with this, I meant, where are we going now? Today?" She felt him chuckle at her indignant response as she pulled away to look up at his laughing face.
"I know what you meant, I just couldn't resist it. Shall we make it my place? I was actually going to call you later today to invite you for dinner this evening, so I've got food..."
"You and food in the same place? Be still my heart! All right, your place it is." He tucked her into her car, his fingers lingering on her shoulder and his lips on hers, before he jogged back to his waiting Hummer and prepared to drive away.
As she followed him onto the highway, she looked in her rearview mirror at the Memorial Park sign. Out of death comes life indeed, she thought, and smiled as she anticipated what was to come.