Email
Rating: R
Disclaimers: Still don't own em, if I did, wouldn't have to write stuff like this would I? ;o) I'll keep buying the lottery tickets! You never know!
Chapter One
The email stood open on her laptop, he couldn't resist reading it especially as his name had jumped at him out of the text. He knew he shouldn't read it, you never "hear" anything good about yourself if you eavesdrop. This was like eavesdropping, he surmised, but was more significant; this was in type, in black and white, and this was about him. His curiosity dragged him closer to the screen, as he started to read down the page. After only a few lines, he tried to force himself to stop, but his eye's disobeyed him as they scanned further down the page. The words hitting him like a freight train, his heart hammered against his chest. He could be caught at any minute, but he couldn't drag his eyes away, couldn't drag himself away. He needed to know more, he had to read to the end. He felt the door open behind him, the air stirred in the quiet room and he spun on his heel, caught red handed and decidedly red faced. The coffee cup in her hand shook, as she registered his proximity to her laptop, and she felt the colour rise in her cheeks. Darting passed him; she managed to get her hand on the laptop and snapped it shut with a loud click. The sound echoed around the room, the only other noise was the sound of their breathing. Hers panicky and on edge from being found out, his ragged and heavy from what he had just read and the fact he'd been caught. The adrenaline pounded through his system as he hurriedly muttered some excuse about filing reports on time, and slunk from the room like a disobedient dog, that had been caught crapping on the carpet.
Her hands couldn't stop shaking as she sat down before the laptop. Opening it, she closed her eyes and prayed the email wasn't there. Prayed that he'd been reading the ballistics report. Prayed that, she had closed it down and not left it open, as she swore she had. She opened her eyes slowly, one slightly before the other. Squinting, not quite wanting to see what she knew was before her. Fingers crossed she opened her eyes. Sweet Jesus it was there, in bold Copperprint gothic splattered across her screen. Oh Lord, now what was she going to do? How much had he read? Enough, by the look on his face, and his hurried exit from the room. She was never going to live this down. Mentally slapping herself for writing it, never mind leaving it open for the whole world to view, she decided she needed to go climb back into her shell.
Horatio landed backwards in his office chair with a dull thud. The chair scuttled backwards on its wheels and he threw his feet up on the edge of his desk and leaned back. His hands ground into his tired eyes, making colours flash across the back of his eyelids, as he thought about what he had just witnessed. The words rung in his head, not sentences just words. Odd words pulled from the text, danced in his vision as he tried to recollect the matching words that went with them. His mind slowly cajoled them into shape in his head. And the realisation, of what he had just read brought him back to his senses. He sat bolt upright, his feet falling off the end of the desk, with a muffled thump as they hit the thick carpet. He knew what he had to do. He needed to explain; to reason with her, to tell her he understood.
Reaching the lab, he steeled himself and opened the door. The silence hit him immediately and the vacuum of emptiness ripped into him. She wasn't there. Where had she gone? Damn he should have stayed, should have explained there and then. But no, he'd run scared like a teenager, afraid of his own feelings locking, himself in his room. And now she was nowhere to be found. Flipping open his phone he stared at the numbers, "Ring her!" his brain screamed at him, but his fingers wouldn't respond. He snapped his phone shut and went on a building search. She had to be there somewhere, and he knew she wouldn't be able to look him in the face again unless, they got this cleared up. Determined to find her, he prowled the whole building from top to bottom; like a panther stalking its prey. Finally he found himself back at the ballistics lab. Slowly pushing the door, he found the room still empty and he ventured inside, to wait.
Calleigh sat, hunkered down, staring through the balcony railings. Looking out over the parking lot, she could have cried. She just couldn't believe how stupid she'd been. It was totally idiotic of her to leave that email open on her laptop. She had only gone for coffee, but Tim had side tracked her. Oh my God, it dawned on her, he would have had perfectly enough time to read the whole thing. What was she going to do? Tucked up in the corner, she'd managed to hide herself from view, as she tried to think what the hell she was going to say to him. My God it certainly wasn't very lady like. Oh Lord, what must he think of her? She tried frantically to recall exactly what she'd typed and stopped instantly, it was that bad. She was surprised he hadn't had a heart attack when he read it. No, not Horatio, he would be OK with it, he would be amused by it, yes, he would. She was trying to convince herself now! Convince? Hell, he was gonna freak! She swore she would never be able to look him in the eye again. She had to find him, to explain. She owed him that much, and still that small nagging doubt in the back of her head tried to tell her, he hadn't read that much. What if he hadn't read it in its entirety? Then, she'd be deeper in the hole she was fast digging for herself. She couldn't face him, but she had to and slowly, she dragged herself to her feet. The walk back, to her lab the longest in history. Conceding that it was better out in the open, then she could get back to normal. Whatever the hell that was. Normal had just been thrown on its head.
Being the source of such stimulating reading, was not something Horatio Caine had ever envisaged of himself. He was finding it all a little too intriguing and to be honest, if he really admitted it, arousing. He knew that she looked up to him, and respected him professionally as he did her. Personally and to be totally frank, he thought she was drop dead gorgeous, as well as smart and witty and.... The list rolled on like an autocue in his head. He needed to stop now and think, think what he was going to say to her. What if she didn't want to speak to him? She trusted him. He'd broken that trust. Purely by reading what had been, a very personal and intimate email. It had been a mistake, he did know that, but it was about him. He was after all only human. He, like everyone else on the planet, out of sheer morbid fascination would have read it! He wanted to scream, how could he have been so stupid, to be caught reading it. God his head was in pieces. He had to get it together, had to hang in there. He could get through this, he knew he could. He just needed to explain. It would be all right once he'd explained. Yes it would be fine. Once he could speak to her all would be sorted and settled back to normality. Now he knew he was kidding himself, normal! Nothing was ever going to be normal again.