Disclaimer: It's been a year; hopefully, by now, everybody knows CSI: Miami does not belong to me.
Author's Note: I realized only as I read the reviews that I had written View Down The Scope as it was conceived - part of a longer story - which I truncated into the Kill Zone Challenge. So, the bet that teased people was to be explained in the following two, non-existent chapters. Honestly, I did not realize I had done that; my betas certainly did not tell me; I have an itching suspicious they purposely did not. :- I can hear people saying, "Well, duh! Why would we?" Okay, this is a Miami story so here are the people who make things worthwhile: kdeb, Marianne, b8kworm, and Mr. Hathaway. I especially would love to thank kdeb for everything - hand holding, brainstorming, keeping me awake, etc. Oh, and I love my betas.
Summary: But when Pygmalion fell in love with his creation, Aphrodite had to turn the statue into a woman, flesh and blood, to make him happy.
Rating: PG-13
Archive(s): Evidence of Things Unseen, Lonely Road, mine. Anybody else, email me.
Pairing(s): Horatio/Calleigh.
Spoiler(s): Body Count, The Oath.
The sequel to View Down The Scope.
..... ..... .....Title: Everything Comes In Threes
Author: Laeta
Chapter 2: Win Or Lose
Sheila always had known Aaron was a member of EMPAD; it was one of those secrets that was less hurtful if it was a common one, shared by many people but never spoken about aloud. So, on occasion and in full trust, she visited the training center for the group.
The center was a big warehouse. It contained a fully equipped gym, storage rooms aplenty, and an indoor shooting range for its members. Outside, there was an enormous abandoned field, overgrown with weeds. It was there Horatio hid when Sheila arrived with Calleigh.
Aaron, relaxed in the shade of the building, abandoned his repose the moment he recognized his wife's form. He welcomed Calleigh with his habitual smile and invited them to join him.
Calleigh sat in her chair and looked over the field of weeds and, for an instant, could not understand what everybody watched. Then, a boom sounded and an object flew gracefully through the still air. A shot of report seconds later forced the object to abruptly free fall toward the ground. Minutes later, another object was airborne in another portion of the field; again, it fell to the grass.
"Where is he?" Calleigh asked the group members lounging nearby her.
Aaron focused on the field, studying the mid-air collisions. "Oh, he's probably over there somewhere." He pointed vaguely to a little rise to their left.
"I figured that out, thank you." Aaron merely smiled at the biting tone.
"We never know exactly where he is," another member said, trying to be helpful and failing.
"What? You just leave him out there, in this heat, and let him stop whenever feels like it?"
A third EMPAD member chimed in, a little too cheerfully, with a well received offer: "Well, you're welcome to find him, if you want."
.....There was no explaining how she found Horatio in that vast field, but she did. She was careful to remain behind his line of sight and deliberately let her shadow fall across his vision. He tensed and relaxed in the span of time it took for him to inhale and to exhale.
Calleigh jumped a little as he fired another shot; then, she used the deafening silence to sit in the grass next to him.
Now that she had found Horatio, all traces of her earlier impatience disappeared. She was content to sit at his side, letting the slight breeze play with her hair as the sun slowly tanned her skin a pale gold.
It was not a long time later when Horatio finally moved from his prone position. He reached out with one arm and pressed a button on the remote control all but forgotten in the knee high grass. The soda can ejecting machines stopped with a whirling noise, the echo resounding in the heavy air.
Rather than resettling into his former position, he shifted his weight to his other elbow so he faced Calleigh for the first time. It lasted barely a second; Horatio moved his gaze past her, towards the relative coolness of the shade behind her. She glanced where he did and found the sweating water bottle.
Handing it to him, she focused her eyes on his body rather than his face when he did not immediately take the water. She followed the line formed by the water bottle as it hung suspended in midair to where Horatio had brought his arm to rest along the length of his body.
"Sleep well?" he asked, suddenly.
Her eyes rose to meet his, gauging the sincerity of his question.
She answered honestly. "No nightmares. Not yet, anyhow."
He nodded. "It's never the nightmares, you know, that will kill you. It's the waiting."
Oh, how she understood him on so many levels. Yet, it was only possible to continue on one; they, both of them, were too exhausted for the mental complexities of such a conversation. Calleigh picked the most innocuous route.
"With shooting, you choose the moment to pull the trigger. There really is no waiting."
"I suppose that it depends on the situation, doesn't it, Calleigh?" He withdrew to a spot of internal safety just as he spoke her name.
Her eyes narrowed before she realized he obliquely referenced his involvement with EMPAD - for the first time.
"Horatio?" she called softly.
His voice was still so far away from her. "It's funny how I couldn't kill Stuart; I couldn't let him fall. But with Hagen - I was ready. I regret not pulling the trigger yesterday." Back with her in the sunlit field, his words pelted her like stones. "It bothers me how ready I was. I think I could hate myself for it."
"No!" Her vehemence had no echoing reaction in him. "You're too good for this."
"Am I?" He leaned closer, shifting his weight from his one elbow to his hand. "I dreamed last night, Calleigh. In it, I pulled the trigger. Even if you hated me for killing your former lover, it would have made me feel a lot better."
Suddenly, Calleigh understood. "There would be no past history, like it was with Stacy?"
His eyes narrowed before he realized she deliberately baited him. It was anger she wanted from him; it would cauterize the wounds that still bled upon his soul. He tried to resent her for her insight.
While he railed against his anger, his glare was unmistakably haughty. How dare she assume to know anything about him?
"I pried the story from Sheila," Calleigh confessed.
"This makes the situation better?"
"Of course not. But, I do think I've completely figured you out."
"That is a bad idea."
"Oh, I wouldn't know about that, Horatio. It feels mighty grand from where I'm sitting; a bit like love, actually." She smiled at him.
The reaction to fight drained out of him. It seemed that she always managed to cut him off at the knees. He had but one avenue left to him; to it, he succumbed gracefully and without any further rebellion.
"What would you have me do?" She merely blinked serenely at him. "What do you want from me?"
"Show me all your scars; I'll show you mine."
"I don't want you to see."
"Why not?" She positively growled the words. "You don't think anybody could possibly understand you?"
His eyes framed the truth by which he lived his life.
"Horatio, you're an idiot sometimes. Give me your gun and we'll see."
© RK 27.Jun.2004