Title: Eternity in the Crosshairs (1/1)
Author: Andrea )
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: My heart always returns to H/C, and so, to my own muse I must be true.
Disclaimer: Me no profit; you no sue.
Archive: Just say so. I'll come visit. Laeta, be my guest.
Spoilers: None.
Author's Notes: Just a little angst/smaltz-fest I needed to get out of my system. Many thanks to my betas.
Summary: They were one choice away from an altogether different existence.
Feedback: If you please. Be gentle.
In the lamplit hours, his sanity hung precariously in the balance between crushing defeat and righteous success, yet they were still his favorite moments of the day. He used the darkness to replenish his spent emotions, to gird himself privately for the next battle.
When his feelings laid siege to him, he strolled at the water's edge slavishly seeking peace, his only companion the murmuring waves lapping on the deserted stony beach.
This night, death had brought him here, having stolen the illusion that everything was fine in the world. Another innocent child had died on his watch. A distraught father going through a divorce was not willing to share custody of his son with his soon-to-be ex-wife, so he had taken the boy hostage and was threatening to harm the child just so the mother couldn't have him.
The man had held the boy at gunpoint with the horrified mother looking on. The SWAT team was on the scene when Horatio got the call. The man had shot the woman without compunction, and SWAT feared the boy would be next.
After a long, tense standoff, a sharpshooter lined up his shot and swiftly made ready to move in. The father reacted just as quickly, flinching, causing his gun to fire, hitting the boy before SWAT could respond. Horatio had the man in the crosshairs of his gun, but it was too late. The boy was dead, off to face eternity much too soon.
He had failed. Again.
Horatio's turmoil knew no bounds. If only he had more quickly anticipated what was to come or had taken another course of action. What if? What if? What if? That which just yesterday had seemed so important, today tasted like sawdust. All the world's vivid colors had inexplicably faded into swirling pools of murky gray.
At the end of the damnable shift, Tripp had offered to go with him somewhere, anywhere, to be there while he decompressed. Horatio warned him off with a silent look of deadly intent.
He preferred to be alone in his self-castigation, but he knew better than to expect solitude.
Eventually, she would find him.
His spirit resonated with expectation—he was sure she would come; it was just a matter of when. It had taken him many moons to accept the fact that his priorities, passions and purposes motivated her, but once he allowed himself to believe it, he began to appreciate her gentle intrusion and, in fact, luxuriated in her nearness. She provided a much-needed respite from the harshness that surrounded him.
She would come. She always did. He held no illusions that she wouldn't follow him anywhere—past the celebration and the misery, outside the city walls, straight into the dark. So, in the still small hours, he waited for her.
What felt like forever passed with no sign of Calleigh.
His torment seemed unending. The world with all its terrors was enveloping him in a dark and lonely place he was beginning to fear he wouldn't be able to escape. His personal demons brought out the heavy ammunition, all his failures playing behind his eyes in a series of hideous moving pictures, a frightening cinema of remembrance. And still he was alone. The monastic quality of his life had finally become a curse.
Anger and frustration threatening to overwhelm him, Horatio viciously unsheathed his gun from its holster and sat blankly staring at it, stroking the cold steel with equally cold, yet reverent, fingers. Even with his considerable authority and influence, he was impotent against the power of weapons such as this. An innocent little boy learned that lesson just this morning.
It would be so easy, he speculated. Just turn the barrel toward you, put yourself in the crosshairs and shoot. End of story.
In the midst of the thought his body went rigid and zombie-like and his hands moved of their own accord until the gun was poised at his face.
Eternity stood still.
A lone tern flew overhead, breaking the silence of the moment and startling Horatio out of his trance.
No. That would be the coward's way out, and he was anything but a coward.
All at once Horatio stood, pivoted on his heels and blindly shot off round after round into the sand until a long string of soft clicks was all that remained to be heard.
Horatio walked almost ashamedly to the pockmarked sand and bent to retrieve the evidence of his emotional outburst. He pocketed the casings, knelt down on the spot, and draped his hands over his knees, leaving the gun hanging there limply. Hot angry tears fell.
When, at last, he no longer tasted the salty tang of remorse on his lips, he rose to leave his self-imposed whipping post, still not quite ready to make his mourning a thing of the past. That's when he saw her standing off in the distance perched high atop a rock cliff overlooking his hideaway.
She didn't survey her surroundings—she watched only his face. All that really mattered she could find written there. Her diaphanous figure approached slowly, the apparition materializing into a tangible being, all warm flesh and breathy sighs.
His eyes swept slowly over her, and in that one instant it was as though his soul was breathing again. She always brought new life to him, a woman just the other side of a dream—but this was no dream—this was more real than he had felt in he knew not how long.
Always before when she came to him, she merely listened, let him do all the talking; but tonight she spoke with both clarity and compassion.
"You are not to blame, Horatio. Surely you know that."
There was something miraculous about the sound of her voice, an ocean trapped in a seashell.
More than anything, she longed to throw her arms around his neck and comfort him the way a lover would, but they were not at that place yet; rather, she reached out to him and cradled his face in her hands. At the first tender contact his tears started anew, tears she carefully smoothed away with her thumbs, hushing him all the while.
He tried to turn his head, to hide his weakness from her, his guardian angel, but she would have none of it.
"I won't let you hide from this. If you run away, I'll always find you," she promised.
She nudged his face back to its former place and met his eyes with determination of her own, trapping him in her gaze. The two remained locked in each other's visual embrace, their souls exchanging wordless and secret conversation. With every second that passed under her touch, he could feel the pain he still carried inside ebbing like the tide on this very beach, washing out to the Sea of Forgetfulness where all his other past sins dwelled.
His down-turned mouth curved into a soft, shaky smile, and the glint in his eyes was no longer from tears, but from recognition. Now and forever, one truth rose above all else.
She was, she is his forever.
He only hoped she knew it the way he did.
In the end, he had nothing to dread. It took only a second more for her eyes to light with the same fire that burned within his. Horatio's heart leapt at the realization.
They were one choice away from an altogether different existence.
Now or never, he thought.
"I love you," he whispered through his pleasure.
"And I, you." Her eyes smiled into his.
So, like Peter taking that first faithful step for the Savior, Horatio took that beautiful flying leap out into the waters of chance and lovingly raised the stakes.
In one fluid motion he took a single unfaltering step forward, crumbling the barrier between them without so much as a thought, and slowly lowered himself closer to her.
Now it was Calleigh's turn to shy away from him. She dipped her head to her chest and tried in vain to control her shallow breaths and racing heart. Just as she had done earlier, Horatio framed her face in his hands and drew her chin upward to meet his own eyes once again.
"Look at me, Calleigh," he entreated. "I want you to see me, really see me, when I kiss you for the first time."
Their lips met softly, each yielding one to the other as their arms sought to strengthen their bodies' connection. Soon, the two were as one, alone together under the moonlit sky, the rippling surf at their feet.
The pair folded themselves into a comfortable embrace and clung to each other tightly. The enormity of how far they had come and how far they had yet to go should have scared them, but it did not. Together they were unstoppable.
She is his forever, and passion will have its day; but until then, he would keep eternity in the crosshairs.
fin