Rating: PG-13.

Disclaimer: CSIM is not mine. If it were, a lot of things would be different. I do, however, own Rosalind, as well as several other characters in this one.

Series: This is the 19th in the Fearful Symmetry series. Fearful Symmetry, Can't Fight This Feeling, Gold Medals, Surprises, Honeymoon, Blackout, the Hopes and Fears, Anniversary, Framed, Sight for Sore Eyes, Trials and Tribbulations, Premonition, Do No Harm, the CSI Who Loved Me, Complications, Yet to Be, More Deadly, Photo Finish, and the Caine Mutiny. All are archived at Lonely Road and also on this site under Deb3.

Thanks: To Karen, for information, suggestions, and corrections regarding German Shepherds.

A/N: Keep in mind as you read this story that in the FS universe, Stetler does not exist, and Calleigh's family is based on TPTB's original version, although I have killed her father by this point (in Surprises). Less crucial to this story but just to complete the roll call, Speed is still alive and will stay that way, Hagen is in jail (Surprises and Blackout) and will probably stay that way, Madison doesn't exist, and Yelina is purely peripheral. Eric, of course, is Eric.

(H/C)

"I'll be home for Christmas, if only in my dreams."

Harry Connick, Jr.

(H/C)

Consciousness returned slowly, the shadows retreating from his mind inch by grudging inch. The inner shadows were replaced by exterior darkness. Where was he? He remembered . . . what did he remember? It came back to him in fragments. A street, a call, a blow. An insistent ache gnawed at the side of his head, demanding his attention. He tried to ignore it, shifting a bit, and discovered that his hands were cuffed behind him. He was lying down, both his hands and his feet cuffed to some sort of pipe. He was shirtless, and the temperature already had him shivering. The cold, dank smell of earth assaulted his senses, and for a moment, he was caught in a panicked nightmare of being buried alive. He forced the thought away, trying to speak and shatter the silence. Only a muffled cry reached his ears, and he realized that his mouth was firmly taped shut.

'Keep thinking,' he told himself. 'Look, if you're buried alive' – one foot thumped the pipe – 'this is the oddest coffin that was ever built. Keep thinking.' It had been a creed of his mentor on the force. Keep thinking. No matter what the situation, what the showdown, don't let it overcome you. Think faster, if necessary, but keep thinking.

He wiggled as much as he could, exploring the rest of his prison. There was some sort of rough floor, plywood probably, a few inches below the pipe. This made his awkward, wobbling position along the pipe uncomfortable but hardly precarious. The smell was of earth. A cellar, maybe? Somewhere underground. He wondered how far underground. Couldn't be too far if he was still in Florida. This wasn't a prepared foundation for a building but some type of hole, with dirt walls. It was dry, though. There was a sense of air space above him, a void of several feet, he guessed, but there was no light. There also was no sound. The pipe was even colder than the air, cold metal with no hint of condensation. Not a water pipe, apparently.

The thought of water made him realize how much his mouth felt like cotton. Think of something else. Keep thinking. He gave as much of a muffled cry as he could, trying to hear if the sound bounced off a ceiling above him, and was still debating the result when another sound took precedence. Heavy, solid steps approached, echoing through his prison, eerily seeming to come through the walls as well as the ceiling. They stopped just overhead, a bit to one side, and there was a shuffling sound, then something being dragged. Then came the sound of a key, and finally, he heard the smooth swing of recently-oiled hinges.

The light assaulted him along with the rush of fresh air from above. A blinding, high-powered flashlight was aimed directly into his eyes, and he couldn't see anything at all past it. A soft chuckle reached him, then a sneering voice.

"Hands behind your back now. Oh, sorry, guess you don't have much choice, do you? You're moving around too much. You know what happens when people don't cooperate?"

Where had he heard that voice before? The thought was barely completed when it and all other thoughts were driven from his mind by the stab of the metal prongs, and the voltage from the tazer had him writhing against the pipe. He forced himself not to cry out, dignity a more efficient gag than the tape. Above him, the chuckle became an outright laugh.

(H/C)

"Pity!" Rosalind called out, stretching her hands forward.

"Pretty," Calleigh corrected, and Horatio grinned at her. In blue jeans and a sweatshirt, holding his daughter with one hand and decorating the Christmas tree with her help and interference with the other, he looked anything but professional. He had icicles in his hair, as did Rosalind, left from an exuberant toss over the top of the tree.

"She gets the point across, Cal."

"That's no reason to stop trying to improve." The lights of the tree were reflecting off the icicles, making her husband and daughter a walking, shimmering rainbow. Calleigh focused the camera she held and took a picture of them. "There's a shot to show around CSI."

Horatio smiled. "I wouldn't mind," he said simply. He swooped his daughter through the air as they recrossed the living room to get another ornament out of the box. "Which one, Angel?" Rosalind tried to grab a double handful and ended up dropping most of them. "Greed doesn't pay. I keep trying to tell people that, and the criminals don't listen, either."

"You know, Horatio, at this rate, it's going to take you all week to get this tree finished." Calleigh came over to chase stray ornaments, putting them back in the box.

"That doesn't matter. This is Rosalind's first Christmas, and she's going to be part of it. Time only counts for what you do with it."

She was to remember that line often in the dark weeks ahead.

Now, though, Calleigh was utterly lost in the moment, having been captured by his eyes as she straightened up from the box. The pure love and happiness shining in them melted her. Horatio, standing right in front of her as her husband. She wanted to admire the view and close the distance at the same time. He read the thought and met her halfway, and they were just deepening the kiss when Rosalind planted a hand on each of her parents' chests and pushed them apart. "Pity!" she said, reaching back toward the tree. She could never understand their preoccupation with kissing when there were more interesting things to do.

Calleigh sighed. "On second thought, Rosalind, the word works well enough without the R."

Horatio pulled three icicles out of his daughter's hair and carefully draped them through Calleigh's. "Leave them there, and I'll take them out later on, after Rosalind goes to sleep," he promised.

"No!" Rosalind stated. Her vocabulary was growing, and she certainly knew the words go to sleep.

Horatio's low chuckle tickled Calleigh's ears. He knelt by the box and picked up an ornament. "Let's get busy. Care to join the fun, Calleigh?" His twinkling eyes looked up at her sideways.

Calleigh put the camera down and picked up her own ornament. "Well, I guess one of us needs to take charge, or this tree won't even be done by next Christmas."

They worked on the tree together then, Calleigh making more progress solely because Horatio insisted on letting Rosalind help put on every ornament, guiding her hands. "We're going to have to be careful with these icicles, Horatio. She's crawling all over the place now, and she'll be walking soon. I don't want her to eat them."

"We're leaving them off the lowest branches. A tree just isn't complete without icicles." He carefully studied the ornament in Rosalind's hand. "Now, then, Rosalind, where should this one go?" He carefully analyzed the branches with the same focus he brought to a case. "This one, I think. Here we go, slip it over the branch. Whoops." Rosalind dropped the decorated ball, which happened on at least one out of every three, and Horatio dropped to his knees and tracked it down in a corner.

Rosalind, set temporarily on the ground, grabbed her now horizontal father, trying to climb onto his back. "Horse! Horse!"

"Not just now, Angel. We're trying to get the tree done." She paid no attention, scrambling up his arm, then falling back to land with a thump on the floor. "You okay?" Horatio picked her up, and she swarmed over his shoulder, finally arriving triumphantly on his back.

"Horse!"

Horatio gave up, obligingly heading off across the floor on all fours at a smoothly sedate pace that he still made exciting. Laughing, Calleigh quickly retrieved the camera and took another picture. "That one, now, would really make a hit at CSI."

As if summoned by her thoughts, the phone rang.

The horse paused in mid stride, and Horatio glared toward the instrument. "No. Not on Sunday afternoon."

Calleigh wasn't in any hurry to answer it, either. "It could be somebody besides work. Family, maybe." Her voice trailed off as she remembered that her mother was due for a visit later in the month. "On second thought, work wouldn't be so bad."

Horatio was carefully prying his reluctant daughter from his back. "No!" she insisted.

"Can you get it, Cal?"

Resigned, she picked up the phone, just beating the answering machine to it. "Hello?"

"Calleigh, is Horatio there?" It took her a minute to identify the voice. Not one of the team. Not one of the detectives. It was the captain.

"Yes, sir, just a minute." Horatio had made it to his feet, leaving Rosalind crawling after him in disgust, and Calleigh handed him the phone with a puzzled frown between her eyes. Why on earth would the captain be calling? A case would come from Dispatch, or from a detective or another CSI. In fact, why was the captain even at work on Sunday? He should be home decorating his own tree.

"Horatio." His eyes tightened as he listened, and Calleigh knew that regardless of the clock or calendar, their weekend had just ended. "Yes sir. I'll be right there." He hung up the phone.

"Big case?" Calleigh was still trying to work out why the captain had called himself.

"Very big. An officer has been taken hostage, and we apparently have some communication from the criminals." He kissed her distractedly, then picked up Rosalind, who was trying to climb his leg, and kissed her too. "I'm sorry, Cal, but they need me. I said I'd meet him at CSI in 20 minutes."

"It's okay, Horatio. Come here, Angel." She took Rosalind from him. "Did the captain say which officer?"

"Steve Parker."

Calleigh flinched. Steve had known Horatio from back on his Bomb Squad days. Steve had eventually transferred to Narcotics, and Horatio had gone to CSI, but they were still good friends. "Go find him, Horatio. If you need me, give me a call, and I can take Rosalind over to Alexx's."

"I will." He was buckling on his gun and badge.

"Find him or call me?" Calleigh just wanted to make sure he had registered all of her statement.

He gave her a humorless smile. "Both," he promised, then turned and left.

Rosalind stared after him wistfully, and Calleigh bent to pick up the dropped ornament under the tree. "Come on, Angel. Let's finish decorating." She picked out a branch and helped Rosalind fasten the ornament to it. As they crossed the living room to the box for another, Calleigh regretfully pulled the icicles out of her hair.

(H/C)

Horatio entered CSI and only realized when he got a startled look from someone on weekend shift that he was still wearing jeans, a sweatshirt, and icicles. He carefully combed the icicles out with his fingers as he climbed the stairs to his office.

The captain was there before him, sitting in one of the chairs in front of the desk with the stiff posture of one who is forcing himself not to pace. He got up eagerly as Horatio entered. If he noticed his lieutenant's attire, he did not comment. "Thank you, Horatio. Sorry to disrupt your weekend."

"You didn't; the criminals did. What's the situation, sir?" Horatio sat down behind his desk, and the captain sat back down himself. An evidence envelope lay in the center of Horatio's pristine desk, but he ignored it for the moment and focused on his supervisor.

"Here's what we know. Steve's wife and children were out of town last night, visiting relatives upstate. I called her cell phone when I couldn't get an answer at home; they're on their way back now. That envelope arrived at HQ this afternoon. We didn't realize anything was wrong until then. Steve had today off, anyway. We aren't sure when he was taken, last night or this morning."

Horatio moved now, snapping a set of gloves on. He picked up the envelope and hesitated. "It arrived like this? In an evidence envelope?"

"No. It's in another envelope inside that one. I got that one from one of your people and repackaged it. The original envelope has probably been handled by dozens of people through the system, but the note inside only had three of us touch it – the secretary who opened it, her supervisor, and me."

"And, of course, the author." Horatio opened the evidence envelope and extracted the smaller one. It looked like a standard business size envelope, neatly slit with a letter opener. He extracted the note, a single piece of paper with a single line printed in block letters. He read it over, the short, harsh sentence echoing in his mind. 'Steve Parker won't be making it home for Christmas.' Finally, he looked back up.

"The secretary called her supervisor instantly, and he called me. They were careful to preserve the note's condition the best they could. I called Steve's house and got no answer. Tried his cell phone, no answer, and then Susan's, and I found out they were out of town."

Horatio centered the note on his desk on top of the envelope. "When did anyone last hear from Steve?"

"He signed out at 7:00 last night. He left in his own car. I sent an officer over to his house – no signs of the car or any sort of struggle. I've put out an APB on his car."

Horatio nodded. "I'll call in Speedle and Delko. I'll have one of them meet me at his house, Eric, I think, and put Speed to work on this note. The house probably isn't the main crime scene, but we have to rule it out." He tapped the note with one finger. "How was this delivered? It hasn't been through the Post Office. No stamp, and mail doesn't run on Sundays, anyway."

"According to the secretary, it was in the interdepartmental mail."

"I want to talk to her, too, to get a better idea of the mail procedures and whether it could have been put in by a stranger. We'll run fingerprints on the envelope; everybody with the PD is on file." He glanced back down at the note. "If there's an insider on this case, he's going to regret the day he was born."

"The same thing goes for the criminal." The captain stood up. "I'll leave you to it, but keep me informed, every step. You'll be working with Tripp. He's on his way in."

Horatio stood in turn, picking up the note and the envelope. "We'll start records searches, too. Drug busts, anyone paroled recently from one of Steve's cases. This is obviously revenge. No ransom demand, no signature, no contact information for any kind of negotiations. I'm hoping the victim choice wasn't random, but he doesn't just want revenge on Steve personally. Otherwise, why taunt us? His grudge is against the whole department." He stared at the envelope in his hands. "And now, the feeling is mutual."