Chapter 12 of the Caine Mutiny. We'll call it 13 chapters, with 12 being a short one. I was going to finish it, having tonight free, unlike most Tuesdays, but I'm going to bed early. I just don't feel like typing the IAB tonight. I'll leave it with pure H/C fluff instead. Never fear, the IAB hearing will come. Goodnight. Deb
(H/C)
"Love comforteth like sunshine after rain."
William Shakespeare, King Henry VI, Part 3
(H/C)
The ocean washed the shore in ceaseless rhythm, smoothing away scars from the sand, refreshing the beach for the next set of footprints. Calleigh leaned back against the sturdy rock behind her and listened to the lullaby of the waves. She was in what she always thought of now as their spot, at the large rock on the beach outside their house. It seemed almost out of place, a large granite boulder, smoothly worn in spots and jaggedly defiant in others, dropped somehow into the middle of miles of level sand. She had asked Horatio about that rock once, and she remembered how his eyes had dipped briefly to the ground, still unaccustomed to shared emotion, before he answered. "I bought it from a landscaping company when I had the house built. I wanted one thing in my life that was solid." That revelation had been early in their relationship. A few months later, it was at this spot, in a pounding, exhilarating thunderstorm, that he had asked her to marry him. They both loved the rock now and could spend hours sitting here, propped against its friendly support. At the moment, it provided shelter as well as support. Eyes from the house could not penetrate it.
Calleigh ran one hand lightly through Horatio's hair. He was lying across the sand with his head in her lap, his breathing as even and rhythmic as the waves. Tracks of earlier tears, dried by the wind, were still visible on his face, but the lines of stress had smoothed out considerably over the last day. He slept, and she kept watch. This was a private stretch of beach, and the few people who came by were their neighbors, who would not want to wake him up anyway and who were further warned to keep their distance by Calleigh's challenging eyes.
Last night, she and Horatio had finally come home with Rosalind to find Jean bubbling over with enthusiasm, wanting a report on her imagined version of the previous night's family night out. Horatio had told her, honestly enough, that everything was all right now. From his point of view it was, never mind the fact that they were suspended. After eating, they watched a movie together, a family activity that Calleigh picked. Jean loved movies and quickly was engrossed in the story, not even noticing that Horatio fell asleep along with Rosalind before it was halfway over.
Eric had called with a case update a little earlier in the evening. Searching Stapleton's estate with a warrant and with permission yielded a mountain of evidence, including tapes from the gate camera. Like the rest of the family, Morrison had a remote control to open the gate, so he could slip in unnoticed after dark, but the watchful camera had caught the license plate of the borrowed Explorer, and CSI had the vehicle, along with enough evidence from the cellar relating to both Steve and Bill to build a rock-solid case. They also had enough evidence to bring Chip down on separate charges of drug dealing, and this time, his father wasn't listening to his pleas of innocence. Stapleton was still in shock. Everything he had believed in was an illusion, and he was forced to admit it.
Today, Saturday, Jean would not have expected Horatio and Calleigh to go to work anyway, but Calleigh had told her that they were going out for a while, to visit a friend in the hospital and then to another appointment. She had suggested that Jean go sightseeing in Miami for the morning, and Jean, still happily convinced that she had saved her daughter's marriage, agreed. Calleigh had expected a battle from Rosalind when they dropped her off at Alexx's for the day, but Rosalind had gone peacefully, sensing that everything was fine again, not doubting that they would be back in a few hours.
At the hospital, Bill was much less peaceful. After sleeping most of Friday, he was ready to get out of the hospital, eager to get back to work, and absolutely offended at the upcoming enforced medical leave and psychiatric appointment scheduled for him. His argument to the doctors that it was pointless to keep him for observation for the concussion, since he had been hit on the head over 48 hours before he even got to the hospital, fell on deaf ears, and Calleigh and Horatio had left him unwillingly still in his hospital room under Monica's firm supervision.
After leaving the hospital, they had gone to see Susan Parker and her daughters, and then, they had gone to the shooting range run by Calleigh's former Marine friend and had spent a hour blowing targets to oblivion. Eventually, they wound up here, just a few hundred feet from their own house, having parked the Hummer a distance away and walked along the beach.
A bug landed on Horatio's cheek, and he twitched. Calleigh brushed it off quickly, and it circled and came back again. She knocked it off once more, but it matched her determination. This time, she swatted at it while it was still in the air and hit Horatio, who started to sit up just as her hand moved. He was already smiling as he opened his eyes. "All right, Cal, I'm awake."
"Sorry, Horatio. I was trying to hit a bug."
"My fault, then. I'll look before I move, next time." He was sitting up next to her now, and she kissed his cheek, where her hand had fallen.
"Is that better?"
He tilted his head, considering while his eyes laughed at her. "I don't know. I think it needs a lot more apology, to tell you the truth." She closed the distance again, apologizing most thoroughly, and her apology was completely accepted. They split apart only when the beat of a traffic helicopter sorted itself out from their mutual pulse. They sat back side by side against the rock as the airborne intruder whipped along their beach.
"Wonderful. What do you bet we'll be on the news?" Calleigh grumbled.
"Too late," Horatio pointed out. "We're already on the news. Remember that paper at the hospital? We might as well enjoy it." His light mood was broken, though. His eyes shifted back toward the house, as if he could see through their rock to view it. "I'm still not totally sure about this, Calleigh."
"Mother never asked last night if we were suspended, Horatio, so we weren't lying by not mentioning it. And this morning, I told her up front we were going to see a friend in the hospital."
"You also told her that after that, we were going to therapy."
"You dispute the term?" His eyes went to the beach, watching the restless waves. "We spent last night together with her, and we'll be with her tonight. If it really bothers you, though, Horatio, she's probably back by now, and she's just up the beach. You can walk right up to the house and tell her everything, if you like. Just try explaining to Mother what we were really doing Thursday night, and see what she'll manage to turn it into."
"It doesn't bother me that much," he admitted guiltily.
"Good. She was pretty reasonable last night. It's amazing how much easier to get along with she's been since she decided we were having problems."
Horatio put an arm around her, squeezing her into his side. "I'm sorry, Cal."
She didn't ask for what. She leaned into him, closing her own eyes. "She's never going to change. She can't help it, really. We'll just have to accept her like she is – and remember to walk out often enough to keep us sane. We'll probably have to spend the whole day with her at Christmas, though."
"Mmm." His sensitive fingers combed her hair. "That's what Christmas is all about, really."
Calleigh straightened up enough to see him clearly. "What?"
"The gift of love to imperfect people in a broken world."
Tears welled up in her eyes, and he kissed them away. She flung her arms around him, and they held each other, shielded and supported by their rock. "Where have you been all my life, Horatio?"
"I've wondered the same thing. I don't know how I survived without you." They kissed again and were just deepening it when the helicopter buzzed by again, heading for a different distant intersection.
"That pilot has a short memory," Calleigh protested. "He's already checked out the traffic on this beach." Horatio grinned, but there was a shadow of something else behind it. Something in her words had caught him. "What is it, Horatio?"
He hesitated, then spoke so softly she had to lean closer to hear him over the waves. "Thinking about short memories. Calleigh, when we were held hostage, when I killed Otis, do you think I enjoyed it?"
Her jaw fell open. "Do I what? Are you crazy?" He didn't respond, but his eyes pleaded for a serious answer. "No, Horatio. You were just thinking about me and about Rosalind. If you had room to think of anything else, it was just to hold on. Trust me, you were too sick and hurt at the time to possibly be enjoying it."
"Not even a little bit, on some inner level?"
"No. You didn't enjoy it, Horatio." He weighed the answer, deciding whether to accept it. "What on earth made you wonder that?"
He looked down at his hands. "I was thinking the other day, on the case, that I could kill this man when I caught him."
"You didn't, though. You pulled Argo off him, actually."
He nodded. "I thought the same thing with Otis, at the top of that parking garage. I wanted to let him fall, Cal. I wanted it so much that it scared me. Just thinking about this case, knowing that I actually had killed Otis in February, had crossed that line once, I wondered if somehow, on some level, I enjoyed it."
She understood now. "You wondered if you had totally lost control, if there was no difference between you and the criminals." He looked up at her, startled. "Think about Thursday night, Horatio. You can remember that one perfectly well. You were pushed to the limit on the case, but were you thinking, breaking into that estate, that here was your chance to live on the other side of the law, to get back at Stapleton for blocking the warrant, to go after a criminal without the rule book in hand?"
He shook his head. "I just wanted to save Bill. If I could have done it any other way, I would have."
"Exactly. And in February, you just wanted to save us. You had no choice, Horatio. You weren't enjoying it, any more than you enjoyed Thursday night." He relaxed suddenly. She hugged him, burying her face against his chest. "Don't ever think there's no difference between you and them, Horatio. There's all the difference in the world." She straightened up again, facing him. "Thinking of February, though, I want you to make me a promise."
He considered it. "If I can," he said, too honest to give her a blank check. He knew there were some things he couldn't do.
"Don't ever really kick anything hard again like you did that tree in Hell's Bay."
His eyes retreated in sudden understanding. "Is that why you didn't want me to kick in the door of that shed?"
"Yes." She gripped his arms. "Be grateful for what we've got, Horatio, but 99 percent is not 100 percent.Don't forget that. Try to think of yourself at least a little, okay? If not, think of me."
He flinched, remembering all that she'd been through that year. To him, that was a bigger motivation than avoiding hurting himself was. "I won't ever do it unless I don't have a choice and there's no one else around to kick doors in for me." He looked apologetic, realizing now that he had worried her. "I shouldn't have kicked that tree, anyway."
She kissed his nose. "Believe it or not, Handsome, you're only human." She smiled suddenly. "I broke my hand hitting a tree when I was 14. All of us have done something stupid in anger at least once. But next time, throw something, okay?"
He smiled at her. "That, I'll promise you." He looked at his watch. "Almost time to go get Rosalind. We told Alexx we'd be back by 3:00." He didn't mention precisely what time it was. Time once again measured life's building blocks, not its failures. He scrambled up and extended his hand to her, lifting her onto her feet with a surge of strength that startled her, almost pulling her shoes clear off the sand. He gave her his crooked smile, and she realized that he was reassuring her that he really was fine now. She returned the smile, accepting the statement, and they walked down the beach hand-in-hand toward the distant Hummer, leaving parallel footprints in the sand for the ceaseless ocean to smooth away, preparing the way for new ones.