Guess what? I found some fluff in this fic after all. Not so much in this chapter but in future ones, yes. I'm so excited! Let the E/C fun begin!
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Eric Delko was in the trace lab, speaking with a technician of the contents of a vial found at a murder scene. They were just discovering it was morphine when Calleigh walked in.
Eric looked up.
"Morphine," he said.
"Morphine?" she repeated. "Did the killer drug the victim?"
Eric allowed himself the briefest of moments to enjoy her accent before continuing to focus.
"I'm not sure yet, the bottle we found looked full but that's not to say there weren't others. I'm about to go see Alexx to find out what she knows," he said as they stepped out of the lab together.
She nodded. "I'll go down with you but after that I was thinking of a lunch break since I'm waiting for DNA to get back to me. Want to join me?"
Did he want to? Of course he did. He'd always found her an attractive woman but, in the past couple months she seemed to have softened the slightest bit in their interactions. It was enough to let Eric see a personal side of Calleigh and he was coming to realize that he wanted to see more.
However, he was reluctant to initiate anything. With her brisk professionalism, she didn't seem to be the type to mix much of her personal life with her professional. That wouldn't stop him from accepting her invitation, though. He smiled at her as they stepped into the elevator.
"Sounds great. Did you have anyplace in mind?"
"I heard there's a new deli downtown, we could try it," she said.
"It's a plan," he said, letting her step off the elevator before him.
When they reached Alexx she was just beginning the autopsy on Eric's victim.
"I'm sorry guys," she started, "Horatio asked me to look at his victim first. Said it was urgent."
"The rape victim?" Eric asked.
Alexx nodded.
"They must have run into a stumbling block," Calleigh murmured.
"If you want to come back later, I'll have the answers for you," Alexx said as she pulled on a fresh pair of gloves.
"Well maybe we can help you out a bit," said Eric. "We found a vial of morphine near the body, the victim may have been drugged."
"I'll keep that in mind," said Alexx.
They said goodbye and Eric and Calleigh left the lab. Eric held the door open for her and touched the back of her arm with the tips of his fingers in subconscious guidance before following her out. Her skin was soft.
"My car or yours?" he asked as they walked along the sidewalk in front of the building.
"I'll drive," she offered, pulling her keys from her purse. Eric saw a flash of red on her keychain and reached over to turn it over in her palm. It read 'License to Bitch.'
He started laughing.
"Calleigh Duquesne, I never would have expected you to have a keychain like that!"
She smiled.
"Well, I have to keep you men I work with on your toes, don't I? Besides, I didn't buy it, a friend gave it to me." Her smile softened as she remembered.
When she and Speed were just beginning to be more than friends, she surprised herself by, one night, unburdening herself of all the things that had ticked her off that day in an uncharacteristic rant. Afterwards Speed had chuckled and said that he'd seen a new side of her. She covered her face, mortified at having lost her composure, until he stroked her hair and told her it was alright, that he'd listen if she ever wanted to do it again.
The next day she found the keychain in her locker. Just how and when he got it in there, she never asked. But he had had the goofiest grin on his face later that evening when she pulled it out to find her apartment key.
She pulled her mind out of the past as she and Eric reached her car. Minutes later they entered the deli, ordered and sat down to eat. After chatting idly for a while about their cases, Calleigh leaned forward.
"I don't want to be a snoop but, is there something between Horatio and Rebecca?"
At that Eric leaned back and laughed.
"You could say there is," he said finally. "They've been seeing each other for about a year!"
Calleigh's jaw dropped.
"Are you serious?" she asked. "Does everybody else know?"
He shook his head.
"They haven't exactly been shouting it from the rooftops, but they're not outright hiding it either. I know. Ryan knows. I'll bet Stetler knows."
She nodded, realizing just how out of the loop she'd been. She wondered what else had been right in front of her for the past year.
"So how serious is it?" she asked.
"Well, there's no wedding plans as of yet but they seem to be serious enough."
"I'm glad if Horatio is happy."
"Yeah, but I wonder if it becomes a problem trying to keep all the stuff that happens at work out of the relationship," he said.
She shook her head. "It doesn't have to be a problem as long as they both communicate."
"So you'd be willing to have a relationship with a person you work with even though it's not exactly kosher?"
She looked out the window.
"If it was the right person, yes."
Eric, not knowing quite the right way to proceed from that statement, checked his watched instead.
"We should be getting back."
She looked back at him, a smile on her face.
"Yeah, you're right, let's go."