How to Slide Down Horatio Caine's Chimney in 10 Easy Steps
by Carolina

Processing evidence on a flu medicine high wasn't a lot of fun, Eric had decided. Neither was following Horatio around all of Miami through the mild haze, threatening suspects and leaving empty promises at desperate widows' doorsteps. He spent half his time either sleeping in the car or trying not to fall asleep in the car. Lucky for Eric, Horatio seemed to feel guilty about dragging him out while he had the 'flu' and pretty much just let him be. Lucky for Horatio, they hadn't had to respond to any shootings or potentially dangerous situations; because Eric was sure he wouldn't be able to find his own toes, let alone his gun amidst the stress and the daze.

Mental note – Alexx doesn't work with living organisms for a reason.

What's worse is he didn't see Calleigh for the rest of the day. Not good. Usually when his encounters with Calleigh were limited or nonexistent, he tended to have the worst days, whether it was coincidence or paranoia, he could never tell. But this time was no different.

Nineteen lab techs, CSIs and cops, and none of them had drawn Calleigh's name in the Secret Santa. For a moment there he thought he'd hit the jackpot with Yelina, but as it turns out she was talking about a completely different thing. Cabbages, or castration, or something he never quite understood. How Horatio was able to decipher that woman's strange language was beyond Eric.

Thankfully, the day was over. Or nearly over. He walked into the locker room, nodding his head politely at some of the night shift CSIs, who were on their way to pick up where he had left off. As soon as they left, Eric found himself alone. He opened his locker and threw half his things inside, picking up the jacket he would need to shield himself from the chilly night. For a moment he wondered if he could drive home. The effects of whatever Alexx had given him were beginning to wear off, but tempting fate after the horrible day he had had could be a disastrous thing.

So he called a cab company and after being informed he would have to wait fifteen minutes, he sat down, staring at his own locker. One glance at Calleigh's didn't need to tell him she had gone home already; all her cases had been solved and surely she wouldn't hang out at work after hours. Who would? Well, maybe Horatio, but Eric was pretty sure Horatio had long ago evolved into a superior living organism that didn't need sleep to survive. Maybe if he disciplined himself, he would, too.

Didn't take a lot of waiting for Alexx's words to start dancing in his head again. At this point he would have to either wait for a nearly improbable opportunity to arrive, or like she had suggested, just dive into it like some sort of half-crazed kamikaze. Neither seemed more alluring than the other at the moment. For a brief second he thought of just sending her the gift anonymously and be done with it. She'd get her gift, but not the opportunity to turn him down. But he shook his head. Weird as it was, he wanted her to know it came from him, even if it got him killed. Like Alexx said, she might even like it. And if she did, he wanted credit for it.

Eric let out the billionth sigh of the day. Why did he have to get himself in this mess?

Suddenly he felt someone sit down next to him, letting out the same frustrated sigh. Eric glanced over to see Ryan there, staring at the lockers in front of him blankly.

"Hey," Eric said.

He received the same monotonous greet. "Hey."

Eric looked ahead once more, suddenly mildly amused by whatever it was Ryan was seeing. "Going home?"

"Yup," Ryan answered unenthusiastically. "You?"

"Yup."

Both men sighed in unison, shoulders hunched over, hands resting limply on the bench.

"Made any headway with Calleigh?" Ryan asked without so much as turning his head.

"No," Eric replied. "Valera?"

"Nope."

Eric shook his head. "Women."

"Tell me about it," Ryan sighed. Silence joined them, but not stifling, comfortable. Hard to believe after Eric had reached the conclusion he would never have anything in common with Ryan. Not so much anymore.

Finally, Ryan turned to Eric. "Wanna go get hammered?"

"Already there," Eric replied.

Ryan nodded. "Nice."

"Yeah." After another brief silence, Eric glanced at his watch and stood up. "Alright, see ya tomorrow."

"Thanks for listening," Ryan said.

"Yeah, good talk."

Without much fanfare, Eric was gone. But Ryan stayed behind, still staring at the same spot on the locker in front of him. He knew it was time to go home, but what was the point? Not like he would be able to sleep anyway, knowing Valera would probably be in her own apartment, throwing darts at a picture of him and chanting hate hymns.

He sighed again. Why did he have to get himself into this mess? Twenty four hours ago, life was beautiful. He was enjoying his new job and everybody liked him. And now Valera had a bounty on his head. Funny how quickly things could change.

Really, it was all Eric's fault. If he hadn't gotten Calleigh that stupid present, none of this would've happened. Scratch that, the fault lay on whoever thought of doing this Secret Santa deal in the first place. Who plays this game after graduating from elementary school? Now he was stuck having to buy a present for a woman who hated him and would surely hate whatever he would end up buying her.

'Tis the season.

He stood up and walked towards his locker, getting his jacket and leaving his lab coat inside. Reluctantly, he closed the tiny door and made his way out. Time to lay his head down on the guillotine and scream for mercy.

Again.

-

Valera impatiently waited in front of the centrifuge as it spun its contents round and round. Frustrated, she looked at the clock on the wall. Just thirty more minutes and she'd be home free. Not that it mattered anyway, because one of Horatio's hobbies seemed to be waiting until the very last minute of her shift before jumping in front of her with more evidence to process. She was beginning to wonder if he either trusted her, and only her, to process his samples or just really, really resented her.

Finally, the machine came to a stop. Valera began to remove one of the test tubes when out of the corner of her eye she caught a tiny flicker of white. She turned her head to see a handkerchief floating up and down, the person responsible for it hiding, only a suspiciously clean hand showing. Valera sighed loudly and went back to work.

"I come in peace."

She didn't have to wait for vocal confirmation to know it was Ryan, who, after all, was possibly the only person under the age of sixty five to own a handkerchief. Valera frowned. "There's a surveillance camera in this room, you're safe."

"Good," Ryan said as he stepped inside the lab. With a timid smile on his face, he approached Valera carefully. "What are you doing?"

Valera narrowed her eyes and looked at him. "I don't know, Ryan. What am I doing?"

"Looks like you're testing blood samples," Ryan said cheekily.

"Well, you just answered your own question, then," Valera added with a fake smile, going back to her samples. "If you're looking for your results, I put them in the outbox six hours ago."

"Yeah, Carrie paged me."

"Okay."

He frowned. Oh yeah, she was definitely still pissed. He didn't have to know her all that well to recognize the passive aggressive tone. Maybe he didn't know women as well as Delko, but female passive aggressiveness was the universal symbol for intense disdain. That's something his father taught him at a young age.

His father also taught him to always walk away and let things cool off, but his father never suffered from obsessive compulsiveness, either.

So despite his better judgment, he sighed and pressed on. "Look, I'm sorry, okay? I don't know how many times I have to apologize before you forgive me."

"I'm not in the mood, Ryan. So if you're worried about your safety, you should probably leave now," she said.

"I'll switch with someone else, you'll never know whom. That way you'll still be surprised."

"Oh, forget it," Valera said dismissively. "It's just a stupid game."

"Yeah, but if it's important to you—"

"It's not."

"Okay," Ryan sighed.

She didn't say anything else and he just stood there, watching her work. Partly because it was nearly hypnotizing; partly because he knew it would piss her off. But then he remembered Valera wasn't Carrie, she could pretty much ignore him even if he started shooting at her. The whole building could collapse right now and as long as there was work to be done, Valera wouldn't even notice. God, she was weird.

He didn't have to wait long, though, because she suddenly frowned and looked at him. "You were waving your handkerchief around in the DNA lab."

Ryan shrugged his shoulders. "Yeah, so?"

"So, in your little obsessive compulsive world isn't that the sordid equivalent of drinking sewer water?" Valera teased, eyes back on the blood. "Some bacteria do travel by air, you know."

Ryan narrowed his eyes and looked at her suspiciously. "You're not scaring me with that."

Valera smiled. "Yes I am. You'll probably burn it as soon as you walk out."

"No I won't."

"You're probably trying to remember who smokes so you can borrow their lighter right now, aren't you?"

"Alright, so maybe I will burn it," Ryan exclaimed. "I mean, I wasn't going to but now that you suggested it, I guess I'll be one handkerchief short. Are you happy?"

"I'm always happy when you're miserable," Valera joked.

Ryan rolled his eyes. "You might wanna start printing the invitations to the party, then."

"I think I will," Valera replied.

Ryan smiled when she smiled. So, she was laughing at him. At least she was smiling with him, as well. And smiling was definitely better than the death stare. Could that possibly be a light at the end of the tunnel?

He took a deep breath. "So, am I forgiven?"

"Yeah, yeah, go away," Valera said dismissively.

"Great," Ryan smiled from ear to ear; feeling like the weight of the world had been lifted off his shoulders.

"See you tomorrow," Valera said.

"Yeah," Ryan said, reluctantly tapped the table a couple of times, for some strange reason, and walked out. Once outside, though, he stopped, frowned, and quickly walked back into the lab, by her side again in a fraction of a second. "Can I ask you a personal question?"

Valera almost jumped, startled. Caught off guard, she looked up at him. "Uh, okay."

"What's your name?"

She frowned. "What's my name?"

"Yeah," Ryan said. "I've been working here for three months and I don't know your name. That can't be good, right?"

Valera stared at him, confused. "I guess."

"Me too." Ryan pointed at her lab coat. "So, that M, what does it stand for?"

She smiled, shook her head, and went back to work. "It's a secret."

"A secret?"

"Yeah," she said.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean nobody knows; it's a secret," Valera replied as if it was the most obvious thing in the world and he was an idiot for not knowing that.

Ryan rolled his eyes. "You're teasing me again."

"Honest," Valera said. "I mean, Horatio knows, obviously, because he hired me. But nobody else does."

"Seriously?" Ryan asked, his eyebrows furrowed.

"Yeah," Valera replied. "There's a pool going around, if you wanna take a guess. I think Miriam is winning by two hundred bucks."

"Miriam?" Ryan grimaced and narrowed his eyes. "You don't look like a Miriam."

"I guess to the clueless I do," Valera replied.

Ryan smiled, watching as she wrote things on tiny labels and taped them to the test tubes. "So you're not gonna tell me?"

Valera shook her head. "Nope."

"Why not?"

"Because I like that nobody knows. Makes me feel important," Valera replied.

"That's silly."

"No it's not. If I tell you, you'll tell everyone, and in a week nobody will even notice I'm alive anymore."

Ryan frowned and shook his head. That made absolutely no sense, but he figured it was another one of those weird things that defined Valera. Maybe he should start getting used to them, now that she wasn't planning on killing him anymore.

So he dismissed her silly theory with a wave of his hand. "Well, even if I knew, you'd still be important to me."

Whoa. What the hell was that?!

Either the building was on fire, or alarm bells had gone off in his head. Pretty much immediately, his mind started heckling him.

Had he actually said that out loud?

Probably, yes, because she was looking at him with an expression of pure shock on her face and Ryan wasn't aware of much except he was pretty sure it mirrored his own. And then there was pounding in his chest and his extremities were cold and she was still looking at him with an inquisitive look on her face and he had no idea what to say or do, wanted to run but doubted he could. The seconds seemed to stretch into hours and she wasn't saying anything and neither was he, and for someone who could concentrate so well on her job, she sure wasn't paying much attention to it now. And after the alarm bells stopped ringing there wasn't much going on in his mind except for someone frantically shouting, "Abort!"

Sounded suspiciously like Delko.

So he tried to back out of it as gracefully as he could.

"I mean, uh," he chuckled nervously, suddenly unable to look her in the eyes, "everybody around here depends on you, right?"

"Right," Valera said just as awkwardly, suddenly remembered her work and clumsily began to put the test tubes in the centrifuge again.

"Yeah. So... I don't think they'll... forget you like that," Ryan said and immediately chastised himself. Could that sentence have been any lamer?

His eyes were suddenly on the test tubes as well. Thank God they were there as a distraction. She didn't say anything and it kinda felt like all those times she ignored him but he knew she really wasn't. And despite the tiny whir of the centrifuge, the silence was beginning to suffocate him. So was his sudden proximity to her, which hadn't been an issue just a minute ago. So he nodded and cleared his throat. "Anyway—"

"I have to finish this," Valera said, looking at him for a millisecond before looking down again.

"Okay, yeah, sorry," Ryan said. Universal signal for 'please leave'. He didn't have to know her well to recognize that one, as well. "Well, um... good night."

"Night, Ryan," Valera said, eyes still glued to her samples.

Ryan allowed himself to look at her one last time and he was pretty sure he had never seen Valera so uncomfortable in his life. Not that he had known her that long, but usually she made people uncomfortable, not the other way around. And the fact that he wasn't moving probably wasn't helping much. Not that he didn't want to, just didn't know if he could.

So he wiggled his toes first. Yeah, his toes were working. Okay. One step at a time. Moved his left foot. Yeah, his feet were working, too. So he turned around and started walking, not very steadily, but walking nonetheless.

Behind him, the centrifuge stopped whirring. And for some reason, probably not wanting to go home and leaving Valera all spooked, he stopped and turned around, eyes narrowed. "Is it Monica?"

Valera chuckled once and Ryan thought he could see some of the tension ease away; that made him feel much better.

"Nope."

He smiled playfully. "Molly, Michelle, Maxine?"

"Nope, nope, and nope."

"Tell me," he kinda begged.

She shook her head. "Sorry."

Ryan sighed humorously. "Okay, be that way. I'll still figure it out, though."

"Good luck," she said.

Ryan smiled to himself. She looked at him briefly, still smiling, and he thought he could see a little red hue on her cheeks. Something told him that one mirrored his own as well.

He didn't really say goodbye, just walked out of there as fast as he could. And it wasn't until he was outside that Ryan realized he had been holding his breath the whole time. For so long he was sure it had caused brain damage. Yes, it had to have caused brain damage because he wasn't entirely sure, but he thought he had spent the last ten minutes of his life flirting with Valera. DNA analyst Valera, who, twenty four hours ago, despised his guts.

And now... his hands were sweaty. Maybe because he was still wearing his gloves, but he was sure that was only one of the reasons. People were beginning to stare, probably wondering if he was having a panic attack. What's worse is he wasn't sure he'd be able to deny that if they asked.

Not good. Not good at all.