Title- Gain Control Again

Authors- Dame Flame and pepsicolagurl

Rating- PG13 for language, situations

Disclaimer- See Chapter One.

Author's Notes- Enjoy and let us know what you think.

Spoilers- from Lost Son on.

Gain Control Again
Chapter Three

And like a lighthouse you must stand alone
Landmark a safe journey's end
No matter what sea I've been sailing on
I'll always come back home again

Out on the road that lies before me now
There are some turns where I will spin
I only hope that you can hold me now
'Til I gain control again

Horatio waited until all of them were in the vehicle and he had pulled away, to give them any information. "What's this all about? You had use running out of their like our asses were on fire," Eric said from the back, peeking his head between the front seats. The redhead didn't bother commenting, but he found it ironic that the young man had used a phrase that Speedle himself had used quite often, whenever he had felt rushed by Horatio. He flashed back to the many times he had asked for something from Speedle, and how he had bowed his head, muttering something about how his ass was being lit on fire to make him move quicker. It would have brought a smile to his face, if this wasn't so serious.

"I got a call from someone that think they should be included on the Jackson Memorial missing persons list," he explained. "And I think we all need to go out there to meet with him."

"Why?" Ryan asked, from beside Eric. "Couldn't two of us handled this?"

"Yes, but I don't think that this is a normal case situation," Horatio answered. "Because I think...I think we may know this person."

The three investigators looked at each other, their faces showing their confusion. It had only been twenty minutes ago, when they had all been rounded up. Calleigh had been the first person that he had found, and Horatio had all but grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her along as he hunted out the two young men. He hadn't said a word to any of them, other than the fact that it had something to do with the case, it was an emergency, and they had to leave at that moment. "We know this person? How? Someone in an old case of ours?" Calleigh asked.

As they stopped at a red light, Horatio turned to look at her, sunglasses covering his eyes. "No. Someone that we worked with." He chuckled ruefully as he looked away. "I know that it sounds impossible, but I could have sworn that it was his voice. It sounded just like him, only he talked more than he normally did. He rambled." His next words came out even quieter, barely audible above the sound of the engine. "And I don't think I could have gone alone after that call."

"Who are you talking about?" she persisted.

The answer shook them all. "Tim Speedle." Again, he chuckled. No humor in it. "Twenty minutes ago, a call was transferred up to me from the front desk. It was from a man that said he had information about what was happening with our investigation at Jackson Memorial. He said that he had been shot in the chest, and when he came to in the hospital, he had no personal effects, and they didn't know who he was. He doesn't know who he is. I never got his name, but I would swear on my life that it was his voice."

Silence filled the vehicle as they all processed the thought. It was Ryan who spoke up, however. "Are you sure it was him, or could it just be someone that sounds like him? I know that it sounds like it could be him, but...there was a funeral and everything."

"Then someone else is buried under his name."

They never spoke a word for the rest of the ride, although they were all lost in their own thoughts. Ryan couldn't figure out why he was brought along. To begin with, he had never known Tim Speedle. Yes, he knew who he was, and he had seen the picture of him that was hanging on the wall with all the other officers that had been killed in the line of duty, but if it was like Horatio thought, if it was Tim Speedle, then he had no business being there. He was his replacement, he had never known the man.

Everyone in the vehicle was apprehensive when they pulled up to the small house. There was no car in the driveway, and there was no garage. They could see one of the curtains in the living room fluttering when they climbed out of the vehicle and started towards the front porch. The door was opened as soon as Calleigh pressed the button for the doorbell, and their reactions were all the same, with the exception of Ryan Wolfe.

White faces.

Wide eyes.

Silence.

They all examined the man standing in the doorway. There was no trace of stubble on his face, and his hair was cut shorter than they had seen before, but it looked like him. It was his six foot frame, his body clothed in a dark blue tee shirt and equally dark jeans, his brown eyes staring back at them. "When you said someone would be here, I didn't think you meant this many," the man said, trying to break the silence.

It was Calleigh that responded first. "Tim?" she whispered, a hand coming up to cover her mouth. It hovered over her eyes for a moment, and then went back down to her mouth.

The man shrugged. "If you mean me, I have no idea. I don't know what my name is." They all heard the voice behind him. "But she calls me Marshall." He opened the door wider and motioned for all of them to come in. "There's no reason for everyone to stand out there. Besides, Mary wants you in the living room." They all filed in, and followed him into the living room, where the old woman was sitting in her chair. They took their seats when she motioned for them to sit, but they couldn't take their eyes off of the man who stood beside her. "Do you know me?" he asked.

Calleigh nodded, being the only one that managed to speak. "Your name is Tim Speedle. Do you...do you recognize it?"

He thought for a moment, and then shook his head. "No. It sounds familiar, but I don't know if that's me or someone else. Like I said, everyone calls me Marshall right now. Mary's the one who gave me the name."

"How did the two of you meet?" she asked softly.

Mary took over, smiling at the blonde woman. "I had a little problem with my blood sugar, so they took me to the hospital. They were short of beds, so they put me in his room for half the day, before moving me across the hallway. He was such a dear, and so confused. Did you know, the doctors couldn't even tell him who he was? They lost his file, they said. Blamed it on some...student doctor. He came to visit me every day when I was in there, and when we were both released, I told him that he could stay with me. He had nowhere else to go, and no one ever showed up to see him." She frowned. "Are you sure he's who you say he is?"

"There's one way to find out," Ryan spoke up, surprising everyone. "We could take his fingerprints, run them through the department's database when we get back to the lab. DNA would take too long to come back, and I don't know if he has a sample in the system or not."

"No," the man answered automatically, and then shook his head with a frown. "I don't know how I know that, but I do. How long would it take for the fingerprint match to come back?"

Ryan shrugged. "Five minutes after I put them in the computer. They would be put into the system under John Doe, and I would set the program to match them against Tim Speedle's prints only. Altogether, if you add in the time to take your prints, get them back to the lab...I'd say forty minutes to an hour. You'd know for sure then."

"Let's do it, then." He watched as Ryan left the house and went out to get his field kit. "So, you all know me, right? I mean, that's what you're telling me."

"We've all worked together for almost four years. Except for Ryan. He's your...replacement," Calleigh explained. "You worked for the Miami-Dade crime lab. Your specialty was trace analysis. You don't remember any of this?" He shrugged and motioned for her to go on. "You own a motorcycle, you live alone. God, I don't even know what to tell you. This is surreal. It's impossible. We had a funeral for you. We buried someone under a headstone with your name on it."

The man paled. "What, you mean, you thought I died? How? What happened?"

It was Horatio that began to speak, and the man recognized his voice as the one over the phone. "We were working on a missing persons case, a different missing persons case. A child had been kidnapped and was being held for ransom. The father was killed after the people involved realized that the jewelry he had given them for the ransom was fake. We...that is, you and I, went to the jewelry store that cleaned them, and...you saw someone move in a room behind the counter. You pulled your weapon, tried to fire, and it...it malfunctioned. You were shot in the chest. An ambulance took you to Jackson Memorial. We found the kid, and at the end of the night, when we went down to the hospital, we were informed that you had died before they had gotten you into surgery. Your parents didn't want an autopsy to be performed on your body, so instead, your body was sent to the funeral home, and all we saw after that was the casket."

By then, Ryan had returned with his kit, and had removed everything he needed to print the man. Everyone fell silent and watched as the process took place, the young man promising to get the results back to them as soon as possible, taking the keys to the Hummer from Horatio. When he left, the man turned his eyes towards the door. "So, is he a good replacement for me?" he asked humorously, and then stopped laughing when he saw the look on everyone's faces. "I guess that was the wrong thing to say. Do you mind if I ask...how did my...gun malfunction? Obviously, I don't remember a thing about what happened."

They let Calleigh field the question, since she had been the one to process his weapon. "You had a history of not cleaning it. It happened once before, and you were shot, but you were wearing a vest. You just had the wind knocked out of that time. There was no reason for you to wear a vest that last time, so..." She trailed off, uncertain of how to continue.

No one knew how to continue.

The print-out was on the seat next to him as he pulled into the driveway again. He shut off the engine, but didn't get out of the vehicle for a moment. Instead, he leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes, allowing all of the day's events to fully catch up with him. If Ryan was asked, he would honestly say that he didn't know what he was feeling at the moment. The entire time that he worked for the crime lab, and it honestly hadn't been that long, he had known, without a shadow of a doubt, that Tim Speedle was dead. Everyone knew that. It was the only reason that Ryan was there, the only reason that he had gotten the job. The lab was seriously under-funded at the moment, and still was. There just wasn't enough resources for all the investigators that they needed.

Was it inconsiderate of him to be worried about his job? He never knew Tim Speedle, only knew about him because of the people he worked with. But the moment that his memory came back, and he remembered what he did for a living...where did that leave the newest addition to the lab? Back in uniform, back in patrol?

He shook his head and sighed, picking up the print-out and letting himself out of the vehicle. The front door was still open, and he didn't bother knocking before entering the house. He could hear everyone asking the once nameless man about everything that happened in the hospital, but the conversation was stopped when they saw Ryan standing in the doorway, a weak smile on his face, the print-out dangling from one hand. With everyone's eyes on him, he spoke.

"With ninety nine percent accuracy, there's no doubt that you're Detective Timothy R. Speedle."