Title- Gain Control Again

Authors- Dame Flame and pepsicolagurl

Rating- PG13 for language and situations

Disclaimer- See Chapter One.

Author's Notes- Enjoy and let us know what you think! Medical information is taken from the Merck Manual of Medical Information (or, the bible, in pepsicolagurl's house). We did take some liberties, of course. The personal factor of it isn't written in a medical book, and try and find information on the Internet about things like this. Either way, any mistakes are our own. And it's a short chapter, we know. We'll make up for it. (aside from pepsicolagurl- this is what happens when your grandmother's in the hospital, you have to work in a few hours, and then have to go to your staff party. The bosses better be buying me my first beer of the night).

adpi24- (explanation from pepsicolagurl)- We knew we were going to run into these questions, so here we go. The events of Lost Son and the events of our story doesn't exactly add up for a reason. The reason, you ask? In Lost Son, Speedle died on a jewelry store floor. That just didn't sit right with me, or Dame Flame. This is how we saw it: Speedle gets shot, Speedle gets taken to Jackson Memorial, Speedle goes into surgery, Speedle (supposedly) dies in surgery. The explanation as to why there was no autopsy done on him is coming in the next chapter, so we hope that it clears it up for you a little.

Mac3- We're sorry that we didn't throw in the reaction of the judge. We wanted to, we really did, but it was a weak scene, and we just couldn't improve on it, no matter what we tried. If you still want the reaction (or if anyone does), you can always email Dame Flame or pepsicolagurl. We'd be happy to send it to you. If you do want it, please don't leave a review for it, because our computers seem to act like twins, and neither of us can see email addresses on this site. Yup, it's a pain in the ass. That's the reason for all these long explanations before the chapters.

Spoilers- From Lost Son on.


Gain Control Again
Chapter Five

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
There are some turns where I will spin
I only hope that you can hold me now
'Til I gain control again

"How could this be possible?" Horatio asked, startling the coroner.

She looked up from the instrument tray that she was laying out. "Memory loss like this? It's called dissociative amnesia. It's not common, but it's not rare, either." With a sigh, she turned towards him, resting a single hip against an empty autopsy table. "It has a number of triggers, but in this case, we know what it is. The shooting. His mind just doesn't want to work through what happened. He doesn't want to remember carrying a gun. Because of that, he's forgotten almost everything about his life. At least, that's what it seems like. He should see a psychiatrist, help him work through this."

"Would it help..." He paused and looked down at his hands. "Would it help if we brought him back here? Showed him around, showed him what he used to do?"

Her eyes took on a cautious look. "Maybe. But Horatio, you're the criminalist, look at the evidence. He doesn't want to remember the shooting, and he doesn't want to remember what happened at the lab. It could do him more harm than good to be here. Even just to look around. The man we all saw today...that's not Tim. It's some shadow of his former self. It could make him repress even further." She shook her head. "If it had just been the fact that he was repressing the memory of the jewelry store, we wouldn't have this problem. But he must have some serious issues, because essentially, he's thrown away his entire life."

"What do I do?" he asked.

It was rare to see Horatio like this, so unsure of everything. She could read the confusion in his eyes, the same that he could read the hesitancy in hers over opening the casket that was in the room. "You can't treat him like a victim, because his mind doesn't register that he is one. He's taken all of this so calmly, I wonder if he really believes everything that we've told him. Re-assosciate him with his personal life. Take him places that he's been before, outside of work. Have him speak to his parents and his brother. Those things may help in triggering some sort of memory. But this isn't an exact science. He could walk down the street one day, see a mailbox, remember a certain piece of mail he got, and his memory returns."

She looked over her shoulder at the dirty casket, wondering when she would have the strength to open it. Exhumations didn't normally bother her, but this had quickly turned personal. "What are the odds of his memory coming back. Fully, I mean."

"I don't know. He may get all of it back, he may get some of it back, and he may not get any of it back. There's no way to judge these things. It depends on how far he's pushed the event from his mind. His body almost died, and his mind went through something so traumatic, we may never understand it. It's no wonder why his soul is so confused." She bowed her head. "Where is he now?"

Horatio sighed. "We took his back to Mary's, the woman he's been staying with. Everyone offered him a place to stay, but he wants to stay with her. Says that she needs his help, more than he needs ours. He didn't mean it to be cruel."

It brought a smile to the world-weary coroner's face. "That sounds like Tim. Looking out for others before himself. There's still pieces of him there, but...other things aren't right. His personality has changed, parts of it. He's more talkative, more cheerful than he used to be. And before you ask, that does happen. He's changing certain points of his personality, because it was his personality and habits that led up to the events he's repressing." She looked at him, reached out a hand to lay on his arm. "Give him time. And while you're waiting for Tim to come back home, show him around Miami, his favorite places."

"I didn't really know what he was like outside of work. Outside of the few dinners we all went to..."

"I know. I had him over at my house a number of times, but I didn't really know Tim that well, either. He didn't want people to know him." She smiled, remembering a better time. "Last Christmas, I convinced him to come to our house for dinner. We weren't doing the big family thing that year, it was just us. He went a step further, and dressed up like Santa for my kids the night before. They'll never forget that. Neither will I. It's small things like that, that will ultimately end up helping him."

The doors to the autopsy theater swung open then, and Ryan walked in. He exchanged nods with his supervisor, who turned to leave them. "I think I might know who's in that casket," he announced, walking up to Alexx, but keeping a professional distance.

For once, instead of the coldness that he usually met from her, her expression softened. "I can't imagine that this is easy for you, either," she said suddenly, surprising him.

He could only shrug in reply. "I was going over the statements that Calleigh and I collected from the families of the missing patients. One of them mentioned that their father, a homeless man, had been shot. Same month as...Detective Speedle." What the hell was he supposed to call him, he wondered. "She mentioned that an officer had been shot that day, as well, and I looked in the records. The only officer-involved shooting in June was...well, you can figure it out."

That swung Alexx into motion. She called him over to where the casket was, and offered him a pair of latex gloves. "You use the crowbar, I'll push up," she told him. He nodded and jimmied the metal into place, applying downward pressure. The wood creaked in protest as he threw all his weight behind it. On the side of him, Alexx pressed her palms against the lid and pushed up, both of them grunting and breathing hard with their exertion.

"Get your hands away," he told her. She obliged, only seconds before the lid crashed back down. "His parents picked out a hell of a heavy casket," he bitched, stopping to catch his breath. Alexx chuckled on the other side of him. "All right, let's try this again."

The second time was the charm. The lid was flipped up, and they both made faces at the musty smell. "Well, whoever he is, that's not Tim." Alexx frowned. "Do you have a picture of her father?"

"No, but I can get one. Can you get fingerprints from him? There's a chance that her father might have been arrested before. He was homeless, and I know from working patrol that some officers just pick them up and throw them in jail. Well, some do it when the weather's getting bad and the person is too stubborn to go to an emergency shelter. It's better that they have a warm place to stay and hot food. Other officers do it just because it's a slow night, and they need to get their kicks somehow."

"That's disgusting."

"That's patrol," he said over his shoulder, as he was leaving.

A few hours later, Ryan knocked on Horatio's office door. "We have a positive ID on the body In Detective Speedle's casket," he announced. Horatio waved him in and gestured to the chair in front of his desk. "His name is Brian Metzger. He's one of the missing patients. Basically, they swapped the two of them." He shrugged. "Alexx is looking for a cause of death, but she doesn't know if she'll find one. It's been a few months, after all."

Horatio nodded. "Thank you, Ryan." He paused, fingers playing the edge of a file. "I can't imagine that this is easy for you."

"What do you mean?" the young man asked him.

"You've been living in the shadow of a dead man since your first day here. There was no explanation for your hiring, other than to have you fill the space that Speed left. But he's alive now."

Ryan nodded curtly. "Does anyone else know yet?"

"Outside of us? No. But it won't be long before it gets out. I'll be holding a meeting with the lab tomorrow, to inform everyone. But I still want to keep it quiet for awhile, not only because of the investigation, but because I know the press is going to be hounding all of us, especially Speed."

"Where did that nickname come from, anyway? Almost everyone calls him that."

It brought a touch a smile to Horatio's face, brightening his blue eyes. "I countered with that when he started to call me H. It stuck. Everyone here picked up on it." He sobered instantly. "Don't worry about your job, Ryan. You still have it, and you will, when he gets his memory back. I'm not going to bring you up here, only to push you back down to what you used to do. You're a criminalist now, and you'll remain that until the day that you want to leave."

The news should have made him happy, but instead, he remained indifferent. At least, on the outside. "He was...is...a better criminalist than I am."

"In some things, but not in everything. You're still learning. We all are. Speed was at the place that you are now. If he was...who he used to be, he would understand. But thank you for the information. I didn't want to call his parents until we knew for sure."

He noticed the words for what they were and stood up, heading for the door. "The fingerprints weren't enough?" he asked.

"There's never enough evidence," he countered, as he was picking up the phone.

It was the hardest phone call he was ever going to make.