Title- Gain Control Again

Authors- Dame Flame and pepsicolagurl

Rating- PG13 for the moment. Depending on our mood, and how much crap we want to put the characters through.

Disclaimer- See Chapter One.

Author's Notes- (from pepsicolagurl) I think that I'm going to be able to type out "Tim Speedle" in my sleep now. Sorry for all the full name business. Enjoy and let us know what you think!

Spoilers- From Lost Son on. Man, that's strange to type.

Gain Control Again
Chapter Seven

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

When he asked her to meet him for dinner, she was surprised. It was an invitation that she had never received before, but then, he wasn't the same person that he used to be, either. He had picked an upscale restaurant, nothing at all like the ones that she imagined he used to frequent. It had only taken her an hour after work, to actually get to her apartment and change for dinner. He was waiting for her outside.

It took a moment for her to recover from her shock. She had seen Speedle in a suit before. Quite a few times, in fact, when he was going to testify in court, or during the yearly police banquet. But he had always looked uncomfortable, like his necktie was an updated and more fashionable version of a noose. The Tim Speedle waiting for her looked completely at ease in the dark suit, wearing a button down shirt that looked like it could have been the twin to the shirt that he was wearing when he had been shot. His hair, shorter than normal, had been tamed, and he had shaved again, making his face look fuller than normal. That, or he had been eating well.

He saw her walk up to him, and grinned suddenly. No, she realized, he wasn't anything like the Tim Speedle of old. "Good evening, Miss Duquense," he teased as she came closer.

She smiled, thinking that she would have to force the expression onto her face. Surprisingly, it came easily. "Well, aren't you the charmer tonight? You could have waited inside, you know. I didn't think that I would be this late."

"You're not late, I'm early." He smiled again as he held the door open for her. The table had been reserved under the name Speedle, and she wondered why that shocked her. They had been insisting to him, for two weeks now, that he was Tim Speedle. They were led to their table, conveniently tucked in a corner. He apologized as he helped her with the heavy chair, and then sat himself. "I figured that the two of us, sitting front and center, would have attracted too much attention."

She shrugged as a waiter came by to pour water in their glasses. "I don't recognize anyone here, and we don't know if you do. There is a chance that someone would know you here, but there are a lot of restaurants in Miami."

It was his turn to shrug. It was a purely Speedle thing to do, as was the disinterested look on his face. "I got a call from a reporter today. Well, more specifically, Mary did. She told him that she didn't know anyone by that name, and would he please stop bothering her. I figure that the story will break in the morning newspaper, no matter how little information and evidence they have."

Calleigh's body tightened somewhat at the mention of evidence, but didn't bother to comment on it. It wasn't like it was a word that was used only by people in their profession. It had been used for years, and it could mean any number of things, she told herself. "Have you spoken to anyone?"

"No, but Lieutenant Caine told me that by them asking questions at the hospital about me, it was bound to get out eventually. They can't exactly not mention me, I guess. I'm part of an active investigation." When she stiffened again, he narrowed his eyes. "Are you okay? I realize, it's not exactly the ideal subject to speak about over dinner, but I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable."

She shook her head, and this time, the smile was forced. "No, no, it's not that. It's just that it seems strange to hear those words coming from you, when you don't remember anything about your job." She played with the edge of the dark green table cloth. "You and I only used to speak in those contexts, of course. Evidence, active investigations...we were never particularly close."

There was a sparkle in his eyes that she didn't understand at first, because she had never seen it before. That it could have been caused by the candle light was her first thought, but then she recognized it for what it was. "I find that very hard to believe." He was flirting with her. Dear Lord, Tim Speedle was flirting with her. It had never happened before, and she had to admit, it made her somewhat uncomfortable. She was used to flirting with Eric, that was nothing. They were friends, and they knew it. There were even a few instances that her and Horatio had engaged in platonic baiting, but it had never happened with Speedle before. He just wasn't that type. "Did we fight a lot?"

"No," she said quietly. "It wasn't anything like that. It was just...you were a very private person, Tim. You never talked about what happened outside of the lab. Eric brags about his girlfriends all the time, but you just never said a thing. When you were at work, you were at work. When you were off, you were off. There was just no mixing the two. Other than you going to Alexx's house for dinners, or going over to Eric's to watch the occasional game, you didn't associate with anyone from work. Or, if you did, you never mentioned it."

Their conversation was halted for a moment as they were approached by a waitress, and accepted the menus from her, trading her for their drink orders; a flavored and carbonated water for Calleigh, a decanter of merlot for Speedle. They busied themselves with the menu until their drinks appeared. When the woman disappeared, they picked up where they had left off. "So, you don't know about old girlfriends or friends of mine?"

"Can't say that I do. There was one time that you and Eric went out together, to some new club. Of course, someone started a fire that night, and you were back to work before you could finish your first drink. That's all I've ever heard about, and that's only because we all worked on the case." She had broken her rule about not mentioning work to him, but there was no way around it sometimes. She knew that the psychiatrist they had been talking to meant well with all of his warning and rules, but none of them really knew Speedle outside of work. "Eric might know more than I do, however. You might want to try talking to him."

He frowned, another facial expression that she was used to when she looked at him. The furrowing of his brow, and the purse of the lips was so damned familiar, she half expected to see him pull a pair of latex gloves out of his pocket and get to work on a crime scene. "He doesn't really talk to me all that much. I guess he's still working through everything, but right now, he keeps his distance. I can't blame him for that. It's not hard to imagine a life, put myself in his shoes, and think about what my reaction would be."

"I wonder if it would be the same," she murmured to herself, shaking her head at his confused smile. "I have a habit of talking to myself. Actually, we all do. It's not unusual for any of us to talk to ourselves, especially at work. We like to think that we're talking to the evidence, but we all know the truth."

They placed their appetizer order with the ever-hovering waitress, watching as she bustled off. "You know, even after five...ten minutes of talking to you, it's even harder to believe that we never went out like this before."

For a moment, she wondered about the intent behind those words. Did he think that this was some kind of date, because she hadn't agreed to meet him for dinner with that in mind. It was hard to tell, just by looking at him. His eyes were as unreadable as ever, but not in the way that they used to be.

"Well, we just never saw the point before, I guess."

And she hoped to hell that she wasn't baiting him.

"Alexx, can I ask you something?" Calleigh asked as she entered the autopsy theater, looking at the coroner.

"As long as you don't mind if we have company," she countered, gesturing to the body that was lying on her table. Calleigh smiled as she walked in further. "What happened? You have a look on your face that can only be described as someone kicking your dog."

She smiled again, a little weaker this time, as she watched the coroner take a sample from underneath the body's fingernails. "Well, I didn't have a dog before, but now someone is nipping at my heels. I went out for dinner with Tim Speedle last night, and he certainly wasn't himself."

The other woman smirked. "Well, we all knew that."

"No, I think this is a little more serious. I remember last year, at the police banquet, that Tim was awfully courteous, but I've never seen him acting like such a gentleman before. And then something else happened. I would have gone to someone else about this, but I think this is strictly girl talk."

Alexx caught on immediately. "You're kidding." Calleigh shook her head, biting her lip at the same time. It created an adorable image. "He was flirting with you? That's a first."

"I think he saw last night as a date. I went out there, thinking that he was going to ask me some questions, and I would give him some answers about who he used to be, but it didn't turn out like that. To tell the truth, it made me uncomfortable. I'm not used to him being like that, and I don't know if I liked it or not." She shook her head again. "I know, we're running everything that happens through Horatio. He's the one paying for that damned psychiatrist in the first place, but I just can't see myself telling him these things. I'm surprised that Tim didn't escort me home."

She was rewarded with a shrug. "I don't know what to tell you, Calleigh. On one hand, he may be using you as a way of not remembering. I know that the two of you have never gone out before, and subsconciously, he knows that and he's using it to his advantage. On the other hand, it may be that he was attracted to you before, and with his sudden personality change, he can act on that now." She paused and almost laughed. "Don't give me that look. It's completely possible, and I honestly don't know which one it could be. It could be something else, for all we know. But I think you might want to run it past the psychologist. He may be able to give you a more definite answer."

"How do you figure that? He doesn't know Tim Speedle any better than we do, and Tim won't go to see him. I asked him about it last night. He told me that it wasn't worth his time."

"That sounds more like Tim. He avoided his yearly meeting with the staff psychologist whenever he could. I always thought that it had something to do with the fact that IAB was involved, but I guess not."

Calleigh shrugged. "What do I do, though? I have this feeling that he's going to ask me out again, no matter how innocent it may seem. Do I go along with it, to make him comfortable. Do I push him away, because it never would have happened before this. Or do I just accept and hope for the best, that he won't hit on me again. Alexx, I'm really confused here. I have to admit, I never thought of Tim like that. He was always just someone that I worked with."

Stripping off her gloves and dropping them in a nearby lidded trash can, she walked up to Calleigh and put her hands on her arms, her face full of sympathy. "I honestly don't know what to tell you. Maybe you need a man's opinion on this. I've never seen what Tim was like before when he was rejected, and now, we don't have the slightest clue as to how he would react. The only thing I can tell you is to not stop his progress, but I don't know what that entails. I don't have the answers for everything, honey, no matter how much I wish I did."

"What progress are you talking about? He's as clueless as ever. It's been two weeks and nothing's happened."

"And it may never. You have to understand that." She released her hold on the blonde woman, and took a step back. "With amnesia like this, nothing is ever certain. I told this to Horatio that first day. His memory may never come back, and in that case, we'll have to accept him the way he is, no matter how much we don't like it. It bothers me, too. He's such a bright, intelligent person, and now, he's lost all of that. He worked so hard to get to where he was a few months ago, and it's all disappeared on him. The only thing that consoles me is the fact that he doesn't realize what he's lost." She hugged the woman quickly. "Worry about this later. Go back to work, occupy your mind with something else. The answers will come to you eventually."

Calleigh nodded. "Thank you. I'm sorry to bother you with all of this, but..."

"Don't you worry about it. You can come to me with anything, and you know that," she told her with a stern look that she usually reserved for her children. "Go on. I have work of my own to do." She watched the woman leave and chuckled to herself. "You always have to make things complicated, don't you, Tim?" she asked the empty autopsy theater.

And thankfully, the dead body didn't answer her.