Musical Notes: "Prelude to Peace" was composed by Z. Randall Stoope based on a poem by Sara Teasdale. One H/C fan who has the CD from that concert described the song as "pure serenity" and said it was her favorite to listen to after a hard day. It is indeed an auditory massage. The music is lyrical, flowing, passionate yet peaceful at the same time, with one of those deceptively quiet endings that takes intense control to sing well. Our conductor described it as an "iron lung" song, one of the difficult ones that should sound effortless when it's done right, but it paid back tenfold what it took in rehearsal. Every time the line "lover of beauty" comes around, the melody soars up, the passionate peak of the song, then snuggles back down musically to "I am at rest." Utterly beautiful. It will be mentioned again in this story.
(H/C)
"When I think of you, I am at rest.
My thoughts seek you, as waves that seek the shore.
Lover of beauty, knightliest and best,
When I think of you, I am at rest."
Prelude to Peace, Teasdale/Stoope
(H/C)
Calleigh opened her eyes and lay there for a few minutes, her mind slower than her eyelids to greet the day. Sunlight teased her, peeking around the corners of the drawn curtains, and the cry of birds carried on the breeze from the beach up to their house. Morning. Yes, it was morning.
Her first coherent thought was Horatio. She reached out behind her back with a hand, then rolled over to confirm the emptiness of the other side of the bed. Her second thought was Rosalind, but she couldn't hear a sound from the rest of the house. "Where is everybody?" she wondered aloud.
"Mrr-ooo?" Hope jumped onto the bed, delighted to have an awake human to serve her. Calleigh scratched her calico ears, and Hope's rumbling purr filled the room. Normally, Rosalind followed the cat like a second tail, but still, Calleigh could not hear her. Or him, either. She finally forced herself to look at the clock, and the last of the fog of sleep burned away instantly in the bright certainty of morning. It was 8:30, and she was late. Horatio must have turned off the clock and gone on to work without her, taking Rosalind by daycare on the way.
She resented that on some deep inner level as she quickly got dressed and went into the bathroom. The wreck was vividly recalled now, and she really wanted to see Rosalind this morning, to spend their morning rituals together, to remind herself that her family was still intact. She needed to wake up to normalcy today. She needed to wake up to Horatio. Besides which, her Jeep was at the shop, probably totaled, and if Horatio had taken the Hummer, she had nothing to drive.
And if she had had transportation, she wasn't sure she would have wanted to drive it. Not this morning.
A new thought chilled her as she jerked a comb quickly through her hair. What if Horatio hadn't gone on to work? What if Rosalind had suddenly gotten sick in the night, injuries that had been hidden at the scene emerging later? What if he had taken their daughter to the ER? The comb snarled, and she actually growled at it as she yanked it free. Hope cringed and took refuge behind the shower curtain.
No, she told her reflection in the mirror. Get a grip on yourself, Calleigh. Horatio would have woken you up for that.
But not for breakfast, not for family time. Well, it couldn't be undone now, and she would see him soon enough at CSI. She decided to swing by daycare and see Rosalind for a minute, too, even if it cost her twice the cab fee. She shoved her feet into her shoes and marched the rest of the way down the hall to open their front door – then skidded to a startled halt. The Hummer sat there like a massive mechanical watchdog, guarding the driveway. So where was he? Where were they?
Logic reclaimed control from emotion, and she turned in calm certainty to face the other direction, the back of the house, where the huge sliding glass doors framed a postcard seascape. The sun had a good start on its journey across the sky and was no longer kissing the waves, but her own sun was rising, exactly on schedule. Horatio was all the way out on the beach, actually in the edge of the water, one arm stretched out as he pointed to sea, the other protectively encircling his daughter. For a moment, it seemed to Calleigh that he was summoning the tide, that the sheer force of his presence could magnetically draw the waves. They were rushing in now, lapping eagerly at his feet. Rosalind, sitting on his shoulders, reached up suddenly, straining to touch the sky, and Calleigh suddenly realized what they were watching so intently. The morning ballet of seagulls swooped and circled with almost military precision, calling to one another, shifting formation, then changing it again like a song changing key. They were dancing to the music of the morning, and Rosalind clutched for them helplessly, trying to hold the moment.
To hold the moment. Calleigh quickly went across to the desk, found the camera, and slid the door open just enough to avoid the glass glare in her shot. She focused and clicked, hoping that it would come out, but the frame in her mind was already clearly developed. Her family. They were real, they were healthy, and they had waited for her. Every time she thought she could not love them more, they made her.
Hanging the camera around her neck, Calleigh slipped out onto the deck and walked down to the beach, trying to sneak up on them. No chance. Horatio had turned before she was even a third of the way there, and Rosalind's protest died half spoken as her mother easily displaced the seagulls in her attention at the moment. "Mama! Morning, Mama!"
Calleigh broke into a jog through the sand, getting it in her shoes and not caring. "Good morning, Angel. Good morning, Handsome." She seized Horatio in a fierce hug, and his blue eyes looked a bit startled as they parted. "I thought you had left me," she explained.
Humor, apology, and promise equally shared his gaze. "Never." He lifted the hand that wore her wedding ring and kissed it.
"You know what I meant, Horatio."
"We wouldn't leave you this morning. I was just trying to let you get some sleep, so we went outside, but I knew you'd want to see Rosalind."
"And you," she added. Her eyes intently scanned her daughter. Rosalind had twisted back around, once again watching the birds. "Is she okay?" Calleigh asked softly.
Horatio nodded. "I gave her a bath. She hasn't got a bruise on her."
Calleigh breathed a quick prayer. "Thank God for car seats."
"And seat belts," Horatio replied. His eyes swept her as thoroughly as she had studied their daughter. "What about you, Cal? How do you feel this morning?"
"Oh, I'm fine."
He finished his survey. "Do I have to give you a bath, Calleigh?" he challenged.
She chuckled, caught. "Okay, I have a few stiff spots, but nothing serious. Worst is my shoulder, but it's not any more than after a strenuous workout. I reached back for Rosalind with my right hand as we were flipping." She shook her head. "She was out of reach, of course. Don't know what I was thinking."
Horatio captured her hand again, stroking her fingers with his long, sensitive ones. "You were thinking of our daughter. I'll give you a massage in a few minutes, try to work the kinks out for you."
"We've got to get to work, Horatio. It's late already."
"I spoke to your boss. He understands. Besides, I don't match dress code, so we already had a few things still to do before leaving, anyway." He was wearing beach shorts, sandals, and no shirt.
She returned his smile, admiring the way he looked in that outfit at the same time. No, he didn't need to wear that to CSI. Even knowing that he was married, some of the female lab techs would get distracted, and when he added his smile, they might have women DBs getting up off Alexx's table. "Have you two had breakfast yet?"
Rosalind instantly lost interest in the birds. "Breakfast! Breakfast now?"
Both of her parents laughed. "I gave her a toddler biscuit to fill in the gap, but I thought we'd wait for you." Calleigh gave him a quick hug, blinking back tears. He understood how much it meant this morning. How had she lived for so many years without this man? It had merely been an existence, not a life.
"Let's go then," he said briskly, covering the moment because he knew she didn't want to dwell on it right then. "Rosalind seems to be hungry, and I think I'm getting there myself."
Calleigh walked beside him back up to their house. "You should have gotten yourself a biscuit, Horatio."
He chuckled. "According to the age range on the box, I'm too old." She smacked him lightly but was secretly glad that he could joke so lightheartedly about his age. Not all that long ago, he hadn't been joking. Her eyes fell to his left leg, rereading the story that was written clearly in the scars. He noticed, of course, and caught her hand, squeezing it. "We're all right, Calleigh. All three of us are all right."
"I know," she said, eyes tearing up again. She blinked several times and shifted into business-like efficiency as they entered the house. "What do we want for breakfast? Eggs? Bacon? Pancakes?"
"Cake!" Rosalind voted.
Horatio lifted her from his shoulders, swooping her through the air like a bird on her journey down. "Not quite, Angel." She couldn't understand why birthday cakes came so seldom. "You do like pancakes, though."
"I'll mix up batter while you shower and change," Calleigh suggested, mentally arranging the schedule. "We do need to get to CSI. It seems like I've been away forever. What day is this, Horatio?"
He kissed her quickly. "Tuesday. And I guarantee, the ballistics lab is still there." He disappeared into the bathroom, and Calleigh fixed breakfast while Rosalind played around the kitchen floor with the cat. Normalcy. The memory of the night before faded.
Over breakfast, she said, "Horatio, we have a problem."
His eyes crinkled at her. "If we only have one, we're fortunate, indeed."
"Well, just one I'm talking about at the moment. I took the last of my vacation over the last 10 days, but you wound up having to cancel. So what are you going to do for a break?"
"Eat breakfast every morning with my wife and daughter," he replied.
"You need a vacation yourself."
"Calleigh, my whole life is a vacation these days. I'm fine. Besides, I don't want to take one alone."
"I didn't, either," she pointed out.
"Touché. That involved other people's plans, though. How are Peter and Becky, by the way?"
"Wonderful. She's charming but strong-willed, too, and he's so much more relaxed. It's amazing the difference love makes."
"You don't say." His head tilted slightly as he studied her.
"Back to vacations, before you changed the subject, if you don't take those days before the end of the year, Horatio, you'll lose them. That's why we fit enough time on this trip to drive up the East Coast in the first place, remember?"
He shrugged. "So I'll lose them. Over my years on the force, Cal, I think I've lost more than I've used anyway."
"They give you those days for a reason, Horatio."
He offered a compromise. "What if I take them one day at a time, here and there? Rosalind and I could spend time together. Not as good as all three of us, but she'd enjoy it."
"We'll see." Calleigh wasn't quite convinced. Beneath the real happiness, he looked just a bit stressed this morning to her expert eyes. Of course, his last week had held two full days of cross-examination, instead of the total break originally planned. "Did the verdict come in on that trial yet, by the way?"
"Yesterday. Guilty as charged. He'll get the death penalty." A serial killer of teenage girls was now off the streets permanently.
Calleigh smiled. "You got him," she told him, remembering the promise Horatio had made to those victims.
"We got him," he corrected. Rosalind started to squirm in her high chair. "All done, Angel?" He lifted her out, making it a roller-coaster ride as usual to the floor, and she laughed in delight.
"More, Dada! Again!"
For once, he turned her down. "Not right now, Angel. I need to give Mama a massage, and then we really do have to get on our way to the hospital."
The hospital. Not CSI first. Sarah. Sam's frantic message from last night suddenly crashed back into Calleigh's thoughts. Wrapped up in her own feelings and concern for Rosalind, she hadn't thought of it for the last hour since waking.
Horatio read the guilt in her features. "You've had plenty else to think about, Cal. Here, lie down on the couch." She sprawled stomach down, propping her chin on a pillow, and he skillfully began to explore her shoulder, looking for every twinge, gently releasing the cramped muscle. "Let me know if this hurts, okay, Cal?"
"Mmm. Feels wonderful. Horatio, do you think Sam was just delirious last night? Sarah didn't seem to have any clue."
"Sarah wasn't thinking straight, and no wonder. You were there, Cal. Did he seem delirious?"
She dodged mentally over the wreck to arrive at the aftermath. "No. I thought at first he thought I was Sarah, because that's the first thing he said, but then he seemed to be trying to give me the message for her. He didn't seem delirious, just badly hurt. And frantic, Horatio. He was bleeding all over the place, and he wasn't even thinking of himself."
Horatio nodded. "If he'd been delirious, it probably would have involved him somehow, or it would have been totally crazy, like giant rainbow spiders. What exactly did he say, Calleigh?"
"Sarah, first off. Then, he said he had to warn her, or someone at least had to warn her. Also that it was a mistake. Then, he said they'd kill her, and he passed out there."
"Never said what was a mistake?"
"No. But he really believed it, Horatio. He thought they would kill her. Whoever they are." She chewed her lip in frustration. Now that she had remembered the message, the urgency of it gripped her again.
"Hold your horses, Cal. We're almost done, and Sarah is safe enough at the hospital. I spoke to hospital security on the phone earlier, too. They aren't bodyguards, but they are keeping an eye on the ICU in their rounds."
Rosalind scampered down the hall with Hope bounding after her. "Horse? Horse?"
Calleigh laughed as she sat up. "False alarm, Angel. It's just an expression." Rosalind looked around the horseless room, then back at her parents hopefully. "No horse."
The child's shoulders slumped slightly, and then her chin came up. She squared her shoulders and turned back around to find her playmate again. "Hope? Kitty, kitty." She looked exactly like a miniature Calleigh going on after a disappointment, and Horatio smiled at the thought. He hated to break up the family time, but he had to.
"No time to play with the cat, Rosalind. We have to get going." Horatio scooped her up. "Is that better, Calleigh?"
"Much better. Thank you, Handsome."
"Anytime. I don't even charge by the hour." Rosalind, like a monkey, had swarmed up onto his shoulders again. He smiled at her, then moved over to the desk, gathering his badge and gun. Calleigh quickly followed suit, thinking that as much as vacations were nice, it felt good to put on the symbols of her job again and be heading out to try to help people, even if, like Sarah, they didn't know for certain yet that they needed it.
Calleigh tucked the diaper bag into the Hummer and was just going around to get in herself when Rosalind squealed sharply. The sound was so unlike her that Calleigh nearly spun out of her shoes turning around. Horatio had opened the back door and started to put Rosalind into the car seat, and she had locked both arms around his neck, fighting him and clinging to him at the same time. "No!" Horatio's eyes met Calleigh's in pure understanding over their squirming daughter's back.
"Get in, Cal," he said firmly. She wasn't sure what he was up to, but she trusted him. In fact, she was positive he could deal with this better than she could, when her own mind was still partly cringing at the memory. She opened the passenger's door and climbed into the Hummer, and Horatio backed away from the back seat and stepped into the open door at her side. "Okay, Rosalind, I need your help here. Come on, Angel. Help me out." His voice was irresistible. Rosalind slowly unburied her face from his chest and turned around, wondering what they were going to do.
Horatio wrapped one arm around his daughter securely and pulled the seatbelt down with the other hand. "We need to strap Mama in tightly, okay? That's what the straps are for, so she won't get hurt, even if bad things happen. She's strapped in every time, just like you." He ran slack into the seatbelt, then let it snap back up to the ceiling, then pulled it down again. "Can you help me, Angel? I've only got one hand here, and we have to buckle Mama in." He waited until Rosalind's hands were on the strap, then slowly pulled it across Calleigh's lap, finding the snap. "Now, we push, Rosalind. Come on, push hard! That's it." Rosalind, with more assistance than she realized from Horatio, pushed the end of the belt firmly into its catch. Horatio traced the belts across Calleigh's body and her lap. "There, now. She's all strapped in, nice and tight. She always straps in, so she'll stay there if anything happens. You just start watching us, and you'll see it. Actually, if we ever forget, you be sure to remind us, okay?" Rosalind's eyes were still large but were interested now, tracing the straps with a much younger version of her father's analytical look.
"Dada too?" she asked.
"Absolutely. I'll strap myself in tight just as soon as I get in the driver's seat. We can't go until we're all strapped in. You watch, and as soon as I get in, I'll buckle up." He closed Calleigh's door and stepped back to the car seat again. "You get in there, and I'll strap you in, just like Mama, just like me. That way, even if bad things happen, we'll all stay in our places, and we'll be fine. All of us, all strapped in. Okay, Angel?" He eased her into the seat and slowly started fixing the straps, one at a time, letting her watch. "Just like Mama. One more, now. There we go. Okay, Rosalind, you watch, and I'll strap in, too." He closed the door and went around the Hummer, his stride and whole bearing radiating normalcy. Rosalind never took her eyes off him. He climbed behind the wheel and ostentatiously pulled his own seatbelt down, bringing it around and snapping it into place with a firm click. "I'm all strapped in now. Calleigh?"
Calleigh patted her seatbelt. "All strapped in."
"Rosalind? You strapped in?"
Rosalind slowly traced the straps, then looked back at her parents. "Yes."
"Fine. Then we're all ready to go." Horatio started the engine and backed the Hummer out of the driveway. Calleigh gave him a silent look of mixed admiration and gratitude, and he gave her a reassuring smile in return. During the drive to daycare, he pointed out every seatbelt that was obvious in the cars at stoplights, and Rosalind's eyes clicked around the traffic, taking inventory. Calleigh stayed in the car as Horatio took Rosalind in, and she closed her eyes, leaning her head against the back of the seat. What had she done to her daughter?
"You okay?" Horatio's tone was worried as he slipped back into the driver's seat.
She nodded. "I'm fine, but I hope she is."
"She's young, Cal. Kids are resilient. She had a bad fright, but it will fade quickly. I doubt she'll even remember this when she's grown."
"She might surprise you." Calleigh shook her head. "It's odd, though. She didn't even seem to notice the car seat in the Hummer last night, and that was right after the wreck."
"You said she wasn't really agitated last night until you left her. That's what I think she remembers more, Cal, not just the wreck. She was too intent watching you last night to notice the seat, but this morning, she's afraid she'll be separated from you again and left in a car. That's partly why I made such a point about you being strapped in, too. She could see you weren't going anywhere."
Calleigh nodded slowly. "Did she mind being left at daycare?"
"No. That's something she's used to, though. She's just a little worried at the moment that she'll be left in a car strapped in alone, but she'll get over it quickly. Trust me, Calleigh. She'll be fine, even in a day or two. She's too loved to worry about being abandoned for long."
Calleigh closed her eyes again, savoring the words. Too loved to worry about being abandoned for long. So loved that the concept could never take firm root. Her daughter was having the childhood that she herself had never had, and Calleigh was caught up not in regret for herself but in gratitude for Rosalind. She and Horatio were doing it right. Their daughter was loved and knew it. She would be fine.
Horatio stopped at a light and reached across to touch her arm. "And Calleigh, there is absolutely nothing you could have done any differently or better than you did last night. You did a wonderful job of dealing with everything, from the wreck to Rosalind to Sam. I'm proud of you." Her soul warmed clear through on the words, chasing the shadows away. Yes, she, like her daughter, was finally too loved in life for mere circumstances and events to shake her long. They would be fine.
She opened her eyes. "Thank you, Horatio."
He lifted her left hand again to kiss the ring, as he had done on the beach that morning. "Thank you, Calleigh Caine. I'm feeling pretty loved myself these days." The car behind them honked impatiently, and they jumped apart, realizing that the light had turned green.
"End of touching moment," Calleigh sighed.
Horatio shook his head. "Touching moment just postponed. We'll finish it later." He pulled into the hospital parking lot. "Right now, let's go see about saving Sarah."
"If we just knew what we need to save her from."
He smiled at her. "You forget, we're professionals, Calleigh. We've put together puzzles with more missing pieces before. We can do this." His confidence was contagious, and Calleigh felt her own determination surging again. Whoever "they" were, they wouldn't get Sarah. She and Horatio were more than a match for them.
Hands lightly touching but steps briskly professional, they walked together across the parking lot to the hospital entrance.