I've been in Calleigh's apartment countless times.
Hell, I've even been in her bedroom more times that I'd care to mention.
Her place; it's neat, tidy and everything has a place.
Which is why I wasn't surprised by her reaction when she found Ryan reordering the evidence.
"Would you mind not doing that?"
"What?"
Ryan. Poor Ryan. Just don't question Calleigh's neatness.
"I'm sorting the evidence!" He defended.
"I'm very particular about my evidence," Calleigh informed him.
He muttered something nervously about sorting it a different way.
Nuh uh.
Not going to happen.
Calleigh took the evidence he had been packing away from his hands and repacked it her way.
Ryan left, shaking his head.
--------------------
Some days, nothing happens for hours and then it all happens at once.
Today is one of those days.
Very little happened until four o'clock in the evening.
At four o'clock, almost everyone in the team was outside the courthouse.
There was a hearing about the custody of a young child and all of the team had been working on it, so they were all at the courthouse.
Calleigh and Ryan were talking, but they seemed to be arguing.
"You took a biological out of the lab? Without a k-pack?"
Woah, who did what?
Ryan took a biological out of the lab?
I would have thought that with his OCD that he would be even neater than Calleigh.
Well, he deserves to be yelled at this time.
"I just can't believe you've done that! You broke protocol!"
"On patrol, we do what we are told!"
Yeah, and Calleigh is telling you that you shouldn't take a biological out of the lab.
"You aren't on patrol any more."
"Well, I could have used your advice but you were bailing out your Dad!"
No, no, no, do not make this about Calleigh's family.
Ryan, you are the one in the wrong here.
You do NOT take a biological out of a lab, unless you have a k-pack.
At that moment, I saw, behind Calleigh, Horatio was advancing, his gun in hand.
Suddenly, there was another man, also with his gun out.
And then the world stopped.
Not in the humid, hazy way, like when Eve is about to make an entrance.
A slow-motion way, like in The Matrix.
I saw an explosion as a bullet was fired from the barrel of a gun and then, almost instantly there were two more shots.
The loud bangs rang in my ears as the bullets headed for their targets.
Screams, more screams.
I saw Calleigh and Ryan both flat on the floor.
Calleigh was on her back and Ryan was almost on top of her.
He must have pushed her down.
Suddenly, one of the bullets makes contact with whom it was aimed at and my world sped up again.
Screams, more screams.
I glanced around, looking for Horatio, when I heard Ryan's worried voice from behind me.
"Calleigh!"
I spun around, panic striking my heart.
Could Calleigh have been hit in the gunfire?
She wasn't moving.
I crouched beside her, hoping, praying, that she was okay.
There was no way I could forgive myself if she had been hit.
If she had been, it would have been my fault.
Quickly, I looked Calleigh up and down, checking for a bloodstain.
A flower of crimson was growing on her right hip, a vivid contrast against the pristine white of her trousers.
Blood.
It was my entire fault.
I should have taken that bullet for her.
Ryan was also checking the unconscious Calleigh for blood.
"Calleigh? Calleigh!"
He saw the blood.
"Oh my god…"
Ryan's hand, that was on Calleigh's shoulder, was shaking.
Suddenly Calleigh's eyes opened.
I breathed a sigh of relief.
She was alive.
She had been shot, but she was alive.
She would need to go to hospital to get that bullet removed, but she was alive.
"It's okay," she said, seeing Ryan's panicked expression. "I'm not hit."
But… how…
And then I understood.
When Ryan had pulled Calleigh to the floor, out of the way of the bullets, the blood vial he had been holding had smashed on Calleigh and made it look like she had been hit.
Ryan looked down at his hands and saw blood and broken glass.
He hadn't even noticed the vial breaking because he was so worried about Calleigh.
He actually might be quite useful to have around.
He might have saved Calleigh's life today.
Ryan did better than I could ever do.
--------------------
For the rest of the day, Calleigh and Ryan argued a lot.
About Ryan starting an interview without her.
About Calleigh's father.
About everything.
At the end of the day, they met in the locker room.
Ryan came in just as Calleigh pulled a pair of bloodstained trousers out of her locker.
She pretended not to notice him come in as he packed them into a plastic bag, but he spoke.
"I'm sorry for ruining your trousers Calleigh."
At this, Calleigh laughed.
"Don't be. The stain will come out! It's fine."
"You sure?"
"Yeah."
Calleigh nodded and there was a moment of silence before she spoke again.
"Horatio will have to know about this, y'know."
Ryan nodded.
"I wouldn't expect anything less, from you."
"Just make sure, next time it's in a k-pack okay?"
She was half-way out of the door when, on an afterthought, she turned back into the room.
"Oh and Ryan? You owe me for the dry-cleaning of these!"
She held up the bag with the trousers in.
Ryan grinned and said goodbye.
Calleigh left.
--------------------
On the way back to her apartment, she stopped at a local dry-cleaners.
"Hey Calleigh!" called the woman at the desk.
"Hey Angie! How've you been?"
"I'm good. You?"
"Same. Listen Angie, I need to run. I need these trousers washing, okay?"
The woman, Angie, took the trousers out of the plastic bag.
"What have you got on them now? Fingerprint dust, is it?"
She unfolded the trousers and found the stain.
"My god Calleigh? How did you get this blood on here? You're alright aren't you?"
Calleigh laughed and started to tell the story.
"… and then he smashed the vial of blood all over me!"
Both Angie and Calleigh laughed again.
"Alright Calleigh, you take care! Don't get shot!"
"I won't! Same time tomorrow Angie?"
"Sure! See you then!"
Calleigh left the shop looking a lot happier after meeting with her friend.
She arrived at home and had the first bit of time alone that she had had all day.
Except that she's never alone.