Chapter 8


AN: Thank you all for the reviews! Y'all make me blush. Seriously, though, I'm glad people are enjoying the story.
I'm swimming with the weight of my heart
Upstream to where the green river parts
And two directions force my will to decide
Shall I drift before I swim for my life

Knee deep in sadness soot
We're gathering rust
Embrace the quiet flood
That's welcoming us

-"Sadness Soot", Grant Lee Phillips


Calleigh rolled her head from side to side as she walked down the hallway towards Tim's room. She was tired and drained, but it was her turn to sit with him, and she was hopeful that he might possibly be awake. Or at least awake enough that he'd stopped opening his eyes, looking around bewilderedly and bursting into tears, which is what he'd been doing the last three days anytime anyone tried to wake him up for anything. That might have been the most disturbing thing about the past three days, seeing Tim so unlike himself. Bad enough that Eric and John were gone and Horatio had lost it a little without seeing such a visceral reminder that Tim was the real victim in the situation.

She reached the room and stood in the doorway quietly a moment, assessing the situation. Danny was sitting in the chair working a crossword. Tim was asleep, but the NG tube was gone. "Hi," she said softly, entering the room.

Danny looked up "Hey there," he said, equally quietly. "How are you doing?"

"I'm ok, I think," she said. She had had many conversations with Danny over the past three days and she'd come to like him very much. It was clear that much of the best of Tim had come from his father- his snarkiness, his rough kindness, his wry sense of humor. Danny was what Calleigh imagined Tim would have been like if his life hadn't had a way of falling apart on him.

"Good," Danny said. "Our boy woke up," he added.

"Did he?" Calleigh said, hopefully. "Really awake?"

"Really awake," Danny confirmed. "For about half an hour or so. He was perfectly lucid and everything. And then he got sleepy again, but they did get him to actually wake up to take out the NG tube. He fell right back asleep, but he was awake. He's been asleep for an hour or so."

"Oh, thank God," Calleigh sighed.

"I know," Danny said. "He talked to Dr. Kellan already, so he knows about his jaw. Dr. Barak hasn't come by yet, so he hasn't quite heard all the details about everything else. But he knows he'll be here a week or so."

"Does he know about the work thing?" she asked.

"Yeah. He took it pretty well. Of course, he'd just gotten the pain meds right before, so that could account for it," Danny said wryly.

"Oh, I'm sure," she said.

"Mmph?" came a noise from the bed.

Calleigh looked over and saw Tim blinking sleepily. "Hey there," she said.

"Mmm. Cal," he mumbled.

"Yup. How're you feeling?" she asked.

"Thirsty?" he said, as though he wasn't sure.

"Thirsty we can fix," Danny said, pouring a cup of water from a pitcher and holding it out. Tim struggled to sit up better, wincing, but managed to take the cup without spilling it.

"Better?" Calleigh asked when he was finished.

"Sort of," he said.

"You need more pain medication?" she asked.

"Maybe not," he said.

"You can have more, I think," Danny said. "It's been about two hours."

Tim shook his head. "I'm ok, I think."

"All right, then. I'm going to go and leave you two be. I'll let the nurse know that you're awake again and that you might need the meds soon, ok?"

"Ok," Tim said.

"Ok. I'll be back later, or tomorrow, ok?" Danny said.

"Yeah," Tim replied. "See ya."

"See you later. Calleigh, you can call us if you guys need anything. I'm sure Melissa is going to want to come up later on."

"Will do," Calleigh replied. Danny nodded and left. "So, you're back with us now?" she said, turning back to Tim.

"Looks like." He raised a hand to scrub at his forehead. "Was it bad?" he asked.

"Was what bad? The last three days?" she asked. The last three days had been some of the most horrifying of her entire life. Bad didn't come close to covering it.

"No. The funeral."

She frowned. "How did you know the funeral was today?" she asked. She'd asked Tim's parents not to mention it if he woke up.

"Figured it out," he shrugged a little.

She sighed. His deductive reasoning skills obviously were functioning. "I was going to tell you tonight."

"Dad said. It's ok."

"It was hard, but nice, too, a bit. We were all sorry you weren't there. Mrs. Delko said that if you feel up to it at some point, she and Marisol would like to visit you. I told them I'd ask, but if you really don't want to see them, you don't have to. They'll understand, they said," she replied.

"Mmm," he said, noncommittally. Calleigh knew enough to read that as an "I'll think about it, but probably not".

She sat quietly for a moment, "I like your family," she said, finally. "They're good people."

"I know," he replied. "It's me, not them, you know that, right?"

"Mmm, I can see where it's a little bit them, too," she argued. He shook his head, so she let it drop. But she'd had plenty of time to watch the family dynamic between Danny, Melissa and Marianne and she could see where Tim might think it would be easier to just be a little bit distant. "They love you a lot, you know."

"Yeah," he said, playing with the edge of the blanket. His expression was hard to read through the swelling, but Calleigh knew when to stop. She wondered if anyone had told him about Hagen, and wondered if it would make things worse to tell him. He was curiously…flat. She almost wanted to tell him things just to make him really react to something, anything.

"What?" he asked after a moment.

"Hm?" she asked, looking up at him.

He made a little "go ahead" motion with his hand. "What aren't you telling me?"

There were many, many things she wasn't telling him… "Tim…"

"Yes?"

"You know they're…we're going to have to ask you questions," she said slowly. He nodded. "It's more important that usual. We don't have much to go on at all."

He shifted uncomfortably in the bed. "Oh."

"I'm just telling you, I didn't want you to not know. Because Stetler's involved, you know? And Horatio is a little…on edge."

"Cal, right now, I…" he trailed off. "Ok," he said, finally.

"It's not going to happen today. If I have anything to say about it, it's going to wait until you're out of here, but I'm probably going to be overruled there. At the least, I'm going to get Horatio to convince Stetler to wait until you're talking a bit better. You're a bit hard to understand right now, you know?" she said. He nodded. "So don't worry about it immediately, I just wanted to make sure you knew."

"I know," he replied. "What else?"

Calleigh sighed. "I don't know if this is the right time, but maybe it's best. Tim, the reason why they're so anxious to ask you questions is that you're the only one who can answer them."

He looked at her confused. "I don't…wait. I'm the only one…the only one who…made it?"

She nodded, looking down to blink back the sudden tears. "Yeah," she said softly, swallowing before looking back up at him.

His eyes were wide and scared. "Eric and Hagen both?"

"Yes," she replied.

He leaned his head back and stared at the ceiling for a long moment. She watched him, concerned. "Tim," she said, scooting forward to touch his hand. He twitched it away. "Tim, it's ok. Don't do this," she said.

"Do what?" he asked, finally.

"Don't shut everyone out," she said, softly. "That's not going to help." She wished now that she'd waited. But she couldn't stand the idea of Stetler ambushing him with the news later, and she wasn't sure she could quite trust Horatio to prepare Tim properly for that encounter right now.

He didn't reply for a long moment. "Can I have some more water?"

Calleigh sighed. Well, she'd asked for a reaction, and that's what she'd gotten. She wasn't really surprised- she'd half predicted that he'd shut down. "Sure," she said. "Are you hungry at all?"

"No," he said. "Can't eat anyway."

"You can have soup," she said. "And Ensure. Actually, you're going to be drinking a whole lot of the Ensure," she said, handing him the glass of water.

"Mm", he said, handing the glass back to her.

"I'm not kidding, Tim. The oral surgeon told us that it's not unusual for people to lose significant amounts of weight after this sort of surgery. You don't have any to spare," she said.

"I know," he said. "I actually do notice, Calleigh."

"Yeah, well, you could fool us, sometimes," she said. "I'm serious, Tim. You just spent most of the last two weeks barely eating and sleeping before this happened. That put you at a big disadvantage as far as recovering is concerned. You don't have any reserves now, do you understand that? And it's going to be near impossible to build them back up right now. You're going to feel like hell for a very long time."

He'd looked away as she started in on the lecture. "Well, that's my problem, now, isn't it?" he said, finally.

"Oh, for God's sake." Calleigh bit back the rest of the angry statement she wanted to make. This was not the time. She shouldn't have even started the conversation. He'd just woken up and she was exhausted. Not the time at all. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He still wasn't looking at her. "I'm sorry," she said when she thought she might have her voice under control again.

He nodded. "S'ok."

"Do you want me to leave you alone?" she asked, finally. He looked at her and shook his head quickly, eyes scared. "Ok," she said, softly. "I won't go."

"Good," he said. He didn't twitch away this time when she reached out to touch his hand. "Hurts, a bit," he said.

"Your mouth? Or your stomach?" she asked.

"Both. It's starting to hurt to talk," he admitted.

"Then shut up already," she said, smiling a little.

He started to laugh a little, but his breath caught and he winced. "Ow."

"Yeah, I think you're done," she said. "I'm going to go find the nurse and get you some more of the good stuff, ok?"

"Ok," he nodded.

"All right, I'll be right back," she said, standing up.

"Cal?" he asked suddenly as she reached the doorway.

She turned, "Yeah?"

"I'm sorry," he said.

"I know. It's ok," she said. "You want anything else while I'm out here?" He shook his head. "Ok, I'll be back in a minute." She walked out of the room and leaned against the wall for a moment, eyes closed. This was not going to be easy. Sighing, she pushed off the walk and walked down the hall towards the nurse's station.