Chapter 4

When you come back down
If you land on your feet
I hope you find a way to make it back to me
When you come around
I'll be there for you
Don't have to be alone with what you're going through

"Come Back Down", Lifehouse

They'd been on the road for almost five hours and still weren't out of Florida. Calleigh wasn't sure she'd really known how long it took to cross Florida lengthwise. Or how long it took to go north, in general. The furthest north she'd ever been in her life was Memphis, and she had a feeling this trip was going to go beyond that point.

"We ought to stop and eat sometime soon," she said, breaking the silence, as she twisted in her seat to glance back at Speed, who was curled up in the back seat asleep. "He's out now, but he really needs to eat soon."

"I was thinking of stopping outside of Jacksonville," Horatio said. "That ought to be in another 20 minutes or so."

"Perfect," Calleigh said, stretching. "Jacksonville ought to be a good choice, because we could stop at a grocery store, too, and get some stuff he can eat, in case we have trouble finding someplace later on." The protein shakes would only last so long, and she hadn't quite considered how difficult it might be to find food Tim could eat right now on the road. If she had, she might well have put her foot down altogether about the whole idea of him coming along.

"He's eating real food again, isn't he?" Horatio asked.

"Sort of. He can, if he wants to, but he's still having a lot of trouble with things that need to be chewed a lot, like meat, so fast food is kind of difficult, since most of the menu is pretty much out, yet. Soup is good- it's about all he's been eating, although I did talk him into half of a grilled cheese sandwich the other night with the soup. But it's hard to get him to eat a full meal anyway, because his appetite is completely gone," she sighed.

Horatio nodded. "How did you get so good at this?" he asked, suddenly.

"Good at what?" Calleigh looked at him, confused.

"Being a caretaker. I'm not surprised, but…" Horatio shrugged, unsure how to finish.

"But it's the role you've got Alexx in, in your head," Calleigh finished.

"Yeah," Horatio nodded.

"Alexx would have done most of it, if Tim would have let her, but he didn't want to take her away from her family," Calleigh explained. "It helps that he trusts me, too. But, well, you're right."

"I am?" he shook his head. "How so?"

"I did have to get good at it somewhere," she smiled a bit sadly. "You know about my parents, right? I've told you about them?"

He nodded. "Yeah, you did."

"Did I ever tell you about my brothers?" she asked.

"I don't think so, no," he replied.

"Ah, well, you see, it's like this…."

vvvvv

April 1998, New Orleans

"Calleigh, I need your help." Her younger brother's voice sounded strained and tired.

"What's the matter, Kenny?" she asked, concerned.

"Jeff…well, he's getting worse. I think it's not just the alcohol anymore. He's acting like…well, you know how Daddy is on a bender? He's like that, only more aggressive," Kenny replied.

"I see," Calleigh sighed. She'd known for awhile that her youngest brother Jeff probably had a drinking problem. It wasn't as though it was completely out of the realm of possibility that one of the three Duquesne children would become an alcoholic at some point. Not with their parents genes and example. "What kind of drugs?"

"I don't know. I mean, I think it's more than pot. Who doesn't smoke pot, you know?" Kenny said.

"Plenty of people, but go on," she replied.

"Right, well, anyway. I don't know."

"Have you seen any track marks?" she asked.

"Like, from a needle?" Kenny asked.

"Yes, Kenny," she said, rolling her eyes.

"I don't think so. How would I know, anyway?" Good question. And one she hadn't really expected an answer to. In her experience with the New Orleans PD, only the truly desperate shot up in places where the tracks would be noticeable.

"All right. What do you want me to do about it?" She really doubted there was anything she could really do. She'd never been able to convince either parent to quit drinking, she highly doubted she could convince Jeff. But if it would make Kenny feel better and stop calling her at 2am when she had to be on shift at 5am, she'd do it.

"Emma and I think we should have an intervention," Kenny said. "Can you come over tonight?"

"I thought Jeff and Emma broke up?" she said.

"Not entirely. She just said she wouldn't see him if he was drunk, not that she wanted to break up altogether."

"Much the same thing, isn't it, anymore?" Calleigh sighed. "Ok, I get off at 5, I'll be there by 7."

"Thanks, Calleigh Mae. I really appreciate it."

"No problem, Kenny. Now, I'm going to go back to sleep, ok?" she said.

"Oh, right. Sorry." Kenny at least had the grace to sound abashed.

"It's all right, little brother. I'll see you tonight," she said, hanging up before he could say good bye. An intervention. Good Lord.

vvvvv

"Was he on drugs?" Horatio asked.

"Oh, yeah. He was snorting coke. I found that out later. The intervention went about as well as you might expect an intervention cooked up by two 21 year old kids following a script they got out of a library book would go." Calleigh said, somewhat amused.

"In other words, not that well."

"Heh. No, not that well."

vvvvv

Three months passed, and Jeff still refused to talk to any of them since the intervention. Calleigh didn't entirely blame him, but it was irksome, nonetheless. She'd finally told Kenny to give it up and go the Al-Anon meetings on campus to get some support, because she really wasn't in much of a position to help him.

"Will it help?" he asked.

"Sure," she said. Sort of, anyway, she added mentally. She'd never found them to be terribly helpful, but maybe things had changed in the two years since she'd graduated.

"Maybe they'll know what to say to him," he said.

"Maybe," she said. "But really, Kenny, I think you need to let him go his own way. He'll come back when he's ready." She still didn't entirely think there was much going on outside of booze.

That opinion changed abruptly one morning at 3am when she received a visit from Steve Carroll, a narcotics detective she was friendly with.

"Calleigh, we busted a coke party tonight, and one of the people we found says he's your brother," Steve said, standing outside of her apartment. He handed her a billfold, which she opened to find Jeff's ID.

She sighed. "Unfortunately, yes."

"I didn't book him. I brought him to you, you know, as a professional courtesy. I really can't do this more than once, Cal. If we pick him up again, I gotta book him," Steve said, regretfully.

"I understand. And I really appreciate it, Steve. I'll take care of it," she said, grimly. "Thank you, really."

"No problem. And I don't think anyone else noticed, either, so I think I can keep it under the radar, ok?"

"Thank you," she said, again, following Steve out to his car. She opened the car door. Jeff was sitting there sullenly. "Come on," she said, stepping aside to let him out of the car.

She said nothing until they were inside her apartment. "Jeffery, I do not know what you were thinking. I do not care what you were thinking. This ends now. It ends tonight. Do you understand me?"

"What business is it of yours," he said, sullenly.

"You made it my business when you used my name, boy, so don't you get an attitude with me. You could have gotten me in some serious hot water, do you know that? This could mean my career, Jeffery. Did you even think of that? You're damn lucky that the person you mentioned me to happens to be a friend of mine, because otherwise, I might well be about to be hauled into an internal affairs investigation right about now. You are my responsibility now, and this ends now," she said angrily. "You lost the right to decide, boy."

"Calleigh," he whispered. She looked at him and saw that he was crying. "I didn't know what else to do. I was scared."

"You should have been scared," she said.

"I don't…I can't stop," he said, looking up at her. "I can't, I really can't."

"You can. It won't be easy, but you can," she said.

"Can you help me?" he asked.

She sighed and sat down next to him. "I can help you, yes." She put her arm around him and let him cry. "Shh, baby, it's ok, I'll help."

vvvvv

"So you helped," Horatio said.

She sighed. "Yeah, I did. He really didn't want to go into treatment, so I took care of him. Withdrawal was not pretty. Seriously, nothing I've done for Tim even comes close to that horror. Finally, when it became obvious that I really wasn't going to be able to handle it on my own, I dragged him to the ER. They admitted him to their treatment program and he was there for 90 days."

"I imagine that was difficult," Horatio said.

"It was. I visited every week he was allowed visitors. He worked damn hard in there. But I think he resented me putting him in there in the first place. I know he resents the fact that Kenny and I tried to railroad him into getting clean when he wasn't ready and he really resents the hell out of the fact that Kenny wound himself up with a drinking problem even after all this. Jeff feels that was pretty damn hypocritical. He doesn't really talk to either of us anymore. I can sort of understand why. I don't like it, but I understand it. So long as he's staying clean, I'll let him do whatever he wants to do with regards to family. We're not exactly the healthiest bunch for a recovering addict to be around anyway, what with Daddy still not on the program and Mama barely on it. Jeff does send me a card every July on the anniversary of the night he wound up on my doorstep and I called an end to it all. And if that's all I ever hear from him, then that's ok with me. I just need to know he's healthy and safe," she said.

Horatio nodded. "I never realized any of that. I just…well."

"You thought I was just being codependent with my father," she said, nodding.

"Sort of, yes," Horatio admitted.

"You're not really wrong. I think…I think because of what happened with Jeff and then getting my mother dried out for the most part the next year and then what happened with Kenny, although his wife dealt with most of that- I was in Miami already, I just don't think I have the strength to do it again with my father. But it's not really co-dependency, exactly. I don't have hardly anything to do with him when he's drinking. I only pick him up if they call me, and I only do that because otherwise he gets into real trouble. I've tried just having them call the cops and taking him to the drunk tank, but he gets belligerent when the cops get involved and honestly, I don't need the aggravation. So I pick him up and drop him off at home and barely speak to him unless he's sober. And he knows that's the limit to what I'll do for him when he's drunk. If he's sober, I'll do anything he needs me to do. Otherwise, he just shouldn't call," she explained. She was quiet a moment. "John always thought that was enabling him. And he was probably right. But you know, what else am I going to do?"

"No, I understand," Horatio said. "Out of curiosity, does Tim know about any of this?"

"Yes, he does. There's not much about me that Tim doesn't know. He certainly knows more about me than I know about him. He's a very good listener. And who the hell else is going to be awake at 2 am when I need someone to go help me drag Daddy out of a bar in a sketchy part of town? Sometimes, having an insomniac for a friend is helpful, you know- he's almost always still awake and more than willing to be my backup. And he's willing to do it even if he wasn't awake. Actually, that's almost better, if I do wake him up. Trust me, no one is going to mess with Tim if it's the middle of the night and he's been woken up. They take one look and decide that they've got something rather urgent to do anywhere but there," she laughed. "That was the other thing John and I fought about, actually. He thought that if I was going to be enabling my father that I ought to be calling him, not calling Tim, for help. I told him that Tim had been helping me out with this sort of thing for years and there was no reason for me to call him and wake him up when I knew Tim was going to still be awake anyway. He didn't like that answer. Probably didn't help that he never did like Tim, anyway."

Horatio nodded. "Probably not." They were quiet for a moment, before Horatio pointed at a sign. "This exit look ok?"

She squinted through the darkness at the sign listing available food at the next exit. There was at least one "real" restaurant listed. "Yeah, it'll do," she said. She turned around to wake Tim up as Horatio merged into the exit lane.