Chapter 3

As Josh was gone, Calleigh stepped into the office and looked at all the pictures. Some were from the team, still with Horatio as their leader. But the most of them showed Tim and his family. "Linda's out of town for one day and your kids are already in trouble", she said amused.

"It's only one kid out of line right now. Thank God. I wouldn't be able to handle it if all four of them start to make nonsense."

"You okay?" she asked.

"Why is everybody asking me that?"

"Because you're looking exhausted."

"Well, I AM!"

"Then let Delko or me handle the lab. Go get some time with your family."

"Since when are you the leader of the team?" he asked over the edges of his glasses he had earlier put on to read the file.

"Since you don't get it, Tim. You can't pretend that you're up to 100. You need to cut the workload down. Even Horatio didn't work that much."

"He hasn't got a family to take care of."

"Right. But you don't have to do this alone. Linda's very capable of earning her own money, don't you think?"

"Sure. But what's your point?"

"The point is, you should spend more time with your family, Tim. Not with the "family" at the lab, but with your real one."
He stayed silent. Ever since his accident, the whole team was there for him to support. His thoughts travelled back to the day almost 20 years ago. He just got out of hospital after getting shot at McCauley's jewellery. Luckily the damage wasn't that bad and after 4 weeks at home he was eager to get out in the field again. Of course he got a lecture from everybody on the team about gun maintenance before he was able to set one foot outside the building. And he learned his lesson. Surviving one shooting at Dispo day was pure luck, surviving the second was beyond everything. He didn't want to try his luck a third time and he spent hours with Calleigh to clean his gun properly. Little did he know that a simple wooden staircase would change his whole life again.

"Earth to Speed! Hello?" Calleigh waved a hand in front of his face to get his attention again.

"What?"

"You were somewhere else. I'm just asking you to watch out for yourself." With that she went away.

"I've already heard that from you…", he sighed and went back to work.

Tim wheeled into the fingerprint lab, looking for Eric. He found him on the phone with his wife. He held up a hand to greet him. "Alright, I have to finish. The boss just entered the room", he said smiling and hung up. "Mary says hello to you."

"Oh, thanks. Listen, could you do me a favour?"

"Sure. What's up?", he asked.

"Well, Josh took the car. Can you take me home?"

"No problem. Hey, tomorrow's the briefing with the Mayor. That means I can't get you."
"I'm well aware of that. Did you get all the paperwork for the briefing?"

"Yeah."

The two of them had agreed to share work at the lab. Tim was the "inside-boss", while Eric got into command out in the field and on the official press meetings. Tim was like a brother to him and he would do anything for him. Which he did after things got worse with Tim's health. And all because one step of a wooden staircase broke as Tim went down to the basement on a crime scene. At first it looked like Tim got out from the accident with no problems. A few cuts and bruises, and an aching back. But then they had to learn that his vertebral column was damaged, causing permanent pain and temporarily paralysing of both legs.

"How are Michael and Chloe?" Tim wanted to know as he asked for Eric's kids.

"Good. But what did you expect?" he laughed.

Tim frowned. "What do you mean?"

"I've heard from Josh. Everything okay?". Since Tim wasn't able to get to play with his children at the usual school activities, Eric jumped in and became the "second" father of Patrick, Josh, Ashley and Lucy. The kids grew up with this situation naturally.

"I have to wait until Linda comes back. She can get more sense into him than I. Until then I'll just have wait and hope he stays in control."

"He's just as stubborn as his old man. And he's definitely right in the middle of his puberty. Wants to show his wild side."

Tim sighed. "I know the kids got a hard time growing up with a disabled father…"

"That's not true. You did great. Both of you."

"But we didn't make if you weren't there for us. All of the team."

"We've talked about this many times. We all did the best we could and I think it worked pretty well. At least with Patrick", he added and smiled again.

Patrick was the oldest son of Tim, he just turned 20 last month and was on top of his class ever since. Right now he was studying medicine at Columbia University.

"Speakin' of – when will he be home again?"

"Actually he wanted to visit next weekend, but he got a important meeting with one of his future professors, so…we'll have to wait a bit longer At least Linda's gonna be able to get in touch with him while she's in NYC."

"Okay, give me a call when you ready to go home", Eric said and went back to work.

"Sure."

tbc…