Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters of CSI: Miami. Unfortunately. Am just borrowing and they will be returned undamaged and in their original packaging.

Break My Heart

When Ryan rang the doorbell, a woman who was an older version of Valera opened the door and gave him a questioning look. 'Yes?' she asked.

'Hi,' he said, holding out the purse Valera had dropped in his car. 'Maxine dropped this in my car. I know today is her day off and I tried dropping it off at her new apartment but she's not in, or not answering.'

She took it. 'Who are you?'

'I work with Maxine,' he said hesitantly.

'That doesn't tell me who you are.'

'Ryan Wolfe,' he said.

'Oh.' The look she gave him was icy. 'You're Ryan, are you.'

He paused. 'Why?'

'Oh nothing. Just you're the lovely young man who's dumped my daughter.'

Ryan blinked and stared blankly at her. 'What?'

'Forgotten her that quickly, have you?' She shook her head. 'Men.' The look of disgust she gave him cut him to the core. 'Why did you dump her? Find someone else to play with?'

'What?' he repeated.

'Thank you so much for making my daughter very unhappy. Now keep away from her.

'Didn't she tell you?' he asked.

'Tell me what?'

'I didn't break up with her. She dumped me.' He started to walk away, paused and said, 'Before you start judging me, maybe I should tell you that I really care about your daughter and that she's hurt me. A lot. Have a nice day, Mrs Valera.'


'Thank you for making look like a fool,' Leah said angrily. It was the next day and the first time she had managed to get hold of her daughter.

Valera closed her eyes. 'Mum, I didn't say he dumped me.'

'The way you've been moping around and refusing to talk about it, what did you think I would think?'

Valera shook her head, although the gesture was lost since she was talking on the phone. 'I broke up with him.'

'Why? He seemed nice. Well, he would have seemed nice if we'd met under different circumstances. You said he was. Has it turned out he isn't?'

'No, nothing like that.'

'Tell me. You sounded as if you really liked this Ryan and now you dumped him? He says you really hurt him. What happened, Maxine?'

Valera hesitated and then told Leah everything. She expected her mother to shout and rave, threaten violence against Luke and demand she tell the police.

Leah was silent as she thought and then said, 'You should tell him.'

'I can't. He'd be furious, he'd want to try and help and he has to stay out of this, Mum, or else he'll get hurt. Luke slashed one of his tires not long ago and he'd do worse if Ryan doesn't stay out of this.'

'Then tell the police, Report it to Horatio Caine.'

'I can't. Not yet, not until I can prove something.'

'You're putting yourself and this young man in danger.'

'Luke will lose interest when he realises that I mean what I say,' Valera said with a conviction that she didn't feel.

'You don't really believe that,' Leah said.

'Anyway, I have to wait until I can prove something. Until then it's my word against his and that won't stand up in court.'

'You had better do something fast,' Leah said. 'Or things could get very nasty.'

'They already are,' Valera said softly. 'I have to go, Mum. I have work to do.'

'Be careful, darling.'

'I will. Bye.'

She hung up as Calleigh came into the room. 'Valera, there's someone here to see you,' she said. 'In the reception.'


Jess was waiting in the reception to see Valera. She sat down, waiting impatiently, looking around with extreme interest at the people wandering around. Some were in police uniforms, others in lab coats, others in plain dress and looking around a little uncertainly, others wandering around with confidence.

A young man walked over, spoke quietly to the receptionist who regarded the small box he put down as he spoke with suspicion. Jess witnessed the amusing exchange between the two.

'Is this evidence?' the woman asked him.

'Yes,' he said patiently. 'Evidence. See? It says evidence on the box.'

'I'm just asking.'

'What else would it be?' he wanted to know. 'A birthday cake?'

The woman gave him a hard look. 'Make sure you take it with you, please. Last week Eric had a pile of boxes and left one here. Then he ran around all afternoon trying to find it.'

'Eric has a lot on his mind at the moment,' the man said. 'You should have let him know he'd left it here by mistake.'

'It was his evidence,' she said shortly. 'Here's the message that came for you.'

'Thanks.' He took the piece of paper and added, 'Anyway, I won't forget these. They're fingers I'm taking to the lab to be processed for prints and Horatio needs them as soon as possible.'

The woman gave him a look of horror and looked at the box. 'Fingers?' she repeated.

He smiled. 'You work in a crime lab. You can't be that squeamish.' He saw her expression and said, 'Come on, it's not like it's a severed head, is it?'

'I work on a reception,' she growled. 'Take them away! Go!'

He picked up the box with a wide grin and carried on walking. Jess smiled at him as he passed; he was cute. 'Hi,' she said.

He stopped, obviously assuming she wanted to ask him directions. 'Are you waiting to see someone?' he asked politely.

'In the lab,' she said. 'You work there?'

'Yeah,' he said. 'Can I take a message for you?'

'Yeah, tell Maxine to hurry up, I want to talk to her,' she said and saw the smile drain from his face. 'I'm her cousin,' she said.

'If I see her, I'll tell her,' he said tensely.

The penny dropped. 'You're Ryan, aren't you?' she said.

He nodded.

'Jessica,' Maxine's voice said, rather sharply.

Jess and Ryan both turned at the sound of her voice. 'Hey,' Jess said easily, and then to Ryan in a confidential tone, 'She's always late, isn't she? Have you noticed that?' She looked at Maxine and said, 'I came to tell you I can't make lunch today. I have an appointment, and you weren't answering your phone. Since I was passing, I thought I'd drop in and tell you myself.'

'Okay,' Maxine said shortly. 'See you later for dinner at Mum's.'

'I have to go,' Ryan cut in.

'Nice to meet you,' Jess called after him.

Valera glared at her. 'You mind not flirting with my colleagues?'

Jess smiled. 'Annoyed you, did it? That's why I was flirting, see if it annoyed you.'

'What?'

'I figured if you got cross with me, you do still like him.'

'You're an idiot, Jess.'

'Maybe, but so are you.' Jess gestured after Ryan. 'He's seriously cute. And nice. Why'd you dump him? Your mum says there's something going on with Luke.'

'It's complicated.'

'What's complicated? I'd choose that guy over Luke any day and I only just met him. What's the deal?'

'I'll explain when I'm not working and we both have a spare couple of hours.'

'Dinner tonight?'

'Maybe. Bye, Jess.'

'See you later, Maxine.'


When Valera went back to the lab, Ryan followed her into the DNA lab. 'What?' she asked him.

'I want the results I put in for processing, please.'

'Give me time to do them, Ryan. I'm busy.'

'Not so busy you don't have time to talk to your relatives. Look, I put them in yesterday and they're still not ready.'

'I'm doing them, Ryan,' she said, walking out and heading to the water cooler. She needed something to drink. He walked after her.

'Valera, those results are really important and you're just wasting time – '

That was unfair and she knew he knew it. 'But you had time to stop and flirt with my cousin, didn't you?' she snapped.

'I wasn't flirting, I was talking, and why are you bothered?'

'She's my cousin.' She stopped and got some water, but her hands were shaking and she had to be careful not to spill it.

'You really don't know what you want, do you?' Ryan said. The look on his face was one of mild contempt. 'You get something, you don't want it. You don't have it, you do want it.'

'What's your point, Ryan?' she asked coldly.

He shook his head. 'You made it pretty clear the other night you don't like me, don't want me near you. Yet when your cousin starts flirting, you turn green-eyed. What is your problem?'

Luke is my problem, she wanted to say. Luke is keeping me from being with you and I hate him for it. You are also my problem because I can't stop thinking about you and I'm totally crazy about you and I think I'm half in love with you. Which is also crazy and I'm terrified it might be true and the reason I'm terrified is because if Luke even suspects what I feel for you, I don't know what he'd do to you.

'You are,' was what she actually said. 'You and your inability to understand that I don't like you. Everything about you, in fact. I'd give you a list except we'd be here all day. I don't like you. I have no idea why I was crazy enough to agree to go out with you in the first place. I don't want you near me. Once you go away, all my problems will be over. I hate you. I told you that. I can't stand you. I can't stand you near me.'

Ryan looked down at the floor, considering a response. He looked up and gave her the most frightening smile she had ever seen on a human face in its misery and pain. 'You know, I really though you were someone special,' he said quietly. 'I really did. Turns out I was wrong. Thank you for disillusioning me. Now at least I know you're not worth the hurt you're putting me through. As if that helps.'

He turned around and walked away. Valera realised belatedly that everyone was watching them, almost everyone looking shocked or surprised.


'I thought you were a better person than that,' Alexx observed.

Valera looked up. Her heart sank. She had always been friends with Alexx, had always respected and liked her. She knew why the other woman was here. Alexx had become good friends with Ryan and she was obviously angry at how Valera had treated him.

It didn't help that Valera was angry with herself.

'Please, Alexx,' she said despairingly. 'I really can't cope with this.'

'Tough,' Alexx said shortly. 'Do you like hurting people? Not to mention humiliating them? Half the staff in this building heard that little speech and the other half know about it by now.'

'Oh.'

'He told me about what happened a couple of nights ago. In his car.' Alexx gauged her response and when Valera didn't say anything, she said, 'He told me he didn't hurt you. I believe him.'

'Ryan's not capable of that,' Valera said softly. 'He was – he helped me out, Alexx. There were these guys who wouldn't leave me alone and he got rid of them, gave me a lift home. We ended up kissing. Then I realised what I was doing was stupid, told him to stop and he did.'

'I know that,' Alexx said sharply. 'And that isn't the issue here. What is the issue is that he doesn't know what he has done. He says you don't know what you want, one minute you tell him everything is over between you two and the next you're kissing him and then the next you don't want to know him. That's what's confusing him and, frankly, what's confusing everyone else.'

Valera didn't reply for a minute and then she said, 'Why are you getting involved, Alexx? This is between him and me.'

'It was,' Alexx said. 'Or rather, it was until he broke in tears half an hour ago in my mortuary. He thinks you hate him, Maxine. He's confused, he doesn't know what's going on, what to think. He doesn't know what he's done to you to deserve this.'

Valera looked away and carried on working silently.

'Besides,' Alexx said. 'Even if you do hate him, did you have to do this at work? Thanks to the argument between you two, we have one lab technician who'll be lucky if she can focus for the rest of the day and one criminalist who's not going to be good for anything for the rest of the day.'

'I didn't mean to have an argument,' she said tightly.

'Well, you did.' Alexx shook her head, no longer angry but simply confused. 'I really don't understand, Maxine. I didn't think you had that kind of meanness in you. What did he do to deserve that?'

'I don't want to talk about it.' She looked away and heard Alexx walk away.


'I hear the lab all but fell apart in the time I was away,' Horatio said. 'And I seem to have lost one member of my team. What happened?'

Calleigh shook her head. 'I'm not really sure. Ryan and Valera had some sort of argument which has left both of them miserable. Alexx is trying to get some sort of sense out of both of them and failing, I think.'

'Definitely failing,' Alexx said, coming in. 'He has no idea what's going on and she's not saying. She's angry with him, I think, she'd have to be to speak to anyone like that, but she wouldn't say what it was.' She paused. 'He's going to help me out for the rest of the day, Horatio. I could do with some help with my paperwork and he's not going to be concentrating very well. He's very upset.'

'If Stetler comes sniffing around - ' Horatio warned.

'I'll make sure he gets an earful,' Alexx promised.

'Good. And someone see if they can get to the bottom of what exactly is going on around here. We can't afford technicians and criminalists who can't focus.'

'Easier said than done,' Calleigh murmured.