God, I LUV you guys, thanks so much for the encouraging reviews, you sure know your way to a girl's heart. wtravler, welcome, hope you stick with us. Deathofme, whoa! pretty intense, what can I say but thanks. Becs, glad you're still hanging in there with me. Chloe, are you reading this? Hurry up with that next chapter, girl!. And hey, Corine, I couldn't have done this one without you. I just kept thinking of all those awesome alternating chapters in Hostages without Horatio and somehow kept going without him. Thank God that's over! So yeah, no Horatio in this one, but wait … I think you'll like it anyway. Let me know.

hc/hc/hc

Eric leaned on Calleigh's buzzer while Alexx fidgeted beside him, switching her medical kit nervously from one hand back to the other. "Why the hell isn't Calleigh answering?" she snapped, throwing her dark hair impatiently across her shoulder. "They're expecting me."

"Maybe they're…uhh…busy," Eric suggested, quickly stifling a grin as it pulled unpleasantly at the row of butterfly bandages curving across one cheek.

Alexx grimaced. "Don't be funny, Eric. This is taking too long. Buzz the super."

Calleigh's landlord appeared in person. Eric rolled his eyes at the excessive caution but Alexx was delighted that he hadn't just buzzed them in. He had a lot of single women living here and he was careful, she highly approved of that. Eric impatiently plastered his police ID against the glass entry door and after the super opened it they ignored him entirely, sweeping past through the lobby towards the bank of elevators. "We'll call if we need you," Eric dismissed the man over his shoulder.

Alexx stabbed 29 repeatedly as the elevator doors closed with an annoying lack of alacrity. "It won't go any faster, Alexx," Eric chuckled and she threw an exasperated glance his way, her annoyed expression softening somewhat as the ambient elevator lighting revealed one side of his face to be a mottled assortment of purple and blackish blue bruising. An angry crimson slash followed the line of his cheekbone, surgical stitches alternating along its' length with starkly white butterfly bandages.

"Ouch," she sympathized. "Poor baby. No wonder Calleigh's not answering the door, if she got one look at you on the security monitor. I should have left you in the parking lot."

The tips of Eric's lips curved upward. He hadn't shaved for a day and a half and the partial smile was immediately sexy. "I've had enough of parking lots for one day, thank you, Alexx," he informed her, and they were both in good spirits when they exited the elevator and rounded the last corner of the condo hallway leading to Calleigh's door.

"Oh my God," Alexx whispered while Eric's sexy grin collapsed in half a second flat. Smoothly his weapon materialized out of nowhere as he motioned with the other hand for Alexx to stay back. Cautiously Eric advanced on the partly open cherry wood door.

"Miami Dade Police!" he hollered as he kicked it in all the way and disappeared from Alexx's line of vision. "Calleigh? H?"

For a very long thirty seconds Alexx plastered herself against the hallway wall and prayed, thankful not to hear a gun shot but hoping hard to hear something else. Anything else, really, but preferably the voices of Calleigh and Horatio giving Eric a hard time about the door as they all emerged safe and sound from the condo. But Eric reappeared alone, nine mil on its' way back to the holster and cell phone out instead. "It looks like they've been taken," he told Alexx grimly. "We're clear, you can go in, just treat it like a crime scene, okay? I'm calling Tripp."

"Okay," Alexx faltered. Treating it like a crime scene usually meant a DB for her to process and the M.E. shuddered, thanking her lucky stars there wasn't one waiting for her this time. Carefully she set her kit down on the hallway floor and unsnapped the latches. As she slipped on a pair of latex gloves she noticed Eric gesturing with one hand while he spoke tersely with Tripp on the cell. His kit was still in the Hummer, she realized. Alexx flung a second pair of gloves in his direction.

By the time the M.E. got up enough nerve to approach the door Eric was sliding his phone shut. He nodded at her to go ahead when she hesitated and Alexx edged gently inside Calleigh's condo, making sure not to disturb anything that even vaguely reassembled evidence. Everything seemed fine in the entry hall, some scuffs on the hardwood but they could have been there this morning. Alexx couldn't remember. She glanced into the living room, which seemed undisturbed, and walked somewhat unsteadily down the hallway towards the bedroom where she'd last seen them.

Alexx stopped in the doorway with an audible gasp. There was a vivid spray of bright blood across Calleigh's pillows, the wall and the headboard.

Eric had been in the room all ready. He placed his hands on her shoulder blades and gently propelled her inside, steering her neatly around the blood evidence on the floor. He wished he could just sink down on Calleigh's bed for awhile and close his eyes to think, but the bed was where he hoped to find most of his evidence. "My God, Alexx," he moaned, "I can't believe I let this happen. Not to H and Calleigh."

"Oh no! Don't you dare, not you too!" Alexx put her hands on Eric's shoulders and stared into his face, waiting to speak until he finally raised his dark eyes to meet hers. "I've had quite enough of people blaming themselves for things that aren't their fault," she lectured severely. "You didn't let things happen, today, honey. They just did, that's all."

"Well somebody should have thought about the shooter following through with another action," Eric protested angrily. "I could easily have spoken with H this morning, I shouldn't have waited. Maybe he knew … knows … something that could have helped. I sure as hell didn't find much to go on at the parkade." Eric rubbed his forehead. He had processed a few thousand crime scenes in his career but he glanced around helplessly at this one, momentarily at a loss where to start.

Frank Tripp arrived and smoothly filled the gap, resting his broad hand on Eric's shoulder for a brief moment and then simply taking over everything that wasn't directly evidence related. Crime scene tape went up, uniformed officers were dispatched to knock on neighbouring doors, someone called the superintendent. Alexx heard sneakers squeaking on hardwood and Ryan Wolfe flew into the bedroom, a forensics kit clutched in each gloved hand. Alexx couldn't remember ever seeing the young CSI move that fast or look that disturbed or disheveled. His eyes skimmed the room, clashed with hers for a brief second in passing, and then flinched visibly when they took in the spray of blood decorating Calleigh's headboard.

"I'll take the bedroom," Ryan offered, stepping up to Eric.

Alexx expected the more experienced CSI to refuse and insist on processing this room himself but Eric raised his eyes and studied Ryan's eager face before he responded. "Thanks," he said quietly, taking the second kit from Ryan's extended hand and leaving to process the rest of the condo.

Alexx stayed with Ryan in the bedroom, feeling an odd need to be there, and she watched the young CSI work the evidence. He took dozens of photographs of the blood spray on the wall and the blood pool on the bed and then multiple swabs before flicking on his flashlight and meticulously beginning a visual examination of the bed, one square centimeter at a time.

"How you doing, baby?" Alexx asked eventually. She spoke softly, not wanting to disturb but needing to speak.

Ryan sighed in frustration as he bagged yet another hair. "Most of it's long and blonde, no surprises there. But all the others I've found are red. I was really hoping for a third donor, Alexx." He cleared his throat, talking through what he saw. "From the void in the spatter on the pillows it's obvious that two people were sleeping here when the attack happened. High velocity blood droplets," he muttered, "which means immediate and severe blood loss. Not arterial in this case, but close. Unusual pattern for a gunshot wound but there's no cast off and most attackers who use a knife pull the weapon out immediately and strike again. That didn't happen here. If this blood is the result of a stabbing then the weapon was left in the wound. Doesn't happen a lot."

Alexx stared at the young CSI. She was a medical doctor and she was having trouble coping with all of this blood simply because it belonged to someone she knew. Ryan had moved past it.

"Alexx, what can you tell from the volume of blood loss?" he asked suddenly, and the M.E. found herself wondering if she had misjudged his detachment. "Was this a fatal wound?"

"No. Potentially life threatening but not immediately fatal," she reassured the young CSI, and he nodded gratefully.

"Whoever was stabbed was lying on this side of the bed," he told her. Alexx shivered. She all ready knew who that was.

Ryan didn't ask. "I'll bag everything and get it back to the lab." He switched off his flashlight but not before the edge of the beam skimmed across Alexx's cheekbones and caught her eyes. "Are you okay?" he asked gently.

"No," she wavered. "Not even close." Ryan gently reached out and took her forearm. Avoiding the smears on the hardwood where someone had been dragged, bleeding, from the room, the two of them went out into the hallway to see how Eric was doing with the rest of the crime scene.