Chapter: 5
Blast From the Past

Horatio has Ryan leak to the media that Renee died. Horatio knows that if they believe that she survived, they will try again, and that time they might not be able to save her.

He isn't willing to lose her now that he found her, so he has Renee put into protective custody, this means that she has an armed guard outside her room plus Horatio with his Sig Sauer P-229 9mm.

When the media is made aware of what took place, they try to paint the story, so Horatio looks responsible. They bring up the fact that he is connected to several people close to him getting either shot or killed. First Horatio's brother, then his coworker Speedle gets shot.

Then Eric gets shot in the head, but somehow survives. Finally, his wife gets shot and killed shortly after she married him. Now his sister is assaulted and killed, Horatio has to be cursed or something.
The media would have a point except that nobody knew Horatio and Renee were related until she was assaulted.

"Local police K-9 handler was abducted in home invasion turned kidnapping. She was found and rushed to the hospital where she was pronounced dead on arrival. Lieutenant Horatio Caine, her brother, is familiar with shootings. First, his brother and co-worker then his wife now his sister," was the news network's tagline.

A few floors up, Piper and her father are watching Forensic Files when their show is interrupted for the breaking news story. The breaking story gets both of them very worried. Horatio is the person that saved Piper's life and how he had just lost his sister.

Piper asks her father a very touching question, "Is there anything that we can do for him, daddy?"

As she was asking her dad that question, they hear that Horatio is downstairs in the ER. Piper and her daddy rush to the elevator to go down and give their friend their condolences.

When Horatio hears a pair of very familiar voices, he runs out of his sister's room to talk to them. He doesn't want to risk someone finding out that Renee is still alive.

When Piper sees her hero, she runs up to him and gives him the hug of all hugs. She doesn't say anything; the girl just holds him tight. Horatio knows that Piper and her dad had heard about his sister's supposed death and are concerned about their friend during this time.

Horatio's last major case was Piper's shooting. He only left the hospital a few days ago, but now he was back. Horatio is grateful that he wasn't alone since Eric had left to work Renee's case.

Piper and her dad stay with Horatio in the Emergency Room waiting room until Eric came back.

Echo and Horatio by now have become very much like family. Whenever Horatio is asleep in Renee's hospital room, Echo stands guard and protects both her partner and now this new person who smelled like her partner.

Dogs have a sense of smell many times stronger than men. A canine's olfactory system can pick up on odors that most man-made equipment can miss. This is why Echo can pick up on the fact that her partner is related to this new person that Echo has officially never met. The three of them have worked cases together, but the dog has never smelled Horatio directly.

He can't quite understand it, but Horatio trusts the dog more than he trusts his own senses.

Echo, and he had developed a deep mutual understanding and trust with each other. That trust is why Horatio knows something is off about the new member of Renee's protective custody detail when Echo lets out an almost inaudible growl. So quiet someone else might have overlooked it.

Horatio has never met this new officer before. Echo lifts her head and jumps off Renee's bed in a blink of an eye. She runs to the doorway and will not let this new person enter. Horatio is surprised that this ordinarily quiet and sweet dog could be able to let out an almost primitive wolf-like snarl.

Now Echo is an active duty police dog, but when she doesn't have her vest and badge on, she is just the dog next door. Echo will let just about everyone else come inside the room with only a silent head lift, but this person is different.

Horatio tells this new person to stand back and do not enter, or he will let go of Echo. Telling the officer, "get back and don't come any closer, or I will release the dog, and you will be bit."

The new officer freezes in his tracks. Even people looking at their third strike tend to give up without a fight when threatened with a police canine. Horatio needs to have Ryan run this new person's information and make sure that he is who he says he is.

Ryan quickly confirms that this officer is NOT who he said he is. Ryan tells Horatio that the officer who's ID and badge he is looking at was found shot dead in his house a few hours earlier.

When he hears that Horatio wordlessly pulls his Sig Sauer from his holster on his right hip and lets go of a snarling Echo with his left hand.

Horatio quickly tells her to let go of this suspect, with the traditional release command of "Aus" or out in German. However, he wants the dog to know that she was right, and therefore she is a good girl.
The suspect is very fast to flip on his boss when Horatio threatens to let Echo loose again.

The two people sit quietly, waiting for H's team to get there to take the suspect into custody. Echo just sits opposite the person and stares at him.

Eric comes very quickly to get the suspect back to the police station. Eric finds himself quietly laughing when the suspect begs him to keep the beast away from him when Eric knows that Echo isn't anything like a beast.

After roughly two months of being in a medically induced coma and with daily MRI's to check her brain's swelling. Her doctors finally see enough swelling reduction that they felt comfortable slowly weaning her off of the Pentobarbital that is keeping Renee in the coma.

They take a week to wean her off the drugs. Soon it is up to her when to wake up. Nothing was keeping her in the coma. Since Renee is easily breathing on her own, her doctors remove her intubation when they wean her off the Pentobarbital.

Horatio can only wait and trust that she will choose to wake up. There isn't anything that he wants more than to hug his long lost sister and help her heal. Echo is there all the time, but besides her, Horatio is alone in the hospital.

Eric and the team came by often and kept him company. Alexx, Tripp, and Tom even came by to sit with Horatio, but they would leave since they all have a family away from the team.

However, all of Horatio's blood family and all of Renee's family are dead. It is just her and her dogs. One of her canines is there at the hospital with him at all times.

Sometimes when Calleigh would come, she would bring her kids and Charlie with her. She brings Renee's retired canine more often then she brings her kids. Calleigh wants the canine to know that her partner is alive and that they will be reunited as soon as Renee wakes up again.