A/N: You can thank my sister for the quickness of my posting; she can be very influential! ;)

Calleigh drove most of the day and into the night, stopping only to eat and take a short nap. She knew she needed to get as far away from Miami as soon as possible. She didn't know where she was going, only that she was going to head north until she found a remote enough spot to spend the rest of her life. There were tears in her eyes as she drove and she almost turned around twice, but then she remembered what she had done and she kept going. She got a hotel room in West Virginia early the next morning and decided to sleep until that afternoon.

When she woke up, she turned on the TV to see if anything was happening in the world. What she saw brought a hand to her mouth and made her heart flutter. It was Horatio in the middle of a press conference.

"Any help you can give us would be very much appreciated. I love my wife and if she's listening I want her to know that I forgive her for everything. I'm begging you Calleigh, please come home. I need you."

She quickly turned off the TV, but its effects had already taken hold. She sobbed for a while and a part of her ached to be in his arms again. But, she had to move on. It was better this way.

She drove for most of the next two nights, stopping to sleep here and there, but avoiding police and news reports like they were the plague. Eventually she stopped in a small town in Maine. She got out and walked around, appraising the situation. It was a small enough town that she would be safe here, and it was nothing like Miami, except maybe for the ocean that bordered the city.

She wandered around town and eventually found a diner where she stopped to ask the locals about a place to live. Marty's was a oldies diner with a jukebox in the corner and booths upholstered in red plastic. She took a seat at a barstool and waited until a young woman came to take her order.

"Welcome to Marty's," she said, taking a pencil from behind her ear, "What can I get for you?"

"Actually I was wondering if you could tell me where I could get a place to live? I'm new here," Calleigh explained.

"Well, you've come to the right place," the woman said, "There's an opening at the apartment building I live in, not two blocks from here. I'm Cindy by the way."

"Nice to meet you. I'm Calleigh," Calleigh said, giving the young woman a small smile.

"If you want, I'll go over there with you as soon as my shift ends, which should be..." she said looking down at her watch, "in about twenty minutes."

"That would be wonderful," Calleigh yawned.

"And I'll get you a cup of coffee, on the house," Cindy said with a smile.

Calleigh nursed her cup of coffee, waiting for Cindy's shift to be over. After Cindy punched out for the day and said goodbye to her coworkers, they got into Calleigh's car and headed over to the apartment complex. The landlord gave Calleigh a tour of the room for rent and she decided it would suit her purposes just fine. After signing the contract, Cindy helped Calleigh move all the boxes into the new apartment.

"So what brings you to Rock Harbor?" Cindy asked as she helped unpack boxes.

"I just..." Calleigh hesitated, "I just needed to get away from something, and this seemed like a nice place to be."

"A run-away huh?" Cindy asked, looking at Calleigh, "We get those here all the time. Safest place in the world if you don't want anyone to find you."

"That's what I'm hoping for," Calleigh sighed.

"Have you got a job up here yet?" Cindy asked as she put some books in the bookcase.

"No, I've got to find something though," Cal muttered, putting a jacket in the closet.

"Well, the only job opening I know of is a waitress at Marty's. It pays alright and although the hours are weird, it's not a bad place to be."

Calleigh thought about it for a moment. She had the potential to do so much more that wait tables, after all she did have a college degree, but there was something about completely changing the way she lived that appealed to her. "I think I'd like that," she said, smiling.

"Alright then," Cindy grinned, "I'll talk to the boss first thing in the morning. He'll love you."

That night as Calleigh lay in her new bed, she though about her new life here in Rock Harbor. It was a hope for a new beginning. And she had escaped the memories of the past. Or so she thought, because that night when she closed her eyes, she dreamed of Horatio.

A/N: Please read, and review with ideas/thoughts!