Chapter Two

A/N: Thanks to everyone who reviewed! I just got into a real weird mood where I started listening to all my old favourite songs that are slow and depressing and sad, at least to me, and I was drawing, of all things drawing, I am trying to improve my drawing skills, which is semi working actually and then this song came on and I had to write a chapter of this story. I think it's only me hah but this song always makes me cry because to me it has tooons of meaning behind it for me, but I'm not going there now. Here we go: And the song is Here You Me by Jimmy Eat World, and obviously, I don't own it, or the characters.

--&

It was done. Goodbye was over now, and it was time to move on. But what if he didn't want to move on? That's what scared him the most. Forgetting her. Calleigh was beside him still, in the car. He was unaware of how many minutes had passed since she had turned off the engine, but she wasn't moving and he wasn't planning on it either. Goodbye. Goodbye forever Marisol. It was all over now. But he would give anything for it not to be. He would give anything to go back to a day before she was diagnosed, hell, he would give anything to go back to the worst point in her cancer. Go back to fighting with her. Fighting for her. Something he obviously didn't do well enough because now she was dead. He remembered sitting there in her hospital room, and leaving, to go find the bad guy because sitting there with her wasn't enough. He wasn't there when she died. He didn't know if he should be guilty or grateful for that. Guilty for not being there for her, for not getting to say goodbye one last time in person, or grateful that he didn't have to watch the life finally drain out of his sister. There were so many times where he thought he had been, but she'd pulled through. She'd been invincible, and then she'd gone and died.

"Eric are you ready to go inside?" Calleigh asked quietly. They'd been sitting in the car for quite a while, and she was getting overheated in her black pantsuit, and assumed he was as well in his dress pants, shirt and tie. She didn't want to interrupt his thoughts, but he could always continue them inside, and maybe voice a few of them out loud. He didn't say anything, but nodded after a minute and they made their way inside silently.

There's no one in town I know
You gave us some place to go.
I never said thank you for that,
I thought I might get one more chance.

Silently making their way inside Calleigh's apartment, Eric realized how long it had been since he had been there last. Months, to say the least. In truth, he'd only been there a handful of times since Speed's death. Needless to say he didn't take deaths of people he loved well. As Calleigh headed to the kitchen, presumably to make them coffee, he settled in on the couch. He missed being close to Calleigh. He missed a lot of things. Why did he have so many regrets? He regretted not bugging Speed more to clean his gun when he suspected he might not have been, he regretted not putting up more of a fuss about Marisol and Horatio's wedding. He should have called his parents, his sisters, he should have done anything but just complied. That was why she got killed, ultimately.

"Eric?" He heard Calleigh ask quietly from beside him. Calleigh. If she was gone, what regrets would he have about that? He couldn't be exactly sure, for since she was still sitting beside him, he couldn't regret protecting her in any way from the way she died for he couldn't determine that in his head, but he did know that he would regret not telling her how he felt. He knew that for sure.

What would you think of me now,
so lucky, so strong, so proud?
I never said thank you for that,
now I'll never have a chance.

"Yeah?" He replied. He shut her, and the rest of the sober, functioning world, out after Speedle's death, and look where that had gotten him. Another person he loved was dead, and this time he was going to do things so as he wouldn't have any regrets.

"Do you want to talk about… anything?" Calleigh asked. She didn't want to specify, confine him to only talking about Marisol. She just wanted to talk. She just wanted to help him feel better again. To remind him that moving on didn't mean forgetting.

"Yes." Eric nodded. It was hard for him to open up, even to Calleigh, who he knew for a fact would never, no matter what, tell anyone anything he said if he had told it to her in confidence.

"Okay." She gave him a hint of an encouraging smile as his eyes met hers for the first time since the funeral. And he let a tear slide down his cheek. Calleigh, for the second time that day, pulled him into her embrace. Stroking his back as he cried, then sobbed.


May angels lead you in.
Hear you me my friends.
On sleepless roads the sleepless go.
May angels lead you in.

As he brought his tears to a stop, he pulled back from Calleigh slightly as he realized she was crying too, and pulled her closer to him so her head was buried in his neck instead of the other way around. It seemed so right. He had to tell her soon, before he lost her, or lost his courage. But now didn't seem like an appropriate time. Today was about endings, not beginnings.

"I just don't know what I'm going to do. Between blaming myself, finding the bastard who did this and tearing him to pieces, and trying to come to terms with reality… I don't know how I won't either go crazy or depressed." Eric sighed.

"I'll be there with you every step of the way." Calleigh told him, squeezing his hand reassuringly.

"You will?" Eric didn't know why anyone would voluntarily put themselves through this ordeal.

"Yes." Calleigh nodded, now wiping her face vigorously with the sleeve of her shirt to get rid of the tears although her face was still stained with them. "I'll be there to hold you, to cry with you and to bail you out of jail, if you do end up ripping the bastard that did this to pieces, although, as a law enforcement official, I would advise you not to do that…" Eric smiled slightly.

"Horatio might." Eric added.

"That is true." Calleigh smiled slightly. "Just promise me you won't go toothing and lose your badge this time?"

"I promise." Eric was able to see the stupidity in many things he had done in attempts to cope with Speed's death. He was not going to make the same mistakes this time.

So what would you think of me now,
so lucky, so strong, so proud?
I never said thank you for that,
now I'll never have a chance.

Calleigh was tempted, very tempted, to share with him her personal experiences on this particular topic with Eric, but she didn't want to seem like she was trying to replace his sorrow with pity for her. But she wasn't trying to do that, and she doubted he'd think that, but when anyone was put in, or put themselves in the position of losing someone they love, pity is undeniable. "Good." Was all she said.

"What is it?" He asked, sensing something was off with her that hadn't been before.

"What?" She played innocent. Telling him now was probably the worst idea.

"Calleigh, I'm being honest with you, at least return the favour." He told her gently. She sighed.

"Eric, I want to tell you, but it's just… I don't want you to have to feel like you have to feel sorry for me okay?" She told him. "If I tell you, you can't feel sorry for me. I don't want you to."

"I promise." He told her, although he didn't. If she thought he was going to feel sorry for her for whatever reason she was about to tell him… she was just confusing sometimes.

May angels lead you in.
Hear you me my friends.
On sleepless roads the sleepless go.
May angels lead you in.
May angels lead you in.
May angels lead you in.

"It was so long ago now, but I remember every single detail." Calleigh made sure she included this point as she began her story. "My husband's name was Connor we were twenty two when we got married. We had been childhood friends, we grew up together and ended up going to University in the same city, and we stayed close. It was one of those spur of the moment things, in a sense. We decided to try dating each other, since we weren't having any luck with anyone else and we dated for a year, and he sprung the question on me and I surprised myself, and him I think, by saying yes. He was a journalist, and soon after the wedding he was sent away to the Middle East to cover a story on something or other… and he never came back. He was killed his first week there. We were only married for a month and a half, and I would have spent the rest of my life with him." Calleigh let a few tears run down her cheek and this time, she wasn't the one to wipe them away.

And if you were with me tonight,
I'd sing to you just one more time.
A song for a heart so big,
god wouldn't let it live.

Eric didn't know how he wasn't supposed to feel sorry for her, he did, but he knew better than to tell her that. "Then you know exactly how Horatio feels." She nodded yes.

"But I know what it feels like to lose people you love, people who you've known your whole life. I told Connor everything, there wasn't a secret about him I didn't know, and there wasn't a secret about me that he didn't know, and he loved me despite all of that."

"If he was here right now, what would you tell him?" Eric wondered.

"After all these years?" Calleigh thought for a minute. "I would tell him two things. That I loved him, and I wouldn't change a thing."

"You wouldn't stop him from going on that trip if you could go back in time?" Eric was shocked.

"I don't think so." Calleigh shrugged, "I loved Connor and he loved me. We both knew it and we spent twenty amazing years of our lives as friends, and then more. Things would have been different if he hadn't have went on that trip… I wouldn't have the job I have, I probably would have children and I wouldn't know you."

"Oh." Was all Eric could think of to say.

"What about you?" She asked. "If Marisol was here right now, what would you say?"

"That I wished it was me." Eric finally decided upon. "That I wish they hit me fatally instead of her."

"Honestly?" It was now Calleigh's turn to be shocked.

"Honestly." Eric nodded.

May angels lead you in.
Hear you me my friends.
On sleepless roads the sleepless go.
May angels lead you in.

"Don't you think there's a reason that twice now it could have been you that died, but it wasn't?" Calleigh voiced her thoughts.

"Probably." Eric nodded. "But it doesn't mean I wouldn't take Speed or Marisol's place in a second."

"Well is there something you are one hundred percent sure you would regret terribly if you were to die right now?"

"A girl." Eric nodded. "I think I'm in love with her, for real. But I don't know how to tell her. Do you think if I tell her that means that I'll die? Because I'll have nothing to live for?" Eric knew it sounded pathetic, and stupid. He knew that telling Calleigh how he felt wouldn't determine whether or not he died… but he had asked it, and she was opening her mouth to answer.

"Oh Eric, you won't die if you tell her, and telling her," Calleigh explained, "Will only give you more reason to live."

May angels lead you in.
Hear you me my friends.
On sleepless roads the sleepless go.
May angels lead you in.

"How do you figure?" He wondered.

"You'll have love. You'll have her."

May angels lead you in.

--&

A/N: So I hope you enjoyed that! I listened to the song constantly while I was writing this chapter from the point that it started to the point that it ended hah which added up to 56 times. Hahah. Oh great. But anyhow, please review! Thank you for reading!