A/N: Thank you all for your reviews. They meant a lot to me

Chapter 8.1

A few hours later, it was already early afternoon, Horatio and Elena were walking through one of the smaller parks near their home, just like he had planned this morning. Well, it was actually Horatio walking while Elena was sitting in her pushchair and they both enjoyed the quiet, which such a walk was offering.

The morning had been a pleasure. After his quick shower, he had noted with a warm feeling inside, that Calleigh and Elena had already been waiting for him to start breakfast. It was nice to be able to talk to someone at breakfast after all these lonely and quiet months. It wasn't that he didn't talk to Elena, because he did, but getting a verbal response was something entirely different.

After breakfast, Calleigh had left them and Horatio had taken the chance to call the lab, to find out the state of the case and fortunately his first impression had been confirmed. It had been a death by natural cause which virtually meant that he had the day off and could spend it with his daughter.

He had given her a bath and afterwards they had played together, till midday when he had prepared their lunch. Afterwards, both had taken a nap on the couch, which meant that Elena had slept on his chest while he had lain on the couch. He loved these moments, where he could be so close to his daughter and he was positive that she enjoyed it as much as he did. The fact that she seemed to search for his heartbeat and always rested her head above his heart gave him confirmation to that. And for him, there was nothing more beautiful than watching his daughter sleeping peacefully and meanwhile running his fingers through her soft dark hair. It was like he wanted to make up for the lack of time they had together during the week and this was also a reason why his weekends off were so important to him.

After their little nap, Horatio had checked the weather and since it wasn't too sticky, he had decided that a walk in the park would be perfect to end such a nice day. So he had packed a bag, dressed Elena for a day out and together they had driven to a nearby park, that Horatio knew that it wouldn't be too crowded at this time of the day.

The trees caused shadows on the paths which made the walking very comfortable. It was still warm of course, but Horatio certainly didn't sweat in his light polo shirt and jeans he was currently wearing. His ever present sunglasses were tucked around his neck, since it was too dark to wear them, but Horatio didn't mind at all. In actual fact, he tried to avoid wearing the glasses while he was with Elena, because he wanted her to be able to see his eyes and the emotions they held for her. He didn't want to have a barrier between himself and his daughter; there was no use in doing so.

He had never imagined that he could find such kind of peace he was experiencing every time when he was with Elena. She had the ability to calm him, something he had never felt before. He felt so utterly content, that he still wondered sometimes if this was just a dream. Of course, he had always thought about of how it would be as a father in the past, but he had never imagined it like that. He had never imagined that his job would come second. A few years ago, no actually a few months ago, this hadn't been imaginable, but life had disabused him. Again. Not that he minded it, quite the opposite to be exact.

While his inner musings about life itself, they had came by a big public green space, where some families were having a picnic. Stopping the pushchair he walked around it and crouched down next to the chair, so he could have a look at Elena. "Hey there," he smiled at her. "Are you still awake?" he chuckled and opened the belt in order to lift her out. "What do you think? Should we watch the football game?" he asked her and turned towards the green, where a few young boys were playing with their fathers.

Elena just laughed and watched the game intently, or so it seemed. "Ooooh!" she announced and reached out her arm.

Horatio just laughed and shook his head. "I'm sorry, Ellie, but I'm afraid that you're still a bit too young for that. But I'm sure that we can play some football in the future." Not that he believed for one moment that his daughter would be the typical football-type of girl, at least not when she took after her mother, but he would never stop her and telling her that she wasn't allowed to practice such a sport.

Elena did her version of a pout when she turned her head towards him, but this didn't hold for long. With a squeal she reached for her father's sunglasses and before Horatio could even react, she had one glass in her mouth and was on it, much to the dismay of her father, who was shocked.

"Ohh Elena," he tried to talk insistently to her. "You have to give them back…" This had never happened before, but his daughter was full of surprises. "Will you give them back?" he asked her and groaned inwardly when she strengthened her hold onto the glasses. Now he was in a dilemma. It wasn't that he was obsessed by his glasses, like others had joked on more than one occasion, but they were expensive and definitely not a baby toy. "Elena," he said a bit more firmly and tried to loosen her grip, oblivious to the fact that they were being watched from a distance.

"You know, you should give her her favorite toy and she might give you yours back."

Surprised, Horatio spun around and looked at his visitor. "Uhm..," he brought out eloquently.

"My, Horatio Caine a loss of words, now this must be a first."

"Funny," he mumbled and took in the appearance of his visitor. "I didn't know that you're into jogging?" he asked and referred to the jogging outfit. He had to admit, that it looked really nice, considering that it fitted her in all the right places and it was black.

"Sometimes a woman gotta do what a woman's gotta do to stay fit and doesn't put on a few stones," she laughed and packed away her iPod. "And I love jogging in a park, there's always a nice temperature and you meet a lot of different people," she added. "Like a desperate father who needs his sunglasses back again," she giggled and winked at him.

Elena made pleased noises and laughed, but didn't let go of the glasses.

"I'm not desperate, I just don't want Ellie to hurt herself. The glass could burst and that's dangerous," Horatio countered and raised one eyebrow to underline his statement.

She didn't doubt that he was afraid that Elena could hurt herself, but she was pretty sure, that this wasn't the only reason he wanted his glasses back. "Mhm," she grinned at him and stroked Elena's cheek.

"So what's your suggestion, oh great adviser?" he asked with a hint of sarcasm, which she decided to ignore.

"That's very easy Mr. Caine, watch and learn," she nodded and rummaged around in the pushchair, till she found what she was looking for – a small teddy. "Look what I have here, Elena," she cooed and waggled the toy before the child's nose.

Horatio did as he was told and watched…and became wide eyed when Elena really let go of his sunglasses to get Mr. Bear. He quickly caught them and nodded in appreciation "I'm positively surprised Ms. Duquesne and apologize for my faithlessness."

Calleigh gave him a satisfied look and laughed when he pulled a face when he noticed the drool on his glasses. "I can hold her while you clean and adjust the glasses," she offered him.

Calleigh knew him too well. "Thanks," he nodded and grabbed for a tissue to get rid of his daughter's drool. "Teaches me of not to wear them around my neck," he mumbled more to himself, but Calleigh heard it anyway.

"I guess there's nothing you can do about it. In this age, they grab at everything. When I visited my brother one year, I wore a chain with a pendant. My nephew grabbed it the second he saw it…the other time I wore my hair down…now that had hurt," she sighed and kissed Elena's cheek. "I'm sure Elena just loves them as much as you do," she teased him.

"I'm not obsessed with them," he stated and tried them on.

"And I never said that," she shot back playfully and helped him to adjust the glasses. "I'm not sure, but you probably need to see the optician. They're a bit crooked."

"Well it definitely is a good thing, that they're quite flexible and that I own a second pair, but yes, you're right. I should probably stop by at an optician if I have the time. But let's concentrate on the important facts. What are you doing here?"

"Mhm…jogging?" she said teasingly and tilted her head.

"Very funny, no, what I meant was, that I'm pretty sure that I've never seen you here before," he explained and waited for an answer.

"I knew that," she smiled and nodded in agreement, when Horatio silently suggested going on walking. "But to answer your question, there's a festival in my park and you can imagine that it's overcrowded due to that. So I drove to the next nearest park and it happened to be this one. It's really nice by the way, are you here often?"

"Well, if we have the time for that, then yes. It's not that far away from home and it's quiet. It had given me some kind of comfort and calmness in the past and now I want to share it with my daughter," he explained and pushed the chair, while Calleigh was walking alongside with Elena in her arms.

"Ah," she nodded in understanding and knew that he was referring to the times, when he had went here after a bad case, mostly when children had happened to be the victims. The team knew that there were only two places where Horatio would go to after a bad day and this was the beach or the park. She just hadn't known that it was this park in particular.

"So jogging?" he interrupted her thoughts and looked at her curiously.

"Mhm, jogging," she nodded, knowing that he wanted to hear more and since she had a good day, she would give him an explanation. "I started it a few months ago actually. I'm not the type to go into a crowded gym, with Bodybuilders pinning on every female customer. That's quite annoying, especially when they think that their so called tips give them some kind of free ticket for an adventure."

Nodding in understanding, Horatio knew what kind of adventure she was talking about. "Well I can imagine," he said, "it's a known fact that most musclemen don't have anything more than their muscles," he continued. "So that's why you started jogging?"

"Pretty much, yes. At first I found it a bit boring, but it's kinda addictive in a good way. It's a good stress-reliever and you're doing something for your health the same time."

"Well at least more than hiding in the gun range, huh?" he teased her.

Calleigh couldn't help but blush. It was one of her secrets, only a few people know of. "Yeah, you could say so." Quickly she thought about a whole different subject, because she didn't want to give Horatio the upper hand. As much as she loved teasing, it was just half so funny when you were at the receiving end. "So how was your day?"

Noticing the abrupt change of subject Horatio just raised his eyebrow but answered her anyway. "Oh it was really nice and relaxed. My first assumption about the case was proved correct and so I didn't have to come back to the lab again."

"That's good to hear." It was quite rare that they had cases that turned out to be no crimes, so this was always something special.

"Yeah definitely," he nodded. "I just have to do the paperwork tomorrow, talk to the chief and that's it," Horatio agreed. "So how was your day so far?"

"Oh..quiet..but oh..did I tell you about Eric's proposal?" she smiled at him.

"Proposal?" Horatio asked confused. Have the two been dating? No, Eric would have told him.

"Not the 'do-you-want-to-marry-me' kind of proposal," she laughed when she saw the wheels turning in his head. "He asked me if I want to go scuba-diving with him," she explained and nudged his side playfully. "You and your thoughts," she told him with a mock glare. Eric was her younger brother, nothing more nothing less. Her heart belonged to someone else.

Sheepishly, Horatio decided to leave this particular subject alone. "Scuba-diving?" he asked. "Well that should be interesting…" He had never done it before and he actually wasn't sure if he wanted to. He wasn't that adventurous when it came to such things, but Calleigh? Yeah, he could definitely imagine that.

"Hm, yeah I have no idea why he asked me..," she thought out loud. "Ryan, who was in the same room when Eric had asked me, just said that he wants to see me in a wetsuit and I guess I don't have to mention that Eric wanted to slap him," she laughed.

"Nope, you don't have to," Horatio grinned, knowing all too well about the constant quarrels between these two. "Boys will be boys…"

tbc

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