CSI Miami Fan Fiction "Raymond's Christmas Carol" (Fanfic format)
Chapter 4—"Blast from the Past"
An exhausted Raymond was laying on his bed after Horatio's visit. He simply wanted to just be left alone. He eventually drifted off to sleep.
A sudden noise woke him out of a sound sleep. Rubbing the sleep out of his dark eyes, he wondered how the window had been opened. That question was forgotten when he saw WHO was in the room: his father—or someone who looked like his father—standing at the foot of the bed. Raymond bolted for the bedroom door; the visitor quickly moved between his son and the door. "And just where do you think you're going?" the visitor demanded. "Sit down, Raymond. We need to talk."
Raymond thought he was dreaming. He asked tentatively, "Dad?"
The visitor nodded, "Yes—now sit down so we can talk; I don't have much time." Raymond did as his father told him, while noting his appearance: the same sandy-colored hair and blue eyes-and lots of bruises. Ray's voice was full of remorse as he explained. "You're probably wondering what happened. Horatio sent the three of us—you, me, and your mother—off to Brazil so we could start over. The Malo Noches hate your uncle; they found out I was related to him. The bruises are from the beating they gave me. They beat me to death, Raymond—and I nearly got you killed, too." Ray Sr. continued. "Look, your uncle and your mother are trying to do what is best for you. You apparently didn't learn from what happened to me, so this is what's going to happen. I'll be back for you tomorrow—just after midnight on December 12th. There will be two more visitors after that—listen to them." With that, Ray Sr. dis-appeared, leaving a confused Raymond looking out his window. The young man finally shook his head, figuring the whole thing was some strange dream, closed the window, and went back to bed.
Horatio and Calleigh's visit to Albert Engleberg at WTLK-AM proved unproductive. Engleberg was being especially uncooperative, especially when Calleigh asked him how he managed to be at all of the crime scenes before the rest of the media.
"You wouldn't talk to me before, my dear," Engleberg leaned back in his chair and smiled sweetly at Calleigh. "Now be a good detective and go dig up your own information!" Calleigh was not amused by Engleberg's attitude.
Horatio, angered by Engleberg's insolence, walked towards the man. "Mr. Engleberg, you might be interested in ratings, but we are interested in getting some answers." By this point, Horatio was looking directly across the desk at Engleberg. Calleigh was amazed at Horatio's restraint, given the circumstances. Horatio asked Engleberg in a soft, but unmistakably icy tone, "Now, it's your choice: you can either cooperate with us, or we can get a search warrant. Which will it be?"
"Get the search warrant!" Engleberg snarled in reply.
Engleberg watched the two CSIs from his office window as they left. Once they were gone, Engleberg then reached down and pulled some files from the back of a drawer, reviewing them briefly. He paused when he saw the picture of him, his wife and son. Engleberg grimaced when he thought about Irene, wondering why he had married her. Their courtship seemed to go well, but nothing in their married life seemed to go right, especially after Duncan was born. After that, so much of Irene's time seemed to be spent with their son, and so little with him.
Engleberg shoved the two-year-old memory to the back of his mind as he stuffed the picture back in the folder. His attention then turned to the rest of the folder's contents. The two Bonzo's stores had the metal doors—breaking the glass had been so much simpler. As long as his young assistant remembered to disable the alarms and cameras, then everything was according to plan. But he had to ask Bob about the two missing tools-pliers and screwdrivers weren't that hard to replace, but leaving evidence behind was dumb, a beginner's mistake. He called Bob on his cellphone to find out what happened.
The evening of December 12th was clear, but a little cold. Raymond had been keeping to himself since the argument. Since the next day was a Saturday, Raymond chose to stay up and listen to some music. It was almost midnight when he turned off the light and lay down. He was almost asleep when he heard a voice: "Raymond! Wake up, we've got stuff to do!"
Raymond sat up and looked around—there was his dad, right at the foot of the bed. "You ready to go, son?" Ray Sr. asked.
"Go? Go where?" Raymond asked.
"Back to our past," replied his father.
Raymond thought this was quite absurd—one couldn't go back and change what happened. "Look, we can't change anything, so what's the point?" he asked, burrowing under his blankets.
Ray expected resistance. He solved that problem by simply walking over to the side of the bed and pulling his protesting son out. "We're going now!" he said sternly, pulling a resisting Raymond over to the window. "And you're not going to fall, Raymond—just take my hand and don't argue," he told his son.
The pair first went back to when Raymond was a small child. Three adults were watching a little boy play with his Christmas presents in a cluttered living room. A puzzled Raymond asked his father, "Who are all these people?"
"Raymond, you don't recognize them? There's your mother and me, and your Uncle Horatio. There you are, as a small boy," Ray replied, pointing out the small boy with the toy cars. "You were so trusting of us then," Ray commented sadly.
The scene spun forward to the same house, but a different time. This time, it was occupied by a very-upset Yelina, Horatio and a slightly-older Raymond. Two men in dress-blue uniforms were also present—Raymond recognized one as a police chaplain.
Ray continued, "Look what I had, Raymond! I was so stupid-I had a family who loved me—and I threw it all away! I believed that I was doing good by going undercover—and all I did was get into trouble because of the drugs."
Father and son were soon at a meth lab Ray had been to while alive. Several people were engaged in odd sorts of frenetic activity—and Raymond saw his father with some meth. "See," Ray said, "this is what happened to me before I was caught-I got hooked on the stuff. That's why you and your mother didn't see me."
The scene changed again with lightning-speed to the moment when Horatio and Eric had found a dying Ray in Rio. "I died, and your mother was widowed, because of my bad choices." Ray turned a solemn warning gaze on his son, "If you keep on with what you're doing, it will also happen to you."
Just as quickly as they had arrived in Rio, father and son were back home. "Your next visitor will be here at midnight. Remember, do what he tells you to do," Ray told his son. He left a stunned Raymond sitting on the edge of his bed to think about what he had seen.