AN: Thanks to those who reviewed…hope you enjoy this chapter… Have a great Memorial Day weekend…

BECAUSE OF YOU

Chapter 19

It'd been a week since they'd found Calleigh, the families of the other victims were all notified that their daughters killers had been caught. It didn't bring their daughters back but it gave them closure.

"You ready to go home?" Today was the big day. The doctor had given Calleigh the thumbs up the previous night. With a strict note that she take it easy. She would be out of work for another 4 to 6 weeks. Once she was back she was stuck in the lab for another 4 weeks and absolutely no weapons firing. That had upset Calleigh the most. The doctor didn't want the recoil of the weapon to aggravate any of her injuries.

Calleigh had made great progress from that first night he'd seen her. Once the drug had completely left her system her confidence in herself grew. The nightmares were still frequent but as long Eric was within arms distance the effects of them didn't last long.

Those few times she'd woken up and he'd been away from her she had reverted back to the night they'd found her. She looked at him fear once again showing in her eyes.

"Remember we talked about this Calleigh." Eric reminded her. He could see the wheels turning but she still couldn't recall. As the looks of frustration started to show on her face he figured he'd given her enough time to think.

"My place Cal. That's still okay right?" He knew she was good with the plan because quite honestly he wasn't ready to go back to her place. Thanks to Natalia and Alexx most of her necessary items had already been moved into Eric's place.

She scrunched her nose. "Oh… yeah." She gave him a shy nervous smile. Eric placed a hand over his heart. "Why Calleigh one would believe you didn't want to come to my house. I promise you it's clean. And plenty of midnight tip toe." He joked with her and was glad to see a smile. It was hard at first. He was worried that everything he would say would upset her. It took them both some time to be comfortable with each other again.

"I'm just ready to get out of here." She hoped that once she got back to some sort of routine she could resume her life before all hell broke loose. Going back to her place however was out of the question. She settled in the hospital bed and focused her attention on the TV they'd both been ignoring.

"Eric." She broke the silence after a while. "I'm sorry."

Eric looked to her. Oh no. It was another one of those days. She was feeling like a nuisance. "Calleigh sweetheart you have nothing to be sorry for." He couldn't count on two hands the amount of time he'd said that same line in the past week.

"I…I just hate that I…can't function if you're not around."

"Honey this is not your fault. You didn't ask for this, you WILL get through this, and I will be with you the entire time." He moved to sit next to her on the bed.

"I'm sorry that you have to be with me every minute of the day, I just want you to know that you don't have to be here if you don't want to." He stopped her before she continued, he'd get frustrated every time she said something about him having to be there instead of doing whatever he could be doing.

"Calleigh I love every minute with you so don't think for one second I'm here out of obligation." She interrupted him. "But I'm messed up." She was fighting very hard not to cry.

"Baby I'd rather have you here and now with everything that you're going through then not to have you at all. There were times I thought of losing you and I wanted to die Calleigh. There is no way I could live without you in my life. I'm not going anywhere. You're gonna get so sick of me you'll kick my behind just to get a few minutes to yourself." He grinned like an idiot.

"I don't know what I did to deserve you Eric. I'm just so glad you're here."

"Sweetie you are one of the strongest, most intelligent, sexiest ballistics experts I've ever met. You had me that first day we met in the parking garage." Eric recalled that day. A smile graced his face. He looked over to her and saw that same smile on her face. She was recalling that day as well.

A contented sigh escaped from her and she settled against him. Eric was proud of himself. This was the quickest he'd talked her from that foul mood of insecurity.

AN: Sorry its short but I worked really hard to have this to you before I flew out… nothing until mid next week… I'm thinking a team BBQ is in the future of these CSI's…