Author Note: Due to the great lack of interest in this story it's on the verge of going on hiatus.

Chapter Six: Nobody but You

Delko left the room shortly after Horatio to go in search of Speed. But he never got a chance to find his friend and patch things over. He got no more than ten feet from the door when his phone began to ring. Answering it he listened as Detective Tripp told him what had happened. There had been an accident involving Calleigh and Jake. Delko's first thought after hanging up was that he had to find Speed and let him know. But then Horatio called, beckoning him to the scene. As Delko turned around and headed toward the elevator he took a quick glance back over his shoulder just in time to see Speed leave the break room and enter the Trace Lab. He must not have gotten the call. Delko thought of going back to tell him but there had to have been a reason no one called him about the accident. They didn't want him to know. That one little thought made Delko go cold inside. Why wouldn't they want Speed to know that his friends were in an accident? Sure the other investigator was having problems adjusting to the job but if both Calleigh and Jake were fine then there was really no reason to keep Speed from knowing.

Unless they weren't all right…

That one random thought was more than enough to spend him running out of the building. It took him less than twenty minutes to reach the scene of the accident. The car that they had been driving in looked to be in pretty bad shape. The front of it had crumpled much like a soda can, the windshield cracked. Glass dotted the pavement like pieces of shattered lives. An ambulance left the area, sirens blaring; at about the same time that Delko arrived. He wondered who was riding in the back of it. As he pulled the Hummer to a stop beside another lab owned H2 he realized that there was only one wrecked vehicle at the scene. There was no sign of a second car which meant that it was a hit and run. But looking at the damage to the unmarked cop car left Delko wondering how another car could have driven away from the accident. Unless of course it wasn't a car and more of a truck of some sort. He would have to ask Horatio.

He climbed out of the Hummer and headed toward the second ambulance. The uniformed officers were sectioning off a portion of the road where debris lay scattered while a few others busied themselves directing traffic. He found Horatio standing around the ambulance where a paramedic was putting the finishing touches on a bandage wrapped around Calleigh's hand. She smiled, with a wince, when she Delko. She looked to be in good shape to him, the only other sign of the crash on her being the small bandage above her right eye.

"Is everybody okay?" he asked, just to clarify. After all, he didn't see Detective Berkeley anywhere.

"Jake was taken to the hospital with a possible rib fracture and a broken wrist," Horatio answered him. "Other than that I would say that we got pretty lucky."

"What the hell happened?"

Calleigh was quick to explain what had gone down. They'd been driving through the intersection on their way to the murder house when someone ran the red light. The driver either wasn't paying attention or had intentionally caused the accident. Jake tried to stop the car but the driver of the moving van was going too fast and there was no avoiding the collision. The simple fact that they were in the processing of stop might have saved their lives. The man in the moving van didn't even stop. He's truck may have been dented, it was hard to say since he fled the scene a second later, speeding off down the road. There was already an all points bulletin out for the truck; which Calleigh had described the best she could.

"Where's Speed?" Calleigh asked as they paramedic packed up his things.

"I don't think he got the call," Delko said.

"He didn't," stated Horatio, his hands on his hips. "He has enough on his mind right now. I'll get back to the lab and explain everything to him. Once he knows that you and Jake are fine it shouldn't take too much of a toll on him."

Calleigh looked upset. "So it's true, there is something wrong with him."

Horatio smiled in an attempt to offer comfort. "He just needs to sort a few things out, that's all." As Horatio spoke he looked at Delko.

--

He knew that by deciding to work the crime scene instead of going back to the lab that he was in actuality avoiding Speed once again. And for reasons he didn't quite understand. All those months ago when he got the call that Speed had been shot and was being rushed to the hospital his world stopped. For years he and Speed had been best friends. The other CSI had even given him a small initiation into the crime lab. They cared about each other and it was clearly seen in the way that they worked, making off-handed comments to each other to keep the mood light. They hung out at clubs when they weren't working. But that day, hearing the tone in Horatio's voice, all the moments they spent together didn't mean a thing to him. He didn't want to thing about all those times he'd been happy with Speed because it would only make losing his friend that much harder. For hours and days even, he fretted. It took Speed a few days to regain consciousness and in that time Delko must have lost ten pounds. To this day nobody told Speed how much his time in the hospital affected Delko. And once he'd gotten out of the hospital it didn't really seem all that important. He was going to live.

And it was after that realization that Delko began to distance himself. It wasn't really something that he set out to do intentionally, it just sort of happened. The lab got new workers in Dan Cooper and Ryan Wolfe. Delko started hanging around with them and less with Speed. Maybe it was because he finally realized how much he stood to lose when and if Speed died. That wasn't something that he wanted to think about but it popped into his head every time he went to visit his friend after work. So he pulled away. And he came to regret it. Now he was having a hard time trying to balance being friends with Cooper and Wolfe and having what he once had with Speed.

There was more to it than that though. Only Horatio understood how much he cared about Speed. Only Horatio understood that he didn't want to be Speed's friend anymore.

He wanted to be something more.

Shoving his kit into the back of the Hummer as the sun was setting he decided that it was finally time to head back to the lab and have a talk with Speed. The time had come for him to mend the gap that formed between them. He started it and he was going to put an end to it. He couldn't say for sure at that moment if he was going to come clean to Speed about how he really felt but he did know that he wanted his best friend back. He wanted what they once had. He wanted to be there when Speed needed him, to help him find the right path once again. And he had to do it before Speed left for New York.

--

Back at the lab he failed to find his friend. All evidence pointed to the fact that he'd left already. Delko felt a pang of guilt in his gut. He was somewhat responsible for the fact that New York looked more promising than Miami to Speed all of a sudden. Maybe if he hadn't let things get so bad his friend wouldn't have left, things would be as close to normal as possible. Instead he messed up. Grabbing his stuff, after making sure the evidence from the accident was securely locked up; he headed out into the parking lot toward his truck. There was a slip of paper tucked under one of the windshield wipers.

He pulled it free.

The handwriting was Speed's.

My feet on the ground but I can't run. Drowning the noise inside my head. Who is this man that I've become? It's killing me to see myself. How do you forgive when deep down inside you can't forget? With all I regret…I pray for the first time in a long time that the lies fade away. Finally I'm waking up. I feel that I can finally let you go, say anything I want to say. I'm okay with being alone.

The words didn't make sense to Delko, not entirely. But he finally understood how much his pulling away hurt Speed and it only made him feel worse. He pulled out his cell phone as he climbed behind the wheel of his truck. The phone rang and rang; Speed never picked up on the other side. That made the drive to his apartment all the more urgent for Delko. It took all the control he had not to run red lights and stop signs. When he did finally reach the building that housed Speed's apartment he took the first available spot, a handicap one near the front door. He slammed his car door and raced into the building, his heart beating frantically as he tried Speed's phone again. There still wasn't an answer. And a few minutes later, when he knocked on the door to Speed's apartment, he got the same thing. His heart sank.

He was too late. Speed was already gone.

Letting his forehead rest against the door he fought the urge to start crying. After all these months he'd finally gotten Speed back only to let him slip from his grasp once again. He took the note from his pocket, rereading the words. He went to the next door and knocked once. When the woman inside answered he asked to borrow a pen. He quickly scrawled a note on the other side of the paper, handed her pen back, and then slipped the paper under Speed's door. Hopefully Speed would return and read what he'd written…

I don't want to waste another day because it's killing me to keep it inside. Please call me when you get back.