Miami. Present day:
Horatio and Eric had spent over an hour going back through the crime scene, the young Cuban reminding himself to pay more attention to the small details, it was often these that led to a break in a case.
Making his way from the kitchen area he watched his colleague process the living room where the bloodshed had occurred. He smiled as he watched Horatio scan the room with fluorescent light and luminol, admiring the way that the man went about his work.
Eric figured that it must have been some kind of sixth sense, but somehow the other man knew that he was being watched. Turning off his torch, he turned towards Eric, an eyebrow arched in puzzlement.
"Something caught your interest, Eric?" the redhead asked sardonically.
Eric coughed in embarrassment as he realised that he had been caught in the act of openly staring at his boss.
"It's…um….it's just….it's nothing, don't worry about it," he replied raising a hand up to wave off any more questions as he busied himself with placing a piece of evidence in a clear bag.
The Cuban's uncharacteristic fumbling of his words piqued Horatio's interest as he walked further towards the younger man, stopping a few paces away from him with his hands on his hips, using the sideways stance and steely glare that had put so many criminals on edge throughout the years.
Eric knew that his brother in law was unlikely to let this line of questioning go any time soon, Horatio would wheedle it out of him one way or another, he figured now was as good a time as any to say what was on his mind.
"Watching you process a scene, it reminds me of something that Andy said to me while you were missing."
He saw Horatio's face darken as he was once again reminded of his time at the hands of the Malucci's. He'd tried so hard to put the whole ordeal behind him but it would invariably rear its ugly head when he was least expecting it, shaking the little self-assurance he had managed to rebuild so far. Who was he kidding? He would never get past what they had done to him, to his family.
Eric noticed the sudden change in his colleague's demeanour and realised his earlier attempts at appearing relaxed and confident were nothing more than a ruse, designed to fool the younger man into thinking everything was ok.
"H, you ok?" he asked the redhead as he saw the distant look in the familiar blue eyes.
It took a few moments for Horatio to return to his senses as he shook his head, as if clearing the mental fog.
"I'm fine," he mumbled as he fiddled with the torch in his hand, avoiding eye contact with Eric.
Neither man spoke for a number of awkward moments until Horatio finally broke the silence.
"What were you saying about Andy?"
He took a deep breath before beginning, hoping that he wasn't going to send his brother in law spiralling back into the dark cloud of despair that had been hanging around his neck like a noose.
"Andy came with me when I processed Calleigh's driveway, we were looking for a bullet from the ambush."
He looked up and saw Horatio tense before returning to a placid facial expression, motioning for the other man to continue.
"He said that he couldn't see you as a science guy, that you were more a man of action than, and I quote, 'some geek who works in a lab'."
"And what did you say, Eric?" the redhead asked as he twisted his neck to regard the younger man.
"I told him the truth, that I'd be nothing without you."
"Eric, you know that's not true," Horatio began before he found himself interrupted by his colleague.
"Are you kidding me? You gave me my first break, taught me everything I knew. I'm the CSI I am because of you."
Suddenly, he felt and overwhelming urge to bolt from the room. Eric's flattering assessment of his abilities as a crime scene investigator and a leader were embarrassingly inaccurate. The last six months had only gone to show what a complete idiot he had made of himself.
"You're confused, brother. You're where you are despite me, not because of me."
Eric could rapidly feel himself losing patience with the other man. Sure, Horatio had been to Hell and back recently but the self-pitying shell of a man in front of him was not the Horatio Caine that he remembered, the man that he knew and loved.
"When are you going to get it through your head? You've been through something that none of us would ever want to experience, but there comes a time when you've got to accept it for what it was."
"And tell me, what was it, Eric?" the redhead growled menacingly.
"It was shit, but it happened. I know you; I know that you're stronger than this. Since when do you let the bad guys win? Accept it and move on."
The Cuban's words were blunt and harsh but it seemed to have the desired effect as he finally saw a flicker of life in the older man's eyes. He was pinned with a fearsome glare that eventually softened somewhat as Horatio let his gaze drop to the ground.
"You've spent far too much time around Andy," he muttered as he returned his gaze to Eric.
A wave of relief washed over Eric as he saw the wry grin on the other man's face.
"What can I say," he said as he shrugged his shoulders and returned Horatio's grin with one of his own. "He's a hell of a guy."
"That he is, brother. That he is."
Flashback. Miami, 12 weeks ago:
Andy stepped quietly into his former partner's hospital room, trying to keep the noise his shoes were making on the linoleum floor to a minimum. He stood stock still and winced as he heard the redhead groan.
A pair of dulled blue eyes regarded him sleepily, the man in the bed still clearly groggy either from his multitude of injuries or the drugs that were being continuously pumped into him.
"Andy?" the voice croaked.
"Yeah, John, it's me," he said as he made his way over to the bed and sat down in the chair.
"You look better than the last time I saw you."
The other man let his head fall to the side as he regarded his visitor quizzically.
"I do?"
"Yeah, you do. Just spoke to your doctor friend outside, she says you're doing better."
The younger man nodded his head sleepily.
"Alexx," he muttered as he tried to keep his eyes open, finding his body once more disobeying his commands.
"I see they've given you a shave," Andy said as he fiddled with a box, no bigger than a notepad.
He saw his friend's countenance darken for a brief moment before the dazed look reappeared.
"Where have you been?" the man in the bed asked as he blinked heavily several times.
"I had to go back to New York, sort a few things out. You remember me telling you, right?"
Andy suddenly worried that John had no recollection of his last visit, although he wouldn't be surprised, the man was hardly in good shape the last time he'd seen him.
"You said you'd only be gone a few days, what happened?" the redhead croaked.
The comment caught him off guard for a moment, even as drugged up as he was, his friend's mind was still sharp as a tack. It was one of the things that made him such a good cop.
He fidgeted awkwardly in his seat for a few moments before answering.
"Things took a little bit longer than I was expecting. The wheels of bureaucracy and all that."
Andy once more found himself staring into a pair of blue eyes, dulled by pain and medication but still clear enough to shoot him a puzzled look.
"Am I missing something?" the younger man said as he lifted his shaky yet uninjured hand to his forehead, rubbing at his eyes.
The eyes pinned him again, the voice more forceful this time.
"Why did you go back?"
"I told you, I had some business to take care of," Andy replied evasively as he avoided looking at his friend and continued to fiddle with the box in his hands.
"Tell me," the injured man growled.
He could see that John was beginning to get increasingly agitated by his reluctance to divulge the real reason for his visit back home. With a deep sigh, he began.
"I went back to New York to set the record straight. I've still got a few contacts in the NYPD; they set me up with a meeting to talk to the Chief of Police. I told them everything, John."
He looked into his former partner's face and was dismayed with the distraught look on the other man's face.
"You did what?"
"I told them about your time working for the FBI, I told them why you did those things. People deserve to know the truth."
"You had no right," the redhead ground out, radiating anger.
"I had every right, John! I wasn't gonna let people continue to think that you were some kind of dirty cop. You put your ass on the line to protect us all; you deserve to be respected for that."
"No, I don't. You should have left it well alone. The past is dead and buried, just like John Kelly."
Andy couldn't believe what his friend was saying; surely he didn't believe that the old John Kelly had died back in New York. The man might have assumed a new identity but there were still a great deal of traits of the old persona interweaved into the new one.
He huffed as he fidgeted in the chair again.
"Well, you'll have to take that up with One Police Plaza. As of three days ago your personnel file has been changed to reflect what you did. You're a hero as far as anyone in the NYPD is concerned."
The blue eyes bore into him again, this time reflecting the younger man's complete shock. He knew that now was the time to hand something over that the other man had been denied for too long. He opened the box and smiled as the dim light in the room reflected off of the shiny surface of the object inside. He turned it around and placed it in the redhead's hand with a smile.
"I also managed to get this," he said as he watched John run his fingers reverently over the gold surface of the badge.
It wasn't just a badge, it was his badge. The one they had taken off of him the day he had been arrested for being in possession of half a kilo of cocaine. He had been so certain at the time that he would never set eyes on the precious item again. He looked up into the face of his old partner, opening and closing his mouth several times before he managed to croak a few words out.
"How did you get this?" he asked as he returned his attention to the badge.
"I had to bang a few heads together, that's why it took me so long to get back to Miami. I wasn't going to leave until I had your badge back."
"But why? I don't understand."
"Because it's yours and you earned it, a million times over. I was such a prick to think that you could've been dirty, it was the least I could do to try to make it up to you."
Andy was looking at him with such sincerity that he found himself unable to stop the tears springing to his eyes; he had never been so touched by a gift before. Suddenly the realisation of the years that had been lost to bitterness and regret between the two of them came rushing to the surface as he realised how much the older man meant to him.
"Thank you," he whispered as the tears rolled freely down his face.
It warmed Andy's heart to see the affect his gesture had had on the redhead and he felt as if he had begun travelling along the long road towards forgiveness. Not just for how he had treated John, but for everyone he had failed along the way. He knew that having John in his life made him a better man and no matter what would happen in the future he would never allow his own pride and ego get in the way of his friendship with the man he had always regarded as a son.