"It's thirty minutes past the end of your shift, I hope you two aren't planning to put in for overtime," Calleigh teased as she stood in the doorway of the Trace lab where Eric and Horatio had been for the entire duration of the afternoon.
"We're just finishing up, Cal," Eric replied with a grin on his face, "A couple more minutes and we'll be done."
"So, did you two find anything interesting back at the scene today?" she asked as she watched the two men set about packing away their tools and evidence away.
"We found some more blood drops with DNA that doesn't match either of the victims, plus a couple of fingerprints that we're running through AFIS. It's looking more like something other than a murder-suicide happened there."
"Good work, Eric," Calleigh responded as she gave him an encouraging smile.
He held his hands up in front of him.
"Don't look at me, H found them," he said as he pointed at the uncomfortable looking redhead in the corner who was doing everything in his power to look anywhere but at his two colleagues.
"Looks like you haven't lost your touch then, Handsome."
Horatio cleared his throat, clearly embarrassed by the praise that was being heaped upon him.
"Just doing my job, ma'am. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to get changed," he croaked as he bolted stealthily from the room.
"How has he been, Eric?" she asked the tall Cuban after they had the room to themselves.
He let out a deep breath and gathered his thoughts before speaking.
"Well, there's nothing wrong with his investigative skills."
"You know that's not what I mean," she replied as her eyes bore into him.
"He's definitely quieter than usual, not that he was that talkative before. He still seems to think that everything is his fault, I might have got a bit frustrated with him back at the scene," he finished quietly.
"What happened?"
"I told him to deal with what happened and move on. I must sound like a right asshole, huh?"
She gave him a warm smile as she walked further towards him, placing an encouraging hand on his upper arm.
"Not at all, God knows he's not listening to me. The stubborn fool."
They both smiled at each other then, understanding that the complicated redhead could drive them to distraction more easily than anyone else they knew.
"Andy popped by to see him today."
"Really?" Calleigh replied, feigning innocence.
"You didn't have anything to do with that did you, Cal?" he asked with the hint of a smile pulling at his lips.
"I have no idea what you're talking about," she responded with a knowing smile before leaving the room.
He caught up with his brother in law in the changing room, just as the older man was placing his lab coat on a hanger and hanging it back in his locker.
"Thanks for your help today, H," he said as he shrugged his own lab coat off and hung it up.
The other man shrugged his shoulders.
"I didn't really do that much."
Eric bit back on a frustrated response, knowing that he needed to give Horatio time to come to terms with the emotions that returning to the lab had brought. The man was still so down on himself and it worried Eric that Horatio couldn't see what a positive effect he had on the people around him.
"The nightshift are gonna run our samples, you up to chasing down some new leads in the morning?" he asked instead.
The redhead gave him a small smile as he shrugged his suit jacket on before closing his locker door gently.
"Sure, brother. Why not."
He watched as Horatio walked towards the exit and was surprised when he spoke over his shoulder.
"Eric?"
"Yeah, H?"
"If you tell anyone that Andy called me Beaker I will hunt you down and kill you. Understood?"
He felt the smirk cross his face as he heard the subtle humour in his colleague's voice.
"Loud and clear, boss."
"Thank you for dinner, Calleigh, it was delicious," Horatio said as he wiped at his mouth with a napkin, offering the woman seated across from him a shy smile.
"You're welcome, Handsome, it was my pleasure. Have you got room for desert?"
He took a sip from his glass of water and avoided her gaze.
"I think I'm full, but thank you anyway."
She sighed as collected the plates, feeling an unwarranted sense of frustration building within her.
"You need to eat more; you've lost too much weight."
He placed the napkin down slowly as he looked up at her.
"I appreciate your concern, Calleigh, but I'm fine, really."
"But it's apple pie and ice cream. Would you try some, for me?"
She looked at him and kept eye contact until she could feel his resolve weaken as he sighed defeated and nodded his head in agreement.
"Andy came to see me today," he said as he admired her pert backside as she bent over to reach for the ice cream.
"Did he?" she asked innocently, keeping her head in the freezer.
"I thought you hated the man," he asked as she straightened up and took the pie from the oven.
It was true, she and Andy had never really hit it off and the more she knew of the man, the less she liked him. She tolerated him for Horatio's sake, knowing that the older man meant a lot to him and like it or not, he had been able to reach the stubborn redhead when the rest of them couldn't.
Flashback. Miami, 10 weeks ago:
"Hey, John," Andy smiled as he made his way into his former partner's hospital room, frowning as he saw the scowl marring the handsome man's face.
He threw a handful of magazines down in his friend's lap as he pulled a chair closer to the bed and sat down heavily in it.
"I brought you these," he said, motioning to the motor vehicle and sports magazines lying on the other man's legs, "I thought you might be getting a bit bored by now. I did look in the hospital shop but they were all out of 'Lab Geek Weekly'."
The joke fell flat as the younger man continued to glare at him.
"How long are you going to carry this on for, John?" he asked with a frustrated sigh.
"Carry what on?" the redhead growled in response.
"Acting like a child," Andy replied evenly, knowing that his words would more than likely raise an angry response from the other man.
He would take John's anger over his self-pitying behaviour any day; it seemed as if the younger man had all but given up hope of getting better.
"What do you care, Andy?"
"I care because I'm your friend."
"Like you were twenty years ago?"
The words stung but he knew he deserved them.
"God knows I made a hell of a lot of mistakes back then, but I'm trying to make up for them now."
"Don't bother," the younger man muttered.
Try as he might, he couldn't hold back his frustration any longer as he shouted at the man in the bed.
"You think you're the only one that has been affected by this? Do you have any idea what your friends have been through, what Kyle's been through?"
"You don't understand, Andy. You've got no idea what they did to me," the younger man responded bitterly as he looked away.
"So you're just going to give up? After everything you've been through in your life, you're going to let some two-bit cowboys break you?"
"You don't understand," the redhead repeated, the fight vanishing from his voice.
"You're right, I don't. I don't understand what happened to the guy who risked everything to protect the people he loved. I don't understand why he's hiding in here like a child, refusing to fight."
"You're more than this, John. Don't let those punks win, stand up and fight like a man. Like the man I know you are."
A pair of distressed blue eyes caught his own; he couldn't mistake the sadness and desperation in them.
"What if I can't? What if I'm not the same man anymore?"
He reached out his arms and pulled the man he regarded as a son towards him, holding him as he felt the younger man's body shake as he quietly sobbed.
"We'll get through this, kid. I promise you."
Present day, Miami:
He had tried his best to take command of the kitchen and wash the dishes but Calleigh had been insistent that he kick off his shoes and relax on the couch in the lounge. He had to admit that it felt good to lay back and relax, the stress of the day taking more out of him than he had realised.
With eyes closed he held out a hand and felt the soft fur of a cat's body running itself over the palm of his hand.
"Good evening, Moses," he said quietly as he kept his eyes closed.
The black cat purred appreciatively in response as it crawled onto his lap and made himself comfortable.
Calleigh smiled at the picture before her, glad to see that Horatio had finally relaxed after what had been a particularly taxing day. She smiled as she watched the young cat crawl into his lap and lay down to sleep, the two of them made quite a pair.
She had woken early one morning last week to find a straggly and rather wet-looking creature sitting on her back porch, mewing quietly as it licked the dampness from its paws. Her heart melted as she looked at it, the poor cat looked abandoned and unloved.
She opened the sliding door quietly; afraid of scaring the small animal away but was pleasantly surprised when it stayed where it was, looking up at her with its head cocked to one side.
The movement reminded her immediately of the man still fast asleep in her bed, the similarity between the two of them was astonishing.
"Well hello there, kitty," she said as she bent down to stroke him, smiling as it wound its way through her legs.
She reached out a hand to check for a collar or tags, trying to ascertain whether the animal was lost or had genuinely been abandoned. It was during her search of its body that she found the nasty-looking wound on its back, wincing as her hand touched the open wound which looked as if it was starting to become infected.
She took pity on the poor animal and picked it up before shutting the sliding door behind her. Placing the cat down on the kitchen floor she searched her cupboards for a suitable bowl before filling it with milk from the refrigerator.
"There you go," she said as she placed the bowl on the floor, smiling when the cat let out a small meow of gratitude.
Horatio's smoky voice caught her off guard as he watched her from the corner of the room.
"You're making a habit of taking in waifs and strays, Calleigh," he admonished lightly, a slight smile tugging at his lips.
"He looks abandoned, Horatio. And he's injured, can we keep him?"
He laughed lightly at her question.
"It's your house, beautiful," he said as he shrugged his shoulders.
The cat seemed to notice the new presence in the room and made its way over to the redhead, once again winding its way through the human's legs.
"I think he likes you," Calleigh suggested.
"That's because he doesn't know me yet," he responded quietly.
After a trip to the vets and a course of antibiotics, Moses the cat seemed to be nearing full health once more. It certainly didn't hurt that he was now being fed two square meals a day. Calleigh had had half expected the feline creature to go on its merry way and was pleasantly surprised when it had stayed and made itself at home in her house.
At least Moses had done Horatio some good, when she struggled to get through to the stubborn man and make him see sense the cat would invariably be able to twist him round his finger, wheedling his way into the his human companion's affections and calming him when things were starting to become too much.
Horatio's eyes shot open as he heard the familiar ringing of his phone, sitting up and depositing the cat beside him on the couch, he reached into his pants pocket and looked at the display before answering.
"Kyle," he said as he gave Calleigh a brief glance and headed towards the stairs.
She sat on the couch with Moses, absent-mindedly stroking the cat's fur as she thought back on the day. It certainly hadn't started that well with Horatio once more convincing himself that everyone would be better off without him. It had taken a lot for her to call Andy, a man that she had little time for, but her concern for Horatio outweighed her dislike of the gruff man.
The visit from Sargent Craig had done nothing to lift her foul mood either, it was clear that the by-the-books IAB officer was looking for nothing more than a scapegoat and Calleigh was determined that it would be neither her, nor Horatio's head that would roll.
She only hoped that Sargent Craig did not get hold of Horatio anytime soon, she knew he was not in a position to defend himself adequately, still stuck in the mire of his negative emotions as he was. He would likely agree with whatever Sargent Craig threw at him if it meant that the rest of his team was spared any of the fallout from the Malucci debacle.
Time seemed to run away with her and her thoughts, the clock had ticked round to ten p.m. before she had even realised it. It occurred to her that Horatio had been upstairs alone for over an hour and she had not heard a sound or any movement in that time.
She made her way up the stairs cautiously and opened her bedroom door, surprised to find Horatio's clothes hanging neatly on the back of the chair by her dresser. She smiled as she saw him asleep, lying on his side on his favoured side of her bed.
Our bed, she told herself with a smile.
She set about getting ready for bed herself, realising that she was much more tired than she thought. Changing into a cropped t-shirt and a pair of sleep shorts she crawled in behind him and wrapped her arms around his chest, smiling as he kissed her hand sleepily.
"Sorry for waking you," she whispered as she placed a soft kiss on his shoulder.
"It's ok," he responded as he turned around to face her, pulling her closer to his own body, "I couldn't really sleep knowing that you weren't in the bed with me."
She leant closer to his face, hoping that he wouldn't pull away as she began kissing him, slowly and gently at first, then more passionately as his body responded to her ministrations.
Feeling more confident she ran a hand down his chest lightly and smiling as he groaned in response until her hand finally found his groin. Feeling the fabric of his boxers she massaged him gently until his hand quickly found hers and pulled it away.
"Please, Calleigh," he pleaded as he opened his eyes and looked at her desperately.
"Let me love you, Horatio," she responded, her eyes radiating sincerity as she placed her hand back on his groin.
He screwed his eyes shut as he felt her hand on him once more, groaning softly as his body responded to her touch.
"I'm not sure I can do this," he said in a shaky voice.
"Then let me do all the work," she responded as she climbed onto his lap, kissing the scars on his arms and chest.
He knew what they were doing was wrong yet he felt himself helpless against her soft, warm hands roaming his damaged and scarred body. His resolve weakening as she continued her passionate assault of him and took him closer to the abyss with each of her feather-light touches on his heated skin.