She found him in the trace lab at the end of the day, frowning over a machine, his face drawn and tight with pain and what she guessed was a particular brand of self-loathing. It was easier to recognize if you'd been there, and she had. In all honesty, that was probably why she was here.

"What extenuating circumstances?" she asked, cutting to the chase and wishing her voice didn't sound quite so hurt.

"What?" Ryan's gaze flicked up to hers, but he averted his eyes after just a second.

"You said there were extenuating circumstances," Calleigh reminding, leaning her weight slightly against the table, the glass cool under her palm. "What were they?"

"Do you remember my sponsor, Mark?" he asked, shifting his attention to the screen as his results popped up. When he reached for a pen to record the results, the shift of his body made him wince slightly, and she wondered just how injured he actually was. Which begged the question of how much trouble he must have actually been in to haul himself up thirty flights of stairs so he could tamper with a crime scene. She still couldn't quite wrap her head around that particular betrayal.

"The track vet who doped the horses," she answered, nodding slightly as she watched his hand tremble just a little while he wrote.

"The Russians had his son. Told me they'd kill Billy if I didn't 'take care of it.'"

"The crime scene," she supplied, clarifying his 'it.' His only reply was a short nod, and this time she was the one whose fingers were trembling, her heart aching with an uncomfortable combination of sympathy and hurt feelings.

"The investigation." He set the pen down, looked at her. "I did what I had to do, Calleigh. I didn't have a choice."

She wanted to tell him that wasn't true, that you always have a choice, a thousand choices, and endless number of options, but instead she found herself telling him something he already knew: "A year ago, I was kidnapped, held at gunpoint, and forced to process a crime scene on the fly so a murderer could go free. I could have said no, but he'd have killed me. I hated myself for it, but I did it." She watched the recognition flicker over his face, watched the cautious guilt creep into his eyes. He swallowed, but said nothing. "Sometimes we do the wrong things for the right reasons. That doesn't make it okay. But sometimes..." She shook her head, took a deep breath. "You should have told me what was going on. I'd have helped you."

Ryan scoffed at that, their tenuous moment of solidarity broken. "What would you have done? Stolen evidence? Contaminated a sample?" Shaking his head, he told her, "You'd never do it, Calleigh. Not without a gun to your head."

"I'd have helped you stall," she told him simply, pressing both palms against the table now and watching him absorb that. His quiet "oh" was all the proof she needed that he realized he could have gotten help without dragging someone else down deep with him. She could have easily worked slower, could have taken her fifteen instead of foregoing the break to pore over fingerprints. Stalling was inefficient but not illegal. Stalling bought time to sort things out. Stalling was something that she would do, no question, if it meant saving one of her team.

They stood there in silence for a minute, until Calleigh spoke quietly, "You lied to me. Several times."

"I'm sorry."

It wasn't until he said it that she realized that this was why she'd come here. For answers, sure, but mostly for an apology from a friend who had hurt her deeply. The burn of betrayal around her heart began to ease with the words, and she offered a short nod, satisfied. "Thank you." She thought of Eric, on his way to meet her at La Palma, and pushed her body away from the table. "I have to head out. I'll see you tomorrow, okay?"

He nodded, but there was a bitterness to it, and she was halfway to the door before he spoke up. "I'm not the only one with secrets, you know. Eric wore the exact same outfit yesterday."

Calleigh felt the curl of anxiety in her gut, and she hovered at the halfway point for a minute before turning on her heel and stalking back to the table. He was trying to make a point, and failing. "Ryan," she told him carefully, evenly, her voice low enough to keep the conversation to the few inches of space between them now. "You almost sent an innocent man to jail and let a guilty man walk. You violated ethics, you violated protocol, you violated the law. And more than that, you violated the team."

"And what you're doing doesn't?" he challenged, and Calleigh realized she had a decision to make. Admit the truth and risk firing up the MDPD rumor mill, or lie and knock another crack into her friendship with Ryan. Later, she'd blame the fierce blows dealt by the rest of the day for the choice she made.

"It's a stupid policy, Ryan," she began carefully, unsurprised when his mouth curved into a humorless smile, his head shaking back and forth a little. She'd just given him the confirmation he'd been waiting on for weeks. "It assumes two people can't work together and be together at the same time, and it's wrong. But it's department policy, and if IAB finds out, one of us will have to transfer. And that will hurt the team. It's better all around if nobody knows."

"By that logic, it would be better if you were never together," he pointed out, but without any real heat.

"I tried that," she sighed. "I tried that for a long time, Ryan. And then I decided that I deserved to be happy. And I am, with him. I'm really happy. But it's private, it's not the business of anyone in the lab, and I want it to stay that way."

He seemed to mull that over for a moment before nodding. "Alright. But will you do me a favor?"

Part of her wanted to tell him that she was fresh out of favors, that he didn't deserve any after what he'd done that day, but she opted instead for the olive branch. Sort of. "What's the favor?"

"Don't tell Eric I know," he requested, lips curving into a genuine smirk, and it relieved her to see him smile, finally. "I like heckling him."

She chuckled, shook her head, and grinned at him. "If he asks, I won't lie," Calleigh warned before adding, "But I won't go out of my way to tell him." Her hand settled on his, gave it a light squeeze. "Take care of yourself, okay? Be careful."

"I will," he assured, pulsing his fingers around hers before letting her ease away. She started to walk away again, and again he called out to her halfway there. But at his suggestive "Have fun tonight!" she didn't turn around. She just laughed, tossed him a look over her shoulder, and kept walking.