Hey everyone. This is my first CSI: Miami fic, and I hope you all enjoy. It's kind of a whole collection of snapshots from a relationship. It's not really my typical approach to a story, but I hope it works. and I also for some reason was intent on making the story fit with the plot of the show, which is unlike me, but I wasn't able to make it fit perfectly, but there are no glaring problems, and it should bother no one but myself. This story took a very different direction than I anticipated, I found there was a lot more to write about Ryan and Calleigh than I originally thought. They're amazing characters on the show, with endless possibilities for my imagination.
I'm thinking of writing a companion piece to this story, from Ryan's P.O.V. Thoughts?
Please review, reviews make me endlessly happy. Seriously. Waaay more than they should.
Unnecessary Disclaimer: I own Calleigh Duquesne and Ryan Wolfe and keep them in a shoebox under my bed. I, in fact, own the entire cast, but Horatio needs to be kept outside or his sunglasses start to fog.
Enjoy!
Calleigh Duquesne does not make it a habit to sleep with her co-workers. As a woman in a predominantly male field, most people assume she made it to where she is today by sleeping with whoever signed her paychecks. But that was never the case. However, she still found herself working twice as hard as her peers in an effort to disprove that theory.
Working as a crime scene investigator is by no means an easy job. Attention to detail was crucial. It was her responsibility to absorb every single insignificant detail of an entire crime scene, because one of those details just might end up being very significant.
She's seen a lot of sights that no one should have to see. Mutilated bodies. Grieving families. Heartless criminals. She's lost friends, colleagues, and lovers. Each of these things affected her, as much as she tried to hide it. Every dead body, every case, chipped away at her, bit by bit. She wasn't the same person she had been before she took this job. She used to be bright and perky all the time. Always seeing the bright side, always believing the best of people. But when you're that happy, that vulnerable, each blow hurts a little bit more.
Then they lost Speed. They all knew this job came with its risks, but you're never prepared when it actually happens. Especially to someone like Speed. He kept the team alive, kept them from taking themselves and their jobs to seriously. So clever, he always seemed so much smarter than everyone around him. And for him to die on a technicality? It was almost too much to bear.
They each dealt with Speed's death in their own ways, none of which were particularly healthy. Horatio took it harder than any of them had expected. Tim had been more of a son to him than they would ever know. Eric tried to act tough, but he ended up in therapy. He and Tim were best friends and partners in crime. It was going to take a long time to fill that void. Tim's death had been a painful blow to Calleigh's life, and it was then that she decided she needed to close herself off. Because if she hardened her heart, if she stopped caring, then it wouldn't hurt so much.
When Ryan showed up, they thought it was a joke. There was no way Horatio could seriously be considering replacing Tim Speedle with this little punk from patrol. Because let's never forget that Ryan came from patrol. Because Lord knows he wouldn't let anyone else forget it. As if he thought it gave him some advantage, as if it made him better than the rest of them.
"Well when I was on patrol we did it this way…"
He was so frustrating, and so green, and so overconfident. He had this strut, and he would walk around the lab like he owned the place. He also had the remarkable tendency to say exactly what he was thinking without taking a moment to consider the effect his words would have on other people. He had said some things about her father that she wasn't sure she'd ever be able to forgive him for.
Working with Ryan was often like working with a child. He thought he knew everything, and you either had to sit back and watch him screw it up through his own overconfidence, or try to coach him through it. But he was too proud to accept anybody's help. Because he was from patrol, and of course he knew better than everyone anyway.
Calleigh would realize later that Ryan was in an impossible position. He was replacing a man that everyone loved and respected, and no matter what he did, he would never be able to measure up. So he could either let on that he was unconfident and face ridicule by his coworkers, or he could act like he was totally sure of everything he did. But neither plan really ingratiated him with the rest of the team.
They never thought he would stay. For some reason, they thought he was just a temporary replacement. Mainly because they still couldn't accept the fact that Speedle wasn't coming back. And they thought that if they gave him a hard enough time, he would leave, and they could have their family back.
Maybe it was because she thought that he was just a temporary presence in her life, had Calleigh let things get to this point.
Originally, it was just her way of messing with him. She had too much self-respect to throw herself at anyone, but she was aware of the effect that long blonde hair, cleavage, and a southern accent could have on a man. The accent was the real killer. She could paint on a smile, maybe throw in a giggle and an innocent touch on the arm, and say something so darn cute and colloquial that men just couldn't help but be charmed by her.
She had treated him to an icy wall of indifference for several weeks, before slowly realizing that she should just put up with him for the time being. So they discussed victims and suspects and evidence, but that was it. The fewer words, the better.
Then one night, when it was just the two of them left in the lab, the thought crept into her mind of just how Mr. Cool would react to her advances. They were in the ballistics lab, discussing a potential murder weapon, when she started laying on the charm. She did it subtly at first. He was, after all, a detective, and was fairly adept at spotting a lie. So she threw out a few smiles, a few giggles, a few hair tosses. It was like high school all over again.
She continued her behavior for the next several weeks. A touch here, a flirtatious comment there. Always in private, whenever the two of them were discussing evidence, or examining a crime scene. But only the two of them. Even though this was just her way of messing with him, she somehow couldn't imagine explaining this to Delko.
She was actually surprised at how long it took Ryan to notice. He was completely oblivious for a while, so absorbed with himself and his new assignment. She threw some of her best game at him, to no avail. She was about ready to give up, when he finally seemed to catch on
And if it took him a while to realize she was flirting with him, it took him even longer to respond to her advances. Much longer. Once he realized what she was doing, he behaved even colder towards her. He obviously thought she was messing with him, just trying to get under his skin. So when she would throw him a line, he would just look at her strangely. When she would laugh at something he said and touch her hand to his arm, he would flinch away as if her touch had burnt him.
He was a challenge, but she wasn't about to give up.
Because of all the things Ryan Wolfe may or may not be, he is still a man. And no man can resist the Southern charm. After awhile, he wasn't so quick to flinch away from her touch. He began to mentally question the flirtatious things she would say to him. . There was the trademark Ryan Wolfe Furrowed Brow "I'm Confused, But Still Totally On Top Of Things" Look. Sometimes she was pretty sure he thought she was crazy. And before long, there was the nervous swallowing before he could think of something to say as a reply.
She loved the effect she was able to have on him, the fact that she could break down his composure to that of a stuttering little boy with just a toss of her hair. She loved seeing his composure break, seeing those flashes of confusion in his eyes. It was such a pleasant change from his normally cocky behavior. For a while he actually looked a little hurt. His defenses were breaking down, and he was becoming afraid of her. It made her feel good. It made her feel stronger that she was able to control him.
Then there was the one night in the locker room after an especially gruesome case. She tried to keep it to herself, but she was really frustrated and needed some sort of release. She decided to take out her frustrations on Ryan. Not by yelling at him. She had given up on that long ago. Yelling and arguing was easy, it was the teasing that seemed to bother him more. He didn't seem to know how to respond to it.
So she teased him about something insignificant, probably his outfit. She was ribbing him for several minutes, as they were gathering their things to head home. But this time, he didn't just ignore her behavior, or look through her as if her were trying to figure her out. This time, when she made some comment about his schoolboy haircut or Miami Vice jacket, he paused in the middle of tying his shoe, looked up at her, and just smiled.
The words were out of her mouth before she even realized she had asked him over for drinks. The thought had crossed her mind before, just how far she could take the joke, and how much she could lower his defenses. But she hadn't thought of putting this plan into action anytime soon. But once the words were out of her mouth, she couldn't take them back.
The moments he took to consider her proposal seemed to stretch into days as thoughts flew through her mind. She had crossed a line. He was going to say no, and that was going to make coming to work everyday absolute torture. Now he would have something else to hold over her, because not only did he come from patrol, but now he had turned down Calleigh Duquesne.
She stared at the back of his head as he froze facing the inside of his open locker. It killed her that she couldn't see his eyes. Eyes were easy to read- especially his. She stood there with her metaphorical foot in her mouth, waiting on pins and needles for his answer.
The last thing she expected him to do was to turn slowly around with one eyebrow raised and his mouth curved in a smirk and say, "Sure." He said it almost hesitantly, rightfully assuming that this was just her next move in the game, and he wanted to see how far she was really going to take this.
They walked silently to their respective vehicles, and started the drive to Calleigh's apartment. Calleigh drove ahead; Ryan presumably had no idea where she lived. The drive to her house had never seemed longer as she considered the evening that lay ahead of her. She had invited Ryan over for drinks. They were both mature adults, and when one mature adult invites another over for drinks, it never ends with just drinks. What had she gotten herself into?
He followed her silently to the door, and stood behind her as she unlocked it. They stepped into the dark interior, and Ryan lingered by the door as she wandered in and turned on the lights. Once she had flicked on the lamp beside the couch, she turned to find him standing by the door, hands in his back pockets, rocking back on his heels.
An hour later they had moved to the couch and were more than several glasses into the evening. She turned to find he was sitting closer to her than she remembered. She smelled the alcohol on his hot breath as it hit her face. Her eyes trailed from his mouth and found his green eyes staring back at her. They sat this way for a moment, just breathing, and then the space between them disappeared and they were kissing. Slow and gentle at first, but before she knew it her shirt was unbuttoned and her hands were in his hair.
She lay awake in her darkened bedroom later that night feeling Ryan's sleeping form running the length of hers, his arm draped over her waist, and wondered just who the joke was on now.
Neither of them told a soul about what had happened. It was never even discussed between the two of them, and especially not at work. As Ryan eventually became an accepted member of the team, he and Calleigh formed a completely different relationship within the walls of the M.D.P.D. than they had outside of it. They would work together and joke as if they were no more than friendly colleagues. As if Ryan didn't know about the smattering of freckles across her hipbone. As if Calleigh didn't know the way his eyelids fluttered as he slept.
It couldn't even be called a relationship. There were no dates. There wasn't even really any conversation. Every once in awhile he would show up at her door at night. She would let him in and lead him to the bedroom. And as they lay there in each other's arms, neither knew whether they were in it for the sex, or for the moments afterward, when they each were wrapped in one another's arms.
Ryan always left in the morning, usually before she woke up. Even that first night, she had woken up to nothing but the lingering smell of his cologne on her sheets.
They didn't spend every night together. But he always showed up when one of them really needed it. After she'd had a particularly hard day, she didn't even need to let on, but he'd somehow still show up on her doorstep. The sex was good, but it was oftentimes just a distraction from whatever else was troubling them.
It didn't keep them from dating other people. Or trying at least. Calleigh had a notoriously bad history with men. She was all tease and no follow through. She just couldn't bring herself to actually open up to any of the men she dated. Because letting them in would just create another weakness. And she had already hardened her heart against any potential fissures.
Hagen had been one of these men, they went out a few times, casually had a few drinks. She never brought him back to her apartment. The conversation was good, but she just didn't see it going beyond that. She listened as he opened up about his issues following his partner's death. She nodded sympathetically, but never spoke about herself. She was fairly sure he didn't know anything about her aside from her work credentials.
She had ended it that day in the ballistics lab. And then he had shot his head off right in front of her. She knew it wasn't her fault; he had a lot of issues he just couldn't deal with. But it didn't make it any easier. She had put in for a transfer from ballistics that very day, and left the lab having no idea what future lay ahead of her.
Ryan had showed up on her doorstep that night as expected. What was different was that once the clothes were off and they were under the covers, it went no further than that. Calleigh spent the night in his arms, her face buried in his shoulder.
It was 2 weeks later when everything changed. Ryan had come into the lab to check on the striations of the bullet she was testing. She gave him the results, but he lingered a little too long in the doorway.
"Did you need something else?"
"No…uh…no. Well, it's not about the case."
Somehow she knew this wasn't going to be good.
"I was wondering if maybe...um...you wanted to...maybe go somewhere after work. Like maybe to...a bar. Or if you want to get something to eat, I don't know if you're hungry. But I thought maybe we could go together...as...like...a date. Um...yeah, ok."
She hadn't said anything, or blinked even, since he had started speaking, and she guessed that's why he was still rambling on. This was excruciating. She knew it was going to come to this point, and yet she hoped it wouldn't. And she had the feeling Ryan was just a little too sensitive to deal with this lightly.
"Ryan…I'm not really interested in dating anyone right now. But I appreciate the invitation."
She flashed one of her famous Calleigh Duquesne smiles, but Ryan's brow was already furrowed. She could see the questions swimming in his brain, and knew she had to diffuse the situation as quickly as possible.
"I'd better bring these results to Horatio."
She slipped right past his frozen form in the doorway, and scurried down the hall, hoping Ryan wouldn't still be there when she came back.
That night, as expected, Ryan never came to her house. In fact, although she left the light on each night, her front step remained empty for several weeks. Things remained civil between them on the job; in fact, they had become overly civil. It was as though they were trying to prove that their relationship outside the office, or lack of, was not going to affect their ability to do their job.
But every once in awhile, Calleigh would detect that flash of childlike hurt in his eyes.
When she heard he had gotten a nail in the eye, she didn't go to the hospital. She didn't even know where he had gone to college, or what his favorite color was. Was she supposed to sit there and hold his hand as if she was the most important person in his life? She found out later that he hadn't wanted his family to know about the injury, so Alexx was the only one with him when they removed the nail.
The fact that she hadn't visited him seemed to be the last nail in the coffin for Ryan. He seemed to get the message, and she couldn't help but be thankful. They were colleagues, and that was it. They had an excellent working relationship, he had become a respected colleague, someone she could count on, and she was thankful for that.
But he seemed to grow a little bit colder towards her with each passing day, and she found herself actually missing the playful banter, the little witticisms they used to toss back and forth over a crime scene. It actually brought her back to the happier days of when Speedle kept them on their toes. But with Ryan playing it straight, she was afraid of sinking back into the doldrums she had found after Speed's death. And she was afraid of being that fragile again. She had to do something to get things back to normal, without giving Ryan any false hope.
Weeks passed, and she knew his eyesight was off. He had always been so meticulous in his actions, and now things weren't adding up.
"I'll only ask you this once. Did the shooting have anything to do with your eye?"
"I wish it did."
She told a story about when she was on patrol, something about going from the day shift to the night shift and losing her night vision. But what she hoped he would hear was,
"I'm trying Ryan, I'm trying."
And she continued to try, for weeks on end. And slowly, the old Ryan returned. And so did his eyesight, fortunately. It would have been a whole different ball of wax if he had been gone from C.S.I. forever.
She was surprised to hear Horatio and Marisol were getting married. She couldn't imagine doing anything so spontaneous and yet so…. permanent. But Horatio always seemed to look at things that way. He had been through a lot, and he seemed determined to cherish every special thing in his life.
She had gotten them a gift, even though it was just a private ceremony. The bottle of champagne sat in a bag in the bottom of her locker as she scratched out a congratulatory note on the tag.
She saw Ryan later in the lab, and considered advising him to get a gift. She knew he wouldn't think to do such a thing, but he would feel bad once he found out that other people had. But it wasn't her place to tell him what to do in situations like this. He wasn't his mother, and she wasn't his girlfriend. As much as he needed a woman's influence, she wasn't going to be the one to play that role.
She took a break from her work to present the bottle to Horatio before he left. She grabbed the bottle from her locker and held it for a moment, in thought. After a moment, she grabbed a pen and scribbled a few extra words on the tag.
Horatio was very grateful, and seemed touched by her gift. She watched from the stairs as he drove away to make the kind of commitment she feared she would never be able to make. She wasn't at all surprised when Ryan stepped up beside her and grumbled something about not getting a gift. And she couldn't help but smile as she told him she had added his name to the card.
So that was it. She had closed that brief chapter in her life, quelling whatever insecurities had left her fragile enough to need Ryan to pull her out of it. She was confident, she was a leader, and she was finally happy on her own. She could be a successful, independent, and confident woman. She didn't need to feel guilty or unfulfilled because she wasn't in a relationship. If it was meant to be, it would happen in time. She would let this supposed true love come to her; she was done seeking it out.
And that's exactly what she was thinking the morning of the very same day her Hummer plunged into the lake. But as she car filled with water, she couldn't help but think that this was the moment she had waited for, and yet she would have no one keeping vigil at her bedside. She had her father, sure, but who knows what condition he was in nowadays?
But she made it out safely, of course. She was Calleigh Duquesne after all; it was going to take a lot more than a little water to stop her from getting her job done. Or so she would tell everyone. Yet the first thing she did after the crash was find herself back at the lab, searching out Ryan. She told him about the contaminated evidence, and tried not to let on that she couldn't seem to keep her knees from shaking. Ryan played along, even though it had to be obvious that she was shaken up. But he knew better than anyone that she wasn't one to discuss it.
Yet before he left the room, he paused. He turned and looked her in the eyes like he hadn't in a long time.
"I'm glad you're okay."
And that was enough.
She went home to her empty apartment that night, and found herself curled up in the center of the queen-sized bed. She had grabbed several blankets from the closet. Despite Miami's humidity, she couldn't seem to get warm enough. She lay awake staring at the ceiling for several hours, and it was that long before she noticed that she was crying. It had been so long since she had done so, that the feeling didn't seem to fit, which only upset her even more.
She had been so close to death. She had, for a fleeting moment, resigned herself to the worst. When most people have near-death experiences, they come out of it feeling renewed and suddenly much more grateful for just how wonderful it was to be alive.
And yet she couldn't help wondering if it would have been better if she had died. What did she have to stay alive for? She had finally rid herself of the all-consuming fear she had had since Speedle's death, and this seemed to be God's way of reminding her.
She couldn't stand to wallow in self-pity anymore. She left the house without even locking the door, and climbed into her car. The streetlights seemed to blur together as she drove aimlessly around the city. In her distraught frame of mind, one address seemed to stick on her mind, and she made it her mission to find it. It wasn't until she pulled into the drive behind a familiar S.U.V. that she realized she had driven to Ryan's house.
She stood on his front step and rang the doorbell, because that's what she would normally do. It wasn't until he opened the door wearing a wrinkled t-shirt and sweatpants that she realized that perhaps the niceties did not really make a difference at 3am.
He stood in the threshold of the door blinking in the streetlight as if trying to comprehend what was before him. It was then that she remembered she hadn't changed out of her pajamas, or brushed her hair, or put on any makeup. She also realized that they had never actually seen each other in pajamas before.
He was wearing a Boston College t-shirt, and she remembered hearing traces of a New England accent.
He stepped aside to let her pass through the door. She followed him into the kitchen where he motioned her to a chair as he got her a glass of water. She noticed through the glass cabinet doors that although he had the typical single male rag-tag collection of dishware (everything from stolen beer glasses to Cool Whip containers as salad bowls), they were arranged according to color and size. He wasn't kidding about the O.C.D.
He leaned against the counter and watched her as she sipped at the water. She couldn't help but notice him watching her, and thus couldn't help but wonder what he was thinking. And when she realized he was probably wondering why she was there, she realized that she didn't really know herself. And as she considered this, she started to cry again.
He pushed away from the counter and walked over to face her. She moved to stand up, wanting to run away or do something to keep from crying right there in front of him. But he grabbed her arms and held her in place. He held her there until she had no choice but to look up at his face. And he watched her as she continued to cry, not really knowing quite why. After a while, he brought his hands up to her face, and wiped the tears from her cheeks. She sobered up some, and managed to bring her crying to a stop. He grabbed her then, and pulled her to his chest.
They stayed like that, wrapped in each other's arms in the middle of the kitchen until he grabbed her hand and led her down the hall to his bedroom. The bed was still impeccably made except for where the blankets had been turned down from when Ryan's sleep had been rudely interrupted moments earlier. He helped her under the covers and she inhaled the smell of him as she settled her head into the divot his head had made in the pillow. He walked around to the other side of the bed, pulled out the covers, and settled in behind her, his warm breath on her neck.
"Calleigh."
Ryan's voice broke the silence.
She turned to face him, and she could see light reflected in his eyes.
"Goodnight."