Rating: PG
Pairing: Speed/Calleigh
Spoilers: Dispo Day post ep.
Feedback: Makes my day
Disclaimer: If it was in the show, it's not mine.
Archive: At my site The Band Gazebo; anywhere else, please ask.
Summary: He wasn't sure if he'd be welcome, but he went anyway
Author's Notes: Since everyone else has done a Dispo Day post ep, this is my contribution! Thanks, as always, to Heidi for the tapes. This story isn't a sequel to The View from a Glass House but much of the Speed back story I created there is also contained here.

He wasn't sure if he'd be welcome or not, not after the attitude he'd given her earlier on, but he arrived at her door anyway after the shift; hope, for once, springing eternal. He hadn't come straight here though, he'd come the long way, the very long way, riding through the streets of Miami on his bike, hoping that the wind in his face would get rid of the bad feelings, the guilt, the anger that had been hanging around him like a cloud ever since the dispo day shootout.

He'd only turned the bike around to come here when he'd realised that no amount of air was going to do that, that only she could.

It could have been his imagination, or his raging paranoia, but it seemed to take her a long time to come to the door, and he was all ready to knock again when he heard the sound of a chain being slid back, of the locks turning. She looked surprised to see him there, her eyes big and wide, blinking at him. "Speed," she said, and his heart sank slightly at the name she used, and he tried very hard not to take it personally.

"I was in the neighbourhood," he told her with a shrug, jamming his hands into his trouser pockets, looking down at the ground as he did so, looking up at her through his eyelashes.

He was half-afraid that she would tell him to leave, that she'd slam the door in his face, but instead he saw her face soften into a smile, saw her step back to allow him in. "In the neighbourhood?" she said, her tone indicating just how little she thought of that particular line. "Speed, you live miles away."

He shrugged again, walking past her. "I got lost," he deadpanned, and she chuckled, shaking her head, her long hair moving like a curtain down her back. She'd changed from her work attire he noted; instead of her pristine suit, she now wore faded grey sweatpants and a pale pink tank top, instead of her perfect hair and makeup, her face was scrubbed clean, her hair loose. He preferred her like this he thought absently, not that she'd ever believe him if he told her.

"You want a beer?" she asked him, padding past him in bare feet, going towards her kitchen, and he nodded, not following her, going into the living room, calling back over his shoulder that he'd love one. Even as he was speaking to her though, his eye was looking around the living room, noting the throw in disarray on the couch, the open novel face down on the table, the stereo playing softly in the background. This, he knew, was what Calleigh's living room looked like when she was in "hunker down and shut the world out" mode, and he almost felt guilty for intruding.

Almost.

"How are you feeling?" he called back, remembering how Eric had told him about Calleigh's polygraph test, about her accidental dosing with cocaine.

"Getting back to normal," she replied, her voice carrying clearly from the kitchen. "I have never in my life felt so hyper."

He smirked, because he had seen Calleigh pretty hyper; in point of fact, he didn't think that he'd ever seen her in a bad mood. She was relentlessly happy and cheerful, and there were times when he wondered how she managed it. To think of her a level beyond that again boggled the mind. "Sorry I missed it," he said, and he wasn't quite sure that he meant for her to hear it.

"How are you?" she asked him, her voice coming closer, and he sighed, not able to help his reaction. Shaking his head from side to side, he ignored the couch, walking past it to stand at the window, looking out at the street beyond and the inky black sky, the darkness every so often broken up by a car driving by.

He didn't answer her straight away, because he didn't know how to.

He didn't know how he was.

It was supposed to have been a normal day, a routine dispo day; they'd done a hundred of them. One moment, things had been fine. They'd been on their way with no trouble, him and Hollis exchanging small talk, banal pleasantries, just like they'd done a hundred times before.

Then all hell had broken loose.

The details are blurry in his mind, only a few features standing out in sharp relief, but the one that he never forgets, the one that never leaves his mind for a second is that he lived and Hollis died.

They'd been side by side, yet he'd lived and Hollis had died.

He'd been sitting there, getting checked out by the EMTs and he'd known that things weren't good. He hadn't been sure about Hollis though, so he'd asked Horatio, and he hadn't even needed to hear the word. He'd known from the look on H's face, the look in his eyes.

He knew only too well what that look meant, and the surge of feelings in him had been instantaneous.

Déjà vu, Tim noted bitterly now, was a bitch, because this wasn't the first time that he'd been in close proximity to someone when something terrible had occurred, and it didn't get any easier with practice.

This time, it had been a police officer who he'd known fairly well.

Ten years ago, it had been his best friend.

His heart was just having a hard time separating the two, and thus it was that even as he'd been sitting on a Miami street, the sun beating down on them, he could remember the chill of a snowy spring day in Lake Placid. Instead of the roar of sirens and the sound of car engines, he could hear the sound of snowmobiles being driven flat out, and the shouts of dozens of high school seniors, cheering their racer on to victory.

One moment, he'd been in the cab of the truck with Hollis, thinking no particular thoughts. The next, he'd been dragging Hollis out onto the ground, hoping that he was ok.

Just like one moment he'd finished his race, being beaten firmly into second place. He'd taken the good-natured jibing from his competitor and his friends with a smile on his face, but it hadn't stopped him handing the snowmobile to Jessie, telling her to give them hell. She'd just given him one of those looks of hers, combined with that dazzling smile that he loved so much, asking him, "When don't I?" He'd laughed, taking his place with the other onlookers, and he hadn't taken his eyes off her, not once.

He swore to this day that she'd followed the same racing line as him and all the others, and he still didn't know what her snowmobile hit, what caused it to upend itself.

All he remembers is watching her sailing through the air, landing headfirst on the hard ground.

He doesn't remember running to her, but he remembers kneeling beside her, looking at her broken body, lying so still, so unlike her. He remembers Ruth kneeling beside him, tears streaming down her face, remembers her hand on his arm as three of his classmates physically had to pull him away from her so that the paramedics could do their jobs.

He remembers going back to the lodge, trying desperately to be allowed to go to the hospital, remembers Mr McGregor taking pity on him, bringing him there. He remembers her mother's sobs, the horror of what the doctor told them.

He remembers Jessie, so beautiful and so scared, trying her hardest to be strong. He remembers her struggling to come to terms with life as a quadriplegic, remembers the long hours they spent together, talking, laughing, just like they always had.

He remembers that last night, the night before yet another operation. She'd been nervous about this one, unaccountably scared, which is why her mother had called him, asked him to come home and see her. When he had, he'd called Columbia, citing a family emergency, telling them that he'd be staying in Syracuse an extra couple of days.

He thinks that he'd been in love with Jessie since the night of their Junior Prom, except that he'd never really realised it, not completely, until that night. That had been the night that he'd kissed her for the first time, the night she'd told him that she loved him too. He'd stayed with her until she went to sleep, promising to return the next morning before the operation, and he had. He'd told himself that there was nothing that could come between them now, that things were going to work out fine, that they had the rest of their lives to plan.

He doesn't know how many nights since then he's been woken up by her mother's scream the next day when the doctors told her that Jessie was dead.

To this day, he still doesn't know why this had to happen to Jessie. He was on the damn snowmobile, the exact one, minutes before she was. She was bright and beautiful and loving and caring, and she had everything to live for.

Hollis had a family, a wife and two small children. Everything to live for.

But they were both dead, and he was alive, and he didn't understand why, didn't know what was so special about him that he'd been spared. People had told him when Jessie had died that time would make it better, make it easier, but that wasn't exactly true. He'd learned to live with it, but it had never gotten easier. Events like this just brought it closer to the surface.

"Tim?"

Turning his head, he looked down at the woman beside him, taken aback momentarily when he saw green eyes rather than blue, blonde straight hair instead of auburn curls. He rubbed a hand over his eyes as if that would help him clear his thoughts, but the only thing it did was remind him that she'd just called him Tim, rather than Speed.

"I'm sorry…" he began, but she cut him off, laying a hand on his upper arm, dropping it quickly when his eyes met hers, hers flaring in alarm.

"You just spaced out for a minute there is all," she told him, smiling awkwardly. "I got you a beer."

A glance at the coffee table over his shoulder revealed two beer bottles standing side by side, and he nodded his thanks at her, yet didn't move from the window. "Horatio gave me a gun cleaning kit," he told her, and this time, it was definitely panic that made her eyes widen.

"I didn't say anything to him," she told him quickly. "I haven't turned in my report yet and-"

"I know." His quiet words broke through her babbling, and he was surprised that she'd go so quickly onto the defensive with him, although he reminded himself that following their last conversation in the halls of the CSI building, he really shouldn't have been. "I don't know how H works out these things," he told her dryly. "You think he can read minds?"

She smiled, a little weakly in his eyes. "Maybe he just figured you for a slob in every department," she quipped, but her smile didn't reach her eyes. They were green pools of worry, and he hated knowing that he was the cause of it.

"I know you sat on your report Calleigh," he told her now. "You could've got into a lot of trouble for that…"

She shrugged quickly, turning her head so that she was looking out the window. "It's nothing Speed," she told him, her voice suddenly cold. "I'd have done the same for anyone."

Speed tried not to react as if she'd just slapped him, and wasn't sure how successful he was. "I didn't mean it like that," he said, reaching out to lay a hand on her shoulder. She half turned to him then, eyes still wide, and he gave her a small smile. "You went out on a limb for me, and all I did was give you grief for it. When what I should have been saying was thank you."

A rosy blush spread across her cheeks, and she looked down. "It's understandable," she murmured. "After what you'd been through…"

"But not excusable." He wasn't going to let her let him get away with this. "I was an ass to you…"

"Yes you were." It was her turn to cut across him, and she did so firmly, stopping him in his tracks. He must have looked surprised, because she giggled, laying a hand on his upper arm again. This time though, she let it linger there, and he was suddenly very aware of the heat of the skin of her shoulder against his palm, how her touch felt against his shirt, and just how close they were standing. "But I understand Tim. I know what happened to you…how you must have felt about Hollis…" He closed his eyes tightly at the mention of the other man's name, but Calleigh didn't stop. "There was nothing you could have done, do you hear me?" she asked him fiercely. "You didn't do anything wrong Tim…you're one of the good guys."

He smiled, because it was much the same thing as Horatio had said to him, except that it sounded much better coming from Calleigh's lips. Not to mention that she'd once again called him Tim, the name that she usually called him at times like this, on nights like this, when they were at one of their apartments, this close to one another. Speed was the name reserved for work, when they had to be on their best professional behaviour. But they were on their own time now, and he didn't have to be on his best behaviour.

Which was why his hand moved from her shoulder down to her back, pulling her closer to him. Why her hand tightened its grip on his arm, her other arm sliding around his waist. Why his free hand reached up to her cheek, caressing it gently.

"You know what I remember?" he murmured, looking deep into her eyes. "I remember lying on the ground, trying to get a shot off…I remember looking at this guy standing over me, gun pointed right at me, and he looked about ten feet tall…and I remember thinking that I was going to die."

He was very matter of fact about it, but her eyes had filled with tears. "Tim…" she whispered shakily, and he shook his head, indicating that she should let him finish.

"You know what my next thought was?" he asked, and she shook her head. "That I was never going to see you again." Her breath escaped on a little sob, but he kept talking. "I was thinking, I'm never going to see Calleigh again, I'm never going to get to do this again…" He was stroking her cheek as he talked, and she closed her eyes, leaning into the touch. "And when she finds out that my gun jammed, she's going to be incredibly pissed…" Her eyes flew open at that, and the sound that she made was somewhere between a laugh and a sob.

"I was pissed," she told him, swatting at his chest. "And I still am." It didn't sound like it though, and when she pulled him into a hug, burying her head in his shoulder, it didn't feel like it either. Her next words were somewhat muffled by his chest, but he was pretty sure that he could make out, "Don't ever do that to me again."

"I won't," he promised, kissing the top of her head, wrapping his arms around her contentedly, feeling almost human again for the first time since gunfire had erupted all around him.

She didn't move, but he heard her still muffled words. "Are you staying tonight?"

He grinned, pulling away from her, tilting her chin up to him. "I'm not going anywhere," he told her, enjoying the way her face lit up in a smile bright as any he'd ever seen. He hated to eclipse it, but the urge to kiss her properly was too strong, so he gave in to it, letting her help him chase away the last of his demons and ghosts, just as he'd known she would.

And he knew again then what he'd known since that morning when his kevlar vest had protected him from a mortal wound, what he'd known since that night in a Syracuse hospital when another incredible woman had kissed him and told him that she loved him.

That he was the luckiest man alive.

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