AN: As some people wanted a sequel to 'He still stands inspite of what his scars say', I decided to just give it a try. How far it goes depends on how many people will read and review, as usual. I strongly recommend you have read 'He still stands inspite of what his scars say' to understand this one, although I give a little summary in the prologue. I apologize beforehand for any weird sentences, I'm not a native speaker of English. Ok, that's it. Please read, enjoy and then of course review :)

The quote at the beginning is taken from Episode 3.12 'Shootout'. The title of the fic and the prologue is from Christina Aguilera's song "I'm okay".

For you it's just a memory but for me it still lives on

Prologue: Once upon a time….

"Still, I feel bad for that kid. Such an uncaring family…" "It's more common then we'd like to admit though, isn't it?"

In all those years Ryan Wolfe had been a CSI at the Miami Dade Crime Lab and worked with Horatio Caine, this simple sentence had burned itself into his memory. He had seen a lot, he had heard a lot; he had almost been killed, had failed to kill, had been jaded and hated, fired and reinstated… But among all those events, the moment he had shared with Horatio a few months after he'd started working there had had a deeper impact on his memory than anything else. He remembered every single detail of the day Horatio had said this to him. It had been the first case he'd worked alone. And though his initial suspicion, that the baby, that kid, had been abused by its 'mother' (who later on admitted that she was not the mother, but the nanny) had been wrong, he still had helped the child. He had brought little Bethany back to her real mother, but after he had seen what sort of mother she was, had called Horatio, who had send Child Services over to the family. He had never heard anything from them again. And now, four years later, he still remembered the case. Mainly because of what Horatio had said. Uncaring families are more common then we like to admit… Ryan knew it. He probably knew it better than most of the people around the lab, except for maybe Horatio. Horatio's childhood was sort of an open secret in the lab. Everybody knew a bit, but no one knew the whole truth. Except for Rick Stetler, maybe. And while everybody knew something about Horatio, no one knew anything about Ryan Wolfe….

Ryan Wolfe had been disowned at the age of sixteen. At this precise age he had chosen to become a cop, a CSI. Not a soldier, like his father had wanted him to be. It had taken Ryan a long time to figure out that he didn't want it, but once he had decided to become a CSI, it had taken him only a few minutes to tell his father. The consequences had been terrible: Duke Wolfe had first beaten the crap out of Ryan and then thrown him out. Luckily for Ryan, his uncle and closest friend Ron had taken care of him. And Ryan had fought and made his way to the Miami Dade Crime Lab. He had made his mistakes and screwed up sometimes, but he had never given up. If he had learned one thing in his short but hard life, it was to never give up….