I've had this story on my mind for some time and hopefully it's half as good typed as it is in my mind.

This will contain tons of angst/drama/romance, fair warning for those who have an angst phobia. If you are a nut for this stuff then I hope you enjoy this story.

Chapter 1

Disappointments

Calleigh paced up and down the length of bathroom, wringing her hands as she refused to look at the sink countertop where it lay. She checked her watch for the thousandth time; she had a minute and a half to go. She sighed in frustration as she ran her fingers back over her hair, pushing it out of her face. This waiting was agony; she'd thought that with all the new inventions coming out these days, they would be able to make a pregnancy test that could give you a result in less than three minutes.

Calleigh knew that she didn't have to go through this waiting alone, that she could have always told Eric she was taking yet another test. But she didn't want to take the chance of disappointing him again, besides, she'd be disappointed enough for her and her husband.

Time ticked by slowly, seconds felt like hours and minutes felt like days, the way it always was while she awaited these results. Calleigh's heart was starting to race as time drew nearer. She finally conceded to looking at her watch again, time was finally up. Sighing again, this time in relief, she rushed back over to the sink. She took a deep breath before picking up the white stick.

Please, be positive, she prayed, inwardly. Please, be positive.

She looked at it for less than one second before slamming it against the cold granite and turning away from it. The only thing the test read was a single thin blue line. Negative. Calleigh rolled her lips and blinked back a few tears, staring at the ceiling, as disappointment washed over her. She should have known this would happen, she had only been two days late it wasn't like that called for a rush to the drug store to buy this test, it could merely have just been a coincidence. Calleigh closed her eyes and exhaled sharply through her nose, who was she kidding? She had gotten her hopes up higher than the Eiffel Tower and she knew it. She really thought this time…that it had finally happened.

The again, she'd been saying that for the last two years now. Month after month, it seemed hope came knocking at their door, then it seemed to be shot out from under them just as quickly.

"Cal! You almost ready?" called Eric from down the hall.

Snapping back, Calleigh grabbed her purse from behind the sink and shoved the negative test inside it, she'd dispose of it at work so Eric wouldn't accidentally stumble upon it here. She quickly blinked away the tears and masked her disappointment, something she had become quite familiar with over the recent years. Either on the days she took a pregnancy test to have it come back negative (like today) or the days she got her period when she'd be hoping she'd miss, hiding disappointment was a great skill needed to dodge a load of questions and looks. Like she was trying to do now with the one person she thought she'd never have to hide anything from.

Calleigh had one last look in the mirror, making sure she had hid all evidence of any tears that may of spilled over. Her face was clear and she took a deep breath before calling out to Eric, not completely trusting her voice.

"Coming!" she called back, her voice sounding normal, she must have been better at concealing emotions than she thought; even the emotions hardest to bear alone.

Calleigh drove in her car on the way to work as Eric drove his, grateful for a few extra minutes of alone time as a subject she didn't want to think about crashed through the walls of her brain.

Two years, twenty-four months and month after month came through with an indescribable disappointment. Calleigh had tried everything she could think of, diets rumored to make women more fertile, she exercised regularly, she stayed away from any alcohol, she had sat down to figure out the times she was most likely to conceive, but nothing seemed to work.

Maybe it was time to admit the bitter truth, something was wrong.

No! Calleigh thought, trying to reason with herself. You just haven't been trying that long.

She groaned at herself because she knew that was just a bitter lie.

The truth was Calleigh thought that there was something wrong. Maybe she had some kind of genetic disorder or something, but she tried to focus on the positive. Both she and Eric were young, it'd happen for them evidently…right?

The question was when was it going to happen.

"Twenty-year-old Sam O'Donnell, took a bullet to the chest. I was able to retrieve the ballistics evidence for you," Tom said, handing over the nine-mil bullet, in an evidence bag, to Calleigh.

Ballistics. Yes, Calleigh thought.

There was nothing like a good few minutes in her firearms lab to try and make her forget all the worries harboring over her.

"Thanks, Tom," she said, taking the evidence with a smile before turning to leave the morgue. She was thankful that today she and Eric had to work separate from each other, him at the scene and her at the lab, she wasn't ready to speak to him. He would be a reminder of that morning and mornings like it. She couldn't endure that just yet. Luckily, she now had her beloved firearms to keep her mind busy.

She pulled out the suspected murder weapon to do a few test shots so she would have something to compare the bullet Tom found in the victim to. She put on the safety goggles, filled the magazine and pulled the slide as she prepared to shoot.

Guns had always been simple to Calleigh. To some, they were too complicated, but for Calleigh they had been easier and had come more natural to her than any other skill she had ever learned. She knew this was a huge oxymoron, but she had always found peace with guns. Calleigh knew if the gun was cleaned and put together correctly, that it would work efficiently and fire the bullet. Guns were simple, life was too. Only, life could be cleaned, changed and rearranged as many times as you wanted but it still wouldn't always work out the way you wanted it. When you pulled a trigger on a gun you knew a bullet would come blasting out the barrel, when you pulled a trigger on life you didn't always get what you wanted. Life was simple, but that didn't mean life was easy. Guns were easy; Calleigh wondered why life couldn't work as easily as a gun did.

And with that, she pulled the trigger and a bullet came shooting out. Just like she knew it would. Calleigh fired again, taking out all her anger and disappointment with every squeeze of the trigger. She stopped when she knew all the bullets had been fired and lowered the gun. She put the gun on the table, pulled off the safety goggles and placed them next to the gun. Calleigh continued to stare at the table.

Calleigh realized what was happening, she was reaching her breaking point. How much more disappointment was she able to take? How many more times could she handle looking at a blue line? How many more times would she have to wake up to cramps, which told her there was no point in taking a test? How much longer were they going to try until they just gave up?

Calleigh bit her lip as she tried to control her emotions; eyes never leaving the table.

She then felt a hand, his hand, slide across the small of her back. She gathered herself up, quickly, as she remembered that Eric didn't know about the negative pregnancy test that was now sitting at the bottom of the trashcan in the lobby.

"Hi," she looked up at him, smiling the best she could.

"Hey, you all right?" he asked, he hadn't missed the haunted look in her eye's.

"Yeah," she said, lightheartedly. "I've just got bullet's coming in by the bucket load and I just needed to…pause a second. Did you guy's get anything else at the scene?" she asked, subtly changing the subject.

"Nothing, we searched the entire scene and couldn't get as much as a print…so all we've got is this gun," Eric sighed.

"Well," Calleigh said, picking up a pair of pliers and walking over to the target. "Let see if that gun is the murder weapon, run the bullets through IBIS and, hopefully, we'll get lucky," she said with her false smile as she yanked out the test-fired bullets.

Eric had known Calleigh long enough to know when she was truly okay and when she was just putting on a mask. From the anguished look she had when he walked in to the now forced cheer she was projecting, he knew she was concealing something…something she didn't even want to tell him. Eric could venture a guess on what it was and he knew he'd probably be right.

It was the third week of the month, the one time of the month she always grew especially anxious about, and now she was putting up this brave front that wasn't there for the past two days. If anything, the last two days she seemed to be nothing but smiles with a hint of joy and excitement in her dark green eyes. Now it was like suddenly that light had been unplugged within the course of twelve hours. That could only mean one thing, he had seen Calleigh like this before, countless times at around this time of the month. It meant they hadn't succeeded…yet again.

Eric became slightly disappointed as Calleigh's behavior made the truth known. He and Calleigh had both been hoping to have kids ever since they got married almost five years ago. At first, they didn't try too hard and thought it would just happen naturally. But after two and a half years and Calleigh still wasn't pregnant they decided to try…really try.

Yet they were still in the same position they had been then…childless.

Eric was disappointed, but he knew his disappointment was nothing compared to emotions of that of the woman who he had pledged his life and love to until death separated them. Calleigh sat comparing the two bullets under the microscope, acting like nothing was wrong, as Eric watched. He wanted to just take her in his arms and talk to her, but he knew this wasn't the time or place.

This also wasn't the right time for his phone to ring, but it did. He sighed and glanced at Calleigh one last time before answering his phone.

"Delko?" he addressed himself to the person on the other line.

Calleigh rotated one of the bullets under the lens of the microscope to see if any of the striations matched the bullet pulled from the vic as Eric talked to someone on the phone about the case.

"Okay, I'll be right down," Eric said, hanging up before speaking to Calleigh. He knew Calleigh wouldn't want him to know about the revelation he just made, here of all places especially not so, so he decided he'd delay the discussion for later at home. So, he simply acted like he was none the wiser. "Wolfe said found something interesting at the crime scene, he wants me to come check it out."

"Okay, I'll call you when I get these results," she said, glancing up from the microscope for a second to speak to him before looking back down.

Eric couldn't just leave her like this without some words of assurance or something. He felt the need to help her get through the rest of the day in someway, shape or form without telling her what he had just discovered.

He walked over to her at the exam table.

"Hey," he whispered, softly as he placed one of his hands on the side of her face, caressing her cheek with his thumb. He had changed his voice to a more personal level than it had been a few seconds ago when they'd been discussing work.

She turned to look up at him, his face inches from hers. He leaned down and gently pressed his lips to hers, she returned his kiss. She needed this, a distraction from all that was wrong for a mere few moments. She didn't question why he did this; for once, she didn't want there to be questions and answers or why's and ifs. She just wanted things to be there without even putting in an effort.

Knowing they couldn't do this for too long, he gently leaned away from her, the kiss breaking.

"I love you," he said to her, softly.

Calleigh could feel emotions building up inside her that just wanted her to hold onto Eric and never let go, but she knew that wasn't an option, so she continued to act like nothing was slowly eating her alive.

"I love you, too," she whispered back, but her voice cracked. Eric didn't seem to notice, or so she thought, but he saw the sadness in her eyes that she couldn't hide by putting up cheerful dialogue or fixed smiles.

"I'll see you later," Eric said, knowing that he had to go because even though at times it seemed like their world stopped spinning, they knew the outside world wasn't going to stop and wait for them to catch up.

"See you later," Calleigh echoed.

And with that Eric walked out the door.

No matter what she did the rest of the day, whether it was run trace, lift a fingerprint or drive home, it had all been mechanical. Her mind wouldn't one hundred percent move to another subject other than the depressing one she'd carried all day. This was all just so unfair. Everything that seemed so simple for everyone else seemed so much harder to get for her and Eric. Like for her to admit that she actually had fallen in love with Eric, something most women can admit so freely. For her it was difficult to let someone in on such a personal level, due to the fear of getting hurt like she had in the past. Then with the laws and regulations from IAB about officer fraternization, they feared that they could never move beyond the step of hiding. But maybe something good did come from the Russian shoot out a few years ago; it revealed Eric and Calleigh's relationship and they didn't lose their jobs because of it, Calleigh could of swore they had a future in hand. Then Eric left and things between her and him crumbled, but that was only a short amount of time, he eventually returned to CSI and they had been able to work things out. Once married and settled down, Calleigh thought it would be an easy road, that maybe God was giving them a break. Now, though, that they wanted to have kids, they had been thrown another curveball and they were striking out.

Eric walked into the kitchen as the sun started to sink below the horizon line to see Calleigh with her arms resting on the countertop as she watched the coffee brew in the pot, but Eric could see her mind was elsewhere.

Eric knew he had to approach the subject he couldn't bring up earlier, she shouldn't have to go through this alone. He came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her into his chest. She began to lean on him instead of the edge of the counter, arms folded in front of her chest. Eric gently put his lips to the crook of her neck.

"Are you okay?" Eric asked, gradually opening up the floodgates.

Calleigh nodded.

"Yeah, I'm just tired," Calleigh replied, trying to maintain her strength so he didn't have to hear the truth.

"Cal," Eric said, gently, as he tried to coax the truth out of her. "What's going on?"

Damn, Calleigh thought, maybe she wasn't getting better with the hiding of her emotions.

"Nothing," Calleigh lied, but her voice rose an octave.

Eric slid one of his arms from around her waist and up her back until curved over her shoulder and gently ran his hand up and down her forearm in a soothing motion. Calleigh was slowly feeling herself come undone under his touch.

But she couldn't get the words out, luckily she didn't have to.

"You took another test, didn't you?" he assumed in a comforting voice, hand still rubbing her arm.

Calleigh let out a shuddering breath.

"Am I that obvious?" she asked.

"No…I just know you," Eric reassured her.

Calleigh let her head drop into her hand for a moment. This wasn't fair on him; he shouldn't have to deal another failure and watching her fall a part. Calleigh wasn't normally like this, she was usually so strong and things didn't normally affect her too much, this was probably the only exception.

She took a deep breath before and looking back out the window, folding her arms back over her chest as she did so.

"It came out negative," she admitted, she knew he'd already figured that, but she said it aloud anyway.

Eric could hear the heaviness in her voice as the words escaped her lips. He pulled her closer.

"Why didn't you say anything?" Eric asked.

Calleigh's shoulders stiffened, they were going way too deep into this conversation and it was making it hard to keep the tears at bay.

"I just didn't want you to get your hopes up and for you to end up disappointed, like-," her voice broke on the last bit, knowing that once again she had deprived both of them of the family they wanted to have.

Eric knew what she would have said if she hadn't stopped.

"You got your hopes pretty high, didn't you," this wasn't a question, but a simple fact that Calleigh couldn't deny.

Calleigh closed her eyes and nodded.

"I was late, I've been more tired than usual lately…" Calleigh started to list before shaking her head and opened her eyes. "I just thought that it finally happened."

Eric gave her arm a gentle, reassuring, squeeze.

"Someday, it will," Eric promised her.

Calleigh honestly wanted to believe him, but that was what he always said. He would always say "There's still time," "We'll figure something out," or "We are going to be alright." Basically, a series of one-liners that used to give her some ray of light at the end of the day, but they were recently starting to sound more and more like false hope.

Calleigh looked at the floor.

"What if it doesn't?"

Eric didn't know whether this question was rhetorical or not, but he answered her anyway. He put his lips to the top of his wife's head and whispered into her hair.

"It will."

Calleigh watched as the rest of golden orb, which was sun, sink below the surface of the Earth. Another day had ended, and another one-liner refused to offer her comfort.