Chapter 1:
Scum Goes Down
Following the evidence, Horatio and his team go to arrest the suspect of a drug-related homicide and bombing that rocked a very peaceful neighborhood in Miami that took place earlier that day.
Facial recognition identified him as Dylan Morgan, who was a well -known drug dealer and an all-around scumbag.
As the police officers approached the suspect, he drew his Desert Eagle chambered in 50 AE and fired it at the coming officers. In an apparent attempt at officer assisted suicide. Horatio was not going to go along with that, so he shot the suspect with his Sig Sauer P-229 9 millimeter into the suspect's right shoulder. Unfortunately for the suspect, Horatio doesn't use deadly force unless necessary, and that was not one of those instances.
The suspect was arrested without any further incidents on a laundry list of charges including; drug possession, drug dealing, one count of murder in the first degree, two counts of murder in the second degree, three counts of attempted murder, ten counts of attempted murder of law enforcement officers in the commission of doing their jobs, and the final count was suspected drug manufacturing.
Horatio and Eric took the suspect into a police crime lab interrogation room to get a confession from the suspect. The two officers found getting it from him was much easier than they were used to.
Horatio only needed to place an empty drug baggie and a photo of the innocent neighbors that had been killed on the table and tell the suspect the evidence that the team had against him. After Horatio put the empty drug baggie and the photo of the victims on the table in the interrogation room, he slowly backed up to lean against the wall of the room, allowing Eric to continue with the interview and get the confession from Dylan.
Being thorough investigators Horatio and his CSI team made sure that they had solid and very incontrovertible evidence that the person they had just arrested was the guilty party.
The crime lab had found the original intended victim's fingerprints and the suspect's DNA on the inside of the baggie that was found inside the suspect's pocket. The suspect's DNA was also found on the inside of the baggie. When he fired his gun at the officers, he gave them even more evidence against him.
Calleigh was able to match his weapon to the gun that put two bullets in the victim's head.
When the officers searched the suspect, they found a Beretta 21A Bobcat hidden in a secret pocket of his jacket. The Bobcat is a compact .22LR pistol. Calleigh was able to link the suspect's gun to the bullets they Tom had pulled out of the victim's kneecaps.
No self-respecting drug dealer would be caught dead with a .22 in his possession. Drug dealers and gang members think of .22LR's a girl's guns. You'd have to shoot someone in the head at point-blank range to do any damage.
Finally, Eric and Horatio lied and said that the chemical composition of the drug inside the baggie was identical to the chemical make-up of the drugs found at the scene of the crime. The truth was that the team had not gotten the test results back for the drugs chemical composition yet. They did, however, given the rest of the evidence expect the drugs would match.
When Dylan heard the evidence against him, he confessed to it all. To secure a complete and total confession, Horatio offered him leniency on the murder of the two innocent neighbors who were killed when he blew up the drug lab.
Dylan had no idea that the neighbor and her little girl were home when he blew up the house that he was using as a drug lab. Blowing up the lab was only supposed to destroy the body and maybe kill some police officers, but he did not intend to kill his neighbor and her daughter. He liked them since the two of them were very nice to him.
When Dylan had confessed, Eric placed a blank notepad for him to write the confession down and for Dylan to sign it. When he had written and signed his confession, Dylan was led out of the room in handcuffs by the arresting officer and Sergeant Frank Tripp, the team's Homicide Detective.
Eric walks Tripp, the arresting officer, and the suspect to the door of the interrogation room, closing the door behind them.
Eric whispered something to Tripp, "Make sure that the suspect is very uncomfortable and miserable since he killed a child." To which Tripp nodded in understanding.
Chapter 2: Horatio Falls
Before he has a chance to turn around, Eric had heard the sound of something hitting the tile. H's pair of sunglasses slide across the floor and in between Eric's legs to rest at his feet. When he looks down at what had just hit his feet, he instantly recognizes what it was. Eric twisted his body around to face H, his blood freezes. There right in front of him, Horatio was face down and convulsing on the floor.
Eric rushes over to be by H's side as he skids to a stop. He gently turned H over to his back. Horatio is the only family Eric had left since Horatio married Eric's sister Marisol. She was killed by a drug dealer right after she married Horatio.
By the time Eric had gotten to H's side, the convulsions had stopped. He noticed that Horatio had some slight foaming around the mouth, and it was on the floor where H's face was lying.
That foam was a telltale sign of overdosing, but overdosing on what? H must have accidentally been exposed to some drug from the outside of that baggy. That was the only thing that could have caused the overdose since it was the last thing that H had touched. That was not what was important right now.
What was important was saving H's life. Horatio had saved Eric's life more times then he would care to admit. Eric felt that he owed H more than he could ever repay.
Reaching over Horatio's chest, Eric places his index and middle fingers over where H's Carotid Artery would be. Eric was searching for a pulse. He was able to breathe a sigh of relief when he feels a faint heartbeat.
Horatio was still fighting to stay in the land of the living. Eric begged his brother in law to keep fighting. He quickly realized how easy it must be for H to give up and be with Eric's sister Marisol.
"Please, H, I'm not ready to do this on my own. I know how much you want to be with Marisol, but please stay with me. I can't do this on my own". Eric could be heard begging Horatio.
Eric's relief was very short-lived as he rechecks his boss to get H's heart rate, and Eric finds no pulse. When he loses H's pulse, Eric screams for a medic.
Eric cried out for help, all while starting to do chest compressions on his boss, trying to restart Horatio's heart manually. The walls of the interview room were soundproof, the blinds were closed, and the door was shut. Therefore no one saw a struggle in the room nor heard Eric screaming for help.
Eric was working on his brother alone a few minutes until Tripp, by chance walks back into the interrogation room. Tripp came in to check on what his friends were doing after walking the suspect and arresting officer down and into central booking.
Tripp just stood there staring blankly at Eric leaning over Horatio doing CPR. Eric's ongoing screams eventually snap Tripp back to the reality of Horatio being in real trouble.
Eric's pleading, "Tripp… Help, please get me a medic, Horatio's heart stopped. Just please get them here now."
Hearing the real fear in Eric's voice, Tripp reaches over with his right hand to grab his police radio on his left front shoulder. Tripp had to make that one radio call that no officer ever wants to make or hear over the police radio.
"This is Sergeant Frank Tripp. I have a 10 00 at the crime lab. I repeat a 10 00 at the crime lab. Officer down and requesting medics. Lieutenant Horatio Caine is OD'ing." A 10 00 is the police ten code for police officer down all units respond.
Horatio had been a Sergeant with the Miami-Dade Police Department before accepting a promotion and command of the newly formed Crime Scene Investigation Unit. Tripp didn't think that he was overdoing the call since, as far as he was concerned, once a police officer, you will always be a police officer.
For a few minutes, Tripp was performing mouth to mouth, all while Eric did chest compressions. By that time, Horatio had stopped breathing right after his heart stopped. The two officers were the only thing that was keeping Horatio in the land of the living.
The two of them weren't willing to give up on H. They were willing to and were going to fight for their friend's life with everything that they had. The two of them continued until the medics got to the crime lab. Not only did the medics get to the crime lab but the entire MDPD force.
When the paramedics got to the scene, they saw a very shocking picture. They could see and hear two grown police officers begging another officer to live.
The medics needed to push the attending officers away from their friend, which was a very hard task to do. They need to have some room to try to restart Horatio's heart.
Stopping the mouth to mouth and stepping back, Frank could hear Eric pleading with Horatio and with God. "Oh… God no… this can't really be happening. Not H... Not this way... H, come on fight, stay with me."
Frank just stood there, listening to Eric pleading and begging for Horatio to live. He would never admit it, but Frank loved Horatio like a brother since they have worked together since 1996. That would have been almost twenty-five years since they had met at the precinct.
Everyone that was there at the scene was getting very desperate to get H's heart beating and him breathing on his own. Eric was struggling to stay with H, but the medics have to attempt at least to get a pulse before they get Horatio into the ambulance. As the medics wheel Horatio into the ambulance, Eric slides inside with his brother.
The paramedics don't have a whole lot at their disposal when it comes to restarting a heart. They do not have access to the drugs that a hospital will use to get a heart beating on its own again.
Charging the defibrillator to two hundred joules, they shock Horatio's heart. After H's body jerked with the shock running through his body, the medics recheck his heart for a pulse.
Feeling nothing, they increase the joules to two hundred fifty and try again to get a pulse.
"Lieutenant Caine stay with us," the paramedics try to talk to him.
"His name is Horatio," Eric yells at them. He didn't mean to yell. He was just very scared for his brother.
Shocking his heart at three hundred joules, they continue to get no response. Again they increase the joules to three hundred fifty and try again to restart H's heart. The paramedics were finally able to get H's heart beating again finally when they crank up the joules to three hundred sixty joules and shock Horatio's heart twice.
The only thing that the paramedics could do now was to keep, Horatio alive until they get to the hospital. H was back, but his pulse was so weak it was barely registering on the heart monitor.
When Tripp closed the ambulance door, he quickly turns around and runs back inside the precinct. Racing down to central booking, he grabs the drug dealer by the collar of his shirt.
"What drug could have gotten on the outside of that drug baggy. If my friend dies, I swear I'll kill you."
The drug dealer whispered his response, "It was Fentanyl. The drug that was inside was Heroin that was cut with Fentanyl. Some Fentanyl must have gotten on the outside of the baggie."
Fentanyl is fifty times more potent than Heroin and eighty to one hundred times stronger than Morphine.
Chapter 3: Saving a Hero
As the ambulance finally pulls up and into the emergency bay, they were met by a very familiar face to Eric and Horatio. Alexx Woods, who was the team's old Medical Examiner but she had left the M.E field to spend time with the living. Eric trusted Alexx implicitly, and he knew that his boss felt the same way. So when Alexx stopped him from going into the trauma room, Eric obeyed without saying a word.
From there, Eric stood and watched what was happening. He was standing there watching what was going on in the emergency room. The only window inside was very tiny.
He eventually walks into the waiting room and paces back and forth the entire length of the waiting room. Eric was driving the nurses crazy with his unending and anxious pacing. It took ten minutes of his non-stop pacing for the rest of the team to get to the hospital.
When Eric saw Calleigh, Ryan, Natalia, and Walter walking through the revolving door of the hospital, he felt a huge wave of relief. He was no longer alone on one of the worst days of his life.
"What happened? How is he? I just heard that Horatio was in trouble after he was exposed to something" Calleigh begs Eric for more information.
"I don't know how he is. H was barely alive when we got here. He overdosed on something, but we don't know what it was. Tripp was going to find out what kind of drug could have gotten on the outside of that empty drug baggie. You know the one that we found on the suspect", Eric informs his girlfriend and Co-worker.
"I have not heard from Tripp what the drug was. I turned my back to H for just a few seconds when I walked Tripp, the arresting officer, and the suspect to the door. When I eventually turn around, H was face down and convulsing on the floor. His heart was still beating, but I lost his pulse when I rechecked him to get his heart rate. He had stopped breathing shortly after I lost his pulse."
"The paramedics were able to get him breathing on his own, and they were also able to restart his heart but only just barely," Eric was finally finished explaining what happened to Calleigh.
Alexx was still working on her friend in the trauma room, but the unknown drug had done a lot of massive damage to his respiratory and circulatory systems. So much damage that shortly after Horatio had been wheeled into the trauma room, he went into cardiac arrest again.
Alexx and her team were trying everything they had to get Horatio's heart beating again, but nothing was working.
Charging the defibrillator to two hundred fifty joules, they shock his heart and check for a heartbeat. The heart monitor's loud continuous beep was just a reminder that Horatio's heart was flatlining.
They increased the power to three hundred joules and tried again to restart his heart. The long high pitched monotone beep of the monitor just proved that it did not work.
Alexx and her team give Horatio doses of Epinephrine and Atropine on two separate attempts to jump-start his heart chemically.
Alexx tried first injecting the Epinephrine into the I.V in his hand, but they got nothing in regards to a response.
The next drug that they try on him was Atropine, but that did not work either. Alexx and her team were very quickly running out of options.
Alexx cranks the defibrillator to three hundred fifty joules and shocks his heart multiple times. She was getting desperate to get her best friend's heart beating again, but nothing was working in the slightest.
The last option to get Horatio's heart beating again was intra-cardiac adrenaline. When she stabbed Horatio's heart with this drug, he sat bolt upright, and his heart raced. No sooner than his head hits the bed again, his heart stopped for one final time. The emergency staff had been trying to get his heart beating for close to an hour. Alexx was forced to make the most difficult call of her life. She had to call TOD on her best friend.
When asked if she was going to call it, Alexx responded with a silent nod and sighed before she says, "Time of Death 5:37 p.m." Alexx says to a room of silent medical staff. It was the one call that none of them wanted to hear or make.
Neither Alexx or the rest of the trauma team ever wanted to be forced to call Time Of Death on a Law Enforcement Officer, let alone a man like Horatio whom the whole hospital knew and loved.
Chapter 4: He's Gone...
Now she had to go into the waiting room and tell his team that Horatio had died. She had lost her best friend. Alexx had known Horatio for a very very long time. Her two children thought of Horatio as their uncle. He would come over for dinner with her family all of the time.
Tripp was still trying to call the hospital to let them know what the drug was. He just had to get through to someone, so they would be able to counteract it. No one was answering the phone calls, though.
When he finally can talk to someone, Tripp learns that H had died. They were not able to get to the hospital in time and that Horatio had died from an accidental overdose.
When Alexx finally walks herself into the room where his team of investigators was waiting, everyone jumped to their feet. They were all beyond anxious for any news about their boss and brother.
"He's gonna be fine, right? Please tell us he's okay, Alexx", Calleigh pleads.
When Calleigh looks up and sees the look on Alexx's face, she just knew that something was horribly wrong.
"I'm so sorry, baby, but I couldn't save him. He's dead, Horatio is gone" Alexx barely manages the words out before breaking down crying.
Ryan quickly rushes over to comfort the mother figure of Alexx. He knew how much Horatio meant to Alexx, so he knew how much she was hurting at this time.
When Ryan first joined the team, Alexx didn't want a new team member, but that quickly turned around. Alexx had become quite fond of Ryan over the years.
Calleigh screams, "Oh, God, no… This can't be happening," as she slowly falls to her knees.
Eric jumps towards his girlfriend to catch her before she hit the ground.
"No… Horatio can't be dead. Not like this…Not from some damn accidental drug overdose," Ryan says what the remainder of the team was thinking.
However, Horatio had been killed by a random accidental drug overdose, and that fact could not be denied. Within the next half hour, Alexx would have Horatio moved to the Morgue.
She couldn't leave her best friend there on some table for the world to see. Alexx did allow his team/ family to say their final goodbyes to their boss, friend, and brother. Horatio didn't have any family by blood, just his family by choice.
Ryan was the first to do it. He was the first team member that Horatio hand-picked since Tim Speedle's death. Ryan has OCD and thought that he blew it when Horatio checked his gun.
Horatio was obsessed with gun maintenance since Speed was killed when he didn't clean his weapon.
"Oh man, I was never able to say this, but thanks for picking me for your team." Ryan was finally able to say those words to his boss.
"I really want to tell you just how glad I am that you gave me a second chance after I screwed up by letting that suspected killer off. I'm not making excuses, but I owed a bookie money. You gave me a second chance, and I never let you down."
Calleigh was the next to say goodbye. She really thought of Horatio as a second father. "I don't know if I can keep doing this, first Speed, then John and Jessie now you. I can't lose another friend or family member to the job", she told her boss. Leaning over him, she gently kissed his forehead. Calleigh then ran out of the room with her face in her hands as she just sobbed and sobbed.
Eric had the hardest time saying goodbye. H was really the only reason he had become a cop. Horatio told Eric in 1997 to get his badge then find him. H would give him a job with his team.
"I never believed anyone else when they said that they would be there, but I trusted you. You never let me down, but I feel like I failed you when you needed me most. I'm so sorry, brother, that I wasn't able to save you."
He whispered to H before he pulled up the white sheet over his brother. He quickly left the room before he had a chance to break down crying.
When Frank heard of Horatio's death, he used his police radio to tell the other officers on the force, "Lieutenant Horatio Caine was killed when he was exposed to Fentanyl at a drug dealer's home. Let's make sure the dealer is charged with the felony murder of a law enforcement officer in the process of doing his job. Hopefully, the DA will ask for death by lethal injection."
This call also ended up telling the news outlets since the media often listen to the police radio to get their news stories. Horatio had been admired and well-liked by police, media, and by the entire community for that matter.
Chapter 5: ... Or Is He
Frank Tripp was not able to get to the hospital in time. If he wanted to see for himself that Horatio was dead. He had to go to the Morgue alone. He was too busy threatening the drug dealer. Tripp had actually hit the drug dealer several times before another cop needed to pull him off of the suspect.
When the dealer said that Tripp had hit him, all the police said, "We didn't see anything."
According to the law, the suspect needed a witness to testify that they saw the assault happen, and since none of the officers were on the suspect's side, he would not get any charges filed against Tripp.
When Tripp was finally able to leave the station, he was bombarded with questions from the media about what had happened to Lieutenant Caine. To say he was pissed would be the understatement of the century.
"Is it true that Lieutenant Horatio Caine died from an overdose of Fentanyl?" Or "Is it true that Lieutenant Horatio Caine was exposed to a controlled substance?" Were just a few of the questions that members of the media threw at Tripp as he left MDPD.
He could only say one thing, and that was "No comment," as he gets into his squad car.
As soon as the car door was shut, Frank said what he really wanted to say. As he buckled his seatbelt, he says under his breath, "I just lost a good friend now leave me alone, you hyena's."
On the way to the Morgue, Tripp had to make the hardest phone call of his life. No Police Officer could ever get used to making death notifications. This one was particularly painful for Tripp to make since he had known Horatio since they were both beat cops in 1996.
He needed to call Horatio's son Kyle to tell him that the father he never really got to know had died. From a random drug overdose of all things. Pulling into the morgue's parking lot, he finally gets through to the kids Commanding Officer in Afghanistan. Tripp was not able to make himself say the words, so he has the kids CO do that unpleasant job.
At the army base in Afghanistan, Kyle was called in to speak with his Commanding Officer.
"We just got some bad news from home, son. Your father died from an accidental drug overdose when he went to arrest a local drug dealer. I'm so sorry, son, but you are on the next helo back to the states."
When Kyle heard that Horatio had died, he was understandably devastated. His father only came into his life fairly recently. Horatio never even knew that he had a son.
When Tripp pulled back the white sheet, he sees the telltale red hair of his old friend. It was at this time, Dr. Tom Loman, the teams ME walks in.
Tripp had noticed something very odd and asked Dr. Loman, "Do you cry when you're dead."
"No, why?" Tom says to Tripp, quickly walking up to the table to see what the officer was talking about.
There on the corner of his left eye was a single tear. Quickly Tom grabs his stethoscope and searches for a pulse. When he checks Horatio's Carotid Artery for a pulse, he feels what he thinks is a flutter.
"Do you feel that?" he asks Tripp to feel for himself if only to verify what Tom thought that he had felt. He placed Tripp's index and middle fingers over Horatio's Carotid Artery.
"Yes, I think I do. Does that mean what I think it does," Tripp asks Tom?
At this moment, Horatio opens his eyes and gasps for air. He blinks for a few moments. He locks eyes with Tripp. His ocean blue eyes meet Tripp's eyes. When Horatio opened his eyes, it caused both Tom and Tripp to jump back.
Horatio doesn't say anything as he lays there, blinking at his two friends. Seeing their friend was back, Tripp exclaims, "My God, H, you're alive."
Horatio doesn't stay awake very long. After a few minutes, he quietly closes his eyes as if he fell asleep. Worriedly Tripp asks Tom, "Is H still alive?" when H closed his eyes. Tom reassured him that their friend was still very much alive since Horatio lost consciousness shortly afterward.
Slipping into a coma, Horatio was back, but would he ever wake up. He was in a coma, but he was easily breathing on his own and had a strong pulse, so Tom didn't feel the need to intubate him.
Now Frank had a tough determination to make. Does he call the boy back and say never mind, or should he just let Kyle see for himself when he gets to Miami? Frank decided on the latter course of action. He didn't want to get Kyle's hopes up since Horatio could really die before Kyle gets back.
Tripp gathers Horatio up in his arms. He placed his friend's body in the back of his squad car. After which, Tom slides inside the back seat to hold Horatio's head in his lap. Tom wanted to be able to monitor Horatio's heart rate.
Tripp jumps into the driver's seat and turns on the sirens. Tripp needed to call Alexx and tell her what happened as he races the three of them to the hospital.
He needs Alexx to be at the ambulance bay to make sure that H stays with them this time. While Tripp was calling Alexx, Tom was calling the team.
He had to get the team to the hospital without telling them why. He didn't want to give them any false hope. H's entire team was still at the hospital. They were having an exceedingly hard time processing Horatio's death.
Tom then told the team to stay right where they were since there was some new information with Horatio's case. When Tripp and Tom pull up to the ambulance bay at the hospital, Alexx was waiting with a gurney.
Eric had seen Alexx leave and decided to follow her. He sees Tripp's squad car and had seen Tom lay someone on a stretcher in front of Alexx. Eric could still not see who it was. Alexx finally steps to the side just half a step. He then and only then can see a very familiar flash of red hair.
"What the hell is going on," Eric yells over the noise of the emergency trauma bay.
"He woke up in the Morgue, he's alive, but he lost consciousness right after. We didn't want to give false hope to any of you since Horatio had been without oxygen for so long he might not ever wake up. Even if he does, he might not ever be the way he was before the overdose." Alexx tells him.
Eric was a little angry at Alexx for not telling him, but he understood why she had done what she had done.
Immediately he had to decide if he was going to tell the rest of the team. Fortunately, for him, he didn't have time to decide. Calleigh, Natalia, Walter, and Ryan were right behind him. They all had seen what he had seen. Calleigh was crying all over again. Her boss was back but for how long.
Chapter 6: A Hero's Coma
Kyle arrives the next day and hears the story about his father being alive when Tripp showed up at the airport to take Kyle to the hospital.
When he heard that his father was alive, Kyle was thrilled but understandably worried. He was afraid for his father's life. Horatio had saved Kyle's life on more one occasion.
Kyle only found out that Horatio was his father when Horatio saved Kyle's life. Kyle was thrown into the sewer tunnels below the prison. He was in jail for kidnapping a woman.
Horatio had tried to protect Kyle since he found out the Kyle was his son. He loved his dad and understood why Horatio was not a part of his life until that time. He knew that if Horatio had known that he had a son, Kyle would have never been in the foster care system.
Horatio's coma lasted for almost two months. Eric and Kyle never left H's side, but the others took turns staying with Eric and Kyle, so they weren't alone. Even Alexx, Tripp, and Tom had spent time with Eric, Kyle, and Horatio. As Eric was watching his boss sleep, he had a flashback to the last case the team was working on. The one that ended with Horatio fighting for his life.
-FLASHBACK-
Horatio and his team had been called by their homicide detective Frank Tripp to investigate a drug-related murder.
To say it was a bloody scene would be a gross understatement.
The victim was a Hispanic male in his mid-twenties, who weighed in at 196 pounds. The victim was found lying face down in a pool of his own blood, sustaining multiple gunshot wounds to both shoulders and the gut by a small-caliber handgun. The victim's kneecaps were shot out by a small-caliber gun so he couldn't escape.
Both the teams Medical Examiner Dr. Tom Loman and Officer Calleigh Duquesne, the team's firearms expert, thought that it was probably a .22 of some type.
Those gunshot wounds weren't the wound that killed the victim. He had been executed by two shots to the back of the head with a 50 AE fired from a Desert Eagle.
"This is definitely first-degree murder seeing that he was tortured before execution," Horatio casually told Frank at the scene.
The house was obviously a methamphetamine lab since all the right chemicals and equipment that would be needed for the production of the drug was present and accounted for. Horatio got the feeling that the victim was the meth cook.
Horatio had noticed that the room did smell a little odd since he had a clear odor of Acetone.
When the ME and his assistants had started to move the body, the whole group started to hear a loud and continuous clicking, like an egg timer. Horatio being the team's explosives and arson expert, knew what it was.
"Everyone out of here, there's a bomb," he yells to his team and the other officers and personnel that were at the scene.
He managed to get everyone out of the house and across the street right as the massive explosion occurred.
The concussive force of the blast was powerful enough to blow out the windows of the house directly behind the victim's home as well as the windows of the neighboring houses on both sides of the rear house. The force also had blown out the windows from the houses across the street from the drug lab.
The explosive force took out the victim's whole entire house and parts of the houses on either side of it. What started as a small crime scene was now five times larger.
Horatio wanted to make sure the place was clear of any secondary explosives, so he had Tripp call for a bomb-sniffing dog to clear the place.
"Hey, Frank, can you get a bomb-sniffing canine over here to clear the place before we all go in again," he asks Tripp.
Tripp knew the perfect officer to call. This officer was known all across Miami-Dade county. Calling the commander one precinct over to ask a favor. "Can you do me a favor and send your bomb dog over here?"
That was a favor that the CO couldn't refuse. The police officer and her canine arrived faster than the team was expecting.
Getting out of the car, the red-haired female officer and her canine cleared the drug lab area faster then the team had ever seen. Horatio was clearly able to hear the canine officer talking to Tripp. "If you ever need us again, please call us directly," as she hands Tripp her card.
Before she left the crime scene, Horatio could not help be think to himself, "I've never seen a police canine those colors before. Come to think of it I have never seen any dog those colors. The canine had a very distinctive blue and brown spotted coat pattern.
While the team looked for the explosive devices "brains," Horatio came across the remains of the neighbors on the left side of the house.
The neighbor's seven-year-old daughter and her single mother were killed in the explosion. Both of the victims were found together lying in what was left of the girl's bed. The one crime that Horatio had always found unforgivable was intentionally harming a child.
The mother and daughter had to be identified by dental records since their bodies were burned beyond recognition. Phoebe Raye and her daughter Taylor Raye were lying in Taylor's bed since the child was sick with the flu when their neighbor blew up his house. They were innocent victims who were just at the wrong place at the wrong time.
While at the scene, Eric and Calleigh were sifting through debris when Calleigh stopped in her tracks.
"Did you hear that?" she asked Eric.
Following the noise, she and Eric find a tiny injured Chihuahua in the neighbor's house. The dog's collar id' ed her as Pippen, only weighing four and a half pounds. They found her in the neighbor's house under the master bed. They were the neighbors that had been killed when the suspect blew up the drug house.
When the team got to the backyard of the same house, Ryan finds another dog that managed to survive the explosion. The second dog was a young female chocolate lab. The lab was still swimming in the pool. Even without touching the dog, he could clearly see that the dog was named Sam since it was beautifully scrawled across the tan hand-tooled leather collar.
The only thing that Calleigh could think about was how the hell did the two dogs survive. Horatio told her that the Chihuahuas size is probably one of the reasons why she survived. The other reason that the Chihuahua survived was probably the fact that she was on the opposite side of the house.
The child and mother were in the little girl's bedroom that was closest to the blast, and Calleigh found the Chihuahua in the master bedroom at the other side of the house. The entire house did not explode, but rather fifty feet from the explosive was the blast radius.
Everything within fifty feet was totally and completely obliterated. The concussive force of the explosion went out an additional fifty feet. The Chihuahua was injured by debris. That was thrown from the explosive power and pushed with the concussive force through the rest of the house.
Ryan was the one to check the Labrador for injuries and trace evidence of the explosion. It was at this time that Ryan noticed a go-pro type of camera attached to the dog's collar. Ryan was very curious about what the camera was doing on the dog's collar, so he rushed it back to the AV analyst Dave Benton to check out. What Benton saw was nothing short of incredible.
He saw the little girl attach the camera with her mom's help. She then sends the dog out to the pool with the command, "go swim." The dog quietly obeyed.
When the dog was out by the pool, the girl tells her to pick up the diving ring on the side of the pool with the command, "get it." Again the dog did as she was told.
The next three commands were what was incredible. The child then tells the dog to "go out," labs being obedient dogs went out to the edge of the diving board. Drop it, the girl said. The dog dropped it down into the pool. The last thing that the girl said was, "go get it." The dog then jumped into the pool with a huge splash. Diving down to the depth of the pool, the dog swam. As the dog was coming up, the camera caught a flash of red light.
Benton could only assume that the flash was the explosion. When the dog reached the surface, debris was still falling from the blast. When Benton showed Ryan, even Ryan was surprised by what he saw.
The team was able to gather all the pieces of the explosive device. Testing revealed that the explosive used was TATP or TriAcetone TriPeroxide.
Explosives people affectionately refer to the explosive TATP as "mother of satan" due to its volatility and the ease of making it. I mean, a sneeze could set it off, and you can get the supplies at a hardware and drug store. Bombers usually end up blowing themselves up long before they have the chance to place the bomb.
The TATP bomb created a massive fireball with a fifty-foot radius. Despite Horatio getting his team about sixty feet from the house, they still were knocked down by the concussive force of the explosion. He assumed that the bomb was made of C-4, which has a smaller explosive and concussive effect than TATP. Most scanners can't detect TATP since most scanners are not programmed to detect Acetone based explosives but rather a Nitrogen or Ammonia-based explosive.
When Tom's team moved the body, it triggered a 2-minute egg timer. Horatio heard the egg timer clicking away and just knew in his gut that it was a bomb. He barely managed to get his team and Loman's team out of the house, and out of what he thought was the blast radius. Horatio calculated wrong about the concussive force radius, which caused the team to be knocked off their feet.
While at the Morgue, Dr. Loman was able to identify the first victim as one Sean Vasquez through dental records. Loman removed the bullets from the first victim.
With bullets and casings inside evidence bags, Calleigh headed straight to ballistics to find out what type of gun fired the bullets and therefore find the shooter.
When Calleigh was not able to link the bullet or casings to a known gun, she checked for DNA or fingerprints from the bullets in the victim and on casings found at the scene.
When Ryan ran the fingerprints that were found on the bullet casings at the scene through AFIS, he got a hit. Natalia ran the DNA to confirm the results, and when CODIS came out with the same person that was identified by AFIS, Eric and Horatio went to apprehend the suspect.
They called Tripp to meet them at the scene.
The suspect drew his weapon on Horatio, which is never a good idea. Horatio shot the suspect in the shoulder with his Sig Sauer P-229. It was obviously an attempt at officer assisted suicide. Horatio was not going to play along with that. Horatio only uses deadly force when absolutely necessary.
Much to the dismay of the suspect, he was brought in without any further incidents. Getting the suspect to confess was easy.
Horatio places a drug baggy that they had found on the suspect on the table and tell him that the drug in the bag matched the drugs found at the scene along with the fact that they found the suspect's DNA and fingerprints on the bullet casings and his skin under the nails of the first victim.
The main reason why the suspect was so easy to get to confess was the fact that Horatio placed a photo of the innocent mother and child who were killed in the explosion that the dealer had rigged inside the drug house.
-FLASHBACK ENDS-
Eric was still in a trance-like state, thinking about the case when Calleigh quietly knocked on the wall of the hospital room. Eric and Kyle sat thinking about things only known to them.
Chapter 7: IAB Investigates
With all police-involved incidents, IAB will investigate. The IAB agent sent was Detective David Scott Adams, who had been trained by the disgraced Rick Stetler. Stetler had a thing against Horatio since Horatio got the Lieutenant title that Stetler felt was his.
The current IAB investigating Horatio's overdose was convinced that Horatio took the drugs intentionally, so he brought in Horatio's team to question them individually, all while trying to make them implicate their boss as a drug user.
Eric was the first, but he made the IAB go to the hospital to question him since he was not going to leave his brother.
The IAB Officer went to the hospital to interview Eric about what had happened in the interrogation room when Horatio overdosed.
"We were in the interrogation room at the crime lab. Horatio and I were in the process of getting a confession from a drug dealer we suspected was involved in the bombing and murder that the team was investigating at the time. Horatio got the suspect to confess to it all when he dropped the dealer's drug baggie on the table, stating that the drug inside the baggie matched the drugs found at the scene."
"After Tripp left with the arresting officer and the suspect I walked them out before I could turn around, I hear a loud noise behind me and see Horatio's sunglasses slide across the floor to stop at my feet. I look up as I turn around to find Horatio collapsed and convulsing on the floor. Horatio was with me the entire time and never had the time to take any drugs on purpose."
"I rush over and start chest compressions on him since his heart stopped. I try to get someone's attention but with the door closed nobody could hear me. If Tripp hadn't come back in when he did, Horatio would have died right there on the floor of the interview room," Eric was finished with his interview.
The only other person, the IAB agent, could interview was Tripp since he was there, leaving only moments before Horatio collapsed.
Most police officers hate all IAB agents, and Tripp was no exception. Tripp didn't want to talk to IAB, but he knew what Horatio would tell him.
He could hear Horatio telling him, "Just talk to IAB, tell the truth, and simply trust the evidence."
Tripp tells the agent at the precinct, "I had just stepped out to assist the arresting officer, and I was gone less than 5 minutes. I walk back into the room to find Eric on the floor doing chest compressions on Horatio. Horatio was never alone, and Eric wasn't turned away from him long enough for Horatio to take drugs. There was no way that it was an intentional drug usage."
That completely ruined the IAB's attempt to frame Horatio as a drug user. The IAB agent was forced to file the incident as an accidental overdose and not what he wanted. He really wanted to disgrace Horatio and file the incident as intentional drug use, but Horatio's officers didn't give him what he wanted.
Chapter 8: Horatio Wakes
Not long after IAB cleared everyone's names, Horatio actually began to crash. When his vitals were crashing, Alexx was forced to push Eric and Kyle out of Horatio's room.
She needed both room and help to restart Horatio's heart. Alexx had already lost him, and she was not ready to lose him again. Ordering a nurse to bring the crash cart in, she was yelling at the staff. Alexx was never one to lose her patient's with anyone, let alone one of her nurses.
Charging the defibrillator to two-hundred-fifty joules, she shocks his heart. Without a word, a nurse checks Horatio to see if the shock worked. Feeling no response, she shakes her head no at Alexx.
Alexx increases the power to the defibrillator to three hundred joules and tries again. Again the nurse shakes her head no. "Gloria, get me an amp of Epinephrine," Alexx tells a nurse.
"Get me an amp of Atropine," she was going to try another drug.
When the nurse put the new drug into his IV, and still there was no response from Horatio, Alexx cranks up the defibrillator. Increasing it to three hundred sixty joules, she shocks her friend's heart repeatedly.
Alexx and her team were almost out of options by this point. Eric and Kyle could see everything that was happening in the room through the floor to ceiling glass wall of the area.
Intra-cardiac Adrenaline was the last option to restart Horatio's heart. When Alexx stabs Horatio's heart with the drug, he sits bolt upright, and his heart raced. Falling back down onto the bed, he was alive, but he was still not awake.
Alexx was beyond relieved that Horatio was still alive. She walks out to the hall and tells her friends the good news.
Seeing Alexx walkout, Eric and Kyle rush over to hear about Horatio. "He's alive but still not awake. He's not out of the woods until he actually wakes up," she tells her friends.
About a week after he crashed, Horatio finally opened his eyes, Eric and Kyle were the first people he saw. He smiled at his brother and his son.
The first thing that Horatio said to the two of them was, "Hey, what happened?... Where am I?..." to which Eric answered both questions.
"H, you are in the hospital since you overdosed on Fentanyl during an interview. The drug was on the outside of the dealer's drug baggie that you pulled out of his pocket. You have been in a coma for two months. You were declared dead for a while. We lost you."
Horatio turned to face his son. Smiling, he says, "I am so sorry that I scared you like that. I know you were here the whole time. You came home, and I am so glad you came home, wish it was under different circumstances."
Kyle lovingly answered his father with a smile and a hug. Quickly telling his dad, "I'm just glad you're okay. You are my only family, and when my CO told me you had died, I was devastated. I always knew that you might die from getting shot since you are a police officer, but I never thought that you might die from an accidental drug overdose.
Coming to the hospital straight from the airport only for Sergeant Tripp to tell me that you are alive but in a coma. Now don't get me wrong, but I was scared that I might really lose you."
It took a few minutes of small talk for Eric to push the nurse call button finally. When the nurse walked in, she just smiled and softly said: "I'll get Dr. Woods."
The only thing that the nurse was able to say was, "Lieutenant Caine is..." before Alexx's heart sank. She just knew in her gut that Horatio had died.
Alexx runs to the room, thinking that her friend was dead only to find that Horatio was actually awake and sitting up.
"Thank God, I was positive that you died," she says to her friend.
Horatio just gave his old friend a warm smile.
Eric stepped out to call the rest of the team to tell them the great news while Alexx checked Horatio's vitals. Alexx knew that Kyle was not going to leave his fathers' side, so she worked around him.
"Horatio's awake," Eric could be heard telling Calleigh. Eric had to pull the phone away from his ear because Calleigh was screaming so loudly.
Exclaiming, "What, he woke up," when Ryan heard Calleigh screaming.
Ryan walks into ballistics at this time. "What's going on, Calleigh."
"Horatio is awake," she tells her co-worker and friend. Calleigh and Ryan were at the lab processing their new case.
However, when they heard the news, they dropped what they were doing and rushed back to the hospital.
Eric's next calls were to Tripp and Tom. They both stopped what they were doing and rushed to the hospital to see for themselves.
Eric barely got any words out when he called Tripp to tell him the news. "H is awake, Tripp."
Tripp was so excited about the news he just had to radio the news in to dispatch since he knew that the media listened to the police radio.
Reaching for his police radio, he calls in the news that he was both anticipating and dreading at the same time. "This is Sergeant Frank Tripp. Lieutenant Horatio Caine is awake from his accidental drug overdose."
The report ran with the story, "Local Police Officer apparently died from an overdose of Fentanyl only to wake up in the Morgue. He slipped into a coma two months ago and only now regains consciousness. It's a miracle."
Finishing it with, "According to the doctor, he is expected to make a full recovery."
Horatio did make a full recovery with the support of his team, his family by choice. His son Kyle had to be shipped back to his unit in Afghanistan soon after Horatio woke up.
Kyle was there for the most important part of the ordeal that his father had gone through. Kyle never left his dad's side the whole time that he was not conscious. Horatio knew that Kyle and Eric were both at his side.
However, he didn't know just what watching your father and brother lying on a hospital bed would do to someone. Eric and Kyle could only watch while Horatio was in a coma and not knowing when and if the person who meant the most to them would ever wake up. Eric and Kyle were totally helpless because they could not force him awake. They couldn't make him come out of that coma.
Horatio was back to normal fairly quickly, and he was on his way into work for the first time when he heard an emergency call sent by children about a friend who was shot. That call was not too far from Horatio's house.