Title - Heaven Coming Down
Author- pepsicolagurl
Rating - R for language, situations, violence and the whole shebang
Disclaimer - Don't own anything, so don't sue. The song is taken from the Tea Party song of the same name, found on Big Shiny Tunes 4, and I believe on Triptych, and Tangents-A Tea Party Collection, but don't quote me on those last two.
Author's Notes - After writing so many Calleigh/Speedle stories, I'm returning to what used to be my bread and butter...the dreaded original character story. This was started (or at least, the idea hit me on the head like an anvil and left me with an eight month creative concussion) before the Lost Son episode happened, which means that Tim Speedle is still alive, kicking, and the object of my affections. By the way, this is going to be a LONG story. Other than that, enjoy and let me know what you think.
Heaven Coming Down
Part One
Chapter One
It would have been impossible not to realize that she was angry. Cheeks flushed, eyes flashing, and heels stomping on the pavement, she stalked away from her sporty convertible and towards the entrance doors to the Miami-Dade crime lab. As soon as she had swung the door open, the woman behind the desk had a resigned look on her face. There wasn't a day that passed when the assistant district attorney came in that she wasn't angry, and it was always because of one person. The woman reached for the sign-in sheet and the visitor's badge at the same time, wishing that she could break protocol and just wave the woman past her. Unfortunately, she valued her job.
The prosecuter in question slammed her leather briefcase down on the counter before snatchign the pen away and scribbling her name. "One day, I'm going to kill that pretentious son of a bitch," she muttered under her breath as she took the laminated pass and clipped it to the lapel of her suit jacket. With barely another look at the woman, she took her briefcase in hand and hurried down the hallway, not bothering to look in any of the glass encased rooms, even when familiar faces looked up to see her pass. Instead, she turned a corner and went up the stairs to the next floor, heading immediately to the room she knew he would be hiding out in. When she saw his lanky frame bent over a microscope, she walked in, throwing her briefcase in the corner on a chair.
The movement caused him to look away from whatever he was doing, first looking at the high heeled shoes. His eyes swept up the bare legs to the black skirt, soft pink blouse, and black jacket. When he saw the dirty blonde hair and angry green eyes, he smirked. "Not you," he said, before looking back down to what he was doing.
"Yes, me." She walked closer to his work table and slammed her palms down on it, causing his test tubes to rattle. "You haven't returned my phone calls, you haven't made an appointment, and opening arguments are in less than a week. You can't do this to me, Speedle. You know what I'm like when you don't talk to me."
"So write down whatever you want and leave it with the rest of your messages. I'll get around to them when I have the time."
Her eyes rolled as she examined Tim Speedle. There was just something about him that caused her to groan whenever she heard his name. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that he wore wrinkled and sometimes mismatched clothes, or the fact that he could never take that closer step to the razor, or the way that he talked down to her. She wasn't sure, but she knew that she didn't like him. "You're my only expert witness, because you're the only criminalist that worked on the case. I need to go over your testimony with you. You know that. I refuse to let one of my witnesses, even if he knows his way around these...machines, without talking with me first. How many times do we have to go over this?"
Speedle finally looked up again. "Look, Miss McIntosh, I don't need coaching. I've been to court often enough to answer your questions, and those of the defense. I don't need you putting words into my mouth, okay? You want to do that, grab a reporter that has a camera crew at the ready, and be my guest. It seems to be what you're good at."
He knew that he had touched a nerve when her eyes flashed dangerously. He had seen her angry a number of times, sometimes in the court room, but more often then not when she came down to the lab to scream at him. It wasn't that he was playing games with her. He had been to court often enough to know what she was going to ask him, and to anticipate what the defense attorney (whoever it might be in that case) was going to throw at him. It wasn't like it was rocket science. What it was, to him, was taking time out of his already busy work schedule to go down and translate the scientific terms into laymen's terms. And it was nerve wracking to boot. He didn't know how she stood in front of cameras and reporters all the time, making her statements, when he would get nervous in front of a closed courtroom.
Pauline McIntosh seethed quietly, color racing to her cheeks, before she finally let him have it. "Well, Detective Speedle, forgive me for trying to do my job, but I'll have you know that-" She broke off when his cell phone gave off a number of beeps. "Go ahead, answer it. I'm just wasting my time here, anyway." She waited, tapping a foot ont he floor, until he hung it up and clipped it back onto his waist. "Let me guess, something came up and you had to go."
He took off the latex gloves he was wearing and shrugged out of his lab coat. "You know, there was this rumor going around that you were smart, but.." With that, he walked out of the door, leaving her alone. She took a deep breath to calm herself and took her briefcase in hand, walking out of the room,. She didn't get very far when a familiar blonde head popped out of another room, the friendly face grinning brightly at her. "What, you want to beat me down some more?" she asked, looking at the woman. This time, however, her words were teasing.
"Well, I saw you storm in here, and I knew that only one person could get you in that sort of mood," Calleigh Duquense explained, stepping further into the hallway. "I know to stay out of your way when you're like that."
"Apparently, so does Speedle, because he just hauled ass out of here like it was on fire." She took what she hoped would be a calming breath and allowed her anger to subside somewhat. "One of these days, I swear, I'm just going to give up, but unfortunately, I like my job. I'd like to keep it. It would seem that he isn't too thrilled with that idea."
The painfully blonde woman smiled sympathetically. "Do you want me to talk to him?" she asked, her words tinged with a Southern accent. "I could try and beat some sense into that...what did you call it...badly in need of a haircut and good stylist...head?"
Although the words made her smile, they didn't make her laugh, like she normally would have. "Nah, it's all right, Cal. Worse comes to worse, I'll make another call to the Lieutenant, who'll make a call to Speedle, who'll make a call to me, so that he can let me know how 'disappointed he is in me that we couldn't work this out on our own'. It's the same game that I play with him every time, and we both know the rules by heart. He'll drop by the night before the case, when I should be preparing and getting sleep, but no, he can't fathom that. So, instead, I go through his testimony with him five times, make sure he swears he'll shave and wear a tie, and then I get an hour of sleep before I have to get to the courthouse." She took a deep breath. "Wow."
Calleigh nodded, eyes wide. "And I thought I was the queen of rambling. Look, why don't we go out for dinner tonight? You obviously need to unload, and there's no better way to do that than over a few glasses of red wine."
Now, Pauline laughed, a delicate sound that seemed to belong to the well put-together woman. "You're on. I'll call you."
With that, the assistant district attorney left the building.
They haggled over the bill, like they always did. More often than not, Pauline ended up paying for the meal and drinks, but not without Calleigh putting up a good fight. It was a battle of credit cards, one that Pauline's Mastercard won, and she sat back in her chair, smirking at the blonde woman across from her. The two women had attracted a number of looks that evening, from both women and men alike. The usual stares because of their striking resemblance, though there was no blood ties between them, or for that matter, any family. Calleigh, the Southern girl with the charming accent, blonde hair, and blue eyes. Pauline, the Eastern girl with the barely there accent, blonde hair, and green eyes. They were more used to it than they would have cared to admit.
It had only been three years ago that Pauline had moved to Miami, and taken the position as one of many assistant district attorney positions after much wooing and ass-kissing. Before long, she had developed a rapport with most of the Miami-Dade crime lab, and the detectives that worked with them. Although she wouldn't say that she was on a first name basis with all of them, she had nutured a relationship to the point that she had an unofficial office hidden intheir lab, where she stored files and did a modicum of work when she had to escape the hustle and bustle of her own office. The only rough spot was, of course, Detective Timothy Speedle.
The waiter appeared suddenly, with her credit card and waited as she signed the accompanying slip, passing the leatherbound folder back. The women stood up and moved away from their table, collecting their coats. Almost immediately, Pauline's cell phone began to ring. She fished it out of her purse, fumbling with it for a moment as Calleigh chuckled at her. "Pauline McIntosh," she chirped into the phone, her face falling immediately. "Why am I not surprised that you've decided to call now? Meet me in my office, I'll be there within twenty minutes." Without another word, she hung up the phone and dropped it back into her purse.
"Tim?" Calleigh asked, as they both shrugged into their jackets.
"Who else would make me be so short on the phone?" she asked in response, rolling her eyes and pulling her hair out from beneath her collar. "I knew this was going to happen. My entire evening is all shot to hell because of him. I meant what I said earlier. I'm going to kill him one of these days."
The criminalist laughed as they left the restaurant, turning towards the parking lot at the end of the street. "You'd better be careful. Don't forget, I'm a witness now." The women laughed. "You two have been at each other's throats for three years now. Don't you think it's time to call a truce? Besides, we'd all be a lot happier at the lab."
"What do you mean?"
Almost simultaneously, they took out their keys as they neared the parking lot. "Well, anytime that the two of you have one of your verbal sparring contests, he ends up storming around the place, snapping at anyone who dares to look at him. He knows that he puts you in a bad mood, and he seems to enjoy it, but you put him in a bad mood, too. I swear, the way he acts, it's like another hurricane is blowing through the place."
"Hm. Hurricane Speedle. One can only hope that a house falls on him, a la the Wicked Witch."
"That was a tornado," Calleigh sighed, stopping at her jeep. "Why don't the two of you just try for once. It wouldn't kill you."
"You'd be surprised."
The interview process had gone about as well as she could have hoped. They managed to banter only a handful of times before getting down to business, although she had noticed the look of disdain in his eyes. She didn't enjoy that part of the job herself, especially when Speedle was the one that she was preparing for the stand, but she managed to push her way through it. Every now and then, he would toss in a snide remark to one of her questions, but she took Calleigh's parting advice before they had both driven off, and she had tried to just let all the comments pass by her like she never heard them. It didn't work all the time, however. There were two instances when she had taken his bait, and they had fallen into their usual war of words, before she had gotten too fed up to continue, barking at him to leave her office and to get the hell out of her sight before she did something that she wouldn't regret.
After that, silence had filled her tiny little room. There were only a handful of prosecuters working in the building, those who had a case on trial the next morning, and a few aides, who, though paid like their were nothing more than managers at their local McDonald's, worked harder than anyone. She remained there for awhile, listening one last time to the tape of Speedle's testimony that she had just made, before deciding to pack it up for the night. Or morning, considering the hour.
She gathered her things and went immediately to the elevator, ignoring a passing aide just like how she ignored her. She took the elevator back to the parking garage and dug her keys out before she stepped out into the dark area. There wasn't enough left in the budget to add some more powerful lights, or at least a guard to make them feel somewhat more secure, yet there was more than enough for the city to give the Miami-Dade crime lab a number of Hummers. "Fucking bureaucracy," she muttered to herself as she approached her expensive car.
She stopped in disbelief when she saw the scratch marks all along the vibrant paint, staring back at her like a pimple on prom night. "You have to be God-damned fucking kidding me," she said, her words beginning quiet, but ending in a loud yell. "Whoever did this, I swear to God, I will hunt you down and kill you!" she screamed, her voice echoing through the garage.
It was with a resigned sigh that she unlocked the doors and threw her stuff in the front seat, climbing into the driver's seat. This really wasn't turning out to be her day, she thought to herself as she pulled away.
And she never saw the word "bitch" written behind her space in bright red paint until the next morning.