Title: White Dove

Author: Nat

Summary: But what happens when the white dove no longer wants to provide peace

Rating: PG

Disclaimer: Starts to laugh, but the laugh turns into a sob, and Nat turns and walks away

Spoilers: "Lost Son" if you haven't seen it, and if you haven't seen it, Shame on you!

A/N: Season 3 started over here in Oz couple of weeks ago, I'm so excited! So here is my fic to prove it… but the fic isn't that exciting…

Thank you Dedication: For Nath, because she works wonders on my muse and is the best beta ever, she makes what I write sound good!

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(But what happens when the white dove no longer wants to provide peace.)

It's the same thing day in day out - catching the bad guys that kill people for stupid reasons and don't really think it through, but just killed on impulse because it seemed like the right thing to do at the time. But how can that be the right thing? (It's that little voice in the back of your head that continually suggests stupid ideas) Then, they have the nerve to sit in front of you and say "she started it" or "he had it coming," as if they have the right to decide who lives or who dies or who gets chopped into tiny little pieces by a meat grinder… What are they like 6 years old, sitting a playground arguing over whose lollypop it really was, when really they never wanted the lollypop in the first place, but it just looked good cause the other kid had it?

It never changes, but the thing that kept you going was that you never noticed just how bad it is; just how cruel the world can be. You deal with death so often it's just normal; it's not tragic, it's not sad - you feel nothing, it's your job and it must be done. Nevertheless, the one thing you didn't count on was feeling something, and now you feel too much, and it's just too much for you to handle. The pain is overwhelming and all you can do now is just stare, stunned that it actually happened and that you have to feel something.

Tim lays in some beautifully carved coffin in front of you and all you can do is stare, try to get a handle on the situation or maybe it's that you don't need a handle on the situation itself, but it's just that you have to process what's actually going on.

Speed is dead.

A bullet - that tiny piece of metal that you adore so much and dedicated you life to working with, ripped through a person you considered a brother. It ripped through his body, tearing and shredding flesh and muscle, causing damage beyond words and beyond repair.

His body was still warm when you got to the scene. You were paralysed. Numb, even. You watched as Alexx arrived and moved straight to Horatio's side, but you couldn't. You froze, your eyes on Tim's lifeless body. There was no way you would move from this spot; no way you could get closer to his body without breaking into a million pieces. Horatio must have sensed that because he came to you, speaking softly and tenderly like he was speaking to a six-year-old child, trying to explain that Tim went to heaven and that he wouldn't be coming back.

(God and it was nearly your undoing… So you kept asking questions because the more you didn't think about it, the more it didn't happen. You could just ignore it because if you just ignored it, it would go away, right?)

You watch motionless as your nation's flag – the one that was once draped over the coffin - is folded so neatly and precisely and handed to Tim's parents who are seated right in front of their boy's coffin.

Mrs. Speedle cracks.

Her sobs seem to echo through your ears and you reach out and slip your hand into Horatio's waiting hand. You grip his hand so tight - you know there will be marks in the morning, but he doesn't say anything because he is just that brave.

He hasn't left your side since you delivered him the ballistics report on Speeds weapon, and you love him so much for that. Though your relationship with him is new and unexplored, you love the way he takes care of you, such tender care that it melts your heart. (He is, of course, your knight in shining armour - always has been, but you never noticed before because you always prided yourself on being able to take care of yourself. But this week was so hard and it hurt so much and, when you thought that you couldn't go on, he was there picking you up and carrying you and you fell that little bit more in love with him for it.)

As the gun salute prepares, you clutch Horatio's hand that little bit more tightly and, for the first time in your life, you flinch at the sound of gunfire. You flinch at each shot that is expended and that's when the first tear breaks through the barrier, escaping your grasp before you can stop it. It slides down your skin slowly as if trying to emphasize its presence to you. When its about to drip off your chin, you can't take it anymore; you brush it away angrily and bury your head into Horatio's shoulder before more tears follow its path.

Moments later, you feel his lips kissing the top of your head and his other hand has come up to bury itself in your mass of thick blonde hair. The moment is so tender and unguarded that it makes your heart flutter in your chest - he did always give the best forehead kisses.

He took you back to his house after the funeral, but you didn't mind; you knew he would take care of you.

You imagined so many different scenarios that would bring you to his house and to his bed, but this one didn't even make the list. You assumed the first time you'd be in his bed, that you would be doing anything but sleeping… You were wrong.

It would be impossible to sleep; you know it because your world had been tilted on its axis, mixing reality with your dreams. The dreams that you awoke screaming from drenched in a cold sweat since the shooting (But not a good sweat like when you're out at a crime scene in the middle of the day in the hot Miami sun; a bad sweat, the kind that make you cold and clammy and tremble beyond belief even though the night itself is hot and you're sleeping with the window open hoping for some relief from the heat).

But he was there; he was next to you. He was wedging a 2 x 4 in between your world and your overly stimulated mind that refused to shut down at the end of the night, even though you were exhausted beyond all physical barriers that you had; your body aching for the much needed rest that sleep could provide.

With his arms wrapped around you horribly tight - so tight it should have hurt you, but didn't - you slept. You slept for the first time since the shooting. You slept without nightmares and you slept 'till morning and, it's at that moment, you heard the telltale click of the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle being snapped into place. You think it should scare you, but it doesn't. You have never felt so cherished and adored in your whole life and you love it, you love him. Through the evil your work brings, he is the light you crave.

(In the distance the white dove spreads its wings again, content to be the balance once more, to provide the faith that people have so blindly forgotten… Peace)