Chapter 17

She still felt the pain inside her. Horatio had wanted to give their daughter a brother or sister so badly. So had she. The two of them had always wanted to have a big family together; had always dreamt about five or six children. And the fact she couldn't carry any more... the pain inside had been a whole lot deeper than she wanted to admit, even towards her caring husband. She would rather bite her tongue than show anyone how deep the cut was.

Liz rolled her pure green eyes and pushed her one free hand against her lower abdomen. Calleigh stood up from the bed to take her daughter and looked quite concerned. "What's wrong?" she asked.

"Bad cramps."

"You look really pale."

"Possible," Liz answered shortly, "I'm having my... period."

Calleigh bit her bottom lip and understood. "Maybe it would be good to just go back to bed," she suggested. "I'll bring you a mug of chicken soup in a minute. Chicken soup always works."

"Maybe I haven't told you yet," Liz started, gently sitting on the edge of her bed and releasing her lower abdomen, "but I'm a vegetarian, I don't drink chicken soup."

"You do drink hot chocolate, right?" Calleigh asked.

Liz nodded with a smile creeping across her pale face. She just loved hot chocolate. It was never too hot for it. Her half sister disappeared with her niece on her hip and re-entered the room a few minutes later, with two mugs of hot chocolate, of which she gave one to Liz, who had crawled back under the sheets and sat upright again when Calleigh walked in. "Thank you," she said, pulling up her knees. "A fair amount of sugar," she added after the first sip.

"I wasn't sure whether you would like it like that. I love sugar, but most people don't... Not in such quantity. When I was pregnant with our little Emily, I ate tons of sugar. Horatio went nuts over my sugar addiction. I have actually always had a sweet tooth, though..." Calleigh admitted, sitting on the edge of the mattress.

Liz smiled. "Where is Emily?"

"In her crib, downstairs," Calleigh said, sipping on her own hot chocolate and patting on the little baby receiver in the pocket of her pants. "If she wakes up again, I'll be the first one to hear it."

Liz smiled gently and took another sip of her hot chocolate before putting it on the nightstand. Calleigh saw she was wondering about something, noticing the teenage girl chew her bottom lip. "What's up?"

Elizabeth looked at her half sister with her green eyes glistening and asked, "What kind of person was my father really?"

Calleigh had secretly known Liz would ask this question sooner or later, and she replied honestly, "He often took refuge in alcohol, when he had been thinking too much or too deep. Until it became his death. He surely was an alcoholic, and I won't deny this fact, because I have seen him doing what he did, but he was a loving man as well. He wasn't the best father a girl could dream of, but he tried hard to give me and my three brothers what we needed. Sadly enough, sometimes he worked so much to make sure we had enough to get by, that he seemed to live for us instead of with us."

She briefly looked at Elizabeth and then turned her gaze away again. The pain her past had caused her showed even in her movements and she was afraid her half sister would notice.

Some cases had always hit her harder than others. The one who had stayed with her most of all the cases she'd worked on, had been little Emma. Her father had been killed by a bad man, and she'd been so scared of needing to testify in court. Calleigh, however, had bent the rules so that she didn't need to, and told her, if she wanted to talk, she could talk to Calleigh instead. Her girl next door appearance and sweet, soft voice made it easy to trust her blindly. The blond Ballistics expert somehow radiated calm and truth. That last word had been tattooed on the inside of her right ankle in Chinese in her last year at Police Academy. This was one of the reasons why she didn't like to wear skirts. To prevent people from asking questions about it, and from what it meant to how badly it had hurt.

Emma had trusted her unconditionally, and it had been then Calleigh had known she definitely wanted to have kids. She still remembered the girl's face as she asked her if she could talk to Calleigh and the female CSI had answered she could talk to her about anything and had sat down right beside her to listen. She didn't exactly know why, but she sometimes seemed to recognize herself in some of the girls she met in her line of work and often thought about her own youth.

She had likely never been so focused on the case as when Horatio had been under suspicion, though. Or maybe that one case with her father, Ryan's first one. The case she had been forced to back off from.

The young victims always seemed so helpless. And she had been like that as a teenager as well, because she had had to grow up too fast. It left her feeling helpless and needy, although on the outside she had always seemed like a very independent and proficient girl. The feeling of dependence continued, until she had eventually gone to university. In high school, she had never had any idea what Forensics held. She had never thought she would ever work for CSI either. Not that she had known what CSI meant.

In all those years of studying Physics, Calleigh had never even seen a gun or bullet closely, except for images in her notes, which she had drawn herself, after the sketches her teacher had made on the blackboard, to clarify that a gun was much more than a trigger and a barrel. She had known precisely how a gun was dimensioned and had been capable of describing the properties of many different weapons and projectiles by the end of the training, and even been able to explain the movements with the help of the laws of Physics if necessary.

When she had been allowed into the Police Academy, a prerequisite for CSI work in Dade County, a new world had opened up for her. The first time she had shot a gun was still a vivid memory. She had been at the Academy for only two months and had been forced to live with the disdain of her fellow male students from the start. She had been the only woman in her year.

Calleigh had shot a Colt .45 on the fire range of the Academy: not really the easiest weapon to start with. She'd tried to see the arc of the bullet through the air with her eyes, from the moment she'd pulled the trigger. What she, and everyone else present there had seen, was that the projectile she'd fired stuck right in the middle of the target eight feet away. It was highly unusual that someone hit that target on the first try and she had been a woman to boot...

The first time she had shot a gun, a warm feeling had gone through her body from the inside out, and at that moment she had known. 'This is it. I was made for guns.' A weapon made her stronger and more independent and she could handle it well. Guns had been her rescue; the only thing she could hold onto.

"I often thought… often had this feeling…" Elizabeth started. "I constantly doubted John Delaney really was my father. We were... so different from each other... The man I called my father was so different from me! My mom wasn't anything to write home about either, though. I often felt... disconnected from both of my parents... Like they weren't really my father and mother, but just a random couple I lived with..." She sighed. "I can't explain, but you being my half sister kind of helps me understand why I always preferred to play with BB guns instead of dolls and stuff..."

Calleigh couldn't hide a soft grin. She'd had the same interests as a child. She'd chosen play with guns over dolls and making tree houses over dressing up in her mom's clothes, unlike her small female friends. What with three boys and her being the only girl, and being so much younger than her brothers… She had sometimes felt more like them than like those other little girls.

o°o°o°o°

"Liz?"

"Mmm?"

"I care so much about you... You know that, don't you?"

Elizabeth's eyes were suddenly moist, as she looked up to face the young mother. "Yes, but it feels nice to hear sometimes. You are the only one that ever told me, except for Ilias," her soft voice spoke, as she picked up her mug again and took another sip, then giggled. "And Horatio."

"I'll tell you as often as possible," Calleigh replied, suppressing the desire to ask who Ilias was. If Liz wanted to tell her about him, she would sooner or later. She wanted to let Elizabeth come to her instead of going too fast. Liz's shut her eyes tightly and her half sister took her mug out of her shaking hand, putting it on the nightstand again. "Cramp?" Calleigh surmised. Elizabeth nodded, grasping her lower abdomen and pressing both hands against it hard, trying to make it hurt less.

"It seems to have become worse after my first time... I don't understand," Liz groaned.

"Oh, you didn't tell me about a boyfriend."

"I don't have one," Liz answered, releasing her abdomen and looking up in her half sister's green eyes. "Not anymore, at least... We were together for about nine months," she added, before Calleigh had the chance to say anything more. "I haven't heard from him anymore since..." She stopped.

"Would you like to talk about it?" Calleigh asked, cautiously.

Liz sighed. "He was the best friend of Lus' oldest brother. Louisiana was my best friend at the time. Yeah – awkward name. I don't have any contact with her anymore, but I heard that Shannon, Lus' older sister, lives at Miami Beach somewhere." A smile spread across Elizabeth's face, as she embraced herself while the memories filled her head. She didn't quite know if they were happy or not; if she had to laugh, or cry. "I was over sixteen. He was eighteen at the time and very handsome..."

Calleigh couldn't help but think of Horatio's nickname immediately. Elizabeth curled up like a ball, and Calleigh knew this must be really difficult to talk about. She was having more difficulties going on with her story, and took some deep, ragged breaths to keep the tears rimming the edges of her eyes from flowing over.

"We bumped in each other often enough when I was at Louisiana's, and about two months after we met for the first time; after two months of dancing around each other, he finally asked me out. He just went up the stairs when I went down, and just when we passed each other, he–" She swallowed the rest of her words, and gratefully accepted the mug of hot chocolate Calleigh handed over. She looked worried. "I was quite shy around and with him, but he thought that only made me cuter and after a few drinks, we made out and kissed for the first time. I'll never forget... It was so... "

"Special," Calleigh finished, thinking back on her first kiss with Jake.

Liz nodded. "The morning after our first date, he called me on my cell phone to say that..." She stopped again, sniffling. "How he got my cell phone number, I have no idea. I never asked him. There are so many things that I didn't ask him, although I often had the chance. I don't have it anymore."

Elizabeth sobbed, dabbing some tears from her eyes. Calleigh reached out and lay her hand on her half sister's arm, softly squeezing it and causing Elizabeth to smile faintly with the gesture.

"When we were together for about half a year, we still hadn't gone any further than kissing and cuddling yet. I knew that he really wanted more, but he never pressured me into anything..." Her mind went back to that first night, but the thought hurt too much and she shook it off, crying harder.

Liz could be described as a rather closed-off person, and now she had just opened up to Calleigh about Ilias. Then again, she realized how long it had been boiling inside; how it had been eating her alive, and how keeping her mouth shut about it had only hurt more. She had been strong for such a long time, but she just couldn't anymore.

We can't be strong all the time. Sometimes, we can't make it on our own. Sometimes, we have to allow other people to be strong for us. And being strong is not just about doing everything yourself... part of it is also letting others in; letting yourself be vulnerable.

Although it had been only recently that Calleigh and Elizabeth had learned of each other's existence, Liz had a feeling her half sister understood. She radiated trust. And right at that moment, something changed between the two. It was likely in that moment that the foundation of what would turn out to be a very strong bond was made.

Soundless tears rolled over Liz's cheeks as she continued her story. ""We were... so... happy together and then suddenly I found out Ilias had left with his mother and little sister. He hadn't told me anything about it and I spent a long time looking for an explanation, but I never found a good one..."

Calleigh took her half sister in a tight embrace, softly rubbing her back to calm her down. "It's okay to cry, sweetie," she whispered. "It's okay..."

"Maybe he loved me too much to be able to say goodbye? He called me from London once… a month after he'd left Miami. He told me where he was, England, and that he really missed me. We'd see each other again soon. He'd come back for me. He said he l-loved me and ended the conversation." She sobbed. "I still love Ilias so damn much, but I really doubt he loves me anymore and I'm starting to wonder if he ever really did... How could he just... leave me like that? I haven't heard from him since that last phone call, about two months ago. I'm still waiting for him to… What am I hoping for?"

"Shhh..." Calleigh cooed, still trying to calm down the upset girl. She must have kept this bottled inside for months. The CSI felt a head on her shoulder, when both girls heard the front door being closed. They heard Horatio talking to the baby, but didn't understand what he was saying.

"My parents never actually wanted kids, but then I came along and changed their plans. I ruined their lives. That's the reason why there was never a second child. I knew for as long as I can remember that they didn't want me. They never cared. Then Ilias came and made me feel different. If he hadn't been there, I would have been dead by now." Calleigh just continued to listen. "The hardest thing for me to do was opening up to him. I had learned to shield my inside from others through the years, but all that did was leave me closed off. With Ilias, it all happened naturally. And then he was gone and I was being treated like trash again. When I found out that Ilias had left, I nearly drank myself to death. I left the house and went into the first bar I could find, drinking myself into alcohol poisoning. Not that I loved those dark beers so much, but I just wanted to lose myself in them, until I would be completely numb, so I wouldn't feel the pain inside anymore. No one refused to give me more. I was a rich girl, so they never asked for an ID. As long as I paid..." She sniffled again. "When I had reached almost eight drinks in barely one hour time, I should have passed out. I woke up in the hospital on Intensive Care. My parents were just working as usual. The hospital staff had called them, but they never came. I was alone again, just like before Ilias."

The talking downstairs disappeared, and Calleigh heard her husband's footsteps on the stairs, until he stood in the doorway with Emily half asleep, half awake on his arm. She couldn't help but feel sorry for the crap her half sister had been forced to endure in those seventeen years. "Hey..." Horatio said, swallowing more words at the sight of a crying Elizabeth in Calleigh's arms. It was really good that the girls were getting along so well so quickly, but something had to be wrong for Liz to be crying. Calleigh looked up at her red haired husband with a glance that spoke louder than words. 'I'll explain, but not in her presence.'

The CSI softly rubbed her half sister's shoulder to try and calm her. Soon, she fell asleep in Calleigh's arms, exhausted from all the crying. So, she gently stood up, gathering the two empty mugs of hot chocolate on her way out. She sadly glanced at her sister huddled up in the fetal position and grasping her pillow tightly. She wouldn't be sleeping peacefully.

"What's wrong?" Horatio asked, as soon as his wife joined him in the hallway and closed the door behind her. He had just come back from putting their daughter to sleep across the hall. Emily's room was located next to her parents' and just opposite the guestroom, which was taken recently by Calleigh's younger sister. The bathroom was right next to hers. "Boyfriend trouble," Calleigh explained, as she turned to face him.

"Elizabeth never told me anything that made me think she had a boyfriend."

"Me neither," Calleigh replied softly, knowing how hard it could be to lose someone like that, and realizing why the girl hadn't said anything. She did have a good idea. A very simple one, though. It hurt.

It would take a very long time to get over it. For months, she would still smell his scent in her nostrils and think about the moments she had spent with Ilias. She would hear his soft voice in her ears, whispering words that gave her goose bumps and telling her about the love they made. She would taste him on her lips and the tip of her tongue; see him in her dreams like it was real and then only conclude it wasn't when she opened her eyes.