Full Title: The Idiot's Guide to Realizing You're in Love with Your Best Friend, by Timothy Speedle

A/N 1: Set between ep.6x06, "Sunblock," and ep.6x09, "Stand Your Ground." Not beta'd.

(5/22/10) Deleted and re-posted***

(7/1/10) All told, I have received over 70 reviews for this story. As a newcomer to the world of fanfiction, I've been blown away by your responses. Thank you, so very much! Please, keep reading and responding!

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Chapter 1

Natalia Boa Vista was most certainly a saint. Over the last several weeks, Ryan had to answer to some of the costliest mistakes of his life, and she was with him every step of the way. Without Natalia's help and support, Ryan knew he would not be standing back in the Miami Dade Crime Lab, gun and badge on his hip.

That thought crossed Wolfe's mind repeatedly as he sorted through box after box of ancient case files and lab records. IAB had approved his return to CSI on the condition of one month's probation; thus, Ryan found himself stuck in the lab for a few weeks, culling through old storage. The fact that this seemingly endless project would free up some badly needed space for Natalia compelled Ryan to take the task seriously.

So far, he hadn't hit any bumps in the proverbial road. On the far wall of the storage locker sat a tower of boxes that Ryan determined should be sent to the county archives for imaging—digital storage saved space and killed far fewer trees.

To his right stood another mountain of boxes, these all containing open cases from the last several years; the vast majority of these cases were ice cold, but every now and then the CSIs liked to revisit them to search for new leads.

A third stack consisted of old evidence that needed to be transferred to county lock-up. Ryan hefted the last box to the top of this pile with a heavy grunt, wiping his hands free of dust and smiling satisfactorily at this work.

He didn't mind the tedium, if this is what it took to return to full duty. But after almost three weeks of painstakingly going through all of these boxes, Ryan was more than ready to bid them farewell. He came to stand in front of the last, and largest, pile in the middle of the room.

Ryan saved this assortment of miscellaneous items for the end, partly because he could easily separate what he needed to keep from the junk he could toss, and partly because organizing these last few, random items would be the most time consuming as he tried to figure out where things should go.

Before he could jump in to the fray, Natalia popped her head around the door. "Hey Ry, how's it coming?"

Wolfe turned around to greet his friend and co-worker. "Not too shabby," he said with a grin. "Getting close to the end. Then you and Valera will have this place to yourselves."

"I can't thank you enough for doing this, Ryan," Natalia said earnestly. "I know there are other things you could be doing on desk-duty besides organizing a dusty old storage locker."

Ryan shrugged his shoulders. "It's no problem. This doesn't even come close to repaying you for all your help. Besides," he added smiling, "I've found some really interesting stuff in here."

Natalia rounded the door and crossed her arms curiously. "Yeah? Like what?"

"Well, last week I finished cataloguing all the cold cases." He moved to the appropriate stack and indicated a particular box buried in with the rest. "And I noticed a pattern with some of the cases."

"Oh yeah, Horatio was telling me about this!" Nat said excitedly. "Three of the old cases matched the MO of one of Calleigh's open investigations."

"Exactly. Miami has a serial killer that we didn't know about, because all of these files were shoved back here, forgotten. Brass approved bringing in some extra man power to review all these cold cases."

Natalia smirked, "Only you, Mr. OCD, could return to work and within a few weeks find a serial killer."

When she puts it that way, I guess I am kind of perfect for this job, Ryan laughed to himself. Usually people are complaining about how anal I am, not praising me for it. That was a strange sensation.

A faint blush crept up his neck. "Calleigh found the killer, Nat, not me. I just helped."

"Whatever," she said, rolling her eyes. "Either way, you should feel pretty proud of yourself."

Ryan smiled warmly at the compliment. "I do."

They stood staring at each other for a few seconds before Natalia turned to leave. "Well, I just wanted to check on you. Are you still on for tonight?"

"Wouldn't miss it," he said easily. "Car pool?"

"Please. Locker room after shift?"

"See you there," Ryan agreed. With one last smile, Natalia was out the door.

Turning his attention back to his monumental project, Ryan realized he felt truly happy for the first time in a long time. After everything that had happened, after all his lies and betrayals and ridiculous missteps, he still belonged here.

When he first arrived on the job almost three years ago, Ryan came to work every morning wondering if he would end the day still working at the lab. He couldn't recall all the times he had just wanted to quit. But then he remembered Horatio's confidence in his ability to do this job, how much he had to fight to be here in the first place, and he kept going.

Calleigh made things easier his first year when Delko was threatening to kill him every other day (according to Eric, he knew at least a dozen different ways to murder Wolfe and dispose of his body without anyone being the wiser). The ballistics expert and senior CSI had taken Ryan under her wing, personally overseeing his training and ensuring him that he did, in fact, belong there.

As for the other Level 3 CSI at the lab, time would tell. Two months after Ryan was shot in the eye with the nail gun, Delko asked him if he wanted to go out for beers. Wolfe agreed, although deep down he feared it was just a ruse to slip something in his drink.

Eric surprised him. After a year and a half of bitching and moaning about Ryan and his work, Delko apologized for not giving him a chance. That one night of drinks changed things drastically for the two men: Delko admitted that he'd taken out his anger at losing Speedle on the new trainee, and that, in reality, Wolfe had become an important part of the team.

The confession was all the more significant given that their mutual animosity had reached a fever pitch over a string of misunderstandings. In fact, those very misunderstandings (along with pleas from both Calleigh and Marisol, although Wolfe would never know that) prompted Eric to reach out to his younger colleague.

After Delko explained some of the reasons behind his behavior, Ryan finally accepted that Eric didn't really hate him; the multiple changes and challenges of the last year had simply left him reeling, and Ryan was an easy outlet for his anger. By the end of the night, the two men shook hands and agreed to start fresh.

Not that Delko ever really gets off my back, Ryan thought with a laugh, coming back to the present. They still butted heads and got under each other's skin, but the previous underlying animosity was absent. Standing alone in the storage room tucked at the back of CSI headquarters, Ryan chuckled—not for the first time—at the irony of fate.

When Horatio first established the new crime scene investigation unit at Miami Dade PD in 1997, the team consisted of a grand total of seven people: Horatio, Megan, Calleigh, Speedle, and a handful of lab technicians. Eric joined the team shortly thereafter. Although the group had grown exponentially over the years and the names and faces had changed, Ryan Wolfe was still the first new CSI to join the team since its inception. If he was completely honest with himself, Ryan could totally understand Eric's hesitancy to accept him.

He and Delko were good friends now. Actually, Ryan counted him among his closest friends, even though he knew a barrier would always exist somewhere between them; no one could ever come as close to Eric as Tim Speedle. For four years, the two men had been inseparable.

Tonight, the past was all behind them. Months had passed since the team last gathered at Sully's for drinks and dancing after work, and Ryan found himself looking forward to it immensely. Eric, Calleigh, Maxine, Natalia, Tripp, Alexx, and Ryan would all be there; only Horatio, who had to take care of some business with Kyle, begged out for the evening.

I'm never going to get there if I don't get this done, though, Ryan lamented as he surveyed the mound of conglomerate debris on the lab table in front of him. Lamely, he picked up an old clip-on desk lamp and dropped it back to the table, wondering where on earth to begin.

Eventually, he decided to just tackle one corner and go from there.

Two hours later, Ryan had made significant headway: one third of the miscellaneous items, from discarded office supplies to obsolete lab equipment to … What was that?... were now separated into a rubbish pile. He'd culled through the entire heap to locate file boxes and any loose papers, and he set them aside to organize last.

Then, the man set to work creating an inventory of the remaining items: glass beakers, pipettes, boxes and boxes of rubber gloves, ten years worth of technical manuals, and a thousand other things used every day at the Crime Lab.

Looking up at the clock, Ryan realized what time it was just as his stomach offered a loud grumble. Yes! Finished right in time for lunch. Dumping the last of the manuals in a box (chronologically and alphabetically ordered, of course) he headed out the door with a spring in his step, knowing he only lacked the files until he finished.

One hour and a hot pastrami sandwich later, a fed and contented Ryan re-emerged in his home-away-from-home of the last few weeks. Soon, this entire storage room would be empty, and he relished the thought as he zeroed in on his final task.

He rolled a chair up to the lab table and opened the first plain, white file box. There were ten boxes in total, along with various loose piles of old personnel records, performance reviews, and pointless bureaucratic paperwork that would occupy him for the rest of the day.

The first four boxes contained copies of old court orders, evidence request forms, and the like, and Ryan easily discarded half the material, sending the other half to the archive pile. On the fifth box, he hit a snag.

These aren't files at all, Wolfe thought, peering into the cardboard file box. In fact, the box held what seemed to be someone's personal belongings. Quickly, Ryan checked the outside of the container. Nope, no label. Weird.

Reaching for the next box, he realized it, too, consisted of mostly personal items. All five remaining boxes were the same: plain white, no label, and filled with someone's personal property. He put them aside to deal with last.

Ryan thought about something Natalia told him when she first explained his new job as storage clerk: 'Most of this stuff has been here for years. When the building was renovated, this section was left alone, and a lot of crap from around the lab ended up being crammed into any available space back here.' She had laughed at the look on his face when he saw what he was up against. Ryan barely even knew these storage rooms existed, let alone stepped foot in one.

With the five boxes in front of him as the last hurdle an hour later, Ryan once more dove into the first container, pulling out random artifacts and spreading them on the table to get a better idea of what they were. Gradually, the table lay scattered with a video camera, a long-lens Nikon, a large stack of developed photos still in their envelopes, and dozens of jewel-cased computer discs. He knew that the others held much the same as the first, with the added presence of several articles of clothing, various books and DVDs, and a vast collection of music.

Who in the world would just leave all their stuff here? As Ryan picked up the first envelope of photos and perused the pictures, he had his answer, and his stomach sank. This was so wrong—there was no way he could go through all of this stuff.

In his hand, Wolfe held a picture of three young, carefree friends, arms wrapped tightly around each other as they laughed at some internal joke. He flipped to the next picture: a gorgeous blonde woman rode piggyback on a man Ryan did not recognize, her face a picture of shock as she nearly fell, screaming and laughing, off the man's back.

Ryan stared at the next photo for a long time, unable to tear his eyes away. A young man stared straight at the camera with a blazing smile, as the same beautiful blonde woman pressed a kiss to his cheek.

Ryan suddenly flipped to the next photo as if he'd been burned. Then he quickly shuffled through the rest in his hand. Some of the pictures were candid shots, some were self portraits of the cameraman and various individuals, but all of them possessed an artistic quality that added a depth and mysterious significance to each photo, like they had a story to tell.

Three-quarters of the envelope contained pictures of the same three young, blissfully happy people. There were easily over two dozen envelopes filled with photos, and Ryan frantically searched through the different packages, seeking evidence to confirm his suspicions.

Every last envelope was the same: overflowing with years' worth of memories of a time long before Ryan's at the Crime Lab, a time that was seldom discussed in his presence.

These pictures featured many people Ryan recognized, like Horatio, Yelina, Tripp, Valera, and Alexx, along with many he didn't. The majority, however, were images of Eric Delko, Calleigh Duquesne, and a man who could only be Timothy Speedle.

Ryan swallowed a lump in his throat. He thought he'd understood. He thought he knew just how close the team had been before he arrived, but he didn't. In the grand scheme of things, ten years didn't seem like much. But the differences between the Calleigh and Eric in these photos and the two people he called friends was startling.

Ryan had never seen Calleigh so free, or Eric as happy and settled, as they were in these pictures. He couldn't get over how young they looked. Time, loss, and the burdens of responsibility had marked Calleigh and Eric in a way Ryan never knew until now.

Slowly rearranging the envelopes, the young CSI collapsed heavily onto the lab chair. These boxes belonged to Tim Speedle. Even with Horatio, the discussion of this fallen friend and comrade was a touchy issue. Eric refused to touch Speedle's locker to this day. How would they react to finding five large boxes of his personal belongings, hidden in a dingy storage locker for three years?

Ryan returned all the items to the first box and placed the lid on top, knowing what he had to do. He pulled himself off the chair and headed out of the room.