Archive of Our Own ^beta

Ryan Wolfe wasn’t feeling very good. His head throbbed dully and he was a little nauseous. He also had no idea where he was but he certainly wasn’t home anymore. Instead, he was on a hard pallet, in a 8-by-4 room that looked a lot like a cell, he didn’t have his gun nor cell phone, and there was matted blood in his hair.

He tried to remember what had happened, to get an inkling of what he was doing there, but came up blank. The last thing he remembered was getting home and heading towards the kitchen to get something to eat. Considering the – meager – clues he had in his possession, he could only guess that he had been knocked out and brought here. Now as to who... that was another mystery. He figured it was too early in his career as a police officer for him to have pissed someone off that badly, but you never knew. Anyway, he had to get out of here.

Pushing himself to a sitting position, he waited until the room stopped moving around him before he opened his eyes. The room was bare and dark, the only source of light shining from beneath the door that completed his cell. He didn’t have to get up to know it would be locked, but he tried anyway. It was locked. No surprise there.

He could only wait.

---

Timothy Speedle, better known as Speed, came into the locker room and almost rubbed his hands together. Good. Eric was there and they were alone.

“Eric.” he said gravely.

“Speed.” Eric deadpanned.

“So, how was your date last night?” he asked, smirking.

Eric rolled his eyes. “It wasn’t a date.”

“Oh, but you wanted it to be.”

“It was not a date, as you very well know, since you were supposed to come and you stood us up.”

“But Eric,” Speed sounded deeply wounded by the accusation, although his grin gave it away – “it’s because I knew you wanted it to be a date that I didn’t show up. I thought you two could use some time alone...”

Eric threw his hands in the air, a look of pure frustration on his face, and decided to end the conversation by leaving the locker room. Speed quickly grabbed his gun from his locker and hurried after him. He caught up with Eric in the break room – which was luckily empty – and smiled evilly. He wasn’t finished yet.

“You know,” he said conversationally, “Ryan might be a great detective, but when it doesn’t concern a crime scene or a suspect, he is pretty oblivious. Especially when it’s about someone being interested in him.”

Eric shot him an exasperated look. “Could we not talk about this now?”

“Sure man. Just trying to help you out.”

“Well don’t.”

Speed laughed at that. “You’ve got it bad.”

Then he shut up because Eric looked ready to dump his coffee on his head.

If he allowed himself to tease Eric like that, it was because he knew that his friend needed a push in order to make a move. Eric usually had no problem going after what he wanted but strangely this time, he hadn’t. Speed figured it was because things were different. It was Ryan.

Quite frankly, he didn’t know when he had become aware of his friend’s feelings for the then-patrol officer, now homicide detective. They had met while Speed was in the hospital, recovering from a bullet wound to the chest that could very well have killed him had it been but a couple of inches lower. It had been on a case, something about a bus – Speed was a little fuzzy on the details, he had had other worries at the time – and Ryan had been the responding officer. He had done a good job too, and Speed remembered Eric had been impressed, wondering why the guy wasn’t a CSI. Once the case had been closed, they had gone for a drink, and their friendship had progressed from there. Eric had introduced him to Speed when he had gotten better and the rest, as they say, was history.

That was four years ago. It wasn’t always easy for the three men to stay in contact because of their heavy work schedules but somehow they managed. Speed genuinely liked the younger man. He was a strange mix of funny, shy, confident and obsessive. Endearing, really. And Speed had come to look upon him as a kid brother.

Then six months ago, Ryan had been promoted to Detective and had joined Homicide. That’s when Speed noticed something was different with Eric. They often worked cases together now and that was his first clue. The watching. Eric spent a lot of time doing just that. Watching Ryan. Then there was the decrease in Eric’s nights on the town till Speed couldn’t remember the last time he had been told of one of Eric’s conquests. Already knowing that his friend was bisexual, it really wasn’t difficult to put two and two together.

So Speed started watching too, and found out a few interesting bits of information. Like Ryan watching Eric back. Oh he was more discreet but it didn’t make it less true. Therefore Speed resolved to get them together, focusing his efforts on Eric because he knew there was no chance in hell of Ryan making the first step.

Unfortunately, the man was proving himself to be very stubborn.

---

Detective Frank Tripp glanced at his watch for the second time in the past fifteen minutes. Ryan Wolfe was late and it wasn’t like him at all. It could have been anything from a dead alarm clock to traffic, and had it been anyone but the kid, Frank wouldn’t have worried. But Wolfe called when he was five minutes late and Frank hadn’t been on the force for almost twenty years for nothing. Something felt wrong. The kid wasn’t answering his phone either, home or cell, and that was just plain fishy. And he was now half an hour late.

“Lou,” he said, his mind made up. “I’m going to see what’s holding up Ryan.”

The detective who worked at the desk next to his nodded absentmindedly and Frank was off.

On his way to the kid’s apartment, Frank pondered what he knew of the young man. Wolfe had been a good patrol officer, and he had deserved his promotion. Having worked with him for almost six months now, he could tell he would make a great detective too. He had good instincts and the knack for charming information out of witnesses. Unlike some of the old school detectives, he actually understood when the CSI started babbling about spectrometer analysis and whatnot – Frank had heard something about a chemistry Masters. As for his personal life, Frank didn’t know much. Ryan had an uncle and was friends with a couple of CSI, Speed and Delko – he had overheard them making plans for drinks after work one day.

Apart from that, the man was pretty much a mystery. Barely 30, Ryan seemed incredibly young to him. But he did his job well and that was enough for Frank – he even liked the kid. Which was why he was so worried now.

When he got to the kid’s place he flashed his badge at the super and was let in. Reaching Ryan’s apartment door, alarm bells started to ring inside his head. The door was slightly ajar. Taking his gun out, he flattened himself against the wall and cautiously approached the apartment, his heart starting to pump faster with the adrenaline. Throwing a quick glance inside, which revealed nothing, he pushed the door open and stepped inside, weapon drawn and praying he wasn’t about to find Ryan’s body.

“Miami-Dade police,” he called out. Not a sound answered him, and he quickly checked the rest of the apartment. It was clear. Nothing seemed out of place, everything neat and – when he looked more closely – alphabetically organized. Except there was no Ryan.

Something caught his attention in the kitchen. Staring at it, he took out his cell phone and hit the speed dial.

“Horatio, I need you to send me a couple of your guys. We have a problem.”

---

Lt. Horatio Caine had been in his office going over his team’s reports from their latest case when his phone rang. The morning had been going fairly well. He had watched Speed try to get a rise out of Eric – and succeed – and smiled at their antics. It happened frequently these days and despite Horatio’s reputation of omniscience, he had no idea what it was about.

However when he checked the caller ID, he had a feeling that the day was about to take a turn for the worst.

“Horatio, I need you to send me a couple of your guys. We have a problem.”

He listened as Frank explained the situation, forcing himself to remain calm and professional, then jolted down the address and hang up.

Sometimes, he wished he wasn’t right so often.

---

“Speed, I need you to find Eric. We have a potential crime scene.”

Speed looked up, a little surprised at Horatio’s quick entrance into the trace lab and nodded. “What do we have?”

Horatio handed him a piece of paper with an address on it. Speed glanced at it briefly, listening to what H was telling him. “Possible kidnapping or homicide. A homicide detective didn’t show up at work today, Frank went to check on him. Door was opened, no signs of forced entry but there is some blood in the kitchen.”

Speed nodded, looking back with more attention at the address as Horatio continued to give him further details, and blanched. “That’s Ryan’s address!”

Horatio paused. He had known Speed was on friendly terms with Ryan Wolfe, but he hadn’t known how much.

“Can you work the case?” he said, implicitly asking if his objectivity was too severely compromised to do his job.

Speed’s expression hardened a little, telling H that he probably shouldn’t be on the case at all but that he had no chance in hell of getting him off it.

“I can work the case.”

“Good. Find Eric and let me know what you find. I want everyone on this.”

Speed hesitated for a second before he nodded again and headed for the door. He hadn’t told Horatio about Eric and he wasn’t sure he should. For the time being, he decided, he would play it by ear.

Finding Eric in ballistics, he informed him they had a case and dragged him to his SUV. They got in but he didn’t start the car. Instead, he turned to face his friend who was looking at him expectantly.

“Eric, it’s about Ryan.”

Eric sighed. “Not again! Look, I know...”

“No,” Speed interrupted him. “The case. It’s about Ryan.”

Eric looked angry and his eyes flashed. “If this is a joke...”

“It’s not. Ryan didn’t show up at work this morning and he wasn’t answering his phone so Frank went to his place. He... he found some blood.”

Eric was very pale now and Speed continued urgently. “I need to know if you can work the case.”

It seemed to be the wrong thing to say because Eric looked angry again.

“You want to know if I can be objective?”

“Eric, you’re in love with the man!” Speed almost shouted, and for once, Eric didn’t bother to deny it. Had the circumstances been different, Speed would have appreciated it a great deal more but...

“I’m on the case.” Eric said stubbornly, his jaw set. “And you can’t be objective either, he’s your friend.”

Speed sighed and turned on the ignition. Eric had a point, he was well aware of that.

As he drove them away, lights flashing, he prayed fervently that Ryan was fine and they would find him soon.

He didn’t know what Eric would do if they didn’t.

---

Eric could feel his stomach churning as his partner speeded towards Ryan’s apartment. What had happened? Was Ryan alright? Had someone taken him? Why? How much blood exactly was there? Enough for him to be... No, he wasn’t going to think like that. Ryan would be fine. Maybe it was all a misunderstanding. Maybe Ryan had slipped and hurt himself and gone to the ER and of course they wouldn’t have let him use his cell phone to call and...

Eric took a deep breath and tried to clear his mind. He had to focus on his job. That’s right. He would do his job, and they would find Ryan. They couldn’t not find him. It just wasn’t an option. Because Speed was right, he loved him, God help him, he did, and they had to find him so that he could tell him. And he had probably been the last person to see him and God did that make him a suspect? He would have to tell Horatio when they came back to the lab…

He was shaken out of his ramblings when Speed pulled over and they both rushed inside, meeting Frank at the door of Ryan’s apartment. Eric almost smiled when he stepped in. It wasn’t the first time he came here and the place was so much Ryan he could almost feel his presence. Everything was neatly organized, not one thing out of place, and it was also obsessively clean. Not what you would expect from a bachelor’s home – certainly nothing like Eric’s place. They used to tease him about it sometimes, when Ryan came over to one of their apartments and obsessively started ordering things.

Eric shut out that line of thoughts abruptly because it wasn’t helping him concentrate. Instead he focused on the job at hand and turned towards Speed.

“I’ll start in here.”

Speed nodded and headed for the bedroom.

‘In here’ was in fact the hallway and living room. He first turned his attention on the door, taking shots of the lock then dusting the handle for prints. There were some, but he knew they were probably Ryan’s. Then he started to work his way inside, noting that the jacket Ryan had been wearing the night before was hanging in the closet. He worked meticulously, going over everything twice, knowing what was at stake, but found nothing. The windows were shut, providing no means of entry, but he still checked for prints inside and outside, looking for clues on the balcony.

Nothing. There was absolutely nothing.

The room was clean.

Then he headed towards the kitchen.

---

Speed wasn’t having any more luck. The bedroom was just as clean as the rest of the house, and there was no clue Ryan had even been in here the night before. The bed was made, there was no sign of struggle anywhere. He still made himself check for fluids on and in the bed, but nothing. At least that was a relief.

Same for the bathroom. Had it been anyone else’s place, Speed would have said the rooms were too clean but it was Ryan and Speed would have worried if there had been something out of place. As it was there was none.

But they still had the kitchen to check out. They had saved the room for last, knowing that was where the blood was. When he stepped besides Eric, he found him looking fixedly at the little pool of blood. Thankfully, there wasn’t much.

He elbowed Eric gently and they got back to work.

---

Calleigh had just been briefed by Horatio on the situation – which had by now become public knowledge – when the front desk called him. He answered tersely then snapped his phone shut and turned towards Calleigh.

“They found something that might be related to Detective Wolfe’s disappearance.”

She followed him in silence, matching his quick stride. She didn’t know Wolfe very well – they had only work a few cases together, he was mostly paired off with Eric or Speed – but he had been smart and competent – had asked the questions and actually listened to the answers, and understood them. Cute too. And so very young.

When they reached the reception, the man there gestured at something on his desk.

“It was with the rest of the morning mail. At first I didn’t pay it much attention but when I heard what had happened to Dt. Wolfe...”

Calleigh nodded and Horatio had already found gloves. He took the envelope and they both headed back for the lab. Stopping into Trace, Horatio opened the letter carefully while Calleigh watched. It was pretty nondescript, the kind everyone could find anywhere, and on it was written ‘To Lt. Horatio Caine - missing something?’

A picture fell out, one of the Polaroid kind, and Calleigh peered at it. It was Wolfe, no doubt about that. From the look of it, he was unconscious, and his hair was matted with blood. Horatio had gone very still next to her and when he turned the photo around, Calleigh couldn’t suppress a gasp.

The Mala Noce trident was looking right back at them.

---

When Speed and Eric got back to the lab, they dropped the bloody swab they had taken from the scene to Valera and went to find Horatio. They found him with Calleigh, Tripp and his Captain in the conference room.

“Good, now we can begin,” Horatio said. “What did you find at his apartment?”

“There was no sign of forced entry and no sign of struggle. Whoever did this had a key or Ryan opened to them. The blood was the only indication something had happened at all. We gave a sample of DNA to Valera to confirm it’s Ryan’s.”

“It most likely is,” Calleigh muttered and the two men looked at her questioningly.

“Someone,” Horatio said, “sent me this.”

Speed’s eyes narrowed and he could feel Eric stiffen next to him. Then Horatio turned the picture over and Speed barely bit back a curse. Eric didn’t.

“We analyzed the envelope, we have nothing. There is no trace of saliva, no fingerprint and the ink and paper are the most common kind you can find,” Calleigh said.

“But it makes no sense.” Eric blurted out. “Why would the Mala Noce want to kidnap Ryan? And why send the letter to Horatio?”

“Need I remind you that the Mala Noce are responsible for the death of more than ten police officers?” Captain Randall asked, sounding and looking as frustrated as the rest of them.

“Yes but that’s my point. They didn’t kill Ryan, they kidnapped him. And he wasn’t even on the job. They had no way of knowing he was a cop unless they watched him. That makes it personal!” Eric went on, not to be deterred easily. Speed had to admit he made sense.

“I don’t care what you do, Caine, you find him. I have to give a press conference now.” With that, the Captain was out of the room.

Tripp however was frowning. “The kid hasn’t worked on any case involving the Mala Noce since he joined homicide. And we sent most of their members in jail three years ago. They haven’t stirred any trouble since.”

“It would appear that they are back, Frank,” Horatio said quietly. “Speed, we need to know what Detective Wolfe did last night. Calleigh…”

“I know what he did already.” Eric interrupted, and found the rest of the room looking at him while Speed nodded in agreement. “We had a couple of drinks after work and then he went home. It was around 8.30 when he left.”

“Can anyone confirm that?” Tripp asked, almost regretfully.

“Anyone at the bar. Speed was supposed to come too but at the last minute he couldn’t.” The bantering of the morning about Speed’s absence now seemed very far away.

“That gives us a time line. He got home around 9. Whoever grabbed him must have done it soon after because he didn’t have time to eat and never went to bed either. What if they were already waiting for him inside when he came in?” Speed summarized.

“Very well. Speed, I want you to focus on who could have easy access to his apartment. Calleigh, go through his file, the cases he worked on, even in patrol.” Horatio instructed his team. “Frank...”

“I’ll look up possible locations for their new headquarters and sent people to interview the Mala Noce members currently in jail.”

They all started to file out of the room when Horatio’s voice stopped them. “Eric, a word.”

Eric clenched his teeth. He had a good idea what his boss was about to say, and he knew he wouldn’t like it. Wouldn’t like it at all.

---

“Eric.”

Horatio felt tired. For the first time in a long time, he was feeling his age. Eric was right, it was personal, and Ryan Wolfe was caught in the crossfire.

“You shouldn’t be on the case.” He stated as calmly as he could, waiting for the explosion. Sure enough, Eric’s eyes flashed angrily but he kept his cool.

“Don’t take me off the case, H.”

“You were the last person to see Detective Wolfe. It should mean that you’re a suspect. It does mean that you can’t work this case.”

“His name is Ryan.”

“That’s exactly what I mean. He is your friend, you’re too involved –”

“He’s Speed’s friend too.” Eric tried to interrupt.

“– it’s become personal.” Horatio finished, still looking steadily into the younger man’s eyes and trying to make him see reason.

“Personal? You want to talk about personal H?” Eric asked derisively, placing both hands on the table between them. “How about when that woman you were on the date with the night before got killed? Oh, you took yourself off the case but you were still around the whole time. And what about right now? They sent the letter to you. Why is that H, uh? I would say that’s pretty personal too. I’m on the case.”

With that Eric stormed off and Horatio let him go.

---

When Eric came storming into the trace lab, Speed could tell it hadn’t gone so well.

“I told H I was on the case.”

Speed blinked. “You told him?”

“Yes.”

“Oh well, I guess everything is fine then.”

“Shut up,” Eric muttered without spite. “He can fire me once we find Ryan.”

Speed sighed and rubbed his face with his hands. This case was fucking them up and it had only been four hours. “He won’t fire you. Come on, we need to find out who had a key to Ryan’s place. Any idea?”

“The super at his place had one. His uncle might too.” Eric suggested.

“Alright. Let’s bring them in. We should talk to his uncle anyway.”

---

‘Ryan Wolfe. Detective. Turned 30 this year. Had been in patrol for 5 years. Masters in chemistry–’

Calleigh raised an eyebrow at that. It sure explained a few things.

‘– Mother deceased, father unknown. Raised by his grandparents, both now deceased. An uncle.’

Then followed a list of arrests and cases he had worked on. Nothing stood out. A couple of commendations, but no threats made towards him. Nothing that would give an inkling as to why the Mala Noce had singled him out.

They had nothing.

---

Tripp wasn’t faring much better.

So far, this was the first move the Mala Noce had made since coming back to town. Clearly they wanted to reassert their control on the town by exacting vengeance on the police department – and Horatio in particular – for some reason they had picked Ryan. It made no sense whatsoever.

The men he had dispatched to the various jails hadn’t found anything yet either. The Mala Noce members weren’t talking. The street wasn’t either.

They had nothing.

---

Valera stared at the results. She had been running analysis on the blood they had found in Detective Wolfe’s apartment for DNA comparison, and twice already, she had found something... peculiar. The blood was his, there was no doubt about it, but the search had come up with an additional match which left her perplexed. That was why she had run the test a third time, hoping against hope it was just a glitch in the system or some strange coincidence, but it now seemed less and less likely.

The other match was only a partial one, but it was one none the less, and with that many alleles in common, it could only mean one thing.

Looking up from the piece of paper she was currently holding with a bewildered expression on her face, she saw Calleigh heading her way and wondered what she was supposed to do. However, Calleigh didn’t leave her much time to ponder on the subject.

“Hey Valera. Do you have the results from the blood they found at Wolfe’s?”

“Yes, it’s his. The DNA confirms it.”

Calleigh nodded, looking both worried and disappointed. That must mean they had no lead as to who had taken Wolfe and she had hoped the blood belonged to a suspect. Hesitating just a second, Valera continued.

“There is something else.”

Deciding to let the results speak for themselves, she handed them to Calleigh. She looked at it and her eyes widened.

“Are you...?” She sounded as stunned as Valera felt and curiously that made her feel a little better.

“I’m sure. I ran it three times. Got the same thing every time.”

Calleigh was still staring at the piece of paper with something akin to fascination or horror, Valera wasn’t sure. Then she seemed to give herself a shake and looked up at Valera.

“Have you told anyone about this?” she asked almost urgently.

“No, no one.” Calleigh visibly relaxed at that. “I don’t think anyone would believe me anyway,” she finished with a strained laugh.

Calleigh nodded and smiled weakly back. “Okay. Good. Let’s keep it that way, alright? I’ll talk to him.”

---

As she left the DNA lab, Calleigh could feel her head spinning. Instead of going straight for her destination, she paused in the first empty room she came across and try to gather her thoughts.

Since the announcement that Detective Wolfe had been kidnapped by the Mala Noce this morning, everyone had been behaving strangely. The homicide detectives, Ryan’s coworkers, and the entire police force was on the war path. That had to be expected. No, the strangest thing was how Eric and Speed were behaving. Eric was beside himself with worry, running himself ragged and snapping at everyone, and Speed seemed to alternate between frustration and shooting concerned looks at Eric. And Horatio... well even if it was sometimes difficult to define what was normal for Horatio, he too was behaving unlike himself.

And now this.

Actually, it explained a few things. It gave them a mobile at any rate.

She had to talk to Horatio.

---

Speed had talked to Ryan’s super and hadn’t gotten much from him. Yes, he had a key to his apartment, he had a key to all the apartments. Ryan was a very nice young man, everyone liked him in the building. It was really a shame... No, no, he hadn’t seen anyone suspicious coming in or out of the building. He always kept the keys with him, no there was no way someone could have ‘borrowed’ them. Really, Ryan was so well-mannered, it was rare these days...

And so on. Since there had been no suspect movement on his bank account, they let him go but Speed made a note to go back to Ryan’s building and interview his neighbors again. The majority had been at work this morning when they had tried but maybe one of them had heard or seen something.

Coming out of the interrogation room, he found Eric waiting for him.

“How did it go?” he asked him.

“There is something weird going on.” Eric said, frowning, his eyes on Horatio and another man – Ryan’s uncle, Speed guessed. Speed looked at them as well but couldn’t see anything suspicious. At least, Eric sounded calmer.

“Why? What happened?”

“I was talking to Ryan’s uncle, told him he was missing, had been kidnapped. The minute I said that, he demanded to talk to H. Didn’t say anything else, just ‘I want to see Horatio Caine NOW.’ That was half an hour ago.”

Speed looked at the two men more carefully. They were about the same age, Ryan’s uncle a little older. From what he could see, they knew each other – at least that’s what their posture indicated – and Ryan’s uncle was angry, while Horatio retained the same imperturbable air as usual, except it looked frayed on the edges.

Calleigh joined them then, looking flustered and determined at the same time, her hands clutching a file.

“Where is Horatio?”

“Talking to Ryan’s uncle.” Speed replied, nodded towards the two men’s direction.

“Is it about Ryan?” Eric asked, because please, let someone have a lead.

Calleigh hesitated. It was about Ryan and it was of major importance for the case, but it really wasn’t her place to say anything. Unfortunately for her, she had hesitated too long and Eric was already too on edge to accept any delay. He grabbed the file from her hands and opened it, Speed crowding at his shoulders to see the results. Calleigh desperately tried to catch it back but it was too late.

The two men stared at the results uncomprehendingly for a second and then looked up at Calleigh.

“How is that even possible?” Speed asked dumbly. “We would have known...”

Calleigh and Eric were shaking their heads and it was Eric who spoke first. “Ryan doesn’t know who his father is, never has. His mother died when he was a baby and his grandparents wouldn’t tell him. I guess his uncle knows though.”

The three of them turned back to look at the two older men and Eric snorted mirthlessly. “Not personal my ass.”

---

Ryan fell back on the ‘bed’. He had explored his cell more than once in the hours that had passed since he had woken up. But he had found nothing that would indicate where he was being held, nor how he could get out. At least he hadn’t found any surveillance equipment, which meant he could do as he pleased. Unfortunately it also meant there was no escaping from that room, although he had come up with a dozen plans and discarded most of them.

No one had come either, and if it hadn’t been for the muffled voices that sometimes drifted through the door, he would have thought he was utterly alone in the middle of nowhere. He couldn’t even hear the usual sounds of the city – no traffic, no horns, nothing. Just silence. He had to admit it was a little oppressing. And he was hungry and thirsty too. But the dizziness had passed.

He knew people were probably looking for him by now. His friends and his colleagues were looking for him. And they would find him soon. They had to. Because they were good at their jobs and whoever had taken him couldn’t have done so without leaving a trail. Speed would probably yell at him when they found him, and Eric... well he knew what he would like Eric to do but it didn’t really matter. Still, he had been taken by God knew who and locked up in a room God knew where so he decided he could allow himself a little wistful thinking. He really really liked Eric and great, he sounded like a high school girl. Alright, he was in love with the man. In love with his friend. And how stupid was that? Because Eric didn’t swing that way, and even if he did, well... Ryan was Ryan. OCD and all.

The sound of a lock being turned jerked him out of his pondering and he was immediately on his guard. He probably wouldn’t have a lot of chances to escape and he wasn’t going to miss this one. A small voice that sounded a lot like Speed was telling him how stupid it was considering he had no idea where he was or how many men and weapons were on the other side of that door, but he ignored it. He laid back and pretended to be still unconscious.

Then the door opened.

---

Ryan didn’t move. Two voices came inside the room. Ryan was shaken none too gently but he didn’t react. From what he could hear, one man was right next to him and the other was still blocking the door. They were talking in Spanish and the second man sounded angry, saying something about they had hit him too hard and he wanted him alive, not dead – not yet at any rate – and he wouldn’t be pleased. Then the second man was coming closer and Ryan sprang into action.

Catching the first man by surprise, he pushed him forcefully against the second man, hoping to knock them out long enough to make a run for it – talk about poetic justice. He didn’t pause to see whether it had worked but went straight for the door. He knew he had lost the element of surprise and had only speed on his side now. So he ran, only taking a second to slam the door behind him. He heard them scramble on the other side but he had already turned the lock and was off again.

Except he had no idea where he was – he was in some short of building, that much was sure, and he now knew they weren’t alone. Since there was no sunlight, he decided to bet that he was underground and had to find stairs. Already, there were shouts behind them, and he ran blindly turning right and left randomly until finally he came upon a flight of stairs. The shouts were getting closer too and he took the stairs two by two until he could see the sunlight and he knew he had found the ground floor.

With a new-found burst of speed, he pushed himself forward and found himself in what looked like a giant abandoned warehouse. The change made him disorientated for a second but he didn’t let it slow him down.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t meant to be that easy.

Now, there were people shouting behind and in front of him. Of course they would have had people watching the doors. Taking a sharp turn to his right towards one of the source of light – and possible exit – Ryan hoped they really wanted him alive.

No sooner had he thought that that a single gunshot reverberated in the room and sent him sprawling on the floor. He could feel something warm dripping on his face – blood, he figured, and distantly thought he had hit his head again. That would explain why he was seeing stars.

He didn’t feel the pain in his shoulder right away. When he finally did, his first thought was an indignant ‘they shot me!’ and his second ‘Fuck that hurts’. He tried to crawl away but his body wasn’t cooperating too well and dimly he could hear his pursuers coming closer. Someone muttered about him being as troublesome as his father and that normally would have gotten his attention but right now, he had other things on his mind.

Then he was being propped up none too gently against the wall and his shoulder sent a fresh wave of agony through his body. When he opened his eyes again, a man was kneeling in front of him, an expectant look on his face.

“What do you want?” Ryan managed through gritted teeth.

“Why, Detective, I thought that would be obvious,” the other replied, and though he was smiling there was no warmth on his face. “Leverage, of course.”

Ryan tried to concentrate on his words. It was difficult because the man kept going in and out of focus. He didn’t really make any sense anyway. “Leverage? What, you want to exchange prisoners? That won’t work, they won’t negotiate with you.”

“Not even for you?” the other replied, and his smile grew wider and chillier. “That’s good to know. However, that wasn’t the kind of leverage I had in mind.”

Then he stepped away from Ryan and exchanged a few fast words in Spanish with one of his men. When he came back, he was holding a cell phone Ryan recognized as his own.

“Now, Detective, you get to pick which of your police friends I will call.”

“Eric,” his mouth blurted out instinctively before his brain could kick in.

“That would be Eric Delko I presume?” the man said, scrolling down his repertory, and Ryan would have given anything to take it back because he really didn’t want to put Eric or anyone else in danger. But it was too late now, the man already holding the phone to his ear with a satisfied look on his face.

---

When Eric’s phone started ringing, it startled the three of them out of their stupor. Eric finally tore his eyes away from Horatio and Ryan’s uncle to glance at it, and started violently.

“It’s Ryan!”

He made to answer the call but Speed’s hand on his arm stopped him. When he looked at him, Speed already had his own cell phone out and was speaking to someone.

“Tyler, it’s Speed. We need a trace on a call made to Eric’s cell.”

Meanwhile Calleigh had gone to find Horatio, but Eric wasn’t about to wait any longer. Shrugging Speed’s arm off, he pressed the ‘talk’ button.

“Ryan?” he asked, hoping against hope to hear his friend’s voice. Instead, a cool voice with a hint of a Spanish accent answered him.

“My apologies, Mr. Delko, but no, this isn’t Ryan. However, I need to talk to Lt. Caine now. Get him for me, would you?”

Eric clenched his jaw. “I want to talk to Ryan first.”

Calleigh was back with Horatio now, and they were all staring at Eric with anticipation.

“It doesn’t work that way.”

Enough was enough, Eric decided. “Oh really? Well, I’ll tell you how it works. You let me talk to Ryan, and then I let you talk to Horatio. If I don’t, you don’t. How is that?”

He was vaguely aware of the fact that he shouted the last few words but he really didn’t care at the moment. Even if everyone in the vicinity was staring at him.

“Very well.” The answer was clipped and annoyed but it was worth everything and more when he got Ryan’s pained voice on the phone.

“Eric?”

“Ryan, are you alright? Where are you?”

“Warehouse. I...”

Unfortunately, he didn’t get more and the stranger was back on the phone.

“Now, that wasn’t very nice. But you heard him, so now get Caine.”

“Fine.”

So he tore the cell from his ear and he looked at H with something of a challenge in his eyes: “He wants to talk to you.”

---

Horatio had been getting more and more frustrated when Calleigh had burst into the interrogation room and told him that someone was calling Eric with Ryan’s cell phone. Glancing at the uniform in the room, he instructed him to keep an eye on Mr. Wolfe and then hurried after her.

When they got back to Eric, it was to hear him demand to talk to Ryan, and Horatio almost tore the phone out of his hand. But he knew Eric would never endanger his friend’s life so he chose to let him continue. Soon, Eric’s face filled with a look of pure relief.

“Ryan, are you alright? Where are you?”

He could hear Speed exhale next to him but focused on Eric instead, whose expression had gotten somber again. Then Eric turned towards him and handed him the phone. Horatio took it and decided to move the conversation to a less public area. He got into an empty interrogation room, his team members following him. They were all staring at him with a strange expression on their face, and Calleigh was still holding a file, and he briefly wondered if the secret he had worked so hard at keeping for the past five years was now out in the open. But he didn’t have the time for that now.

“This is Horatio Caine.”

“Lt. Caine. I believe I have something of yours.”

“And who am I talking to?” Horatio asked as calmly as ever.

“Why, Lt., you wound me. You know who this is,” the voice said mockingly.

“The Mala Noce.”

“Very good.”

“What do you want?” H asked, finally voicing the question they had all been asking themselves since the morning.

There was a pause at the other end of the line.

“Nothing, actually. Just to talk. For the moment. You know, I really don’t see the family resemblance. The boy takes after his mother, I suppose. However, he is as much trouble as you are. Do you know he tried to escape earlier? We had to shoot him. Unfortunate, really.”

Horatio gritted his teeth and took a deep breath. “How is he?”

“In pain, as you might imagine. You have been shot before, haven’t you Lt.?”

“Yes.” he answered tersely. “What do you want?” he asked again, feeling himself losing patience rapidly.

“I already told you. Nothing. Of course, you have some of our members in your jails, but they are replaceable. Detective Wolfe, I believe, isn’t. I’ll let you think on that.”

And then there was only the dial tone in his ears and Horatio closed his eyes briefly, not ready to face his team just yet. He could hear Speed on his own phone talking to Tyler and forced himself to look at him. Maybe they had managed to trace the call back to its origin. But the look on Speed’s face told him they hadn’t. That was confirmed when Speed hang up.

“The call was scrambled. They managed to pin it down to an area but it’s a large one.”

“Ryan said he was in a warehouse.” Eric cut in. “Probably abandoned. That might narrow it down...”

“I’ll look into it,” Speed said, and Horatio finally spoke.

“We might not have a lot of time. Detec- Ryan is hurt.” This pretty much got the reaction he expected. Eric looked ready to murder someone and Speed wasn’t far behind. Calleigh’s reaction was more subtle, but then again, she didn’t know Ryan very well and her concern for him was more for a colleague than for a friend. “He tried to escape. They shot him,” he elaborated succinctly.

“How bad is it?” Speed asked and H shook his head.

“They didn’t say. Eric, you spoke to him, how did he seem?”

Eric made a visible effort to reign his emotions in. “In pain. But lucid. H, they took a great deal of caution to get him alive, they wouldn’t kill him now. Not when...” Eric interrupted himself and swallowed visibly, but they all knew what he had been about to say. ‘Not when his death doesn’t serve any purpose.’ Neither of them were under any illusion that they planned to keep Ryan alive indefinitely.

“H, I think we need to talk.” Calleigh said almost gently, but before she could get further, Tripp entered the room.

“We might have something.”

---

Ryan had watched wearily as the man talked to Lt. Caine. He couldn’t hear what he was saying – he had moved at the other end of the room at the beginning of the conversation – but he looked very smug. Ryan had been expecting retribution for telling Eric he was in a warehouse, but none had come, at least for now. The pain in his shoulder kept distracting him and he couldn’t keep a clear head, his thoughts getting all mumbled up.

Then the man was hanging up and next to Ryan.

“So, Detective, what can you tell me about Lt. Caine?”

Ryan blinked. Where was he heading with that? He tried to shrug, which he reflectively decided wasn’t the best of ideas considering his shoulder.

“I don’t know him.”

Technically that wasn’t exactly the truth. He had worked a few cases with Caine, not many, which he had found a little surprising at first, even going as far as to wonder if the man was avoiding him on purpose, but it had sounded fairly stupid and very self-centered even in his own head so he had given up. Caine was, after all, one of the best in Miami-Dade. He had better things to do with his time than avoid a young homicide detective.

Still, sometimes Ryan wished that they would work together more often. The few times they had, Caine had been something of a mystery, coming across as a strange mix of distant and almost paternal. And the man was good. He had heard plenty about him from both Speed and Eric too.

“Really? Well, that’s interesting.”

The man had a look on his face that said ‘I know something you don’t’ but Ryan didn’t fall for it and refused to ask why.

“Take him back. Oh, and Ryan? Don’t try something like that again.”

Something came down hard on his wounded shoulder and Ryan couldn’t bit back a scream.

Then he passed out.

---

Tripp felt like he had missed something important when he came into the interrogation room to find Horatio’s team clustered around him. But they didn’t have time for a recap, not when they finally had a lead.

“I went back to Ryan’s building to question more of his neighbors. Turns out, one of the tenants of the second floor works nights and when he was leaving last night around 9.30, he remembers a black SUV almost ran him over in the parking lot. I checked the traffic cameras around Ryan’s place and we got lucky.” He produced a grainy black and white picture and placed it on the table. “They ran a light two blocks from his place and we got a license. The car was reported stolen 2 days ago but I put an APB on it.”

“We might have a way to narrow the search.” Horatio said, with a carefully contained voice. The others weren’t so subtle, hope shining on their faces. “The kidnapper called. Ryan managed to let us know he was in a warehouse and the call was traced back to a general area. We’ll cross-reference the two to get a more precise idea on their location. Then send cars to each possible location to see if they can find the black SUV. That will allow us to save some time. Ryan is hurt.”

The amount of information delivered in those few sentences was enough to tell Frank that he had indeed missed a few things while he had been away.

“I’m on it,” Calleigh said decisively, probably figuring she was the only one with a somewhat clear head in the room.

They watched her leave and Delko and Speed were about to follow when Frank wondered out loud, “Why did they even pick Ryan?”

The two young men froze and turned as one to look at their boss. Delko looked angry again, challenging, and he couldn’t remember seeing him this out of control, even after Speed had been shot. Horatio looked back at them evenly for a second, then turned to face him.

“It was personal Frank.”

That didn’t make any sense. They had already ascertained that Ryan hadn’t worked on anything related to the Mala Noce, and he said as much.

“Not personal for Ryan –” and Tripp wondered when H had switched from Detective Wolfe to calling the kid by his first name. “– personal for me.”

“Yeah, we all know the Mala Noce has it for you Horatio. That doesn’t say why the kid.”

“Ryan... Ryan is my son.”

Frank’s jaw hit the floor.

---

A little earlier...

Horatio looked up from his desk to see a very frustrated-looking Eric walk into his office. Not for the first time since this whole mess had started, Horatio wondered if there wasn’t something other than friendship between the two men, or at least on Eric’s side, to elicit such high-strung emotions.

He wasn’t sure how he felt about that.

“We brought Ryan’s uncle in to tell him about Ryan and ask a few questions. He won’t talk to us. He wants you.”

H raised an eyebrow. He would have thought he was the last person William Wolfe would have wanted to see, but all things considered, maybe not.

“Thank you Eric.”

Then he was heading for the interrogation room and shutting out the audio feed – that way, no one would eavesdrop.

Sitting across Melissa’s older brother, he couldn’t help but wonder how much time had passed.

The first time he had seen Ryan, he had just started patrol, and he had looked so very young. He remembered that was the first thing that went through his mind – ‘they keep getting younger and younger.’ The second was a nagging sensation that the man looked familiar, in a strange, distant way he couldn’t quite place. That feeling grew every time he saw him, even if it was only at a distance. Then one time, he heard someone else call him – ‘Hey, Wolfe!’ and that had been like a strike of lightning. Of course! There might be more than one Wolfe family in Miami, but this young man looked like Melissa, a girl he had dated while they were both in college. Maybe this Wolfe was a relative of hers – she had died very young, he remembered. She had had a brother though. Maybe...

Out of sheer curiosity, he had pulled Officer Wolfe’s file and had received the greatest shock of his life. Not only was Melissa a relative of his, she also was his mother. And there was no father’s name listed. His date of birth, however, left very little doubt possible.

Searching his memories, he tried to remember if there was any hint anywhere that Melissa might have been pregnant when they had parted ways. It had been their final year of college and he had been heading for New York in the fall, so they had both decided it would be better that they stop seeing each other. He had looked her up when he had come back in Miami the next summer, but her parents told him icily – they had never liked him – that she had been killed 3 months ago in a car accident. They had conveniently forgotten to mention she had had a baby boy 2 months before.

They were both dead, however, when Horatio had made his stunning discovery. So he had found Melissa’s brother – who had probably liked him even less than both their parents combined – and William had confirmed his suspicions – though not before Horatio threatened to use DNA comparison.

He had then found himself with a dilemma. What – if anything – to tell Ryan?

One of Horatio’s most irrational fears was that if he ever married and had children himself, he would turn into his father. Faced with the prospect of having a son, he found that fear rekindled. And Ryan was a grown man, he probably didn’t need a father now, especially one as infamous as Horatio Caine, considering he was planning a career in law enforcement. H had pissed off a lot of people, after all, and if he was tolerated because his lab was one of the best, his son wouldn’t have the same courtesy extended to him. Really, it was for the best to keep the status quo.

That being said, he couldn’t stay away entirely. It was also inevitable that they would work cases together, especially when Ryan was made detective and joined Homicide. Torn between his decision and his desire to know more about his son, he realized now that he had probably confused the young man in his dealings with him.

But it was too late to have regrets now. He could only hope he would have a second chance.

All this and more were running through his mind when he sat across William. Only he had the answer he needed, once again. How had the Mala Noce learned about Ryan?

“Mr. Wolfe.”

“Caine, what the hell are you doing? You said you would look after Ryan and now they tell me he is missing? I never wanted him to join the police force in the first place, but the boy is as stubborn as you are, I never –”

“Who else knows about Ryan’s connection to me?” H cut him off smoothly, his patience wearing thin.

“What do you mean? No one!”

Horatio’s eyes narrowed. The man sounded too defensive for it to be that simple. “Listen to me carefully, someone kidnapped Ryan to get to me, do you understand?”

“I knew it! It’s all your fault!” William was now red and gesticulating widely. “You ruined Melissa and now you’ve done the same thing with Ryan. I knew –”

“Quiet!” Horatio rarely raised his voice, but when he did the results were always spectacular. This time was no exception. “You’re the only person they could have learned it from, so either you tell me what I want to know or I book you for obstruction to justice. Do I need to remind you we’re talking about Ryan’s life here?”

The older man stared at the table, silent for once. He still looked angry, but there was something very close to embarrassment in his expression now.

“Fine,” he mumbled. “I was at a bar, a couple of months ago. There were these two guys behind me, and they were talking about you. Let’s just say we... shared our opinions.”

“Then what?” Horatio pressed on.

“I don’t know, I was drunk! I might have...”

“You might have let it slip that your nephew happened to be my son, is that it? I’m going to need the name of the bar and a description of the two men.”

“I don’t know what they look like, I was drunk! And it was 2 months ago!”

“The name of the bar?” Horatio asked through gritted teeth, only barely managing to keep his cool. The man was an idiot.

“The Red Parrot. But how was I supposed to know –”

In retrospective, it was lucky Calleigh chose that time to burst through the doors with the news that they had Ryan on the phone.

He might have lost it otherwise.

---

Now…

Speed stared at his boss and friend. Although he had known already, hearing H admit to it was still something of a shock. Glancing quickly at Eric, he saw that the other man was thinking the same thing. A wild thought about H as Eric’s father-in-law crossed his mind and he almost laughed out loud. Then decided to blame it on the stress of the day.

Tripp however wasn’t faring as well as the two of them. He had had no warning this was coming and had no time to process the information as he would have under other circumstances. So he put it aside for the time being and concentrated on more crucial matters.

“How did they find out?” he asked and Speed turned back towards Horatio, just as eager to hear that answer.

“Ryan’s uncle,” H replied succinctly. “Got himself drunk at a bar and opened his mouth with the wrong people nearby.”

“I’ll check it out,” Frank said, sounding almost relieved to have something to do. “Someone might remember who he was talking to.”

H nodded. “It was two months ago at the Red Parrot.”

Then Tripp was leaving the room too, leaving the three men alone.

“You knew?” H asked them, and Speed spoke.

“The DNA results on the blood in Ryan’s apartment came back with an extra match, a partial one to you.”

H nodded and then left the room as well. Speed turned to Eric, who sat down heavily on a chair.

“Man, this was not the way I saw this day going.” he sighed, rubbing his hands through his short hair.

“Tell me about it,” Speed replied. “Do you think Ryan has any idea about Horatio?”

Eric shook his head. “Not a clue. He asked me once why H didn’t like him. He said it was like he was avoiding him on purpose. I told him he was seeing things but now...”

“Do you realize what it means though?”

Eric looked at him questioningly and Speed couldn’t help himself. “Once you and Ryan finally get your shit together, you’ll have Horatio as a father-in-law.”

Eric groaned and buried his face in his arms. “He is going to kill me.”

“No he won’t,” Speed smiled lightly. “Now come on, let’s see what Calleigh has come up with.”

---

From then, things started moving very fast. They didn’t get anything at the bar but were able to pinpoint six possible locations and non-descript cars were dispatched to each of them. They found the black SUV near an old factory that had been closed for almost a year now, and the intervention team was called in. Within minutes they were all ready to go and emotions were running high.

When they got there, they didn’t waste anytime. They stormed the place, catching the gang by surprise. It didn’t stop them from opening fire, however. They returned fire, and soon Mala Noce and police officers were locked in a stand-off.

Eric peered at the scene from behind his cover, trying to determine where Ryan could be. He wasn’t in the room with them, that much was sure – it was a long, open space, the machinery gone or stolen, looking a lot like the empty warehouse Ryan had thought it was. From his position, he could see stairs disappearing in the ground, and if Ryan was here – which he had to be – he figured it would be down there. And they were losing time! There might be someone on his way to kill Ryan right now, wanting to extract his vengeance before it was too late. And there was nothing they could do because they were pinned down!

No sooner had the thought crossed his mind that a man darted for the stairs. Eric fired at him but missed, and reacted purely on instinct.

“Cover me,” he yelled at Speed and rushed towards the stairs. Somehow, he made it alive, and didn’t pause to thank God. Instead, he ran, intent on catching the man who was going after Ryan. The noise of the gun fight had stopped overhead, and he hoped that meant they had won, but he couldn’t focus on that right now. What was important was finding Ryan.

Suddenly a single gunshot resonated ahead and Eric’s heart stopped. Taking a sharp turn at full speed, he saw the man from before with his gun raised, aiming at someone Eric couldn’t see – ‘Ryan!’ he thought frantically – and ready to fire again. Luckily, Eric’s arrival was enough to startle him out of taking a second shot as he turned to face the intruder. Eric used that momentum to his advantage, firing two shots dead center on his chest.

Stopping long enough to check he was dead, Eric then stepped into the little cell.

“Ryan! Shit.” Reaching for his radio just as he got to his friend’s – and he wished so much more – side, he yelled “This is Delko, I need paramedics now, gunshot wound to the chest, and one to the shoulder.” Applying pressure on the chest wound, Eric tried to find a pulse. To his relief, he found one, and got back to talking to Ryan. “Ryan, can you hear me? Please, I need you to wake up.”

His efforts were rewarded by Ryan’s eyes fluttering open and a weak “Eric?”

“Yeah buddy, it’s me, we found you. We’re going to get you to a hospital now, okay? But you’ve got to stay awake, you hear me? Stay awake!”

“Hurts...” Ryan gasped out, and there was so much blood Eric could feel panic rising inside him.

“I know, I know but stay with me okay? I –”

A sudden noise from the hallway had him reaching for his gun with his free hand, and he almost shot Horatio when he came though the door.

“The paramedics are right behind me. How is he?” he asked, sounding as anxious as Eric felt and it was almost strange to hear so much emotion in H’s voice.

“Not too good,” Eric said grimly, and his voice almost broke. So he focused on Ryan who seemed to be fading in and out of consciousness now.

Then the PMs were bustling inside the room which had gotten too crowded when Horatio had stepped in, and shoved everyone out of their way. Eric could only watch as they busied themselves around Ryan, eased him onto a stretcher and carried him out. Suddenly, there was a lot less noise around Eric, and he turned when he felt a hand on his arm. It was Speed.

“Come on, let’s go to the hospital.” Eric nodded numbly and started out of the room. “You’re coming H?”

“In a minute.”

The last thing he saw when he turned in the hallway was his boss, the man he thought unshakable, sit down heavily on the floor and stare at Ryan’s blood.

---

The hospital was a little crazy. There had been more than one gunshot wound from the fight but Ryan was by far the most severe, and he had been whisked off to surgery the minute he had gotten there.

Speed watched a little helplessly as his friend paced across the waiting room. He had Ryan’s blood all over his clothes but couldn’t have been persuaded to change. Horatio, when he joined them, didn’t look much better – though sans blood – and had told them to leave Eric alone.

Finally, after what felt like hours of waiting – and probably was close to the truth too – a doctor announced them that Ryan should make a full recovery. Eric collapsed on a chair, Speed felt himself relax for the first time since the morning, and Horatio’s grip on the armrests finally loosened.

Ryan was being moved to the ICU and they would be able to see him once he was settled in his room. It took a couple of hours for Ryan to be released from the recovery room, enough time to finally get Eric into some clean clothes and to eat something. Then the three of them were standing in front of Ryan’s room, and Eric looked strangely reluctant to go in – and Horatio looked worse.

Shaking his head, Speed decided to take control of the situation and stepped into the room himself – that would show them. Ryan was linked to all sorts of machines he recognized from his own stay in the hospital a couple of years ago, and Speed briefly wondered if he had looked that bad back then.

“Hey,” he said when Ryan opened his eyes groggily to see who had come in. “I would have sent Eric in but the man is being his usual stupid self.”

Ryan gave him a weak smile Speed considered as a victory. They talked for a couple of minutes – or rather, Speed talked and Ryan moved his head – and then Speed gave Eric his turn.

---

“How are you feeling?” Eric asked, suddenly a little awkward. It was strange, feeling that way. It certainly had never happened before.

“They’re giving me good drugs,” Ryan said with a rather loopy smile on his face that told Eric that yes, indeed, his friend was drugged up to his eyebrows.

“I can see that.” Eric smiled, something loosening inside his chest now that he could see for himself Ryan alive and – relatively – well.

“You found me.” There was something like wonder in Ryan’s voice and Eric had to stop himself from saying something extremely cheesy, deciding he wasn’t that far gone.

Instead, he settled for: “Of course we did. What did you think, that we would just leave you there?”

“I wasn’t sure you would find me in time,” Ryan mumbled, mostly to himself, but Eric heard anyway, a lump constricting his airway.

“Hey,” he said, getting Ryan’s attention. Cupping a side of Ryan’s face with a hesitant hand, he whispered, “I’ll always find you.” And Christ, clearly, he was that far gone. Ryan didn’t seem to mind though.

Acting on impulse, Eric leaned forward, brushing his lips against Ryan’s.

He didn’t seem to mind at all.

---

Horatio stepped hesitantly inside Ryan’s room. He wanted, needed to see his son, feelings with which he was unfamiliar, but at the same time he was unsure how to explain his presence. He had no way of knowing what the Mala Noce had told him, or what he might have figured out on his own, but if he didn’t know, now was not the time to tell him.

As it turned out, he didn’t have to explain anything. Ryan had fallen asleep, a soft smile playing on his face. Horatio had a feeling he knew what had put it there, and he found out he didn’t mind.

Carefully as to not wake him up, he pulled the chair closer to the bed and sat down. His hand found Ryan’s almost on its own, and he couldn’t let go.

He sat there a long time.

---

Ryan’s recovery was slow. No one minded – except Ryan, who turned out to dislike hospitals immensely – because it meant he was alive.

Eric visited daily, and their relationship was progressing nicely. They were friends already and found that most of the hard work needed to pave the way had already been done. The rest was just dealing with the attraction, and they had no problem with that – apart from the small problem of Ryan being in a hospital. It afforded them very little privacy.

Luckily, only Speed had walked in on them kissing yet – to which he had reacted by covering his eyes and stating with great dignity that while he was very happy the two of them had finally stopped being idiots, he really didn’t want to see his two best friends going at it. That had gotten him a pillow in the head and he had left the room laughing.

Horatio had made himself scarce during Ryan’s stay at the hospital, only visiting twice in the three weeks he spent there. Those visits were awkward, neither knowing how to behave, Ryan because he didn’t know the man and didn’t really understand the reason for his presence, and Horatio because – well, quite frankly he was a little overwhelmed and couldn’t make up his mind as to how to bring up the subject that was constantly on his mind these days.

On his first day back home – Eric had offered to let him stay at his place, but Ryan had wanted to go back to the familiarity of his own apartment – Horatio showed up on his doorstep.

Now, Ryan wasn’t stupid. He did remember a few things the man responsible for his kidnapping had said. It had been very fuzzy at first, but as he healed, it had gotten clearer. His father had been mentioned and the man had called Lt. Caine to gloat. Lt. Caine’s repetitive visits at the hospital only served to confirm his suspicions.

His father. Ryan had wondered about him often when he was younger. His mother having died when he was only two months old, he had been raised by his grandparents. They weren’t bad people, but they didn’t quite know what to do with him. At their age, having to raise a baby was the last thing they had expected. So they hired a nurse. They had the money. Then he had started developing OCD and what little understanding they had had of him flew out of the window. Ryan had often been lonely as a child, and spent his time imagining what it would have been like if his mother had been alive, or if his father had been in his life.

More than once, he had asked his grandparents about him. They had always refused to answer. And made a scene when he had decided to join the Academy.

And now this.

“Come in,” he said almost resignedly. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know anymore. Clearly the man had known about him, and he had never said anything. Which could only mean he didn’t want anything to do with him.

“Ryan. How are you?” Horatio asked.

Ryan sighed and rubbed his face with one hand.

“Look, I know what you’ve come here to say and it’s really –”

“Let’s sit down,” the man – his father! – cut him off. “Please.” he added more softly, and that was what pushed Ryan to comply.

He sat and looked into the older man’s eyes. The usually serene blue orbs were now stormy with feelings and Ryan couldn’t identify them all. He took a deep breath and said in a rush,

“You’re my father, aren’t you?”

Horatio nodded in confirmation. “How did you know?”

Ryan shrugged. Did it really matter? Still, he answered “That man, he said I was as much trouble as my father. Then when he called you, he said...” Ryan’s voice grew a little distant, as he remembered something he hadn’t before, “he had something that was yours. I’m guessing he meant me.”

Horatio nodded again.

“Why? Why tell me now?”

“I...” For the first time in a long time, Horatio couldn’t find the right words to convey what he wanted to say. “At first I didn’t know. I saw you at the station and you looked familiar but I couldn’t –”

“Wait, you mean you didn’t know before that?” Ryan asked. He had always assumed his father had known and hadn’t cared. That... that changed things.

Horatio looked a little appalled by the suggestion. “Of course I didn’t. I would have done things differently if I had known Melissa was pregnant.”

“But... why didn’t they tell you?”

Horatio shook his head sadly. “I don’t know. Your mother and I had been dating and we broke it off when I left for New York. When I came back a year later, I tried to contact her but her parents told me she had died. They didn’t say anything about you. All I can tell you is that they disapproved of me. It must have gotten worst when they found out Melissa was pregnant.”

Ryan buried his face in his hands. It would be unfair of him to hate his grandparents – they were dead, after all, and weren’t there to expose their version of the past. Still, it was hard not to feel anger and rancor towards them. When he looked up again, Horatio was looking at him with sympathy.

“And when you found out? Why didn’t you say anything then?”

Horatio looked at a loss for a second. “I... I didn’t know how.” He raised his hands in defeat, aware of the inadequacy of his answer, but Ryan seemed to understand.

“So... what do we do now?” Ryan asked nervously. He had a father, something he had wanted for most of his life, and he didn’t even know what to do with him.

“I would like to get to know you better. Would that be alright?” Horatio asked, trying to mask his own nerves at the possibility of a rejection.

“Yeah,” Ryan said, a smile appearing on his face. “I think I’d like that. How... how do I call you?”

“Whatever makes you comfortable.” he replied, relief flooding through him. “How about Horatio for a start? It’s probably too early for ‘dad’.”

“Horatio,” Ryan tested, and the other man smiled. “Okay. Well, I guess there is something you should know.” Ryan now sounded both defiant and a little scared, and Horatio guessed what he was going to say.

“Is it about Eric?” he asked gently.

Ryan blushed a little and nodded, peering at the older man to gauge his reaction. He had preferred to lay his cards on the table right away, because there was no way he was giving Eric up. If his father didn’t approve... well, he had spent 30 years without one and hadn’t done half bad, had he? But Horatio didn’t seem to mind.

“You have my blessing, if that’s what you’re asking.” Horatio smiled and Ryan grinned back. While he hadn’t exactly been looking for that, it was still nice to know.

They talked a little more before Horatio took his leave, the two men relieved that this first meeting had gone so well. They both knew it probably wouldn’t be always like this. They were strangers after all, and it would take time to get used to one another. They would argue and fight like any other two people – like any father and son. And then they would apologize and forgive each other, because deep down, they would love each other.

But for now, Ryan wasn’t thinking about that. Facing his now empty apartment that felt just that, empty, he made up his mind. He packed a bag and left, locking the door behind him.

He was taking Eric up on his invitation – for as long as he wanted him there.

He would figure out later that meant he would never leave.