No Other One, Chapter 31
Title: No Other One, Chapter 31
Author: Duckie Nicks
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Yelina Salas, Horatio Caine, the whole Caine family
Author's Note: WARNING: SPOILER FOR SEASON 6.
Summary: Almost two decades ago, Horatio made a decision that would change his family forever. Will they ever forgive him? Will he ever tell Yelina how he feels? This is an alternative to the beginning of season 6. A Horatio and Kyle story; H/Y romance in the future. Fulfills
fanfic100 prompt #022, Enemies and
alphabetasoup prompt, D is for Dionysus.
Previous Chapters: Prologue, Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9, Chapter 10, Chapter 11, Chapter 12, Chapter 13, Chapter 14, Chapter 15, Chapter 16, Chapter 17, Chapter 18, Chapter 19, Chapter 20, Chapter 21, Chapter 22, Chapter 23, Chapter 24, Chapter 25, Chapter 26, Chapter 27, Chapter 28, Chapter 29, and Chapter 30.
Disclaimer: I own the show, just as I'm America's Next Top Model. ;) Don't sue.
“A mother’s love for her child is like nothing else in the world. It knows no law, no pity, it dares all things and crushes down remorselessly all that stands in its path.”
-- Agatha Christie
Ray Junior sat silently on the white couch waiting for the truth. Not quite prepared to tell him, Horatio sat on the edge of the coffee table (much to Yelina’s dismay) across from the boy.
“Tell me what?” the teenager asked for the third time, his tone sounding slightly annoyed now.
Dark eyes looking at him expectantly, Horatio was almost surprised to see just how much his nephew still looked like a little boy.
True, Ray was a teenager in years, had grown plenty in the last months so that he was now almost as tall as his mother. Gone was the baby fat that had rounded the boy’s cheeks only a few years earlier; Ray Junior was almost all hard lines and angles now, and more than that, the boy had been through a lot. Which was really nothing more than an understatement.
But looking at the teenager now, Horatio thought the boy looked so innocent. It was not a blind naïveté by any means. Because in this family, no one seemed to freely give away their trust. At least not anymore… and probably never again, the redhead realized sadly.
Rather, in the dark eyes glancing back at him, Horatio saw intentional belief. His nephew trusted him, couldn’t see the danger lying ahead, because he’d chosen to. Because, despite everything else, Ray Junior had not lost faith in him; for all he’d seen in the world, the teenager had refused to consider his uncle a threat. It was willful, purposeful - a calculated decision that now felt totally misguided.
Out of the corner of his eye, the redhead could see Yelina shifting uneasily on her feet. And unless he was totally wrong, she was glaring at him.
He needed to get this over with.
“Well,” Horatio said, trying to muster up some courage. “About sixteen years ago, I met a woman.” In the back of his mind, he thought there should be a better way to say this. “We spent some time together,” he told Ray Junior.
The redhead thought it would be best to leave out the part where he had a drunken one night stand. But the teenager seemed to connect the dots all on his own. His face screwing up in disgust, Ray said, “I don’t think I want to hear the rest of this.”
And though the situation necessitated seriousness, Horatio couldn’t help but smile. “She… and I lost contact eventually, and it turns out she became pregnant.”
It wasn’t a total lie.
“Okay, look,” Ray Junior interrupted. “If this is your weird way of ‘teaching’ me about safe sex, then please. Let’s spare each other the lame and semi-creepy re-enactment of an after school special.”
Horatio frowned. Were these conversations ever going to go the way he anticipated? There was a brief moment of defeat, before he shoved it aside. If he didn’t spit the truth out soon, Yelina (who was practically snarling) would do it for him.
“I’m serious, Raymond,” he pressed on. “She was pregnant, and now… I have a son.”
There was a tiny bit of time where he could tell that the boy didn’t believe him - the last moment of unbridled trust that they would ever have together.
“But…” Ray Junior looked towards his mother.
For his part, Horatio didn’t dare to look at his sister-in-law. He knew all too well what he would see. So instead he watched as his nephew worked it out.
Slowly but surely disbelief gave way to realization - to shock. And what they’d shared with one another was over.
The boy’s eyes became darker, the black pupils narrowing, tunneling shut. There was no hope now.
“Fuck you.”
“Ray,” Horatio started to say, but it didn’t matter. The teenager was off the white sofa in seconds - his movements fluid and quick. And the redhead instinctively stood as well, all the while knowing that he needed to reach out to his nephew. But he could only say, “Son…”
Not that it mattered - “Don’t you fucking dare!” the boy warned. Walking away, he shouted as he went, “Don’t ever speak to me again.”
Silence fell over the room like a lead weight. Horatio turned to Yelina, needing… comfort, but that was out of the question. The redhead knew that much, but right now, even the familiarity of her anger was welcome. Anything to let him know that he hadn’t permanently ruined this would be nice, he desperately thought.
But she did not speak.
Nor did she jump, as he did, at the sound a bedroom door slamming shut.
What he should do now wasn’t immediately apparent to him. Two angry family members were here, demanding apologies and attention and whatever else he could give. His… son was at home? The sentence gave him pause, made him feel like he was trying on a pair of pants two sizes too small. A son was one thing, but that they now lived together was a concept Horatio couldn’t truly comprehend at this point.
And that - that he was still trying to learn how to be a parent - suggested he should leave Yelina and Ray Junior.
At the same time though, Horatio thought that Kyle could wait. The teenager might want the time alone, after all, and more than that… what damage could be done by staying away just a little longer? After sixteen years of not knowing his kid existed, he couldn’t do much worse now.
In complete contrast, the longer he waited to take care of things with his sister-in-law and nephew, the worse it would be. Ray Junior wouldn’t forgive him until he knew that Horatio had no plans of abandoning him. Yelina would be harder to take care of, more than likely remaining angry with him until well after making things right with her son. And between those two realities, it was easy to see who needed to be tended to first.
“I’ll take care of it,” he told the glaring brunette.
But it was the wrong thing to say obviously. Because as he started to head down the hall, Yelina managed to somehow move quickly around him.
“No,” she said firmly, blocking the rest of the way to Ray’s bedroom. He’d never seen her look more rigid in his life, he thought.
However, as fearsome as his sister-in-law might have looked, it was nothing compared to knowing his nephew was behind that door not ten feet away hating him. “Yelina,” he warned. “You need to let me fix this.”
“I don’t think so.” Her accent was thick, but the sharpness in her words made him feel as though he’d been slapped.
Nonetheless, Horatio took a few steps forward.
“Stop it,” she snapped. “Do not think for a moment, Horatio, that I’ll let you through.”
“He’s my nephew.”
“MY SON.” The words seemed extra potent, given the situation, and the redhead looked away, unable to stand the judgment in her eyes.
Silence filled the room once more, mingling with his palpable need and her raging accusation. It was uncomfortable to say the least, but he did not open his mouth or move away. Without a word, Horatio was going to hold his ground.
Finally, Yelina said much more calmly, “You want to apologize - make things right. I get that. I really do.” She took a deep breath. “But if you think you can fix this with a single conversation, then you’re an idiot. And if you believe that I’ll let you talk to my son after everything you’ve done today, then it’s obvious to me that you have no idea how much you’ve screwed up.”
Though the brunette wasn’t blocking the door, she might as well have, Horatio thought. Everything about her words and posture were warning enough. He sighed and took a step forward nonetheless. “Yelina, you don’t have to remind me that I… made a mistake. I’ve made many, especially in this. I know that.” His voice sounded more exasperated than was warranted. Part of him understood that she had every right to recall everything he’d ever done wrong.
At that moment, however, not even the littlest bit of him wanted to hear it. He might have deserved it, but Horatio could only think of making things right with Ray Junior. So he said, more gently, “I get that. I know you’re mad and you have every right to be.” His voice getting harder then - “But you can’t expect me to leave now with things as they are. I can’t do that.”
Taking another step forward so that he was now in her personal space, the redhead pleaded, “Please. Just let me apologize to him.”
“No.” She shook her head, curls whipping through the air, to emphasize her point. “That is what you want, but I can assure you it’s not something he will take kindly to.”
“You don’t know that.”
Her eyes seemed to get infinitely darker. “Yes, I do. It’s one of the advantages of giving birth to and raising a child. I know my son - I have been with him since the second he was conceived. And I have spent more than three days with him to know how he acts and reacts to situations.”
There was no missing the accusation in her angry words. Each and every phrase stung just as it was intended to. And it didn’t matter that the words - you’re not a real father - had gone unsaid; they didn’t need to be spoken for him to understand what she meant.
Horatio would never be a father in her eyes. Because there was so much more to parenting than donating DNA. And the redhead knew it, agreed with her more than he would have liked.
But it was more than that for him; her words hurt him not only because she was commenting on his ability to parent.
If only it were that simple.
Her insults and insinuations cut through layer after layer of his defenses, destroying the lies he had wanted to believe about himself, had needed to believe in order to take Kyle in at all.
She was judge and executioner, too fairly labeling less than. Less than her as a parent, as a person in her son’s life. Where he had excelled before, she now deemed him a failure. Just as his own self-image crumbled around him into tiny pieces so was her trust, evaporating into the heated air around him.
He was no father, no uncle, no friend; he was nothing in her mind, and worst of all, Horatio had no right to counter. No defense, no words of comfort or defense. He was nothing and had nothing to offer her.
But it was obvious from looking in her cold dark eyes that she would not be satisfied until he bled from the sharp words she hurled at him.
“He is my son,” she repeated. “The absolute worst of his parents combined for a personality. Which means I know how he’s reacting - I can predict how he feels based on the way my husband or I would have reacted.” Yelina let the words sink in some more before she continued. “Right now, after everything you’ve done, if your brother were still alive, he’d have bludgeoned you to death for your hypocrisy. And frankly, the only fault I see in that plan at the moment is where I would hide the body.”
Right, he thought numbly. Well that settled matters on how angry she was. Still, he wasn’t ready to give up - though alarm bells ringing loudly in his mind told him to.
“Ray Junior deserves -”
“What my son deserves is not the issue. What he deserves is a family far less destructive than this one.” She stopped talking, her throat noticeably tightening as she swallowed hard. And then much softer - in a voice Horatio could hardly recognize anymore - Yelina said, “If I had never married Ray…” The brunette shrugged and left the thought unfinished. She only told him, “But then my son would have never been born.”
And then the anger coming back full force - “So I guess he and I are both stuck in this woefully inadequate family. And since what he deserves is something I cannot give him…” There was no missing the shame that temporarily flitted through her eyes. But that too was soon replaced with a fury that left him reeling. Finishing her thoughts, Yelina said, “Please pull your head out of your ass. And realize that arguing with me over something you want to do isn’t going to help.”
“I -”
“Shut up,” she interrupted. “You have two choices the way I see it. You can let me go to Ray Junior now - you can leave - and maybe I will lie and tell him that you really are worth knowing.” She stopped talking, letting the words wash over him. “Or you can continue standing here, pushing me to do something I will never agree to. In which case, I will rip out your throat myself and find a place for your body later.”
The threat was practically growled out, and she once more stopped to let the words sink in. Throwing her hands up in the air, Yelina said, “Completely your choice, Horatio. But don’t think for a second you can apologize and plead your way to my son. It will not work. Not today.”
The next minute seemed to tick by at the pace of a snail. These were his two choices, which should have made his decision quicker. But the fact was none of it was what he wanted. And yet, any third or fourth options that flitted through his mind seemed to fall under her second choice, and Horatio had no desire to test how honest her words were.
Really, there was no doubt in his mind that she really would kill him if he kept pushing and begging. After all, the redhead had seen her kill before in the line of duty.
Of course, her body count was much lower than his, and she had never killed like he had. Yelina had never hunted someone down with the express purpose of murdering him as he had. She was not a callous careless murderer like he was and had been. But that didn’t mean she wouldn’t pull the trigger now.
There was no joy in his sister-in-law’s face. Neither amusement nor a hint of sympathy graced her features, making her look like an angel of death. Beauty even as she promised to destroy him.
Yelina was cold, her eyes fixed and set on the idea of impending murder, and it made his skin crawl.
He acted as though there was no time factor here and wondered if killing bothered her the way it always eventually did for him. Even though there was no doubt in his mind it was the right thing to do, sometimes Horatio thought about Riaz, about his father, and the rest. Had they been capable of reform? Of goodness? Were they all really the same, with the major difference being Horatio had been able to rise above the situation he had been born in?
Had he made a mistake?
In his heart, the redhead didn’t think Yelina felt the same way - why hadn’t he asked her before?
Not that he could ask now. His judgment had clearly taken a vacation based on his choices today, but he knew that much to be true.
And so with that thought in mind, Horatio nodded his head slowly. “All right. I’ll go,” he said quietly.
But the words were easier said than the action done. The distance from the hallway to the door seemed infinitely long, never ending. His feet refused to do what his mind was screaming at him to do - what Yelina had requested of him. Because no part of him wanted to go, wanted to give up, and leave Ray Junior thinking… that Horatio hadn’t wanted to apologize.
Leaving was what she wanted, what he was going to do because she had demanded it of him, but it wasn’t easy. If anything it went against everything he believed in - abandoning the boy and his family. It wasn’t right, he thought, but there was no other way.
And so he turned around, finally, and headed towards the door. Though he didn’t look in the mirror, Horatio could feel how his shoulders sagged, how his head hang lower than when he had come in.
He didn’t look back, but he could tell Yelina was following him. There was no telltale sound of her heels on the floor - she said nothing - but he knew it. Somehow the air seemed to chill around her, and the cold wind kept following him; Horatio didn’t dare to look back.
Only when he had opened the door and stepped outside did she make her presence known. Taking the knob in her hand, she leaned against the door as he turned to face her.
His voice soft and apologetic, Horatio told her, “I’m sorry, Yelina. I’m so sorry.” She said nothing so he continued, “I’m sorry - this was a mistake. I should have waited; I shouldn’t have come.”
Her dark eyes didn’t look at him as she stepped out of the door jam. “No kidding.” She slammed the door shut in his face, the metal knocker rattling.
Sighing, Horatio stood there for a minute, praying that Yelina would come back.
She didn’t, and he sighed once more, knowing that things would never be the same for them.
He’d ruined what they had once had together, and now… Now Horatio had to go back to the proof that he’d screwed everything up.
He had to go back to his son.
End (32/??)
Author: Duckie Nicks
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Yelina Salas, Horatio Caine, the whole Caine family
Author's Note: WARNING: SPOILER FOR SEASON 6.
Summary: Almost two decades ago, Horatio made a decision that would change his family forever. Will they ever forgive him? Will he ever tell Yelina how he feels? This is an alternative to the beginning of season 6. A Horatio and Kyle story; H/Y romance in the future. Fulfills
fanfic100 prompt #022, Enemies and
alphabetasoup prompt, D is for Dionysus.
Previous Chapters: Prologue, Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9, Chapter 10, Chapter 11, Chapter 12, Chapter 13, Chapter 14, Chapter 15, Chapter 16, Chapter 17, Chapter 18, Chapter 19, Chapter 20, Chapter 21, Chapter 22, Chapter 23, Chapter 24, Chapter 25, Chapter 26, Chapter 27, Chapter 28, Chapter 29, and Chapter 30.
Disclaimer: I own the show, just as I'm America's Next Top Model. ;) Don't sue.
“A mother’s love for her child is like nothing else in the world. It knows no law, no pity, it dares all things and crushes down remorselessly all that stands in its path.”
-- Agatha Christie
Ray Junior sat silently on the white couch waiting for the truth. Not quite prepared to tell him, Horatio sat on the edge of the coffee table (much to Yelina’s dismay) across from the boy.
“Tell me what?” the teenager asked for the third time, his tone sounding slightly annoyed now.
Dark eyes looking at him expectantly, Horatio was almost surprised to see just how much his nephew still looked like a little boy.
True, Ray was a teenager in years, had grown plenty in the last months so that he was now almost as tall as his mother. Gone was the baby fat that had rounded the boy’s cheeks only a few years earlier; Ray Junior was almost all hard lines and angles now, and more than that, the boy had been through a lot. Which was really nothing more than an understatement.
But looking at the teenager now, Horatio thought the boy looked so innocent. It was not a blind naïveté by any means. Because in this family, no one seemed to freely give away their trust. At least not anymore… and probably never again, the redhead realized sadly.
Rather, in the dark eyes glancing back at him, Horatio saw intentional belief. His nephew trusted him, couldn’t see the danger lying ahead, because he’d chosen to. Because, despite everything else, Ray Junior had not lost faith in him; for all he’d seen in the world, the teenager had refused to consider his uncle a threat. It was willful, purposeful - a calculated decision that now felt totally misguided.
Out of the corner of his eye, the redhead could see Yelina shifting uneasily on her feet. And unless he was totally wrong, she was glaring at him.
He needed to get this over with.
“Well,” Horatio said, trying to muster up some courage. “About sixteen years ago, I met a woman.” In the back of his mind, he thought there should be a better way to say this. “We spent some time together,” he told Ray Junior.
The redhead thought it would be best to leave out the part where he had a drunken one night stand. But the teenager seemed to connect the dots all on his own. His face screwing up in disgust, Ray said, “I don’t think I want to hear the rest of this.”
And though the situation necessitated seriousness, Horatio couldn’t help but smile. “She… and I lost contact eventually, and it turns out she became pregnant.”
It wasn’t a total lie.
“Okay, look,” Ray Junior interrupted. “If this is your weird way of ‘teaching’ me about safe sex, then please. Let’s spare each other the lame and semi-creepy re-enactment of an after school special.”
Horatio frowned. Were these conversations ever going to go the way he anticipated? There was a brief moment of defeat, before he shoved it aside. If he didn’t spit the truth out soon, Yelina (who was practically snarling) would do it for him.
“I’m serious, Raymond,” he pressed on. “She was pregnant, and now… I have a son.”
There was a tiny bit of time where he could tell that the boy didn’t believe him - the last moment of unbridled trust that they would ever have together.
“But…” Ray Junior looked towards his mother.
For his part, Horatio didn’t dare to look at his sister-in-law. He knew all too well what he would see. So instead he watched as his nephew worked it out.
Slowly but surely disbelief gave way to realization - to shock. And what they’d shared with one another was over.
The boy’s eyes became darker, the black pupils narrowing, tunneling shut. There was no hope now.
“Fuck you.”
“Ray,” Horatio started to say, but it didn’t matter. The teenager was off the white sofa in seconds - his movements fluid and quick. And the redhead instinctively stood as well, all the while knowing that he needed to reach out to his nephew. But he could only say, “Son…”
Not that it mattered - “Don’t you fucking dare!” the boy warned. Walking away, he shouted as he went, “Don’t ever speak to me again.”
Silence fell over the room like a lead weight. Horatio turned to Yelina, needing… comfort, but that was out of the question. The redhead knew that much, but right now, even the familiarity of her anger was welcome. Anything to let him know that he hadn’t permanently ruined this would be nice, he desperately thought.
But she did not speak.
Nor did she jump, as he did, at the sound a bedroom door slamming shut.
What he should do now wasn’t immediately apparent to him. Two angry family members were here, demanding apologies and attention and whatever else he could give. His… son was at home? The sentence gave him pause, made him feel like he was trying on a pair of pants two sizes too small. A son was one thing, but that they now lived together was a concept Horatio couldn’t truly comprehend at this point.
And that - that he was still trying to learn how to be a parent - suggested he should leave Yelina and Ray Junior.
At the same time though, Horatio thought that Kyle could wait. The teenager might want the time alone, after all, and more than that… what damage could be done by staying away just a little longer? After sixteen years of not knowing his kid existed, he couldn’t do much worse now.
In complete contrast, the longer he waited to take care of things with his sister-in-law and nephew, the worse it would be. Ray Junior wouldn’t forgive him until he knew that Horatio had no plans of abandoning him. Yelina would be harder to take care of, more than likely remaining angry with him until well after making things right with her son. And between those two realities, it was easy to see who needed to be tended to first.
“I’ll take care of it,” he told the glaring brunette.
But it was the wrong thing to say obviously. Because as he started to head down the hall, Yelina managed to somehow move quickly around him.
“No,” she said firmly, blocking the rest of the way to Ray’s bedroom. He’d never seen her look more rigid in his life, he thought.
However, as fearsome as his sister-in-law might have looked, it was nothing compared to knowing his nephew was behind that door not ten feet away hating him. “Yelina,” he warned. “You need to let me fix this.”
“I don’t think so.” Her accent was thick, but the sharpness in her words made him feel as though he’d been slapped.
Nonetheless, Horatio took a few steps forward.
“Stop it,” she snapped. “Do not think for a moment, Horatio, that I’ll let you through.”
“He’s my nephew.”
“MY SON.” The words seemed extra potent, given the situation, and the redhead looked away, unable to stand the judgment in her eyes.
Silence filled the room once more, mingling with his palpable need and her raging accusation. It was uncomfortable to say the least, but he did not open his mouth or move away. Without a word, Horatio was going to hold his ground.
Finally, Yelina said much more calmly, “You want to apologize - make things right. I get that. I really do.” She took a deep breath. “But if you think you can fix this with a single conversation, then you’re an idiot. And if you believe that I’ll let you talk to my son after everything you’ve done today, then it’s obvious to me that you have no idea how much you’ve screwed up.”
Though the brunette wasn’t blocking the door, she might as well have, Horatio thought. Everything about her words and posture were warning enough. He sighed and took a step forward nonetheless. “Yelina, you don’t have to remind me that I… made a mistake. I’ve made many, especially in this. I know that.” His voice sounded more exasperated than was warranted. Part of him understood that she had every right to recall everything he’d ever done wrong.
At that moment, however, not even the littlest bit of him wanted to hear it. He might have deserved it, but Horatio could only think of making things right with Ray Junior. So he said, more gently, “I get that. I know you’re mad and you have every right to be.” His voice getting harder then - “But you can’t expect me to leave now with things as they are. I can’t do that.”
Taking another step forward so that he was now in her personal space, the redhead pleaded, “Please. Just let me apologize to him.”
“No.” She shook her head, curls whipping through the air, to emphasize her point. “That is what you want, but I can assure you it’s not something he will take kindly to.”
“You don’t know that.”
Her eyes seemed to get infinitely darker. “Yes, I do. It’s one of the advantages of giving birth to and raising a child. I know my son - I have been with him since the second he was conceived. And I have spent more than three days with him to know how he acts and reacts to situations.”
There was no missing the accusation in her angry words. Each and every phrase stung just as it was intended to. And it didn’t matter that the words - you’re not a real father - had gone unsaid; they didn’t need to be spoken for him to understand what she meant.
Horatio would never be a father in her eyes. Because there was so much more to parenting than donating DNA. And the redhead knew it, agreed with her more than he would have liked.
But it was more than that for him; her words hurt him not only because she was commenting on his ability to parent.
If only it were that simple.
Her insults and insinuations cut through layer after layer of his defenses, destroying the lies he had wanted to believe about himself, had needed to believe in order to take Kyle in at all.
She was judge and executioner, too fairly labeling less than. Less than her as a parent, as a person in her son’s life. Where he had excelled before, she now deemed him a failure. Just as his own self-image crumbled around him into tiny pieces so was her trust, evaporating into the heated air around him.
He was no father, no uncle, no friend; he was nothing in her mind, and worst of all, Horatio had no right to counter. No defense, no words of comfort or defense. He was nothing and had nothing to offer her.
But it was obvious from looking in her cold dark eyes that she would not be satisfied until he bled from the sharp words she hurled at him.
“He is my son,” she repeated. “The absolute worst of his parents combined for a personality. Which means I know how he’s reacting - I can predict how he feels based on the way my husband or I would have reacted.” Yelina let the words sink in some more before she continued. “Right now, after everything you’ve done, if your brother were still alive, he’d have bludgeoned you to death for your hypocrisy. And frankly, the only fault I see in that plan at the moment is where I would hide the body.”
Right, he thought numbly. Well that settled matters on how angry she was. Still, he wasn’t ready to give up - though alarm bells ringing loudly in his mind told him to.
“Ray Junior deserves -”
“What my son deserves is not the issue. What he deserves is a family far less destructive than this one.” She stopped talking, her throat noticeably tightening as she swallowed hard. And then much softer - in a voice Horatio could hardly recognize anymore - Yelina said, “If I had never married Ray…” The brunette shrugged and left the thought unfinished. She only told him, “But then my son would have never been born.”
And then the anger coming back full force - “So I guess he and I are both stuck in this woefully inadequate family. And since what he deserves is something I cannot give him…” There was no missing the shame that temporarily flitted through her eyes. But that too was soon replaced with a fury that left him reeling. Finishing her thoughts, Yelina said, “Please pull your head out of your ass. And realize that arguing with me over something you want to do isn’t going to help.”
“I -”
“Shut up,” she interrupted. “You have two choices the way I see it. You can let me go to Ray Junior now - you can leave - and maybe I will lie and tell him that you really are worth knowing.” She stopped talking, letting the words wash over him. “Or you can continue standing here, pushing me to do something I will never agree to. In which case, I will rip out your throat myself and find a place for your body later.”
The threat was practically growled out, and she once more stopped to let the words sink in. Throwing her hands up in the air, Yelina said, “Completely your choice, Horatio. But don’t think for a second you can apologize and plead your way to my son. It will not work. Not today.”
The next minute seemed to tick by at the pace of a snail. These were his two choices, which should have made his decision quicker. But the fact was none of it was what he wanted. And yet, any third or fourth options that flitted through his mind seemed to fall under her second choice, and Horatio had no desire to test how honest her words were.
Really, there was no doubt in his mind that she really would kill him if he kept pushing and begging. After all, the redhead had seen her kill before in the line of duty.
Of course, her body count was much lower than his, and she had never killed like he had. Yelina had never hunted someone down with the express purpose of murdering him as he had. She was not a callous careless murderer like he was and had been. But that didn’t mean she wouldn’t pull the trigger now.
There was no joy in his sister-in-law’s face. Neither amusement nor a hint of sympathy graced her features, making her look like an angel of death. Beauty even as she promised to destroy him.
Yelina was cold, her eyes fixed and set on the idea of impending murder, and it made his skin crawl.
He acted as though there was no time factor here and wondered if killing bothered her the way it always eventually did for him. Even though there was no doubt in his mind it was the right thing to do, sometimes Horatio thought about Riaz, about his father, and the rest. Had they been capable of reform? Of goodness? Were they all really the same, with the major difference being Horatio had been able to rise above the situation he had been born in?
Had he made a mistake?
In his heart, the redhead didn’t think Yelina felt the same way - why hadn’t he asked her before?
Not that he could ask now. His judgment had clearly taken a vacation based on his choices today, but he knew that much to be true.
And so with that thought in mind, Horatio nodded his head slowly. “All right. I’ll go,” he said quietly.
But the words were easier said than the action done. The distance from the hallway to the door seemed infinitely long, never ending. His feet refused to do what his mind was screaming at him to do - what Yelina had requested of him. Because no part of him wanted to go, wanted to give up, and leave Ray Junior thinking… that Horatio hadn’t wanted to apologize.
Leaving was what she wanted, what he was going to do because she had demanded it of him, but it wasn’t easy. If anything it went against everything he believed in - abandoning the boy and his family. It wasn’t right, he thought, but there was no other way.
And so he turned around, finally, and headed towards the door. Though he didn’t look in the mirror, Horatio could feel how his shoulders sagged, how his head hang lower than when he had come in.
He didn’t look back, but he could tell Yelina was following him. There was no telltale sound of her heels on the floor - she said nothing - but he knew it. Somehow the air seemed to chill around her, and the cold wind kept following him; Horatio didn’t dare to look back.
Only when he had opened the door and stepped outside did she make her presence known. Taking the knob in her hand, she leaned against the door as he turned to face her.
His voice soft and apologetic, Horatio told her, “I’m sorry, Yelina. I’m so sorry.” She said nothing so he continued, “I’m sorry - this was a mistake. I should have waited; I shouldn’t have come.”
Her dark eyes didn’t look at him as she stepped out of the door jam. “No kidding.” She slammed the door shut in his face, the metal knocker rattling.
Sighing, Horatio stood there for a minute, praying that Yelina would come back.
She didn’t, and he sighed once more, knowing that things would never be the same for them.
He’d ruined what they had once had together, and now… Now Horatio had to go back to the proof that he’d screwed everything up.
He had to go back to his son.
End (32/??)