Title: Atropos
By: cassie_jamie
Disclaimer: I don't own them. Duh.
Rating: PG
Pairing: H/E
Summary: Quiet as death and I understand that pun now.

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It's funny how life turns out. One minute, you're a healthy twenty- something with a career and a place in the home of the best person you know and then the next...the next you're a patient they're showing to the med students.

"Classic heart failure." The MD said, with a smile on his face, like I were a computer simulation and *not* a human being who was told not twenty minutes before that I would not live to old age.

Horatio picks me up from the hospital. Worried and worn down, that puzzle in his head missing pieces which he hates because it includes me. He pulls away from the curb, drives toward home, "What'd the doctor say?" He asks, hands nervously tightening around the wheel.

And I tell him. All the details.

He slows the Hummer, leaves it to trickle down the road we live on with his little adopted daughter, "I guess that's why you've been so tired lately." He comments just because he has to say something or he'll lose his steady grip on reality.

"I guess."

"I'm giving you time off. You need to rest." It's worded with sincerity. A carefully hidden order despite that fact that he cannot order me to do anything.

The look I give him would make Calleigh crumble, "No. Work is good for me. The doctors said I need to keep moving." I pause, "Besides, I feel fine."

"Eric, don't lie to me." He peeks at me over the rim of his sunglasses; the blue pools boring into me, through to my soul and I hate when he does that because I can't refuse him anything.

"I'm just a little tired, H. Please don't stop me from working."

He stops the car, unbuckles his seatbelt and turns to me. Leaves three seconds for me to realize what he's about to do before those plundering lips are on me, mouth like silk open to me, with a hand light grounding me in place by my neck. He clicks away the seconds in his head, knowing by now where the line between `I love you' and `let's fuck right here' is.

The redhead pulls back. His voice calm, but resigned when he speaks, "Take the time off, okay? Time to spend with Emmie and to figure out what the hell we're going to do. More time to take care of yourself."

For a few minutes, I am silent. Quiet as death and I understand that pun now. Then I whisper, "I have to say something, so don't interrupt for a minute, okay?"

"Okay." He rests a hand on my leg, and rubs his thumb on my knee. He knows I like it, keeps an insistent rhythm.

I choke, "I was thinking today about death, and Alexx mentioned that when her grandmother died, everyone in her family was there and they were sad but grateful that she'd had a good life." The tears start falling... from his eyes and my own, "And my family isn't going to be there and I'm only thirty."

He latches on to me, "I know." He sniffs, trying to be a little better at maintaining emotion. He prides himself on that and right now it's failing horribly. God, who will take care of him when I'm gone. "But you know what...my family will be there. All of them. And Emilie and the entire lab."

"H." I strangle out amid the sobs, "Maybe my dad was right. Maybe this is punishment for being..."

"Don't you dare believe that for one second. You didn't choose this life. It's what you were given, and you're happy. I know it. Your father's just a pretentious asshole if he's willing to give you up just because you pursued me instead of Calleigh." He pets my hair, kisses my scalp, "And if your family won't come..." His chest tightens, and I know he's upset with being on this train of thought, "Well, they didn't deserve you anyway."

I smile into his neck, "I love you."

"I love you, too." He tugs me away and leans in to kiss me again, "I'll always love you." The breath treads across my salt- tasting lips.

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