Title: Waiting For Normal
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: gen, Ryan Wolfe
Fandom: CSI: Miami
Rating: PG-13
Table: 5_prompts, Three Days Only challenge
Prompt: 41:2, Waiting for normal
Author's Note: Spoilers for the S4 CSI: Miami episode "Nailed."
Disclaimer: This is entirely a product of my own imagination, and I make no profit from it. I do not own the lovely Ryan Wolfe, unfortunately, just borrowing him for a while. Please do not sue.

***

Ryan held his hand up in front of him, trying to focus on it. He closed one eye, the one that hadn't been hit with the nail gun, trying to bring every detail into focus as best he could, wondering when and if his sight would suddenly start to fail.

He'd been assured that his sight would return to normal, that the damage hadn't been that bad. But he hadn't felt reassured at all; he had thought that the doctors' words sounded too forced, as though they hadn't meant what they were saying.

How long had he been waiting for things to go back to normal now? He closed his eyes, trying to think. Had it really been over a month now? It didn't feel as though it had been that long since the day he'd been shot with that nail gun. It felt like yesterday.

He could still feel the shock, the pain, the horror of what had happened to him. And even though they had caught the bitch who was responsible and she was now behind bars, that didn't make him feel any better. And it didn't make his life normal again.

Would life ever be normal for him again? he wondered, sighing soflty and letting his hand drop to his side. Or would he always be haunted by those moments just after the nail had hit his eye, when he'd been sure that he was going to die?

Those moments came back to him in his nightmares; they were always in the back of his mind, never quite dissipating into the mists of memory. They were always ready to leap out at him again, teeth and claws extended, trying to rip him to shreds.

He had been waiting for normal ever since the first night he'd gone home from the hospital, and it hadn't come yet. Ryan couldn't help wondering if it ever would, or if he would always feel displaced, as though what had happened to him had erected an invisible barrier.

The only person who had really talked to him about what had happened was Alexx; it was as if everyone else, including Horatio, was trying to pretend that none of it had ever taken place, and expecting him to do the same. But he couldn't.

Nothing was ever going to be completely normal for him again. He might never be able to open a door without flinching, or walk into a room without feeling that there was something hidden there, waiting to spring out and attack him.

He would probably be waiting for normal for a very long time to come, Ryan thought with another sigh, the thought weighing down on him as though he was carrying the world on his shoulders. And the way things looked at the moment, he would be waiting in vain.

***