TITLE: Freeze-frame

AUTHOR: Demon Faith

FANDOM: CSI: Miami

PAIRING: None actually – are you shocked?

SPOILERS: ‘Lost Son’ (Denial fic)

NOTES: Okay, you guilted me – let’s do this thing.

Another day, another crime and another bad mood for Eric Delko. He ignored the whispers of the lab techs as he headed for Tyler’s lab – he was past caring what they thought about him, what did it matter? If he wanted to wear a stormcloud as a toupee, who would stop him?

“This had better be good, Tyler,” he snapped and the lab tech shot him a look somewhere between concern and annoyance. Eric toned it down a little – Tyler looked as wretched as he felt. So much for moving on.

“The video’s a little blurry but I think we can capture the guy with a little…wait…there.”

Eric nodded appreciatively, as the picture snapped into focus. That would go a long way to identifying the guy – thank goodness he had stopped to buy gum before raiding the store next door.

“You think his accomplice joined him?” Eric wondered aloud, and Tyler shrugged.

“Let’s take a look.”

Subtle shifts of focus on the frozen image brought different faces into view, but none of them matched the description the store owner had given. Just as Eric was about to give up, he caught sight of something that made his heart stop cold.

“There, Tyler, there,” he managed to gasp, pointing a shaking finger at the screen. For a moment, both men froze as still as that preserved image, reality stubbornly insisting that what they were seeing couldn’t possibly be real.

“Zoom in, see if you can clear it up,” Eric found himself saying, and Tyler nodded soundlessly, fingers stuttering on the keys.

And there it was, spread across the AV lab screens, defying all probability and laws of logic, but still undeniably there. They were staring at Tim Speedle’s face.

“Are you…are you sure this is the right tape?” Eric muttered, and Tyler nodded, still unable to form words. Pinching himself for good measure, Eric blinked at the image but it refused to shift – that was Speed.

Reaching over Tyler, Eric rewound the tape and started playback again, drinking in the sight of Speed moving, breathing, and for one moment, glancing over at the camera.

Tyler froze it without being asked and they took another moment to regard the grainy freeze-frame of the man they had all thought was dead.

The significance of this discovery hit Eric like a ton of bricks and he quickly leant down to Tyler, meeting his eyes squarely.

“You can’t tell anyone about this.”

Tyler looked horrified. “Delko, it’s…it’s him! Damnit, we *buried* him…”

Eric swallowed hard and looked up at the screen again. “I know, but if Tim went to all this effort to…disappear, there has to be a good reason.”

Tyler began to protest again but eventually he nodded with another glance up at the screen before taking it down and replacing it with the image of their perp. Eric felt instantly bereft but simply laid a hand on Tyler’s shoulder and moved out of the lab.

He couldn’t tell a soul, he didn’t know exactly how or why but suddenly, because of one frozen image, Eric felt as though the clouds were lifting and maybe, just maybe, it was going to be a good day.