Everything in the room felt wrong and out of place, but the painful truth was that it was all like it had always been. The paramedics had just left. All their efforts on the way to the hospital had been useless.

It hadn’t been supposed to be that way. She was dressed for a fancy restaurant, not for an autopsy table.

From behind the glass above, Eric glanced down at her with a knot in his throat. It was like her beauty could fill the empty morgue, but in a dim way he didn’t think he would see. There was no smile on her face, and seeing her eyes closed was like standing in front of an armoured door that nobody would ever open again.

They faced death every day, they had somehow got used at it, but this time, for the second time around, it had hit a little too close to home. Why her, of everyone, he couldn’t explain to himself. She had always been the one who kept the team together, she was the one who less deserved that.

In all that grey, metallic atmosphere, she looked like a red rose lying in the middle of a street. Red like her dress, red like her lips, red like the blood covering her body.

It was creepy how something so beautiful could at the same time be so painful. She was there, in front of his eyes, and yet she was gone.

In that moment the doors of the morgue flung open and someone rushed in, running with no hesitation toward her. It took Eric a couple of seconds to blink his tears away before he could recognize Ryan’s face, crossed by copious tears. Eric sincerely felt for him.

He watched him bend over her, slowly, almost solemnly, taking her hand in his.

“What are you doing here, Cal?” Eric heard him whisper feebly through the speaker. The vibration in his voice was heartbreaking. Eric could feel Ryan’s grief inside himself, sharing it silently. Everybody had loved Calleigh Duquesne, and everybody would never stop loving her.

The paleness of her skin barely differenced from her usual look. She looked like she was asleep, and perhaps that was what made everything so hard. They all expected to see her wake up and smile reassuringly, but they were far too aware that wasn’t going to happen.

He turned to his left and saw Alexx sobbing with her hand and a tissue tremblingly pressed onto her mouth, not caring to hide the tears that she didn’t seem to be able, or willing, to stop.

Horatio and Natalia were watching still, standing stiffly on his right.

Down in the morgue, Ryan was gently brushing Calleigh’s hair, sniffling every now and then.

Eric’s eyes set on her right hand, where a white gold diamond ring was shining faintly under a veil of blood.

“Ryan proposed last night.” She had told him that morning, beaming happily while showing him the ring. “We’re celebrating tonight.”

She had been so full of joy, so enthusiastic… How could it have ended in only a few hours?

“Eric, I really hope you’ll want to be my bridesman.”

He had been excited and honoured, and even moved, but weddings, lately, seemed to be under some kind of curse. Why couldn’t any of them seem to be happy?

He had seen their relationship develop ever since the first day, witnessing to all the small, subtle changes that had dragged them closer and closer, until the inevitable had happened. They had been together for seven months by now, and the engagement had been happy news for everyone. Unluckily, such happiness had lasted for less than one day, then everything was gone, as quickly as it had come.

He had seriously believed she and Ryan would make it, that they would be happy. They had been through any kind of trouble, and always had managed to get away with it with nothing graver than a big scare and a couple of scars. But then there had been that shooting, in front of the restaurant where she and Ryan were celebrating, and a bullet had taken away the magic atmosphere of the evening, along with Calleigh’s life.

She was gorgeous in that red spaghetti dress, hair lying under her head in soft, motionless waves. The paleness of her lips was barely hidden by a light shade of lipstick, and yet Eric was trying his best not to believe she was only asleep. Calleigh’s Southern warmth was gone, and the whole lab suddenly felt empty and silent, as if its sparkle of like had been her.

She had been his friend for ages, he couldn’t even remember how void his life must have been before her. Beyond the glass, Ryan was staring at her engagement ring, and Eric knew he wanted to wipe all that blood away, to see her awake and hear her laugh again. They all wished that, but it far beyond possible.

Eric clenched his fists and hung his head in pain as he saw Alexx appear next to Ryan, her hand on his shoulder, trying to calm him down and take him away, but he wouldn’t let go of her hand, and Eric could see why.

Ryan was trying to grasp at a last, impossible hope, but Calleigh was gone, and so was the soul of the team.