Title: Innocence and Beauty Companion: Fallen Angel
By: TriplePirouette
Category: angst, PRE-CSI
Spoilers: "Sex, Lies and Larvae"
Disclaimer: They're not mine- I'm a poor college student having fun... take pity...
Distribution: please ask first :)
Summary: Companion to Innocence and Beauty- takes place during Chapter 12. What happened to Sara?
Author's Notes: Unfortunately, I'm basing these events on someone I know. They are somewhat exaggerated, but as the best friend of someone like this, it's impossible not to feel part of you die when things like this happen. However, she has not, thankfully, met the same fate as the character. This is for her, in the hope that maybe one day she'll see the person that I see, the beautiful, smart woman whose own actions hurt her more than anyone else ever could; a girl whose bad hand in life was dealt to her, and she did the best she could without ever knowing that there's a better way. There are people here who love you; I hope you always know that.
~~~~~~~~~~
The Wallflowers- "One Headlight"
So long ago I don't remember when
That's when they say I lost my only friend
Well they said she died easy of a broken heart disease
As I listened through the cemetery trees
I seen the sun comin' up at the funeral at dawn
The long broken arm of human law
Now it always seemed such a waste
She always had a pretty face
I wondered how she hung around this place
She said its cold
It feels like Independence Day
I can't break away from this parade
But there's got to be an opening
Somewhere here in front of me
Through this maze of ugliness and greed
And I seen the sun up ahead
At the county line bridge
Sayin' all there's good and nothingness is dead
We'll run until she's out of breath
She ran until there's nothin' left
She hit the end, it's just her window ledge
Well this place is old
It feels just like a beat up truck
I turn the engine but the engine doesn't turn
Well it smells of cheap wine and cigarettes
This place is always such a mess
Sometimes I think I'd like to watch it burn
I'm so alone, and I feel just like somebody else
Man, I ain't changed, but I know I ain't the same
But somewhere here in between the city walls of dyin' dreams
I think her death, it must be killin' me
Hey, come on, try a little
Nothing is forever
There's got to be something better than
In the middle
But me and Cinderella
We put it all together
We can drive it home
With one headlight
~~~~~~~~~~
I stare at the open e-mail program on my computer and wonder where to start, where to even begin to make my excuses for the last few months. My red-rimmed eyes blur the screen, and I fight to hold back the tears that threaten to fall over and over again. My stomach's flipping, and I feel like I could throw-up, but there's nothing left in there to purge. I choke back a sob and bury my head in my hands.
How do I even begin to explain what an amazing person she was, and what a cursed life she led? Ever since the day I met her she balanced on the precipice of calamity, and somehow always managed to come out on top. Maybe she started to believe that she was invincible, maybe she thought it could never get any worse, when it somehow always did. I always knew it would come crashing down one day, I just didn't expect it to be so soon, or so hard.
We knew each other practically all of our lives, sharing our youth in a way that only best friends could: with inside jokes, secret pacts, and an unbreakable belief that we'd be friends forever. Nothing could come between us back then when our worst problem was who our teachers were and if our crushes knew we liked them or not.
As we grew older and closer, I saw the tragic truths of her life revealed to me as she came to rely on me as more like a sister than a best friend.
I saw that her house was not a home, but a farce full of verbal abuse and distrust that slowly bred in her a deep contempt and vicious need to rebel. While I was always welcomed there, when I was around there was an undercurrent of a deep energy that I never understood. Now I know that it was the disgust for each other that they bred daily, politely concealed for my benefit.
I saw her go through boyfriends like most women go through pairs of jeans, manipulating men for her pleasure as she'd always seen her mother do. She'd come to me pissed off when they'd disobey her and disappointed when they'd fall at her feet in worship. Desperate for love, but never truly understanding what she needed, and never needing anything men offered her, she never stayed in one relationship long, or ever truly said goodbye to any man.
I saw her become a walking contradiction: a self-proclaimed bitch, but also a humanitarian who carried her heart on her sleeve and could never say no to anyone in need. She wove lies so deeply seated in half-truths and conjecture that she could run circles around even the best logician, but she could never lie to me.
I saw her shrivel and die inside, oppressed by the weight of her burdens; weights that she should have never had to carry in the first place.
One day in my senior year at Harvard she called, hysterical that she and her father had a fight. After her parents divorce she ended up living with him, her mother's adultery and countless other betrayals too much to stand. The hot temper she shared with her father, however, led to a volatile and unpredictable situation. We talked for hours, and she told me how desperately she needed me, and I saw that after ten years of friendship I was the only one who truly knew her. Not her family, her friends, or any one of her boyfriends could claim to even begin to understand her in the way I could, and in my unfailing friendship she had found a tie to reality in a world that constantly held her under it's weight, trying to drown her in circumstance and bad luck.
That summer, when I finally came home for good, I found that she was a shell of her former self: someone I barely recognized. We'd talk for hours and try to discover what had changed her. Her own transformation was revealed to her in ungodly ways: a miscarried pregnancy that she hadn't planned, a rape attempt by a former boyfriend, her father's temper turning physically violent. There were so many times she came to me, mortified at her life, and how deeply she was entrenched in it. She felt buried alive, trapped and fighting a losing battle.
So many of the times she cried to me it was because of things she could never have stopped if she wanted to; the cosmos conspiring to hold her down.
More often than not her suffering was self-inflicted in some way: seeing an old boyfriend and ending up cheating on her current boyfriend, instead of walking away engaging her father in a battle of wills, insisting on buying things for her friends but missing a phone bill and losing her phone service... I tried to help her, to show her that while she was doing good things, she had to see herself as a priority, that she wasn't respecting herself.
I held her through pregnancy scares, boyfriend problems, a broken engagement, family crises, verbal abuse in every form imaginable, a bout with cancer that she refused to tell me about until she was already in treatment, and so many nights when she couldn't understand why she could never seem to rise above it all. Every time I told her that it would be ok, in giving her a little of my hope, I lost some of my own. It was always one step forward and two steps back for her, and I dragged her through the journey, intent on helping her find direction. She had been like a sister to me for so long, taught me about life and growth and boys and unconditional love more than I ever thought possible. Through all of her anguish if I ever needed her she was always there for me without a question. I couldn't watch her fall into the self-destructive abyss she was eye to eye with. There was never any doubt about that.
The worst part of it all was that inside, under all the psychological damage she had sustained and the stress and the circumstances, there was a beautiful, smart woman with amazing potential to reach her highest aspirations. I always knew that if she ever got the chance to start fresh- truly start over again, she could make her life everything she deserved it to be.
I fought so hard for her, sometimes I wonder if I lost myself in the fight.
She was on an upswing a month ago when she called, things had been going great- she was finally getting out of her house, she was building up her credit, she had a wonderful boyfriend. Her weak voice on the other end of the line clued me in right away that something was wrong. She had, in a moment of weakness, slept with an ex boyfriend, and now thought she was pregnant. Her problems were compounded when I heard her fight with her father over the phone. She stormed out of the house, her rage filtering through the phone.
I heard her scream and the screeching tires of the car accident over the phone and called 911 on my cell, the whole time listening to her heart wrenching sobs, begging me to stay on the phone with her.
Her stay in the hospital was just like the rest of her life had been, one unfortunate event after another. As the days went by and she suffered a miscarriage and several infections on top of her injuries, I watched her family fight. For my part, I sat and prayed to the God she believed in so fervently that she be given a second chance.
When the Doctor entered the waiting room one afternoon to tell us that she had taken a turn for the worse over night, and just a few minutes ago in surgery been lost, I chocked back the hysterical sobs that wanted to pour out. But then I saw the stoic and unfeeling faces of her family, and knew somehow that she'd be better off in heaven, where I knew she surely went. For all the bad she sometimes did, her life had been fraught with good intentions, and her struggle against the worst fate could throw at her could not go unrewarded.
When I was finally home and away from the cruelty of her family, the hysterics flowed freely for all I had lost in her, and the future that she had been denied.
The false sentiment expressed at her funeral this afternoon sickened me. If any of them knew a fraction of the person I knew I'd be surprised. There was a beauty and innocence in her struggle, one that I admired. I loved her more than I care to think about now.
She was so vulnerable to the world around her, to the circumstances of her life. A fallen angel, I see her reflected in the cases that I've been trying to use to get her off my mind. Young women, in the prime of their lives, victimized beyond what any of them ever deserved or could think of, helpless to change any of it. I'm compelled to help each of them, to drag them forward and vindicate her through them.
Still staring at the e-mail program, I wonder how much I should tell Grissom. A while back while she was having another problem she and I disappeared for a while, and I had frightened him apparently. He told me, in not so many words, that if I ever needed to talk, that he'd be there. I need him now more than ever.
If she were still alive, I'd go to her.
Without her, I feel like I've lost myself. I need to regain who I am, and something, anything about myself.
Before I can begin to type, I'm startled by the announcement that I have mail.
Sara,
I need your help... we've had an unfortunate set of circumstances here, and I need an internal investigation done. You're the only one I can trust to do this properly and without bias, which is what is really needed now. We'll also have a temporary position open, one that I'd love for you to fill.
The circumstances are difficult to describe. If you can do this, I'd need you here as soon as possible, tomorrow even.
I stop reading and just scan over the rest. I hit the reply button and type one sentence:
I'm on my way.
I have a chance to start over like she never did. She was truly the only person here who needed me. Las Vegas holds so much possibility and promise for me now, alone and with the man who's been seducing me mentally for too long to think about.
She needed me then.
He needs me now.
I'll do them both proud.
~~~~~~~~~~
Grissom insisted that I stay at his house until I found an apartment after I told him in no uncertain terms that I wanted to stay. That first morning while he made dinner, something he told me I'd have to get used to, was singularly beautiful. We talked like we hadn't for a long time and enjoyed each other's company as he cooked, refusing my help.
When I sat at the table, a couple of glasses of wine in me, and he smiled at me as he prepared my plate at the stove, I felt hope that I could move forward with only a happy memory and good intentions. His smile only grew in beauty and sensuality as he turned and presented me a plate of Chicken Marsala.
The confusion I saw on his face only pained me more as I chocked back the violent sobs that threatened to erupt at seeing her favorite dinner so meticulously prepared. She would have loved it, approved of any man who could cook a good Chicken Marsala.
"Sara?" His concern was bordering on panic, and I couldn't blame him. All he did was serve me dinner and I'm a basket case. I feel a tear slip down my cheek and he's instantly at my side, crouched and taking my face in his hands. "Sara?" he asks again, "what's wrong? You're acting like you lost your best friend and all I did was make you dinner..."
I know he doesn't know. I know that his choice of simile is pure coincidence, but I can't keep the dam from breaking. I fall into him, gripping his shirt and crying in loud, violent hysterics into his chest. We crumble to the floor and he pulls me into his arms, trying to coax me to calm down with his embrace and soft voice, but all I can do is curse the heavens and earth that stole her from me, and her life from her. I scream and beat on his chest, my knuckles turning white on handfuls of his shirt until I exhaust myself.
He rocks me in his arms like a child, and for the moment I'm happy to be here. He needed me. And now I need him. Somehow, I know he understands this when he whispers in my ear, "Tell me, Sara."
The tears welling up in my eyes again, I pull away from him and stare into his scared and concerned blue orbs. I shake my head slightly and swipe at the tears that fall free. There's only one thing to say, one truth that cannot be denied now, no matter what else transpired.
"I lost my best friend."
With a deep realization, he pulls me back into his embrace and whispers words of comfort. I can't remember the specific words, but only the soft timber of his voice as I melted into his being on the kitchen floor that night.
He never asked for any more explanation, I never offered any.
I rushed out to Las Vegas because he needed me. He held me on his kitchen floor because I needed him.
I know that I'm still haunted more than I'd like to think. I still think about her all the time, she's always with me.
~~~~~~~~~~
I leave the apartment of Scott Shelton seething. Kaye was just like my best friend. Kaye deserves vindication; Kaye deserves justice- the kind she never got.
I wonder what would happen if he knew I needed him now...
~~~~~~~~~~
He knew, and he delivered it in the only way he knew how: science.
She thanks you Grissom, and so does Kaye, and so do I.
Somehow, you just knew.