CSI:LV, M, Drama/Hurt/Comfort, Eli Trent & Sofia Curtis (and flashbacks including Sara, of course)
Disclaimer: CSI, its characters, places, and situations are the property of Jerry Bruckheimer Television, Alliance Atlantis, and CBS Productions. This story was written for entertainment not monetary purposes. Original characters, and this story, are intellectual property of the author. Any similarities to existing characters, fictional or real, living or dead, are coincidental and no harm is intended.
It is crucial to be aware of what happened in both 'Mistakes' and 'Objects in the rear view mirror', to understand what's going on here, since this story will be the last installment of a simple idea that turned into a three story arc.
I told ya, Eli won't get out of my head. And quite some things have been left unresolved.
This prologue is but a teaser. I honestly don't know when I will be able to follow up on it. I just wanted to let you know that I am still around, I just have a lot of stuff to deal with right now and barely find the time or peace of mind to write these days. A lot of this story has already been written and plotted out before things got stressful though, so what is left it is merely the (pretty) complicated and time-consuming task to put the pieces together and let the story grow into what I have had in mind ever since I was a couple of chapters into 'Objects'...
And once again for good measure: I am still not a native speaker. I really, really try to avoid common mistakes, I take great care to edit thoroughly to the best of my knowledge (and maybe I can even call on somebody's services to look upcoming chapters over), but please go easy on me anyway when there's still some things left to be desired. I'll be glad if you do point out anything odd you should stumble upon so I can correct it.I'll be elated about any kind of feedback.
And after the storms
Prologue
Detective Francis Wilczek was a humble man. He didn't need much to be content, he never had. Having grown up in Boston, second of five children Gracian and Martha Wilczek devoted their love and life to, third generation Polish immigrants, he knew what it meant to live a blue collar life. His father, a dockworker all his life until a heart condition more or less bound him to the old flower-patterned yellow and brown winged chair, the fabric darkened and worn soft by years of constant use, in front of the television, had worked like a dog to bring his children up decently, while his mother had been, in good Polish tradition, the housewife that kept the small apartment clean and the children well-fed and taught them manners, the language of their grandparents, and of course, how to cook, do the laundry and once become a suitable husband or wife.
He had a decent place to live, his Department issued Sedan right outside his front door, the San Francisco Chronicle on the living room table by six-thirty in the morning, just in time for his first cup of coffee of the day, a nice big TV in the living room right across from a comfortable sofa so he could follow his passion, baseball - the Boston Red Sox - almost religiously, and a job that he had just learned to really appreciate again, like in the days when he first worked Vice in Boston, before his personal life had taken a tumble down a steep flight of stairs...
"Kurde..." Francis Wilczek cursed in the language that was still deeply ingrained as he tried to adjust the straps of his velcro vest, his hands trembling ever so lightly, something he'd not experienced for a long time. It was good though. He felt it again. This thrumming that went through his whole body and heightened his senses. And he loved it. Yeah, finally he allowed himself to love it again.
While his older brother Andrew had gone to university on a football scholarship, but proved to be as incredibly smart as he'd shown all through high school and ended up at Johns Hopkins', and his next sister Katherine had made it to the Julliard, her talent for playing the piano so virtuously definitely inherited from their maternal grandmother, and with the youngest of the bunch, Natalia, who had definitely snatched away all the brains that should have been split between the remaining siblings and went off to Yale at 18 to become a lawyer, he and the second youngest, Gracian, Jr., had been left to do the less glamorous work part.
Not that they were particularly stupid, but scholarships and fancy dreams of grandeur had always been far outside their capabilities. They had other virtues. Gracian had always been overly fond of cars, and working as a mechanic was his very dream come true. He didn't earn the world, but it paid the bills and most importantly, it made him happy. When he was covered in grease smudges and smelled of motor-oil and gasoline, washing his calloused hands under the tab in the evenings, his world was complete.
He, Francis, had always been the brave and righteous one. He had gotten into trouble more than once defending someone weaker, bullied, mistreated, often with the raw power of his bare hands and not with words, like his mother had urged him to from earliest age, and he'd ended up in detention more times than he was able to recount. When he decided to join the Police Acadamy, his father had just smiled contently, not wondering the slightest about the path his son was so determined to take and his mother had thrown her hands up in horror, had muttered worriedly in Polish and had started to cry. Such a dangerous profession, she had held him close and stroked the hair back from his forehead as if he'd still been a five-year old. You're gonna get hurt, kochanie, you are going to get yourself shot, all those gangs, the drugs, the violence on the street... mój serce! He'd returned the embrace, though he'd felt way too old to be held by his mother like that, and had soothed her. He'd be careful. And he'd take care of others, that was what he'd always done, always wanted to do. He'd make those streets a little safer to walk, day or night. He'd be careful. And she'd laughed through her tears and had kissed him, many times, before letting him go - finally - and telling him to make them proud.
And he had. When he had made Detective, she had dished up like it was Christmas and Easter all rolled into one day.
When he had gotten grazed by a bullet for the first time, she had cried the whole night through, even though he'd only needed a couple of stitches, a Tylenol and a stiff few Vodki to feel fine again.
When he announced that he'd marry, she tried to talk him into changing his profession, he was going to have children, he was going to be a father, and children needed their father alive and whole.
But he couldn't. He'd never be able to leave behind what meant the world to him. In retrospective, maybe he should've at least considered it. Should have at least slowed the pace at which he had been going at the time. But he hadn't and so he'd struggled through a marriage that soon had started to fall apart, his dedication to his job often overruling his common sense, days and nights spent at the Department leaving his lovely, beautiful, but only so far understanding wife Helen a grass widow too many days a month. When they couldn't manage to conceive, though they'd tried everything, she finally gave up and left him. Not for another man, but for her own sanity and happiness, she claimed.
He did the chivalrous thing, like he always had. He packed up a couple of boxes and bags, kissed her on the forehead, told her he did love her, no matter what and he understood, and filed for divorce, leaving the small house they had bought and most of the belongings to her.
Without telling anyone, not even his mother, he had asked for a relocation. Three days before he left for San Francisco, the city farthest away that had wanted him, he had sat them all down and told them. Again, his mother had cried and his father, despite the narrow lines of worry etched around his eyes, had smiled again. He just couldn't stay. He had failed them, failed his wife, failed to live up to the morals and values installed in him. He'd visit, he promised, every holiday he could arrange to get off. Always them. He loved them, with all of his broken heart that was left beating inside of his broad chest.
Mama, kocham cie. Ich liebe dich...
His glance darted through the observation van, everyone was checking their gear one last time before the operation would begin. He had found a family here, in San Francisco's Vice Department.
His eyes fixated on the one woman who had amazed him from the very moment he'd met her. Det. Elizabeth Trent whom he knew was not feeling as at home in his unit, Homicide Detective she had been both here before and then in Vegas, looked pale, exhausted, her clothes dirty and disheveled, her hair falling in greasy strains into her eyes, unkempt and messy, she smelled of booze and a day and night of hard physical labour, the Kevlar vest she was sporting now and the police insignia back at their rightful place on her belt a stark contrast to her scruffy appearance. But she had brought them here. She had more or less single-handedly made this night's operation possible. He'd been her contact while she'd been undercover and they had gotten to know each other beyond the needs of the assignment. He knew of her burden, and he shared it. His wife wasn't dead, but she might as well be, and he was just as heartbroken. He'd been so blind. He'd do anything to turn back time. But he'd been young, driven and oh so very ambitious, and he'd lost his focus. It was his fault. Trent was just a victim of circumstances of the worst kind. She had given it her all and had no one to blame but God himself. But she didn't. Just like she hadn't abandoned her mission.
And he knew she had considered to do so, more than just once. He knew of tough, hardened Vice-veterans who had copped out of less dangerous assignments. But Trent had pulled through. And given them more than enough to nail each and every one of those motherfuckers in one fell swoop.
Tonight.
He looked up again and directly into a pair of fiercely determined dark brown eyes. He held the gaze and blinked ever so slightly. The hint of a grim smile flashed across the pale female Detective's face in acknowledgement as she slammed the clip into her gun, loaded it through and clicked off the safety.
The tiny receiver in his ear cracked with static before the Chief's voice rang through, and he knew the game was on.
As his hands tightened around the cold and notched butt of his own Glock, he prayed that they'd all make it out alive...
My Polish is rudimental at best... Barely good enough to say Hello and Thank you and Have a nice day and order a beer. So I apologize should I have butchered the language in the few brief uses.
To be honest, I guess I need the incentive of knowing that I already published one chapter and people might be waiting for a continuation. Though it didn't work on other unfinished stories, with this one I am quite sure it will. I want to give this tale a proper ending and I hope it'll work like it already does in my head. Just give me some time...