Wish to Forget
By Teenwitch
Summary: "Many of us can't take the risk a second time around. After all, to have our heart broken once is sad. To have it broken twice is a tragedy."
Disclaimer: CSI is the property of Anthony Zuiker, Alliance Atlantis, and that big Hollywood producer, you know, Jerry Bruckheimer. I'm just borrowing them, but it's okay, it's not for me. ;)
Author's Note: This was written for CSINut214 over at the geekficathon.
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Nothing fixes a thing so intensely in the memory as the wish to forget it.
-Montaigne
The heat was sweltering, saturating every orifice of the cramped interrogation room. The ancient air-conditioning unit in the corner had surrendered to its pitiful fate, and the silence it left in its wake was almost unbearable, leaving him no choice but to talk, to prompt the confession of a man whose face littered the very depths of his subconsciousness.
The monotonous rhythm of the clock fixed crookedly above him on the wall gave every new minute an endless quality, and he felt the sweat gather and cling to his clasped hands. His shirt was crumpled; his greying curls limp and dishevelled, indications of the sleepless nights he had endured. Sleep had never come easily to him. Though his loneliness never manifested in his waking hours, it plagued him when it came to rest.
Behind him, through the mirrored wall, he could feel eyes piercing his back, observing the inner conflict nagging a near broken man. He ignored their curiosity, their concern and scrutiny, focusing every ounce of his trained nonchalance on the suspect – the killer – sitting opposite him.
"There's no one else here, Hudson. Tell me how you killed them".
Bruce Hudson – such a normal name – blinked back at him, smirking slightly. His features were sinister once you knew their secrets; the downward curve of his nose became hooklike instead of endearing, and the glittering brown of his eyes became near black in their evil.
"Your colleagues are still watching. We're never really alone, are we, Mr. Grissom? You're afraid that if we are, you'll lose control completely. You fear loosing your control".
Grissom ignored his psychoanalysis; the fact that his observations were all too accurate. He leant forward in his chair, clenching his hands together so tightly he could see the whiteness of his knuckles. "How did you kill them?"
"With sweat and blood and tears. You'd know a little something about that, wouldn't you?"
Grissom remained silent, staring at him to continue.
Hudson sensed his impatience, smiling slightly. "Women in Vegas are very different to women in Minneapolis. They trust so easily, so foolishly. They shed their common sense just as swiftly as their morals. It was so much easier. Disappointingly so."
"Where did you take them?"
"You know where I took them. I perfected my signature, as you like to call it, over twenty years."
"We found no trace of them in the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest."
"There's an old ranger station cabin, several miles from the current ranger station. I'm almost disappointed you didn't find it already. I gave you so many chances."
"How did you kill them?"
Hudson smiled now, the sinister shade of his eyes flashing in the light. "Tell me-- do they call out for you, Mr Grissom? Your lost souls, begging for release? Do they have her face, when you look at them? Do they cry like she did?"
"How did you kill them, Hudson?"
"She was my biggest masterpiece, you know," he confided, looking wistful. "All these years later, and I can still never quite capture the essence of her terror. Nothing ever seems to compare."
Grissom drew in a deep breath, calming the inner uproar assaulting his long-hidden emotions. "How did you kill them?"
"A great magician never reveals his secrets, Gil". The rapid shift to his first name caused Grissom to stiffen, and Hudson smiled calmly. "That would ruin the final act".
"There will be no final act", Grissom snapped.
Hudson lifted an eyebrow. "I recall you telling me that fifteen years ago. Just before... well, you know."
"We're not here to discuss this, Hudson".
"Aren't we? Isn't it a criminalist's philosophy to know thy enemy? You can't predict my behaviour without analysing my past. Even if it happens to merge with your own."
Behind the reflective glass, Catherine and Sara stood in silence, witnessing the strange battle of wills with a collective sense of unease. Sara shifted, glancing at Catherine, attempting to read more into the older woman's counternance. "What is he talking about?"
"I don't know", the blonde replied quietly, deeply disturbed by her friend's taut posture. She knew from bitter experience that all men had violence in them when provoked; even the most temperate like Gil Grissom. He had immersed himself in this case from the very beginning, claiming Bruce Hudson was the one that got away, the serial killer who murdered four different women during his period in Minneapolis. What he had failed to mention was his obvious personal connection to the killings. Or, more accurately, one of the victims.
She spared a brief glance at Sara beside her, the young woman whose own relationship with Grissom had been a tumultuous on/off affair since her arrival five years ago. She stared ahead, brow twisted slightly, obviously attempting to gain some insight into this new, raw Grissom on the other side of the mirror.
"Have you met another like her, Grissom?" Hudson's tinny voice questioned through the speaker. "Another with her beauty, her quiet passion? She struggled until the very end, you know. I've never seen such a desire for life. Did she know how much you loved her? Love is such a precautious thing, isn't it? You never fully appreciate it until it's taken away."
"That's enough, Hudson".
"Many of us can't take the risk a second time around. After all, to have our heart broken once is sad. To have it broken twice is a tragedy."
"Is that why you kill them?" Grissom said in a low voice. "Because you can't love?"
"No", Hudson replied, meeting his gaze head-on. "I kill them because I can".
Sara swallowed, as she glimpsed the shift in Grissom's stilted demeanour. Catherine, too, sensed the rapid change in atmosphere. "Get Brass in there", she said quickly.
Sara nodded, darting out into the hall with her heart hammering worriedly. Brass stood in mid-conversation with an officer outside the door, as the terms of Hudson's confession depended on there being no one else in the room. He glanced up, reading the panic in her eyes, quickly excusing himself from the officer, and turning towards the interrogation room.
It was in the split-second moment the detective opened the door that Grissom darted out of his chair, in a movement borne from pure adrenaline. He grasped Hudson by the lapels of his shirt and heaved him out of his chair. Brass stormed into the room along with the officer, quickly grasping Grissom's upper arm, and struggling to disengage him. "Gil, let him go! You don't want to do this".
Sara halted in the door to the room, stunned by the unexpected actions of the man before her. His carefully restrained demeanour had finally snapped, manifesting in an act of such raw emotional rage, she hadn't thought him capable of it.
"Gil!" Catherine's shrill voice broke the testosterone running rampant in the room. Grissom's grip slackened on Hudson's shirt, and Brass carefully pulled him back a step, allowing Hudson to topple back against the wall. The officer unceremoniously grasped his upper arm, dragging him upright, holding him where he was.
"I always knew you had it in you", the killer said easily, with barely a rasp in his voice. The inhumanness of his composure chilled Sara as she looked on, and Brass shot him a look of absolute hatred; unlike anything Sara had ever seen from him, gesturing brusquely out the door. "Get him out of here".
Sara quickly stepped aside as he was led from the room, but Grissom had already looked up and noticed her in the doorway. Their eyes met and held, despite Brass's soft, gruff words in his ear – words of recrimination or sympathy, she wasn't quite sure. Hudson shifted in the officer's grasp, taking note of their frozen exchange, shooting a languid, knowing smirk in Sara's direction before he was escorted outside.
She frowned, and Grissom's gaze remained steadily on her, scorching her with its strength. She stared back at him uncertainly, until Catherine appeared at her elbow and gently dragged her away.
Sara went on shaky legs; unsettled not only by the scene she had just witnessed, but the interest Hudson had shown in her, in the wake of Grissom's stare.
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Solace. Solace in memories, in the bottom of a glass. The scotch blazed an acidic path down his throat, and he closed his eyes. The sofa yielded to his heavy frame and he closed his eyes, remembering the feel of soft, twisted cotton in his grasp, and the rasp of choking breaths as they tickled his face. For the first time in his career, he understood the mentality that drove those to murder on a fundamental level. It scared him. If he could empathise with the killers, then maybe his job wasn't worth doing anymore.
He downed another glass, feeling the alcohol working its way through his system. It was his only armour against the darkness threatening the edges of his world, and he welcomed it willingly.
A gentle, determined knocking sounded at his front door, intruding his inner monologue. He took a long time to move, but when it was clear the perpetrator wasn't going to disappear, he rose to his feet, striding barefoot across the hardwood floor, and abruptly opening the door.
Sara stood on the other side, features calm and beautiful. She had a crumpled paper takeout bag in one hand and she stared back at him carefully. He couldn't remember the last time she had come to his house. He couldn't remember if she ever had. She hesitated, eyes trailing over him slowly, taking in his dishevelled appearance, and the fact that he smelt like scotch. He wondered if she was afraid of him, now she had seen the true rage that lurked underneath his calm. He wondered if that bothered him, or if he even cared.
"Since I'm guessing that we're more alike than you're ever going to admit, you probably haven't eaten anything between rounds of scotch", she said at last, holding up the bag as if it was credible evidence and she wasn't disturbed by the sight of her boss in the state he was in now. "I brought you some dinner."
The act was so thoughtful and kind—even after the way he had behaved, and everything he had done to her—and he wanted to close the door in her face, and cast her from his life forever. He would spare his own heartache by removing the last of his temptation, and he wouldn't have to see the pain in her lovely eyes every day he lived.
He stood, motionless, for what felt like forever, and Sara merely stared back at him patiently, waiting for him to let her inside. He thought she must have honed her patience to a fine art, waiting for his decisions.
"I suppose you better come inside".
The words felt foreign in his throat, but he stepped aside, allowing her entrance. She followed quickly, not waiting for him to change his mind, striding ahead of him into his cold, barren living room. Stripped of personality and life, he thought it was the perfect mirror of the nothingness inside him. Maybe Sara would finally see that, and she would turn away.
All she did was set the bag of Chinese food on the Formica counter, and step closer to one of his display cases, studying the specimens inside with a vague sort of interest. And he remembered, to his bitter disappointment, that she had been there before—after his suspension, when the team stood behind him in their efforts to identify the Strip Strangler terrorising Las Vegas.
"What do you want, Sara?"
The words were brisk, and tired, and Sara turned around, eyeing him calmly from her position near the wall. She looked oddly self-assured, and he wondered if she took a grim sort of satisfaction from their role reversal, and the fact that she was now the one in seeming control.
"I told you. Do I have to have an ulterior motive?"
With anyone else, he would have said yes, but he merely looked away, leaning against the side of his counter with a weariness of all his years.
"I heard Ecklie suspended you".
He scoffed slightly, reminded of that unpleasant conversation. "He called it a 'paid vacation', but I suppose the implication is the same. He said no disciplinary action would be taken. Apparently those who witnessed it said it was a provoked attack".
He shot her a pointed look, and stared back at him levelly, "Catherine and I vouched for you, if that's what you mean".
"I didn't need you to do that".
She shrugged. "Do you really think you were going to get blamed for that? Hudson is a dangerous criminal and a known serial killer. The DA wasn't going to allow an isolated incident to jeopardise her case and let this guy go back on the streets".
He smiled humourlessly, realising that even Sara could see the political side of their jobs. The injustice of its irrationality rankled in him, and he strode across the room, slumping into his previous position on his couch.
Sara paused a moment in his living room, finally crossing the floor, removing several forensic journals from the seat opposite him and placing them carefully on the coffee table. Again, he was struck by the familiarity in their positions, and the fact that, this time, he was the one about to become unhinged. But he hadn't really fixed Sara. And he didn't think that she could fix him.
She frowned, studying him as he poured another glass of the amber liquid from the bottle on the table. He ignored her scrutiny, relishing the bitter irony as he downed the entire glass.
"Who was she?" she asked, quietly, brown eyes mirroring her empathy. She had suffered loss, perhaps more strongly than anyone he knew, yet he had always resisted confiding in her. She was strong; she was living proof that he could endure it and come out on the other side. He didn't want that.
"I loved her", he said, quietly. "And he took her away".
She swallowed, struck by the faint misery in his tone, even as he kept his poker face on. It was an expression she had always envied, a little. She always allowed her emotions to come across front and centre, and sometimes she wished she could conceal them that easily. Particularly around him.
She knew the last thing he would want was comfort, considering what he was telling her, and the perilous state of their own relationship. She worried her bottom lip between her teeth, and observed him as he continued.
"We met after I had been in Minneapolis for six months. She worked in the DA's office. Back then; Hudson was still in the early stages of his career. He liked to target women in positions of authority, those who worked in government institutions. He broadened his field when he realised we could track him. He revels in unpredictability."
She nodded, silently, listening as he spoke out his jumbled thoughts. His mind was still on the case; work had always been an easier outlet for him to express his honesty. But snippets of personal information were making themselves known, and she waited patiently for them to grow.
"Amy… was his third victim. He stalked her, perhaps for months beforehand. We never were quite sure. He… he…" he frowned, unable to form the words.
"You don't have to tell me what he did to her", Sara said softly, brow crinkled sympathetically.
Grissom nodded, eyeing the bottom of his glass as if it held all the answers. "I don't know… what would have happened to us. I would have liked to find out".
Silence enveloped them, and Sara glanced down, fixed on a spot on the floor. This explained so much about him. Even if it wasn't his motivating factor when he resisted their relationship, it would have certainly contributed to it. As she thought this, she had to curse herself for doing so. She had to remind herself that this case had brought all of these old, hidden emotions to the surface, and that he had probably ignored them for decades. Even if it comforted her to do so, she couldn't use every minute detail of his mysterious history to analyse their situation.
"I'm really sorry, Grissom", she said sincerely.
He lifted his gaze, meeting hers swiftly. "He looked at you, back there".
She frowned, uncomfortably aware of that fact, but she decided not to share that. "I was in the doorway".
"That's not why he looked at you", Grissom said flatly, clinking the bottle as he placed it back on the table and rose to his feet, crossing the room to the kitchen.
Sara allowed her eyes to follow his path, remaining where she was. She sighed when she saw him pass the unopened takeout bag, and stride over to the fridge, retrieving a bottle of water. At least he was doing that.
"I don't understand what you mean, Grissom".
"Yes you do", he said tiredly. He sounded utterly exhausted and his words were stated in blunt, straightforward fact. She swallowed, unwilling to question their meaning aloud. For the first time, he wasn't skirting around their situation. She didn't need any clarification. She did know.
"He's going to prison. He'll get the death penalty. He's never going to hurt anybody else".
He didn't look comforted, returning to his seat, clasping his hands over his knees as he placed the water beside the scotch. "We don't really know that, Sara".
"Sometimes you have to trust in things, Grissom".
He frowned, staring at her intently. She held his gaze for a moment, before rising to her feet and striding towards the food. She removed several plastic containers, returning to place them on the coffee table, lifting an eyebrow at him pointedly.
Without looking away, he moved aside slightly on the sofa, making room for her beside him. Silently, Sara sat down, sorting the food into two piles; vegetarian noodles and rice for herself and sour pork and chicken for him. Grissom glanced at her a moment, then mutely accepted the outstretched carton, lifting off the lid and allowing the sweet aroma to permeate the air around them.
After exchanging chopsticks and napkins, they ate in companionable quiet, refusing to acknowledge any further meaning in their conversation. And for perhaps the first time in their long, confused relationship, there was knowing in their silence.
FIN