June...screw it.
I don't really feel like writing, but I need to get this out in order to fully believe what has just happened. Nick is dead, Greg and Catherine are seriously injured and Warrick is currently in a coma. So, all that's left is me and Grissom. Grissom's at a conference in Chicago and won't be back for nearly a week, so it's really just me.
I seem to be in a state of shock. Just numb to this whole ordeal. In fact, I don't even remember half of it. I remember watching them take Greg, Catherine, and Warrick away in the ambulance, riding up to the hospital, talking to the doctors, but I don't remember anything said. And then...nothing.
I need to call Grissom.
Several Hours Later...
Here I am, back at the office, still unable to recall the previous night. Well, most of it. it just seems like one big blur. I called Grissom to let him know about the situation and he said he would catch the soonest flight out. He didn't really seem to be in a talking mood so I just let him go. To be honest, I didn't really feel like talking either.
I started out sitting in the breakroom, trying to pick my brain apart, but everything seems so fuzzy and blended. I can't figure anything out. The shock seems to be wearing off, but I don't think it's helping much. Now, I can't get my hands to stop shaking. I can barely read what I just wrote.
God, my heart feels like someone's squeezing it to the point of bursting and holding it there. It's a pain indescribable. I can't think, I can't see straight, i can't even breathe. My arms and legs seem to have minds of their own as I now standing in Grissom's office with absolutely no idea how I got here. I just sat down and started to write, staring up at the back window, watching the rain pelt against the glass.
It's the first time it's rained in nearly ten months. It feels like the entire world is weeping for my loss. Dear Jesus, I lost my Nick. My sweet, flawed, comforting goofball is just...gone. Just like that.
It's funny, the one thing I can remember is standing, watching that bullet enter his chest. Over and over again. We'd been processing a scene when gunfire erupts from nowhere. Why? Why does that one scene have to play over and over like a nightmare?
His blood was so red, unnaturally so as it spurts out, falling against the stones of the path. I don't know who shot him, I don't know why. All I know is that my best friend is dead. My best friend. Dead. Why? Why does God have to have such a sick sense of humor? Nick, who's cheated death more than most of us, killed in a stupid ambush.
Night...
I went out, after the rain and took a long drive. My feet just moved without my brain telling me where to go. Completely oblivious to the covert glances of pity, the hand-covered whispers. There goes Sara Sidle, watched the whole thing happen, poor thing, just wanders down the halls like a lost child.
Somehow, I ended up at my car. Almost in a daze, I got in and started the engine. Unsurprisingly, my mind was blank, wonderfully blank. And then? Then I just drove until the car stopped moving. The wind roared in my ears and I figured I was in the desert. I often come out here to think.
My eyes were open, but I saw nothing. I killed the engine and got out. For a moment, I just walked into the endless expanse. Sand pushed up into my sneakers, filtering into my socks, irritating my feet. Suddenly, that minor infraction, a simple irritation set me off. Rage and hatred and grief anf guilt rushed through my body all at once. I kicked at the sand, hard as I could, sending a shoe flying into the dark night. I kicked and kicked and kicked, ignoring the shooting pain rising up my legs from the exertion.
All I could think about was how I had lost a best friend, had seriously come close to losing two others and one was slowly slipping away. I just kicked at the sand until my legs gave out and i collapsed onto the ground, breathing heavily. The sand cool and coarse under my fingers. I knelt there, clenching my jaw, trying deserately not to cry. Instead, I screamed. I screamed loud and hard, setting my lungs aflame. I screamed at the God who'd taken my friend from me, I screamed at the fates and injustices of the world, I screamed for everyone who'd lost a friend or family, a lover or a soulmate. I screamed until I went hoarse. Then I tried to scream some more.
I yelled and screamed and beat my fists against the sand, sending it into my eyes, making them tear. I think, subconsciously, I wanted to injure myself, make myself hurt physically like I did emotionally. I wanted a reason, a reason for this pain I felt in my heart. This pain that seemed to be beyond all words in English or any other language.
Eventually, I stopped screaming. But I did not rise. I knelt there in a upright fetal position, my hands over my ears. I could still hear him, I could still hear his voice in my head. His calm, gentlemanly, southern drawl. I rocked back and forth, just trying to block it out while the wind whipped around me like faint screams in the night.
FIN