A/N: I was fortunate enough to have two of the best betas for this one. Many thanks to Phdelicious and KristenElizabeth. I am so grateful for their help and guidance.
This is a little birthday fic present for Printdust. She wanted a post Empty Eyes Insomnia fic. When I get discouraged with the writing process, I think about how wonderful and supportive Robyn is and I want to write again. I just wish this fic was worthy of her. She is an amazing gift of a person. Happy Birthday, Robyn!
The clock mocked her.
The red numbers glowed in her darkened room, adding or taking away one or more of the seven lines that made up one number that represented a minute, morphing every sixty seconds, sixty times an hour.
She couldn't sleep.
She had stayed up on her day off thinking she and Grissom would have a "normal" night. Go out to dinner, come home, make love, go to sleep in each others' arms. But then, the showgirls had been murdered; there was no date and there had been no sleep.
She shifted against the pillows again. Tried to remember the last time she had changed the sheets. These were the paisley…when had she changed back to the paisley from the solid mint green? She really didn't sleep at her apartment any more. Since Grissom's return from Williams, she had practically been living at his place.
She buried her face in the pillow and inhaled deeply. They no longer carried the scent of lavender from her fabric softener, but they didn't smell musty either. She briefly considered getting up and changing them, but she was too tired.
Tired. But she couldn't sleep.
If the case had still been going on, she would have expected this. On the trail of a piece of evidence that could point to a killer, a thief, an arsonist, or a rapist, she was usually too keyed up to sleep in the middle. If it was a hot one, when she felt justice grab her and refuse to let her go, clamping onto her like a terrier with a rat and shaking her until it was served and satisfied, there would be no rest.
After all these years, she had the routine perfected. Inevitably there was some piece of evidence that needed processing time. If it took long enough, she would go home, shower, change, grab a bite and be back around the time processing was done, making it harder for anyone to accuse her of living at the lab. If it was a short processing time, a quick shower and the change of clothes from her locker--harder to play off, but she had gotten better at it the longer she played the game.
Since she and Grissom had become intimate, these things were harder to manage. As her boss he had always been peripherally aware of her; as her lover, he was intimately aware of her and her schedule even when she wasn't spending the night with him. She'd had to remind him several times about professional and personal boundaries. If she wasn't allowed to bring their relationship to work, neither was he.
And, when he tried to turn the tables, she had just as effectively shut down the work discussion at home. It hadn't caused any real conflict in their relationship, just some grumbling born of concern.
He'd known, at least, that this would be one of those cases, and had refrained from any pointed remarks about looking at things with fresh eyes or a rested mind. He'd let her run with the evidence, do what she needed to do. She understood this unaccustomed freedom was a product of his own alarm when she had cried out in fear and pain when Cammie had struck out from under the bed.
Hearing the fear that echoed in his voice, seeing it reflected on his face when he answered her cry and feeling the gentlest touch on her injured cheek in the moment they shared alone when the paramedics were working on resuscitating the young woman let her know he had been more than startled, he had been terrified. She'd seen the horror of the dark alternatives in his eyes, and known he would understand how this would touch her, move her, hurt her.
Her eyes felt as if they had been rubbed in a pile of sand. The muscles in her arms and legs ached with exhaustion and from the ebb and flow of adrenaline in her system several times over the past thirty-six hours.
She flipped her pillow over, savoring briefly the feel of the cool cotton against her cheek, a balm, a blessing. Her heavy, heavy eyes drifted closed.
And there it was. The face. Wide eyed, bloody, life and light fading from brown eyes even as a garbled and weakened voice begged for help.
Help me, Sara.
Her eyes popped back open. She breathed in deeply, trying to calm her suddenly racing heart.
How long would this go on?
She fought the urge to get up and wash her hands again. She had washed them multiple times since leaving the scene and even showered twice, but when she saw the face in her mind she could feel the blood again, flowing into the whorls of her fingerprints, staining her cuticles, embedding under her nails. Her skin was nearly raw from the scrubbing.
She laughed to herself, bitterly. A fractured Lady MacBeth, an insomniac with bloodstained hands. Her crime was not murder, but the inability to save.
Hadn't that always been her sin?
She couldn't stop the blood. It had seeped up between the fingers she had pressed to the wounds. "What, will these hands ne'er be clean?" She muttered and then snorted, unamused. She was hanging out with Grissom too much, quoting Shakespeare to herself.
She huffed out a breath as she rolled out of bed. Briefly, she considered getting herself a beer or even a glass of wine, but decided not to go down that road. After a trip to the kitchen for a bottle of water and three ibuprofen for her aching muscles, she returned to the bed. She eyed it, balefully, for a minute. Pushing the quilt off the bed, she grabbed the edge of the sheet, flinging it up and out, watching it catch on the self-created breeze and float softly down to meet its fitted counterpart. She had just done the same with the quilt when she heard the snick of the deadbolt unlocking and the slight squeak as the front door opened.
Turning towards the bedroom door, she saw he was already standing there, studying her. "Hey." She gave him a half smile, not quite sure why he was there.
He did not return the smile. She suspected he was trying to look severe, but his sleep mussed hair and holey t-shirt ruined the effect. "I woke up and you were gone," his voice was still gravelly from sleep.
Her brow furrowed. "I left you a note."
He scowled. "A less than informative one." He pulled the scrap of paper from his pocket like a magician beginning to pull a never ending chain of scarves from a sleeve and held it up with careful deliberation, clasped between the scissor of his index and second fingers. She was unable to read it in the dim light, but she knew what it said.
Couldn't sleep. S.
She shrugged. "I couldn't sleep."
He rolled his eyes. "That part I got." He turned his wrist back and forth causing the paper between his fingers to crackle slightly as it waved at her.
She frowned at him. "I couldn't sleep and I didn't want to bother you."
"Whatever you think you could have done wouldn't have bothered me as much as waking up and finding you gone." He blew out an aggravated breath and threw up his hands. "Weren't you the one that lectured me not two weeks ago about unilaterally deciding what was best for you? For us?"
She blinked at him. "Gris…" She blinked again. "I'm sorry."
He ran a distracted hand through his already disheveled hair; his voice softened. "I was worried."
"I left the note so you wouldn't worry." She sat down on the end of the bed, unable to stand any longer. God, she was so tired.
He made a scoffing noise. "I wasn't worried that you'd been kidnapped or run away." He squatted down to meet her eyes. "I was…I am worried about you." He was speaking to her in a voice laced with both frustration and concern.
"I'm fine, just too much caf…" she looked into his blue, blue eyes and stopped the banal lie before she finished it. This was the man she loved, the man who loved her. She swallowed the burning knot in her throat and shook her head. "I can't sleep, Gris. I can't sleep."
He stroked a large hand over her hair. "Because you lost perspective?"
Sara shook her head and willed her tears not to fall. "Because I couldn't save her." She sucked in a shaky breath. "Because I couldn't save him." The lack of sleep, the emotional rollercoaster had worn her defenses to nothing. She was losing the battle; she was beginning to cry again.
Grissom's brow furrowed. "Marlon?"
She shook her head. "My Dad."
He rose to sit beside her and enfolded her in his embrace. "Oh, baby." He kissed the top of her head and pulled her tighter into his chest. "You did everything you could."
"My hand," she choked out.
"What?" He pressed another kiss to her hair.
"I tried to stop the bleeding. I couldn't…" she shook her head. "He was a bastard, but he was still my Dad…I couldn't just let him bleed to death without trying to help." Her voice was calm, almost detached. "I could tell which was the worst one and I tried…there was nothing to staunch the flow." She shuddered against him. "I put my hand over the wound…but the blood kept coming. I could feel his heart beating, the way his blood was spurting against my palm."
"Sara," he tightened his hold.
"I should have taken off my shirt or grabbed something…I just couldn't think. And he just kept asking me to help him." She pressed her forehead against his shoulder as though trying to press the memories out of her head. "Cammie asked me for help, too. I tried to help, I swear, I tried…" She sobbed wetly. "I can't close my eyes without seeing his face."
He let her cry for a while, pressed against him, rubbing her back, murmuring comfort, hurting for the little girl who had watched her father die a violent death. Loving the woman that had lost perspective, who wanted justice for the victim and comfort for the injured. "Shhh…it's all right."
Grissom pulled her closer, wanting to offer as much comfort as he could. The few times she had broken down in front of him, he knew she had been upset with herself, had felt it was a weakness. But he knew her better than that, he knew she had a core of strength he could not begin to fathom and yet an intense amount of compassion for every victim she fought for. "You're okay. You're safe."
Her anguish hurt him, yet he couldn't believe how fortunate he was to hold her in his arms, that she trusted him so much. He had never known the depth of feeling he knew with her. For so long, he had felt so distant from the world, from life. "I'm here, I've got you."
When he had let her in and allowed himself to love her, he felt as if all of his senses had been recharged. Colors were more vibrant, tastes more complex, touch more electrifying. He had been withering, shutting down, dying inside and then, there was Sara and he was alive again.
She was beginning to quiet. He could feel her sagging against him, finally ready to surrender to sleep. "Let's put you to bed."
He settled her on the bed, pulling the sheet and quilt over her. Quickly stepping out of his shoes and jeans he discarded his t-shirt on his way around to the other side of the bed. When he slid between the sheets, he turned on his side to look at her; he was surprised to see her eyes still open, looking at him…exhausted, but much more serene than they had been before.
"Hey," he breathed softly, reaching over to caress her cheek.
"Will you talk to me?" she asked quietly.
"Of course, honey. What do you want me to talk to you about?" He ran his finger over the arch of her eyebrow, then moved to lightly trace her hairline.
She yawned hugely and shrugged under the quilt. "I don't care…just wanna hear your voice until I go to sleep."
Grissom smiled. "I could tell you about the life cycle of the blowfly or list the 725 different species of butterfly found in the US and Canada."
Her eyes were closed at last, but her lips twitched into a small smile. "I love you."
He leaned over and kissed the small smile. "I love you, too, Sara."
Her voice was slurred, the physical and emotional toll of the last two days demanding to be paid. "Her old boyfriend said it was good she died knowing kindness." She sighed and mumbled, "I just wish I could've saved somebody."
He watched her slide into sleep. "You did, honey." He whispered softly, "You saved me."