This is my first attempt at a CSI fanfiction so please be nice! :)
Grissom knew that something was wrong, really wrong with Sara. For these past few months she had steadily grown more reclusive, only talking to people if they asked her a question and she seemed to have lost some weight too. Her face was more pinched, her cheeks more hollow and those dark brown eyes that once seemed so warm were now cold, even dead looking.
Grissom knew that the others had noticed these things too, afterall, what kind of crime investigators would they be if they didn't notice that one of their own was hurting? They had noticed but like Grissom they didn't know what to say. Nick had tried the other day to get Sara to open up by inviting her along to breakfast with the guys. When she had declined saying she had things to do Nick had dropped the facade and asked bluntly what everyone was worried about...
'Sara what's wrong? You haven't been right for months, where have those Sara smiles gone? I'm worried about you, hell we all are, so please, please talk to me or Grissom or anyone because we want the old smiley Sara back' he finished with a slight smile.
Sara's eyes had glazed over, tears threatening to spill while Nick said this but all she did was look apologetic and walk away to the locker room.
Once inside, Sara opened her locker took out her jacket and sat on the cold metal bench. Sara didn't mind the cold as it meant that she was at least physically alive even if she wasn't mentally. Why didn't people realize that they shouldn't worry about herself of all people? She was a worthless human being so she deserved no sympathy or thought from anyone. These thoughts had been drilled into Sara's mind from a such a young age that it surprised her that she had forgotten them until a few months ago when there had been that case where the husband had beaten his wife to near death and then later, when she had recovered she had stabbed him in his sleep.
Sara slipped the penknife out of her jacket pocket and flipped out the knife. She pulled up the sleeve of her top to reveal an arm covered in scars and scabs, some only a few hours old. That case had really bought out the worst in her Sara thought with a smirk. Sara traced the knife edge along the base of her hand, thinking of her fathers abuse, how he used to hit her mother until she was unconscious and then her terror when he would turn to her and beat her with his hand or a belt buckle. Sara thought about the night her mother had killed her father with kitchen knife, stabbing him over and over again as the blood flowed onto the floor. Tears flooded down Sara's face as she thought about what the team would say if they knew about her past. The would surely shun her like everyone in her hometown did after her father died. Truthfully she didn't believe what Nick had said about them all being worried about her, Grissom, her boss and best friend didn't care, he just looked at her as he always did, calulatingly, as if he was examining her. Who would miss her if she was gone? No one.
Sara was sobbing quietly as she bought the knife to her wrist and pressed down, hard. Instantly the pain hit her as the knife passed through skin and muscle until it reached the artery.
Sara let out a scream of agony and slid off the bench. Greg heard the terrible sound and ran to the locker room where he saw Sara lying on the floor covered in her own blood with a knife in her hand.
'SARA! Oh god Sara what have you done?!' he screamed as he rushed over to her. Greg's cries bought the rest of the team running to him as he staunched the flow with his shirt. Catherine nearly fainted at the sight of Greg kneeling over a deathly pale Sara, Warrick immediatly phoned an ambulance, Nick rushed over to help Greg and Grissom stood at the door mouth open in horror.
'Come on Sara stay with me!' Nick yelled but the sound seemed like a whisper to Sara's ears. The white dots in front of her eyes were turning into a blizzard and the last thing Sara heard before she went under was 'Stay Sara, please, come on I love you.'
Sara moaned as her state of consciousness grew which caused the faint burning sensation in her wrist to turn into a raging inferno. She opened her eyes to see... nothing but darkness. Sara started to panic, where was she? How did she get here?
As soon as she asked herself these questions she remembered, she remembered all her dark thoughts and memories, all the times she had let out her frustration and pain on herself, she remembered Grissom, and how he just didn't realize how much she loved him and finally she remembered what had happened in the locker room, how she had sliced the cold knife into her wrist.
'No no no I couldn't have done that' Sara whispered to herself shaking her head. 'No I'm not that weak!' she said more forcefully.
'Oh but you are Sara you are' whispered a cold, snide voice 'You've left your friends, the ones who are a family to you behind because you were too weak to carry on, too weak!'
Sara cried out in fear, it was like the voice was inside her head yet it seemed to echo into her surroundings as well.
'Please, please leave me alone' Sara begged while sobbing. The voice seemed to completely ignore her.
'Look where you've ended up Sara Sidle, look where you have put yourself, look!'
Obediently Sara looked around, all she could see was darkness but then suddenly the pitch black turned into a blinding white light which bought tears to her eyes.
Sara was floating above her body as it lay on an operating table. She gasped as she looked at the surgeons who were rushing around her seemingly lifeless form while crimson blood still slowly seeped from the jagged wound on her left wrist. Sara was about to shout out to them when she was suddenly whisked away to another room where the CSI Grave Shift team were waiting.
Tears burned in Sara's eyes as she saw the pain she had caused them.
Greg was standing beside the coffee machine with his back to the others, staring at the wall with red eyes while Nick was pacing the room, a petrified look on his face. Catherine was sitting sobbing gently into Warrick's shoulder while he sat with one arm around Catherine and the other against his head as he tried hard not to break down.
Sara had never felt so guilty, so horrible in her life ( if you could call whatever she was in now 'life'). With her glazed eyes she searched for Grissom but she couldn't see him.
'Please Grissom, where are you, I need to see you!', Sara screamed at nothing.
Instantly she appeared outside the operating theatre next to where Grissom was standing. Sara moved down towards Grissom's face and then she suddenly stopped in shock. Grissom had been, in fact he was crying. Tears leaked out of his crystal blue eyes as he stared at the door, behind which held his worst nightmare.
'Grissom? Can you hear me Grissom? Look I'm right here in front of you.'
Grissom didn't respond, he couldn't hear her Sara realized.
Sara said tenatively, 'Griss? I'm so sorry, so so sorry, I would never have done this if I thought people cared, never in a million years. I just felt so alone and down and I didn't think that people cared, I didn't think that you cared Grissom. Now I realize how stupid and selfish and wrong I was, I realize how weak I was, how stupidly stupidly WEAK!'
As soon as Sara screamed out that last word she was rapidly sucked into darkness again except this time, she didn't wake up.
Nick sat next to Sara's hospital bed gently holding her hand. He could bear to see her all wired up to various machines that beeped and hummed with her every heartbeat. What he couldn't bear was the fact that she had landed herself here, how had he not noticed how bad Sara had got? He was her best friend and he had let her down in the most unforgivable way.
As Nick was thinking this he heard Sara groan. He quickly looked up to her face and he saw her eyelids flicker!
'Nurse, nurse! I think Sara's waking up, she's waking up! Thank God thank God!'
Nick's cries bought the rest of the team to Sara's room. Grissom barged Nick and the nurses out of his way so he could hold Sara's hand. 'Sara, Sara can you hear me?' he said quietly yet excitedly. Sara groaned again and this time her eyes opened completely.
Sara could make out blurred shapes of at least five people standing around her. She moaned in pain at the burning on her wrist and immediatly she heard a man's voice sounding worried. 'Gri Grissom?' Sara whispered horsely. Her throat was absolutely parched. 'Grissom? I'm so sorry, so sorry. I was so selfish to do that, so stupid and pathetic and weak. I'm so-'
Before she could finish she was cut off by five voices saying that she wasn't weak or pathetic. In turn Greg, Nick, Warrick, Catherine and Grissom Sara how much they loved her and how much they would help her in the future, how much they cared.
Sara began to cry as did the others who were so glad to see Sara awake even if she wasn't well.
'I'm so sorry for the pain I've caused you all. I saw what it did to you and I promise, I promise that I will make it up to you and I promise that I will never put you through anything like that again.'
The last thing Sara heard before she fell asleep again were the words from Grissom that made her heart melt with happiness, 'And I Sara Sidle, promise that I have always loved and that I always will no matter what happens.'