Title: Context
Fandom: CSI
Pairing: Grissom/Sara USTish?
Rating: PG13
Keywords: AU, Challenge Fic, Angst.
Notes: For the EveryDay Superheroes fanfic Challenge
"Context"
by M.
"He's lying."
The quiet declaration was so soft Grissom almost didn't hear it. Almost. Turning, he beheld the utterly still figure of the woman standing at his side with appraising eyes.
Sara was a statue, as lovely as any the great masters could ever produce, as she stared through the one-way glass at their suspect. Were it not for her eyes, all dark fire determination and revulsion for the man before them, she would have been almost indistinguishable from any statue in any gallery. Entrancing for her untouchable edge.
"I know." He agreed placidly.
She spared him a look, the aloof, reserved goddess deigning to bestow a glance upon a mere mortal. Or, more accurately, a high priestess, all controlled fire and contained passion, presiding over an errant petitioner. "No." She disagreed, luminous eyes on him. "You don't know. You don't see him like I do, Grissom. You can't. The lies...they're all over him like a second skin but...always moving, shifting. Slithering like a million little serpents. He's laughing at us beneath it all. It's seeping out into the room like smoke..." She turned her gaze back to the suspect, leaving Gil feeling bereft in its absence. "You see picture, you hear sound, but without context or any sense of it. It's all sanitized. Like crime scene photos. Stark and bare. I see the depth to it, feel the textures, the layers...people have layers to them and each one's richer and more than the one before. Him?" She closed her eyes. "Him...I can't go too deep. I can't look too close. If I did," she shook her head, turning away, "I don't think I'd be able to come back. It's different for me, Grissom...and you don't know." She turned on her heel, intent on leaving but stopped, "He's lying, Grissom. I don't care what evidence he's fabricated to protect himself, he's lying. He did it. And he's laughing at us."
Her hands were clenched, knuckles white with the effort to restrain herself, and he suspected she was using every spare ounce of energy and concentration she had to hold back the onslaught. "Get him." She insisted, already knowing without being told that her revelation would exclude her from the case. Grissom needed to understand more of what she'd admitted before he dared trust her with the lead on an investigation again.
Mutation was an abstract concept, a scientific oddity to be pondered, a politically sensitive issue for pundits and pollsters to debate. He sucked at politics and could ponder scientific oddities with a detached air. Except not anymore. Mutation wasn't an abstract concept, a scientific oddity or a political issue anymore. Mutation was Sara Sidle. It was a woman who looked at him and saw everything. Had always seen it. Had known what he was hiding even from himself. It left him feeling shockingly vulnerable. More than he'd ever felt before which was illogical since she'd always been that way and even if he hadn't known it, a lack of mutation on his own part left him unable to prevent her scrutiny.
"They thought the same thing." Sara revealed quietly. "I scared them too."
"You don't scare me, Sara." He was quick to assure. "You don't."
"I always have." She countered with a slightly bitter smile. "Now you just have a good reason."
Finis