Disclaimer: I count to ten before I scream.
Author Notes: I just let this one write itself. It takes place a few days after the end of No Human's Involved. I worry that in my own quiet way I am angrier than Sara when she is riled... Let's just say I understand her pain at this point in the timeline.
Thank you to all those who have reviewed my other new chapters x
Anger Well.
By Rianne
It didn't bode well for her restful day when she ended the shift with the urge to hurt him.
It was happening again.
She was just looking at him and the wave of heat was rising.
It was an involuntary stab, but so acute her heart hurt.
Her twisted stomach had developed into a painful ache.
There were ridge marks from her short nails, railroading across her palm.
But if she didn't restrain herself in these little ways the hurt inside her might well up into the agonised wail that brewed inside her breast.
He didn't know she was there.
It was her own fault, she had been snooping.
Yet their behaviour wasn't exactly discrete, on display like that through the glass windowed walls of the Lab.
Would he behave that way if he knew he had an audience?
Did he do this to rile her?
Did she?
She had been forced to a halt, and been unable to do anything but watch as the sleek blonde swayed her way into Grissom's office just a few steps before her.
If she had been there two, maybe three seconds earlier it would have been her own feet crossing the threshold into Grissom's inner sanctum.
But the woman in there now was so far from her.
Sophia Curtis was everything she did not perceive herself to be.
Sure they were both strong, smart women.
But she had overheard too many whispers from the many men who overran the corridors and labs about how stunning the new nightshift CSI was.
Long blonde hair, big blue eyes, and curves, breasts, hips.
A chick with a gun – straight out of their science fantasy fiction.
And Grissom was no different.
He was less verbal about it, but it was there.
Just the way he looked at Sophia.
Smirk suggesting a deeper lustful impulse.
And she wanted with everything she was for him to want her that way, and not just that way, a million ways.
He had never looked at her that way.
It was proof irrefutable that he was not interested in her.
Men had a type. They claimed they didn't. They often acted like any woman would do.
Yet precedence spoke loudly. Grissom liked blondes, Teri Miller exhibit A.
Yet there was no comparison between herself and the woman draped over his desk.
Blonde to Brunette.
Curvaceous to gangly.
Elegant to barely held together even when she tried her hardest.
And they clearly had chemistry, there was a connection there.
One that she had thought she had herself shared with Grissom.
She swallowed, the lump in her throat as sharp as diamond.
She moved further back into the shadows as a group of lab techs passed by her, but not one of them gave a thought to the tall woman lingering, they were wrapped up in a frenzied conversation about the best way to process prints from human skin.
She already knew, Grissom had once shown her, but she didn't feel like passing on his pearls of wisdom right now.
Her attention refocused as the group passed, their conversation ebbing away into the distance.
Sophia was smiling; her eyes were full of pleasure, her blonde hair brushing against Grissom's shoulder as she moved to lean over him, focused on whatever he was showing her on the page before him.
His ears were flushed.
They had never done that when she had leaned close.
Although Sophia probably smelt of some expensive elegant fragrance, which her own usual scent of chemicals, things like decomp, or motor oil and the days toil, couldn't possible compare.
She was one of the guys, they stepped before her through doorways, teased her by shoving her in the shoulder so hard she nearly stumbled, never even noticed that she cut her hair or wore a new top.
And for the most part that was okay.
They loved her, they appreciated her intelligence; they respected her as an equal.
But when a woman like Catherine, who saw her every night, commented things like "Since when do you care about your appearance?" the defensive urge rose up inside her.
She was a woman.
So what if she wasn't as pretty as some of the other women who worked here, so what if her flirting skills tended to crash and burn or be misinterpreted as her breathing in too many fumes from experiments or crime scenes.
She was mostly comfortable with who she was.
Sure she was tall, but some men liked that. She could look into their eyes without painful heels and she was much better aligned for kisses and other more intimate amusements.
Sure she had curves more suited to a ballerina than a burlesque dancer, but what she did have was firm and sensitive and she knew from the onslaught of female flesh bounded around her town and seen in her job, that nude she was far from unattractive.
She wore nice clothes on days when she could be sure they wouldn't be destroyed by contamination and even nicer ones on her off days. Okay, they might be comfortable items, jeans, t-shirt tops, flat shoes, but she needed to be able to think on her feet and not have the bleating attention of uncomfortable shoes distracting her during her 12 hour nights.
She wore touches of makeup, not the expensive kind Catherine favoured, but the organic, not tested on animals, kind to her skin, sort that she preferred.
She always accented with pretty jewellery, choosing pieces which reminded her of places she had been too, or things which grabbed her and showed off her personality in a careful understated way.
And her hair, well, there wasn't much she could do with that law unto itself, but her flat iron worked wonders on the manic days when she had less sleep than she had coffee.
Could she do more, maybe, but did she want too?
They would probably wet themselves laughing if she flounced into the Lab wearing something from the stores Catherine shopped at.
But Catherine's blunt words still rose up on her low days, if that was how someone she knew saw her, how was she representing herself to the world as a whole?
Sure, Catherine had been tired, pissed off and cranky, but the woman spoke her mind without censor.
And she wasn't the only one who made things personal. The suspect in her latest case had called her 'Skinny Bitch," but in the guise of CSI Sidle she hadn't even flinched, knowing the anger in the words came from a suspect who knew she was busted, whilst Sara within her had stored up the comment and eaten an extra slice of pizza that night.
People just didn't think before they spoke so often around her, they expected her to be plain and comfortably dressed, and she had wondered in the past if her confidence in her abilities as a CSI made them forget, or perhaps not even realise that her personality was more quiet and reserved than powerful and secure.
This damn frustrating world of contradictions, can't be taken seriously either as an investigator, or as a woman without losing out.
And against a woman like Sophia Curtis she had no chance.
Even from this distance she could see the calm emanating from her, cool and collected as she talked with Grissom.
She never managed to talk to him like that anymore unless there was a case to discuss, or they were in the company of others.
No, anything personal had her babbling and fluttering, pinned in place by the intensity of his expression, usually a frown.
What more did she need to see before she trusted the evidence before her.
The pair broke into a peal of laughter.
He was laughing with Sophia, sharing some personal joke with her.
Something cold and strong squeezed around her heart.
She needed to learn to get over this.
To find a way to stop every little thing he did and said to her from controlling her world.
Her P.E.A.P counsellor had forced her to discuss this at length.
Made her ruminate aloud, taking steps to distance herself from her actions and view herself from the outside.
She did not do as she imagined she should, or would and being forced to see that had been discomforting.
She did not need validation from anyone, she should be proud of herself, be assured of her own standing.
She didn't need his opinions and his reactions and she certainly did not need his sly weighted one-liners about beauty and needing her and having her.
When he didn't and he definitely was not having her.
And beautiful was something she reserved for flowers and Tuscan landscapes and the feeling she got stepping under a hot shower.
She was not beautiful.
If she was truly beautiful she would be the one he was laughing with, smiling at.
He would have accepted her invite to dinner.
Yet the way he had made her feel when he had said that, "Since I met you."
Such sweet surprised tenderness.
How dare he say that?
How dare he not even look at her, say that and then carry on with no emotion in his eyes?
How dare he flirt and laugh so openly with Sophia and not even care, when every action between them had occurred in private, or secluded places?
He was ashamed of her, of her persistent behaviour.
She thought she had been encouraging him to break down his barriers, to work through his nervousness, his shyness.
She kept listening to the old adage that nothing happened to you unless you put yourself out there. Unless you took a chance and believed in what you wanted.
But it looked like she was very wrong.
For someone else he was desperate to let go of all those issues she had thought plagued his dating life with all women.
No, the problem was obviously just her.
For some reason he still saw her as the young lecture student she had been when they first met, and yet, Sophia, a woman all of one year older than herself, was acceptable.
So it wasn't age.
Both of them were his colleagues, he supervised both of them, so that couldn't be it either.
She never thought he would intentionally hurt her this way.
He knew how she felt about him.
Didn't he?
Yes, he could be oblivious on occasion, but right now he was acting like Sophia's fawning over him was wonderful.
Like the dirty ego stroke he needed.
It didn't matter that he had flirted with her in the beginning too.
No, now she had lost her appeal, was boring and commonplace in his life.
He could have good old dull Sara Sidle to adore him anytime he wanted, but he could have glamorous, mood free Sophia to hang on his every word too.
Was she laughing at his awkward, quirky jokes with honest humour?
Doubtful.
Would she sit all night with him and observe insect arrival on a dead pig?
Bring him a coffee perk, or a warm blanket?
Of course she wouldn't.
Sophia was the kind of woman he would take out to dinner, smug about the glances his date received from other diners.
She should be used to this by now.
It was the dating story of her life.
Exhibit A: Ken Fuller, boyfriend in college, big man on campus, thought it had been a great challenge to sexy up boring, skinny, bookish Sara.
Sex on a plane, the roof of the apartment he rented, in the front of the sleek car his father had bought him.
All awkward, unsatisfying positions for her, but the worst position he had put her in was when he had handed her the expensive silky underwear that hadn't been hers a month into their 'relationship'.
He hadn't even got a sister.
Just a beautiful ex-cheerleader girlfriend who studied art history and came from country club stock.
He hadn't even taken enough notice of the kind of underwear she wore to realise that she could never had afforded to buy a pair like that.
But clever girl that she was, she still hadn't learnt.
Exhibit B: Hank Pettigrew, attractive guy, young, athletic, she had accepted his original invite to dinner, as she had been impressed that he had liked her despite her hair being scraped back in a ponytail and the extremely flattering overalls she had worn as she had abseiled down from the helicopter.
The man had taken the time to track her down at the lab just to ask her out, even if he had subsequently been put off by the scent of eau de liquid man. Just the thought that he had considered a date with her worthy of that small effort had won him points.
He had been interested in her, and she had thought that maybe he would make her forget about Grissom.
She should have listened to Greg. A real man wouldn't have cared what she smelt like, or been in a long term relationship.
Elaine had been pretty, good job, more to fill out a bikini that she could ever dream to possess. And the proof had been right there on her coffee table, a picture of her and the philandering Paramedic on the vacation Elaine had funded.
And again she had been the bit on the side, the woman they wanted to sleep with yes, but were embarrassed to be seen out with.
She should never have called him up and invited him out, sure he had asked her first, but if she hadn't put the temptation out there that second time she could have spared herself the humiliation.
Even the few months of movies, and fairly regular sex hadn't been worth finding out that she was being lied to in the middle of an investigation and having to pretend that she didn't get it and she wasn't bothered, when those around her were looking at her like she was the stupidest woman alive. She had called him baby at a crime scene for heaven's sake. In front of people she worked with.
Of course the same thought about who he had been sharing the restaurant table with had crossed her mind the same way it had with Catherine, but she had brushed it off, when Catherine had more sense.
She didn't even want to know what everyone thought about her obsession with Grissom, she wasn't stupid enough to think her adoration had gone unnoticed. Warrick had made a passing comment once, not long after they had begun working together, daring enough to tease her, something about not liking Grissom having any other women in his life, she had obsessed over her friends words for way more time than was healthy.
Would her life have been different if things in her childhood had?
Would spending her teen years with her mother and a loving father have altered the way she behaved, the way she believed in herself, the way she chose the men in her life?
What if her mother had given her an ideal to live up to and not one she strove every day not to become?
God, she could only imagine his reaction if he ever found out about her past.
She should tell him, but she just couldn't. It always changed too much.
She could not risk him being even more odd in his interactions with her, reading too much into her behaviour, pitying her, wondering if he might wake up in the night and find her hovering over him murder gene gleaming in her eyes.
No.
She had strived so hard to overcome the things that held her back, even if keeping so many secrets was a heavy weight to bear.
Had it affected the friends she kept?
Because the real kick in the teeth was that Sophia was actually nice to her. She spoke to her with calm respect, had assisted her on cases in ways that others wouldn't have bothered.
She had been truthful and fair in her role as Lab Quality Control Officer and had verified to Ecklie that all Grissom's work had been valid, and in thanks for her choice of allegiance, and her honesty, she had been demoted and relegated to Night Shift.
She had even opened up to her, been sincere about how she felt the demotion had landed her with a job she didn't want, working at night time with new colleagues that didn't trust her.
Yet she still found herself bristling when Sophia offered to help her, had to force herself to be civil and couldn't even muster mildly friendly.
Was it just Sophia's simpatico with Grissom that made her respond this way?
She didn't like to look at it from another perspective, but she knew how it felt.
To be new and lonely and surrounded by wary colleagues.
When she had first arrived Grissom had been her only ally, the others suspicious, Nick of her position as chosen one of Grissom, Catherine used to being the only woman on the team and she had been brought in to investigate Warrick.
It had taken a while, but she had eventually won them over and been accepted, even if there were still occasional flare ups.
But now she was on her own again.
The three of them relocated to Swing Shift under the purview of Ecklie.
She still had Greg, who smiled up at her adoringly from time to time, in her new role as his mentor. But even he didn't persist like he used too, his puppy dog, sadly unsought attentions having faded over time.
It actually didn't matter to her that he was younger, he was smart and sweet and funny, and it often crossed her mind that it was a sad world in which she lived that she couldn't fall in love with a great guy like him.
But the heart wants what the heart wants.
In her case, it seemed to crave being broken.
Her nails tightened into her palm once more as she watched Sophia's fingers touch Grissom's shoulder lingeringly.
And the pain flared again, and she couldn't seem to ignore it.
In that very moment she hated him.
And she hated her.
Hated the way that they made her feel.
Self conscious, nervous, not good enough.
Lonely.
Jealousy did not become her.
Yet the more she observed the more she realised that it was almost as if he had learnt from the mistakes he had made with her.
He remembered to compliment Sophia on a job well done.
He listened to what she had to say.
He even ignored all her quirks, like the talking aloud to herself during the processing of crime scenes, despite the fact that it drove everyone else nearly crazy and caused civilians to stare.
What allowances did he offer her?
What scraps?
She had given him her letter of resignation all anger and determination, and in return he had sent her a plant with the flattest platitude in existence.
From, Grissom.
And that pathetic attempt had somehow convinced her to stay.
And when she had been at her very worst?
He had deemed to pick her up from the Police station when she had shamed herself and hadn't scolded her until later.
And her most frustrated?
Lunging for suspects like the husband that had killed Kaye Shelton?
Her angriest?
At her most emotional?
Instead of understanding he had argued with her, unable to comprehend that she empathised with the victims because she couldn't help but see them as human beings and not just corpses, instead he had just frowned, looking down his nose as if she were much shorter and younger than she was.
When she wasn't.
Was she such a disappointment to him?
It was a horrifying realisation that the more he got to know her, the less he seemed to think of her.
Did he not realise that she had come to Las Vegas for him?
Had moved from a good job in a city she loved, feeling excited and ready for the challenge of working with him.
Where were those days of laughter, and smiles between them?
What possessed her to stay here?
No promotion, no self respect, no life.
Poor hollow Sara, so unfulfilled her sadness echoed.
She had to do this; she had to get out of here.
The Lab, her empty apartment, Las Vegas.
With her work here and the credentials of the Vegas Lab, she could get a job anywhere in the country. She could go back to San Francisco, or try somewhere completely new.
The world was her oyster.
And yet...
She watched as Sophia gave Grissom a final smile and then slid out of the office.
She saw the woman move in a blur, but her gaze stayed fixed on Grissom, watching to see his reaction, to see if his eyes followed the heel induced sway of Sophia's hips, or worse.
But he didn't.
The moment the blonde stepped away from his desk his head lowered as he resumed reading the paperwork spread across his blotter.
She bit her lip.
Pretending that she didn't care, that she wasn't pleased that he hadn't acted like she had expected him too.
She couldn't allow herself the luxury of hope anymore.
She was just too tired.
Home, it was definitely time to go home.
But she was stuck.
Her snooping had trapped her.
She had originally been on her way to say goodbye to him before she left for the day.
Had intended on taking up her habitual place, leaning in the doorway of his office.
Gaining her final visual hit of Grissom for the day. Her own shameful little indulgence.
There was always the chance that he might invite her for breakfast, or ask her to work overtime or...
But she couldn't do that now.
She at least had enough respect for herself not to offer herself up willingly to be second best.
But she also couldn't leave the building without passing that very same doorway.
No. She had too.
This was all a part of moving on and letting go.
P.E.A.P counsellor's words echoing in her ears she stood straighter and stepped out of the shadows.
She kept her head high and her eyes focused straight ahead.
Moving along the corridor with steady measured speed.
Praying that he didn't look up from his reading to see her rushing past.
And she was almost in the clear when that familiar voice reached out to her.
"Sara...?"
The sound causing her to draw breath, slow her step.
A chill wave fighting against the warm pleasure her body always felt when he showed an interest in speaking to her.
She could feel his attention on her.
There were goosebumps rising across her skin.
She hovered there deciding which impulse to give in to.
The one that was desperate to flee?
Or the one that longed to stay?
How did she decide?