DYING
By ProWriter11
NOW
Sara's eyes held Grissom spellbound as the camera moved in on her face. Those eyes had showed him so much love. They were windows to her soul. All he had to do was immerse himself in their warmth to become one with her.
And that was the problem.
Whoever was broadcasting these images knew Grissom could read Sara's eyes. Grissom would know what Sara knew, feel what she felt, hurt as she hurt.
The eyes in which he'd found so much love now reflected pain and fear, causing Grissom maximum emotional agony. The pressure in his chest and head bordered on the unbearable. His hands coiled into fists so tight he squeezed all the blood from his knuckles. He leaned back against a storage cabinet, not because he was relaxed. God, he was so far from relaxed. He and relaxed weren't on the same planet. He leaned against the cabinet because his legs wouldn't support him without help.
He felt his gut churn, but there was nothing left on his stomach to void. His friends had forced him to eat, but he hadn't held anything down in 48 hours. How could he, watching the emotion-blistering images invading the Crime Lab? He had been a virtual prisoner there through all of this, doomed to watch Sara's suffering 24 hours a day. While others fought to find her and save her, he could only offer the occasional suggestion, sift evidence, look for any kind of lead using his one fully functional eye.
He wanted to be out there, tearing Las Vegas apart brick by garish brick until he found her. But he was under medical orders and police guard and never felt so helpless.
She had been stoic for so long. So Sara-tough. So defiant.
But now her will broke. Her eyes filled with tears. Her chin dropped to her chest, and Grissom saw the tears fall away from her face. Not a lot of them. Just enough to convey her surrender to the inevitable.
When she looked up again, her eyes still showed him pain and fear, now joined by something new.
Infinite sadness.
Wherever she was, she knew he was watching all of this. She had spoken to him occasionally through this ordeal, and she seemed to know he would hear her.
So now, Sara raised her arm, seeming to want to cover the camera lens so he didn't have to watch any more. But she had no strength, and her hand fell back. The audio pickups almost didn't register her voice; it was that weak.
"Don't be sad, Gil. This isn't your fault. I cherish the time we had together. I …" She began coughing, and the blood hemorrhaging from her lungs as a deep pink froth escaped her lips and cascaded in a sickening stream down her chin and neck to her shirt. She gasped, trying to gain breath, and she failed. Her body convulsed in pain, and when she was able to look into the camera again, her fear had escalated to terror.
She knew.
She was dying.
He knew.
She was dying.
And he felt as terrified as she looked.
For he was dying with her.
He knew, when she drew her last breath, he would never draw a painless breath again. He would never want to.
All he wanted now was to hold her in his arms, to tell her how much he loved her, to assure her she wasn't alone, to feel, to absorb, the last warmth of her body.
But all he could touch of her was a cold image on a television monitor.
He had tried so hard. They all had. There was warning she would be taken. They tried to surround her. To protect her. They failed so miserably.
And when she was gone, they had bent heaven and earth to find her. They had fought so hard for her. No one took time off. When they ate, it was on the move. Whatever they needed, the money was there. Ecklie made sure of it.
Nothing mattered but saving Sara.
But, in the end, nothing mattered.
They were here.
She was there, wherever "there" was.
There were no clues. Nothing. No calls from the kidnapper. No evidence left behind.
No one had slept in three days. Grissom knew if he didn't find Sara in time, he might never sleep again.
He failed her.
He should be the one in the cage. Not Sara. She had done nothing to deserve this.
His head, his heart, cried out for forgiveness he didn't deserve.
If there is a God, please help Sara. Please.
Grissom passed a hand over his eyes. He looked back in time to see the slackness take over her face. To hear the last ragged exhalation of breath. And to watch in abject horror as the life he lived for left her eyes. The sparkle, the warmth, the love, now gone.
And then the screen went black.
There is no God.
Grissom's body slid down the face of the cabinet until he was sitting on the floor of the A/V Lab, his legs in front of him, bent sharply upward at the knees, his arms crossed over his chest, as if he were trying to hold himself together, quite literally. His face became mural of pain and consummate loss. Catherine was there. Brass was there. Ecklie and Nick were there. And, of course, Archie. No one spoke to him. No one put a hand on his shoulder or tried to comfort him.
He would not have heard their words. He had retreated so far into himself he could have been termed catatonic.
He would not have felt their touch. He willed himself to feel nothing. He would be just fine sitting on the cold, hard floor for as long as he lived.
As for comfort, there simply wasn't any. There can be no comfort without hope that the world would get better, easier. Grissom was well beyond the ability to be comforted, well beyond the fantasy of hope.
The Grissom they knew was gone.
Only his shell remained.
For he had lost his life, just as surely as Sara lost hers.