Ignorance is Bliss, by chibiness87
Spoilers: Butterflied, Nesting Dolls, A La Cart (but nothing relating to S.8)
Disclaimer: If they were mine, oh the things I'd have them do…
A/N: So I was in a really angsty mood yesterday. I went to town, sat in Starbucks and my work I was planning to do turned into this. Um, sorry for all the major angstyness of this… It's post Butterflied, what can I say?! And I'm feeling lazy, so it's not beta'd.
She remembered when she looked forward to work. When sleep seemed so overrated. What was it Liv Tyler had once said in a film? "Dad say's there's 24 usable hours in everyday, thank you." Ok, so her dad had never said that. His approximation was, "There's always time for a drink." Usually it was between making her house seem like WW3 and being passed out on the couch.
So to avoid the war zone her house was, to avoid her mother looking like she had just gone 10 rounds with the world heavyweight boxer champion, she retreated to the library. Where she could work to her heart's content. All those books, full of knowledge. So much knowledge to learn, so little time to learn it.
And then, that morning, looking at the blood spatter as it covered the bedroom walls. The cop pucking his guts. But not her. She had found the book on crime scene analysis earlier that month. Her teenage mind drinking in the explanations.
Looking round, she could see the high velocity spray. Must have hit an artery, she guessed. Glancing over at the man who had terrorised her life all these years, she could tell it was the carotid. The deep gouge in the neck slicing open the blood vessels. No time for the clotting factors to try to fix the gaping wound; 25 others were fighting for dominance of the body.
She glanced in mild curiosity at the pattern of the wounds. Pinpointed the ones that would have caused the most damage. There was one level to the spleen. That would have caused septic shock. And another with the liver. She knew now that it would have needed immediate medical attention not to cause death. And that was if it were a single blow. But the other 25 stabs meant even if he had received the treatment to the liver blow, exsanguination would still occur.
Years in foster care, and work was still the escape. Kept her busy. So even when her foster parents didn't pay attention to her, she could entertain herself. And it kept her away from the ones that seemed to pay too much attention to her. University and another chance to do what she loved. And now, she could get credit for sitting in the library for hours on end.
Graduation, ad a career was born in San Francisco. And then a conference that changed her life. He was everything she had never been attracted to before. And she felt herself trying to impress him. She had never tried to impress anyone else before in her life. But she wanted to impress him. Asking question after question, trying to get the nerve to ask him out.
5 years and a lab explosion later, she was glad she had never managed it. She was getting used to being hurt by men in her life. If he had turned her down all those years ago, she didn't know how she would have reacted. But now, after being hurt again, she just chalked it up to being destined to being alone.
She just wished she didn't work for him. Because, for once, work wouldn't be a retreat. She would see him every night. Of course, it made it a little easier that he seemed just as interested in avoiding her as she did avoiding him.
She threw herself into case after case, trying to make the best of a bad situation. If she was working a case, she didn't have to speak to him. She was working solo more these days anyway. In some aspects, it was as if he had found out about Hank all over again. So the cases became her life. If he wouldn't, couldn't see and respect her as a woman, she would make sure she was the best damned CSI he had.
And now, her heart was hurting all over again. Because, despite everything, she found out he did care for her after all. But something that was supposed to cause her joy was tinged with regret. He never told her. Instead, as she watched him seem to collapse into himself, he had just bared his soul to a murder suspect of someone who could have been her long lost twin.
She didn't know what was worse. Finding out her feelings were returned and not being worth the risk, or never having known at all.