Light Me Up
Pairing: Brass/Sara friendship
Rating: T (some adult language)
Spoilers: None, unless you haven't seen up to 8x03
Summary: Sara and Brass share a cigarette.
A/N: So I was bored and decided to write a fic but was low on inspiration. Low and behold, the random fic generator came up with this (Sara Sidle / Jim Brass / light a cigarette) and the story pretty much wrote itself. While I don't think that Sara and Brass are best buds, I do think that they have their moments. Reviews and concrit are always welcome. Enjoy.
The late day sun shone down, baking the asphalt in the back parking lot of the Crime Lab. The smell of hot tar was thick in the shimmering air. Car windshields reflected the bright sunlight back into her eyes making her squint. Sara shifted on the concrete steps, trying to find a more comfortable position. The thought made her want to laugh; there was no 'comfortable' position for her right now. Her ribs still burned with every breath (albeit, less painful than the weeks before), her left arm ached and itched, her neck and shoulders were strained from the weight of the bulky cast. Healing was taking longer than expected.
She shuffled around, and then leaned back against the wall trying to relieve the knots in her spine. Closing her eyes, she took a long, even breath, exhaling slowly. Nothing was right anymore. Everyone was looking at her, expecting something from her, some reaction, some statement, she wasn't sure what. She had become the freak show of CSI. The woman kidnapped, left under the car, left to die out in the desert. Even worse, she'd become "the chick who is sleeping with the boss." Everyone knew and everyone stared at her, unsure of what to say, including her friends.
"Fuck," she moaned. She desperately wanted to bury her face in her arms, shut out the world, but thanks to Natalie and her unwieldy plaster cast, Sara couldn't even do that. Instead, she lifted her hips, sliding her good hand into the pocket of her work pants. Her fingers felt around, finally finding what they were looking for. With a sound of triumph, she extracted the small cardboard carton. Prying open the lid and peeling back the foil, she shook out a cigarette. Placing it between her lips, she reached back into her pocket for the lighter she'd stashed there earlier. Clutching the silver cylinder in her right hand, she flicked the knob. The spark vanished as quickly as it appeared, giving her no chance to light her cigarette. She tried again and again to no avail. It wouldn't stay lit long enough to catch the paper on fire. Frustrated, she flung the stupid lighter as far as she could and heard it clatter on the pavement a few yards away.
"Having trouble?" came a voice from above her.
She pulled the now moist paper tube from her lips and sighed. "No."
"Cause it looks to me like you have a problem." He lowered himself down on the steps next to her, grunting with the effort.
Waving the cigarette in the air, she answered, "I can't get the stupid thing lit."
He nodded like he hadn't already figured that out for himself and reached into his coat, coming out with a cheap plastic lighter, the kind you get at the gas station that extols the virtues of Bud Light or Nascar on the side. With a twitch of his fingers the flame jumped to life. "Here."
Reinserting the cigarette in her mouth she leaned down into the flame and inhaled quickly. A few short puffs later the cigarette was glowing red, then white with ash. She took a long drag and held it out to him. He regarded it for a moment, and then plucked it from her fingertips to take a deep drag of his own. Wheezing slightly, he handed it back to her. "You know those things cause cancer right?"
She shot him a look.
"I thought you quit. Does Gil know about this?"
"Just because we're...together, doesn't mean we can't each have our own secrets Jim. Didn't you have secrets from your wife?" Smoke streamed out of her nostrils and dissipated.
"Sure. I didn't tell her about my affair and she didn't tell me about hers. Worked out great."
Sara shrugged, conceding his point. She didn't want to talk about her relationship with Gil.
"So how's the new girl?" He was fishing, she could tell. She wondered if whatever she said would be reported back to Grissom, then dismissed the thought. Brass wasn't like that. He could keep quiet. A fact he'd proved after he found out about her and Grissom's relationship a year ago.
She shrugged again. "She asks a lot of questions."
"Yeah, I noticed that. I heard you came down pretty hard on her."
"Where'd you hear that?" she asked sharply. Sure, she'd set Ronnie straight, but it was no more then what Grissom or Catherine would have done.
"I overheard her talking on the phone in the break room. She was crying."
Guilt swamped her. Maybe she had been too hard on the kid. "Crying?" she whispered.
"And wondering whether CSI is the right place for her."
"Shit," Sara stubbed out the cigarette and rubbed her good hand over her face. "I didn't say anything to her that I wouldn't have said to Greg."
"Ronnie's not Greg, Sara. She's just a kid."
They sat in a comfortable silence for a few minutes, listening to each other breathe. "Do you ever wish that you could pull a Superman Jim? Reverse the rotation of the Earth, go back in time to change things?" she asked idly.
"Every day," said Brass thickly and suddenly Sara remembered two years ago and Jim accidentally shooting a fellow officer in the heat of battle.
"I'm sorry Jim."
"Yeah, me too." They lapsed back into silence.
"They just need some time Sara. Everything will fall back into place, just give it some time. After I was shot, everyone treated me like a child. I couldn't even get myself a cup of coffee without some rookie or Catherine, or you for that matter, worrying that I was going to hurt myself."
Sara grinned at the memory of a gruff Brass yelling at them all that he 'can wipe his own damn ass, thank-you-very-much.' "We were worried about you."
"And they're just worried about you. And a little ticked off about the whole Grissom thing."
She fell back to her trusted response. "I'm fine." If she said it enough, maybe it would be true.
"I know you are kido." He squeezed her uninjured shoulder. "You're Sara Sidle. You're strong."
Yeah, she was Sara Sidle. The invincible woman who could survive anything: Mom killing Dad, foster care, getting into Harvard, an explosion in the lab, getting rejected by Grissom time and time again, being held hostage by a psycho-twice, oh yeah, life was just a barrel of monkeys. A weak smile broke out on her lips, "that's me."
Her belt buzzed. She detached her cell phone and glanced at the caller ID. Sighing, she flipped open the phone. "Yes Ronnie?" Gritting her teeth at the barrage of questions, she waited patiently until the girl was done. "Um, why don't you go ask Catherine that? Did you narrow down that list I gave you? Great."
Snapping her phone shut, she stood up. Jim followed suit. "See, that wasn't so hard," he smiled.
Feeling the despair starting to pull at her toes once again, she forced herself to smile. "No, it wasn't." The carton of cigarettes made its way back into her pants pocket, until the next time.
"See you later, Jim." With that she strode through the fire door and back into the cool of the lab.
End.