Disclaimer: Only mine in some very naughty dreams I've been having lately… ;)
I also would like to send Kudos to the beautiful Alanis Morrisette, who inspired the title for this story with her song, Out Is Through. She sings straight from my heart.
Author Notes: Okay, so I know I already played with this episode (twice in fact!) in my previous stories For Sara and For Grissom, back when I knew nothing more about the episode than the scant teases we saw in the promo, but I recently watched 'For Warrick' again when it was (finally) screened here in the UK and the final scene with Grissom's eulogy breaks my heart every time.
Billy Petersen, you are already missed.
The Only Way Out Is Through.
By Rianne.
The churned up gravel crunched loudly under his slowly lowered feet.
The hot sun blistering metal of the black car door burned his palm as he used it to support his standing.
He didn't wince.
He deflected his gaze, keeping it low, already guarded by dark glasses.
A startled soul, light sensitive, head pounding.
He turned back without thought, instinctively, yearningly, extending his sweaty palm for her.
Needy, small, alone without her.
His anchor.
The weight of his suit stifling beneath the Las Vegas glare.
Sombre, respectful, dutiful.
Uncomfortable, awkward, imprisoning him in reality of it.
Her palm was frighteningly cool in his. Their fingers entwining, fidgeting, nervous.
She rose to her fuller height, swaying dazedly, in unfamiliar heels, on unsteady ground.
Her eyes shaded too, he couldn't read her beyond the creases in her brow.
But those suddenly deeper lines told him more than he needed to know.
It was wrong that it was yet another monotonously glorious and bright day.
Clouds, darkness, and a looming sky would better suit, would provide better shade to hide the pain.
In the shadows of the looming spectre of the Baptist Church people were gathering.
Swarming desolately like lost black ants.
Mourners.
Approaching with heads hung low and shoulders lower.
They began to move, onwards, forwards, towards.
In his breast pocket the paper crinkled. Taunting him with the inadequacy of his words.
Reminding him of the momentous duty he was about to perform.
His legs heavy like lead, his knees protesting.
As they approached the heavy barricading doors he felt the same ominous tension spread through her. Felt the trembles that ran her spine, flowing effortlessly across the finger bridge between them.
He worried. Worried about her strength. Worried about her sanity. Worried about her love for him.
Worried about how much she had given up in order to come here.
Come back here for him.
Come back here for Warrick.
The unknown sacrifices she had made. The backwards steps. Easing her closer to the precipice or away?
She was so very fractured.
Her soul so very trampled that it struggled to beat life through her veins.
But here she was.
Here picking up the pieces of his heart once again.
What that did to her…
What her love for him did to her…
Always so strong beneath a frail visual, yet in his mind fragile enough to be blown away if he sighed just that little bit too deeply.
He had to be strong.
Strong for her.
Strong for Catherine.
Strong for Nick.
For Greg.
For all the others who look to him for guidance.
For leadership.
For Warrick.
Yet he is falling apart inside.
Disintegrating.
The walls are slipping, the resolve crumbling, the avalanche threatening.
They expect him to be immune. It is what they count on.
He is not sure that he can this time.
Not sure he can beat down the burn of heat that throbs in his chest.
With a squaring of shoulders and a gentle squeeze of her fingers he tilts his face to momentarily study the woman beside him.
Familiar as if he has known her for a million years.
Unquantifiably comforting.
Yet changing, unfamiliar edges appearing to remind him of her absence.
Her hair shorter, curling, her eyes older, wearier, but with a new flicker of growing light.
He is envious of that light.
His team wait on the steps. Huddled in patches of shade.
Waiting for him with dark circles haloing their fractured eyes.
Hollow shadows of his friends.
He does this for them. For Warrick.
Withdrawing the calming influence of her fingers Sara slides into step with Catherine. The two women continuing on into the church alone.
The men remain outside on guard.
Nick and Greg looking older beyond their years in dark suits. Brass painfully collected beneath the heavy green of his dress uniform.
Yet these disguises hide nothing.
They are merely the formal trappings of grief.
He watches the reflections beat out on the shine of his dark shoes as they wait for stragglers to enter the church and take seat.
Time running slower. Dragging out. Stretching onwards without.
Then he is shaking another cool hand, a man in impressive black, the others fall into step with him.
Lining up beside the sleek black car.
He draws breath, the glittering in Greg's eyes pulling at that heat in his chest, coaxing it towards expression.
He clears his throat to mask the wave of emotion.
With a gruff, sharp, count of "One, Two, Three."
They shoulder the weight, knees buckling, hearts exploding with the sorrow.
The slippery wood surface, desperately gripped in moist hands.
The slow steps the longest of each man's life.
Into the deep, cooler, echoing chasm of the church.
Their footsteps the only sound, muffled by the deep red plush.
Not a soul in the congregation moves a beat.
All stand, faces forward, hands clasped until knuckles whiten.
Then his first task is over.
The coffin is lowered carefully.
He trails the others to the seat beside Sara.
She reached for him.
Her cold hand encircling his arm.
Her contact instinctive and much needed by both.
Her arm reaching across her own body to his, encircling herself for comfort.
The Preacher takes to his lectern.
Begins to speak. His words melodious and flowing out to encompass those before him.
He allows his eyes to drift.
The flowers, red.
Blood red blooms.
He feels her fingers flex against his arm as he tenses at the wave of memory the colour evokes.
But her motion is calming, gentle and soothing.
He takes in the candles, the golden robes of the choir, the photograph.
Warrick smiling. Broad, gleeful, relaxed.
No sign of the crazed edge that had marred his last days.
More like the man who had laughed in the diner, who had teased his colleagues.
More like the tall, lanky new recruit who had joined him on Brass's team all those years ago.
Then the prayer was ending.
He rose.
Paper clutched within his grasp.
Feeling the others beside him shift uncomfortably.
This was just like a lecture.
Stand tall, project voice, make eye contact.
He cleared his throat as he passed the Preacher.
This was nothing like a lecture.
His feet mounted the steps.
He took his first look out.
The sea of expectant faces before him blurred.
Ghostly, haunted by events no one should ever have to witness.
He took a breath.
Someone coughed.
Then he spoke.
"As Crime Scene Investigators we meet people on the worst day of their lives."
His voice sounded all wrong.
Echoing out into the aching silence surrounding them.
He couldn't let his eyes linger. His attention gliding ethereally from face to face, unable to make the reassuring contact he knew some might need.
Some in return could not meet his.
Nick's head was bowed.
"They have just lost a family member, somebody they loved. Often in a horrible way."
He kept speaking. His mouth forming the words he had chosen without prompting, the paper in his fist curling unread.
"A piece of their heart is gone and will never be replaced."
His stomach twisted, but he fought through it.
He took a moment to collect himself, looking down at his paper but he saw no words.
"The phrase we are trained to offer them, 'I'm sorry for your loss'."
He had never more clearly felt the uselessness of those five syllables.
"As we know now it doesn't offer much."
His attention drifted to Nick and Sara, both watching him intently.
She was very still. Unnaturally still. She was never still.
He had to carry on.
He drew strength from his love.
His love for the man Warrick Brown had grown to become.
'If I could have picked my own father, I'd have picked him.'
"Warrick Brown was a young boy when his parents passed away. Much too young to learn that life can be so tragically short. But I think that it taught him how precious life is. And so he lived his life to the fullest. Each day as if it was his last day."
He swallowed hard as his eyes fell upon the small babe in arms.
Warrick's son. Eli.
He would never know him.
"I was with Warrick on his last day. All the qualities that defined him. His tenaciousness. His deep sense of loyalty. His courage to risk his life for what he knew was right. All those traits were with him on that last day."
His voice was breaking. He could hear it.
The emotion was cracking through, escaping from the boiling weight in his chest.
Before him a sea of eyes shimmered with repressed tears.
"Just before he died, we were all having breakfast together," His eyes fogged.
"Our team."
He looked down at them.
Strong despite being broken.
He was so proud of them. He loved them all.
"His friends."
Their family.
"His family."
He saw Catherine heave under the drowning burden of her sob. Saw her grasp blindly for Nick beside her, unable to take her eyes off him.
His nose was aching, his face felt hot.
But he wasn't through yet, there was so much more.
So much he needed to say.
So much he needed to say to Warrick.
"And Warrick was…"
He just…
"He was…"
He looked up, trying to reign it all back in.
The tears were coming, burning his eyes, stinging his throat.
Contorting his face with the grief of it all. He ground his jaw. Grit his teeth.
Then it was escaping.
"I'm going to miss him so much."
Barely a whisper.
His own words.
The truth he needed to say, unpoetic and raw and real.
An admission that only a few knew the real weight behind.
If it hadn't been for the microphone the words would have been lost to the heavy silence.
He pressed his trembling fingers to his lips.
Trying to hold in the pain, the ache that was howling inside of him.
The first tear fell and he lowered his head to hide it.
Then with knees that could barely hold him he was walking, finding himself back in his seat, Sara pressed to his side, his trembling fingers locked in hers.
Back with his team. His friends. His family.
o0o0o0o0o0o
The sun continued to blaze down on the gathered huddle at the newly dug graveside.
The preachers words were blown wildly to the winds as the desert breeze waved over them.
The handful of dirt in his palm was greasy and moist. He squeezed it reflexively, then took his step forward to sprinkle the earth.
Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust.
o0o0o0o0o0o
They had said their polite goodbyes, condolences, received kind thoughts from faces too numerous to mention.
Nick and Greg had ushered Catherine home.
And he had worried.
Sorrow had weakened his friend; she had leant heavily on Nick as he had guided her away.
There wasn't anything more that could be done.
Not today.
Their journey home was undertaken in silent solitude.
Both lost in the depth and warmth of their memories.
Key turning in the lock was a small reassurance.
Home.
The scrabble of claws on floor announced the arrival of Hank.
But even he skidded to a halt before them, sensing something.
Recognising that there was sadness there, a newer darkness.
Cautiously their beast nuzzled into Sara, brushing against the back of her hand, nosing into her palm.
Wanting to let her know he was glad she had come back again.
To him it was just a painful reminder that she wasn't back for good and even Hank could sense it.
Satisfied she was staying for the moment Hank then turned his attentions to him.
Trotting over, expectant eyes, sniffing the sorrow that ebbed from him in waves.
He brushed the animal off.
Gruff, sharper than he meant to be.
Then he padded sulkily away, down through the house, disappearing into the bedroom beyond.
He heard her voice call after him, but he didn't answer.
He just couldn't.
Kicking his shoes off, watching them vanish under the bed, ripping the suit jacket from his body, tossing it worthlessly into a chair, ripping off his tie and all its suffocating tendencies.
But he still wasn't free.
He fell back to the bed in a wave of covers.
Staring blindly at the ceiling.
The faint padding of cautious paws approached.
A soft furry muzzle nudged the limp hand that hung over the side of the bed.
His friend whined softly.
Pained, confused, hurt.
He knew exactly how he felt.
Although this time he knew what had happened.
This time he wasn't nine years old and asking why his father wasn't waking up.
This time he had caught the killer.
It didn't help.
It was about as comforting as 'I'm sorry for your loss.'
o0o0o0o0o0o
She slipped into the darkened bedroom with caution in her step.
Her painful shoes long discarded, her silky stockings soaking up the cool of the floor.
He didn't move.
Just his chest rising and falling.
She slipped off her jacket.
Hung it.
Collected up his.
Hung it.
She eyed the bed nervously.
It seemed a long time since she had last slept there.
Last slept in his arms.
His eyes were closed.
But he wasn't sleeping.
The rhythm of his breathing was all wrong for that.
She lowered herself to the edge of the bed, easing her feet up so she could lie beside him.
He still didn't stir.
She settled on her side, watching him in the pale light of the fading sun as it dipped behind the slats of the bedroom blinds.
He looked older.
She didn't know what to do here.
This was unsteady ground.
It was always hard for them to talk.
Even when it was agonizingly important.
For a while, when they first fell helplessly into each other, talk had been unnecessary. They had relied on kiss and touch and other sweeter actions to express their love, their desire, their affections.
Then after the desert they had tried. Her counsellor had helped.
But then the wave had come. The big dark wave filled with the pain and ghosts of her past.
And she had run.
The way he had looked at her when he had found her in his office…
He had been awed to see her. Desperate, heartbroken, longing.
She had never felt so relieved, so guilty, so loved.
Then she had felt his arms band so tightly around her and the emotion had been too strong to do anything but cling back hungrily.
His eyes had been so haunted.
His motions dazed and shocked.
They had taken seats, talked it out like they had during the first few days of her therapy, and it had worked.
He had told her, talked of love, of uselessness, of hope.
Yet his eulogy had frightened her.
She had never seen him break quite like that.
Not so publicly.
The man who had taken years to tell her he loved her.
Broken, brave, soul bared.
Standing up there alone with the ground wavering beneath him.
She knew she needed to do something. To say something, to reassure, so console, to promise.
But promise what?
And a huge part of her still did not want to push. Did not know if she even had a right to anymore.
She had left him.
So broken herself that she couldn't see that in doing so she had broken him too.
Both of them hurting with no clear path to be free of it, no way back to what used to be.
He clearly hadn't slept in days. It didn't look like he had slept in weeks.
She wanted to hold him.
To be held.
She didn't remember receiving much affection in her childhood.
Between her parents and the foster families with their strict guidelines and boundaries, and the young immature boys of her college years and the weaker men of her twenties and thirties, she couldn't ever say she had truly felt loved.
Until Grissom.
Yet the past had made her wary. Cautious, nervous of making first moves. She'd seen the way others cared for one another, seen parents of classmates bestow kisses and hugs, seen TV shows and movies with families and lovers and read books.
And had longed.
Had longed to let someone see her huge and broken heart.
Had longed for someone to help her fix it.
Had longed to return love, to share it.
Had longed to give the comfort she had longed for on the very worst of her days.
And for a while she had been given that love.
Given a home.
Given kisses and affections, even when she hadn't needed them.
He needed her.
She reached out to him.
Her gentle palm barely making contact with his chest before he jerked away.
Startling her, cutting her deeply.
He folded in on himself.
His back to her.
She bit her lip, waiting, feeling the tears well, her whole body hurting with the strain of it.
Had all the trust between them really gone?
Then she heard it.
Felt the bed shake with the wave of it.
As a sob escaped him.
Deep, raw, wounded.
Then more, tumbling out of him.
She reached blindly for him, no longer caring that she might be rejected, the room around her lost to the flooding swell of her own tears.
She dragged him close, not allowing him to fight her.
His shuddering body pulling the echoing pain from hers.
She urged him to turn, felt him bury his face against her breasts, felt his tears soak the fabric of her blouse as hers slipped down into his hair.
And they clung, rocking slowly.
Her hands tight around his back, lost in stroking his hair, whilst his gripped her so tightly she would probably have bruises.
This was real love.
Not fantasy, not viewed from an outside perspective.
This was real love, raw and painful and uncontrolled.
Dropping everything to be with the person that needed you.
And then allowing them to simply be.
Waiting for them to come to you.
Going to them when they couldn't find the strength to ask.
"I love you," she whispered, hearing the gravel in her voice.
And in return he simply held her tighter, making her wish that he would never let her go.