Point the Finger
Chapter 1
Disclaimer: Nope. It's not mine. Thank god it isn't Quentin Tarantino's, either. I'm willing to accept donations to the "Lets help Lara buy CSI fund!" … but it still has a ways to go, sadly.
A/N: I haven't written anything over 1000 words in a long time, so please understand this is a big leap for me and bear with the erratic thought processes. Most of the time, the POV will switch between whoever is in the scene for now, but hopefully I'll get it down solidly pat to one person or another for each scene as time progresses.
Huge thanks and cookies go to Heather for Beta-ing. And inspiring me (at least helping to) write this thing.
"Nick, you seen my belt?" Warrick turned to his fellow CSI, a befuddled expression on his face. Though his locker was not the cleanest to be found in the break room, he knew where each item in it was placed, and his belt had been hanging upon a hook at the start of shift last night when he had left it there.
When he didn't receive an answer from Nick, he turned around and found that the shorter man was leaning back against his own locker, heavily focused on a typed letter in his hand. There hadn't been any departmental letters recently, and since he noticed the Clark Country's courthouse emblem printed on the backside of the page, he knew it must pertain to a case that had gone to trial. Curiosity piqued, Warrick came up behind him and began reading over his shoulder.
"'We are writing to inform you that Mrs. Cassidy Yeats's verdict was ruled as innocent in the Yeats versus the People trial due to a lack of solid evidence,'" he read aloud. Perplexed, Warrick, wracked his brain for several moments, and finally remembered. "Wasn't that the case you and Sara worked about two months ago?" he queried. Nick looked up at him, eyes flashing with anger, then looked away quickly. He slowly folded the letter back into the envelope and placed it back onto the shelf in his locker. Without turning back to Warrick, he explained.
"The woman was abusing her step-son; he was from the husband's first marriage. It had finally progressed to the point where she got carried away enough one time and forgot to pay attention to whether or not he was breathing." His words were soft, but the suppressed pool of rage behind them was all too impossible to hide.
Nick stared at the bench in front of him, thoughts flying through his mind. Each was too fast for him to analyze, only the small wisps of words and phrases registered. Doc Robbins' voice rose above the din's cacophony and drifted through his mind. "The body showed signs of long-term physical abuse, as shown here on the chest and back by the extensive scarring and bruising… lack of defensive wounds indicates that it's likely that in most of the beatings, he didn't fight back…"
Without warning, Nick suddenly whipped around and slammed both his fists on the lockers in front of him. Endorphins flooded his body from the sudden rage and fury of his actions, blocking out the pain for a brief reprieve though he knew they wouldn't last. Just like the cry for justice wouldn't last.
Warrick stared at his friend, at a loss for words to help alleviate the emotional pain, or to somehow offer support for what he was going through. Inwardly, he frowned at himself because of his lack of eloquence, knowing that usually he would have known what to say. However, since words failed him, he moved forward to put consolatory hand on Nick's shoulder. He wasn't expecting the other man to violently twist away from his grasp. Warrick was taken aback, and despite the flash of apology from Nick's eyes, the action still came as a shock to him. He watched as the shorter man slumped against his locker, and ran a hand over his newly shaved head again, the rough texture of the millimeter thick hairs helping to ground him to reality before he could sink back into his own mind.
"I really don't understand our job some days," he began, his voice wavering to the point where it began to crack with the unraveling of his previously bound emotions. "We work and fight to put these people away, and even the evidence can't help us do that anymore. What is the point of this job, when all we do is use the county's money to log a scrap of material that is later deemed as circumstantial evidence and discarded like rags when it can mean everything to a victim?"
Warrick hesitated again, and was saved this time by the entrance of their second most senior CSI on the newly reunited nightshift. Catherine Willows strode into the break room without the usual spirit in her gait, and her appearance seemed also to be severely lacking the pristine femininity she usually displayed with effortless ease. The sudden switch back to night shift for herself, Nick and Warrick had taken a greater toll on their body clocks and consequently, their functionality than they had believed it would. A feeling of being run through a washing machine and then forced to run four miles on a treadmill was not unlike what they had dealt with since the changeover two days earlier. Each was relearning the act of sleeping during the day so they could be fully alert at work, despite that they'd been left with the easier cases to help them adjust.
Upon entering the room, Catherine took one look at Nick, whose face wore the mixed expression of lingering pain and doubt that had taken up residence when he began thinking too much since his incident two months earlier, and then turned her eyes upwards to the other man. Warrick communicated to her by means of raised eyebrows and openly showing the confusion he felt. Taking it as a cue, she moved towards Nick, and spoke as she would to anyone; without hesitation, and with confidence.
"Nicky, you have to let it go – whatever it is, you can't do this to yourself," she spoke with a soft tone, soft enough that she almost surprised herself. Despite her reputation of being a hard-assed, no nonsense CSI among most circles, contrary to popular gossip, she actually did give a damn about her friends. She waited for Nick to look up at her and meet her eyes. What she saw there was a man who was lost on what to do, and steadily losing faith in what he had done. It gave her the drive to continue.
"It doesn't matter what happens after we're done with a case, as long as we've performed to the best of our ability while on the clock. We can testify and process evidence till hell freezes over, but it doesn't mean we've made a difference with the puzzle. Sometimes we just have to accept, and move on." She laid a hand on Nick's shoulder, squeezing it slightly.
It appeared that Nick had calmed down in response to her empathetic words, and he looked at her with defeated eyes. He looked down at his hands, and the sight of the reddened skin stimulated his nerves and he began to feel the dull ache of bruising that preceded the throbbing pain that was to come later. A misshapen grin began to pull at the corners of his mouth, and the two other CSIs took it to be a good sign.
Nick looked at Warrick, and his eyes filled with an apologetic light.
"Sorry I had to put you guys through this. Things were just starting to really get to me, y'know?" he explained rather lamely. At this, Catherine drew back her hand from him and gave his arm a light punch.
"What kind of friends would we be if we didn't care, Nicky?" she asked, giving him one of her own lopsided grins. "We're CSIs – even if we hadn't seen you like this, we would have eventually followed the evidence to where it leads us." Nick really did try to give a half-hearted smile at that.
Warrick observed the situation, and after his long silence, decided to join in on the reverie.
"Ain't that the truth. It's not like you haven't ever helped us before, man." For good measure, he added his own grin into the mix. He looked around the break room, and finally laid eyes on the clock that had almost gotten smothered by barrage of police posters that had taken up residence.
"Ten minutes till the end of shift, how about we mosey out of here and head over to the diner to grab some breakfast on me?"
Catherine met Warrick's eyes and gave her customary wink of approval and they looked at Nick. When he felt the pressure of both their gazes on him, he threw up his hands in mock surrender and conceded.
"I can see I'm not going to get out of this, so I think it best if I just go along with the idea in the first place," he admitted. Catherine laughed and reached up to wrap an arm around his shoulders.
"Smart man."
Meanwhile, a not so friendly discussion was rapidly escalating in a normally quiet room. Grissom was thankful he had closed the blinds in his office hours ago so he could focus on the paperwork that had somehow managed to creep up to mid-chest high levels on his desk, since they now served another purpose. He was also grateful for the fact that the door was closed as the young woman before him heatedly elaborated on the issue at hand.
"Grissom, its bad enough that this is another decomp and I'm going to go around smelling like death came to play – lemons, I know! – But now you're lording over me and saying I should hand this off because it hits too close to home for me? I'm already working with Greg, and the work, heavy enough as it is for the both of us, that one person would be too swamped to handle it solo."
While she had been reasoning with part of the problem Grissom had thrown at her, she had temporarily forgotten what else he had mentioned, and fired off another vehement rebuke towards him.
"Also, we haven't even confirmed the COD was because of domestic abuse yet!" She vehemently spat out at him. Over the past few months, she thought she had reached at least a level ground with him, working easily with him despite their problems, and suddenly he was trying to coddle her.
Mouth hanging open at her tirade, Grissom stared in shock at Sara, not knowing how their conversation had reached this point. He had merely suggested that she consider giving the case to Sofia or Greg if she found she became too emotionally attached to the victim or if she had any troubles. She hadn't worked a case like this since the mail-order bride one. Thinking of what he had said, he barely caught a wry grin from spreading across his face in response to his own foolishness in the matter. Sara Sidle would never hand off a case, regardless of her emotional state. But…
"Sara, you can't afford to have another confrontation with anyone in the lab like you had with Catherine or Ecklie several months ago," he said quickly, not looking at her directly. There must have been a better way to deal with this problem, but he just couldn't think of it. "Your emotions have to be controlled."
Sara looked across the room at him, stunned. Why bring that up now? Since that case, since she had told him the reason why everything had happened as it did, he had accepted the explanation and moved on. It was blatantly obvious that he had forgotten her breakdown in front of him, or had in the least tried to forget it. Since that time, he had rarely worked on a case with her, let alone spoken with or even looked at her. Grissom holding everyone in his life at an arm's length, she could easily understand, despite whatever effect it had on her. His behavior with Sofia, recently, however, just incised her growing resentment of all things Grissom, as much as she loathed it admit it. She felt a brief stab of jealousy and more rage at the thought of the blond CSI, and couldn't escape the finalizing feeling of being replaced. Sara inhaled as she banished the feelings from her – her problems were just another thing that she didn't need to deal with right now. Quickly gathering her thoughts, Sara forcibly schooled the shocked emotions off of her face.
"Grissom, you know I've never let my emotions interfere with the work I do here in the lab and out in the field," she hissed, voice low and dangerous. Grissom would have taken a step back had he been standing. Opting for another way out of the argument, he opened his mouth to agree with her, but Sara took it as another reproach and continued. "In case you haven't noticed, most of the time they actually fuel me to keep working when I would have otherwise stopped!"
Grissom held his hands out in front of himself, halting her mid-sentence, not knowing himself whether he meant it as a gesture of peace or to try and ward off the human whirlwind in front of him.
"Sara, stop, please. You know I only mentioned anything because it was out of concern, I was in no way trying to 'lord over you' in regards to the case," he explained, dropping his eyes to his paperwork as he tried to deflect her anger away from him, to resolve the situation as much as he could. And, in retrospect, to avoid whatever he would see floating in her eyes as they accusingly bore into him. Grissom was at a loss at what to do with the woman before him. Though having a full-blown confrontation was the last thing on his to-do list this month, he reluctantly admitted to himself that it had progressed to this point. Sara had always pushed herself far too hard, and woe to whomever tried to prevent her from doing things her way. But, the fear of a burnout had become more realistic as time progressed with her, and Grissom knew something had to be done. He looked up from his desk to see that Sara was still standing across from him, and swiftly organized the words in his head into something reasonable to say to her.
While the cogs turned in her supervisor's mind, Sara silently watched him, calculating how long it would take him to formulate a response that would mention either the impending burnout everyone believed she was heading towards, or the fact that she just wasn't able to work properly with emotional distractions impeding her judgment. She realized belatedly that their heated discussion had rapidly halted and become an awkward, pregnant silence not unlike the ones they shared so often in recent days. Screw it, she thought, it's now or never. When he looked back up to her and opened his mouth to speak again, she seized the moment and beat him to it.
"Grissom, lets confront the facts and move on," she started, her voice determined and cold, as if she had took his words to heart from earlier and truly abandoned all emotion. She knew she was over reacting, but she pressed on regardless. Deep in her mind, she was aware that part of the reason for her continuing was because she was enjoying the look of open-mouthed shock on the face of the man across from her. "Obviously you no longer think I'm able to function properly in my role as a CSI here or you never would have questioned my emotional stability in regards to cases. The problem is either that, or the fact you simply don't want me working here anymore. Which is it?"
She watched as Grissom took in her words, how the shock took form on his face and his brow furrowed with the spread of a frown. In the back of her mind, a voice piped up, wondering how he could just sit there and not even react beyond that. A memory floated up that she had seen in her PEAP counselor's office once. "It takes more muscles in the face to frown than to smile." It was well past the time that smiles could have done anything for either of them.
Grissom could only stare at the woman before him while he attempted to absorb all she said. The personal undertones in her words were not lost on him, and he knew that she was referring to how he had grown so distant with her lately. Stumped on how to behave and respond, he did all he knew how to do; become the supervisor, the emotionless observer, and deal with the situation accordingly.
"Sara, I haven't called your ability to fulfill your duties at this job in to question, and in no way do I wish for you to leave this lab. I have only tried to express my concern for you yet again. You work yourself too hard. You have no distractions from work, despite many recommendations to create one. You haven't taken a vacation since the last one was forced on you by your PEAP counselor after the DUI issue nearly a year ago." At that, Sara shot him a deadly look that would have felled anything alert enough to recognize it for what it was, but Grissom was tired of her death glares, and at this point, mostly immune to them. He bit back a sigh from escaping his lips, and looked at the desk before him as he continued.
"The point of the matter is; you are going to need to either find a diversion, or take another break from work so you can alleviate some of the stress building up on you." Now, he looked up at her and locked eyes. "The lab can't afford to lose you to a burnout."
She visibly flinched. His last words had hit home with an impact that left her ears ringing. "The lab can't afford to lose you to a burnout." It was back this, to the good of the lab speeches, just as it had been several years ago. Watch out world, here comes Supervisor Grissom, using that bastard Ecklie's words to fight in the name of goodness. Sara watched him, seeing the void of emotion, and knew she was losing. Before thinking, she spoke again.
"Grissom, I'm really sorry that everything has come to this point. However, the bottom line is this: my emotions do not interfere with my work, and never have. I am going to continue to work this case, and I won't hand it off."
Never one to accept ultimatums herself, Sara didn't wait to see what effect it produced on Grissom. She finally turned away from him, leaving him to his mountain of paperwork. Her mouth twisted into an ugly shape. Perhaps he even considers that to be worth more than me. When she reached the door of his office, the voice in her mind was screaming to leave the matter alone, that she had already done enough damage, but she ignored the voice. Turning around, she locked eyes with Grissom, and got the last word in. Her voice came out soft and sad, much as it had two years ago when he rejected her openly for the first time.
"I'm a damn good CSI Grissom, and a long time ago, you knew it, and respected that fact. It seems that knowledge was lost when you started caring more about becoming politically savvy and less about what's happening to the people who surround you."
With that, she exited his office, leaving behind a man who was very much confused, and very much aware of the truth in those last ringing words.
Outside the CSI Lab, the sun had reached the peak of its arc in the sky, its' rays beaming directly downwards and casting bright, glaring reflections of light off of all the car windshields parked in the lot. Greg Sanders frowned as he threw up a hand to block the glare from his eyes, marveling at the fact that despite he had lived in Las Vegas for as long as he had, he still hadn't become used to the desert sun, and the corroborating heat that accompanied it.
Greg meandered from the lab's entrance over to Sara's parked Tahoe, surprised when he spotted her outline perched in the driver's seat already. His brow furrowed as he recalled that she had still been talking, rather, bordering on yelling and progressing past that point, with Grissom when he had left the break room. Shrugging, he remembered how Sara usually managed to beat everyone to where they were going first, and came up to the back of the Tahoe and pushed his field kit inside. He moved towards the passenger side door, pulling it open with a grin.
"You know Sara, you don't always have to be so keen on the job; we all know you're just trying to hide the fact you're halfway through another double," he jibed, hopping into the seat and kicking his feet up on the dash. He glanced over to her, cracking another grin.
"So, where to now, bos-"