Disclaimer: I do not own or make money off of CSI. All characters are property of CBS and its affiliates.
A/N – Someone pointed out that Catherine had been on a two week suspension, something I forgot, so forgive me for the mistake. I'm sure I'll make many more, especially since I have written to far ahead to fix it now. Thanks for the reviews, they encourage me!
OVER EXPOSED: Chapter Two
A young brown haired girl sat curled up in her closet. Her left arm and clavicle was broken and she cradled it gingerly with her right hand. Her young body shivered in its undress, pressing itself further into the darkest corner. She couldn't have been more than six, and sadly it was not the first or last time she would seek her escape in the corner of this particular closet.
Peering at the bottom of the door, the child watched the shadows move and flutter in the light. The shadowed feet seemed to move with urgency and a since of need, but none of the offending shadows moved toward the shut closet door. Something that young Sara Sidle was grateful for. The closet was her only safety, it provided no warmth, and no relief from the pain her little body was in, but it kept the shadows out. She couldn't let the shadows into the dark closet, the shadows wanted nothing more than to cause more pain and hurt to her battered body. So biting pack a whimper she curled poised against the corner watching the shadows under the door. There would be no rest for her.
A quite and subdued group of the crime lab's nightshift huddled together wearily in the surgical waiting room. Various forms of pain and sadness was displayed on all their pale and shocked faces. They all had the same thoughts running through their head…"How? Why?" However it was not something they would get to answer. The reasoning was out of their hands and in the hands of the dayshift; despite their protest at the scene they understood why it was important for them to be hands off.
"Did you call her parents?" Catherine turned to Grissom.
"She doesn't have them as her contact, just the crime lab." Grissom felt the collective room pull in a berated breath and all eyes shift to him. "I…ahhh…I stopped by the lab and got her file, her parents are listed as deceased." His voice caught for a moment but he gathered it under control and steeled his determination. "I didn't know."
After a tense moment everyone assumed that no one knew that Sara had no family. They had known that she never spoke of her family or friends for that matter, but chalked it up to her being a private person. No one had thought to ask.
"She has a brother." Grissom mumbled. "He's not mentioned in her file, I don't know his name, but she had mentioned him once in passing."
Nick looked up. "We'll find him. It's the least we can do." He turned to Warrick who nodded his agreement. "We'll go to the lab, do a general search on her parents and locate her sibling." With that the two men left the waiting room.
"I'll help; a detective might come in handy." Brass muttered as he departed eager to do something.
Catherine turned to the only quite occupant in the room. Greg Sanders sat in his wheel chair, despite his sore and burnt back, and against his doctor's orders. His wept quietly in the corner, the lamp casting a shadow on his face. The lab rat was still in the hospital recovering from the explosion Catherine had inadvertently caused. "Greg…would you like to go back to your room, maybe get some rest?"
Greg shook his head in the negative and stared down at his hands.
"It could be hours Greg, you need to rest…" Catherine started.
"No." Greg chocked out. "I am not leaving."
"Okay." Catherine forced out a reassuring smile, despite her own fears. It had been two hours since Sara had been brought in, and they had yet to hear back from the doctor. She shifted her site to the tense figure beside her. Grissom hadn't said much since they have arrived, besides the few statements on Sara's family. Her heart ached a bit more looking at her old friend. She had always suspected that Gil had a soft spot for Sara; at one time she thought that he may have even loved the younger CSI in his own way. "Hey…you okay?"
Grissom slowly looked up at one of his best friends. "I should go help Nick and Warrick."
"No you need to be here." Catherine placed her hand on his arm stopping him from standing. "The doctor will talk to you because of your supervisor role; we need you to find out what is going on." She was more than a little surprised that she seemed to be keeping her head about the situation so far. When she had first saw Sara she was sure the brunette was dead, and for all intensive purposes Sara could still die. Despite their past bickering with the younger woman, she did like her. Women are just naturally territorial; at least that is what she told herself at every jib she threw at Sara. It was too late for regret, but she did promise herself to not let her own jealousy get in the way of being Sara's friend. She would try harder.
The doctor finally entered the waiting room. He hated delivering bad news, and after a case like this, nothing he could say would be considered good news. He cleared his throat. "Ms. Sidles's family?"
Gil and Catherine stood up, Catherine unconsciously placing her hand in his. He gripped it tightly holding on for dear life. Greg also looked up, a pained expression on his wet face.
"How is she?" Grissom spoke much more calmly than he felt.
The doctor sighed and ran his hands roughly through his graying hair. "Ms. Sidle was a mess when she came in. The EMT did a fairly good job of stabilizing her in route, but she had a lot of internal damage." He took a deep breath and look pointedly at the man before him. "Besides the obvious cuts and bruises, she suffered a broken left arm and dislocated shoulder, a broken right wrist, and a broken pelvic bone. That is a likely result from being pinned during the sexual assault." Everyone's face took on a pained expression. They of course had known that Sara was raped, that much had been obvious, but to hear it stated out loud was painful. "She had three broken ribs, which punctured her left lung causing it to collapse. That is why we have her on the respirator, at this point in time she can not breathe on her own. We had to crack her chest to repair a tear in her aorta. I'm not sure how she survived long enough to get here. A piece of bone had splinter off her ribs and caused a bit of damage internally, not to mention the fact her organs had been kicked in. We partially removed her spleen and a piece of her liver. Her kidney's seemed to be fine, which we are very grateful for. The risk of infection is high; we had her open for a long time so we have her on a course of preventative medicines. Her head injury is a great concern for us. At this point her brain is swelling and she is in a coma. We are not sure when or if she will awake, but she does have higher brain function. We repaired the gashes in her head and face with stitches, but had to drill a whole in her head in order to relieve the pressure. Her eyes appear to be okay, they are both reactive, but her orbital bone is broken. She lost three teeth in the back on her right side; your assailant is likely left handed. Her nose is broken, but it has been set, and luckily there is just bruising on her jaw. During x-ray we did notice some unusual things. Ms. Sidle had quite a few old signs of fracture and breaks throughout her body, some even radial. She was more than likely abused at some point in the past, and hopefully who ever did this is not still in the picture." A collective gasp went around the room, and the doctor took a deep breath. "There is more. She was assaulted with both an object, more than likely a hand, as well as having penal penetration. We were able to recover semen, which was delivered to the CSI that is processing her now." He took another deep breath and continued. "We repaired the tears on her vaginal walls, which is where we noticed multiple instances of scarring. This was not her first assault, which is another reason we think that Ms. Sidle has a history of abuse."
"What?" Catherine gasped.
"I would look into it, make sure no one is hurting her still, or that whoever did in her past isn't the one who repeated it." The doctor pointed out. "She is in critical condition and the next few days will be touch and go. I am surprised she has made it this far, but Ms. Sidle seems to be a stubborn person." He tried to give a half-hearted smile.
"She is." Grissom stated.
"You can see her after the nurses get her settled. They will take you, but only one of you for now." The doctor than nodded and left the room, allowing the occupants to let all the information sink in.
"Gil do you think that someone followed her to the scene and…" Catherine began.
"We let the evidence speak Catherine, we do not make assumptions." Grissom let go of Catherine's hand. "I'm going to go help the guys with finding her brother."
"What about…"
"You go. She won't be afraid of you."
"She's in a coma Gil, she won't even know. You should go, she would want you."
"No. Trust me; I am the last person she wants." His pained expression showed that he honestly believed it.
"Okay."
Grissom turned and left the room. There was nothing more he could do at the hospital, but he was going to find out who had hurt Sara in the past and he was going to make them pay.
"I'll go." Greg spoke up.
Catherine turned a sad look on her face. "You can't Greg; your back could bring in bacteria and risk an infection. I'm sorry." She placed a hand on his shuttering shoulder. "Do you want me to take you to your room before I see her?"
"No. I'll manage. Go to her, I don't want her to be alone anymore."
She nodded and left the room in search of a nurse. It didn't take long and before she was ready she was being led into the ICU and the glassed off room of Sara Sidle. Tubes and lines came out of various parts of her body. The equipment seemed to swallow the small woman up in the bed. Catherine wiped her eyes and gently reached out and took Sara's left hand awkwardly. The cast on both her arms prevented her from properly holding it. She gave it a gentle squeeze and searched through the black and blue marks on her face for a sign that the face was really Sara and not a piece of hamburger.
"Hey Sara, I heard you put up quite a fight." Catherine took a shuttering breath. The steady beeping of the machines and the whooshing of the respirator reminding her that Sara was still alive and fighting.
"How is she?" Warrick looked up as Grissom entered the lab. He and Nick had been searching Sara's records for the last hour.
"Critical." His voice was firm and hard, putting a stop to anymore questions. "What about her brother."
"Nothing, it's like he doesn't exist." Nick stated. "Brass went to the station to see what he could look up. As far as we can tell Sara's parents, Daniel and Laura Sidle have only one child, a female born on September 16, 1971 in Tamales Bay. Sara Sunshine Sidle. Did you know her middle name was Sunshine?" Nick couldn't help but grin, as he tucked that piece of information away in the recesses of his mind. He'd have fun teasing her when she was well.
"Of course I did, it's in her record." Grissom snapped.
Warrick interrupted. "Well we are just getting ready to look at the death certificates of her parents." Trying to bring the groups attention back to the computer screen and prevent an argument. "Let's see…father died in 1984 of…multiply stab wounds. He bled out."
"He was murdered?" Nick asked shocked.
"Looks like…and guess who killed him." Warrick clicked on a link to an article. "Sara's mother and it appears Sara witnessed the whole thing." He pointed to the screen.
The three men read the article of the screen, each one cringing as the information they was gathering. No wonder Sara never spoke of her family. The article briefly mentioned the history of abuse at the small Bed & Breakfast. Citing that both mother and daughter have had extensive stays and visits at the local hospital over the last ten years. It gave a short summary of the trial and mentioned how the thirteen year old was required to give eye witness testimony against her mother, resulting in a the latter's conviction for murder one. The young Sara Sidle was made a ward of the State of California and Laura Sidle was sentenced to life in prison. Warrick found a follow up article from a month later; Laura Sidle had committed suicide three weeks into her sentence.
"How can she keep this locked inside?" Nick turned to the other two. "Why doesn't she talk to us about it, tell us?"
"Maybe she has already dealt with it Nick." Warrick pointed out.
"What about the brother, he was never mentioned." Grissom stated as he swallowed the lump in his throat. How could he have not known about this? He should have seen the signs and protected her. "Neither article mentioned a brother."
"Maybe she doesn't have a brother." Warrick stated.
"No she does. She mentioned how she found some marijuana once in her brother's room, and how she thought it was a bag of dirt. She said when she showed her parents and they freaked; Sara said she had never seen her brother so mad before."
Warrick thought for a moment. "Could have been referring to a foster brother…possibly she was adopted as well."
Nick nodded in agreement. "Give us a bit more time; see what we can dig up."
"Find him, find someone." Grissom couldn't tell them one of the reasons he wanted to find the brother was to confirm that her parents was the past abuser, no matter how awful that was. He couldn't bear to think that Sara continued to suffer abuse while in the system, how one person could take so much and be as strong as she is.
A young Sara continued to stare at the shadow beyond her closet door. The same shadow had been standing there for a while now, murmuring too quietly for the little girl to make out. Occasionally another shadow would float past the door causing a moment of pain and occasionally relieve from he aching body. She had shifted to a laying position against the far wall in an attempt to provide her battered form a moment of reprieve. It helped little, but her knees was aching and if felt better to stretch out.
Something about the consistent shadow against the door brought her a sense of familiarity. She viewed the shadow as a guard of sorts, and felt that if necessary this particular shadow would protect her; especially if the other shadows decided to come in. She still did not feel safe enough to allow her body to get some much needed rest, but it did bring a sense of comfort to her. She would just have to wait to see if she was right about the shadow, she had been wrong before, and did not want a repeat her mistakes.
"Her records are sealed." Brass entered the CSI break room and addressed the three men. "Did you know she was in the system?"
"We just found out, she never told us." Nick stated as he took a sip of his coffee.
"Well I pulled some strings and managed to get this." Jim Brass dropped a file on the table. "It's not pretty."
Grissom took the folder and quickly skimmed through it. "Eight homes in five years?"
"Yeah she bounced around quite a bit." Brass grimaced. "She didn't appear to be a troublemaker, but she seemed to find it all the same."
"The system in the 80's was not exactly on top of things." Grissom pointed out. "Someone had to make an impact on her, she referred to a brother. Maybe she found at least one connection."
"None I could find out, the only reference to a foster brother in her record was an Anthony Sparks. He is briefly mentioned in her first home. Other than that she appeared to have been placed in homes requesting a singe child."
"What did you find on Anthony Sparks?" Nick asked; he knew that Brass would have already gathered what he could.
Brass sat heavily in his chair. "He's not exactly an up standing citizen. He's serving time in a California State Prison as we speak for armed robbery. He also has a sealed juvenile record. I doubt Sara has contact with him."
"So that's it." Warrick sighed. "Doesn't matter, she has us."
"Brass, I want to talk to this Anthony Sparks." Grissom needed some answers, and maybe this criminal could clear up a few things in regard to Sara's past abuse.
"Why?" Nick asked.
Grissom shut the break room door and motioned to the table for them to sit down. Taking a deep breath he began to explain everything the doctor had told him at the hospital, including the mention of her past physical and sexual abuse. He felt briefly guilty for sharing something Sara had guarded so privately, but he knew that she needed family to support her and he needed answers.
"Shit…" Warrick rubbed his face in frustration. "Damn."
Brass and Nick set in a stunned silence. Neither appeared to be breathing, both was too shocked.
"I need to know if the bastard who had sexually assaulted her isn't the same man from tonight. I did a brief search in my office and Sara hasn't pressed any charges against anyone previously as an adult. So I am assuming it happened when she was underage and the record is sealed or…"
"Was it…her…Dad?" Nick questioned.
"I don't know, but we find out. We will protect her." Grissom was tired, he wanted nothing more than to go home and sleep. He wanted to forget the last day, he wanted to forget that Sara's past was so horrible, and more importantly he wanted to forget how dead she looked when they found her.