Part 3: A Call for Heroes
Their first meeting goes as first meetings often do- shaky smiles and cautious glances peppering awkward words.
She stands outside the hospital, sunlight bouncing off of the white stone wall behind her, and glares at everyone who looks her way.
He saunters through the sliding doors, bracing himself against the sudden gust of warmth he is greeted with. Oblivious to the scowl he will receive if she catches him staring, he allows his eyes to wander over to the figure a few feet adjacent to him.
Ellie Brass, with raven locks pushed haphazardly behind her ears and a cigarette planted firmly in her mouth, stands in the now familiar spot. Unable to go in and unable to leave, she has condemned herself to the heat of a Vegas summer (until she runs out of cigarettes, anyway).
She finally notices the man whose eyes have yet to leave her.
"What?" she snaps.
The man has brown blonde hair falling into his eyes and a dopey, as Ellie classifies it, expression on his face. He looks entirely too uncomfortable in the rumpled dress shirt (or maybe his skin, Ellie muses).
Greg Sanders stands and stares in all his fading glory.
'What?' he thinks. Oh. Staring. He looks down (a subconscious action reflective of his embarrassment) and then back up again.
"Sorry," he mumbles. Then louder, "Sorry. I was lost in thought." The first awkward words are his; the ritual commences.
Ellie squints at the man. He attempts a grin and fails. He tries again and this time his lips fall into a slightly quirked position. The first shaky smile makes its appearance.
She casts the first cautious glance.
Their first meeting goes well as far as first meetings concerning Greg or Ellie go. It ends when Ellie gives the criminalist the finger, and he gets the message and takes his leave.
Brass is going to be okay; Grissom said so. The collective feeling of relief is almost palpable throughout the lab and precinct. Without the anxiety or worry weighing them down, the CSIs continue on in their jobs and lives with renewed vigor. During the days following, Grissom seems quieter and Sophia barks out a few comments about Brass's daughter with barely concealed disgust.
It's Greg's night off. He knows ghosts will visit him and his mind will turn against him tonight; he can tell it's one of those nights. He decides attempting to sleep would be pointless. There is a local band playing at a club a few blocks away. The young criminalist needs the people and the noise and the anonymity.
The set has already started by the time he arrives. The music is far too loud and Greg can barely discern the singer's words from the sounds of the instruments.
'They're really pretty terrible,' Greg thinks before pushing his way into the crowd and losing himself in the chaos.
Stuck in between the clichéd rockers and kids looking to unwind, there is a girl nodding her head in time with the beat and curving her body around every note. Uncut hair flops over her eyes and lips part slightly, sucking in air. A plastic cup is clutched in her hand, its contents sloshing over the rim from time to time.
Greg finds himself squeezing by bodies and stepping on feet as he makes his way slowly over to her. She looks so familiar. A name momentarily rests on the tip of his tongue, but he soon loses it again. Greg quickly takes note of her features, running through a list of people he has seen within the past few days. Black hair, waif-like body. Ah. The girl from the hospital.
Suddenly startling russet eyes are on him.
"You again." her voice isn't friendly, but it's not too hostile. Greg waves weakly.
They are at different places in life. She has just been pulled back from the cliff's edge, but remains stranded on delicate ground, the cracks beneath her feet growing longer and wider every day. Sturdy ground sits beneath him, but he continues on his way to that same edge, unwittingly about to head right over it.
"What are you, my stalker?" Her words are tinged with annoyance, yelled over the music, but she turns her body to face Greg and keeps her eyes on him.
Greg holds his hands up in a sign of innocence and mock surrender.
"Purely coincidence, I swear." She raises a finely shaped eyebrow. He grins in a way he sincerely hopes is not at all creepy.
"I'm Greg."
The girl's eyes skim over him, sizing him up. She apparently makes some decision because without warning there are warm lips sliding over his. He's surprised to find that she tastes of cherry coke as opposed to cigarettes as he expected. His eyes droop and all of his senses seem to dim. All there is is the taste of cherry coke and that slight pressure on his lips. She pulls away too soon.
"Ellie." Greg squints at her. That name sounds familiar too. He ignores the niggling sense that he is missing a key piece of information and focuses on her voice. "You live nearby, Greg?"
Greg means to say no. He doesn't do one-night stands, not often. He doesn't sleep with strangers (he's seen where that can lead). He means to say no. Instead, he says, "Yeah. Want to come over for some coffee?"
"Coffee?" Ellie smiles like she can't believe he just used that line. They both know if she comes home with him it won't be for coffee.
"Well, coffee or illicit, fun stranger-sex?" Greg waggles his eyebrows in a thoroughly ridiculous and un-cool manner. He feels a great sense of accomplishment when the girl laughs.
"I'll go for the latter." She tangles her fingers with his and tugs him out of the club.
Ellie sits at a small table outside the fast-food restaurant. She chews on a straw while she allows her mind to wander. She went to visit her father again today. He's out of the hospital now. She called him and got herself invited over. Brass spent the entire visit with that typical disappointed look on his face. It only intensified when she asked for some money. He chuckled and she new this is what he was waiting for. In that moment she was so angry with him. How dare he judge her? He isn't perfect and never has been. What kind of father has he been that he expects her to be any kind of daughter? She took the money anyway and left without another word.
The straw slips from her mouth and she feels a pinch on her lip as her teeth puncture the soft flesh. She sucks on the wound, ignoring the metallic flavor that immediately overtakes her taste buds.
Ellie isn't sure where she's going to go now. She needs a new place, new people. Ellie has track marks on her arms, weeks old though they may be. They're part of her who she is; they're not part of who she wants to be.
Ellie isn't clean, but she's not high either, and that's something.
Memories of the light-headed boy with the bittersweet smile interrupt her previous thoughts. He wouldn't undress until the lights were off. He wasn't shy, though, not really. He readily took the lead, but his kisses remained light and sweet throughout the night.
"Strange boy," she drawls quietly.
Greg, she thinks of the name fondly, is the first guy she has slept with since Hollywood. Ellie thinks that should be significant somehow.
Greg tugs the sheet corners free from under the mattress. He has never liked doing laundry. He tries to avoid it for as long as he can while still maintaining an acceptable level of hygiene. His covers are finally ripped from their captivity and he tosses them into a large basket on the floor. They hold a very distinctive scent at the moment, a scent which draws memories of the previous night.
Ellie was kind of awesome, Greg decides.
To be honest, the actual sex wasn't anything special. It was passionate to a point and sweet enough. She wasn't the love of his life or even a friend with benefits, but she was warm and she was there. What they did, what they had for those few hours, was something close to comfort, close to reaffirmation, close to real.
But Ellie…Ellie was pretty awesome. She knew when not to press and what not to question. She was self-confident and flaunted her I-don't-care-what-the-fuck-you-think attitude.
Though, she had practically run out of his apartment. (He understands her need for a quick getaway, but it wasn't like he was going to pull out his class ring and ask her to go steady.) Greg wonders if maybe he should be kind of insulted.
Ellie misses Jersey; she has for a while now. Even back in California she craved the comfortable familiarity of home. Several hour before her flight is schedule to leave Ellie drops by the precinct to visit her father one last time. She still feels slighted by the comments he made the day before, but she would never pass up an opportunity to show her father the result of his mistakes, his failures.
The dark-haired girl walks into the precinct wearing her spite and resentment like a cloak wrapped tightly around her, covering her from head to foot. The officer at the front desk doesn't know who she is, is visibly surprised when she explains that she is here to see her father.
Brass doesn't smile at her when they say their say their goodbyes. Ellie hadn't realized how long it has been since she has seen her father smile. She is upset to find she can't remember the last time he did so.
Their short visitation ends when Brass brings up rehab. Ellie promptly hisses that she is clean, which isn't a complete lie because today she is clean. All the hate that usually accompanies her thoughts of her father begins to fill her being. She hates him for all the things he's never done and for all the things he has done. She hates him for leaving. She hates him for not loving her until it was too late.
As fitting such a scene, she proceeds to storm out of the precinct.
Only once she is engulfed in sunshine does Ellie allow the anger to slip from her face. It still smolders near the surface, waiting to be unleashed or buried and saved for another time.
By the time the raven-haired woman reaches her rental car, the anger is slowly slipping into indifference. It is during this in between moment that the boy and the girl meet again. Whether it is fate or simply coincidence, they are reunited once more. This meeting is much quieter than the first two. There's dawning understanding in place of dangerous curiosity, muffled background noise in place of guitar riffs, and unreadable stares in place of sultry or hesitant smiles. The blinders have been ripped from their eyes and in a split second they know.
"Ellie." Greg doesn't smile, though the look he adopts is not unfriendly. "You visiting someone?"
Ellie watches him carefully. She once again notes how uncomfortable he seems in his suit.
"Yeah. My father." Her tone is neutral. The suit says he is working, his vehicle says he works for the crime lab, and the look on his face says he knows who she is, knows who her father is.
"Ellie Brass?" His tone implies he isn't surprised, only he kind of is.
"At your service." She casts a sardonic smile in his direction before turning back to her car. She rolls down the car window as he walks over to lean against her door, elbow casually resting on the roof. For a moment she feels a backwards rush of déjà vu.
"You sticking around here?" He knows her too well too fast; it makes her uneasy.
She shakes her head. "Jersey," she offers in explanation. He makes a noise of affirmation. With a quick smile, he straightens and steps away from the car. He stands by the side of the parking lot as her car pulls away and makes its way down the street.
The girl drives into the sunset while the boy watches her go.
The next time Ellie and Greg meet it's on a sidewalk outside of a casino at 5 a.m. The months have changed them as time often does. Ellie's arms are wrapped tightly around her thin waist, and she's trembling slightly. Greg's hands are fisted in his pockets, and his shoulders slumped in permanent defeat, eyes locking onto the familiar figure of the girl from underneath a fringe of scraggly hair. Ellie watches the boy a few feet away, not moving any closer or any further.
He's not going anywhere and she doesn't quite know where she is.
It's Ellie's second day back in Vegas. Fresh needle marks and dilated pupils accompanied her on her first day back.
Greg considers the girl with apathetic eyes. He doesn't leave so she slowly walks towards him.
"Hey, stranger." Ellie murmurs, unsure if she is heard over the bustle of the street.
"Long time no see."
When they smile it's more out of necessity, of practice than anything. She smiles like she doesn't have anything to lose. He smiles as if he is about to lose everything.
"How was Jersey?"
"Fucking freezing. How's Vegas?"
"Fucking hot." Greg's grin widens teasingly.
Neither moves, not quite knowing where to step or where the boundaries lie.
Greg finally asks, "Want to grab a coffee?"
Ellie gives him a look. Greg smiles in remembrance.
"Really, coffee. Not code for stranger-sex this time." he assures.
"Too bad."
"Well, hey, let's not rule anything out." Ellie laughs softly at Greg's quick reply.
The coffee shop is cool and mostly empty. An elderly man with a newspaper sits in a quiet corner and two baristi talk behind the counter. Ellie puts too much sugar in her coffee, but Greg doesn't comment on it.
Their conversation remains light, discussing the stupidity of reality t.v. and their mutual love of The Clash. Ellie fiddles with sugar packets while Greg tugs at his shirt sleeves absently. Eventually they run out of words and are left in silence. Greg invites Ellie back to his place and she readily accepts.
Ellie went home, met with old friends and old problems. Now she wants someone to save her. Ellie looks at Greg and sees a savior.
Greg looks at Ellie and sees a way to not be left alone with his nightmares.
At some point between the first touch and last kiss Ellie realizes her savior is just as broken as she is.
Greg is disappointed. He had hoped that would help, had hoped she would help. Lately, everything has feels half-real. It's like being caught in a dizzy spell, blood rushing to his head, watching from outside the box. It is like he is slowly coming apart at the seams with only a few remaining thin threads holding him together.
He has blood on his hands now, blood he never thought would be there. He's not a cop, he doesn't like to carry a gun or knowing how to fire it. In his mind he is still a scientist, nothing more or less. He wasn't expecting this, he should have been ready, but he wasn't expecting this.
He just wanted to be a hero.
The two figures lie side by side, both so profoundly let down by the other.
Ellie slowly rises on shaky legs. There are tears in her eyes, though she won't let them fall. Greg doesn't move. When she is about to walk out the door, she pauses and looks at him. She doesn't know what to say, so she says nothing. The young man pushes himself to face her. Their eyes lock, and then she is gone.
Ellie leaves once again.
Greg doesn't know what to do.