Disclaimer: They're not mine.
Spoilers: 5x03 Harvest
Rating: PG or K+
Summary: GC threeshot What if Lindsey hadn't been caught hitchhiking to see Sam? What if she'd just…gone?
Here we go – last part of this three-shot. I'll keep working on Isaac's Apple Tree. It's gonna be pretty long, I think.
So anyway, thank you reviews of the previous part – that's DrusillaBraun, Just.Let.Go x3, Dragonfly Faith, D.M.A.S, Krys33 and Littlesweetcupcake. I hope you have liked this short little fic. Read it, review it - and keep up the good GCR work. I've heard rumours about the season finale (and I don't want to be spoiled!) and it doesn't look too good, so get your GCR stuff out there. Keep the faith! Enjoy! Love LJ xXx
- o -
Missing
- o -
Part Three of Three
- o -
Sam Braun's credit card came back to him on a small silver plate, his receipt for the lunch tucked underneath. He and Lindsey got up; he left a bunch of notes on the table and turned to her with a smile.
"So where to now, young lady?" he asked her. Lindsey Willows shrugged her shoulders and her blonde hair reflected the coloured lights in the ceiling. He checked his watch as they headed out of The Orpheus.
"What time does your mom want you home?" he inquired and Lindsey avoided his eyes when she answered.
"Oh – she didn't really give me a time." She answered casually.
That made Sam stop in the foyer of The Orpheus and narrow his eyes in suspicion. Lindsey swallowed once – she was gonna be in trouble now…
"She didn't give you a time, huh?" Sam repeated slowly. "Tell me, Lindsey – has your mother gone crazy or do you really think I'm that stupid?"
Lindsey blushed and tried to glare as best she could at her grandfather. He took her hand and they sat on the marbled front steps.
"Go on, Linds," he prompted in a quiet voice. "Tell me what's going on."
She sighed and rolled her eyes in a manner remarkably reminiscent of her mother. "I skipped school," she admitted grudgingly. "Well it's not like I'm missing anything important. And it's not like anyone cared."
"You didn't tell your mother?" Sam asked and when Lindsey shook her head, he groaned inwardly. "She must be going wild."
Lindsey scratched at the surface of the steps with a bitten-down nail painted in peel-off pink nail polish.
"I bet she doesn't even know I'm gone." She muttered darkly. Sam took out his cell phone and dialed a number.
"Well, we'll soon find out," he said. Lindsey scowled – her mom was gonna kill her.
-
They must've driven five circles around the school by now, and still no sign of Lindsey, though every blonde-haired girl she spotted made her heart jump. She was still leant up close to the car window, her eyes roaming the area and around and looking for any sign of her little girl – anything at all, when Gil's phone began to ring again.
"Hello?" she held it to her ear and stayed looking out through the window.
"Hey sweetie," her mother's voice sounded through Gil's phone again. "Sam called me – he couldn't get through to your cell. He's got Lindsey."
Catherine's head jerked away from the window and she grabbed Gil's arm tightly.
"What?" she snapped. "Why the hell has Sam got Lindsey? Where are they?"
"Calm down, Catherine," Lily told her, slightly affronted. "Why shouldn't Sam have Lindsey? She skipped school and went to find him. They're outside The Orpheus."
"Damn it." Catherine muttered angrily and hung up the phone. "Sam Braun has my daughter," she said to Gil in a cold voice. "Outside The Orpheus."
And, as Gil turned the car around, she leant her head back, hard into the headrest and blew her fringe from her eyes in frustration. Of all people, Lindsey, she thought furiously.
-
Grissom pulled the Denali up alongside the front of The Orpheus and, once again, Catherine jumped out into the speeding traffic going the other way – running around the front of the car to the old man sitting on the steps with a tentative smile, beside the little blonde girl who shrank back from her mother.
"Lindsey," she yelled and pointed with a shaking hand back towards the Denali. "In the car – now."
"But Mom…" Lindsey stood up, beginning her protest.
"I'm not kidding, Lindsey – you get into that car, right now," she snapped, the fury in her voice attracting the attention of The Orpheus' customers. Lindsey rolled her eyes again and stormed off to climb into the backseat. But as she passed, she noticed her mother's red-rimmed eyes and felt a small pang of guilt.
When Lindsey had shut the door of the car, Catherine turned with blazing eyes to Sam who stood up, awkwardly.
"Cath…listen…" he began, holding his hands up in surrender.
"No, Sam – you listen to me," Catherine cut him off fiercely. "Just what the hell were you thinking? You think it's normal for Lindsey to just turn up on a Tuesday afternoon? Do you think I'd let her do that?"
"No I didn't – Lindsey told me that –" Sam attempted to explain.
"She told you what, Sam? That I let her skip school to see you?" she spat. "I know you'd never believe that for a second."
Sam flinched a little. The tough-as-nails Vegas entrepreneur flinched under his daughter's fiery words. He watched her square up to him – three-quarters his height – and felt saddened. He'd really hoped that maybe Catherine had forgiven him, even a little bit, and had thought that maybe he could start making things up to her and Lindsey.
In the car, Gil watched Catherine tear into Sam Braun and glanced in the mirror at Lindsey – sulking on the backseat. He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel in the silence.
"You want to listen to the radio, Linds?" he suggested. Lindsey looked at him, a stony expression on her face and Gil couldn't help but smile when he recognised it from Catherine so many times.
"No." She told him bluntly.
Gil unbuckled his seat belt and turned around to talk to her properly. "Yknow, your Mom was really worried about you," he said.
Lindsey scoffed and glared out of the window. "She was worried about how much work she was missing, more like."
"We were working a case on a girl who disappeared," Gil told her, after a pause. "She was about your age. They found her body when we were out looking for you." He turned back around in his seat and stretched his legs out.
"It really hit your Mom hard," he went on and Lindsey squirmed uncomfortably in her seat. "She thought something terrible might have happened to you. We see it happen enough."
"Only because all she does is go to work," Lindsey grumbled. Gil pretended he didn't hear her – he didn't know how to argue with a child, or how to be any kind of parent – he only knew how to speak honestly about what he saw.
"She cried." He said simply and watched Catherine and Sam argue back and forth. "She really does love you, you know."
And Lindsey couldn't find a smartass reply to that but only sank deeper into her seat and waited for Catherine to finish yelling at her grandfather and storm back to the car.
-
Just as Catherine had leapt from the car in the school parking lot and again before Gil had even stopped the car by The Orpheus, Lindsey Willows jumped out of the car as soon as it pulled into the driveway back at her house – threw the door shut and stormed inside.
Gil heard Catherine sigh once more beside him and looked at her.
"Told you we'd find her," he said and Catherine laughed wryly before following her daughter inside.
By the time Catherine and Gil were standing alone in the living room, Lindsey had already stomped upstairs and slammed her bedroom door. Catherine looked up the long staircase and then sat down on the third step up, sinking her head in her hands.
"You're not a bad mother," Gil found himself saying impulsively, hated seeing her like that – hating herself. Catherine lifted her head from her palms and raised an eyebrow.
"Huh – thanks," she muttered. Gil bit his tongue – he hadn't meant it to come out that way. He took a seat on the step beside her but left a gap between them, just in case.
"I didn't mean it like that," he told her. "You know I don't think that at all – I really meant –"
"It's okay, Gil," she cut him off with a smile and shuffled along the step, closing the gap. "I know what you meant."
Catherine rested her head against his shoulder and wrapped her fingers around his left hand as he moved his arm around her. She listened for any noise upstairs but Lindsey sat quietly, sulking on her bed, and Catherine closed her eyes leaning closer into Gil.
"I just wish sometimes that it was seven years back," she murmured wistfully. "And that all that really mattered was that we had strawberry yoghurt in the fridge and that Lindsey's Christmas Pageant costumes got finished in time. And Eddie was still alive and Lindsey didn't hate me."
She opened her eyes and blinked, tracing the lines on Gil's hand with a fingernail. He turned his face into her hair and breathed in deeply. It shouldn't have felt this natural, this normal, to be so close to her, he pondered vaguely.
"She doesn't hate you," he assured her in a whisper that found her ear. A small smile turned her lips.
"Well, it sure feels like she does sometimes," Catherine uttered.
Without even thinking, Gil held her tighter and pressed a kiss to her temple. "She doesn't hate you," he repeated.
Catherine paused and then sat up slowly, turning to him with a surprised look in her eyes and another smile on her face.
"Did you just kiss me?" she asked him. A red colour rose in Grissom's cheeks and the single word, "Sorry," escaped his lips shyly.
Catherine only looked at him, then at his hand in hers and shrugged her shoulders. "Don't be," she said. "I liked it." Then she laughed a little and glanced upstairs to Lindsey's closed bedroom door.
"Today's been a very strange day," she sighed. "I'm glad you were here." She stretched out her arms. "I think I should talk to her," she decided as she absently raised a hand and stroked his cheek.
"Will you stay here?" she asked. "I think I'll need you after this."
Gil nodded. "Okay."
"Okay."
And Catherine stood up and walked slowly upstairs to knock on Lindsey's bedroom door. As she turned the door handle, went inside and softly shut the door, Gil ran his hands over his face and smiled slightly. Catherine was right, today had been a very strange day. He sat on the third step up, fourteenth step down, and idly wondered if she really did have any strawberry yoghurt in the fridge.
- o -
