Title: Because I Could Not Stop for Death (Chapter 4)
Rating: T (for now)
Author: CSIGeekFan
Beta: Seattlecsifan (to whom I owe so much)
Pairings: Grissom/Sara, Warrick, Team
Words: 2500 (approximately)
Disclaimer: I don't own CSI. But this is what I'd like to see in the premier.
Summary: The CSI supervisor snapped his head up and glared at Catherine. "You have a daughter," he ground out. "Did she really need to be an orphan?"
X X X
Grissom leaned forward, putting his elbows on his knees, and dropping his head to his hands. Staring at the floor, he listened to Al Robbins.
"Unfortunately, a lot of dead people I see are not pretty, and neither was Warrick when he died in the ICU before he went back into surgery," Robbins said.
Catherine interjected, "I called Grissom. How did you find out?" Then it clicked. The timing of everything. She laid out her theory, "You were at Grissom's. Your hush-hush meeting had started." The anger in her voice was unmistakable when she aimed, "You left us in the dark," directly at Grissom.
The CSI supervisor snapped his head up and glared at Catherine. "You have a daughter," he ground out. "Did she really need to be an orphan?"
Catherine stiffly leaned back against the couch. Every muscle strained at the back-board straight position, and her frown looked damn near painful to everyone in the room.
"You guys… I was losing Warrick, one way or another. I couldn't afford to lose all of you," Grissom said, feeling helpless yet again. It seemed the past year was an exercise in futility as he tried to maintain some semblance of control. Control is nothing but a myth, he thought. Staring into his hands, he wondered when he'd started to feel so tired and so… old.
Sara watched him with an ache for the part she'd played in driving this man down the route he'd taken. The fact that he simply looked ready to break may have been lost on the others, but not on her. She'd seen him at his best and his worst, yet she'd never seen his eyes so hazed or his shoulders so slumped. Leaning into him a little from where she perched so very close, she ran her hand up Grissom's neck and murmured, "Don't do this anymore, Gil. Let the rest of us take the weight."
In one moment, his life slammed down in front of him, and all he could do was nod. He'd been so close to simply giving in over the last month, he knew Jim was worried about him. With every step and every piece of evidence collected, Jim was on-hand, offering Grissom his assistance.
"Let me tell the next part," Brass murmured. "But, we'll skip the meeting, except to say it's sometimes fortuitous that Doc Robbins has been around for so long. When he called in to check on Warrick after the incident in ICU, Robbins found out the surgeon was a good friend of his."
"Best friend," Robbins interjected. "Steve's actually my best friend, although I could never talk him into working with the dead. He prefers them breathing."
"Yeah, well, that's when this team – me, Ecklie, Robbins, and Grissom – stepped in and faked Warrick's death," Brass continued.
"It was a close one, though," Robbins said. Looking directly at Warrick, he stated, "You really did die on the table during surgery." The older, often rough coroner said, "It wasn't hard to make everyone believe you were dead, or to arrange temporary care in the hospital."
"Figuring out where to put him for the long term turned out to be the problem," Ecklie stated, frowning slightly at the memory of the discussion that had turned into a heated debate of frustration and futility.
Sara, with her hand still on his back, smiled at her lover, and rubbed small circles of comfort, when she said, "I think this might be my part to tell."
"And mine," Brass said, earning a glare from Grissom. "Look, Gil. It worked out fine." Looking around the room and back to his friend, he said, "I'll start."
X X X
Brass slammed his coffee cup down on the counter in Grissom's kitchen, garnering everyone's attention. Robbins, feeling his presence was no longer needed, had left hours ago, drooping with fatigue. So the detective stood in front of the CSI supervisor and assistant lab director, getting tired of finding and rejecting possible permanent location for Warrick to recuperate. "We've eliminated every option we've come up with for one reason or another."
"And I'm out of ideas," Ecklie said, blowing out a weary breath. He hadn't eaten and was about to suggest a meal, but one look at Grissom's face had him rethinking that plan.
Picking up his cup and moving to the stainless sink, Brass carefully laid it on the bottom and tried to act casual when he said, "There's one possibility we haven't discussed, Gil." He waited a heartbeat before turning to the two other men in the room and saying, "Sara. We can send Warrick to Sara."
No one noticed when Brass casually pulled his cell phone from his pocket and hit a number he'd tracked down months before, before laying the device on the kitchen counter nearby.
X X X
"Suffice it to say, the volume in Grissom's home increased," Brass sardonically stated, trying to lighten his friend's morose mood. During the short telling, he'd watched Grissom become more and more withdrawn. "Hey Gil, you might want to keep in mind that it worked," Brass said. "Warrick did well with Sara… the short term memory loss came back and he healed."
"It should've never come to that, and I still don't appreciate you putting Sara on speakerphone without my knowing," Grissom stated. "If I didn't want Nick, Greg, or Catherine in danger, then why the hell would I want Sara looking over her shoulder all the time?"
Holding up a hand in defeat, Brass added, "Gil, it's an old argument. The fact is there wasn't much choice. Let's not rehash."
Blowing out a breath, Grissom gave a sharp nod and said, "Fine."
It was Sara who broke the strain when she said, "I'm really glad you included Nick and Greg in your list, Gil. Had it just been the womenfolk, you would've had a couple of us poor, helpless females showing you precisely what we're capable of." She leaned close and loudly whispered, "You wouldn't have liked it."
Her words so close to his neck, the knowing she was finally safe had his tense, aching back relaxing painfully and he grinned at her, before he swung his head and said, "Yeah. Let's not rehash this," to Brass.
"I think the next part might be mine," Sara said, giving Grissom a quick grin before turning back to the rest of the room. "Suffice it to say, I was a little surprised when Jim's ID came up on my phone."
X X X
Sara looked around the room and wondered momentarily if she was forgetting something. It seemed like a lifetime ago that she'd arrived in San Francisco with nothing but her purse, but along the way she'd picked up items here and there, and found herself stuffing more and more souvenirs into her suitcases for the guys and Catherine. Snapping the last suitcase shut, she glanced around and noted that the only thing left unpacked was her clothes for the next few days. Everything was ready to ship when Grissom arrived. He's going to be surprised, she thought to herself, noting the amount of stuff she'd picked up along the way. I can't believe I'm going home.
Sitting on the bed in the room she rented, she pulled the top off a box and retrieved a file from inside. Flipping through it, she realized she'd already committed it to memory – from the abuse to her father's death. If there was something Sara knew, it was evidence.
The shrill ringing of her phone had Sara jumping, feeling slightly startled. Laughing, she picked it up anticipating Grissom's call, and felt suddenly numb. The caller ID showed BRASS. I love you. Be safe. I love you. Be safe, repeated in her mind as she hit talk.
Hearing Grissom immediately had the panic in her chest dissolving and her heartbeat returning to normal as he said, "For God's sake Jim, why? Explain that to me, huh? Why would I put Sara into the middle of it?"
Their voices were tinny, but she could have sworn it was Ecklie who replied, "Because we're out of options. We're talking about Warrick's life here." She pulled a sharp intake of breath when he continued, "He's barely hanging on by a threat. We'll be lucky if that thread doesn't snap sometime during the night and we lose him."
"A shot through the neck and another through the chest," Brass stated, his voice clear, indicating he probably held the phone somewhere close by.
She felt stunned, anguished, and every emotion in between. Warrick. Hurt. Worse – almost dead. Sinking to the edge of the bed, her hand trembled while she held the phone and the bright lights of the room dimmed in her vision.
"So what do you want to do?" Brass asked. "We need an idea pretty damn quick."
Sara listened to silence pervade, until she heard a very quiet, "It's the best option, Gil. We'll make sure she's safe."
Jim's voice came through loud in clear at that point, when he said, "Sara? Are you up for playing nursemaid?"
She had to choke back the lump in her throat before replying, "I won't wear the uniform."
The fury was evident in Grissom's growling, "Jim, what did you do?" More calmly, he asked, "Sara? Honey? We'll find something else. We'll figure out…"
"Gil," she interrupted. "This way will work. Take the phone off speaker. I want to talk to you."
It took a few clicks through the receiver and the sound of Grissom walking up the stairs from the kitchen to sit on the couch before he spoke. "Sara," he breathed out, unsure how to explain the insanity of the past few days. "Warrick…"
"I know. I heard. You need to fill me in a little more, though, okay?"
He did just that, explaining about Warrick being set up for murder, breakfast at Frank's, Nick finding Warrick…
"You think it's cops," she extrapolated from his factual recount of events. "I would, too."
Silence reigned between them for a couple of minutes, until she said, "Sweetheart, I want you to answer a question for me. And don't freak out just because I'm bringing the subject up." Drawing in a breath, she asked, "What was the hardest part of locating Natalie Davis?"
The mention of the miniature killer had Grissom stomach clenching as it always did. He removed his glasses, tossing them on the coffee table in front of him. Rubbing his eyes, he replied, "Judges don't like giving out foster child information, so we had to go in with some pretty damn good proof and a name to get anything on any of Ernie Dell's fosters."
"Right," she replied. "Now think about it. Mike's in the Navy. If we couldn't find a serial killer because she was a foster child, how do you expect anyone to find me at my foster brother's beach house in southern California? It's not even his main residence."
"Sara, the fewer the people…"
"Don't worry about it, Gil. I trust Mike. He'll need to know, but there's no reason to bring his wife or kids into it. No one will ever find us," Sara said, trying to sound confident, even though her nerves hummed and goose bumps raised on her skin.
The tension of the last hours was simply too much and her arguments too reasonable to do much more than give in, and he felt fatigue seep into every bone. "Okay," he quietly said. "We'll figure out on our end how we manage the transfer."
Brass and Ecklie listened to Grissom's half of the conversation, both giving sighs of relief at the CSI's acquiescence. However, his next statements brought a hell of a lot of clarity to some of Grissom's arguments.
"I miss you," he murmured. Resigned, Grissom added, "So much for coming home, hon. I know you're eager to leave it all behind you, so I need to know you're going to be okay out there."
"It'll help to get away from the Bay Area," Sara replied. "If I can't be in Vegas, the beach house is a good alternative. Just do me a favor?"
"Anything."
"If it's possible… come see me. You have no idea how much I just need to see and touch you," she said, hoping she didn't come across as eager as she felt.
"I'll do what I can," he replied. "Besides, you'll be seeing me soon anyway. I assume you're coming home for Warrick's funeral."
Her quick intake of breath had him quickly adding, "He's alive, but if we fake his death…"
"You'll need a funeral," Sara finished for him. "I love you, Gil."
Running his hand over his face, Grissom felt the adrenaline that had kept him going wane to nothing, and along with the aches he was having a difficult time keeping himself from crumpling. "I love you too," he said.
Standing on the stairs, Brass winced and shifted uncomfortably, making the step squeak a little. It was pretty obvious when Grissom sat up straight that the CSI hadn't realized he had an audience, and Brass's wince became more painful.
"I'll call again soon," Grissom murmured. Pressing the End button on Brass's cell phone, he reached his arm back without ever turning his body.
Brass grabbed his phone from Grissom's outstretched hand and tentatively said, "So. Sara was coming home."
"'Was' being the operative word. She's all for sending Warrick to her and has a plan of her own. Only the three of us and Al will have a clue where she and Warrick are staying," Grissom stated. "No one is to know." Turning, he faced Ecklie and Brass. Understood?"
X X X
Warrick gave Sara an accusing look as he continued to lean forward on the couch, using his hands to say, "You were going home? You never told me."
"Look, what would it have mattered if I'd told you or not?" she replied. Her voice softened when she said, "Your life was more important."
"The funeral was an interesting affair," Ecklie interjected, trying to change the subject. He grimaced when he continued, "You have no idea how paranoid I was that someone was going to find out just how much gel I'd removed from the lab to create the dummy we buried. Then there was Warrick," and the assistant lab director gave a nod in his direction. "You weren't doing great in the private facility Al had arranged, but had healed enough to transport."
"You know, I'd never driven a U-Haul truck before, let alone one equipped with a massive amount of working medical equipment and a private nurse," Sara said lightly. "Sorry about the rough ride, Rick. At least I only bounced you off the gurney twice. It could've been worse."