Chapter Four – Dead End Road

"Give me the gun."

"Why?"

"So we can sort all this out and leave here safely. I don't think you really want to hurt anyone Richard."

"Don't I?"

"No, you don't. I've met homicidal maniacs before and in comparison, you're normal."

"If this is normal, I don't want it."

Sara smiled slightly, cocking her head towards him.

"Fair enough. But you really do need to give me the gun."

"Please go and sit with the others Sara. I know what you're trying to do but it's not going to work."

Sara took a deep breath and tried one last time to get through the barrier that this poor man had put around himself.

"Richard, do you really think that Hannah would want this?"

He moved so quickly that Sara had no time to react. His fist sunk into her stomach, pushing the wind out of her and making her curl on the floor in the fetal position. As the stars of pain exploded behind her eyelids, she heard Grissom shout her name before cursing his brother. When she raised her head, Grissom was standing, his fists clenched at his sides.

"Richard, I want you to leave now."

"No Gilly! I am staying until I prove my point."

Richard swung the gun at Grissom but he was prepared this time, grabbing his younger brother's wrist. The two men tussled but Richard pushed back from his brother, his eyes locking with his mother's again. He slowly raised the gun to his temple.

"Richard! Stop!"

Grissom's voice halted Richard's actions, getting his attention.

"Please don't. We've made mistakes; we all have but please don't do this. You can be so much more."

"No I can't Gilly. How can I be when I can't even master the most basic act of being a good son?"

"But you could be Richard. Please put the gun down."

"I'm sorry Gilly, for everything. You and mom were not the problem, I was. And I'm sorry for being a burden for so long. Bury me with my little girl."

And with that, Richard pulled the trigger. His body teetered for a second before falling to the ground, his blood pooling beneath him. Without even realizing what she was doing, Sara began to scream, a thin, piercing sound that tore at her throat. Grissom sat beside his brother's body, pulling him to his chest and like a child, he began to weep.

Grissom was still outside speaking to the police and Sara was huddled in the kitchen, trying to get warm. Francesca had been given a strong sedative to help her calm down and Albert had carried her to bed an hour ago. Over and over again, she watched Richard's body fall. She had stuffed it up, by mentioning Hannah, she had pushed him over the edge and now he was dead. She heard Grissom come through the front door and turned to talk to him. He was ghostly white, his shirt, arms, pants smeared with his brother's blood.

"Grissom is everything sorted?"

He nodded, his eyes still locked on the table. Sara took his hand and led him up to their room, pulling him into the bathroom. She ran some hot water in the sink before beginning to take off his shirt. She wiped down his chest and arms, trying to get rid of any prove that this had happened, trying to get the image out of her own mind. She gently stroked up his arms and around his neck and face before toweling him dry. She then removed his pants and began getting the small streaks of blood over his knees and thighs. He stood silently throughout the entire procedure, his eyes locked on the wall in front of him, vacant and unseeing. She touched his face with her fingers, searching his eyes for something, for anything that remained.

"Grissom? Talk to me."

Grissom finally looked at her. He opened his mouth to speak but whatever words he was about to say were lost in a torrent of tears. He let her hold him, his face in her neck, the tears hot on her skin. They stayed that way for awhile before he finally pulled back, his face still streaked with tears. He said nothing as he leant in to kiss her but this kiss was different. Normally, his kisses were gentle but this, this was nothing but desperation. His tongue pushed against her lips, his hands tearing at her clothes, his hands pushing at her flesh. She let him bite and suck at her skin, knowing that this is had nothing to do with sex and love, this was about Grissom finding comfort in something he knew, something that was beyond this entire situation. He wanted familiarity where nothing but pain and confusion existed. She allowed him that, allowed him to find comfort in her and in them.

The next morning Sara awoke to an empty bed. The birds were singing loudly outside and the sun shone bright in the sky, but Sara still felt cold. She shook as she put on her clothes, her stomach still sore from Richard's punch. It had sprung into a colourful bruise that spread almost to her hips. After getting dressed she headed downstairs, trying to fill the void with the morning routine of coffee. She poured herself and mug and took it outside, the sun bright against her tired eyes and sore skin. It was outside looking into nothingness that she spotted the small stream of smoke that appeared from behind a large oak tree. When she arrived to the other side of it, she discovered Grissom sitting on the hard ground, smoke pluming from his lips.

"You're smoking?"

"Richard was right, I had quit. But I felt the need for one this morning."

"Got one for me?"

Grissom looked at her for a moment before extracting another one from the packet and handing it too her with a lighter, watching as she lit it and took a seat beside him. They sat in silence, smoking and enjoying the peace after the night before.

"I never really saw him as a brother"

"What did you see him as?"

"The reason that mom cried. I never felt for him what a normal person would for a sibling. It's almost as if I knew that it would all go wrong."

Sara said nothing, letting her hand rest on his, letting him speak.

"I remember when mom told me she was going to have a baby, which of course brought up the 'where do babies come from' question. She tried to explain it but I ended up looking in some books to find the answer that I wanted. I watched her stomach swell, watched her body change and then when Richard was born, she changed too. She took me everywhere with her, leaving Richard with a sitter. Maybe he was right, maybe she did cause this with the way she treated him."

"Grissom, you know as well as I do that nothing could have stopped this. It's too late for hindsight."

"I should have protected him, he was my little brother. I should have seen it but I was too wrapped up in my own world."

"Gil, you were thirteen when he started being hurt. What were you meant to do?"

"I don't know. I still should have protected him, loved him like he wanted me too."

"Richard was good at hiding things Gil, do you really think he would have told you what was going on?"

"Maybe, if I had been the big brother that I should have been."

"I know you don't believe me and I know that you blame yourself for what happened but there is nothing you could have done. You're a good person Gil and if you had known, if he had told you, you could have done something. But he chose to keep it quiet. It's too late for regrets now. He chose his own way out and there is nothing we can do to change his decision."

Grissom shook his head, snubbing out his smoke and lighting another one. He offered that pack to Sara, who also took another one. She had quit years ago but it had a strange twinge of comfort to it, sitting there smoking under a tree with Grissom, trying to squash the regrets of past actions.

"How is mom going to cope? First she buried the love of her life, her first grandchild and now her son. How does anyone cope with that?"

"Because she's a strong person. She still has you."

"Me? What have I given her? No grandkids and it's taken me this long to have you. There is no reason for her to be happy with the way that things worked out."

Sara could say nothing to Grissom's musings; he had to work through this himself. She could do nothing more except be there for him. And as they sat under the tree, chain smoking, she knew that despite the situation, there was nowhere else she would rather be except by his side.

Things progressed very quickly after the incident with Richard. There was a horrible feeling in the house of death and Sara did everything she could to avoid the living room, despite the fact that the blood was gone; she could still see everything in the room, even where his body fell. She stayed by Grissom's side when he called the funeral home and cemetery, trying to organize Richard's last request to be buried with Hannah, paying extra to do so. His face remained a blank slate and he hardly spoke at all. His shoulders remained straight and hard, he was carrying a burden that no one could remove, the burden that came with guilt and self hatred. Richard had done exactly what he had set to do, making both Francesca and Grissom responsible for his life and his death, even though it was by his own hand that things had ended. Grissom would not allow her to go with him to the coroners office, even though there was no need, they knew what had killed him. He wanted time alone with his brother, perhaps to say sorry, perhaps to beg forgiveness, either way, he went alone. Francesca had shaken her head and broken down again as Grissom tried to explain where he was going and why, she didn't want anything to do with it. She had had enough of the terror that came with Richard's anger and hatred. Sara had sat on the front stoop and watched him drove off, watching as he seeked to close a door that refused to be shut, to close this chapter, to move on.

"How are you doing?"

Albert came to sit beside her, handing her a mug of tea.

"Not good. You?"

"Worried about Francesca. She's had two sedatives already but she's still too panicked to function. She does nothing but cry and there's not a damn thing I can do about."

"Grissom blames himself and he won't listen to anything different."

"Like mother, like son, huh?"

"Something like that. Richard stirred up a lot of old memories, none of them good."

"Does his father know what happened?"

"Yeah, I called him this morning. He didn't have much to say, I think he gave up on Richard a long time ago."

"Nobody had any faith in him, did they?"

"Certainly doesn't look like it."

They sat silently, sipping on their teas as they watched the day progress into afternoon, then dusk. The hours slipped by so fast, Sara was never conscious of the fact that it was hours past when Grissom said that he would be home. She called his cell but he didn't pick up. She left a message and waited for him to answer, which he never did. Lakota was the only one awake when his car finally pulled into the drive somewhere around 3am. He walked into the house, looking surprised when he saw Sara sitting at the table, her arms crossed over her chest.

"What are you still doing up?"

"Waiting for you. Where were you?"

"Out."

He turned his back on her and pretended to be engrossed in cleaning the few mugs in the sink. Sara stood and came behind him, her hand on his arm.

"Grissom, talk to me. Where were you?"

HE sighed and turned, leaning against the sink.

"I think I screwed up."

"Why, what happened?"

"I called Amy, Hannah's mother. I needed to tell her what happened."

"How was she?"

"Better now. She fell into drugs just after Hannah's death. She's been clean for almost three years now."

"Why do you think you screwed up?"

"Because when I told her about what happened with Richard, leaving out every detail that wasn't completely relevant, she broke down. It took so long for me to calm her down and drive her home. I'm just worried that she might do something stupid."

"Is that why you're so late?"

He nodded.

"I stayed with her until she was asleep. I left my cell number beside her bed and a note telling her to call me at anytime. She was crushed Sara."

"Hardly surprising considering the circumstances. Did you get what you wanted at the coroners?"

"I think I did. It turns out that Richard had gone deaf for a short period of time about three years ago and he had the surgery to alter it. We never knew."

Sara pulled him into a hug; ignoring the urge to tell him the same things she had been all day. That he was not to blame for all this, that it was Richard who chose to do things this way, not him. She knew that it would fall on deaf ears, because as far as Grissom was concerned, everything that had progressed the moment Richard had snuck back into the house with a gun, was his fault.