I'm sorry it took so long.

Fluff is most definitely easier and quicker to write and the work on this story isn't a straight line, there's bits and pieces I have and I gotta put them together to make sense of them, so updates will come neither quick nor in any kind of pattern.

Ah, and there's life getting in the way more frequently than I'd care to admit as of late. The ups and downs of becoming a responsible adult one of these days. Probably. Eventually. Hopefully...

4. No consolation

With a low beeping sound the iron gate slowly rattled open.

Eli took a deep breath, steeling herself for what she was about to do, who she was about to face and talk to and walked into the facility. It almost smelt like a hospital, but more violent, headier, it made her gag and the omnipresent nausea gradually increased with every step she took forward.

She'd planned for this to happen, for this very moment to come. But oh how different she'd imagined it.

Twisting the platinum band on her ring finger, she felt that darkness settle upon her again. That nothingness. The deep pure sense of loss that had gotten a hold of her heart, that made it difficult to breathe, difficult to think, difficult to feel anything apart from it. She as a whole felt lost.

There should have been a sense of triumph surrounding her when she stepped in here, she should have been armed with the knowledge and security that not a single word that could be thrown into her face would harm her. Enveloped in the warmth that sprung from the love she felt, from the bond she'd have had just verified with her signature. She'd imagined the look on the other woman's face when she'd have introduced herself as Det. Elisabeth Sidle. A look of utter disbelief, shock, frustration, maybe disgust, and yes, maybe defeat.

But then she didn't even know whether Laura Sidle was still lucid enough to even grab what was going on. She didn't know how sick the woman really was, what drugs she was given, she just knew Sara's mother was a schizophrenic. Sick in so many more ways than one.

Now, now she just needed to see her. Something had driven her here and she couldn't explain the sudden urge that had let her drive out here, despite a blood alcohol level that was way beyond legal limits. She'd just had enough time to sober up, down a small carton of milk and chew a few cinnamon gums. And smoke about another pack, roughly.

Who was counting anyways.

As she sat down on the seat that was bolted to the floor in the small room that looked suspiciously similar to their interrogation rooms in Vegas, she shivered and felt the sharp sting of oncoming tears again. This was so wrong. She just didn't have the strength. She didn't even have a plan.

Yet this woman was the only connection left. The only thing she could still do, face her.

She could not cry, not now, not here, not with the talk she had to do ahead of her, she just could not show any emotion for the next ten minutes.

A side door was opened and in, hunched over and cuffed, walked a skinny woman, about sixty, her long dark brown hair showing only first strains of silver, her hands calloused, nails bitten down to the skin, she was pale and the plain jumpsuit she wore was at least three sizes too big.

When she looked up though, Eli involuntarily gasped.

Piercing brown eyes seized her up immediately, they weren't clouded, they sparkled with mischief and curiosity. With an intelligence and clarity Eli hadn't suspected she'd find in them. With insight. Like she'd seen right through her at first glance. Like Eli was made of light, thin glass and everything that roared inside was on bright display for this woman to read like a fresh of the press newspaper. Printed in bold letters.

The warden guided the woman to the seat opposite from Eli at the metal table and his last glance toward his convict said 'Behave!'.

Eli nodded towards him and with a skeptically raised brow, he hesitantly left the two alone and closed the door behind himself with a soft click.

Two pairs of brown eyes met and the gaze was held for a long time.

So similar. Chains and jumpsuit aside, it was like catching a glimpse into a future that would never exist.

The years had been surprisingly kind to Laura Sidle, that Eli had to admit. And just like Eli herself appeared to be the spitting image of her father, Sara had been the same to her mother. Right down to the gap between their front teeth.

"Who are you?" Laura's voice was even equally low and raspy, even more so, Eli suspected she had smoked heavily for a big part of her life.

She still held eye contact without so much as blinking and waited.

"I'm Detective Elisabeth Trent. I've come with bad news, I'm afraid, Mrs. Sidle."

Laura cocked her head just the slightest bit and amusement shone in her eyes and expression.

"What kind of bad news could you possibly deliver to a woman held in a psychiatric ward in prison? I have no life outside these walls, so nothing that happens there could affect me in any kind of way, Detective."

Eli felt her own stare grow colder.

"You have a daughter outside."

Laura Sidle's eyelids twitched but she didn't react verbally.

Taking in her reaction, Eli changed her approach.

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Sidle, that wasn't correct, you had a daughter. I came here to inform you that Sara has died."

For a second there was something close to remorse visible in those dark brown eyes, but Laura caught herself just in time. Hadn't they been staring at each other so intensely, Eli might have missed her momentary slip.

"My daughter has died a long time ago, Det. Trent. She was dead to me the day she made me kill my husband. Her physical death is not important to me."

Schizophrenic or not, the light tremble in Laura Sidle's voice was a result of Eli's news. It did affect her.

"Don't you even want to know how she died? Don't you want to know who she was, how she lived, what she'd achieved?"

Eli was getting impatient, and she was getting angry. She'd sworn herself to remain calm, to not give her upper hand up. To stomp Laura Sidle into the ground and see her writhe. Despite the altered circumstances. But she had just traded those cards for a much worse hand.

The small grin that tore at Laura's lips told her she'd lost this game.

"I know who my daughter was. And I know why you're here, Detective. You wanted to rub in my face what a great person she has become, despite what she'd sure told you about her oh so bad and abusive childhood. The lack of love in her life. Did you want to see the monster that did all that to her yourself? Tell me, Elisabeth, when you lay beside her at night, did you ever, just for a moment of weakness and doubt, wonder if she might after all be capable of doing the same things her parents did? If you were really safe with her? When you fought, did you feel the nagging fear that she might have been only a heartbeat, one wrong word away from getting physical with you? Did you ever flinch when she approached you from behind? Or did she express herself in other ways? Because no matter how civil she's on the outside, she was a Sidle. She was ours and she would have turned out the same way. It's good she died on you before she could make you her bitch. Because she would have. And you would have let her. You're wasting my time. There is nothing to gloat about. Guard!"

"No, stay outside!" Eli yelled and the door handle didn't move.

She fought to catch her breath.

She had expected a lot, but not that. How could she suspect things like that? How could she have even known that she was involved with Sara intimately?

"You know what, Laura? You're wrong. You didn't know her. You might've kept tags on her career, but you don't know what kind of person she was. Never for a second did I think such things about Sara. I trusted her with everything. I trusted her with my life, my heart and my body. She wasn't like you or her dad and she never would have. We were engaged. I was going to take on her name. There was going to be a new generation of Sidles, we'd be eradicating the past. Your violence lost its influence long ago, whether you believe it or not. She's evolved so far beyond the realms of her childhood and your reign over her has ended long ago. How does it feel to know that you haven't succeeded? That she's overcome those predicaments? That she had the love in her life you never had, the support your husband never gave you, that she would've had the family you may have dreamt of before things went down the drain. How does that feel?"

Laura looked up at Eli who had been towering over her, had been getting up to deliver those last words. She sneered.

"All I feel is pity. For you, Det. You'll never know you were wrong in your assumptions. I tell you though. That doubt will always be there. And she's gone and can neither prove me nor you right. So I guess we'll never know. I sure don't care. But you do. You will suffer for the rest of your life. Go back to the hell of your life. Don't come back. You won't find any peace here nor anywhere else. And your grief and doubt will kill you in time. You're not as strong as we are. You wearing the name Sidle would have been a disgrace. Now if you'd excuse me, it's time for my medication. This conversation is over."

Laura Sidle turned and got up, knocking at the grey door for the guard to come and get her.

Eli still hovered over the table and willed herself to not lunge and shove that woman into the wall, punch her until there was nothing left but blood and grey matter covering her hands.

Yet she only lifted her gaze, frowning at her dead lover's mother.

"Laura. What gave me away?"

Eli asked under her breath.

"The love in your eyes. I may be a bit crazy, but I'm not blind. So much silly love and you wasted it on her. Poor dyke you are. So trusting, huh? You're pathetic."

She hadn't even faced her to speak those words. The door fell into its lock and everything was quiet around Eli.

Along with the nausea the feeling of suffocation resurfaced. Eli barely made it out of the building, out of the gates before she dropped to her knees and threw up, heaving, crying, banging her fist into the sandy road.

She had never, not for a single second doubted Sara. She had been sure, so damn sure that Sara was nothing like her parents, had spent so much time trying to convince Sara of the same. And she thought she had succeeded. No, she knew she had succeeded. She would have had a whole house full of children with her and she'd never have wondered if or when Sara would flip. Never.

But Laura had seemed just as sure of the opposite. So nonchalant in her conviction, there was no doubt in her that Sara was just the same. With that dark, manipulative, condescending, violent side to herself.

Eli wiped her mouth off on her shirt-sleeve and walked unsteadily over to her car.

That wasn't how it was supposed to go. That wasn't how she was supposed to feel, why she'd come here.

She thought she could prove something to herself. Dull the grief by triumphing over Sara's mother. Push some of the pain off to someone else. Pain she just didn't want to feel, didn't want to rationalize. Not now, not ever.

Now the pain was worsened by that tingling sensation of doubt. Another prison she'd built for herself by allowing Laura's words to get to her. One more thing she'd have to face, one day.

No.

She couldn't let that woman win yet another round. Do that to Sara even beyond her death. Stomp on her grave that wasn't even dug yet by making her doubt. She wouldn't allow this feeling to get into her thoughts. Her memory of Sara had to remain unscathed.

Eli willed the harsh wave of grief away that dared to crash over her. She'd never find her way back to the surface if she allowed it to break over her.

She had things that needed taking care of. No time to wallow in pain now. Sara was gone and that was a fact she just had to live with.

But she could choose not to be reminded of it so poignantly every day.

She lit up, inhaled deeply around the bitter taste of bile and fear and turned the key in the ignition.

Back to Vegas, for one last time.

They still hadn't exchanged a single word. Her phone had never rung, Leonard had returned to Vegas since Eli hadn't shown up in San Francisco the next day and Sofia only knew that Eli was back at all because she'd been driving over to her and Sara's place, just to check, just because she simply couldn't calm herself enough to find some sleep and the Impala had been standing in its usual spot as she drove down the dark street.

Trent had spoken to no one since she had showed up at the funeral home with a thin grey folder and had made it unmistakably clear to Catherine and Grissom that from that moment on, all decisions about Sara's funeral were hers and hers alone. She'd more or less dismissed them. Not one personal word had been exchanged and Catherine had been fuming. And had asked herself honestly if she and Eli had really been such good friends just a couple of days prior. Because there sure as hell wasn't an ounce of friendliness left in Eli's demeanor.

Sofia'd heard from Brass that Eli had handed in her two-week's notice and had then told the Captain to take those two weeks out of her vacation time and that she'd never set foot in the department again, had smashed her badge and gun on the table and had left the Department without so much as a glance back.

The way Brass described the situation, he had never seen the Detective that rude and commanding. He still had lenience with her, but just because of her loss. Personally, he was uncomfortably frightened by what Sara's death seemed to have done to his youngest Detective.

She'd tried calling Eli, but every single one of her calls had been forwarded to the mailbox after a couple of rings.

It was odd how just a couple of nights after Sara's death, she found herself at a crime scene with Nick and Greg, both looking worse for wear, yet setting to work like nothing had changed.

The clocks didn't stop for personal tragedies. Crime didn't take a day or two off to give them time to recuperate at least a bit. And grave was short now. Same work, less hands, eyes, brains. And a brilliant one at that.

Sofia had finally managed to find some sleep. Or she had passed out from the sheer physical and mental exhaustion. But she'd slept bad, had gotten tangled in her sheets and covers, bathed in sweat, had woken up every 15 or 20 minutes just to pass out again after a sip of cool water and another wave of grief and worry. Sometimes tears. Her dreams were filled with vague pictures, sobs and sniffs, yells of pain and shock. She woke up trembling again. She suffered for Eli, she knew there was no other reason for her to feel this way, she hadn't been witness to the scene.

If she would only talk to her. If she'd only be able to see her, to make herself a picture of the state her friend was in. But no one had seen Eli in days, the service was scheduled for the day after the next and she knew Eli would not come back. Not only to work, but also into all their lives. She'd quit. Everything. She'd leave Las Vegas, that Sofia was sure of.

And she would let her, she had no means to stop Eli from fleeing, from running away. From everything and everyone. From her.

It was indeed a remarkable change had taken place within Eli. Even now, as she accompanied the urn being taken into the chapel, her facial expression never changed from the stoic and hard mask Sofia had seen her put on that night on the hospital grounds.

Eli had lost weight, even within this short amount of time. She was dressed completely in black, suit, shirt, tie, everything.

Any other day Sofia's mind would have come up with the words stunning and impeccable, as always, and she was, but today she looked like a ghost. Aloof, emotionless, almost arrogant in her demeanor. Not a crease in her clothes, not a lock lying in the wrong way, her deep black ray bans shielded her eyes from curious glances and she only put them down as the last note of Mozart's Requiem mass in D minor had faded and the Reverend started by reciting the 23rd Psalm.

It was as if Eli had tuned out all feeling. She merely functioned, had switched into auto-mode to survive. Kept this hard facade so nothing and no one could get to her.

Strangely there had been no media in sight, though the whole case had made a huge scandal. It was equally disturbing that apart from Ecklie and Undersheriff McKeen, there were no Department officials present. Only friends and colleagues, acquaintances, a few faces Sofia had never seen before and whom she suspected to be Sara's friends from a time before she'd moved to Vegas and who, judging by her looks, could only could be Eli's mother in one of the rows in the back.

Actually, Sofia almost had a wry smile on her lips at the thought, Sara would have liked that there was no big fuzz. The music was tasteful and unobtrusive, a lone woman with a very warm mezzo-soprano sung the Ave Maria and the Reverend's words were fitting and humble.

Grissom went up and spoke warm words about the meaning of Sara's work, her dedication and her skills, her career and what her loss signified to all of her colleagues. He praised her and put the greatest emphasis on just how much she'd be missed. Being all Grissom-y, still, despite the grief that shone in his eyes and his sometimes so shaky voice. Showing only to those who knew where to look for it just how much Sara had meant to him.

So far, so, well, to be exspected.

It was as Eli went up to speak her eulogy, that everyone held their breath in anticipation.

Every movement Eli made was poignant and graceful, she never faltered, never hesitated, never stalled or stuttered. She was calm and collected. Too composed. But her words expressed what her actions could not.

"I thank you all so much for being here today. It was Sara's explicit wish to keep this as small as possible and I'm eternally grateful for the Departments cooperation in granting her that. She also wanted Grissom to speak about her professionally and me to speak her private eulogy, and who am I to deny her that wish, even though I am at a loss for words and Dr. Grissom has already echoed all our sentiments in wonderful words."

She looked up from her notes and let her gaze sweep through the room, making short eye-contact with almost everyone.

"So I decided I want you all to see the side of her she barely showed, surely not at work, and seldom even when she was in the safety amongst her friends. But she showed me. I want you all to have a different image of her in mind when you are going to leave here today."

The screen behind Eli now showed a picture of Sara.

And Sofia gasped.

It couldn't be that old, Sara looked almost the same as she remembered her, but so very different. She half kneeled in the middle of a small strawberry bed, holding a deep red fruit up in one hand while the other kept her balance on her left thigh. She wore old, torn and faded blue jeans, a loose mustard coloured tank top that said 'bay girl' above a surfboard, her hair was in a messy ponytail and a few strands had fallen into her face that radiated with the biggest gap toothed grin Sofia had ever seen on her, her eyes shone with love and beamed right into the camera lens. She seemed so young and carefree, completely unguarded and genuinely happy.

Sofia felt the moisture well up in her eyes and as she looked around, she wasn't the only one who was fighting with tears once again, Catherine held a tissue to her eyes while Leonard's arm was wrapped tightly and protectively around her, Grissom blinked furiously, Greg made no attempt hiding his openly flowing tears, Warrick clenched his jaw and swallowed and Nick ran the back of his hand over his eyes repeatedly.

As Eli raised her voice again, it was filled with so much love that it made Sofia shudder to the core. Yet Eli's face was still an unmoved mask, scaringly so, contrasting her words almost violently.

"Love, I know you've never been a very religious person, but you know that to a certain extent, I am. And I know, I know that He has welcomed you with open arms. I know you're fine. That's my one and only consolation.

To my utter surprise, your love knew no boundaries. You've given it all to me and I assure you, I have cherished every single day. You've had so much to give, you were the gentlest soul that has ever crossed my path and I feel honoured you chose me, of all people, to spent your life with. And to promise me your future. It's been ten weeks, three days, seven hours and -" she stopped to take a look at her watch. "22 minutes since you asked me to marry you. In a gesture that mirrored everything you were. Pragmatic, yet beautiful, with few words, yet what they conveyed was so full of meaning, a bit shy, yet with so much love that my heart dared to burst out of my chest at the luck to have you in my life, after all those messes we've made. Words cannot express how much I love you. And I'm sorry, so sorry that you didn't live to see the day when the dreams you still had would come true. I know you rarely spoke of them, not even to me, let alone to anyone else. But I know they existed. A few you shared. Like the song you wanted to have played as the opening dance. Like that someday, you'd love to teach at a university. Like how you'd love to drive a real race car. Others I just know. No matter how much the thought scared you in some ways, you wanted a child. I could hear that clock ticking, my love, even though you used to deny it vehemently. You wanted to travel. You wanted to find the time to learn more about photography, about art. And deep down inside, you wanted to move back to the seaside, one day.

You were so much more than just work, science and justice. You were playful and foolish, afraid and insecure, caring and protective, stubborn and a bit of a smart-ass, gracious and modest, loving and honest, so smart and your instincts were seldom wrong. Your love was a gift and your laughter was the most beautiful sound I will ever have heard.

I'll miss you. I'll miss you with every single beat of my heart, because it doesn't know why it's even beating anymore since you've been gone and I don't know where to go from here without you by my side.

You wanted to be buried in California and that's where I am going to take you. Our last journey. But my love is yours until the day we'll meet again. I love you, Sara Sidle."

And almost too quiet to be understood, Eli added:

"There was a note on which Sara had jotted down a quote. Let me share this with you."

She cleared her throat and spoke loud and clear from memory.

"What is Death?
Death is nothing at all.
I have only slipped away into the next room.
I am I and you are you.
Whatever we were to each other,
that we still are.

Call me by my old familiar name.
Speak to me in the easy way
which you always used.
Put no difference in your tone.
Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.

Laugh as we always laughed
at the little jokes we enjoyed together.
Play, smile, think of me, pray for me.
Let my name be ever the household word
that it always was.
Let it be spoken without affect,
without the trace of a shadow on it.

Life means all that it ever meant.
It is the same that it ever was.
There is absolutely unbroken continuity.
Why should I be out of mind
because I am out of sight?

I am waiting for you,
for an interval,
somewhere very near,
just around the corner.

All is well."

There was a silence that seemed impenetrable. Like everyone was holding their breaths at the intimacy of the moment they'd just shared.

Eli clicked the projector off and left the chapel, not caring about the parting words of the Reverend, nor the many looks that followed her or the occasional sob that was heard now.

No longer able to take that silent treatment, to be completely ignored, that irreverence Eli showed towards her, Sofia got up and followed her outside.

Eli stood by a nearby tree, cigarette in her hand, shades back on. The bright, almost scalding midday sunlight ridiculing the darkness that oozed off the former Detective. When she saw Sofia exit she immediately turned away.

"Eli..." she carefully tried, but words just failed her.

"Don't. I don't want to talk to you, Sofia."

Taken aback, but fueled on by her increasing anger that had been building ever since she'd been shoved away in the rain, she tried again.

"And I don't care. I can't stand to see you like that. I'm there for you, always, talk to me, Eli."

With her back still towards her, she heard Eli snort.

"I'm happy to tell you you won't have to see me like this for much longer. I appreciate your concern, I really do, but I don't want it, I never asked you to be my minder. You're not, Sofia, get over it. Go on living your life, you don't have to worry about me. I'm a big girl and I can take care of myself, I assure you that."

Finally, Eli turned and took of her sunglasses to face a shell-shocked Sofia Curtis, who fought to hold back tears of frustration, of anger, of disappointment once more.

Eli's dark brown eyes spoke to her, voiced at least some feeling, just like her words in the chapel had conveyed the feelings Eli was so reluctant, yes, so unable to let herself feel, to express in any other way. Letting Sofia see that she'd store it all away, keep a tight lid on the boiling pot inside her that dared to spill over with a desperation no one should ever see in a friend's eyes. Telling her that she'd rather get herself drowned in this denial than to open those gates and feel the weight of her loss. The switch had been turned. Eli had shut out all feeling. ALL feeling. She couldn't be a friend anymore. If she'd feel this, everything else would come crashing down on her, too.

"You have been a great friend, Sofia, and I will treasure what we've had, what we've experienced together. Thank you for trusting me. But it's all over now. I promise you, I'll be okay. I won't do anything stupid. Trust me. But I'm going back to San Francisco. This is good-bye, Lt. Curtis."

And once again, Sofia just stood there and shivered despite the desert heat surrounding her, watched Eli climb into her car and drive off.

In a way, Sofia understood. In a way, she even sympathized. But seeing and realizing what going on like this did to Eli, would do to her in the future sent a blazing ball of anxiety down her spine.

In the long run, it would destroy Eli.

And right now she just didn't have the slightest idea with which means to stop that from happening.

The quote is Henry Scott Holland.

I've never been this nervous about a story before. So I'd love to have some honest feedback, please.