Part IV
"You look like a perfect fit
For a girl in need of a tourniquet"
--Aimee Mann, Save Me
Jim Brass dealt with the paramedics and the police. As Sara sunk to the living room floor, numb, she didn't even question why the detective was in California and outside of her cottage on a chilly winter night.
The EMTs bypassed her and the dog who had taken his seat next to Sara, guarding the only living person he knew. She sniffed and noticed the glint of the dog's collar. Turning the thin piece of metal around in her hand, Sara read out the carefully etched name. "Lady," she whispered.
Lady began to growl when Jim approached them. Sara placed a steady hand on the dog's back and it was quiet once more as her old friend kneeled in front of her.
"Sara?"
She could barely hear his voice. Her ears felt like they were stuffed with cotton. Her head felt heavy. Sara raised her brows. "Hmm?"
"How far along is she?"
"Hmm?"
"The paramedics need to know," Brass said, the urgency in his voice slicing through the gentle tones he was forcing himself to use. "When's the baby due?"
Sara looked over to Ana, who had been loaded onto a gurney despite the fact that she was dead. They had wrapped much her head in gauze -- probably to prevent anything else from seeping out of her wound as they transported her to the hospital. If she didn't know better, she'd think that Ana were alive, that they were just taking her to the hospital for a bump on the head and nothing more.
"I don't know," she said softly.
Jim rubbed his hand over his mouth and looked away for a moment. "Okay. Okay…let's get you out of here. I'm going to take you back to your house and then we'll figure out where to go from there."
She blinked at him. "But…the hospital. I have to go to the hospital."
His eyes searched her, confused. "Are you hurt? What's wrong?"
"The baby," she said, getting up from her place on the floor. The dog followed suit. "I've gotta make sure…I've gotta know…" She couldn't let Ana down. She couldn't…she couldn't…
Brass's hands encircled her upper arms and he held her still. "Sara…" he began, but stopped suddenly and let go of her. "Okay. Let's go get your coat and we'll head to the hospital. Wait here a minute while I talk to the police officers. They're going to need to take a statement from you in a little bit."
She numbly nodded at him and stood where he left her as he talked to the police officers who were canvassing the scene. Lady nudged Sara's hand with her wet nose and whimpered. Mindlessly, she ran her fingers through the dog's coat to soothe while she waited for Brass to return. She felt drunk. She felt like all of the sounds around her were out of sync, and all of the words failed to match up with the mouths that were speaking them. Her world was spinning, and the colors and shapes ran together until all she saw was black.
She hit the ground before she knew it.
"I'm so tired
Sheep are counting me"
--Fugazi, I'm So Tired
She awoke to a distant buzzing of voices and intercoms, but it was the smell that gave away her location. She'd know that smell anywhere. The sting of disinfectant filled her nostrils, the tragic familiarity triggering an overload of memories: her mother lying to the ER doctor about a broken clavicle, the first rape kit she performed on a sobbing teenage girl as a rookie CSI, talking to Holly Gribbs' doctors in Vegas, holding Greg's hand as he recovered from his assault, and Grissom…
Grissom holding her good hand while she lay in a hospital bed months earlier.
She opened her eyes.
Her room was empty.
Sara sat up in bed, relieved to see that she was still wearing her own clothes. Dimly, she heard Brass's voice coming from the hallway. She got up from the bed to find him. He was deep in conversation on his cell phone when he saw her standing in the doorway of her room.
"What are you doing out of bed?" he asked hurriedly, covering the receiver of the phone.
"Who are you talking to?"
"I'll call you back in five minutes, okay? Thanks. Thanks," he said once more into the phone before snapping it shut. "The police," he answered, ushering her back into her room.
She exhaled deeply.
"Lay down," he instructed.
"I'm not sick. Where's Ana? The baby…" She began looking around her hospital room as if they'd materialize in front of her eyes.
"Sit down, Sara," Brass said softly. "The baby is in the NICU. They delivered him about an hour ago."
"I want to see him," she said, moving to get up from the bed. He held her down.
"I think you should rest."
"I've been resting for months," she said, standing once more. She didn't know why, but she needed to see the baby, to know he was okay, to know that she had done something for Ana.
"Come on," Brass sighed, shaking his head. "I'll take you."
Wordlessly, he led her through a maze of hallways to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. They stopped at a large window outside of a room filled with beeping glass bassinets. "He's right there, in that one," Brass said, pointing his finger to the far corner of the room.
"I can't see him," she whispered.
"He's right there."
Sara searched for some sign of a baby amidst the wires. "I don't see him…" she said, shaking her head, but just as the words left her mouth, she saw a foot twitch. "Is that…is that him? He's…he's so tiny." The baby was dwarfed by the tubes going in and out of his body.
"He's premature," Brass said simply. "Two pounds. His lungs are…underdeveloped."
Sara looked at him, worried. "Will he be okay?" she asked desperately, her voice shaky as she pressed a hand against the glass.
"The doctors are doing everything they can, Sara."
Everything they can…
That was code for We have no idea what's going to happen. No idea. Ana was dead and her baby could soon share her fate.
Murdered.
By his father.
Sara could feel her knees tremble. For months she had lived yards away from the couple while she wallowed in her own troubles and relived former horrors. For weeks she had seen Ana almost every day, had welcomed the woman into her home and all the while it was Ana who was living a nightmare.
And she had done nothing.
Sara had just…let it happen.
Her body began to waver and, instinctively, she steadied herself against the glass. "It's…it's my fault," she breathed.
"No," Brass said quickly, clutching her arm and leading her to a nearby bench. "No, it isn't."
"I should've noticed. I should've…done something." Her cheeks were wet before she realized she was crying. "Every day," she sobbed. "I saw her every day and…now…" The image of the tiny baby boy flooded her mind. He was fighting for his life when he should've been safe in his mother's womb. He was forced onto this earth too early, born an orphan. "It's my fault," she said, weeping into Brass's shoulder as he held her.
He slowly led her to a standing position before motioning for a nurse. Sara faintly heard the words "sedative" and "Room 366" but was already half way to her bed before she realized where she was going. "I can't leave him," she said firmly, wiping her wet cheeks with her sleeve. "I can't leave him alone. He's alone," she cried. "All alone."
Brass guided her into her hospital bed and nodded while he tugged up one of her sleeves. "I'll go stay with him, okay? I won't let him leave my sight. Okay, Sara?" he said, holding her arm still while the nurse stuck her with a needle. "I'll stay with him. I promise. Okay?"
She sniffled, feeling tired from the crying, tired from whatever it was the nurse gave her, tired from her thirty-six years…
"Don't leave him alone," she said sleepily as she lay back in bed.
"I won't," Brass assured her. He squeezed her hand as her eyelids began to droop. "Grissom is on his way."
Sara opened her sleepy eyes. "Grissom?"
"Yes. He's going to be here soon."
"Why you?"
Brass shook his head. "Why me, what?"
"Why you and not Grissom?"
"Ellie, my daughter – she lives in Oakland . I visit her a couple of times a month," he said soothingly, as if he were reciting a bedtime story. "Grissom asked me to check on you."
"So you're the shadows."
"The shadows, Sara?"
"I see shadows. The shadows," she yawned. "I'd pretend they were him." Exhaustion enveloped her like a warm bath. "My Grissom."
TBC…