Disclaimer: I do not own CSI.
AN: I thought I'd be evil and update this before I Already Knew. I'm going to go hide now.
I don't flinch when I see his car. I've been expecting him for awhile now. Even before Ruth's death. He respects my decision to completely ignore everyone who gives a damn about me, but he loves me too much to let things go until I get my act together. Part of me wishes that he had just come to my apartment last May and kicked my door down. But that's what Star would have done. They're different people.
It annoys me that I can recognize his car without seeing the license plate. I don't know why. It just does. Actually… right. I felt panicked. Claustrophobic. I'm not ready to talk to him. I'm just not. Like that really matters. He's one of my closest friends. He's not staying in a hotel just because… he's not staying in a hotel.
I open the door to my apartment and walk over to the couch. I collapse on it and rest my forehead on the coffee table. I take a few deep breaths and wait for him to make his presence known. He likes to observe people for a few moments before starting a conversation. After a minute, my calming breaths stop working, so I start.
"I could've sworn I'd changed the locks." I gave him a spare key when I first moved in to this apartment. Ames got the other. When she… when she died I thought about changing the locks. Actually, I'm almost positive I did change them. Of course, even if I did, that wouldn't mean a lot to Riley. We both picked up some things when we were kids. Being able to pick a lock could mean having a warm place to sleep.
"You didn't. I got to use my key." I look up and see that he's moved into the front room, and is sitting in the easy chair. For a moment I calm down. He has the same short, rust-colored hair… the same light brown eyes- for a moment it's a year ago, and everything's perfect.
"I was actually scared, you know. When I realized that the key still worked, I thought I'd find your corpse in here. The empty bottles of sleeping pills didn't do much to comfort me." He's smiling at me, but there's a hint of fear in his voice. He really was scared. Not that I can blame him.
"Did you manage to list a new next of kin?" His voice is the same. Quiet. I remember the day after my suicide attempt. How he sat next to me and asked me why I did it. He was angry, but he didn't show it. I always thought he'd be a good counselor if he didn't have so many of his own issues.
"Next of kin?" He repeats. I tense. If anyone but Riley… but it is Riley. He knows Star. He knows how important she is to me. I can talk to him about her… if I want. He would understand.
Which is probably why him being here is bothering me so much. He understands me. And that scares me just a bit. With Amy… I had to tell her about everything I went through. Riley knew because he practically lived through it with me. I didn't get a choice with him finding out. Amy I trust completely. I trust Riley too, just not on the same level. Amy's presence would never cause me to panic.
"Working on it."
Riley glares at me. "I've let this go for eleven months, Sara. I trust you- to a point- but things can happen. Especially with your job. Things happen. You should do something about listing a new next of kin. Soon. Even if you don't end up in a life or death situation… the doctors would still want to know. And your colleagues- being the helpful people they are- would look it up. How do you think they'd react to a dead person being your next of kin? At the very least, they would find out about Amy. And I don't think you can handle that just yet. You can barely handle me at the moment."
"And you've known him for thirty years."
I rub my neck and avoid looking at him for a moment. When I meet his solemn eyes again, he turns away to stare at the floor. "What have you been doing since she was murdered?"
I flinch and end up following his gaze. I don't like thinking of her as dead. Thinking of her as murdered… I still can't believe that someone was willing to put her through all of that pain. I grit my teeth against the nausea that springs up at the memory of her body torn apart on our living room floor.
"I used Grissom." It's the sort of answer he wants. He wants to know if I've done anything idiotic to keep my sanity. He wants to know how I'm dealing with everything. How I'm not dealing with everything.
"Less of a betrayal than sleeping around with random lookalike strangers, right?"
I nod my head, still looking at the floor. I feel guilty about using Grissom. I feel worse that my own stupidity is what got the ball rolling. When I first asked him out, it was because I needed something or someone to latch onto. Amy wasn't around, and I had known Grissom for years. He respected me, and I respected him. That was it, but for some reason it never crossed my mind that I could ask him out as a friend.
"Jacob at his mother's?" I change the subject abruptly. I haven't seen any sign of the youngest Mitchell since I came in, so I guess he's still in California. Riley isn't the sort of person to hire a baby sitter for longer than a day, so he's probably with his mother. Riley's cheating ex-wife. She doesn't really care about Jacob, but she keeps an eye out for him just to prove that she'd be a better parent than Riley.
"Yeah." Jacob's a good kid. I used to e-mail him and talk to him on the phone a lot. Visiting… not so much. I love Jacob, but he looks so much like Riley. As much as I hate to admit it, he's a constant reminder that Riley could have had a happier life, and that hurts.
"Warrick Brown. Do you think he'll find who did it?" I sigh and look up from the floor. Riley's pacing now. He's uncomfortable. Neither of us likes talking about our family. Talking about his sister… we've never had a conversation about our siblings. We talked about our parents after their trials, but my brother and his sister never came up.
I don't know how he feels about all of this. I think that- in spite of everything- he loves Ruth. She's his sister no matter what she did. But he hates her, too. She left him. She ran away and left him. He'll answers any questions Warrick has honestly, but I'm not sure if he'll bother paying attention to the case after that. I don't think he knows what he'll do either.
"Warrick's a good CSI. We all are. Odds are, he'll find whoever killed her." I hesitate before adding a bit to that. He needs to know. I can't let him figure out during questioning. "He did some research. He knows about what we went through."
The only sign that he hears me is his hands clenching into tight fists. Then he relaxes and leans his head back on the top of the chair. "You're sleeping on the couch, I take it?"
"Yeah. You get to sleep on my bed." He rolls his eyes at my answer, looking vaguely annoyed. I think he was hoping that I was doing well enough to at least sleep in my own bed. Then he looks at the empty pill bottles and smiles sadly.
"Right. Good night then. We can talk in the morning, if you'd like."
I wait for the sound of my bedroom door closing before lying down. That went well, all things considered. I like talking to Riley, even when it's uncomfortable. He's a good friend.
"Something you need very badly."