Disclaimer: Not mine. Wish they were because I'd let them have a little fun.
A/N: Many thanks to Cropper and dreamsofhim for all their help. They are absolutely wonderful! This includes spoilers through Season 5.
Sara's Story
I spent the end of my fourth year in Vegas on vacation. Actually, I spent it laying by the pool, reading, attending PEAP counseling sessions and thinking about my life. Peer Employee Assistance, what a concept. I got to spend an hour a day, three days a week for a month talking to some stranger about what was wrong with me. I thought it would be hard and at first it was. But when there is someone who is interested in nothing but you and your problems you start to loosen up. I talked about work. I talked about my feelings for a man who couldn't love me enough to take a chance. I talked about my drinking. I talked and talked and talked. I even talked about my parents. I talked about things I had never given voice to before. I talked about how those things had shaped me, how they continued to cloud my judgment during certain cases.
Muriel, my counselor, was a no nonsense woman with a smoky voice and a French accent. She had some sixth sense that let her know when I was holding back and she used it like a scalpel – cutting away the bullshit to get to the truth. When I talked to her everything seemed so clear. She helped me realize that I was my own worst enemy. I was self-destructive. I had a problem with authority. I looked for validation in inappropriate places. I was attracted to emotionally unavailable men. I memorized all her catch phrases, ready to spit them out if anyone asked me. They ran over and over in my head like a broken record. I'm not saying I didn't learn anything because I did. I learned that before you can let go of your past you have to deal with it. I learned that I needed to forgive my parents and myself for the things that happened. I learned that you can't force someone to feel something that they don't. And I learned that I wasn't in love with Gil Grissom.
I know what you're thinking and trust me when I say it was hard for me to believe too. I had invested so much time and energy into my feelings for him and all it amounted to was a crush. I was physically attracted to him. That man had fueled more fantasies for me than any movie star ever would. But more than that, Grissom represented something I'd never had – stability. I wanted that so much I would have given anything for it. I almost did. But I came to realize that I needed his friendship and his respect much more than I needed to be whisked away on a white horse. If anyone was going to save me it would have to be me.
My first night back at work I was nervous. Who am I kidding? I was scared to death. I knew how fast gossip could spread and I was just waiting on someone to ask me about what happened. I knew Grissom wouldn't tell anyone but I wasn't sure about the uniform that had picked me up or the ones who had seen me sitting in that waiting room. I shouldn't have worried. I don't know what kind of threats Grissom threw out to keep it quiet but they obviously worked. No one gave any indication that they knew where I had been or why.
Gossip wasn't the only thing worrying me that night. As part of our post-PEAP follow up, I planned to tell Grissom about my family. My counselor had stressed that I needed a support system for the really tough cases but that I would have to let people know what I needed. I had to ask for help because my friends were, after all, just human and not able to read my mind. I did go to his office and try to talk to him. But it was a really busy night and Grissom was distracted. I told myself that I could do it tomorrow; unfortunately, as is often the case, tomorrow never rolled around. I don't know if there were other opportunities but I don't seem to recall any. Eventually, it just didn't seem important. I was doing okay. At least I had myself convinced that I was. I did my job. I stayed out of trouble. Everything else would work itself out. I was feeling better than I had in a very long time. Just when I started to think the worst was behind me the bottom fell out.
Ecklie had just split up the team. I was still reeling from the loss of the guys and kicking myself for any part I played in it. Amazing that you don't know how much people mean to you until they are gone. I still saw them but it was different and I didn't need different at that point in my life. Then there was Sofia Curtis. She was Ecklie's minion until she failed to see things his way. Then he sent her into exile. It was more than obvious she had it bad for Grissom. Strangely enough that didn't make me jealous, only sad. It had been a while since I had been able to make Grissom laugh. He hadn't been comfortable working with me or sharing ideas with me for longer than that and I missed him. I really just wanted him to be happy and if she made him happy then I would live with it.
Thoughts of my mother and father had been plaguing me for a very long time. I had begun to work through it with Muriel. But as soon as I completed my mandatory number of visits I stopped going.
She urged me to continue but I figured I could work through it on my own. That's how I had always done things. You didn't spend time in foster care without learning to take care of yourself. Then along comes Devon Malton; five years old, starved to death and thrown out like yesterday's garbage.
Finding justice for Devon took me places I didn't want to go, places I didn't need to go alone. The foster home, the kids whose eyes spoke of pain that no child should ever be forced to face, the people who treated them as nothing more than a little extra money on a monthly check; they all reminded me of a time I had tried so hard to forget. I don't know why I couldn't be proud of the fact that I had endured so much and still managed to make something of myself. But the truth is I couldn't. I was angry. I was mad as hell. Seeing that little boy and his brothers, hearing about what had happened to them and why, only fed my anger.
I knew the case was getting to me. I should have used my head and found somebody to talk to. I could have gone back to Muriel. She had promised that her door would always be open. But I was firmly back in the state of denial. I tucked it all away in that little place where I stored all the bad stuff. I couldn't stop comparing my life to the lives of those three little boys: abusive man, woman at the end of her rope, kids left with no one when she strikes back. Thankfully, Candice Malton only assaulted her boyfriend. She was out of jail in about six weeks. But circumstances and a bad decision ended with one of the boys dead and the others closer to it than I wanted to think about. Sometimes, trying to protect your children can backfire.
It had been almost six weeks since Ecklie had split up the team and I hadn't found a moment to talk to Grissom. He was more withdrawn than usual which was a sure sign that he wasn't handling the situation well. I really needed to clear my conscience over what I had said to Ecklie. No matter what had transpired between Grissom and myself I never meant to hurt him – personally or professionally. I was a little nervous and that means that I over talked. He referred to himself as my boss and I started babbling. "You've always been more than a boss to me." "Why do you think I moved to Vegas?" "…Complicated relationship…my fault…" "Look for validation in inappropriate places." I don't know which of us was more embarrassed. And then he did it again. He looked at me with that sweet sadness in his eyes and he stumbled over his words. I could see that he was conflicted. I think he was going to ask me out and I had learned enough to know that I could be sucked back in if I allowed it. So I cut him off and ran.
I had spent some time after Devon Malton looking up my mother's case. It is amazing what you can find when you have the correct resources and are motivated. And I was nothing if not motivated. I spent hours reading through trial transcripts. I scoured her testimony looking, in vain, for something that wasn't there, something that only three people knew about. I'll admit now that I was stupid. I had no business doing that on my own either. But I thought I needed to know and I didn't trust anyone else enough to share it with them.
Even thought the next few weeks were calm, I continued to dodge Grissom whenever possible. I had been doing that constantly since my vacation. I'm not so sure he even realized I was avoiding him and that was probably a good thing. If he had been paying attention he might have said something or done something to convince me that I was just as wrong about not loving him as I had been about having loved him. If he had been paying attention he might have seen a warning sign and then things wouldn't have unfolded the way that they did.
I had just finished up a case and Catherine was hurting for man power on swing so Grissom loaned me out. Everything was going fine. I was supposed to identify one of the dead women. That's all I had to do. Sounds so simple. But nothing is ever quite what it seems. I gave her a face with a little plaster and a little paint. Then I took it to every hospital in Clark County. I spent hours and hours going through photos of battered women looking for a match. Sometime around hour number nine or ten I was on overload. I kept seeing my mother's face, swollen and bruised from another beating. I kept hearing the sound of her screams as they warred with the sound of his fists against her flesh. By the time I found a match I was seething.
I am not known for keeping a cool head. Let's face it, I'm mouthy and have a hard time controlling my temper. But this time even I knew I had gone too far. I harassed the primary suspect in the case. I think I really wanted him to attack me so that I could fight back. I wanted to hit him, to give him back a little of what he had been handing out. As if that weren't enough, I let Catherine get to me.
We haven't always had the best relationship. She resented my presence from the very beginning. She was by turns jealous or friendly or angry. I never knew where I stood with her but I knew that this time I had gone beyond anything I could fix. She wanted to know why I always got so caught up in these kinds of cases. Instead of telling her the truth, which I considered to be none of her business, I told her she let her sexuality cloud her judgment about men. Now, I might have gotten away with that if we hadn't been standing in the middle of the hallway right outside Ecklie's office. But that's just where we were and he heard every word.
Next thing I know, I'm in his office and he's telling me I have to respect Catherine because of her position. Then he starts in about what a horrible CSI I am. Then as a final straw he tells me I'm not the kind of person he wants in his lab. I lost it. I compared him very unfavorably to Grissom. I called him a kiss ass. I told him he couldn't deal with field work. I accused him of looking for reasons to go after us. I did everything I could to provoke him but insult his mother. He suspended me, sent me home for a week. But I was full of anger and riding a wave righteous indignation. I wouldn't have backed down then if he had fired me.
By the time Grissom knocked on my door I had calmed down a little. Even when he said that Ecklie wanted him to fire me I didn't get mad. I knew I had screwed up and that I deserved whatever happened. I wasn't, however, ready for what Grissom wanted. He wanted the truth. He wanted to know why. The man who was only interested in hard evidence wanted to know why I was angry. I tried using Muriel's catch phrases to divert his attention. I told him I had a problem with authority. I told him I picked emotionally unavailable men. I told him I was self-destructive. He stood there and he listened. Then he asked me again. I tried again and he did the same thing. I think we could have gone on that way indefinitely. But I realized that the quickest way to get rid of the world's most stubborn man was to tell him the truth. If my rationalizations couldn't run him off surely the truth could.
I only intended to give him the facts; the short, sweet version of how my father ended up full of holes and my mother ended up in jail. I remember sitting in my living room with Grissom sitting across from me. I remember staring at a spot on the wall so that I didn't have to look in his eyes. I went for the shock value. Straight out, 'my mother killed my father'. Grissom didn't say a word. He just sat there and waited for me to elaborate. Suddenly, I found the whole story pouring out.
My first memories of my family were not of violence. I remember my mother's cookies and her hugs. I remember my father's laughter and being carried on his shoulders at the local fair. I remember my brother and his friends playing in the backyard and then piling into the kitchen for something to drink. I don't know exactly when things started to change or what caused them to. It's like I woke up one day and realized that there were no cookies being baked and my brother was never at home. I realized there was no laughter in my house anymore.
I knew that both my parents drank. I guess they were alcoholics. But I didn't think that was a problem because I never knew life any other way. I was so young, so oblivious. I can't pinpoint when the violence started. I just remember that there were times I couldn't hug my mother because it hurt her. I do remember the first time he hit me. I remember what it felt like when the back of his hand slammed into my cheek. It felt like my face exploded. I couldn't even cry. I lay where I fell and stared up at him. He looked so tall and so scary. My whole life changed in that moment. I lost the first little bit of my innocence. I was five years old.
Things only got worse. I didn't have any friends. I couldn't ever have anyone at my house and the other mothers got tired of me always being around. Of course, there were the rumors about my family. Even then, people didn't want to get involved. They didn't want their children exposed to my kind; as if I were responsible for what my parents did. It doesn't matter what the reasons were I still spent a lot of time alone. I liked to read and ride my bike. But, slowly, I began to assume the responsibilities that my mother couldn't handle. I cooked and cleaned. I did laundry. I tried my best to make sure that everything was just the way my father liked it so that he wouldn't get mad and nobody would get hurt.
I was an awkward child. I had big teeth and the gap between the two front ones. I had freckles and pale skin and spiky hair. I was short and pudgy. Then something happened. The summer before my thirteenth birthday I grew almost six inches. My baby fat melted away. I had breasts and legs and a waist. My goofy grin didn't look so goofy anymore. I was becoming a woman. I was very self-conscious. I wasn't so sure I wanted boobs and all the stuff that came with them. I saw how men and women treated each other and I definitely didn't want any of that.
I had no idea about sex. By the time I was old enough to understand that kind of thing my mother was in no condition to have the talk. And since I didn't have any friends I had no one to talk to. So the night that my dad came into my room and woke me up I was honestly afraid he was going to kick my ass for something he thought I had done. I would have been so much better off if he had.
I could smell the liquor on his breath. Nothing new about that but I will never forget that smell for as long as I live. I could smell something else – this sweaty odor. I've smelled it since then and now I know I smelled fear. He seemed so calm. He came in and sat on the side of my bed. I woke up to him shaking me and whispering my name. I really don't remember much after that. It's all a blur. He pinned me down and started touching me. His hand was over my mouth. He kept talking to me. Telling me how I had asked for it, how I flaunted myself in front of him. He tore my clothes. And somehow he was inside me. I must have passed out. I don't know how long it went on or if he…if he came inside me. I don't remember anything past that first excruciating pain. When I woke up I got out of bed and went to the bathroom to clean up. I planned to go back to bed and never tell a soul. For better or worse my mother picked that moment to stumble in on me.
She was so composed. She helped me clean up and she changed my sheets. She hugged me and kissed away my tears. She sat with me until I could sleep. She promised to take me to the doctor the next day after school. I remember just listening to her voice and thinking that she was lying. How could she take me to the doctor and explain what had happened? They would want to put my father in jail and she would never let that happen. I remember being so mad at her because she had never had the guts to stand up to him. There were so many things I wanted to say and do and I just did nothing. I went to sleep. I got up the next morning and went to school. I rode the bus home. And when I walked in the house there was my mother sitting on the couch and covered in blood. I remember trying to talk to her and she just stared right through me. Finally, I went to find my father. I walked through their bedroom door and there he was. Amazingly enough I didn't panic. I was calm and focused, like I had been waiting on this day for a long time. I used the phone in the kitchen to call the police and then sat beside my mother on the couch and waited. I was holding her hand when they knocked on the door. The only thing she said to me during this whole time was 'don't tell them what he did to you'. And I just kept thinking that if I was still short and fat and ugly this never would have happened. It was my thirteenth birthday.
I was just a child. I was supposed to have sleepovers and dates. I was supposed to get in trouble for spending too much time on the phone. Instead I was visiting my mother in a mental hospital and standing dry-eyed and guilty as my father was put in the ground. I was supposed to giggle and talk about boys and learn how to put on makeup. Instead I was moving between foster homes and listening to the people who should have been my friends talk about me. I did the only thing I knew to do. I kept it all inside. I pasted a smile on my face and never told anybody about what was really going on. Eventually, I convinced myself that none of it really mattered.
Through all of these revelations, Grissom sat quietly. He held my hand, he brought me water and tissues, and he listened. I could tell by the narrowing of his eyes and the tightening of his jaw that he was affected by my story. But he didn't ask questions. He just listened. He didn't look at me like I had done something wrong. When I stopped talking he did something that no one had ever done before. He stayed. He tugged me over to sit beside him and wrapped his arms around me. He held me and he let me cry and he whispered to me how sorry he was.
We sat there for hours. We talked about a lot of things; his childhood, our relationship, my need for more therapy. I finally found what I had been looking for from Grissom from the very beginning. I found honesty. When he had to leave for work he kissed my cheek, told me to make sure I locked up and said he'd be back. I wasn't sure I believed that. Let's face it neither of us wanted to be that involved with the other. I had told him that I wasn't looking for that from him anymore. So I just shrugged and smiled. Then I locked the door and stumbled to bed. And I slept.
Grissom did come back the next morning and the morning after that. As a matter of fact, he showed up every morning of my suspension with breakfast. I just assumed he was afraid I wouldn't eat if he didn't feed me. We talked about a lot of things during that week. There were a lot of apologies. There was a lot of forgiveness. There was a lot of healing. I made an appointment to see Muriel. I was finally figuring out that I couldn't take care of things alone. I needed other people. It was a scary to need. It was scary to rely on other people. But it was a fact of life, one I was going to have to deal with.
I went back to work with a new attitude about a lot of things. I knew that if I were in trouble I had someone I could go to. Grissom was turning out to be a very good friend. He was concerned and making an effort to let me know it. It seems funny now but sharing my story with Grissom was like a release. I was lighter, freer and more comfortable than I had been in years. It was nice not having to carry that burden alone anymore. It was nice having a friend that I could lean on if I needed to.
It was the day my suspension ended that Grissom took Sofia to dinner. I wasn't surprised. Let's be honest, he is a man and he deserved a little attention. I was jealous. Crush or true love, the pain of rejection is the same. And I thought of it as rejection. Imagine my surprise when he knocked on my door about an hour after shift ended. I couldn't think of a reason for him to be there. He should have been with Sofia. I told him as much. Then the oddest thing happened. Gil Grissom explained to me, Sara Sidle, why he had taken another woman to dinner. He told me that he wasn't interested in her. I was flabbergasted. I couldn't think of a thing to say so I offered to cook breakfast. We ate and he left and I lay awake for a long time pondering the strangeness that was Grissom.
It was the last week of April, and Grissom and I caught a case at Desert State Mental Hospital. I hated those kinds of places. I was a nervous wreck. This was one time I wanted something simple like a suicide. But it wasn't meant to be. We spent days going in and out of that place, collecting evidence, interviewing employees and patients. We had been told to always stay together and we followed those instructions time after time. Then Grissom left to find keys to locked filing cabinets and Adam Trent attacked me.
I have never been so scared. Not when my father was on a rampage. Not when he was raping me. Not when I got home to find him dead. Nothing had ever scared me the way Adam did. I can still smell him. I can still feel that shank against my throat. I can still feel his arm wrapped around me and his erection against my ass. I know that some killers find sexual release when they take a person's life. But I couldn't quite wrap my mind around the fact that he was going to kill me and he was aroused by that thought.
I was struggling, trying to get away and random thoughts were running through my head. Things seemed to be happening so fast. Suddenly, Grissom's face appeared in the window. His eyes were panicked but, for some reason, seeing him there helped me to focus. It was like the movies when everything seems to happen in slow motion. I had been out of control, fighting against Adam, keeping him agitated. Then Grissom was there and I knew that I had to think or I could die. And I wasn't ready to die. I kept talking. I agreed with whatever Adam was saying and I waited on a chance. When it came I took it. I was away from him and out the door so fast that I didn't realize what had happened until later.
I didn't expect Grissom to follow me. I expected him to stay with the evidence, with Adam. But there he was, standing behind me, his hands hovering over my shoulders. I could feel his heat along my back and I wanted to turn and bury myself against him. Instead, I drew in a shaky breath, wiped my eyes and walked away. Funny, he followed. We were leaning against the wall in a mental institution when I told him about how the place reminded me of my mother. Grissom did something that he wouldn't have done three months earlier. He offered to have someone replace me. Then I did something I couldn't have done three months earlier. I thanked him. And I stayed.
Grissom drove me home the next morning. He was insistent that I get some sleep and even though I doubted it would be possible I agreed to try. We had been spending some time together. We ate breakfast together quite frequently. I had even started keeping a little food in my apartment for days that we ended up there. I wasn't quite ready to be alone so I invited him in. Somehow we ended up in the kitchen bumping into each other while he scrambled eggs and I worked the toaster. As much as I didn't want to admit it I was comfortable with him there. But Grissom was anything but comfortable. He was very quiet, more so than usual. He kept looking at me like he had never seen me before. When I'd catch his eye, he'd look away.
This went on during the entire meal and even while we were cleaning up. I put the last plate in the cabinet, turned around and Grissom was right there. I didn't get a chance to say anything before he brought his hands up to my cheeks, mumbled that he could have lost me and kissed me. I froze. Never in a million years did I expect that. I had imagined our first kiss thousands of times and not one of my fantasies included a kitchen or the smell of hospital disinfectant. But you take what you get and make the best of it. So I kissed him back. I wrapped my arms around his waist and I poured everything I had into it. I found something that day that I had been looking for my entire life. I found my place in the world.
One kiss. One incredibly hot, amazingly sweet kiss and I was lost. He didn't say anything about love or forever or even tomorrow but he spoke volumes. I wanted to ask him to stay but I knew that, after eight years of denial, we wouldn't stop with a kiss and neither of us was ready for that. Instead, he went home and I curled up on the couch. I managed to sleep a little but my dreams flip flopped between terrifying and sensual. I was showered, dressed and waiting when Grissom came back to pick me up. We didn't talk about what had happened in my kitchen that morning. We just went to work and acted like it was any other day. But there was something different; some indefinable shift in our relationship.
We were still dancing around each other; sharing meals, watching television, talking. Neither of us called it dating. It just seemed like a silly word to use for whatever was between us. We weren't giddy teenagers with raging hormones. We were adults who had been through a lot of really bad things to get to this place. One thing had changed and that was that I didn't say goodbye to Grissom anymore without at least one kiss. The man had developed a serious fascination with my mouth. And he was such a good kisser. I was in a constant state of arousal. I wanted him. I had wanted him for years and being kissed by him convinced me that we would be good together. I was trying to work up the courage to seduce him when Nick was taken.
Twelve hours that seemed to last forever. Despite my jealousy I loved Nick. He was the kind of guy I sometimes wished I had fallen for. If I had a sister he would be the man I'd want for her. To see him in that box and know that we were working against the clock to save him was heart wrenching. So many things could have gone wrong. So many things did go wrong. But in the end we found him and that's all that really matters.
None of us had slept for well over twenty-four hours. We had all been on an emotional rollercoaster. Seeing Nick lying in that hospital bed, his body swollen, features almost unrecognizable, was just about more than I could take. I didn't want to leave Grissom. I wanted to comfort him. I wanted him to comfort me. But no one knew that we were doing whatever it was that we were doing and it didn't seem prudent to let them find out. When we left the hospital everyone went their separate ways. Grissom headed back to meet with the sheriff. Catherine, Warrick, Greg and I all went home. I was curled up on the couch trying to read when Grissom knocked on my door. One look at his face and I pulled him inside and closed the door.
Without a word he was in my arms, or maybe I was in his. He was kissing me like he would never get another chance. There was heat and need and something I couldn't quite put my finger on. I made love with Grissom that morning and again that afternoon. The first time was hot and hard and almost savage, as if we could erase a lifetime of hurt in a single act. The next was slow and sweet and gentle, a healing. Both of them were more than I ever thought possible. In between we slept curled around each other, his big body warm and solid against mine. Later, before work, we talked. We talked about Nick and fear and second chances. We talked about how limited our time on earth really is. We talked about our future. We talked about love. We talked about coming home.
Rationalizations, revelations and realizations shaped our fifth year in Vegas. Sometimes it seems like it was our darkest time. We were so far apart. Maybe that's what it took for us to find our way back to each other. However it happened I will be forever grateful