Title: In Hell with Love
Rating: T
Disclaimer: I do not own CSI or its characters. I'm just a fan
Author's note: Hey everyone! Sorry for the long wait. Writer's block seems to be on the rise. Hopefully you guys didn't catch it –smile-
To xoSnickersxo (thanks for your review. Hugs), Crazedzombiemonkey (I'm glad you like my story. Hope you'll like this chapter too. Hugs), jdcocoagirl (it took me awhile to write how Sara was feeling when she woke up, but it feels great knowing that you like it. Hugs), necira (Hugs. You are a smart and observant person. Sorry I took so long to write this chap), bene (Thanks for your review. I'm happy to see your review. Hugs), apcJodi (I heard the bells! Sorry for keeping you waiting. I always look forward to your review. Hugs), gamg337 (thanks for your review. hugs), leana9101 (I'm glad you like the previous chapter. Your review encouraged me greatly. Hugs), Mma63 (a long, big hug goes out to you. Thank you for being so understanding and patient), boneswhisper (Sara will definitely remember everyone, but its going to take her sometime. Thanks for your review. Hugs), Rach5 (its always nice to know that there are people out there reading my story. Thanks for your review. Hugs)
A big shout-out goes to Meg-Breanne, whose review and PM encouraged me to write this chapter. Thank you dear, I couldn't have done it without you. Hugs.
I guess I'm in a hug-y mood today. I guess I feel kinda bad for making you guys wait so long. If life wasn't so busy, I would be able to write a chapter a day. If only…
Chapter 20
I had a friend. Her name was Sara.
Sara was a wonderful CSI. She solved cases, helped victims and was loved by everyone. But my friend was gone…
Where had my Sara gone?
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"Do you know where you are?"
Her head shifted down. Her hair grinded against the pillow, like the mechanic sound of sandpaper on metal. Nick looked at Sara as she stopped, confused, and tucked her head down, chin close to her neck, as if ashamed that she couldn't answer such a simple question. It was like, she had an idea where she was, but she didn't want to jinx it by making hopeful speculations of the matter. She was afraid. Afraid that, if she moved or said the wrong thing she would wake up in her alternate universe, like she did many times before.
"You're in a hospital. At Desert Palms… You remember Desert Palms?"
Nick stared into Sara's eyes, watching them. Something was off. Apart from being black and blue, they were teary and did not seem to look at the same spot for more than 5 seconds at a time; constantly shifting within her eye sockets. Occasionally, her eyes would settle on an object, as if thinking of something, a million thoughts flowing through the junctions of her synapses. But the thoughts would disappear and she would jerk her head tiredly, like she was trying to catch them with her ears. There was an eerie calm to her glaze, a total opposite from the drama they've experienced several hours ago. Not once did she look at Nick in the eye, or made eye contact with anyone in the room.
"Do you know… who I am?" Nick stuttered, afraid of the answer to that question.
"P-pan-cho…" came a tired sigh. Her eyes came to rest at the corner of her pillow.
"That's right…that's right." Nick spoke as if he was taking deep breaths after being submerged underwater for so long. "Its me, Pancho. I'm Pancho."
She looked into his eyes for a second before they shifted to the side. Her corneas pushing her tears away, allowing them to flow gently down the side of her face, staining the pillow. She looked at Nick's hand around hers and opened up her hand, letting him go.
"You're safe now. No one's coming to get you…we're going to look after you, I promise."
With a sigh of relief, Catherine leaned back against her chair, while Brass moved to the foot of Sara's bed. His hands hovered a moment before resting on the wooden frame, concluding that touching Sara would not be the best thing to do at this point. "Its great to see you back kiddo." He said in a fatherly manner.
Sara had stopped looking around, almost as if she was too tired to move her eyes. Her state of mind had dissolved into a world of her own, leaving Brass to wonder if she had heard him. Under the warm hospital blanket, she pressed her knees against her body, her precious hands grabbing her knees that had cause her skin creased beneath her fingers. "P-pan-cho…"
"I'm right here Sara."
"Pan-cho…"
Nick looked at Catherine and then Brass with a fearful confusion etched in his face. Brass immediately moved next to Nick, trying to get Sara to look at him.
"Sara, this is Captain Brass. Can you hear me?"
She didn't respond.
Catherine stood up from behind the concerned detective, as he repeated his question. "Do you understand what I'm saying?"
"…P-pan-cho…"
Her voice drifted heavily across the room, as if her words were weighed down by the CSI's burdens and dragged reluctantly into their ears. Her tears flowed gently as her eyes went back to the corner of her pillow.
With her body curled into a foetal position, she lay still and as quiet as a mouse. She brought her arm weakly over her head, her hand covering her ear, like she was protecting herself. She said nothing else but was mouthing the word "Pancho", three at a time.
Their worst fear had come to life.
She was reliving a memory. She was still trapped in her head in that room. As Brass went out to get the doctor and Nick sobbed by her bedside, Catherine realise that, even thought she was rescued, Sara never came home. They had lost her 2 years ago, and now, they're living with a ghost…
Sofia stared at the pictures that lay before her. Several ugly pictures of the room gave her a glimpse of the life Sara had been living in for the past year. It reminded her of an underground prison, or a gas chamber during the wars her forefathers fought. At least during those times, during those circumstances, what they did what they had to do. This monster didn't…
She stared intensely at the pictures, even resorting to using a magnifying glass, searching every pixel of the photographs. She swore she was going to get him, not matter what it took…
She had been looking through the photos for past few hours. Ever since she drove back to the lab with the evidences they got from the hospital, she barely took a break. She didn't go home. She didn't eat. She didn't sleep. She had become like Sara.
They all had.
She went through each of them. Analysing and staring to a point where they looked like hundreds of blank jigsaw pieces shaped the same way. She pressed the bridge of her nose with her fingers and thumb. Who was she kidding? She was trained to be a detective, not a CSI. The most she ever did was dust for fingerprints on a payphone, or made observations that everyone knew long ago. What did she expect to accomplish by staring at a bunch of photos? Why is she doing this?
Because she had to.
She looked around the lab. There was no one else around to go through the evidence. Warrick was processing the crime scene in the middle of the desert with Greg. Brass, Catherine and Nick were at the hospital with Sara. Grissom was… where is he? She grabbed some papers, straightened them out and headed for his office.
"Doctor, do you have a diagnosis?" Brass asked as soon as the doctor came into the room.
The doctor went towards the bed, took out a small torch and shone it into Sara's eyes. "Voluntary eye movement… suggest conscious thought." He murmured, as if talking to himself. Sara's eyes twitched slightly. "Hair-line stress fracture…. slight fever…"
The CSIs watch as the doctor made his assessment on their friend.
"As far as my knowledge goes," he began, turning the torch off. "She's in a catatonic state. She is capable of following simple commands and repeating words in basic phases but otherwise… unresponsive." The doctor took off his glasses to clean them against his coat, as Nick and Brass looked at each other.
"What? Why? What caused this?" Nick asked.
"There could be a number of reasons. Firstly, she was given a lot of drugs. We had to medicate her for the pain, sedative to calm her down… and from what I understand, Mr. Stokes, you gave her a dose of heroine on the day she was rescued. Her body will experience some withdrawals."
The doctor looked up at Nick and the CSI couldn't help but feel like he was being accused of something. But before he could say anything, the doctor continued. "Secondly, she's suffering from severe psychological abuse, amplified by –as you can see—torture and stress. By mixing these two reasons, her mind is trying to cope with them, both physically and mentally. It's going to be near impossible to communicate with her as of now… but with time, there's a good chance for recovery." The men could tell that it was just as hard for the doctor to tell them as it was for them to hear it.
"But… she responded to me. She talked to me when she was in that—that room. She said 'hi' to me a moment ago… she talked to me, you have to believe me, doc. She talked to me."
"We don't know if that represents genuine communication." He said, standing up. "Replying to a simple greeting could be another programmed response… meaning nothing. "
"Will she remember anything?" Catherine asked, her voice shaking slightly.
"Amnesia caused by any traumatic event, injury or drug can erase memory before the event, not just after." He replied simply. "I'll order a tox screen."
"How long will she be like this?"
His shoulders tensed up as Nick ended his sentence, "Her mind is divorcing itself from reality as a way to cope with the trauma. There's no way of telling. I suggest you get her a psychiatrist. This case…is out of my league." The doctor put his glasses back on. "Even with help, it may take time though. Days, months, maybe even years…"
"Take time for what?"
"For her to trust anyone again." A hint of sadness sounded in his voice, as the doctor turned to walk out of the room.
Sofia gently tapped the side of the door of Grissom's office. The room was messier that she remembered it and there weren't as many jars containing bugs as the last time. They had probably died of neglect. Grissom gestured her to come inside.
"Have you gone to see Sara yet, Grissom?"
Grissom looked up from his paperwork and shook his head. "Not exactly… Catherine has been updating me. And I have stopped by the hospital to ask how she was doing. But… now's not really a good time." He shifted uncomfortably in his seat; almost sure that Sofia could sense the guilt in his heart. But she didn't and seemed almost distracted about something else. "Have you? Heard that she regained consciousness not too long ago."
"I don't think I should see her. Contact with her may upset her even more instead of encourage her to talk. Besides, Catherine's there. She'll take care of her."
Grissom stared as the detective paced restlessly around the room. He could tell that something was bothering her. Sofia hardly acts this way. "Do you want some coffee? I could prepare a cup for you—"
"I'm not thirsty." She said, cutting him off, still pacing within her little circle.
"Okay…" He calmly replied, as he took off his glasses and placed them on the table. "Mad about something?"
Sofia stopped moving. She looked at Grissom and rubbed her forehead before opening her mouth to speak.
"Everything pointed to the fact that Sara was dead. Long gone. Missing indefinitely." She threw her right arm in the air before continuing. "I followed it. I did what I had to do. I've followed the evidence… And I believed it. I chose to believe rather than rely on that hope that she was still alive."
She threw a stack of pictures onto his table. The pieces of evidence glided across its surface, pushing his paperwork into an untidy pile. Judging by the look in her eyes, Grissom knew that she didn't mean to be rude, but she was clearly upset.
"Look at that. Just look at it."
Grissom looked. Before him laid Sara's medical records that Catherine took a few days ago, and Sara's personal file consisting of her family history and foster home placements. Skeletons slowly crawled out of the closet, making him feel as thought he had opened a Pandora's box without the permission. He looked at Sofia, seeing her point.
"As if she hadn't suffered enough. He had her for months and I just can't stop thinking about…what she has gone through and I can't stop thinking about how afraid she must have been and…I can't stop thinking about why I've ever given up on finding her."
Grissom looked up from the records he had been staring at while she spoke. Sofia had tears in her eyes. He had never seen her cry before. He understood what was going on. Sofia felt as guilty as he did…
"When I took this job, I was an outsider and…for a long time, I felt alone. What made it worse was that I was demoted. I couldn't look at anyone in the eye… I couldn't even do my job. I've confided in you… I've confided in Sara. We keep getting paired up in the field – and I have to admit— she has grown on me. I told her that I missed being trusted… so she trusted me. She trusted me, and I acted like she didn't. When she went missing, you know what my first thought was? 'Who's going to trust me the way Sara does?' What kind of friend thinks like that? Am I that selfish?"
She was rambling. With every word that came out of her mouth brought the truth that Sofia actually did care for Sara. Grissom finally realise why Sofia didn't stay in the hospital to see Sara. Its not that she didn't want to, it was because she felt like she didn't deserve it.
"She trusted me, I don't know why…" Sofia grabbed the evidence off his table and stormed out of his office. Grissom listened as her footsteps faded into the narrow corridor.
"She trusted you… because, there was once when she felt like an outsider too." He whispered and went back to his paperwork. As he prepared to write, he noticed a photograph Sofia left behind. It was a picture of a wall, with the words "NO MAN SINNED" written in -what seems to be- blood. He parted his lips as he realises what this was.
Sara was trying to tell them who did this to her.
TBCI decided to explore a little more on Sofia's character. Just think about it, she is kind of like Sara - new to the group, a little misunderstood, overlooked etc. I guess both of them could relate to each other. In some ways, we all can relate to her. (Most of Sofia's lines were written in the spur-of-the-moment, I felt like crap that day.) –Grin-
For all those who are a little confuse about the last part, I suggest that you read Chapter 6 again. (Pay close attention to who the CSIs talk to.)
Hopefully this chapter is not too 'dry'. I'll try to make it better in the next chap. Review if you like it, review if you dont. Thanks.
Next chapter: Nick and Catherine will try to reach out to Sara. Her tormentor will be coming for her. Will they be able to figure out who he is before its too late?