A/N: There are a lot of differing sources about the timeline after Sara finished at Berkeley. The old "official" CBS bio says it took one year for her to get a job at the coroner's office, and worked there for five years before becoming a CSI. That would put things at 1998, but Sara and Grissom meet in 1998, and she's already a CSI. So I eliminated that year, as it doesn't seem to make any sense. Now that you're thoroughly confused, we'll continue.
Somehow, between all the hours she was putting in at the coroner's office, she managed to get to get to New Haven in May for Megan's wedding. Straight afterwards, she traded in her bridesmaids dress for her lab coat and went straight back to work in the morgue. She was learning more from Dr. Hawkins that she could ever imagine, he was a professional and had seen pretty much everything. The unofficial education he gave her in the office, was worth more to her than a formal education in forensics.
She listened, watched, observed and learned for five years. Five years she worked alongside Dr. Hawkins in the coroner's office, and she learned five years' worth of tips, tricks, methods and procedures. And after five years, she was ready to get out of the coroner's office, and positively itching to get into the field, along with Brady and the other CSIs. She brought it up cautiously to Dr. Hawkins as they cleaned up after a post.
"I always knew you wouldn't be down here with me forever," he said. "You're much too clever and… eager… to be stuck in the morgue for the rest of your career."
He winked at her.
"I'll talk to Brady," he said. "He likes you, and he has a good working relationship with the lab directors. We'll see what we can do."
The next weekend, Brady convinced her to go out for a drink for his birthday.
"So I talked to the lab director the other day," Brady said casually over the music of the bar, swirling his Bud Lite around in the bottle. Sara's heartbeat quickened.
"Yeah?" she replied as casually as she could. "And?"
He smiled coyly at her.
"And you owe me the next round," he said. "Old Adam Riley, who's been at the lab practically since forensic science was invented, is finally retiring. I convinced him you're the best person for the open job."
Her mouth dropped open.
"You're serious?"
"Dead," he replied. "Hang up your scalpel, Sidle, you're a CSI now."
Two weeks later, she officially transferred to the San Francisco crime lab as a CSI level one. For the first few months, she worked the mundane cases – the robberies, domestic disturbances and routine breaking-and-enterings. She never complained, and instead, worked them with diligence and professionalism. She was by far the youngest of her co-workers on the swing shift. That impressed some of them, but it left the majority of them underestimating her. They were constantly double-checking her work and micro-managing her responsibilities. It was frustrating, but still, she never complained, knowing that her skills and intuition would speak volumes, and soon her reputation would speak louder than her age.
It took longer than she expected. Law enforcement, and similarly forensics, was a very male-dominated field. She was one of two women on swing, so she not only had her age to contend with, but also her sex. She had to fight for respect, and literally claw her way up from the bottom of the food chain. Sometimes it felt like Brady was her only ally, and the others were constantly fighting against her will to succeed.
After a year or so, her days of going the extra mile finally started to pay off, and she was allowed to work the cases that were complicated, high profile or sought-after, alongside the CSI threes and most respected detectives. They stopped calling her 'kid' and started listening to her first-blush theories instead of chuckling them off. And in the summer, when a handful of invitations to seminars prepping for that year's Forensic Academy Conference were delivered to the lab, her supervisor passed over several of her superiors and gave one of the seats to her.
It was her moment of triumph. The first moment when she felt all her hard work had finally, truly paid off. Brady had been given an invitation too, and the two of them boarded the plane with several of their co-workers, none of them more anxiously excited than her.
To them, the weeklong seminar was a drag, a series of lectures about things they already considered themselves experts in. A week off work, perhaps, but largely a waste of time. To Sara, it was an opportunity to surround herself with professionals and prove to them exactly what she had proved to her own lab. That she was not only capable of surviving in this profession, she excelled at it.
And to her great relief, the professionals attending were refreshingly unassuming. If they at all doubted her competency because of her age or sex, they didn't show it. CSIs from across the country invited her to their after-lecture dinner discussions and asked for her opinion instead of glossing over her as they went around sharing their thoughts and theories. They gave her helpful tips and words of advice, but not condescendingly so. She was one of them. And equal and a professional.
A few months later, she was granted the status of a CSI level two and handed her first serial case. Brady was the primary, but they worked together as a team.
It was a rape case. The case was filed by a twenty-four-year-old blonde woman who claimed she had been drugged at a bar the night before and couldn't remember a thing about what happened after. She'd woken up feeling sore and with bruises covering her body.
There was nothing at first to signal that it was a serial case. The woman was examined and given an SAE exam. There was no doubt that she was raped, and given GHB, but there was no trace of the attacker on her or in her. He bruised, but didn't scrape. She hadn't been conscious enough to fight back, and had no skin cells or other traces of DNA under her fingers. He had apparently been courteous enough to wear a condom, and left no seminal fluid or DNA behind.
Brady said it reminded him of a case he'd worked solo a few months before. The victim was a twenty-five-year-old blonde woman, who had had similar injuries, but the lack of evidence left on her or at the scene had resulted in no suspects and a cold case. When he pulled up the case file, he and Sara poured over it, scouring for more similarities. There were several. They lived only a few blocks apart, both of their tox reports came back positive for GHB, both were single, blonde and out with friends at a bar when they were drugged. They re-interviewed the first victim, but she couldn't remember any more than she had the day she filed the report.
A week later, another blonde young woman filed a similar report. Brady handled the paperwork, and Sara sat with the frightened woman, collecting her statement.
"Anything that you can remember would be helpful, Gina," she told her.
"I c-can't… I can't remember," she said regretfully. "I wish I could, but it's just… snapshots… all fuzzy."
Sara nodded sympathetically, her heart breaking for the victim she couldn't help.
"I will get the guy who did this to you," she promised. "I won't stop until I find him."
She pulled triples, clocking in an inordinate amount of overtime straining for any trace of a hint of who the rapist might be. Brady tried his hardest to keep her from getting involved, tried sending her home, but when neither worked, he joined her in her research, meticulously pulling apart each case, trying to find something. Anything.
Three weeks later, they caught a break. A fourth woman came into the police station, claiming she had been drugged and raped. Her physical appearance and testimony matched the MO of the other cases, except that he might have gotten sloppy, or over-excited in his attempt to drug her. He hadn't put the full dose of GHB in her drink, so while she was unable to resist and clearly not in a sober state, she was able to remember more details than the other women. She remembered he drove a minivan, and it was green. She remembered the plate had 26 and LG in them, because they happened to be her initials and age.
The fire was lit under her again, and she ran a search of similar vehicles registered in the area. She got a hit for a Lucas Brenamen, who had been charged ten years ago on drug related charges. She notified PD, and they brought him in. She was ready to throw everything at this guy until he confessed. She was ready to nail him.
Except Brady wouldn't let her do the interview.
"What do you mean I'm not talking to him?" she asked venomously. "I found him, Brady. I talked to the four girls that he's raped, saw how terrified they are—"
"Exactly, Sara," he stressed. "You're too close. These girls are your age – they could be your friends – and you've seen how it's tearing them up. You're running with your emotions, and not your logic. It happens to all of us – it's happened to me – but someone needs to hold you back. I'm sorry, Sara, but that person has to be me."
"But—"
"I've been working these cases right alongside you," he cut in. "I wanna see this guy charged just as much as you do. I do. But in order for that to happen, you need to let me do this."
Sara sighed, still ticked, but not seeing how she was going to get her way.
"Fine."
So she stood, arms crossed and heart beating, behind the one-way glass as Brady interrogated Lucas Brenamen. He was a slick son-of-a-bitch with an answer for everything. He admitted knowing two of the victims, casually, but denied ever lying eyes on the others, despite the fact that his vehicle matched their victim's description to a T, and he had a bruise on the side of his face the size of Texas.
"Where'd you get that?" Brady asked, gesturing to the bruise.
"Oh, football," he shrugged. "Guys can be rough."
The interview quickly went downhill. Besides from the identification of his van, they had no forensic evidence, DNA or otherwise, to place him at the scenes or with any of the women. There was no evidence of the women in his van, although a search found a small bag of GHB under the front seat. They booked him on drug possession, and Sara lost it.
"He's the guy, Brady, and you know it," she exclaimed.
"He's in jail, Sara."
"He'll be out on bail by tomorrow!"
"And in the meantime, we'll test his GHB and see if it matches the characteristics of the batch used on our vics," he said. "If it does, we'll have more cause for a warrant, and we'll search his home. This is how it works, you know that."
"He could run away in the meantime, disappear forever – you know that!"
He put his hands up.
"Sara, as your friend, you need to calm down," he said. "As the lead on this case, you have to detach yourself emotionally, or I'm going to have to pull you off the case."
She glared at him.
"You can't do that."
"I don't want to," he said calmly. "Don't make me. Go get the GHB to toxicology. We'll go from there."
But the sample collected from Lucas's car did not match the batch of drugs used in any of the four cases. He made bond and was released a few days later. Sara watched him walk out of the department, a smirk on his face, and felt an anger she had never felt before. She didn't even notice Brady walk up behind her.
"Let's go get a drink," he suggested.
"That won't help," she scowled.
"Well, neither will going home and fuming about it," he said. "Let's go."
Seated at a table of the bar that was a usual haunt, she still didn't see how this would possibly make things better. Brady bought her a beer and placed it on the table in front of her. He swigged his own.
"I know how you feel," he said, as she looked at him steely. "Think punching someone would be the only thing that'll help? Trust me, you just end up with a sore hand."
She only sighed and sipped her beer reluctantly.
"Nobody talks about this part of the job when you sign up," he continued. "That top-of-the-world, adrenaline rush feeling you get when you crack a case, everyone talks about that. But the… anger, the disappointment, the feeling like everything you worked so hard to prove isn't worth crap… no one tells you that your first day on the job. And it sucks."
She sighed again, finally meeting his eyes.
"How do you deal with it?" she asked.
Brady shrugged.
"You just do," he said. "Everyone has their own way of coping… some people refuse to cope as their way to deal with it, but… you can't let it get to you. Not every case gets solved. Not every rapist or murderer or otherwise gets caught. Not every case gets justice. That's just the way it is."
Sara shook her head.
"What about the promise I made to Gina?" she asked, referring to the third victim.
"I know it's hard, Sara, especially when you make an emotional connection to the victim," he said. "But… you can't make promises like that. It makes it harder, for them, and for you, when you can't come through."
"I can't just let this go."
"You have to," Brady urged. "You just… have to."