Chapter XXVIII

It Feels So Good

The guys left leaving Jim behind. They looked lighter, if not happier. They also looked tired, like they had each run a triathlon. She wasn't exactly sure what had been said. Though the temptation to peek was great, she held off. Sara deserved some privacy, damn it. She was in the hall, leaning against the wall across from the interrogation room door. She had stood in this same place, this same way, five years ago. She had been working through a storm of emotions. To find out, in the same night, that Sara was seeing Grissom, and that she was accused of killing the same, had been a two-hit KO that she had still been staggering from hours and hours later.

The first few, awful days, had been like Hell. Then it had stretched into weeks, then years. Now, here she was again, trying to untie her tongue and think of something - anything -to say. She was a detective, damn it, a lieutenant whose job it was to work her own cases and direct other detectives. She knew how to talk things out of people. She did it all the time; witnesses, victims, family members, perps. One woman shouldn't have the power to stop her in her tracks. Sara did. She always had.

She had known of the woman long before they'd ever seen each other. Rumors and talk around the labs way back when she had been a CSI on the dayshift. They had called her the Ice Queen. She'd had an image of the so called Ice Queen worked up in her head. When they had finally met, the image and the woman were a perfect match, at first. Sara had been - still was - passionate. Passionate about her work, about the victims. She hid it most of the time, but sometimes the empathy, the sadness, came through. Even when Sara had rubbed her the wrong way, and that had been most of the time in the begining, she had a respect for her.

The respect, mutual respect, grew when she became a detective. It hadn't been a competition then. They had been a team, and been friends. She hadn't started to fall for the woman until after the Bell Shooting. The Bell Shooting, an incident that would forever be capitalized, bolded and underlined in her memory. They had exchanged words that morning, after her run. She had come to talk to Grissom, and Sara had butted in. At the moment, the other woman's words had stung like fire. Later, after all was said and done and her badge and gun were back in her hands, she found the note. A scrawled on scrap of paper shoved between two pages of the papers she was signing off on.

Trust is a two way street.

It hadn't made much sense then, but later it had. Later, she had overheard Greg telling Brass that IA had been breathing down their necks, watching their every move, all that night and into the morning and afternoon.

"You should not be in this building."

In the same few hours, Sara had saved her career twice. First by getting her out of the building before the Rat Squad caught her there and then by proving that she could not have been the shooter. She had never mentioned it, and Sara had never brought it up again, but the respect, the trust, and something else, had been there, and it had grown. Then Grissom had been killed and the ice had melted completely. Despite her own pain, it had been impossible to not be there for Sara. She had put her career, her own sanity, on the line trying to get that case thrown. Once again, from behind bars, Sara had saved her career, by pushing her away. She might have failed, and failed miserably, the first time, but this time she would save Sara. She would prove her innocent or she would put her in a jeep and point her towards Canada, damn the consequences.

Her thoughts, as torrid, possibly career ending, and definitly criminal as they were, were interrupted by the door opening.


"Hey Kid." Sara had stared at him, eyes wide, for a minute. "These bums bothering you?"

Nick, Greg and Warrick, three men he had worked with, had respected him. They had visited him at the hospital, had brought him the coffee he wasn't supposed to drink and the greasy food that he was forbidden to eat. They had been good friends once.

Sara had been Sara, his Sara. Sara with her sad brown eyes and her cute little smile. She had been brave to the point of foolhardy. He had personally chewed her out more than once. She had been kind, she thought no one knew about her visits to Brenda Collins, but he had. She had been like a daughter to him.

Now, dressed in vibrant orange, he looked at his Sara and saw a stranger.
Then she smiled, just a little smile, and he saw her. "Just a bunch of kids who think they're funny, Jim."

Greg threw his hand over his chest, feigning hurt. Like Sara, he had gone down a hard road. Last time he'd seen Sanders, he'd been in a hospital room, half dead. "She missed us, she really did." Warrick stood, "As fun as this has been, we've got to go." Each man said a rather uncomfortable goodbye to Sara and left him alone with her. He had been both elated and terrified. He took the seat that Nick had just vacated, right across from Sara. She smiled at him again, a little quirk at the side of her mouth.

"Sofia told me you that you were living out your leisure years as far away from this place as you could manage."He chuckled, "Well, what can I say, this place grows on a guy. So how have you been?"

The conversation had been strange. He had retired, she had been in jail. They hadn't spoken in five years. As he had stood to leave, though, she said something that he had neither expected nor been prepared for.

"E-five-seven-eight-two-B"

He had blinked, once, twice, three times. Was she quoting a case number?" "What's that, Sara?" Her fingers were folded over each other, a subconscious way of hiding the handcuffs she was wearing. "Your daughter's ID, Jim." Her statement, simple and to the point had floored him, he'd had to sit back down. "You mean Ellie?" The realization terrified him, down to his very bones.

"Serving eighteen months for DUI. Overcrowding has pushed her parole hearing up, though. It's in two weeks." Three years, he hadn't heard from Ellie in three years. Three long years of worry and guilt. "She's changed, Jim. She's taken some hard knocks, real hard knocks, but she's taken them like a champ. It would help her if someone was there to speak for her, to help her out." He had scrounged for words, but everything caught in his throat. Finally he sputtered out a "She doesn't want my help." Sara smiled again, it was a sad sort of smile. "She won't spit on you this time, Jim. She needs you now more than ever." He opened his mouth to say something, but closed it quickly. "Go, Jim. Get her out of that place. She doesn't belong there."

He nodded and stood again, "Neither do you." He opened the door and looked back at her before leaving. He felt better then he had in five years.

Sofia was standing out in the hall, leaning against the wall. When she looked up, he saw the conflict brewing in her blue eyes. She was another one of his girls that, apparently, needed him. He closed the door behind him with a quiet click. "Sofie." She gave him a half-hearted smile, the same smile that Sara had given him earlier. He was wrong, Sofia didn't need him, and neither did Sara.

"She needs you in there, Sofie."


Damn it all to hell. She hadn't had a good and proper crying jag in five years. She wasn't going to break that streak because the guys had come in and been themselves or because Jim had come in and... She ran her face across her orange sleeve in a defiant sweep. She was not going to cry. She hated each and everyone of them. They had turned their backs on her, all but thrown her in jail themselves.

Then Greg had come in and smiled at her. Nick had flashed his wedding ring and talked about his wife, which had led Warrick to show her pictures of his three gorgeous children. Greg had been at a loss for about half a minute and then he'd listing off a string of exotic sounding and probably made up girlfriends. It had been so normal. If she had closed her eyes, she would have been in the break room, nursing a cup of coffee, getting ready to work a case.

Jim had come in and she had been struck dumb for a minute. She hadn't thought he'd come. He was retired. If he had any sense at all, he would have stayed away. God, she was glad he hadn't. She hadn't meant to mention Ellie. The woman would be horrified that she had. It had just happened. He needed to know, damn it. He was her father and Ellie needed him. Weather she liked it or not.

She was wiping her tears - God why wouldn't they stop - again when the door opened.

"Renee, go take a coffee break, but don't look like you're taking a coffee break."

A low, almost raspy, alto voice. Sofia. The door shut again, and they were alone. "Sara."
She looked up, she couldn't help it. Sofia stood there, cool and confident, and she had bloodshot eyes and her lip was still quivering. Sofia looked at her and, in two heartbeats, was at her side. "Those bastards. They made you cry." Gentle hands cupped her cheeks and a thumb, both soft from care and callused from work, wiped the remaining tears from her cheek. Sofia went down to one knee so they were eye to eye. Sara chuckled a bit. "It's not them, I just, you know."

She sighed. They were so close now. Closer than Sara had been to anyone, by choice, in five years. Her heart pounded in her chest like a heavy metal drummer. It was to the point of pain, but it made her feel good, it made her feel alive. "You okay?" The words that Sofia expected to hear were caught in her chest. She could barely nod. Sofia smiled and rubbed her thumb across her cheek. "I can probably catch them, beat them up for you."
She laughed, she couldn't help but laugh and smile. "My hero." Sofia nodded and Sara would have sworn that she saw her eyes go a shade deeper, more intense blue. "I will get you out of here."

One side, the side that was hopelessly clinging to the edge of the abyss, ready to fall for Sofia, believed her. She knew that Sofia would rescue her, long blonde hair flowing in the wind, silver sword in the air, white charger reared back and pawing the air. The other side, the side that had suffered humiliations and pain, knew that there was no knight in shining armor, and no fairy tale ending waiting for her. "Sofia-" A finger fell across her lips. "I don't make promises that I can't keep, Sara, and I promise you this. I swear on my shield, on my grandmother's grave, one way or another, I will get you out of here." She looked at the orange prison uniform and cuffs, "Out of those."

Sara tired to say something, but couldn't. Sofia's lips, soft and unpainted, met hers. Shock abated, replaced by a sensation that swamped her. She closed her eyes as Sofia's hand slipped down to her neck and pulled her even closer. Instead of red or black, Sara could have sworn that she saw a radiant gold behind her lids. Sofia teased her lips open and the taste of the other woman intoxicated. Honey and champagne, two things she hadn't had in years, but the memory of their tastes paled in comparison to the taste of Sofia Curtis. She had dreamed of this, so many times, so many ways. She had dreamed of this so many nights, had longed for it with every letter. She lifted her hands, she wanted – needed - to twist her hands up in Sofia's gorgeous blonde locks.

The clanking and restricting pain of the handcuffs that she was still wearing broke the moment. Sara pulled away, pulled away from her personal heaven, and looked at her hands. They were scarred, pale and most importantly, shackled. The metal bracelets and chains served to remind her of her position. She was Prisoner S38401S, a convicted killer. The wink of gold at Sofia's waist served to remind her that she had just been kissing Lieutenant Curtis of the LVPD.

She looked back into Sofia's eyes. "I-We can't." Her words were little more then a whisper. She could feel the thrice-damned tears building up behind her eyes again.
Sofia, her hands over her own, their fingers were tangled together; more than friends, this was the tangle of lovers. The warmth of the other woman's hands combated with the steel that were wrapped around her own wrists. "Sara."

She wanted to cry, so she chuckled a little. "You're risking your career again, over me, again." The sneer that went across Sofia's face told her what the woman was going to say before she said it. "And my case."

That made Sofia's face go blank. Sara leaned in, resting her head against Sofia's shoulder. "Just sit with me for a minute, okay?" They did sit together. Neither spoke, and with the exception of Sofia's hand stroking her curly mop of hair, neither of them moved. It was perfect.


Catherine put her hand against the two-way glass that separated her from Sara and Sofia. How long had she been there? It was all foggy now. She vaguely remembered the boys leaving and Jim talking to Sara. She told him about Ellie. The woman hadn't mentioned any parole hearing, but their conversation had been about Sara.
Sara. Sara hadn't asked Jim for his help, or asked anything of him. She had told him of Ellie and her need of him.

She had smiled at him, had almost looked happy. That stung. Sara knew whom she could rely on, Jim above herself. Catherine sighed, then again, she had put the nails in Sara's casket; she wouldn't trust herself either.

Then Sofia had come in. That had to be love; real, true, honest to God, love. Sara looked at Sofia like she was her rock, her lover and her savior all rolled into one glittering package. The kiss had been sudden, but had lasted longer than any spontaneous one-sided kiss would have. Sara broke it off, protecting - or trying to at least - Sofia's career. Through tragedy, and pain, death and imprisonment, they had found each other. They had fallen in love, though Catherine wondered if they hadn't started falling for one another long before Gil had been murdered. Even now, Sofia was holding her, stroking Sara's hair, comforting her. It should have made her mad, Catherine mused, and it did. Not mad at Sara, and not mad at Sofia, though. Mad at herself, at God, at anything and everything.

What would have happened had Gil not been killed? Would he and Sara had called it off? Would Sara and Sofia have gotten together? Would she be at peace? Would anyone be happy? Her fists bunched together so hard that her nails cut into her skin. Gil was dead, though. Sara was their only suspect, or was she their only witness? Sofia was fucking, almost literally, the case and Catherine didn't have enough to know what was the truth and what the lie anymore. She watched them break apart. Sara straightened Sofia's collar, and Sofia wiped another stray tear from the brunette's eye. Sofia let the deputy, who had taken a very long coffee break, back in.

She turned her back before they left the room. Emotions boiled and frothed inside of her. A fine mist, as red as blood and thick as fog, blurred her vision. She had stacks of paper work, background checks, inventory invoices, everything in the world to go over. She had an empty house, silent as a tomb with only Lindsey's barren room as a reminder of her girl, to go home to. She had to get out. She needed some kind of release. She needed to calm down, to get control. She had to get control before she lost it all. She needed, she hated needing anything. She did, though, she needed badly and she needed it now.

Author's Note: Happy Jo writes more, reviews make Jo happy...now if we can all connect the dots here.