Disclaimer: I do not own.
A/N: Sorry this is up so late. Busy day. Plus my fiance decided he wanted to use the computer for two hours to void the warranty on his crazy expensive, wholly unnecessary droid phone thing, just so he can make it work a little faster. ...Can you tell I'm not happy about it? :) I'm not.
Anyway, hope you guys enjoy! I'll keep writing, tonight, but chances are I won't finish before going to bed... so this is probably the only update for tdoay. Sorry. Thanks for all the reviews! :)
Chapter Forty-Nine:
She had called me. De—Sara had called me, and she… sounded like she was scared, and like she missed Wes and I…
…I didn't know how I felt about this whole thing, honestly. I mean, it was more than a little strange explaining to the graveyard shift—people I still considered my team and good friends—that I hadn't realized it until now, but the woman who'd pulled my son off a burning plane had not in fact been my wife, but someone I'd been intending to interview to work with them… who had then proceeded to pretend to be my wife.
In the time we were waiting for information to come in after we'd issued the missing persons report, there was still information to process on the latest scene. He'd changed things, this time… which meant he was more likely to have made a mistake. We'd combed through the scene in detail twice, and although it looked as clean as any of the others, we were going through evidence, piece by minute piece, hoping for some small clue. It wasn't often that we got the chance to save people—in this job, nine times out of ten, we came too late to do the saving. So we were frantic—helped along, of course, by the fact that we knew her.
Wife or not, she was a CSI… she was a woman I had lived with for months… slept with… a woman who had left rather than using my considerable ability to have her protected, because of the risk it would cause Wes and I. She was one of ours.
At the same time… I was confused. Despite my conviction that I had been in love with her—and the guilt which had accompanied it, leading me to turn her away when I believed she was my wife—I didn't know what to feel towards her. In truth, if I had been able to view the Debbie of the past few months as separate from the woman I'd come to all but hate, I probably would have said I loved her. I just hadn't been able to separate the two. So when that woman turned out to be the brilliant, fascinating, warm-hearted creature from the journals… you would think it would be easy to say how I felt.
It wasn't—I felt… guilty… that I hadn't mourned Debbie's death when it occurred, and now that I was aware of it… I didn't have the time to really concern myself. The fact was that she was already gone—had been for months—but Sara wasn't. Sara was still very much alive. Sara had risked her life to carry a strange child out of the wreckage… Sara had given herself up to a serial killer…
Sara had lied to me. She had lied every step of the way. She had lied with her words, her actions, her body…
It felt like a betrayal, but how can a stranger betray you? They can hurt you… wrong you… but betrayal requires some sort of trust to have existed prior to said wrong-doing.
My mother and Wes had taken up space in my office—tonight I'd be moving them to a hotel room with several armed officers to guard them until we'd found the guy—but for now I was without a home. So I sat in a conference room, with the lights off because there was nothing for me to do but wait, and I overheard yet another conversation I wasn't supposed to hear.
"But Grissom said she hadn't been able to communicate until after they'd given her Debbie's face—I mean, if you had no one and you'd lost everything—even your own identity—can you honestly say you wouldn't at least consider taking what fate had handed you?"
Nick scoffed at Greg's words. "Okay—I get it about losing everything. She didn't have any family… I mean, I get it. But…being Debbie had to be worse than being yourself, with a few setbacks."
Greg chuckled. "Okay, point taken, but… but maybe she didn't know who she was signing up to be—I mean, not really—before she did it. And 'setbacks' is a mild way to say she had no home, no possessions, no money, and another woman's face. …The note she left Griss… she loves him, Nick. She fell in love with him without even seeing his face—that gives whole new meaning to the phrase 'true love is blind.'"
They seemed to sit there for a moment, letting that settle, Nick probably fairly skeptically, Greg looking knowing… and then Greg spoke again, the smile clear in his voice. "I told you she was different. And if you look at the pictures the San Francisco lab sent over—Sara is way hotter than Debbie was. …You know, she's not technically married…" He added, and even I had to smirk… perhaps only because I'd just heard the reverence with which he spoke about her love for me.
Nick snorted. "They look almost exactly the same! That's how this whole mess even happened! How can one be hotter than the other?"
"Hotness is more than skin deep." Greg declared, with all the enlightenment of a philosopher in his voice, and Nick's second snort of disbelief was interrupted by a beeping. He hurried off to check on results which no doubt had yielded nothing, and Greg headed back to his lab to check on his own lacking results.
…Well, anyway, it didn't matter how I felt and whether it was a betrayal, because none of it would matter until we found her. And I was so very afraid we wouldn't find her in time.
And that's when she called me—she wouldn't tell me where she was, but I'd practically run to the AV lab when it happened, guessing as much. We didn't even have to trace—the phone number wasn't blocked, and it was registered to a pay phone in the lobby of a small hotel off the strip. Within minutes we had a troop of uniforms speeding there, Brass and I following behind.
I didn't expect them to find her in her room—and so I was unsurprised when they didn't. They were methodical—searching empty rooms and knocking on those which were occupied—while I walked slowly through the public areas. Even though this was a small hotel, it still had several restaurants, several bars, a lounge, rows and rows of slot machines, and several gift shops. It was some amount of time before I found her…and I almost missed her.
She had on a baseball cap, and with her short hair, the back of the booth covering her shoulders, she could almost be mistaken for a teenage boy. But I'd spent months quashing down my desire to kiss that delicate expanse of throat, and a few precious, stolen moments actually doing so—and I knew it was her. My next awareness was strange. She was… sitting across from Dr. Samson.
I couldn't see her face, but his was quietly relaxed. He smiled easily, chuckled under his breath, ate with minimal pausing… I wondered if he hadn't seen the reports on the news, asking anyone with information to inform the police. Granted, if he hadn't gone home between finishing work and coming here, he might not have.
I approached slowly, because I didn't have a uniform with me and I didn't want her to run before I was close enough to catch her if she tried. Also, any one of these people around us could be the serial, waiting for Samson and the police to retreat so he could make his move. When I was close enough to read his lips, I did so—I couldn't help it, it was a force of habit, especially now that my mother had been living with us. Although he was not enunciating particularly well, and he moved his head several times, distorting my perceptions… but it seemed like he'd said…
"…family. … missing person report…news…police scanner… too easy, Sara. ...Switching identities… off… but…"
He'd seen the news. She must be explaining to him. Had she called him for an impromptu counseling session? Had he merely run into her here? He caught sight of me then and trailed off, offering a smile. Sara turned to look at me and she seemed… scared? No, that couldn't be right. Or, maybe it could be—she was probably scared of the killer… either for herself or for me, now that I'd found her. She looked back to Samson and he glanced at her… and then they both looked back to me as I came even with the table.
"…Hello, Dr. Samson. May I steal my wife for a moment?"
The doctor raised his eyebrows. "…I was under the impression that she was not, in fact, your wife… The news…"
I gave a placating smile. "Force of habit. Sara?"
She glanced back at him and then turned and met my eyes. I recognized the expression—it was one she'd started using when we went to counseling… it was a mask. Was it a mask because she was with Samson, or because she was trying to be strong with me present? Not show the vulnerability and fear that I'd seen a moment ago when she'd turned?
She took a deep breath and stood, following me all the way out to the waiting area, her eyes flickering around her nervously.
"Gil, I… I'm sorry that I lied."
I shook my head. "That isn't important right now. Let's get you somewhere safe."
She shook her head. I was learning that Sara Sidle could be rather obstinate. "No. And…" She closed her eyes, drawing in a breath. "And you can't make me come with you. I haven't committed a crime. I'm not missing anymore—call off the search, go home, take care of Wes and your mother."
I frowned. "De—Sara…" She winced, but I continued. "Listen, we… we can protect you. We can keep everyone safe until we figure out who this is."
She looked at her feet, and shook her head softly. When she looked back up, there were tears in her deep, dark brown eyes. "Gil… I can't. I… I just need you to know how sorry I am. That… that I only did it because… I love you. I know that… that you don't even know me, but… I do."
I shook my head, not ready for this confrontation and not ready for her to be telling me goodbye—because she was. "Sara, stop it. Please, just come with me."
Her soft lips puckered, like she was holding back a sob. "Tell Wes I love him too…"
"No." I said, my voice rising. "You tell him. Come with me and you tell him."
She looked at me, her eyes wide and confused. "I… you'd let me see him again?"
I almost said 'you're his mother' but I caught myself. "Of course I will. I… You're right, I… I don't know you. …But I want to."
Tears spilled over the edge now, but she made no move to wipe them away. "You… don't hate me?"
No, I love you, I didn't say. "No," I said instead, feeling the gaping hole behind the words. But I was so confused—I needed to think and I couldn't think straight until she was safe, at home, with me.
She smiled—actually smiled through her tears—and wrapped her arms around me, hugging me tightly. I was startled, but I wrapped my own arms around her hesitantly, holding her tight to me. She pulled back after a moment, sooner than I would like, and looked up at me. She hesitated, and then pressed a kiss to my lips—quick, soft, and tender, her lips wet with her tears—and then pulled away from me completely.
"I'm sorry," she whispered, and turned and walked back to the table to sit across from Samson again.
I sighed, defeated, turning and heading back out to the lobby to tell Brass that plans had changed. We had found her, but she was right, we couldn't force her to come in. What was needed was to assign an undercover officer to follow her… once the killer revealed himself, we'd call the troops back in and catch the bastard before he could hurt her. I reached the lobby, glanced around, found Brass and explained the new plan to him… he called over an officer to keep an eye on her until someone in civilian clothes could arrive to follow her, and I led him and the officer back to where I'd left Sara, so I could point her out. Sure, he'd seen pictures and I could direct him to the restaurant—but this was too important to leave to chance.
When we reached the restaurant, however, the booth was empty. Sara and Samson had both gone.
…Sara and Samson had both gone? Had they gone together, or simply both left just minutes after the confrontation? …Didn't that seem strange?
It hit me the same way my realization that my wife had been replaced by a CSI look alike—fast and hard and painful. Samson was the serial. And that… that was why she hadn't accepted my offer of help. I sprinted from the hotel, pulling out my phone, yelling at Brass to have his officers canvass the area…
But they were gone.
