Title: Journey of the Lonely Whale: Evolution (Month 12)
Author: Lisa (ljkwriting4life)
Rating: M. This story contains strong adult themes including references to violence, sexual references, and coarse language.
Pairing: Gil/Sara
Summary: One year since re-marrying, Gil and Sara return to San Diego to fulfil work commitments. While Sara becomes involved in a case that stirs memories of the past, she is also pushed by those around her to consider her future and her place in the world.
Notes: The JOTLW series aims to fill a gap between Immortality and CSI: Vegas. It does foreshadow CSI: Vegas and refers often to storylines established in the original CSI.
TEN
Two nights later, Sara was happily stretched out beneath her husband as they made out on the couch. Gil was fully recovered after a quiet couple of days at home while Sara was at work, and he was clearly sick of being the one who needed looking after. His kiss was unhurried but assertive, and he was pressing his warm, clothed body down against hers in a way that was raising both their temperatures. Sara's hands drifted slowly up and down his back, over the top of his shirt, and Gil groaned into her mouth. They were teetering on the edge of a decision about whether this was going to be slow or quick. She thought she knew what Gil needed and that was fine, she wanted that too, but then the phone rang and it was her turn to groan into his mouth. It was after eight!
"Ignore it," Gil huffed, but he was already kissing across her cheek. He lifted his torso off her so she could stretch an arm down into the back pocket of her pants to retrieve her phone. Clearly not even their combined weight sinking into the couch was enough to break the damn thing.
"It's Sophie," she said on a sigh.
Gil dropped his face down to rest against her sternum and her breasts, and Sara's free hand combed through his silver-white hair. He caught his breath and nuzzled her tousled shirt and bra.
"Hi Sophie," Sara said into the phone.
"There's been another one," Sophie said. "Except this time-"
"Another death?" Sara asked, cutting her off. She felt Gil tense against her.
"What? No, no, well, maybe almost, another break-in while the victim was home, but she's alive, the victim's alive. Lochie and I just got to the scene, and our perp got away, but we've got the knife, the shoe, the trace, it's all here. Blood. There was some sort of a scuffle. Aaron wants to know if you can go to the hospital to speak to the woman while I help the guys process the scene."
"Isn't that usually his thing?" Sara asked. She tried not to sigh. She wanted to help, she just-
"He's busy, he asked if you could do it." Sophie hesitated. "I know it's late," she said. "Sorry."
"No, no, okay," Sara said. "It has to be done. Is Aaron there with you and Lochie?"
"No, but JP is here with us, he and Lochie were on shift anyway and they called me in."
Sara got the details of the hospital and the woman's name and hung up the phone.
"Sounds like our perp disturbed another woman while she was still at home and there was a fight," Sara told Gil as she lifted her head and looked down her body and into his eyes, as his chin rested lightly on the highest point of her sternum. "She's alive, in hospital. I have to go in. Process."
"All right," he said.
Sara smiled. He made it sound so easy. If he was disappointed, he had gotten over that while she was still on the phone. He wasn't angry and didn't blame her because he understood how time-sensitive this kind of evidence was to collect, and he understood how hard it was for her to ever say no to it. He liked to make it about her, of course, but he'd had a hard time saying no to the job too.
Sara kept hold of her phone in one hand, while the fingers of her other hand stroked the straight white hair at Gil's short sideburns and around his ear, and she pushed his soft hair away from his temple. He watched her while she quietly touched him. She could tell he was wondering what was going through her mind, since she hadn't made a move to extract herself from him yet.
"Want to come for a drive?" she asked.
Gil smiled and nodded, and they both sat up on a sigh. Sara wondered dryly who didn't love a drive to the hospital on a Tuesday night? At least she never had made it out of her work clothes.
Sara was surprised to find Nita Spink sitting in bed, in leggings and a top with a blood stain. She was about fifty, with dark hair, dark skin and eyes. She was tall and plump. She looked strong and not hurt, but she also had the wide-eyed look of someone still hyped up on adrenaline, and Sara knew that feeling herself. Nita had fought for her life and won, but part of her brain was still fighting.
"Hi Nita," she said with a smile. "I'm Sara, I'm from the Crime Lab. How are you feeling?"
"Fine," Nita said. She watched Sara open her kit. "What are you going to do to me now?"
"Only with your permission, Nita," Sara said once she turned back to Nita and put her gloves on. "I would like to take scrapings from under your fingernails, and we'd like to take your clothes-"
"Oh right, DNA, yeah, yeah," Nita said, nodding hurriedly. "Sure you can. I kicked that skinny little bitch's ass. I've got evidence of her all over me for sure, as you can see. I cut her nicely too."
Nita smiled, and Sara froze and looked into Nita's eyes, briefly alarmed. Her? If Nita picked up on Sara's reaction amid her own shock she didn't show it, and Sara quickly composed herself.
"Can you…tell me what happened?" Sara asked. "Have you spoken to the police yet?"
"Nope. The cop said he was going to call you lot and then he disappeared, ages ago now. I've just been sitting here, thanking God I am still able to sit and experience this place. He was useless; he didn't even know how to talk to me. He just criticized me for not calling the police until after it happened, as though he didn't understand I'm on my own all the damn time. I wasn't relying on anyone to save me. You'd be about my age, right? So, you get it. You know what I'm talking about."
Sara nodded as she reached delicately for Nita's left hand, which Nita gave her willingly. She listened to Nita talk as she worked.
"There I was, minding my own business in my own house, and I hear the door bust open. I watch the news, I'm an educated woman not an idiot, and that poor girl got knifed not six blocks away. But I've got no gun in my room, and the kitchen is on the other side of the house, so I think, 'okay then Nita, you can either hide and wait to be found, or go out there and pound the old man'."
"Sure," Sara said agreeably as she moved to Nita's right hand.
"Well, I peek around the corner, y'know? And blow me down if I don't see this big old man I'm scared of is really a tiny little thing half my size, crouching in my hallway with a shoe. Hell, she was half your size and look at you! Suddenly I'm not so scared anymore. I'm like, 'Hey! What the hell do you think you're doing in my house?' I surprised her so bad while her back was to me she nearly fell over. God, I'm gonna laugh about this one day, I tell you! But she turned on me with that knife suddenly in her hand and I was like, 'Oh no, no you do not'. I used to play ball, I'm faster and stronger than I look if you were to just see me walking down the street. I tricked her, made her think I was gonna go one way and then I went the other and I grabbed her, got us on the floor. She dropped the knife and I got her gloves off somehow. She was trying to strangle me at that point, she was strong for her little size, I was surprised by that, but I'm a lot bigger than that poor teenager I reckon she killed and I think we both knew it. I got the knife and I cut her, ripped her little beanie off too, pinned her down. The only reason she got out from underneath this big old body you see in front of you is because she kicked me right in the koochie. Ran off. She's just a kid, but I did my bit. Her DNA is all over me, it's all her blood." She gestured to her shirt as Sara finished her nails.
"Are you hurt anywhere?" Sara asked as she tenderly pushed Nita's hair behind her ears and back away from her scalp, looking for any additional injuries she needed to photograph.
"No, honey," Nita said. She exhaled slowly and settled, now that she had told someone her story, and perhaps because of Sara's gloved fingertips combing methodically through her hair. "I was brought in as a precaution only. But you can look, you do what you need to do, I appreciate it."
Sara cursed the tears that rushed to her eyes. She just nodded and focused on the work. After checking Nita's scalp, she held Nita's arms one by one and looked for any early bruising. Their brown eyes met a few times as Sara checked all the way around her throat. Nita was still and calm.
"I can't see anything, no cuts or even bruising, at this stage," Sara said. She took a step back once she felt composed enough to do so and raised her eyebrows seriously. "Any sexual assault?"
"Apart from her bony little knee?" Nita asked. She smirked, and Sara laughed, but it also wasn't her job to make assumptions, and this girl could have groped and violated Nita too. "No," Nita said when she saw the look in Sara's eyes and understood. "No ma'am, nothing like that."
"Oh please, don't call me ma'am," Sara said quickly, her droll voice full of good humour.
It had the desired effect. Nita laughed loudly and clapped her hands together, perhaps for a moment forgetting what she had been through. She had a big, joyous laugh. Sara laughed with her and they shared a wise look and a smile as they calmed down. Once they stopped laughing, Sara stood in front of her more seriously and held her own hands up in a gesture of surrender.
"Nita, can you show me, if I'm the person who attacked you, where you cut them?"
Nita nodded. She lifted her left hand and clasped her hand around the imaginary knife, and she thoughtfully cast it downwards over Sara's right ribcage, under her breast and to her waist.
"I didn't stab her," Nita said. "I might have tried but I missed, or it hit her ribs first? I think I sliced her, it was enough for all of this blood to get on me when I then pinned her down. When she ran away, I jammed the front door shut with a chair. I saw the blood and this shoe and her beanie and gloves, so I called 911 and I sat next to the knife in case she came back, but that little girl was scared, Sara, and I took everything I could off her. She knew better than to come back to me."
"Okay," Sara said. She gestured gently as she lowered her hands. "You're left-handed?"
"Yeah," Nita said on a sigh. "You?"
Sara shook her head and held up her right hand.
"Nita, do you think you could work with a sketch artist to create an impression of this woman's face? We like to ask for those detailed descriptions before you get the chance to see any photographs or any other people who could influence what you describe."
"I suppose you lot are all in my home now, aren't you? So, I've got the time. I'll give you more than just an impression. Are you gonna do it?"
"The sketch?" Sara asked, surprised. "No, you really don't want me to do that. I'm terrible. As soon as we're done here I'll call in a professional."
Nita chuckled as Sara found a hospital gown at the foot of the bed and she stood and watched Nita take off her oversized shirt and leggings. She bagged the evidence and turned her back to give Nita more privacy to get into the gown while she labelled the bags and packed up her kit.
"All right," Sara said once she was ready to go. She turned back to see Nita sitting on the bed where she always had been, this time in the pale blue gown. Nita looked far more vulnerable now. "Do you have anyone you want me to call?" Sara asked. "A good friend or any family?"
"No, it's fine," Nita said. "I've got my phone, I'll get a friend to bring me some clothes, but I don't need anyone to sit with me. Uh, how long will they keep me here since I'm not hurt?"
"They'll probably just keep you for observation for a little while, and then you might need to go to the police department to give a formal statement. Just tell them exactly what happened, like you told me, and they'll type it up word for word. Maybe…use a word other than koochie."
Nita laughed loudly again and nodded, as Sara smirked playfully and looked into her eyes.
"Are you going now, taking all this stuff back to test it?"
"Yep, this is what I do," Sara said, but she stopped directly in front of Nita and put both of her hands on Nita's upper arms. Sara held her firmly and warmly, and she hoped the woman felt secure when she looked into her eyes. "You did a really great job, Nita. I'm glad you're okay."
"Thanks honey," Nita said. She smiled softly at Sara, and as their eyes connected again Sara felt herself smile in return. "You go nab that skinny little bitch with all that DNA. I'll be all right."
Sara nodded and gathered the evidence bags and her kit and left.
Gil was leaning against the wall a few metres away, talking to a detective Sara had met once or twice in the past few weeks.
"All done?" Gil asked when he saw her. "We heard laughing."
"She's a riot," Sara confirmed with a tired smile. "Hey, Clay. You're gonna want to get a sketch artist in for this one asap, she got an up close and personal look at your suspect and she's ready to talk. The sooner the better, she's up now but she might need to crash in a few hours."
"Brilliant, will do," Clay said with a smile. "Night, and nice to meet you, Mr Grissom."
Sara waved by gesturing with her chin, since she had no free hands, but she did hand Gil her kit as they walked, and she kept hold of the evidence.
"Do you want me to drop you at the lab so you can start processing this?" he asked.
Sara scoffed, and he looked at her as though he was surprised.
"No," she said. "We're going to the lab, but I'll log this into evidence and then we're going home. It can wait until tomorrow."
Gil accepted her decision. They were packing up the car in the lot when Sara's phone rang.
"Sara Sidle," she answered quickly. She casually threw the soft evidence into the trunk and climbed into the front passenger seat of the car. Gil shut the trunk and got in behind the wheel.
"Sara, it's Sophie," the young woman said again. "Major development. We've lifted multiple prints from the front hall, and there's a beanie with long, blonde hair caught in it that was left behind, along with the shoe and the same trace we've been looking at all along. Based on the size of the prints we're talking about here, and the long hair, we should be looking for a woman."
"You are," Sara confirmed. "I just spoke to the homeowner. She's doing well, she confirmed it was a woman, probably young, petite. Detective Ferrioli is calling in a sketch artist tonight. Your suspect is also injured, with possibly a long cut down the length of her right rib cage. If you're lucky, you'll get a hit on the prints and DNA without having to rely on the sketch alone, but once you have the sketch, you could also compare it to the group photos we got from Brendan Schlecht's phone."
"Yeah, sounds perfect," Sophie said. "Are you going back to the lab now?"
"Just to drop off the evidence I collected from Nita, her nails and her clothes. Night, Sophie."
Sara hung up after Sophie said goodnight to her as well. She rested her head against the back of her chair as Gil drove toward the lab. She felt her eyes closing but forced them to snap open.
"So," Gil said after glancing at her. "Chloe Rollins' killer is a woman?"
"A skinny little bitch, according to Nita," Sara confirmed. Gil laughed softly.
Fifteen or more years ago he would have given her a huffy lecture on referring to victims by their first names, being too personal, getting too close – he had given her that lecture – but he didn't bother to do that now. Maybe he didn't mind so much anymore. Maybe he better understood the good it did, too. Maybe he liked hearing laughter from the other side of a hospital door for once.
"Do you remember," Sara began before she stopped herself. "That I said when you were away I'd had some nightmares?"
"Yes," Gil said quietly as he stared at the road, but he was listening intently.
"I dreamed about this case, about Chloe's death," she said. "I always imagined it was a woman, using a large men's shoe, building site materials, the furthest thing perhaps from what they really are. It made sense from the start and when I dreamed it, I saw a her, and yet-" She sighed. "I thought that was just because of my mom, that I was somehow just subconsciously mixing the two together because of the nature of Chloe's injuries. I was never in Chloe's position in the dream, I was always just…watching it happen. But I felt it was a woman, Gil, and I told myself that was crazy."
"Intuition?" Gil suggested.
Sara scoffed. Where was the scientific evidence for that? Gil Grissom, suggesting intuition!
"I should have said something," she mumbled. Lochie had, she realised. Lochie had said they could have been looking for a woman the very first time they spoke about the case and Sara never followed it up, because she made an assumption and because she hadn't wanted to. Stupid! She was a horrible teacher or mentor or whatever it was Nick wanted her to be, and Nita could have died.
She used the back of her hand to dab at the tears in her eyes. Gil reached a hand across the console and rested it briefly on her thigh.
"You're too hard on yourself," he said.
Then her phone rang, again, and that was it.
"Fuck! Why won't these people just leave me the fuck alone!" she shouted. Her voice was so loud and angry it echoed off every interior wall of the small car. Tears spilled out of her eyes at the shock, and she covered her face with both of her hands and let her phone keep ringing in her lap. Her chest shook with quiet sobs as she cried into her hands and pulled her feet up onto the seat.
"Sara!" Gil exclaimed, in a mixture of concern and surprise. Her phone was still ringing, and Gil's hand shot out and grabbed the phone in the half-second before it slid off her wriggly lap and between the seat and console. He pulled the car to the side of the road and answered. "Sara Sidle's phone." He paused to listen and stretched his free hand over the console to blindly reach for Sara's knee. He held her knee as she stopped crying and listened to him. "Hi Aaron, this is Gil Grissom…Yes, that's the one. Sara's driving. We're just on our way back to the lab from the hospital…Ahuh. Okay I'll tell her. Bye."
He let go of Sara's knee to focus on ending the call and he put her phone on silent, and Sara took her opportunity to jump out of the car. She stalked onto the shoulder of the road and leant against a guardrail. She just needed to catch her breath. She gripped the cold metal rail and looked ahead. She felt stubborn and angry and her heart was pounding, and she knew she didn't have a good reason as to why, and Gil hadn't seen her like this in a year, because they had been so happy.
What the hell were they even doing there? In San Diego? She wasn't helping anyone, not even herself.
"Sara," Gil said gently as he came up behind her.
The road was busy, it was night but it wasn't yet midnight, and a lot of people were getting a brief glimpse of this as they zoomed on by. Even better, Sara realised she was putting Gil's own life at risk. He was only standing on the side of a busy road because of her. If a car lost control and veered toward them, he was going to be hit first, and she knew he had already thought of that.
"Aaron said you can go home, so let's get back in the car, get to the lab, and do that now."
He was gentle but firm, and Sara nodded. She was easily led when she was broken.
"You've been away from parts of this job for too long," Gil added.
It was the wrong thing to say, and yet on another day Sara might have been more forgiving, but this time she turned on him with fierce eyes and a glare. She was so angry. She was SO angry.
"Don't even start," she seethed. "You mean the part of the job where I care about people? Where I care about myself, where I care about what I do and how it makes me feel? You are not my supervisor anymore, Gil. Don't you dare!"
He held up his hands in surrender with a look of surprise, and regret softened his features.
"Okay," he said. "You're right, I'm not your supervisor, and I'm sorry." He gestured with his raised hands to the car. "Come back to the car, honey," he repeated. "Everything is all right."
Sara melted a little at his kindness; she didn't want to. She hated that he could do this to her, make her angry and then make it impossible to stay mad at him.
She was about to move back to the small rental car but froze when another car pulled up behind theirs on the side of the road. It was a much larger truck, with bright, blaring headlights. The door flew open and a man in a cap leaned up out over the top of the door, standing in his car.
"You all right, miss?" he asked. "This old guy hassling you? Cos I can fix that for ya."
Sara's first thought was that he might have a gun and she hurried to Gil and grabbed his hand. She put herself in front of him. She wasn't wearing her vest, she realised. It was in her locker.
"No, no, he's my husband, we're fine, I wasn't feeling well. Thank you for checking."
"All right then," the man said. He got back into his truck and indicated to drive away, and Gil wrapped an arm around Sara's back and ushered her quickly back into the front passenger seat.
"I'm so sorry," she gushed as soon as they were both secure in the car and driving away.
Gil hadn't said anything, but she could see his hands trembling as they gripped the wheel.
"You have absolutely nothing to be sorry about," he said after a moment. "We're all right."
Sara supposed that was true. She watched as a smile tugged on the corner of Gil's mouth.
"You shielded me," he noted factually. "Very noble, dear. Even if he was a Good Samaritan, please don't do it again."
"No promises," she assured him after a brief cackle. She smiled and reached across the car to comb her fingers through his hair, much as she had on the couch earlier that night. Gil sighed and relaxed in his seat. He enjoyed when she did that and somehow it made her feel a little bit safer, too.
They got to the lab quickly from there, and Gil waited in the car while Sara collected the evidence and walked it inside to log it and leave it.
"What do you think you're doing here?" Nick said when he saw her at the entrance. He was on his way out after another long day. She held up the evidence bags. They'd both had long days.
"You should not have been at that scene, Sara. You're off shift. Where's your vest?"
"Relax, I just went to the hospital to deal with the homeowner, I'll leave early tomorrow. I promise, you won't owe me a cent of overtime."
"All right," Nick said. He narrowed his eyes as he observed her features under the fluorescent security lighting over the front entrance of the lab. Sara blushed and looked away shyly. She could only imagine what she looked like. "You okay?" he asked. "Have you been crying?"
"It's fine," she said. She plastered a smile on her face and gestured back to the car. "Gil's with me. It's just…a tough case, and we're getting closer to the end now." In more ways than one, she thought. Nick seemed to realise that too and he nodded and smiled kindly at her.
"All right then, in and out tonight, Sara, and I better not see you in here after lunchtime tomorrow. The team can work on this without you," Nick said.
Sara nodded. As it should be, she thought.