Disclaimer: I don't own it, I don't pretend to own it, and I don't mean to offend anyone's sensibilities.
Thank You: Stelmarta for being there! Mom because I love her!
Special Thank You: Duchess of Hell and to Saryn for the wonderful support. Katherine and Anna, for the extra bit of e-mail encouragement while ff,net was down.
Chapter Twelve
Warrick was having a tough time with this family. They wanted to help, they really truly did, but the husband was in his early seventies, as was his wife, and both were native speakers of Chinese. They did speak English well, considering that they'd come to the language late in life. He was trying to extract enough information out of them to make actually going into the morgue and physically identifying the body unnecessary. It wasn't going too well and at seven o'clock in the morning, fatigue was beginning to catch up to him.
"Alright Mr. and Mrs. Fa, it looks as though we're going to have to do this the hard way. Which one of you wants to go in?"
"I will go" said the diminutive woman, putting her firm chin in the air. Warrick nodded and escorted them to the morgue. On the way there he ran into Catherine and Sara, grinning like fools and supervising the transport of several boxes of evidence.
"Hey, looks like a nice stash"
"Oh we got him Warrick," Catherine grinned widely, "look at this." Sara reached into one of the evidence boxes and extracted a baggie containing one pair of novelty handcuffs, bent slightly and dripping of Luminol.
"Oh baby, come to me." Warrick took the bag and grinned, "Anything else?"
"Loads," Sara sighed, "We found the website locked up in his computer, I think she accessed it from his house. There are also some very fishy looking financial records; we got him wrapped up for a couple of things."
"Great," Warrick grinned madly, "Listen I gotta take care of the ID on John Doe, but good job ladies. Real nice work." Sara grinned and Catherine beamed, Warrick in unusually high spirits for a trip to the morgue, halfway danced his way down the corridor.
"They get who?" the elderly gentlemen asked.
"Um, well, I can't really say because this is an open investigation, but let's just say the person who's really responsible for this happening is about to find himself in some serious hot water."
The man nodded, apparently satisfied. He and his wife embraced quietly, gathering strength before she went into the room, accompanied by Warrick. The stench was unholy, and the body was pretty mangled, but the head was intact enough that Mrs. Fa nodded her assent. This was her son. Hoping against hope that this encounter with the family wouldn't end up in a flurry of less than stellar English, Warrick escorted her out and pulled off his mask.
"What now Mr. Brown?" her husband asked him holding his wife tenderly.
"We go down to Processing to have his remains released to your custody." They began the long trek from the morgue to the main desk of the LVPD. Warrick took the shortcut through CSI hall, and got the appropriate forms out for Mrs. Fa to fill. She made it through the first page before crumpling back into her husband's embrace keening loudly and exclaiming in Chinese.
A door slammed open, and pelting out of the CSI hall was Sara running like the devil and his demons were chasing her. She spotted the Fa's and made a beeline for the processing counter.
"It's alright; it's Ok, everything going to…" Warrick was suddenly interrupted by Sara, who shocked him, Catherine, and Nick, who poked his head out at the commotion, by beginning to calm the woman by speaking in the same high, nasal Chinese dialect that she was exclaiming in.
Shocked by the language of her home spoken out of the mouth of this five-eight skinny-as-a-rail Anglo, Mrs. Fa allowed Sara to take over the rest of the forms, asking the appropriate questions in Chinese and being responded to in kind.
They parted, still conversing in the same language, and Sara escorted them outside, chatting. Warrick, silently asked Catherine, who shrugged, and turned to Nick, who nodded absently, but was still a little confused.
"Hey Sar, remind me to ask you next time we get stuck with the ones who don't speak English. I had a couple of good ones yesterday." Warrick said in a jocular tone, "No se hablan ingles."
"I don't know Spanish Warrick, I wouldn't have been much more use than anyone else." She snapped, a little prickly at having her ability revealed.
"How come you never told anyone you spoke Chinese?" asked Nick.
"I don't 'speak Chinese' " she said irritably, going back to the break room, "I speak Cantonese. You live in Chinatown for long enough, you pick it up, OK?"
"You lived in Chinatown?" Catherine asked.
"It was cheap and I was broke" Sara grunted, "Problem?"
"No," Catherine didn't want to set off this ticking time bomb, "Just curious."
She glared at Warrick and Nick, with the unspoken message 'don't pry'. Nick checked his watch, the shift was up in ten minutes anyhow, and he followed Catherine and Sara into the break room.
"So what'd you do on your vacation?" he asked, tongue in cheek, because he knew damn well what she did on her vacation. He was rewarded by the slightly annoyed glare and scowl that was Sara Sidle.
"Who says I did anything?" she countered, sharply. "I spent half the time asleep anyhow. You know that." He sent a quick look to Catherine, unsure that Sara really wanted to get into this now, but she just laughed.
"Nick, you honestly think something like this could go on at CSI and she'd not know about it?" Sara grumbled, "Damn woman has got her fingers in every cookie jar."
"Amen," Warrick, filing away a manila envelope in the cabinet on the side of the break room. "She's got radar or something"
He slid, backwards, onto one of the chairs. Nick plopped onto the sofa, and held an inviting arm open for Sara, who sighed resignedly, but snuggled anyhow.
"You know I'm standing right here, don't you?" Asked Catherine, slightly amused at the staff's reaction to her 'cookie jar' instincts.
"So?" asked Warrick.
She leaned back onto the table, determined to change the subject, before they revealed some of her more, shall we say, controversial 'cookie jars'. "So what do we think we've got the manager for, assault, fraud, or tax evasion?"
"How about all of the above," Nick offered, "I was just looking through the records, just a little, 'cause the real CPA's for the Feds gotta go through it, but basically he's busted."
"Good" said a voice, from the doorway.
Everyone turned, though not to see who it was, though they could have recognised that speaker in their sleep. It was Grissom, rumpled, raccoon-eyed, and sardonic. "Nice to know my people keep going, even when I'm not here."
Sara, who'd bolted to her feet at the sound of his voice, was frozen in place. She stood stock still; Nick was reminded of deer, caught in the scope of his hunter's gun. Not moving, but painfully aware of all their surroundings. Grissom let his overnight bag slide off his shoulder; it thudded dully in the pin-drop silence of the CSI lounge.
"Good morning, Sara." He greeted, with every trace of his usual Grissom tones.
"Go to hell, Grissom" she responded, challengingly.
He visibly winced, as if she'd struck him physically. The rest of the staff, circled around the pair, like a boxing match. Catherine standing next to Grissom, Warrick between them, and Nick, silently supporting Sara from behind.
"What make you think I haven't already been there, Sara?" Grissom asked softly.
Nick could see her back stiffen, and shoulders go tight, but she didn't relent. "What's that supposed to mean?" Sara tossed her head confidently, "You don't even know the meaning of the word."
"If it means that you've failed one of your best and dearest friends and known it, then yes, I believe I do." Grissom said in the ever-so-logical tone he lectured in, controlling himself rigidly.
His words threw Sara off balance and he quickly rushed in, not wanting to miss his chance. "I promised you anonymity when you came here, I've failed at that. I promised to respect your feelings, and I've failed at that as well. It was unpardonable of me, Sara. I apologise. I've been quite an ass."
"I won't argue with that." Sara said stubbornly, but her voice had lost some its vitriol. Grissom revealing his feelings was a rare occasion indeed.
"I…" he bit his lip and plodded steadily foreword, "I don't want you to leave. You're too good a CSI, you're too good a friend, you're too good a person, and I'll miss you too much. I need you here Sara, we all do."
"We…" her voice trailed off, "You planned this!" she said in a rush, glaring at Catherine and Warrick and Nick, finding a target for her bottled up feelings. "All of you! What is this: 'open season on Sara' or something? Why can't you people just leave well enough alone?"
"Grissom's not the only one who wants you to stay here, Sara." Catherine stepped foreword, toughing her shoulders slightly, "We all need you here. Who'll hang out with Nick, if you go? Who's going to sing in the lab if you're gone? Pick on Greg's eating habits? Remind Grissom that people are people and not specimens?"
Sara backed away from Catherine's gentle persuasion; the situation was spiralling out of her immediate control. It terrified her. Sara didn't like to be out of control, she never had. People worried her, they she couldn't predict what they did, couldn't anticipate them, and couldn't stop them.
Her eyes darted from Nick to Catherine to Warrick to Grissom. They were threatening her attitude of imperviousness. She cared, they cared for her, and she was open, she wasn't invincible anymore; it scared her out of her mind.
"Just leave me the hell alone." Sara said softly, but with serious venom, "Go away, all of you, and leave me the hell alone!"
Sara was gone, just that quickly.
Grissom just sat heavily on one of the chairs, putting his head in his hands. Catherine put an arm around him, and he slid one around her too, taking support from her, surprising everyone, Catherine the most of all. Nick just slumped back onto the sofa, Warrick paced, compulsively neatening random things around the room.
"So what now?" Nick finally asked.
"Now," Grissom said, surprisingly calm, "We wait. Give her some time to sort it out. She'll be back."
"How can you be so sure?" Warrick asked bitterly, upset that their scheme hadn't worked. "I mean this is Sara we're talking about here; God knows what goes on in her head."
"She'll be back" Catherine agreed with Grissom, "If nothing else she won't want to give us the satisfaction of having run her off."
