Letting Go
"I finally came to see you."
The California sun was shining brightly down on her, the grass she was sitting on was warm, but Sara still felt cold. She wrapped her arms around her to ward off the chill, bringing her knees up to her chin, resting her head there. In front of her, the black marble tombstone seemed to shimmer, the name and dates blurring, and she reached up to wipe a tear from her eye.
"I know it's been a long time. Mom tells me that I should come home more, but you know how it is."
Sara didn't come back home often, preferring to stay away from family gatherings. Ever since Shona had died, something had been missing, and she'd felt it more keenly than anyone. Eric's arrest hadn't changed that, and she still hadn't come home for Christmas, or for her birthday, knowing that either occasion would bring family out of the woodwork. Instead, she'd waited, choosing a weekend of no significance whatsoever to travel home. Paul was still in Boston, Daniel in New York, and she hadn't told either of them that she was going to California. She'd been sure that they both would have instantly made plans to fly home; to see her, because she didn't go to visit them much either. This was going to be the first time that she'd been home in almost three years, and she knew that it was going to be bad enough facing Mom without adding her two big brothers into the mix.
Half of her had been dreading this trip, even as the other half knew that she had to do it, had to face her ghosts.
It hadn't been what she'd expected though.
"It's funny; I thought it'd be harder. Seeing everyone again, after everything. But it hasn't. Maybe I'm finally getting better at handling this."
She'd made a conscious decision not to follow any of the details of Eric's case, although she knew that it would have been a simple matter to make some phone calls, either on her own, or with the help of Grissom and Brass, to find out what the evidence looked like, what exactly was in the police file. She could have done it, but she hadn't wanted to. She hadn't even read as much as the newspaper reports on the case. Her parents and brothers hadn't adopted the same philosophy, and each of them kept her up to date with the latest developments. They'd told her that Eric had confessed to killing his girlfriend; not that he had a choice. The forensic evidence was strong enough that conviction was a certainty. Re-examination of Shona's case had produced enough further evidence to bring charges against him for her murder too, and while he hadn't confessed, the District Attorney had filed charges against him on two counts of murder.
After all that time, all the lies, all the running away, it was finally over.
Now she just had to figure out how she felt about it. How she was going to go on with her life.
She'd done it once before. Mom and Dad had wanted her to take some time off school when Shona had died, wanting their only remaining daughter to be close to them. But Sara had seen the look of pain in their eyes every time they looked at her, and she hadn't wanted to deal with that day in, day out. It was bad enough that she could hardly look in the mirror without seeing that same trauma echoed and magnified in her family's faces. So she'd gone back to Boston, taken up her classes again, stopped bitching about her morning lab, and she'd learned to live with it. Learned to live without the other part of herself. Learned to look in the mirror again, although that had been easier once she'd cut her hair. Shona had never had hair down to her shoulders; they'd always kept their hair long. The face in the mirror didn't look as much like her anymore, and Sara had learned that you could be relieved and heartbroken by something at the same time.
Forensics had been something that had intrigued her, but nothing that she'd ever considered as a career option. That changed during her senior year, and by graduation, she knew that it was what she wanted to do. Her parents had questioned the decision, wondering if she was acting out of grief, and she'd told them that it was her life, her decision. She couldn't deny though, that every time she solved a case, she felt good, as if she was helping a family receive the closure hers had been denied.
Until the day that her father called her in Vegas, and she hadn't known where to turn.
She'd been nervous about facing Grissom the day after he'd walked in on her and Warrick in the break room, knowing that she'd been a basket case, knowing that he must have been wondering what the hell was going on. She'd half-expected him to sit her down, try to talk to her, but he'd just looked at her and asked, "You ok?"
She'd nodded, swallowing hard and shifting on her feet. "Yeah…I'm sorry about…"
"Hey." He'd stopped her by holding up a hand. "It was a family emergency. Right?" She'd nodded, he'd shrugged. "That's all you have to say."
He hadn't said anything else, gone straight into talking about serrated edges and casts of stab wounds, not mentioning how she'd come in with Warrick that day, or how she was wearing the same clothes she'd been wearing the day before. The last two facts hadn't escaped Greg and Nick however, and they weren't as circumspect as Grissom, needling her gently, and Warrick not so gently about what was going on between them.
She'd told them at the time, as calmly as possible, that she'd had some bad news, and that Warrick had been there to help her out, that there was nothing more to it than that. She hadn't meant for her voice to catch when she spoke, and there had been a tremor in her hand that she was trying to mask, both of which had been noticed, but unremarked upon, by the two men.
What she hadn't mentioned was that Warrick was going to take her out for breakfast when they got off shift, but they soon cottoned on to that fact when it became a regular occurrence.
By the time that she and Warrick began arriving to and leaving from work together every day, Nick and Greg weren't saying anything about it, just smiling knowingly.
And when she'd told him that she was going to California for the weekend, and that Warrick was going with her, Nick had simply chuckled, and spent the rest of the shift whistling something that sounded suspiciously like "Chapel of Love" every time that she or Warrick were within earshot.
She'd never meant for anything like that to happen between them. She'd just gone to his house, looking to not be on her own. She'd never expected to find herself opening up to him so easily though, never expected him to be such a good listener. And once she'd told him, once he'd known what she was going through, he'd been there for her every step of the way, until one day she looked at him and realised that friendship had given way to something more.
"Warrick's been fantastic through all this," she said now. "He's a great guy Shona; you'd really like him." She glanced over her shoulder, at Warrick leaning against the side of the car, arms folded across his chest, eyes trained firmly on her. "Mom's been freaking him out, hovering over us, making sure that we don't want for anything… it's funny." She'd had to bite the inside of her cheek several times already to keep from laughing at the look of barely disguised panic that she'd caught creeping into Warrick's usually impassive face. He hadn't quite known what to expect, he'd told her the previous night when they were lying in bed, and she'd teased him about being scared of her mother.
"Damn right I'm scared," he told her, poking a finger in her side, causing her to squirm and bite back a squeal. "The woman who taught you all you know?" She'd lifted her head to mock-glare at him, then dropped her head back on to his chest, sighing. One of his hands had been making lazy circles on her back, and it stopped then, moving to cup her chin, tilting her head up. "You ok?"
She'd lost count of all the times he'd asked her that that day; when they were packing that morning, when they were waiting in the airport, when her head was resting on his shoulder on the plane. When she'd pulled up outside her parent's house, the house where she'd grown up, and she'd just sat there, knuckles white on the steering wheel, unable to move. It had taken his hand closing over hers, the gentleness in his soft green eyes to get her to move, and it had only been his hand on the small of her back that enabled her to walk up the driveway, had made her stay when Mom had taken her time in coming to the door.
"It's strange," she'd told him. "Being back here. I keep expecting to see her."
Things had improved for her since she'd been seeing Warrick. She didn't have nightmares, hadn't seen the ghost in the mirror for a long time. But being back in California after so long, and seeing the house through Warrick's eyes had stirred up the emotions she'd thought she'd left behind. She'd noticed his start of surprise at the numerous photographs scattered throughout the house of her and Shona, in some cases, two identical girls side by side, indistinguishable save for a smile, in others, seemingly two different pictures of the same girl, taken at the same time; different periods in their life, stopping when they were twenty-one.
"You want to talk about it?" he'd asked her, a worried frown creasing his features, but she'd smiled, shaking her head.
"I just want to sleep."
He'd held her as they'd drifted off, and much to her surprise, she slept through the night, only waking to the pleasurable feeling of kisses being placed along the back of her neck, even as a pair of nimble hands worked their way under the too-big T-shirt that she'd worn for the first time some seven months ago. A quick check of the clock had told her that it was just past nine in the morning; which meant that Dad had probably left for work, and that Mom was probably pottering around in the kitchen, doing the chores as quietly as possible, so as not to disturb the prodigal daughter. She'd turned to him, protesting in a whisper that they really shouldn't, and he'd given her a quizzical look, not surprisingly considering that her own hands were quite busy working his tank top off his body. They'd made love slowly, quietly, and she was halfway to dozing peacefully on his shoulder when she felt a kiss to the top of her head, and heard him whisper something to her that she wasn't sure she was supposed to hear.
She hadn't ever expected to feel like this; not about Warrick, not about anyone. Once you'd had someone in your life, all your life, who was so close to you, only to have that person ripped away from you, the way you interacted with other people tended to change. Shona had been the one that Sara had always turned to, the one that she could always count on. No-one had ever been able to take her place in that regard; nor had Sara ever wanted anyone to.
Warrick had done it without her even realising.
"I never wanted this, you know," she said softly now, turning her gaze away from him, back to the grave. "He was just there, knowing just what to say, just what to do." She chuckled, imagining Shona's reaction to that. "You're probably thinking that he's a mind reader or something; I'm not so sure you're wrong come to think of it. But I'm glad he's around." She took a deep breath, a sudden lump appearing in her throat. "I just wish you still were."
There was a noise over her shoulder, and she looked around to see Warrick ambling towards her, his face still wearing that expression of vague concern. He didn't say anything when he reached her side, just slid his hands into his pockets, looking first at her, then at the tombstone; the name and dates shining golden.
Shona Amanda Sidle.
1971-1993
Beloved daughter, sister and friend.
"I'm all right," she told him, not waiting for him to ask, lifting her hand to him. He took it, helping her up, not releasing it once she stood. She stepped as close to him as she could, rising up on her toes to press her lips to his quickly, her other hand on his side. He returned her kiss, free hand on her back, moving up to cup her face when their lips separated. "Did you mean what you said this morning?" she asked him quietly, and briefly, the panicked look that she was beginning to associate with his reaction to her mother's questioning flashed across his face.
Only briefly however; it cleared almost instantly, and he nodded. "I meant it," was all he said.
She'd known that; she'd always known that. Just as she knew that what she was going to tell him now was something that he'd always known. "Good."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. Because I love you too." A smile broke over his face as the words settled in his brain, and he brought her to him, kissing her again.
"Come on," she told him when they parted, throwing one last look over her shoulder. "Let's go home." Hand in hand, they walked from the graveyard, with her slipping into the driver's seat. She waited until both of them were belted in before she put the key in the ignition, and as always, she checked the rear view mirror before she turned it on.
What she saw there had her stopping, staring.
Her own face stared back at her.
Her own face.
"Sara?" His voice had her looking to him, and he had his worried face on again.
"I'm fine," she told him simply, reaching over and squeezing his hand quickly before putting the car into drive. "Let's go."
