Disclaimer: I don't own them. Obviously. Nor do I own the lyrics. Those belong to Linkin Park.
Warning: Character Death, Implied Suicide
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Figured.09
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Nothing ever stops all these thoughts
And the pain attached to them
Sometimes I wonder why this is happening
I'd yelled at her. She'd been sitting on the breakroom couch, her forehead resting on the cushion beside her because her fever was raging and she really didn't have the strength to sit up correctly. Then, while I tried to ignore her, she begged for me to come home with her. She didn't want to be alone.
And I yelled at her. Because I'm a selfish, stubborn asshole. Because I was too busy living in my own personal hell to see she was trying to get out of her own, to see she doesn't want to remember anymore the things she lived through.
It's like nothing I can do
Will distract me when
I think of how I shot myself in the back again
'cause the infinite words I could say
Put all the pain you gave me on display
But didn't realize
Instead of setting it free
I took what I hated and made it part of me
Seething, I went to our next crime scene. Horatio was trying to be nice and not say anything about the blow-up I'd had at her. I think maybe he thought that it was a lover's quarrel, though I could tell he was pissed that I'd chosen to fight with her when Calleigh was ill.
So I drove down the causeway, never once allowing myself to recall that *I* was the one who'd promised to be there when the memories got to be to much. I just didn't want to think about her words and her anguish. Her pain was deeper than mine, harder to deal with because she wasn't just ignored and verbally abused like I was.
No, her body looks like someone took a white crayon and drew long, jagged lines across her body. The bite marks of a belt buckle across her back. A few round spots that are decidedly the mark of a cigarette on her thighs.
I was still angry at her though.
[It never goes away]
We were in the middle of a multiple homicide when the boss's cellphone rang. Annoying little blips of the Nextel until he picked up, letting off some steam at the person on the other end.
Then he stopped dead.
Eric and I looked at each other while he said 'um hum' a few times, then declared that he'd be right over. I don't think I could ever have been prepared for the answer when I asked him what was going on.
His lips formed the words, but my eyes dazed and focused. My hearing was ghosted with white noise. I almost didn't understand when he told us our fourth member, our fourth CSI – our *friend* - was in the ER. For trying to take her own life.
And then as an afterthought almost, my mind tacked on that she must be damn close to the underworld if the hospital staff is starting to look for people to contact.
If I had been there, gone like she'd asked…
Can't think that way right now. Not when she's in pain, when she needs us so badly even I feel the ache in my chest.
Pale darkness makes tracks through my brain, however, and the seed is planted – this is my fault. She asked for me to go home with her because she was *afraid* to be alone. And I yelled at her instead.
Hearing you name
The memories come back again
I remember when it started happening
I'd see you in every though I had and then
The thoughts slowly found words attached to them
And I knew as they escaped away I was committed myself to them
And every day I regret those things
'cause now I see
That I took what I hated and made it a part of meI drive like a mad man through the city, the second Hummer's behind me, but I'm too wrapped in my own thoughts.
She told me once that she'd learned to just let everything go to let it roll off her back like nothing had happened. Then I caught her crying in the locker room, banging her head against the metal. Her scalp was bleeding and I realized – Calleigh never lets anything go.
One of the things we have in common – no one really knows who we really are.
No one knows about how much her father really drank…drinks still. No one knows that she keeps a liquor cabinet well-stocked in her bedroom closet or that she's on tranquilizers so she's calm enough to sleep at night.
To sleep through the emptiness. The recollections of raising her brothers while her mother was in and out of institutions; fighting about her every move since she was the only girl in the brood. Not one member of her small town ever noticed the purple bruises, the lack-of-weight she carried.
But they all noticed when she wanted to bring a black man as her prom date.
That was the night her father grabbed her by her hair and smacked her head against the wall. Since then, I only have to follow that sickening, vomit-inducing sound to find her in the apartment.
And I hate myself for not thinking of all this when she cried on her knees for me to go with her.
[It never goes away]
As I walk into the waiting room I see various people from the lab. Techs, detectives, civilians who come in to help out at times. I wonder if they can see through me, see through the transparent grief I've mustered.
Can see through to the secrets I hold inside of me. Her secrets and my own.
They all pat me on the back and tell me it's okay to cry, but it's not because I failed her and I won't let myself get relief from the pain that's building in my gut.
Then H walks in, eyes red, and wraps his arms around me. I ask if she's gone.
And now
You've become a part of me
You'll always be right here
You've become a part of me
You'll always be my fear
I can't separate myself from what I've done
I've given up a part of me
I've let myself become you
He tightens his grip and replies. She'd had alcohol in her bloodstream, the cuts were deep. She was in cardiac arrest in the ambulance.
The answer is yes then.
And I punch him, because he's holding me back from hitting myself. He knows it, lets me assail him, scream out my bitter hatred.
Calleigh can't be gone! Can't be gone. Just cannot.
Reality glares at me as Laura strangles out a cry, launches herself into Eric's arms. She wants to know why, and I find myself asking the same question.
But reality still stares me in the eyes because they're taking her body out of the trauma room. She's not supposed to be on the gurney. Not supposed to be covered by the sheet like a dead body. No!
Horatio grips my waist and bicep in an effort to hold me back. He succeeds because I both want to grab her, shake her awake, but I don't want to look onto her lifeless features once bright with fake-hope that I fed off of like the leech I am.
Get away from me
Gimme my space back
You gotta just go
Everything comes down to memories of you
I've kept it in but now I'm letting you know
I've let you go
Get away from me
Horatio takes me home. Talks to me the whole way, but never once says her name. And I know he wants to. He just can't because the tears are threatening to fall.
The directions I've given him though…they take me to my apartment, but I can't stay *there* tonight. Because I moved in with my beautiful girlfriend a month ago under the secrecy of nighttime.
A hand slips into my pocket as the redhead stumbles over words. There's a ring box with the diamond band I had bought her.
I'd planned on proposing. Ironic. Now I'll bury her instead of wedding her.
He starts to put the H2 in reverse. I stop him with a few words, and get out. I race up the stairs to the third floor and make it inside. There are people there, standing in the bathroom. I tell them to get out. They ask who I am. I tell them to get out.
The boss walks in; they realize who I must be and exit momentarily.
Her form is outlined by red because she'd laid down on the crisp tiles of the floor. I can tell where her ear and cheek contacted.
The glass in the sink. Stinks of tequila. Tequila I'd bought for tonight when I sat her down on our couch to present her with the ring.
I track my eyes up and I see it. Her last message. A word for what she never did, couldn't do, and won't ever do.
Cry.
So I do it. Because the world is cruel, because people die at their own hand or someone else's. Because the only person who can protect me is floating on some distant cloud while Horatio holds my wrists to prevent me from joining her.
I've let myself become you
I've let myself become lost inside these thoughts of you
Giving up a part of me
I've let myself become you
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*v* Cassie Jamie *v*
csimiami@cassie-jamie.com