Disclaimer: Not mine. Lyrics belong to Linkin Park.
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One Step Closer
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I cannot take this anymore
I'm saying everything I've said before
All these words they make no sense
I find bliss in ignorance
Less I hear the less you'll say
But you'll find that out anyway
He asks me the next morning, after I've had to care for him as I do my nephew, if I think he could have stopped it. And I'm not really sure how to answer that. Do I believe she'd still be alive if someone had been with her? Yes. But would she have come to same end at a different time? Probably.
So I tell him the truth – it was a long time in coming. She deserved peace.
Tim sniffs from the bed and I press my back up against the side of it from the floor. I dare not leave him, though I wish desperately I could take him from this room. This item of furniture that smells faintly like vanilla washed in the pungent aroma of alcohol. But he's fixed his fisted around the edge of the mattress and he won't let it go.
He's hurt so badly; misses her more than I thought he ever would.
Quietly, another question. Why haven't I cried for her yet?
Because I can't grieve yet. I have to take care of him and Eric and the entire fucking lab. They cannot function and I know it already – twice Laura's called me, three times for Tyler. Eight from Yelena or Ray Jr., both worried sick about me.
I realize I've been silent. His dark eyes – dark like his broken soul – bore into me with intensity, waiting patiently for an answer while he fumbles with the silver engagement ring.
Can't cry until it's real. Until I see her in the casket in that godforsaken white dress she wore to the Christmas Ball. I tell him.
Speed smiles briefly, as I assume he recalls that night. She was radiant in that dress…like the fucking heaven's angel she is now.
Just like before…
Eric switches off guard with me around noon. He chokes when he sees the closed bathroom door – the scent of the dried blood wafts out from under it. No, more than just that smell. It's the heavy lilt of death that enchants the entire space. But he eventually forces himself to come into the room completely and sits down on the edge of the bed.
The person we are trying to watch rolls over to grab her pillow before his friend can destroy the last traces lingering on the fabric.
My memory takes a minute and when I reawaken, I'm in the hallway of the building. Back to the wall, and staring at the number 31. I remember when she got that apartment and joked about it. Homicide Hall she called it.
Next to her door are flowers. Yellow tulips wrapped in black paper with a note I will not read. A cross with Jesus Christ in his crown of thorns and low-slung cloth-covering is balanced between several of the bouquets.
And I feel my eyes water. But I won't cry yet, because I'm the one who has to be strong for this moment or everything will fall apart.
I breathe as best I can, yet her eyes flash in my memory and a smile that broke many a boy's heart dig into me. I have to get out. Get air. These walls are so close…
Slamming through the front doors of her building, I collapse to my knees. Huff the air like it were a drug. Like the drugs I lost Raymond to. Fucking hell! First my mother, than my brother, a divorce, now I've lost Calleigh and that weighs on me like an anvil on my shoulders.
I shouldn't have sent her home alone. I shouldn't have let Tim argue with her when all she wanted was his company.
A thousand what if's to fill a lifetime. And it shouldn't have had to come at the price of our Bullet Girl.
Everything you say to me
Takes me one step closer to the edge
And I'm about to break
I need a little room to breathe
'cause I'm one step closer to the edge
And I'm about to break
The lab is silent. Well, not really. The machines whirr on with the evidence of cases I can no longer process, but there's no talking, no whispering, no jokes like normal.
Someone sobs; Laura's burned-out. I can see it in her eyes when she lifts her head to look at me. Asks if she can go home because she cannot stop crying. Everything reminds her, me – us – of where we'd see the blonde. Standing ramrod straight and firing downrange or bent of her scope to stare at striations I never understood but she was damn near giddy to work with.
I let the DNA tech leave. Start to climb the stairs to make an announcement.
There's no need to tell them all that one of the CSI's is dead and gone. There's no need to tell them she's waiting in the morgue for Jones to come in because Alexx just cannot autopsy her own friend. Everyone already knows.
Just…I spit out that all cases are on hold, I rub my face so the shame-red coloring me can be explained away while I tell them that those who want to take the day can go.
There's a mad dash of the tear-streaked and anguished, whispering to each other. A few of the women hold hands; one is being supported by Tyler. They pass me and brush fingers on my shoulders. Offer comfort words.
Then the lab's nearly empty, and those who've stay won't look up at me. Somehow, I drift from department to department, searching out any remnant of her left in the building. Her indentation in my stiff leather couch where she slept for a little while yesterday; her labcoat hung on the hook in Ballistics; her locker, a time case of her life here.
The lock slips open under my shaky fingers. There's a dozen pictures taped to the interior of the door – the team, her brothers, her last birthday party, a picture from her high school prom. A hasty stack of CDs, hand lotion, and a journal with a change of clothes and a pair of boots. Some Tylenol packets and a letter from Speed.
I find the answers aren't so clear
Wish I could find away to disappear
All these thoughts they make no sense
I find bliss in ignorance
Nothing seems to go away
Over and over
again
Adele runs into the room and stops short when she sees me, crumpled on the floor with a picture of her and I when we first met in my hands. Her eyes are red-rimmed. She sees the picture; there's a sharp intake of air.
She remembers that day too. The day I walked into the lab with this petite mass of energy cloaked by blonde hair and black clothes. Laughter infectious while she told everyone who would listen about her home in Darnell. Calleigh had nearly bowled the Latina detective over that first shift. They were friends ever since.
We stand there in silence, each sniffling.
Go home, she tells me. I retort the same statement.
I return to staring at the picture. Smiling then, though not entirely genuine, but still smiling with a piece of her soul. One of the other photos loosens and falls into my lap. She's looking into Speed's eyes, holding his hands while invading his personal space though he doesn't care.
They were happy, content with each other.
It's ruined now and I can't fix this. I'm supposed to be the one who fixes things, brings closure. That's my job, isn't it?
So why is my lab deserted, Eric and Tim in tears, and I refuse to release her image from me? Why does this hurt so much it trembles in my belly? Because instead of being some stranger, it was one of our own. And instead of it being a murder, it was suicide – and there's nothing any of can ever do to extract the guilt of knowing we didn't tell her we loved her as often as we should have or coaxed her fears away when she needed us.
…Shut up when I'm talking to you…
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*v* Cassie Jamie *v*
csimiami@cassie-jamie.com
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Trinity: I know it's darker. Because I think this one is more the absence of hope, but in Ancillae things are starting to look up.
jo: I don't plan on ever stopping my writing so don't worry! :-D And I loved Carry On, Chin Up, Stiff Upper Lip.
Raven: I updated Ancillae. Now review it or e-mail me or something! I'm glad you liked this fic though.
irismoon: Sorry about the lack of H/C, but I think the dynamic of S/C is a bit more interesting based on their pasts.