All in a Day
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Spoilers: Nothing specific, set mid third season.
A/N: This is the final chapter, an epilogue incorporating all the different POV. I owe much thanks to J who stuck with me all the way on this. I also want to thank everyone who has reviewed this story. It means a lot to me.
Gil's POV:
I hate to hear about my cases on TV, I hate it even more when I learn things about my cases that I didn't know, from TV. In this case it was inevitable. I actually depended on TV for information.
Fatigue, shock and a real headache led me to agree to spend the night in the hospital for observation. Normally, I don't like hospitals, nobody does, but I was just too tired and too dazed to protest, besides, I didn't really feel up to driving myself home. I sleep for a few hours, but wake up in the late evening. My headache had toned down and the numb feeling from before was gone. My mind was up and running again. That brought the question of what had happened with the case to mind. Sundown was already past, which meant the bomb had either exploded on schedule or we had succeeded in stopping them. Now what bothered me the most was the uncertainty -the feeling of being in the dark. I carefully got up, but aside from a stinging pain in my arm, nothing protested. My clothes, though ruined were still there. Since especially the shirt was evidence, I left it for fear of contaminating evidence. I settled for pants and shoes. The bright light in the corridor made my head ache, but soon I found what I was looking for. A combined waiting and visitors room with a TV. Normally the virtual omnipresence of TV in this country annoys me. I find it distracting at best. But right now, I was looking for news. Several people were watching.
A news report was on. After the politics of the day, the newscaster moved on to the local news.
"Earlier this afternoon, bomb specialists from the ATF managed to disarm a bomb just in time. The device had been placed in a storage plant owned by the Aimtec Company. The explosion would have resulted in a catastrophic release of toxic gases spreading all over the city. Even though a tragedy has been averted today, we can't help but wonder, how safe can we still feel in our homes? Are the police capable of protecting us? They have yet to make any statement about the authors of the bomb. Rumor has it that the bombing might be linked to the hostage situation earlier today at Desert Palms Hospital. The police spokesperson refused to comment whether terrorists were involved."
My low opinion of the media confirmed once again, I retreated to my room.
There was nothing left to do for the rest of the night, but stare at the ceiling and wait for time to pass. At some point, when the faint light outside was already announcing the coming sunrise, I fell asleep. It seemed like I had been asleep for only minutes when a painfully bright nurse woke me. At least she had good news. The doctor wanted to take another look at me, but then I was free to go. I couldn't wait to get out of the hospital and back to the quiet and peaceful confines of my apartment. I had had enough exposure to the world for the entire week.
The doctor didn't manage to see me before late morning. He told me not to work for the rest of the week and to drop by in three days because of my arm.
I was already prepared to call a cab to get back home, when there was a knock on my door. I asked whoever it was to come in. It was Brass.
"Morning, Gil. I thought you could use a lift." He sounded everything but cheerful.
I was surprised to say the least.
"Thanks."
"Truth is I was here anyways for the reconstruction with the IAB guys. Thought I'd throw in my good deed for the day, and come and get you."
"How did the reconstruction go?" I knew that it was always tricky to reconstruct a shooting, especially with multiple shooters involved.
"It went okay, it's just for protocol. Plenty of witnesses, no doubt about what did happen, but problem is, that neither they nor the cultists were stingy with their bullets. Over forty rounds fired. Your graze is from a ricochet."
"I saw on the news, that you got them. Good job." It came across cynically, but I really meant it.
"Not really. Getting them doesn't mean you win -too many bodies."
"Nobody ever does win. How many?"
"Eighteen so far, maybe nineteen, DB in Henderson, might or might not be connected to the case. We found the woman that the guy called. Charlotte May. She was a member of Marks little cult, a special member. She got to sleep with the guru. A couple of months back she allegedly had a vision telling the group that their day of sacrifice was going to come and that for the new world order to start they had to blow up a chemical plant outside Vegas. Don't ask me about the logic in that. She sold it to Marks with lots of doomsday stuff and he bought it, lucky for us the guy taped their sessions. That's how we found out. We assumed that she and Marks were at the Heavenly Path estate when they were surprised by Vega, Nick and Catherine. After Catherine got Marks, she split. Where she went, we have no idea; she might have been setting up the explosives already. They were stashed in a container at a chemical storage plant of the Aimtec Company. They could have been there for ages. Charlotte May had access because she used to be an employee there. The next thing we know for certain is that when she figured that the rest wasn't going to come, she went ahead alone. She killed a company driver, stole his uniform and got access to the plant and set up the trigger for her bomb. ATF got it just in time. She was still at the storage plant, wanted to see it blow up. Sara and Warrick got here there. She had shot the plant owner, one Kevin Stein and the porter."
"Motive?"
"Not sure on motive yet, could've been religious delusions maybe, but there are some things that don't fit in. Charlotte May had an affair with Kevin Stein the owner of Aimtec; his prints were at the compound and in her apartment. His company transferred money to Charlotte May, could be blackmail. She might have threatened to tell the wife and claimed that her son was his. Who knows? Kevin Stein probably figured out what his mistress was up to when the police called him about her. He took off before we could ask him any questions. We don't know whether he only provided the money or was involved in the plans for the bombing. Also Charlotte May had no problems carrying on after Marks was dead. The rest of his sheep were devastated, totally lost without their guru. We think that Charlotte May was manipulating both Daryl Marks and Kevin Stein. Things at the cult were peaceful until she had a child. Marks was the father. But the child had a birth defect called hydranencephaly. It's usually fatal within the first year of life. There is no clear cause, but Charlotte May might have blamed Kevin Stein and his company. Aimtec has been under investigation for bribery to get around drug trial, but the case was closed. A few months ago, Charlotte May hooked up with an activist group lobbying for a reopening of that investigation. Then she manipulated Marks so that he and his group would do the dirty work for her. But we can prove none of this of course."
"What about the child?"
"ATF found it on the Aimtec premises. Apparently she left him there to die in the explosion."
"Charlotte May?"
"Dead, she threatened to shoot Sara. Warrick had no choice but to fire in self-defense. The two cultists that survived haven't said one word. We got one name. Marvin Lucas, thirty-eight. We matched the gun with his fingerprints to the gun that killed the girl. He's going down for murder, but his lawyer is definitely going to plead insanity, claim that he was totally under the influence of Daryl Marks."
"He wasn't. Sara and I were there, when he shot the girl, he knew what he was doing. The girl had doubts then he killed her."
"Good. The IBA want to talk to you tomorrow for your statement."
"Let's go. I have to get out of here."
"I understand." Brass was showing an oddly sympathetic side. His usual cynicism was barely detectable.
An hour later, Brass had just dropped me off at my place, I was finally alone. I need to be alone to think, I always have. And I had some serious thinking to do. When a person is my age, one has a fixed mental image of oneself, one professes to know oneself. I'm no exception there. When Sara and I had been held hostage, I had experienced emotions that were unfamiliar, I reacted in ways I wouldn't have considered possible an hour earlier. It all didn't fit in with the Gill Grissom I was. I had to sort that out.
I envy Catherine for her ability to just go on. I tell myself that pondering the past is useless, a waste of time and energy. We learn, we move on. At least that's the idea. One look at the history of mankind and it's clear that it doesn't work. People forget and don't learn. I didn't learn, but I didn't forget. I still keep thinking about what happened and what could have happened. I try not to, but when I can't sleep because my mind keeps its own hours, my thoughts invariably return to that day.
My people skills aren't very good, I am aware of that. They never were, but to be honest, it never really mattered to me. Already when I was younger, even back in school, I had little interest in social interactions with my peers. I always kept to myself and avoided events that required social skills. Most people hardly knew me, because I stayed out of sight and didn't talk much. I even skipped out on the graduation celebration. I seldom feel the need to talk, but there are some things I wish that I had said. It wouldn't have killed me to go over to Greg when he was lying on the floor, bleeding to death. It wouldn't have mattered what I said, but I should have said something, instead of just standing there and watch.
I have never talked to Sara about what happened in the hospital. I learned from the report that she had a gun and never used it. I wonder what I would have done in her position. My psychological approach wasn't successful at all. But maybe it was just too late. On the whole, I feel like a failure on that case. I was passive, waiting for things to happen around me. What bothers me the most, is that after the cultists had been overrun by the HRT, I was so out of it -that wasn't like me, at least not as far as I knew. Maybe I need to revise me self-image a bit.
Catherine's POV:
After Warrick and Lindsey had left again, I had more time to think than I liked.
I've often promised my daughter that in the future I would spend more time with her.
But then I realized that you can only say tomorrow so often and that every day it could be too late. The only time that I could spend was now. Amazing and sad that it has taken a bullet to drive that point home. But most of us live blindly and never wake up. I don't know what was different this time. I had been attacked at a crime scene before. Back then I just pushed it back and moved on with my life as usual. Never doubt, never look back. This time I did the same, I just wanted to change a few things and then move on. I wanted to act before it was too late. Maybe this time I couldn't ignore what had happened. I was lying in the hospital, every breath reminding me that my ribs were hurting. I couldn't lie to Lindsey or to my co-workers then. I had to face that something had actually happened. Having to face it allowed me to learn from it too.
When I was released from the hospital the next day, I went to ask Grissom for a leave of absence. I had decided to change things and once I do there is no going back for me. Grissom didn't ask me why, all he asked was how long. I took four weeks leave.
Sara's POV:
Most of what happened after the events in the porter's lodge isn't clear to me. In my memory it's just a few blurry images. I remember Warrick shooting Charlotte May and the ATF agents coming in. At some point a paramedic was checking me over. I must have been fine because the next thing I clearly remember is a patrol car dropping me off at home. The next three days passed in a haze. I couldn't think clearly or focus on anything. It was a first for me. Normally my mind is always thinking, analyzing and pulling things apart, even when I don't want it to. But during those days, I just felt afloat, there was thought and images chasing through my mind, but I couldn't hold onto them. I couldn't stop seeing mental replays of Greg dying right in front of me -Dolby Surround sound and Technicolor. I just functioned. I went to the station, gave my statement, and then drove home. I mechanically did what was to be done. I woke up the day of Greg's funeral. Going there somehow catapulted me right back into the real world. I had been at Detective Vega's funeral the day before and remember almost nothing about it. I went there simply because I had worked with Vega a couple of times. But I really wanted to go to Greg's funeral. I don't know why. I hate funerals. But somehow, it was a conclusion for me. It hadn't been over for me, the days before I had been in a limbo state. There was a lot more to this case, but what happened in the hospital is the only thing vivid in my memory. After that I was just driven by guilt over what wasn't my fault. I wanted to bring an end to it all. I thought I could do so by solving the puzzle. But ironically the real end for me didn't come from what I did, it came at the funeral. From then on, the haunting mental image started to fade. It's still there, and it always will be but it didn't freeze my thoughts anymore.
I should be proud of myself; after all it was me who figured out where the bomb was placed. Many people would have died had I not figured that out. Normally, having solved that puzzle would have filled me with a sense of gratification. I live to solve puzzles. But the question that this case left me with was whether solving puzzles made out of physical clues was enough. The human element, did it play a larger role than I was willing to acknowledge, I had seen the incalculability of human behavior of both myself and others during this case. I had never thought that I might be powerless in a situation where my life was at stake. I never thought that shock could catch me by surprise like it did. Objectively, I have nothing to feel guilty about, but I still do. I don't know whether that's just social conditioning, a personal tick or survivor's guilt.
On the second day after the case was over, and I was still on leave, I realized that like everyone else I would have some dealing to do. I couldn't just put it all in a neat mental file and shut the drawer. This wasn't going to work for me. It might work for Grissom, but I don't think it is. He just pretends that it does. Everyone deals in their own ways. My way is through knowledge. I wanted to know about people and what was driving them. I started reading up on religion, cultism and psychology. I even went to take a psychology class at the local university. It starts at eight in the morning, so I can make it right after my shift at CSI. I still like my work a lot, but I've been putting in a lot less overtime lately.
Have I changed because of this case?
Yes, I think I have. My interest in the human aspect has grown. When I think about it it's weird because what this case has shown me, examples of the worst of mankind. If anything, I should have been disgusted and thus confirmed in my focus on science. But the example of the cultists has also shown me that we all search for something to hold onto, we need something to believe in, otherwise we are lost. The cultists believed in Daryl Marks, Charlotte May believed in taking revenge, I used to believe only in science. People are not as easy to figure out as things are. They are not a science. One can subject things to all kinds of scientific tests and one can learn everything about them. What they are made of, where they come from, sometimes who handled them last. In a way, people are a more challenging subject.
Yesterday was Catherine's first day back at work after she had taken some leave. I could tell right from the start the she could see how things had changed around the lab. She actually asked me about it during the break we had since it was a slow shift. I hadn't paid that much attention to it, but Catherine was right. Grissom is more quiet than ever. Warrick's all the same and Nick is even more eager, I think it bugs him that he didn't do anything on the case. Not like it's really his fault. He's just too hard on himself. Maybe we all are. Everyone is thinking about what they did and what they didn't do and nobody is happy with what they discovered. We all learned something about ourselves in an extreme situation and we all have to live with it. We just do it in different ways.
The End