Making Beds
By: Manda and Allison
Chapter 5: The finale, or is it?
Punching the numbers in anxiously, Catherine lifted the phone to her ear and prayed that Grissom would pick up. She didn't relish having to try his cellphone if he wasn't sitting in his office. Normally she wouldn't have even tried to call him at CSI, but the need to hear his voice, her name off his lips was something that she knew she needed.
"Please, Gris...come on pick up."
The ringing of the phone was hollow in her ears, and as she heard his voice on the other end, relief washed over her.
"Grissom."
"Gris, it's me." She folded her legs beneath her on the shaggy bathroom rug, toes curling into the soft material.
"Catherine...how's your trip?" She already felt homesick, hearing the sounds of conversation behind him-wherever Grissom was, it was somewhere within the catacombs of the Las Vegas Crime Lab, and she already ached to be back there, drinking break room swill and analyzing evidence. She didn't much care for the evidence she was looking at now.
"Could be better. Bit of turbulence- I think I'm in for a bumpy ride." She leaned forward to inspect her toenails, mind searching for anything she could say to let him know how much she needed him right then. "I guess what they say is true- you can never go home again."
"Bullshit Cath, stop being cryptic. I know that tone, what's wrong?" he asked, his voice soft and steady.
"Nothing..." she replied hesitating. "And I'm not being cryptic."
"Yes, you are. I invented that word remember? I know you; you wouldn't be calling me here at CSI unless something was bothering you. Now please, Catherine, tell me what's wrong."
"I-"
"You what?"
His voiced warmed her soul as she listened to it, the very sound of it enough to release some of the tension that had formed in the pit of her stomach. His breath was soft and even, her heart slowing as it became even with it.
"I just needed to hear your voice."
"Catherine." There was the chuckle- that soft chuckle she'd come to appreciate as the height of the Gil Grissom humor scale. He was never one to display hoards of emotion- although in her minds eye she could picture his smile, the bright spark in his eye, as he would tease her about some way she'd spoken, or her continuity with the turkey club at lunchtime. "The second you hang up the phone I'll start making you a tape you can carry along on these long trips away from home. You can put them in Lindsey's old Teddy Ruxpin and cuddle up in bed at midnight."
"Don't you patronize me, Gil Grissom." She began to idly toy with the rug fibers, curling them around the length of her fingernail. "I'm going to book a flight back tomorrow...would you pick me up at the airport?"
"You've only been there a day, and you're going to leave, just like that?"
"Gil Grissom-"
"Stick it out for a few more days. You told me before you left, that this was your chance to make things right. Work it out, you might regret it if you don't."
"Gil, you don't understand. It's more complicated than that."
"More complicated than that? Catherine, the only thing more complicated are the dynamics of our relationship, and if you can figure out those, the sky's the limit."
"And who says I've figured them out?" She responded quickly, holding the handset closer to her ear, as if the pressure would place him in closer proximity. "Gil...of all the people I've wanted with me at every step of this...you're the only one I could possibly have cared to bring along. And if you could have torn yourself away for just one week..."
"So now this is about us?" His voice was harder now, and she winced at the tone.
"No...it's just..."
"Just what, Catherine? What else is there to figure out?"
"Well if you haven't figured it out yet, then maybe it's not even worth the trouble!"
"Figured what out? Catherine-" His end of the line went silent for a moment, and as she parted her lips to speak, he continued. "Catherine...I don't know how to deal with...Are you in love with me?"
It was a straightforward question, something she'd always wondered, but never expected him to ask. And he'd asked it...with such a daring that she found herself unable to respond, until his voice speaking her name urged that sensation onward.
"Cath? You there? Catherine?"
She felt like running, away, as fast as her feet would take her. Like the first night she had caught Eddie cheating on her, with that sleazy bimbo Julie from down the street. Julie, whose hazel eyes had glared at Catherine with pure triumph as she opened the door to the small apartment her and Eddie had been sharing at the time. They hadn't even been married then. Just two people, snorting and fucking, tangled in the sweaty sheets of their bed, proclaiming their love for each other during cocaine-induced stupors.
It wasn't real. She wasn't supposed to care. When the high had worn off, she knew it all was a lie.
She thought she could live without him. She swore to herself, as he stared at her, that she could.
But when Eddie stumbled out of bed, draped in only the sheet that had covered the two adulterous lovers, swearing it would never happen again, she'd believed him. And taken him back anyway.
She'd felt like running then, and she'd stayed. Maybe this time, she should go. She had lived seven years of her life like that, wanting to run as far as she could get. Maybe this time she actually would. Maybe this was the right choice.
Setting the phone down for a moment, she felt her stomach heave again, and the rest of her dinner spilled into the depths of the toilet in front of her. Looking longingly back at it one more time, she pulled her knees up to her chest and buried her head in them, the tears slowly slipping down her face. Her father was pounding on the door outside. She could hear Grissom's voice yelling on the other end of the phone, but for some reason, she just didn't care anymore.
"Velvet...Catherine, sweetheart...open the door." Her father's voice broke through first, louder in volume than Grissom's pleas coming from the handset on the floor. Wiping a fragment of toilet paper across her mouth, Catherine struggled to her feet and unlocked the door, falling forward into her father's embrace wearily.
"Sweetheart...your mom doesn't mean to say it the way she did...she loves you, you know that. But it hurt her when you went away."
"Daddy...I'm not your little girl anymore...and I don't have anything else to say." Catherine swallowed, the lump in her throat growing larger as she glanced back at the phone, the tiny voice of Gil Grissom still shouting from the other end. "I'm going back to Vegas tomorrow morning...I don't want to be here anymore." And with those words she turned, reaching down to pick up the handset, her finger firmly pressing upon the 'off' button, hushing Grissom's voice altogether.
"Catherine, you're in no shape to go anywhere." Hugh wrapped his arms around his daughters' slight frame, leading her out of the bathroom and across the hall, back to the guest bedroom. "I let go of you once, I don't intend to do it again."
"Daddy--"
"Velv...Catherine, baby. Let me talk, just for a second. Stay, one more day, just one. I don't want to lose you again. I don't think I could live with myself if I did. And as much you she doesn't want to admit it, your mother couldn't either."
"I'll believe that when I see it."
"Catherine, you're not going to have a chance to see it if you don't stick around. If there's one thing your mother and I taught you that you seem to have remembered, it's that you don't quit. You're not a quitter, sweetheart- and I don't want you to start because of us."
"I'm sorry, Daddy...but I think I'll consider it 'a graceful retreat'." It all felt like too much, this reunion, this attempt at piecing together something she knew couldn't be repaired without...so much work that she wasn't sure she could finish. It just seemed like too much to tackle alone, and she wasn't sure she wanted to, anymore. She just wanted Grissom, Lindsey...everything back home.
"Cath-"
"Daddy, just leave, please, I really just need to be alone right now." And with that, Hugh, sullenly strode out the door, leaving Catherine alone on the bed.
Sitting down on the bed and pulling her knees up, Catherine wrapped her arms around them, shivering. How she'd give anything for this nightmare of a trip to end, and fast. Her body seemed to have aged years in a matter of a few minutes, her eyes barely able to stay open. Within a matter of minutes, she was asleep, curled up in a small ball on the king size guest bed.
*~ When you wake, you shall have...all the pretty little horses. ~*
She blinked, easing her aching body into a sitting position upon the gaudy floral comforter, the cotton stuffing contorted into shape beneath her. It hadn't been the most comforting nap- and for a moment, she found herself able to smile, remembering worse places, worse positions.
But the position she was in now- she slipped off the bed and began stuffing hastily unpacked items just as hastily back into her suitcase, the clasp snapping shut with such a final sound that it made her heart contort. This was it- this was the sound she'd heard when she left Eddie, the noise echoing continuously in her head. Past ghosts, skeletons in her suitcase...and she quickly turned the luggage key in its lock, blinking back tears as she realized she was going to have to hide them away again, until she could find a way to set them free.
Taking the suitcase in her hand, she headed out into the hall and down the short flight of steps, counting them as she went. 1,2,3,4... Eight more till she'd be at the bottom, ready to hide the key to her past away for good. Out of the corner of her eye, Catherine saw Kay leaning expectantly against the archway leading into the dining room, which was adjacent to the front hall. This, her final stab at Catherine, watching her daughter leave once again, and thus proving her theory correct.
"You're running again," she commented dryly.
"I wouldn't exactly call it running," Catherine retorted as she reached the bottom of the steps. "More like fleeing ...for the sake of my sanity."
"Your sanity?" The anger flashed in Kay's bright eyes, bright with the tears of a mother scorned and wounded...again. It had all come full circle, it seemed, the moments of days gone by revisiting the family whose old wounds had never really healed. "Has ever a day gone by, Catherine, when you've even considered my sanity? Your father and I have worried about you every day..."
"And it shows, mother." Catherine cut in, dryly, shifting her eyes toward the figure nearby. "It showed in every letter I never got, every phone call I never heard...and when I look at my refrigerator, I can see it in every birthday card you never sent me...and every day I've lived without hearing your voice. The way I see it...I can run, and don't need to hide...because you won't come looking. That's the way I'll keep my sanity in tact."
Without another word, Catherine walked forward; towards the door, towards the finale of the play, the last moment of the last act. But as she opened the heavy oak door, and gazed upon the figure behind it, she realized that this was only the beginning.
TBC.
By: Manda and Allison
Chapter 5: The finale, or is it?
Punching the numbers in anxiously, Catherine lifted the phone to her ear and prayed that Grissom would pick up. She didn't relish having to try his cellphone if he wasn't sitting in his office. Normally she wouldn't have even tried to call him at CSI, but the need to hear his voice, her name off his lips was something that she knew she needed.
"Please, Gris...come on pick up."
The ringing of the phone was hollow in her ears, and as she heard his voice on the other end, relief washed over her.
"Grissom."
"Gris, it's me." She folded her legs beneath her on the shaggy bathroom rug, toes curling into the soft material.
"Catherine...how's your trip?" She already felt homesick, hearing the sounds of conversation behind him-wherever Grissom was, it was somewhere within the catacombs of the Las Vegas Crime Lab, and she already ached to be back there, drinking break room swill and analyzing evidence. She didn't much care for the evidence she was looking at now.
"Could be better. Bit of turbulence- I think I'm in for a bumpy ride." She leaned forward to inspect her toenails, mind searching for anything she could say to let him know how much she needed him right then. "I guess what they say is true- you can never go home again."
"Bullshit Cath, stop being cryptic. I know that tone, what's wrong?" he asked, his voice soft and steady.
"Nothing..." she replied hesitating. "And I'm not being cryptic."
"Yes, you are. I invented that word remember? I know you; you wouldn't be calling me here at CSI unless something was bothering you. Now please, Catherine, tell me what's wrong."
"I-"
"You what?"
His voiced warmed her soul as she listened to it, the very sound of it enough to release some of the tension that had formed in the pit of her stomach. His breath was soft and even, her heart slowing as it became even with it.
"I just needed to hear your voice."
"Catherine." There was the chuckle- that soft chuckle she'd come to appreciate as the height of the Gil Grissom humor scale. He was never one to display hoards of emotion- although in her minds eye she could picture his smile, the bright spark in his eye, as he would tease her about some way she'd spoken, or her continuity with the turkey club at lunchtime. "The second you hang up the phone I'll start making you a tape you can carry along on these long trips away from home. You can put them in Lindsey's old Teddy Ruxpin and cuddle up in bed at midnight."
"Don't you patronize me, Gil Grissom." She began to idly toy with the rug fibers, curling them around the length of her fingernail. "I'm going to book a flight back tomorrow...would you pick me up at the airport?"
"You've only been there a day, and you're going to leave, just like that?"
"Gil Grissom-"
"Stick it out for a few more days. You told me before you left, that this was your chance to make things right. Work it out, you might regret it if you don't."
"Gil, you don't understand. It's more complicated than that."
"More complicated than that? Catherine, the only thing more complicated are the dynamics of our relationship, and if you can figure out those, the sky's the limit."
"And who says I've figured them out?" She responded quickly, holding the handset closer to her ear, as if the pressure would place him in closer proximity. "Gil...of all the people I've wanted with me at every step of this...you're the only one I could possibly have cared to bring along. And if you could have torn yourself away for just one week..."
"So now this is about us?" His voice was harder now, and she winced at the tone.
"No...it's just..."
"Just what, Catherine? What else is there to figure out?"
"Well if you haven't figured it out yet, then maybe it's not even worth the trouble!"
"Figured what out? Catherine-" His end of the line went silent for a moment, and as she parted her lips to speak, he continued. "Catherine...I don't know how to deal with...Are you in love with me?"
It was a straightforward question, something she'd always wondered, but never expected him to ask. And he'd asked it...with such a daring that she found herself unable to respond, until his voice speaking her name urged that sensation onward.
"Cath? You there? Catherine?"
She felt like running, away, as fast as her feet would take her. Like the first night she had caught Eddie cheating on her, with that sleazy bimbo Julie from down the street. Julie, whose hazel eyes had glared at Catherine with pure triumph as she opened the door to the small apartment her and Eddie had been sharing at the time. They hadn't even been married then. Just two people, snorting and fucking, tangled in the sweaty sheets of their bed, proclaiming their love for each other during cocaine-induced stupors.
It wasn't real. She wasn't supposed to care. When the high had worn off, she knew it all was a lie.
She thought she could live without him. She swore to herself, as he stared at her, that she could.
But when Eddie stumbled out of bed, draped in only the sheet that had covered the two adulterous lovers, swearing it would never happen again, she'd believed him. And taken him back anyway.
She'd felt like running then, and she'd stayed. Maybe this time, she should go. She had lived seven years of her life like that, wanting to run as far as she could get. Maybe this time she actually would. Maybe this was the right choice.
Setting the phone down for a moment, she felt her stomach heave again, and the rest of her dinner spilled into the depths of the toilet in front of her. Looking longingly back at it one more time, she pulled her knees up to her chest and buried her head in them, the tears slowly slipping down her face. Her father was pounding on the door outside. She could hear Grissom's voice yelling on the other end of the phone, but for some reason, she just didn't care anymore.
"Velvet...Catherine, sweetheart...open the door." Her father's voice broke through first, louder in volume than Grissom's pleas coming from the handset on the floor. Wiping a fragment of toilet paper across her mouth, Catherine struggled to her feet and unlocked the door, falling forward into her father's embrace wearily.
"Sweetheart...your mom doesn't mean to say it the way she did...she loves you, you know that. But it hurt her when you went away."
"Daddy...I'm not your little girl anymore...and I don't have anything else to say." Catherine swallowed, the lump in her throat growing larger as she glanced back at the phone, the tiny voice of Gil Grissom still shouting from the other end. "I'm going back to Vegas tomorrow morning...I don't want to be here anymore." And with those words she turned, reaching down to pick up the handset, her finger firmly pressing upon the 'off' button, hushing Grissom's voice altogether.
"Catherine, you're in no shape to go anywhere." Hugh wrapped his arms around his daughters' slight frame, leading her out of the bathroom and across the hall, back to the guest bedroom. "I let go of you once, I don't intend to do it again."
"Daddy--"
"Velv...Catherine, baby. Let me talk, just for a second. Stay, one more day, just one. I don't want to lose you again. I don't think I could live with myself if I did. And as much you she doesn't want to admit it, your mother couldn't either."
"I'll believe that when I see it."
"Catherine, you're not going to have a chance to see it if you don't stick around. If there's one thing your mother and I taught you that you seem to have remembered, it's that you don't quit. You're not a quitter, sweetheart- and I don't want you to start because of us."
"I'm sorry, Daddy...but I think I'll consider it 'a graceful retreat'." It all felt like too much, this reunion, this attempt at piecing together something she knew couldn't be repaired without...so much work that she wasn't sure she could finish. It just seemed like too much to tackle alone, and she wasn't sure she wanted to, anymore. She just wanted Grissom, Lindsey...everything back home.
"Cath-"
"Daddy, just leave, please, I really just need to be alone right now." And with that, Hugh, sullenly strode out the door, leaving Catherine alone on the bed.
Sitting down on the bed and pulling her knees up, Catherine wrapped her arms around them, shivering. How she'd give anything for this nightmare of a trip to end, and fast. Her body seemed to have aged years in a matter of a few minutes, her eyes barely able to stay open. Within a matter of minutes, she was asleep, curled up in a small ball on the king size guest bed.
*~ When you wake, you shall have...all the pretty little horses. ~*
She blinked, easing her aching body into a sitting position upon the gaudy floral comforter, the cotton stuffing contorted into shape beneath her. It hadn't been the most comforting nap- and for a moment, she found herself able to smile, remembering worse places, worse positions.
But the position she was in now- she slipped off the bed and began stuffing hastily unpacked items just as hastily back into her suitcase, the clasp snapping shut with such a final sound that it made her heart contort. This was it- this was the sound she'd heard when she left Eddie, the noise echoing continuously in her head. Past ghosts, skeletons in her suitcase...and she quickly turned the luggage key in its lock, blinking back tears as she realized she was going to have to hide them away again, until she could find a way to set them free.
Taking the suitcase in her hand, she headed out into the hall and down the short flight of steps, counting them as she went. 1,2,3,4... Eight more till she'd be at the bottom, ready to hide the key to her past away for good. Out of the corner of her eye, Catherine saw Kay leaning expectantly against the archway leading into the dining room, which was adjacent to the front hall. This, her final stab at Catherine, watching her daughter leave once again, and thus proving her theory correct.
"You're running again," she commented dryly.
"I wouldn't exactly call it running," Catherine retorted as she reached the bottom of the steps. "More like fleeing ...for the sake of my sanity."
"Your sanity?" The anger flashed in Kay's bright eyes, bright with the tears of a mother scorned and wounded...again. It had all come full circle, it seemed, the moments of days gone by revisiting the family whose old wounds had never really healed. "Has ever a day gone by, Catherine, when you've even considered my sanity? Your father and I have worried about you every day..."
"And it shows, mother." Catherine cut in, dryly, shifting her eyes toward the figure nearby. "It showed in every letter I never got, every phone call I never heard...and when I look at my refrigerator, I can see it in every birthday card you never sent me...and every day I've lived without hearing your voice. The way I see it...I can run, and don't need to hide...because you won't come looking. That's the way I'll keep my sanity in tact."
Without another word, Catherine walked forward; towards the door, towards the finale of the play, the last moment of the last act. But as she opened the heavy oak door, and gazed upon the figure behind it, she realized that this was only the beginning.
TBC.