Through the Eyes of Another
Chapter 2
Disclaimer: See Chapter 1
When she came round there was someone standing over her. There was a fire not too far away, she could feel the heat and smell the fumes. Then she realized that someone had two hands firmly on either side of her head, supporting her neck. For a moment she panicked trying to remember what had happened. When she finally recalled the last few seconds she still had a grasp of she immediately wished that she hadn't. She tried to crane her neck to see who was standing by her, she thought she heard someone say something but it seemed fuzzy and far away, like someone was speaking through jello. Apart from that she could just hear a permanent ringing in her ears. She felt dizzy and a little ill, her head ached. She made one last effort to keep a hold of her consciousness before losing the battle and passing out again.
Grissom had seen her turning to face him, he'd watched her take a few steps away from the car when the police car two along from where she had parked exploded. There was no warning, it just made an odd noise, shuddered and let out an intense burst of flame. His first thought had been of Sara, she was the one closest to the explosion. She'd been thrown a few feet and was lying face down in the road. Grissom had carefully taken hold of her head to support her neck as her breathing and pulse were checked. At one point she had regained consciousness, although she seemed to be pretty out of it, but then she'd passed out again. He hoped that she wasn't seriously hurt.
It seemed to take an age for the ambulance to arrive, it was followed closely by a fire engine and more police cars. The paramedics gave Sara a once over before strapping her to a spinal board and transporting her to the hospital. Brass quickly moved on to taking statements from eye witnesses so Grissom simply picked up his box of evidence and field kit, put them in his car and drove back to the lab.
Warrick and Nick had been eating together in the break room. The lab was backed up and they were waiting for their results to be processed. They just needed the DNA that they found at the scene to match that of their male suspect and they would have solved the cause, and exposed an insurance fraud. The news was on in the background as they talked. Suddenly it switched to a scene outside a club. They both looked up from their food.
"Wasn't that where Grissom was going?" Nick asked as they looked at the devastation on the screen. The remains of two burnt out police cars could be seen. Next to them was a black Tahoe, half of it had been torn apart and it was lying on it's side. The picture zoomed in on a blue denim jacket on the road beside the wreck. It looked spookily familiar.
"A young woman has been taking to hospital with minor injuries, it is thought that she was one of the police officers investigating a case involving the Rainbow Express club. At the moment we have no news on who might have been responsible for this explosion which destroyed two police cars and caused a great deal of damage to the buildings along this street." The female news reporter told them. Nick sat out and pulled out his cell phone. "I'm calling Grissom. Wasn't Sara with him? That looked like her car." But Warrick caught his eye and pointed at the doorway. A disheveled looking Grissom had just walked in.
"Man. Are you okay? We saw the news. Where's Sara?" Warrick questioned his boss.
"Sara? Oh. The explosion. I think they took her to Desert Palms." Grissom told them. His voice was barely above a whisper. Nick got up and poured his supervisor a drink of water. He appeared to be in shock. "Is it serious?"
"I should go and see. She was unconscious." Grissom sipped the water and started to get up.
"Why don't you just take a moment?" Warrick told him. Even as he was drinking the shock was passing and the realization of what had happened was sinking in.
"She was unconscious." He repeated, his eyes were become less glazed and fiercer. "She was just lying there. For a moment I thought. I thought. I." He couldn't bring himself to say it. "I need to go and see her."
"I'll call a cab for you. I don't think that you should be driving." Nick told him, expecting some sort of objection. Grissom nodded. "There's some evidence in my car." He told them laying his keys on the table. "The rest was in Sara's car so I doubt whether it survived. Can you get it to the lab for me?"
The two younger men nodded and watched as he went along to his office to clean himself up and wait for his cab. He'd been in such a state. Whatever had happened to Sara had to have been serious.
Grissom had waited for news of Sara for some time. At first the doctors weren't keen on her having visitors but after a while some nurses took pity on the despondent man sitting on the hard plastic chairs and ushered him into her room saying that he couldn't stay long as she needed to rest.
"She's been suffering from a slight hearing loss." The nurse told him as she led him along the corridor. "It's not unusual considering how close to the explosion she was. It should pass soon. At most within the week, although in some cases it can take longer. The doctor's already spoken to her about it."
The nurse put her head around the door and told Sara that she had a visitor. When Grissom entered the room he saw her propped up on the pillows. She seemed so pale against the white sheets. The only bit of color in the room beside the tinted blue walls was the splash of brown hair across her pillow. She gave him a weak smile as he entered.
"I'll leave you two alone. I'm afraid I can't give you too long." The nurse said, more to Grissom than Sara.
Grissom thanked the nurse and when he turned back to Sara he realized that she was studying him intently. He moved towards her bed slowly as she spoke.
"I can't hear very well at the moment." She told him quietly as if she was unsure of the pitch of her voice. She took care to say each word and he guessed that she was deliberately speaking quietly to compensate for not being able to hear what she was saying. He'd been there himself. Grissom took the chair beside her bed and as he sat down asked her how much she could hear. "Can you look at me when you speak? It doesn't help me hear you, and I can't lip read, but it gives me clues. You can't talk too loudly around here."
Grissom nodded and felt rather embarrassed. He of all people should know that. He looked down at the bed where Sara's hand was resting, there was a large bruise on her forearm, which he guessed had been caused by flying debris. Mentally he traced the outline and he was so deep in his thoughts that when she moved her hand to reach for something on the bedside table it made him jump. She handed him a notepad and pen.
The notepad was small and had already been used for several notes. They were in a scrawl, which was typical of most doctors, virtually unreadable, he scanned what had been written about Sara's condition.
"Nosy."
He looked up, expecting her to be cross, instead he was met with a grin. He took the pen and wrote I'm sorry.
"Sorry? For what?"
For reading what your doctor wrote. For the accident. It should have been your night off.
"Yeah, but otherwise it could have been Cath lying here."
I'd rather it wasn't anyone.
"You're blaming yourself."
Wouldn't you? Sara didn't answer. She was looking at him thoughtfully. What are you thinking about?
"Why are you here?"
Because you're hurt. Because of me.
"It's nothing. Just a few scratches." She interrupted him as he wrote.
And you can't hear.
She watched him as he turned the page, he didn't write any thing more. "Well you told me I should take some time off." She smiled but she was obviously trying to hide her fear. The doctor had said that in over ninety percent of these cases the hearing would return, but what if Sara was one of those few for whom it didn't? He'd had to face losing his job because of his hearing, it would kill him if someone as good as Sara had to give up her job because of this. She looked a little depressed and he couldn't think why he hadn't noticed it before.
How are you feeling?
"Good. I guess. Apart from this. Like I said, apart from the ringing in my ears I'm fine."
We're going to catch the person who did this. He stared at the page. He hadn't meant to write that. He'd been thinking it, but he didn't want to say it, not if it meant getting Sara's hopes up just so that he could let her down.
"You can't promise that." She scolded lightly as if she were reading his mind. "You don't know if it's related to the case we were looking at or not. Someone could have found out about the phone call and just decided to use it as an opportunity to get back at the cops."
Don't be so negative. Sara smiled as she read what he was writing.
"I'm not being negative, I'm being realistic."
There's a difference.
"Griss -"
We'll need a statement from you.
"I know. I talked to the police earlier. But I'm not much use. I didn't hear anything, or see anything. I just remember this flash and this noise and then something pushing me down. Do you think the cases are connected?"
I'm not ruling it out. Sara yawned and smiled at him. You're tired. You need to rest.
She started to protest but just then the nurse came back and ushered Grissom out of the room, telling him that Sara needed to rest and that he needed to go catch some criminals.
Back at CSI the first person that Grissom met was Greg. The young man looked incredibly worried. "Sara's fine." He reassured him. "She's suffering a bit of hearing loss from the explosion, but that should pass. She'll be back before you know it." Greg didn't say a word. He disappeared back into the lab to continue processing DNA that had been taken from the club. It was a pointless task and Grissom felt rather guilty making him do it, the chances of finding anything useful from it were next to nothing. "Grissom." He stopped in his tracks. "Catherine. What are you doing here? What about Lindsey?" "She's feeling better now. I think it was just a twenty-four hour thing. My sister's watching her. Why didn't you call me? I heard on the news. is Sara. okay?" "What are they saying on the news?" "Nothing much. Before they were saying a female police officer and now they're saying a female CSI, and I knew I was okay. Why did you call her in?" "Because there was no way that I was working that whole club by myself. You know Sara. She was happy to lend a hand. Have we got anything new?" "Well Archie's done separating the tracks. But until we've got a voice to compare it to that's not much help." Grissom sighed but Catherine's tone suggested that there was better news to come. "Brass is looking for you. Apparently they have an eye witness who saw someone doing something to the police car right before the explosion." "Great." He continued walking down the corridor towards his office. "Where are Nick and Warrick?" "Nick's with Brass. Warrick's at the scene. It's pretty impossible to move the police cars without destroying the evidence. They're just shells. He's processing them there." Grissom made his way into his office and sat down at his desk. Catherine followed him, although he didn't pay her much attention. "Are we going to see this eye witness?" She asked impatiently from the doorway. "I need a moment." He replied, not looking up. Catherine realized that having Sara in hospital was probably tough for him. She knew what it was like to be the cause of a friend's injury, and while Grissom hadn't been the direct cause of Sara's hospitalization, he was blaming himself. In some ways that was worse. "What's wrong with Sara?" "Cuts and bruises mostly. She was pretty close to the explosion though. She's been having some trouble with her hearing." "Will she get it back?" "Hopefully. I might recommend Dr. Roth to her, just to make sure that there's nothing else that can be done. The doctor just said 'wait and see'." "Griss. Gil. She'll be okay. This is Sara we're talking about." Catherine caught his eye and he smiled weakly at her. She knew that if Sara's hearing didn't return she'd be out of a job and as being a CSI was Sara's life it would be a disaster. Catherine put a hand on Grissom's arm in an effort to make him relax. "I'm okay. Where's this eye witness then?"
Yes I know. Not a whole lot happening. Look out for some action soon.
Disclaimer: See Chapter 1
When she came round there was someone standing over her. There was a fire not too far away, she could feel the heat and smell the fumes. Then she realized that someone had two hands firmly on either side of her head, supporting her neck. For a moment she panicked trying to remember what had happened. When she finally recalled the last few seconds she still had a grasp of she immediately wished that she hadn't. She tried to crane her neck to see who was standing by her, she thought she heard someone say something but it seemed fuzzy and far away, like someone was speaking through jello. Apart from that she could just hear a permanent ringing in her ears. She felt dizzy and a little ill, her head ached. She made one last effort to keep a hold of her consciousness before losing the battle and passing out again.
Grissom had seen her turning to face him, he'd watched her take a few steps away from the car when the police car two along from where she had parked exploded. There was no warning, it just made an odd noise, shuddered and let out an intense burst of flame. His first thought had been of Sara, she was the one closest to the explosion. She'd been thrown a few feet and was lying face down in the road. Grissom had carefully taken hold of her head to support her neck as her breathing and pulse were checked. At one point she had regained consciousness, although she seemed to be pretty out of it, but then she'd passed out again. He hoped that she wasn't seriously hurt.
It seemed to take an age for the ambulance to arrive, it was followed closely by a fire engine and more police cars. The paramedics gave Sara a once over before strapping her to a spinal board and transporting her to the hospital. Brass quickly moved on to taking statements from eye witnesses so Grissom simply picked up his box of evidence and field kit, put them in his car and drove back to the lab.
Warrick and Nick had been eating together in the break room. The lab was backed up and they were waiting for their results to be processed. They just needed the DNA that they found at the scene to match that of their male suspect and they would have solved the cause, and exposed an insurance fraud. The news was on in the background as they talked. Suddenly it switched to a scene outside a club. They both looked up from their food.
"Wasn't that where Grissom was going?" Nick asked as they looked at the devastation on the screen. The remains of two burnt out police cars could be seen. Next to them was a black Tahoe, half of it had been torn apart and it was lying on it's side. The picture zoomed in on a blue denim jacket on the road beside the wreck. It looked spookily familiar.
"A young woman has been taking to hospital with minor injuries, it is thought that she was one of the police officers investigating a case involving the Rainbow Express club. At the moment we have no news on who might have been responsible for this explosion which destroyed two police cars and caused a great deal of damage to the buildings along this street." The female news reporter told them. Nick sat out and pulled out his cell phone. "I'm calling Grissom. Wasn't Sara with him? That looked like her car." But Warrick caught his eye and pointed at the doorway. A disheveled looking Grissom had just walked in.
"Man. Are you okay? We saw the news. Where's Sara?" Warrick questioned his boss.
"Sara? Oh. The explosion. I think they took her to Desert Palms." Grissom told them. His voice was barely above a whisper. Nick got up and poured his supervisor a drink of water. He appeared to be in shock. "Is it serious?"
"I should go and see. She was unconscious." Grissom sipped the water and started to get up.
"Why don't you just take a moment?" Warrick told him. Even as he was drinking the shock was passing and the realization of what had happened was sinking in.
"She was unconscious." He repeated, his eyes were become less glazed and fiercer. "She was just lying there. For a moment I thought. I thought. I." He couldn't bring himself to say it. "I need to go and see her."
"I'll call a cab for you. I don't think that you should be driving." Nick told him, expecting some sort of objection. Grissom nodded. "There's some evidence in my car." He told them laying his keys on the table. "The rest was in Sara's car so I doubt whether it survived. Can you get it to the lab for me?"
The two younger men nodded and watched as he went along to his office to clean himself up and wait for his cab. He'd been in such a state. Whatever had happened to Sara had to have been serious.
Grissom had waited for news of Sara for some time. At first the doctors weren't keen on her having visitors but after a while some nurses took pity on the despondent man sitting on the hard plastic chairs and ushered him into her room saying that he couldn't stay long as she needed to rest.
"She's been suffering from a slight hearing loss." The nurse told him as she led him along the corridor. "It's not unusual considering how close to the explosion she was. It should pass soon. At most within the week, although in some cases it can take longer. The doctor's already spoken to her about it."
The nurse put her head around the door and told Sara that she had a visitor. When Grissom entered the room he saw her propped up on the pillows. She seemed so pale against the white sheets. The only bit of color in the room beside the tinted blue walls was the splash of brown hair across her pillow. She gave him a weak smile as he entered.
"I'll leave you two alone. I'm afraid I can't give you too long." The nurse said, more to Grissom than Sara.
Grissom thanked the nurse and when he turned back to Sara he realized that she was studying him intently. He moved towards her bed slowly as she spoke.
"I can't hear very well at the moment." She told him quietly as if she was unsure of the pitch of her voice. She took care to say each word and he guessed that she was deliberately speaking quietly to compensate for not being able to hear what she was saying. He'd been there himself. Grissom took the chair beside her bed and as he sat down asked her how much she could hear. "Can you look at me when you speak? It doesn't help me hear you, and I can't lip read, but it gives me clues. You can't talk too loudly around here."
Grissom nodded and felt rather embarrassed. He of all people should know that. He looked down at the bed where Sara's hand was resting, there was a large bruise on her forearm, which he guessed had been caused by flying debris. Mentally he traced the outline and he was so deep in his thoughts that when she moved her hand to reach for something on the bedside table it made him jump. She handed him a notepad and pen.
The notepad was small and had already been used for several notes. They were in a scrawl, which was typical of most doctors, virtually unreadable, he scanned what had been written about Sara's condition.
"Nosy."
He looked up, expecting her to be cross, instead he was met with a grin. He took the pen and wrote I'm sorry.
"Sorry? For what?"
For reading what your doctor wrote. For the accident. It should have been your night off.
"Yeah, but otherwise it could have been Cath lying here."
I'd rather it wasn't anyone.
"You're blaming yourself."
Wouldn't you? Sara didn't answer. She was looking at him thoughtfully. What are you thinking about?
"Why are you here?"
Because you're hurt. Because of me.
"It's nothing. Just a few scratches." She interrupted him as he wrote.
And you can't hear.
She watched him as he turned the page, he didn't write any thing more. "Well you told me I should take some time off." She smiled but she was obviously trying to hide her fear. The doctor had said that in over ninety percent of these cases the hearing would return, but what if Sara was one of those few for whom it didn't? He'd had to face losing his job because of his hearing, it would kill him if someone as good as Sara had to give up her job because of this. She looked a little depressed and he couldn't think why he hadn't noticed it before.
How are you feeling?
"Good. I guess. Apart from this. Like I said, apart from the ringing in my ears I'm fine."
We're going to catch the person who did this. He stared at the page. He hadn't meant to write that. He'd been thinking it, but he didn't want to say it, not if it meant getting Sara's hopes up just so that he could let her down.
"You can't promise that." She scolded lightly as if she were reading his mind. "You don't know if it's related to the case we were looking at or not. Someone could have found out about the phone call and just decided to use it as an opportunity to get back at the cops."
Don't be so negative. Sara smiled as she read what he was writing.
"I'm not being negative, I'm being realistic."
There's a difference.
"Griss -"
We'll need a statement from you.
"I know. I talked to the police earlier. But I'm not much use. I didn't hear anything, or see anything. I just remember this flash and this noise and then something pushing me down. Do you think the cases are connected?"
I'm not ruling it out. Sara yawned and smiled at him. You're tired. You need to rest.
She started to protest but just then the nurse came back and ushered Grissom out of the room, telling him that Sara needed to rest and that he needed to go catch some criminals.
Back at CSI the first person that Grissom met was Greg. The young man looked incredibly worried. "Sara's fine." He reassured him. "She's suffering a bit of hearing loss from the explosion, but that should pass. She'll be back before you know it." Greg didn't say a word. He disappeared back into the lab to continue processing DNA that had been taken from the club. It was a pointless task and Grissom felt rather guilty making him do it, the chances of finding anything useful from it were next to nothing. "Grissom." He stopped in his tracks. "Catherine. What are you doing here? What about Lindsey?" "She's feeling better now. I think it was just a twenty-four hour thing. My sister's watching her. Why didn't you call me? I heard on the news. is Sara. okay?" "What are they saying on the news?" "Nothing much. Before they were saying a female police officer and now they're saying a female CSI, and I knew I was okay. Why did you call her in?" "Because there was no way that I was working that whole club by myself. You know Sara. She was happy to lend a hand. Have we got anything new?" "Well Archie's done separating the tracks. But until we've got a voice to compare it to that's not much help." Grissom sighed but Catherine's tone suggested that there was better news to come. "Brass is looking for you. Apparently they have an eye witness who saw someone doing something to the police car right before the explosion." "Great." He continued walking down the corridor towards his office. "Where are Nick and Warrick?" "Nick's with Brass. Warrick's at the scene. It's pretty impossible to move the police cars without destroying the evidence. They're just shells. He's processing them there." Grissom made his way into his office and sat down at his desk. Catherine followed him, although he didn't pay her much attention. "Are we going to see this eye witness?" She asked impatiently from the doorway. "I need a moment." He replied, not looking up. Catherine realized that having Sara in hospital was probably tough for him. She knew what it was like to be the cause of a friend's injury, and while Grissom hadn't been the direct cause of Sara's hospitalization, he was blaming himself. In some ways that was worse. "What's wrong with Sara?" "Cuts and bruises mostly. She was pretty close to the explosion though. She's been having some trouble with her hearing." "Will she get it back?" "Hopefully. I might recommend Dr. Roth to her, just to make sure that there's nothing else that can be done. The doctor just said 'wait and see'." "Griss. Gil. She'll be okay. This is Sara we're talking about." Catherine caught his eye and he smiled weakly at her. She knew that if Sara's hearing didn't return she'd be out of a job and as being a CSI was Sara's life it would be a disaster. Catherine put a hand on Grissom's arm in an effort to make him relax. "I'm okay. Where's this eye witness then?"
Yes I know. Not a whole lot happening. Look out for some action soon.