Summary: After viewing a horrific accident, Sara makes some hard decisions about her life. Obviously, a Sara-centered story, but with lots of friendship and a little bit of G/S at the end.
Rating: R for subject matter
A/N: No real spoilers. The chapter titles are opening lines from Emily Dickinson poems.
Thanks to Burked and all the others who previewed this for me.
Disclaimer: Obviously, I don't own anything related to CSI. If I did, I'd be on a tropical beach right now.
Chapter 7 - The grass has so little to do
"Give me a case, Grissom."
Looking up from his microscope, he saw Sara standing in the doorway of the lab. Some time during the night she had found the stash of clothing Catherine had left for her and had changed into jeans and a T-shirt. Her clothing may have been more relaxed but her posture wasn't.
Grissom could only imagine how she must feel. The literal definition of 'workaholic' was trapped inside the building - on a night full of cases - because of a media horde stalking her. He realized this invasion must be distressing given her private nature. It would bother him as well. That she couldn't bury herself in work - her usual outlet - wasn't helping. He had noticed the glares she directed at him earlier that evening when he had handed out the assignments.
"Sorry, Sara. You heard the sheriff."
"Give me a damn case!"
Sara jumped at the intensity of her demand. She hadn't meant to explode like that; it caught her by surprise. From her boss' expression, she gathered he was shocked as well. "Sorry. As you may have noticed, I'm going stir-crazy," she said, flashing him an embarrassed smile.
"I noticed," he said dryly.
"Relax. I'm stressed, not psychotic. I called Dr. Kane after I got off the phone with my parents. I left a message. He cut out early," she said, when she noticed his worried look. "I'm bored, Grissom. I need something to work on."
"I'm sorry, Sara, but I can't send you out," he said. "Can't you do something around here?"
She started pacing around the room. "I've cleared out all my e-mail. I've returned all the phone calls I can without waking people up. There's no paperwork left to do. Anywhere. I went through the stuff in the break room. Boxed up a bunch of stuff to take to the kid's ward at the hospital when I go visit Teresa. I've recalibrated the mass-spectrometer. All the field kits are restocked. The store room's reorganized. I cleaned the coffee machine. And I even cleaned out the refrigerator," she paused her pacing long enough to give him a dirty look. "That was just gross, Grissom. If you don't give me something to do, I'll go do something desperate. I might even be nice to Greg."
She gave him an apologetic smile. She hadn't meant to snap at him. He tried to give her a reassuring smile in return, but he knew it wasn't convincing. It had been less than 48 hours since the accident. The press attention was already getting to Sara. He didn't want to think about how she'd react if something else didn't distract them quickly. Maybe Mobley had been right about her taking a vacation.
"Nice to Greg? We'd never get him off the ceiling," he said softly. "Why don't you try something less radical - go visit your parents."
That drew a chortle of laughter. Grissom was the only one in the lab who knew about her unique relationship with her parents.
"First off, things haven't gotten so bad that I'd resort to that. Yet," she said. "Secondly, there's a flock of vultures going around talking to the neighbor's-babysitter's-ex-boyfriend's-cousin's-mechanic about me at home, so that's no good. And you won't believe this - my parents are coming to the ceremony!"
"Really?" That was a surprise. He knew Sara's parents had never visited her. "When was the last time you saw them?"
"When I went back to San Francisco to pack before moving out here. I stopped in to see them before I left," she said. He gave her a small smile, knowing her relationship with her parents was strained.
"Look, go hide out in a motel, play tourist at Mt. Rushmore, visit some friends. Get out of here, Sara. No one expects you to put up with all this press attention."
"Trying to get rid of me?" She smiled when she answered, but Grissom recognized she was trying to change the subject.
"Never. But take the vacation," Grissom replied. He wondered why she was hesitant to take a free week of vacation. Most people would jump at the chance.
"Is that an order?" Sara refused to look at him.
"No. Just a suggestion from a friend," he said, "who just happens to write your evaluations."
"I can't go," she said softly.
"Of course you can. Mobley's already authorized it," he said in confusion.
"It's not that," she waved her hand in a dismissive gesture. "I can't go."
He regarded her carefully. He couldn't understand the emphasis she had put on 'I'. When she looked up and saw Grissom was going to question her further she held up her hand to him. "Look, Grissom, just give me a case. Please." She winced mentally when she detected the hint of begging in her voice.
"Auto detail is bringing in a pick-up used in a robbery. You can process it when it gets here," he said gently.
"Wow. Thanks," she sighed.
"There's a folder on my desk marked 'Tampa Conference'. Inside, there's a list of visuals I need for my talk. If you're really that bored, grab it and work on that until the truck comes in."
"Grunt work. Fun"
"Sara..."
"I know, Grissom, I know. Sorry. It's the best you can do." He watched her head toward the door with none of her normal energy. He knew the busy work - he had already finished the visuals last week - wouldn't do much to help her. He wondered what would work.
"Sara?" He waited until she turned back around. "Is there anything, can I do anything, is there something I can do to help?"
She gave him a sad smile and shook her head before leaving the room.
~~~~~~~~~~
"Touch that and you die."
Nick froze. He completely believed the threat. The unseen voice left no doubt about the seriousness of the situation. Licking his lips nervously, Nick slowly lifted his arms up and turned around cautiously.
"I've got a wife and kids. They need me," he pleaded.
"Stow it, Stokes. Grissom promised me that truck," Sara said as she crossed the garage.
"You so bored you gonna kill me over a truck?"
"Yep. And I'll make it slow, too."
Nick grabbed his chest in fake agony. "Ouch. I thought we were friends."
"We are. That's why you're still breathing. Move away from my evidence."
"My case, my evidence, remember?" Nick teased.
"Nope. Grissom gave me the truck. It's in the building, it's mine."
"Greedy," he accused.
"Stir-crazy," she corrected.
"Don't know about the 'stir' but I'll agree with the rest of it," he said.
"At this point, so would I," she said giving him a glare. "Now don't stand between the crazy woman and her truck."
"Okay," Nick said in mock surrender, "but I'm going to go switch all the coffee to decaf."
"Do that, Stokes, and you will die!"
Grissom watched the exchange in the garage with interest. He had gone to warn Nick when he saw Sara stalking down the hallway. He was worried about her mood, but if she was joking with Nick she must be feeling better. He would have been more convinced if she had sounded like she had been joking.
~~~~~~~~~~
Warrick swore under his breath. His missing person from Henderson just became a murder. The decomposing body of Winchell Wang had been found by a group of hikers earlier that evening.
Tonight was turning out to be hectic. They were swamped with cases. Catherine was off and Sara couldn't come to a crime scene. To make matters worse, a reporter from the Las Vegas Tribune was hovering around the police tape, yelling questions.
"Look, Miss,"
"Darby. Lynda Darby."
"Yeah, right. Look, I said no comment. I'm not going to talk about Sara."
"Is it true Ms. Sidle ran an internal investigation on you Mr. Brown?"
Damn. How had they learned about that? Someone in the department must be talking. He hoped they weren't talking about Sara, too. Not that she had any dirt to worry about, but she wouldn't like a co-worker talking about her.
"No comment."
"What was the nature of the investigation?" Darby called out. When it was obvious he wasn't going to answer, she tried another tactic. "Do you have problems working with Ms. Sidle because of the investigation? What's your professional relationship like?"
Warrick stopped his examination of the crime scene. He was glad Grissom had kept Sara at the lab. As much as he could have used her help here, she didn't need this kind of hassle. Looking over, he saw Sgt. O'Riley moving over in a hurry. The man seemed angry.
"O'Riley! Can't you do something about her?" Warrick called nodding to the reporter.
"As long as I stay behind the tape, I have every right to be here," Darby stated, wondering why the big man seemed upset.
O'Riley walked over and grabbed the tape recorder from her hand, turning the machine off.
"Hey!"
"This is conversation is off-the-record," the burly detective said. "You see that over there? That's a dead body. He was murdered. Brown is trying to find evidence so we can catch the guy that did it. It'd help if Sara was here to give a hand. But she can't leave the building 'cause of you bastards. Think about that. You're helping a murderer get away. You're not going to find any dirt on Sara, so stop wasting your time."
"I'm not looking for 'dirt'. People want to know more about her. Look, she's a hero, whether she wants to be or not."
"Then give her some respect. She doesn't want to talk to you. She's not going too, either. You can't push her. Find someone who wants the attention, why dontcha?" He gave her back the recorder and went to talk with the hikers who had found the body. At least she got their statements, so she'd have a story to file when she got back to the office.
Sighing, Darby put her tape recorder away and headed back to her car. Her source from the day shift had told her about the investigation against Brown, but she didn't have any collaboration. He wasn't talking, either. Too bad; it would have been a new twist to the story. And it may have directed attention away from the woman who had turned down every interview request.
Darby didn't like to admit it, but she didn't like these stories. Sidle wasn't a criminal who deserved to be investigated. She was at the wrong place at the wrong time. Or right place at the right time, as far as those kids were concerned. She'd head over to the hospital in the morning. Maybe she could arrange an interview with one of the families.
There were days when she hated her job.
~~~~~~~~~~
After chasing Nick out of the garage, Sara started unloading the supplies out of her kit. She hoped he wasn't angry, but she needed to something to work on. She needed to stop thinking about the accident.
People never understood why Sara buried herself in her work. It was more than just an escape. She was a very logical person. It defined the way she saw the world. That was great when it came to work, school, science, planning her retirement accounts, but it didn't help when it came to emotional issues. She just made herself confused when she tried to apply logic to areas where they didn't work.
Instead, she would push whatever was bothering her down and let her subconscious work it out. She'd distract her conscious with what it was good at: logic. The obvious source was work. Her subconscious would mull over the problem until it reached a solution, which it often presented as a flash of insight.
More often, it came out as a nightmare.
Sara sighed as she spilled the dusting powder. Her hands were shaking. Damn. She just wanted her life to get back to normal. Or at least back to what passed for normal for her. Luckily, the truck and bus from the accident were too large to store at this facility. She didn't think she would have been able to face those.
She began to sing softly. "We have helium and hydrogen, lithium and then beryllium, boron, carbon, oxygen and then nitrogen..." The nonsensical mix of music and science had always been a calming influence on her.
Tears blurred her vision when she thought of the children who would never get a chance to learn it. Moving to the far side of the truck, Sara slowly sank to the floor. She just wanted this all to end
TBC
Rating: R for subject matter
A/N: No real spoilers. The chapter titles are opening lines from Emily Dickinson poems.
Thanks to Burked and all the others who previewed this for me.
Disclaimer: Obviously, I don't own anything related to CSI. If I did, I'd be on a tropical beach right now.
Chapter 7 - The grass has so little to do
"Give me a case, Grissom."
Looking up from his microscope, he saw Sara standing in the doorway of the lab. Some time during the night she had found the stash of clothing Catherine had left for her and had changed into jeans and a T-shirt. Her clothing may have been more relaxed but her posture wasn't.
Grissom could only imagine how she must feel. The literal definition of 'workaholic' was trapped inside the building - on a night full of cases - because of a media horde stalking her. He realized this invasion must be distressing given her private nature. It would bother him as well. That she couldn't bury herself in work - her usual outlet - wasn't helping. He had noticed the glares she directed at him earlier that evening when he had handed out the assignments.
"Sorry, Sara. You heard the sheriff."
"Give me a damn case!"
Sara jumped at the intensity of her demand. She hadn't meant to explode like that; it caught her by surprise. From her boss' expression, she gathered he was shocked as well. "Sorry. As you may have noticed, I'm going stir-crazy," she said, flashing him an embarrassed smile.
"I noticed," he said dryly.
"Relax. I'm stressed, not psychotic. I called Dr. Kane after I got off the phone with my parents. I left a message. He cut out early," she said, when she noticed his worried look. "I'm bored, Grissom. I need something to work on."
"I'm sorry, Sara, but I can't send you out," he said. "Can't you do something around here?"
She started pacing around the room. "I've cleared out all my e-mail. I've returned all the phone calls I can without waking people up. There's no paperwork left to do. Anywhere. I went through the stuff in the break room. Boxed up a bunch of stuff to take to the kid's ward at the hospital when I go visit Teresa. I've recalibrated the mass-spectrometer. All the field kits are restocked. The store room's reorganized. I cleaned the coffee machine. And I even cleaned out the refrigerator," she paused her pacing long enough to give him a dirty look. "That was just gross, Grissom. If you don't give me something to do, I'll go do something desperate. I might even be nice to Greg."
She gave him an apologetic smile. She hadn't meant to snap at him. He tried to give her a reassuring smile in return, but he knew it wasn't convincing. It had been less than 48 hours since the accident. The press attention was already getting to Sara. He didn't want to think about how she'd react if something else didn't distract them quickly. Maybe Mobley had been right about her taking a vacation.
"Nice to Greg? We'd never get him off the ceiling," he said softly. "Why don't you try something less radical - go visit your parents."
That drew a chortle of laughter. Grissom was the only one in the lab who knew about her unique relationship with her parents.
"First off, things haven't gotten so bad that I'd resort to that. Yet," she said. "Secondly, there's a flock of vultures going around talking to the neighbor's-babysitter's-ex-boyfriend's-cousin's-mechanic about me at home, so that's no good. And you won't believe this - my parents are coming to the ceremony!"
"Really?" That was a surprise. He knew Sara's parents had never visited her. "When was the last time you saw them?"
"When I went back to San Francisco to pack before moving out here. I stopped in to see them before I left," she said. He gave her a small smile, knowing her relationship with her parents was strained.
"Look, go hide out in a motel, play tourist at Mt. Rushmore, visit some friends. Get out of here, Sara. No one expects you to put up with all this press attention."
"Trying to get rid of me?" She smiled when she answered, but Grissom recognized she was trying to change the subject.
"Never. But take the vacation," Grissom replied. He wondered why she was hesitant to take a free week of vacation. Most people would jump at the chance.
"Is that an order?" Sara refused to look at him.
"No. Just a suggestion from a friend," he said, "who just happens to write your evaluations."
"I can't go," she said softly.
"Of course you can. Mobley's already authorized it," he said in confusion.
"It's not that," she waved her hand in a dismissive gesture. "I can't go."
He regarded her carefully. He couldn't understand the emphasis she had put on 'I'. When she looked up and saw Grissom was going to question her further she held up her hand to him. "Look, Grissom, just give me a case. Please." She winced mentally when she detected the hint of begging in her voice.
"Auto detail is bringing in a pick-up used in a robbery. You can process it when it gets here," he said gently.
"Wow. Thanks," she sighed.
"There's a folder on my desk marked 'Tampa Conference'. Inside, there's a list of visuals I need for my talk. If you're really that bored, grab it and work on that until the truck comes in."
"Grunt work. Fun"
"Sara..."
"I know, Grissom, I know. Sorry. It's the best you can do." He watched her head toward the door with none of her normal energy. He knew the busy work - he had already finished the visuals last week - wouldn't do much to help her. He wondered what would work.
"Sara?" He waited until she turned back around. "Is there anything, can I do anything, is there something I can do to help?"
She gave him a sad smile and shook her head before leaving the room.
~~~~~~~~~~
"Touch that and you die."
Nick froze. He completely believed the threat. The unseen voice left no doubt about the seriousness of the situation. Licking his lips nervously, Nick slowly lifted his arms up and turned around cautiously.
"I've got a wife and kids. They need me," he pleaded.
"Stow it, Stokes. Grissom promised me that truck," Sara said as she crossed the garage.
"You so bored you gonna kill me over a truck?"
"Yep. And I'll make it slow, too."
Nick grabbed his chest in fake agony. "Ouch. I thought we were friends."
"We are. That's why you're still breathing. Move away from my evidence."
"My case, my evidence, remember?" Nick teased.
"Nope. Grissom gave me the truck. It's in the building, it's mine."
"Greedy," he accused.
"Stir-crazy," she corrected.
"Don't know about the 'stir' but I'll agree with the rest of it," he said.
"At this point, so would I," she said giving him a glare. "Now don't stand between the crazy woman and her truck."
"Okay," Nick said in mock surrender, "but I'm going to go switch all the coffee to decaf."
"Do that, Stokes, and you will die!"
Grissom watched the exchange in the garage with interest. He had gone to warn Nick when he saw Sara stalking down the hallway. He was worried about her mood, but if she was joking with Nick she must be feeling better. He would have been more convinced if she had sounded like she had been joking.
~~~~~~~~~~
Warrick swore under his breath. His missing person from Henderson just became a murder. The decomposing body of Winchell Wang had been found by a group of hikers earlier that evening.
Tonight was turning out to be hectic. They were swamped with cases. Catherine was off and Sara couldn't come to a crime scene. To make matters worse, a reporter from the Las Vegas Tribune was hovering around the police tape, yelling questions.
"Look, Miss,"
"Darby. Lynda Darby."
"Yeah, right. Look, I said no comment. I'm not going to talk about Sara."
"Is it true Ms. Sidle ran an internal investigation on you Mr. Brown?"
Damn. How had they learned about that? Someone in the department must be talking. He hoped they weren't talking about Sara, too. Not that she had any dirt to worry about, but she wouldn't like a co-worker talking about her.
"No comment."
"What was the nature of the investigation?" Darby called out. When it was obvious he wasn't going to answer, she tried another tactic. "Do you have problems working with Ms. Sidle because of the investigation? What's your professional relationship like?"
Warrick stopped his examination of the crime scene. He was glad Grissom had kept Sara at the lab. As much as he could have used her help here, she didn't need this kind of hassle. Looking over, he saw Sgt. O'Riley moving over in a hurry. The man seemed angry.
"O'Riley! Can't you do something about her?" Warrick called nodding to the reporter.
"As long as I stay behind the tape, I have every right to be here," Darby stated, wondering why the big man seemed upset.
O'Riley walked over and grabbed the tape recorder from her hand, turning the machine off.
"Hey!"
"This is conversation is off-the-record," the burly detective said. "You see that over there? That's a dead body. He was murdered. Brown is trying to find evidence so we can catch the guy that did it. It'd help if Sara was here to give a hand. But she can't leave the building 'cause of you bastards. Think about that. You're helping a murderer get away. You're not going to find any dirt on Sara, so stop wasting your time."
"I'm not looking for 'dirt'. People want to know more about her. Look, she's a hero, whether she wants to be or not."
"Then give her some respect. She doesn't want to talk to you. She's not going too, either. You can't push her. Find someone who wants the attention, why dontcha?" He gave her back the recorder and went to talk with the hikers who had found the body. At least she got their statements, so she'd have a story to file when she got back to the office.
Sighing, Darby put her tape recorder away and headed back to her car. Her source from the day shift had told her about the investigation against Brown, but she didn't have any collaboration. He wasn't talking, either. Too bad; it would have been a new twist to the story. And it may have directed attention away from the woman who had turned down every interview request.
Darby didn't like to admit it, but she didn't like these stories. Sidle wasn't a criminal who deserved to be investigated. She was at the wrong place at the wrong time. Or right place at the right time, as far as those kids were concerned. She'd head over to the hospital in the morning. Maybe she could arrange an interview with one of the families.
There were days when she hated her job.
~~~~~~~~~~
After chasing Nick out of the garage, Sara started unloading the supplies out of her kit. She hoped he wasn't angry, but she needed to something to work on. She needed to stop thinking about the accident.
People never understood why Sara buried herself in her work. It was more than just an escape. She was a very logical person. It defined the way she saw the world. That was great when it came to work, school, science, planning her retirement accounts, but it didn't help when it came to emotional issues. She just made herself confused when she tried to apply logic to areas where they didn't work.
Instead, she would push whatever was bothering her down and let her subconscious work it out. She'd distract her conscious with what it was good at: logic. The obvious source was work. Her subconscious would mull over the problem until it reached a solution, which it often presented as a flash of insight.
More often, it came out as a nightmare.
Sara sighed as she spilled the dusting powder. Her hands were shaking. Damn. She just wanted her life to get back to normal. Or at least back to what passed for normal for her. Luckily, the truck and bus from the accident were too large to store at this facility. She didn't think she would have been able to face those.
She began to sing softly. "We have helium and hydrogen, lithium and then beryllium, boron, carbon, oxygen and then nitrogen..." The nonsensical mix of music and science had always been a calming influence on her.
Tears blurred her vision when she thought of the children who would never get a chance to learn it. Moving to the far side of the truck, Sara slowly sank to the floor. She just wanted this all to end
TBC