Title: The Butterfly Effect
Author: Max Tyler (a.k.a. Max452)
Email: Max_01_09@yahoo.com
Spoilers: Butterflied
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I do not own any CSI people or places. They all belong to CBS Productions, Jerry Bruckheimer, and Anthony E. Zuiker. I do not make any money off this, it is strictly for entertainment only.
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Sara :
I know I shouldn't be behind the glass in the interrogation room. I can see the look on Grissom's exhausted face, and knew that something was going to come out. A confession of sorts. And this was like the worst kind of deception.
But I stayed anyway. To look at the face of a man falling apart, and as the cops brought in a man who had caused it. A doctor... who had killed Debbie Marlin. The woman who looked like me.
I remembered my conversation with Catherine on the subject.
"If I didn't know any better, I'd think that was you on the table." A nervous smile from Catherine.
I return it, "I didn't really look at her face." I said, lying through my teeth.
I had sat by the cold, metal slab in the morgue, staring at her. Looking at someone who resembled myself... Her dark brown hair, her facial features, it was easy to see myself in her place.
Now, numb, I listen to a shattered man talk to a killer.
"It's sad, isn't it Doc? Guys like us. A couple of middle-aged men who've allowed their work to consume their lives. The only time we touch other people is when we wearing our latex gloves." Grissom's eyes were distant, as if recalling another time and place.
I wonder what he is thinking of. The hockey rink, when he told me he had never appreciated beauty until he met me. The day he set me the plant... to apologize for being so self-absorbed, for not noticing what I wanted. And for a moment, I thought about fairy-tale romance with him... with Grissom.
"We wake up one day, and realize for fifty years we really haven't lived at all. But then all of the sudden, we get a second chance. Somebody young and beautiful shows up, somebody we could care about."
"She offers us a new life with her. But we have a big decision to make, right? Because we have to risk everything we've worked for in order to have her. I couldn't do it, but you did. You risked it all." Grissom leaned back, coming back to the present. He stared at the doctor with tired, hollow eyes.
The eyes of a haunted man.
"And she showed you a wonderful life, didn't she? But then she took it away and gave it to somebody else." Grissom continued, his voice dead.
A wonderful life. I would've given you a wonderful life too, Grissom, if you had let me in. But every time I tried, you turned me away...
"And you were lost, so you took her life. You killed them both, and now you have nothing." Grissom finished.
I watched all of that, listened to it. Felt my heart breaking.
Suddenly the door behind the interrogation room opened, and my stomach dropped.
Brass stood there.
He frowned, "What are you doing Sara?"
Meekly, I indicated the doctor, "Listening."
"To him? Or to Grissom?"
I swallowed hard, "What do you mean?"
Brass gave me the look he usually reserved for suspects.
"Never mind. I'm leaving. Bye." with those masterful words, I fled.
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Brass:
When I went into the interrogation room, the scumbag doctor and his lawyer had left. All that was left was the shadow of a man I used to know as Gil Grissom.
He sat incredibly still in his chair, "Don't even start Jim."
Brass took a seat across from his friend, "What? What you've become completely unraveled in the space of a few days. Want to tell me why?"
Grissom rubbed his eyes, which were heavily shadowed, "No, not particularly."
Brass nodded, "Well, allow me to hazard a guess. Because the murdered girl, what was her name?"
"Debbie Marlin." Grissom said, almost inaudibly.
"Because Debbie Marlin happened to very much resemble our own Sara Sidle, who after this speech of yours, I believe you're in love with. Especially after I catch Sara herself eavesdropping on the interrogation."
That got Grissom's attention. He sat up straight, "Sara what?"
"She was behind the glass in the interrogation room. She heard every word you said. I caught her, and she just left."
"Ah hell." Grissom said, and lurching to his feet, ran out of the interrogation room.
Brass stared at the ceiling, "That went well."
