Title: His Fear
Author: Jeanine (jeanine@iol.ie)
Rating: PG
Pairing: Sara/Warrick
Spoilers: Butterflied
Feedback: Makes my day
Disclaimer: If it was in the show, it's not mine.
Archive: At my site Checkmate () , Fanfiction.net; anywhere else, please ask.
Summary: Warrick looks at photos
Notes: For the LiveJournal CSReports "Fear" challenge.
***
In the years he's been working at CSI, the only thing that has freaked Warrick out is the drying room. Autopsies are no problem, walking through dark houses filled with the scent of blood, even facing down armed criminals; none of these things faze him in the slightest. Nausea is for rookies, for family members, for jurists, not for him.
Not until today at any rate.
Because today is the first day that a cold chill of fear has ever gripped his heart over a case, grabbed on tight and not let go. Not when Holly was shot, not when Catherine was attacked did he feel like he feels when he looks at these autopsy photos.
The face is familiar to him, a face that he sees every day, a face that he's come to care about. A face that is now still and pale in death, her own blood fanning around her in a crimson pool, her body posed, eyes open and staring right at the camera.
He closes the folder and closes his eyes and wills the fear away.
It gets easier when he opens his eyes, looks across the lab and sees Sara talking to Greg. As is usual in their conversations, the young lab tech is turning on all the charm he can muster, not an inconsiderable amount it must be said, but though it could be Warrick's imagination, it seems that there's a slight shadow hanging over them today. Distraction on Sara's part, mingled fear and concern on Greg's.
Warrick understands both moods.
Drawing in a deep breath, he puts the folder with Debbie Marlin's pictures on the table, pushes it to the other end and starts processing the other evidence on the table.
"It's not her," he tells himself. "Sara is fine."
His mind knows that, but his hand still shakes, and his heart still thuds painfully in his chest, and he knows the reason why.
Part of it is because if he didn't know better, he'd swear he was looking at Sara in those photos, and it scares him to think of how easily something like that could happen to one of his friends.
It scares him more to know that something like that could happen and she'd never know how he feels about her.
But it scares him most to know that she'll never know that anyway.