Old Ghosts, a csi fanfic

Title: Old Ghosts

Author: Mercury

Fandom: CSI

Rating: PG for some language and, um, swordfighting.

Author's Notes: A response to YTDAW's Elemental Challenge, which stated that the following elements had to be used in a fic: an isolated dirt road, a demagnetized hotel key, a glass eye, "I don't have any regrets. Doubts about what I've done, but no regrets." And a broken pager. Take with a grain of salt; the fic is like this mostly because I'm a huge Kill Bill fan. Plus, I'm a dork. Who has a fever.

Her long, green sword always felt good in her hands, and she had a solid grip on the handle that allowed her to control it. Her hands and the weapon balanced each other out, each of them using their separate powers to manipulate the other. The final result was a force to be reckoned with, giving her a strong reputation and making her name one that was simultaneously feared and admired.

The dirt road she drove down now was isolated, tucked away behind a hamlet somewhere in the northeast. The tires of her tired blue pickup truck rotated mindlessly, pushing Sara forwards towards her goal almost against her will. Silently she begged the car to stop, knowing fully well she had the ability to remove her foot from the pedal any time she wanted. But her head prevailed over her heart, as it so often did, and her foot remained firmly rooted, refusing her insistences that the car stop moving as she continued her journey to the motel at the top of the hill.

She sat in the driver's seat, her hands clutching the sword tightly in her lap. The faded neon lights surrounding her gave the parking lot of the hotel an eerie, dream-like glow. Finally she opened the car door and slowly made her way to the motel room ahead of her, dreading each step that brought her closer to the door. When she reached it she pushed the card into the slot, and sighed in exasperation when the door remained closed.

"Demagnetized. Shit."

Frustrated, she flung the card behind her and kicked open the door, catching only a momentary glimpse of the immaculate room in front of her before he had drawn his own sword and thrust it at her. Her lightning-quick reflexes allowed for her to dodge the blade, leaning backwards as she watched a silvery glimmer pass over her. When it was out of her sight she stood up, quickly turning and closing the door to prevent any interference from outsiders. He lunged at her again and she leapt over his sword, her feet grazing the top of the metal. As she landed, their eyes met as they warily let their weapons hang at their sides.

"I didn't think they'd send you." He began uneasily. "After everything that happened between us -- " He trailed off, not quite sure how to finish his sentence.

She was taken slightly aback at this. "Not much happened, Grissom. You know that. They hired me right after we met -- that week in California." As she always did with him, her gaze began to shift from him, but she caught herself at the last moment and allowed for their eyes to remain locked.

"Ah," he continued, moving to the other side of the room and sitting in the chair placed there. "But it was a busy week."

His mischievous tone was too much for Sara, and before she could help herself a grin broke out on her face. "Not our busiest, though." She replied, motioning to her left eye. The glass eye that was placed there never felt natural in her socket, even after six years of using it. Her mind drifted back to the time when they had first sparred after being separated for so long, and how he had managed to direct his sword in the direction of her eye, leaving her half-blind and filled with nothing but rage towards him.

To her surprise, he actually appeared sympathetic, dissolving all the anger that had begun to boil inside her again. "I'm sorry." Again, his voice brought back reminders of older times, when she was studying to become a forensic scientist while taking martial arts on the side and he was her teacher in both subjects. And his next statement, "I had to do it," made her think of what had happened after that -- him enlisting her in his squad of assassins, her abandoning him to go work for the more prestigious underground crime scene in Las Vegas, and his last attack on her (the one he insisted was "purely business"), the last time she had seen time -- until now. "Do you ever regret doing this?" He asked, and she was jerked back to reality by his voice, a tone much different than the one he had used with her six years ago.

"I don't have any regrets." She said firmly. "Doubts about what I've done, but no regrets."

He stood, walked across the nubby orange carpeting and faced her from across the room. "Or do you just keep telling yourself that because you know it's too late to go back and change?"

Catching her breath, she locked eyes with him again, her voice controlled. With her rage carefully bottled inside, she insisted, "No." Taking a deep, ragged breath, she continued: "I regret . . . leaving you, a little. But then I remind myself" -- she paused -- "that if I had stayed I would never have gotten where I am now."

He took up his sword again and walked over to her. "You never were very good with controlling your emotions when it came down to something personal." He said coldly, an emotion she had never known him to show -- least of all to her.

She barely managed to block his first swing at her, but she was more prepared for the second attack. With a solid retaliation to his blow, she managed to allow her blade to sneak past his. A thin red line appeared on his cheek where she had cut him. "You've been practicing."

She nodded, smiling wryly. His next swipe at her was unexpected, and she barely had enough time to jump out of the way before his blade connected with her pager and sent the black, plastic item falling towards the ground.

"You broke my pager." She said in disbelief, smiling slightly in spite of her current mood, and they resumed their fight. It was a rush to go against him again, feeling like the old times when they would practice with each other. But in those days the blows were softer, carefully placed as to avoid injury. These attacks were deliberately forceful, and she felt a pang of sorrow as she wondered how it came to this.

Her mind temporarily wandering, she barely noticed when his sword pushed her hands skyward, sending her sword flying and leaving her defenseless. Helpless against him, he thrust forward and pierced her chest. A look of surprise evident in her eyes, she fell to the floor wordlessly as her sword fell next to her from above.

He gently bent down next to her and pushed aside some of her hair, and she was surprised to see the look in his eyes was truly apologetic. Carefully he placed his lips to her cheek before standing and exiting soundlessly.

Lying next to the bed, her hands struggled as she attempted to stand up, but she gave up after a few moments. She no longer had the energy to go on making new enemies while fleeing old ghosts, and she felt relieved at the prospect of being able to let go. With a long exhale, she leaned backwards to rest on the carpet, feeling an odd sense of peace wash over her. It was enough just to see him again, one last time.