ALL ALONE IN THE MOONLIGHT
DISCLAIMER: If any of you think I own CSI or any of the associated characters, you need to be convinced otherwise, so consider yourselves disillusioned. They're not mine, but I do keep hoping. And the title comes from 'Memory' from Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber's 'Cats'.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: A first sentence that's been in my head for a week, a plot which would not work out as a multi-chapter fic, and a title I'd intended for an entirely separate fic. I feel like a chef.
As always, all constructive criticism greatly appreciated, and I hope you all enjoy this.
Perhaps it had been because they were both lonely. Sara liked logical explanations, and that was the best she could come up with.
After all, she knew all about loneliness. Sometimes it made people do things they wouldn't normally do. Sometimes it was an excuse, a way of justifying one's actions, or an explanation tossed about in hurried corridor gossip. Sara knew about those, too.
In this case, it was both justification and explanation. Even now, Sara still told herself it had been because they were both lonely, and, if nothing else, she remembered the whispers.
Six years after it had ended, lying on her back on her bed in an anonymous apartment on an ordinary street in New Orleans, Sara wondered for the first time if playing the loneliness card was a way of avoiding the reality of the situation, if telling herself she'd done it because she was lonely was far too simplistic, if her excuse was nothing more than her way of lying to herself.
She'd tried to avoid thinking about it for so long, because to think would have led inevitably to grief, and grief to yet another burden. In a way she'd become like Grissom, blocking out painful memories, retreating inside herself to avoid attracting more pain. She thought, with a wry smile, that the CSIs at this lab could have said of their nightshift supervisor what she had once said to hers: "I wish I was like you. I wish I didn't feel anything."
She did feel, though, and she knew now that Grissom had too. She'd just learnt not to show it, as he had. Feeling pain meant vulnerability; showing it meant even more.
That was why she wondered if the loneliness they had both been feeling at the time was an excuse, because loneliness didn't explain the way she felt, every day, no matter how hard she tried to forget about it all. And it certainly didn't explain the way she constantly found herself wondering what they were doing now, if they missed her, if they thought about her.
This was one of the days every year that Sara allowed herself to dwell on the past, because today was her daughter's birthday.
Nick had been opposed to the idea of abortion from the start, and through a haze of fear and panic Sara had let him take charge and talk her into going through with the pregnancy. Oh, there'd been some complicity on her part, she'd come to think she could be a mother. Nick believed she could, anyway, and he was so confident she couldn't help believing him. She'd even started getting excited.
But then Talia had been born six weeks early, and while their daughter had made her start in life in the Newborn Intensive Care Unit of Desert Palms Sara had been drowning in depression. Nothing Nick did made matters any better, and it wasn't long before he was spending all his time with Talia. He'd given their daughter her name, Natalia Kate Stokes, because Sara couldn't bring herself to care. It took hospital staff almost two weeks to get Sara to accept the fact of her post-natal depression and another two before she felt anything like herself again.
By this time, Talia was ready to go home, so Sara went with her, and Nick couldn't suppress his smile. He looked like a man who had finally gotten what he had always wanted - and he had. For Nick it was family, but for Sara every day was like playing house. She felt she was playing a role - acting the role of Talia's mother, Nick's girlfriend. She was a child in a play house, and the reality of the situation just deepened her sense of unreality. Both she and Talia had struggled with breastfeeding, and it wasn't long before Talia was on bottles full time, leaving Sara feeling like a failure as a mother.
When Nick went back to work the nightshift the situation worsened. Sara was growing stir-crazy, and despite the medication seemed to feel the depression threatening to return. Handling Talia was like handling a delicate china doll, and so convinced she was going to do something to hurt her daughter Sara only picked her up to feed her or change her diaper, and then she was tentative and scared. Nick was working all night and spending the day getting up to Talia: his temper accordingly became worse.
Swapping roles was the most logical solution, and Sara acknowledged a feeling of relief knowing that Nick would be responsible for Talia's full time care. That didn't mean she wasn't still carrying those feelings of failure, and it didn't mean she didn't suspect the others of talking about her behind her back. It wasn't the same without Nick, Grissom was as distant as ever, and despite their best attempts Sara couldn't stop believing that Catherine, Warrick and Greg were conspiring behind her back. She wasn't entirely sure what they might be conspiring about, it was true, but what was a little paranoia to go with all the other feelings running riot in her body? At least her relationship with Nick was beginning to improve, and she was finding herself more able to love her daughter.
Sara couldn't really remember when the problems between her and Nick had started. The first major ruction she remembered was when Talia was several months old. Nick said, and Sara knew, that they had to do something about the way their household was run. They couldn't bring Talia up in an environment where she slept during the day and was up all night - that was no life for a child. And for Sara to work nights when Nick and Talia functioned during the day was no life for a couple, or for a family. Nick had wanted Sara to switch to days at Las Vegas, where a position had recently opened.
She'd probably been a little stubborn about that, but working under Conrad Ecklie seemed like hell on earth. Her relationships with her nightshift colleagues were undoubtably strained, which she knew was her fault, but she also knew she couldn't work in Vegas wihout them.
So Nick had said that the only option, then, was to go somewhere else entirely. He thought Texas would be good, Sara preferred the idea of California or New England.
And their disagreements had gotten so bad Sara had left.
Lying on her bed now, six years from the event, she was able to acknowledge that it wasn't just because of Nick. It was to do with him, and it was to do with Talia, but mostly it was to do with Sara. Convinced she was a failure as a partner and as a mother and that they'd be better off without her, Sara had done what she'd done in the past, when life got too much - run away. All the way to New Orleans, in fact, where she'd buried herself in work and tried everyday not to think of what she'd thrown away.
The problem was that several months ago she'd had to deal with a little girl about the age Talia was now, who had seen her older sister raped. For once it hadn't been the rape that had bothered Sara, but the haunted look in little Alissa's eyes. It had been like all the motherly feelings she'd been suppressing, that she'd been convinced didn't exist in her body, had come to the fore. She was beginning to realize that what she wanted most was her daughter, and she wouldn't mind having Nick as well.
Nick and Talia were living in Dallas, where Nick was working at the crime lab. Talia was almost seven years old. Every one of the brief letters Talia had written lived in the cabinet beside Sara's bed, with Nick's rather longer ones about Talia's progress and the many photos Nick had sent over the years. Every few months, Sara went to Dallas, or Nick brought Talia to New Orleans. It seemed to be a fact of Talia's life that her Mommy didn't live with them, and maybe that was what hurt the most.
That or the guilt.
Sara rolled over onto her stomach and checked her watch. Six p.m. She picked up the phone and dialled Nick's number in Dallas.
"Stokes."
The sound of his voice brought back not just memories, but feelings, every bit as intense as they had been in the early days of their relationship.
"It's Sara."
She could almost hear the smile in his voice. "How are you?"
This wasn't a time for the truth; it would take several hours and a lot of emotion. "Fine. You?"
"Good."
"How's Talia?"
"She's good. She got your presents. Loves them."
"I'm glad."
"Here's Talia."
"Hi, Mommy!" Talia's voice was bright and cheerful as ever. "I like your presents, Mommy, they're fun. Guess what?"
"What?"
"Daddy's taking me and Ainsley and Ella to the fair on Saturday."
"Wow! That sounds like fun."
"You can come too, Mommy."
Sara closed her eyes. Oh, the innocence of childhood. It was all so simple in Talia's world. "I'll talk to Daddy," she said, weakly.
"I want you to come, Mommy."
"We'll see. How's school?"
Sara chatted to her daughter for a few more minutes, before Talia passed the phone back to Nick.
"Ten o'clock, Saturday," Nick said.
"What's that?"
"The fair. If you want to come - " Nick seemed to leave a lot unspoken. The rest of the invitation, but there was more than that. Sara understood, and she knew he did too. And they both knew she'd be there to go to the fair.
THE END