Title: Listening to the Truth.
Summary: Response to this week's Unbound Challenge. Occasionally you need someone to help share the burden of sorrow.
Disclaimer: Unless I receive the majority share of Viacom for my upcoming birthday, I have no claim whatsoever to CSI.
A/N: A big thank-you to those who have not only listened to me bitching about writer's block, but also gave me advice on how to conquer it. Mossley, I hope this story doesn't disappoint too much. And Battus, thanks for the beta-ing.
To those who might be wondering if A Heart's Desire will ever be finished, the answer is yes. I'm currently working on a new chapter, and it's about halfway done. Hope you can be patient a little while longer.
OoOoO
Listening to the Truth
"Just close your eyes," he said. His hands slid from her neck to her shoulders, underneath the straps of the silk negligee, slipping the soft violet cloth down her arms and onto the floor. The faint scent of a foreign yet expensive cologne enveloped her, and she took a deep breath, closing her eyes as he had asked. Her skin tingled, anticipating where the next kiss would land, which soft spot his masculine fingers would stroke next. His words cut through the sensual haze.
"Where were you last night?" His voice had lost all traces of lust and seduction. Instead, it was cold and low, a menacing voice so unlike what she had become accustomed to. Fear started to take hold of her, and she tried to turn, but he kept her arms pinned by her side, pushing her up to the stark white wardrobe closet. "What are you doing? Stop it. Damnit." She struggled against his grip valiantly, but without result. "Let me go!"
The side of her face was now pressed tightly against the closet door, the lacquered finish cool against her fevered skin. "Answer me. Where were you?" His hand wove its way into her hair and yanked her back, hard. "I saw you last night with him. Your boss. Did you really think you could cheat on me?"
She could see his eyes, full of hate and delirious rage. There would be no correct answer to give him. Nothing to placate him, to rationalize. To talk about. The truth; that she and her boss had indeed had dinner together, in the company of a prospective client, wouldn't have sufficed. Suddenly his grip on her became even tighter and the white closet door once again came into view. And then there was no more white.
"Caucasian female, approximately thirty-four years old. Nothing to ID her as of yet." Brass' tone was matter of fact, but weighed down with the cynicism that comes with years of experience in the forensics and investigative field. "David's nearly done with the body."
"A battered woman, shot in her temple, and found in an old dumpster. Unfortunately for the killer, garbage disposal doesn't arrive till tomorrow. " Grissom's flashlight mingled with that of Sara's, illuminating the dark corners of the alleyway. As he shone his torch around, it came upon Sara who was crouched and digging through a selection of soggy and mouldy trash, looking for the remotest of clues. Her posture was rigid, and Grissom realised that this case, too, had its effect on her. And as so many times before, there wasn't a whole lot he could do. Of course, he admitted, he hadn't always been trying very hard.
He might have been able to voice his concern in the most oblique of ways, offer some well-meant advice, perhaps even listen to whatever was troubling her. It was something that he had tried before. But he still recognized the pain and sorrow, disgust and anger that took hold of her each time she had to work yet another case of a raped minor, or battered wife. Each case in which a woman was violated, where her basic rights had been taken away and trampled on, Sara took to heart.
As he observed Sara's drawn mouth and the deep lines that marred her once smooth forehead, he wished once again, with a clichéd thought, that he could be the one to take away her pain.
In the meantime, the body was carried away from its place amongst the trash to the coroner's van, and as it slowly drove away, Sara followed it out of the corner of her eye until it disappeared out of sight.
Getting up from her hunched position, she went on the hunt for anything probative. Photographing , bagging and labelling the evidence, the two investigators worked in silence with only an occasional comment interfering.
"What are you thinking?"
Sara threw a puzzled glance at him as she closed her field kit. "Nothing." She frowned as she noticed that Grissom was still staring at her, his eyes intent on hers. "It's just that…" She shrugged sadly. "This'll probably turn out to be another victim of spousal abuse, where the husband will put up a great show of being worried about her being missing, and then devastated when he'll hear she's found murdered. And all the while he'll be playing us, just like he played her."
"You're assuming that she was murdered by her husband or boyfriend, Sara. We don't know that yet."
Sara walked over to the nearby Tahoe and placed her kit in the trunk, closing it with quite a bit more force than necessary. Turning around to face him, she said, "But she's been beaten, you saw it just as well as I did. Shot in the head as a final show of degradation. I saw your reaction, Grissom. Don't tell me you didn't think the same thing."
He sighed, his lips pursed as thoughts were milling around in his head, wondering what he could say to her without revealing too much of himself. "Sara… " He wanted to continue, but the words were too jumbled up to make sense of them, to force them out into the open. Having placed his field kit in the back of the SUV as well, he held open the door on the passenger side as though an invitation for Sara to enter.
She did, reluctantly so, not at all enamoured by the situation, nor with how Grissom had responded.
"Let's get the evidence back to the lab, and then we can clock out and have breakfast." Sara didn't respond outwardly. But inwardly she was again amazed and confused. Right. Breakfast. He thinks I can eat after this? "No thanks, I think I'll just stick around, see what I can do with the evidence we've collected."
"Sara, most of it's going to Trace. There won't be a whole lot you can do." She glared at him. "And whether you like it or not, I'm still concerned about you. Please, have breakfast with me." As he expected, that drew a different reaction. Her harsh glare was replaced with uncertainty and confusion, then with the slightest bit of hope.
"Sure."
He breathed a sigh of relief. "Okay, I guess that's settled then."