Title: Modern Art
Author: nailbunny617
Fandom: CSI
Pairing: pre-slash with C/S to come
Rating: R for dark themes
Disclaimer: I own none of these characters and mean no harm by kidnapping them for a little bit. And note that there is femslash to come – perhaps not yet, but in time, my friend. Now consider yourself disclaimered, k? Yup, this is the fourth in a series – the prequels being 'And Reality Bites Back,' 'Deus Ex Machina,' and then 'Swaying in the Breeze.'
Warning: ENORMOUS spoilers for 'Nesting Dolls' (US airdate 2-3-05) and 'Bloodlines'
A/N: Tonight's episode just spoke to me. This is the result – and it fit perfectly into my series. Ha! Sorry if there are errors…
I had promised myself I wouldn't drink anymore. Over and over again. Every morning in the mirror, I'd tell the woman who was starting to resemble me that there wouldn't be any booze.
And there wasn't. I avoided Catherine like the plague. Should those two facts be related? I don't really know why I steered clear of her – after all, shouldn't I have been happy that my pulling away hurt her? I was anything but – because it meant that maybe there really was hope for me and I didn't know how to handle that.
So when we worked a case together, Gil having loaned me to Cath for the night, I lost it. With domestic abuse adding into close proximity to her…I blew up. There are some things, I think, that can never be forgiven. That never should be forgiven and can never, ever be forgotten. Abuse – of any kind – and suicide.
In my life, I've experienced both. The abuse put me in foster care and the suicide brought my world to its knees while there. My best friend in the entire world – Max – full of knobby knees and awkward elbows with blue eyes and light brown hair. She held me together when I didn't think there was anything left worth saving. I wouldn't have made it without her. I kissed her once, when I finally noticed that the gangly kid I was friends with had become a beautiful young woman – harsh lines replaced by soft curves. I kissed her and she killed herself. That's when I started thinking maybe it was me. Everyone I'd ever loved had either up and died or killed someone.
So I guess that's how I found myself sitting in my favorite chair, trying not to look Grissom in the eyes, and saying out loud all those things I'd tried so hard to forget. I know I was there that night, I know I saw my mother killing my father, the knife glinting in the light as she raised and lowered it…but knowing it and remembering it are two different things. Sometimes I wish I could remember it – because maybe then I could live it out. I could look at it with all my hard-won maturity and criminalist sophistication and explain it away. I could categorize it and file it and box it away so it wouldn't hold any power over me anymore.
I had nightmares that, when I woke, all I could remember was the sharp tang of iron. They don't warn you about the smell before you go to your first really bloody crime scene. In San Francisco, they thought that my lack of reaction meant I had a strong constitution. How could I tell them that it's easier to deal with when you're not part of the crime itself?
And I asked Grissom the question that had burned in my soul since that night. I looked him in the eye, because I knew he wouldn't lie to me, and asked him if there was a murderer gene. I asked him and I absolutely cannot remember what he said to me. It didn't matter, really, because I knew that he would say no. What I know is that, instead of running, he sat there and held my hand while I sobbed. Emotionally unavailable or not, for once his goddamn life, he knew exactly what to do to help out another person – a human person whose heart still beat soundly if not happily.
That night, I watched Catherine talking to Warrick and Nick in a lab. I wanted to go in and apologize for the shit I said to her with my entire being. The crack about marrying the wrong guy, implying that she let men cloud her view, not to mention yelling at her in the hallway… I didn't think that she would forgive me even if I'd somehow found the courage to walk in there and say the words that were stuck in my throat. Maybe I thought that I shouldn't have been forgiven.
Warrick saw me standing there forlornly. He came by and, in his strong silent way, put his hand on my shoulder. We didn't speak; mostly because I was pretty sure he'd figured out a lot of it on his own I and didn't trust my emotions anyway. Finally, I just turned around and walked back out, escaping his strength and my weakness.
I spent that week of suspension staring at my dark purple walls and wondering what had ever possessed me to paint them that exact color. My parents' house had been full of beiges and pastels and light, vibrant colors. Maybe that's why I was always so dark – trying to rid myself of any resemblance of that life. I'd catch myself being reminded of them, and every single time I'd try to separate myself from that reminder. I backed away and closed off and tried to move on.
When I was first put in foster care I would lay awake at night and think about how I should have stopped my mom. How I should have done something to get their attention away from that last fight. It would've been worth the punishment, it would've been worth living in that kind of fear if only she hadn't killed him.
Sometimes, when my palms itch and my jaw clenches and I seethe with anger, I think about that night. I remember the look on her face, twisted so badly that I couldn't recognize her. His arms had been raised in defense, but nothing was going to stop her. And instead of defusing my fury, the memories just goaded me into lashing out.
I still don't know if I should have put myself between them. Maybe I would've been on the receiving end instead of him. Maybe I've always secretly wanted that. How could I possibly have survivor's guilt? In a way, though, I didn't survive – the child I never was is a ghost that haunts me still. A ghost that, evidently, stoked my anger until it bled over into my professional career. I really thought Ecklie had finally succeeded in getting me fired, hell I handed him my head on a fucking silver platter.
I guess, sometimes, the surprises that Grissom pulls out of his hat are nothing short of miraculous.
A few days after my brilliant emotional outpouring, someone knocked at my door again. I got up, still clutching my beer, and opened it – fully expecting my boss. I was shocked into stupidity when it was Catherine, standing there staring at the bottle in my whitening hand.
She knew that I went to AA. She found the stupid punk who'd mugged, and murdered, Maggie – my erstwhile almost sponsor. Just like she promised. Just like I knew she would. So when she stared at the alcohol, I felt inexplicably guilty. She didn't say anything, though, instead choosing to flick her eyes back up at my face. Her expression was what shattered me and made me move so she could come in.
It looked like I'd broken her heart.
I put the bottle down exactly in the middle of the coffee table. We stared at my favorite mistake together. I thought that phrases like 'falling off the wagon' were flitting through her head – they were certainly marching through mine.
And I wanted to tell her, I wanted to let the words out and pour my mess all over – hoping against all hope that she'd be the one to pick it all up. Instead of holding my hand, she'd hold me and find a way to make it all better. Right then, I wished that Grissom would have let his morals down just long enough to pass on exactly what my problems were. That he would have already told her, and she came over because she wanted to give me a chance.
The kind of chance that no one else had ever given me. That I had never given myself.
She told me that Grissom had refused to fire me and that Ecklie had let him get away with it. She said that, if she'd been in Gil's position, she'd have done the same thing. But, and here was the reason she came, she wanted to know why. Just like Grissom, only she didn't push – it was simply a fact that I was going to tell her. From her tone, it was obvious that the possibility of my silence was nonexistent.
But I just sat there, staring at the beer and letting the tears finally fall. My forehead wrinkled and my chin quavered and I tried to hide my face with my hands. Catherine's a damn good CSI, she knew all the signs of a troubled soul.
And so, haltingly, painfully, I told her. It wasn't easy like it had been with Grissom. He was safe and predictable and, I said it myself, emotionally unavailable. It would illuminate things for him, but he wouldn't try to feel for me. He would try to help, in his own way. The way that she'd approached this made it feel like she was calling all the shots. It made it easy to let the words tumble out, bleeding my heart dry. As soon as they were out, though, I wanted to gather them all back up and shove them away again. I wanted to deny the reality I'd poured out.
She cried. The big, sloppy, quiet tears of a person who thinks they have no right to be crying. And when she looked at me, it wasn't with pity. It wasn't with fear. It was with caring and understanding and affection.
And annoyance. She had the nerve to question why I never talked about it. Why I closed myself off and drank to forget the pain. Why I let the cases get to me. Why I never let anyone in.
I told her because that way no one could ever hurt me again. She said I was doing it enough for everybody – that I'd made it into an art form.
I made her leave and spent the rest of the day staring at the bottle sitting in the middle of my coffee table. Despite everything, I'd managed to paint myself in the shades of my parents' lives. I closed my eyes and cried myself to sleep.