Grissom felt as if he had sustained a physical blow to his chest. He sucked in a ragged breath, and some distant, detached, scientific part of his brain registered the fact that tears had involuntarily sprung to his eyes. His lips moved in vain for a moment before he finally succeeded in croaking out a single, stuttered word.
"Wh—What?"
Sara stood in the water, suddenly cold. Grissom's hands had dropped to his sides like dead weights when her words hit his ears, and her body, now bereft of his touch, yearned for physical contact with him. Her eyes glazed over as she latched her gaze on a pelican perched atop a deck on the other side of the canal.
"Why don't you trust me with certain cases?" she asked abruptly, seemingly ignoring his question. Grissom was jerked from his trance. "What?" he asked, confused.
"The really hard ones. Why do you always feel the need to protect me, hold me back?"
Grissom had no idea what was going on. She seemed to be jumping from topic to topic. "Sara, I—"
"Berkeley, 1994." Sara spoke as if in a trance, eyes unfocused and hazy as she looked at something nonexistent over his left shoulder. "Eight-week summer seminar. Introductory Forensics. Dr. Gil Grissom. Enrollment limited to twenty students." Her eyes suddenly snapped back to his, once again clear and focused. "The first seven weeks consisted of basic instruction in forensics and forensics techniques. Do you remember the last week, Gil?" She searched his eyes, seeing for the first time his reaction to her earlier words. He looked shell-shocked. She had done a number on him. "The last week of the course was essentially a practicum. There were eighteen students left in the class. Six groups of three people. Six cold cases. Each group with their own little unsolved, real life case. One week to analyze the evidence and tell you what we saw." Her eyes grew distant once again as she relived the experience. "The Signal Mountain ATV murders, Chattanooga, Tennessee. A triple homicide in the desert, Las Vegas, Nevada. . A serial rapist in Akron, Ohio. The BTK killer, Wichita, Kansas. The Frankford Slasher, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. And the case assigned to my group—A serial rapist in Boston, Massachusetts." She drew a breath and continued. "You gave us unsolved cases because you wanted pure forensic analysis. If you gave out closed cases, there was a chance that someone in the class would have been familiar with it, thus compromising their objectivity. It's tough to analyze the evidence objectively if you already know what happened." She paused. "Of course, no one solved their case, but it was an excellent evaluation of what we had learned over the course of the summer." She was shivering now, and she absently moved to the edge of the pool and hauled herself out. She crawled back onto her lounge chair and wrapped her beach towel around her protectively. Pulling her legs up to her chest, she began to rock back and forth like a child. Grissom was out of the pool in a flash, wrapping his arms around her protectively. As he watched a single tear slide down her cheek, his thoughts were a jumble. 'Think, Gil, think! What's going on here? Ok, start at the beginning. "Willingly or unwillingly?" All right, that implies—God, get a hold of yourself, just say it! Rape. She was raped. Oh, God, some monster hurt Sara.' As he finally allowed his mind to utter the word, his own tears, fueled by blinding pain and white-hot rage, began to flow. He strained to hold them back until his throat felt like it would explode, and he finally gave in to the sobs. As he wept, his mind continued its frantic reasoning. 'Then she started in on me not trusting her, then she jumped to the summer we met. What is she trying to say?' He gave up his quest for answers and turned to her. Her face was blank as she stared down at her toes, all the while rocking back and forth, but he could see tears brimming at the edges of her eyes. With massive effort, he quieted himself. He reached up and tugged at her chin until she was looking at him. His chin trembled violently as he begged, "Please, Sara, talk to me. I need to know. What are you telling me?"
Silence. Then, suddenly, "You gave me my own case, Griss. You don't trust me to handle tough cases with my close friends and co-workers in Las Vegas, but I spent a solid week with two people I didn't even know poring over every detail of my own fucking rape case!" she spat out vehemently.
Chapter 24: Sara's Story
A/N: Hmm, I hope you guys aren't getting tired of my very random author's notes… See, I'm starting to regard you guys as family, so I just feel compelled to share every tiny little boring detail of my life with you crazy kids. ;) My big news today is…I got a job! As of January 3, I will be teaching high school biology at my husband's alma mater (would rather it be mine, but I'll take what I can get). I don't have teacher licensure, but my BS in biology makes me "highly qualified" under the No Child Left Behind Act. In fact, as the principal said, I'll probably be the most highly qualified science teacher there. :) Ok, people, everyone who thinks I'm not going to use CSI as a teaching tool on a regular basis, raise your hands! Looks around, sees no hands Hmm, I guess that answers that. The other really cool thing about the whole situation is that high school introductory biology courses usually do a unit that's really heavy in entomology, so I'm going to be in hog heaven on that one. Who knew a prissy former cheerleader (and current cheerleading coach) could get so totally excited over bugs?? So now everyone knows that I'm a total weirdo. My secret is out. Damn!
Dedications: Burntsugrr, whose Grape Lucidity on Ice just totally melts my butter. Also, Almeida's-Angel24, who is yet another Memphian who reads this story (Ok, ok, I know I'm always ragging on Memphis, saying it sucks, but I really did have some killer good times when I was there—let's just say that the Pyramid gets better concerts than anything in Chattanooga)! And always, my dear friend Michele Grahn, who writes some kick-ass fanfic herself!
Sara's mouth slammed shut as she realized in shock how angry and accusing she sounded, and she clamped her hands over it for extra measure. Her eyes were full of tears, and a small sob sounded in her throat as she looked at her lover. 'Shit, Sara. It shouldn't have been like this, you shouldn't have told him like this, he couldn't possibly have known. God, look at him…' She wanted nothing more than to throw herself into his arms and tell him that it was okay, that it had all happened so long ago, that she had him now, and nothing would separate them. But as she looked into his blank, deadened eyes, she knew that nothing she could say right now would make a difference. He was a man struggling with the consequences of his actions, however innocent those actions may have been. Fear crept into her heart as she continued to watch him. He was utterly still.
Suddenly, and without warning, he began to mumble. Sara leaned forward and strained to hear what he was saying, and the realization dawned that he was going over the case in his mind, trying to reconcile what he knew of the case with the fact that Sara was a victim.
"Six victims, all young women. All raped in parks late at night over a period of eight months," he mumbled almost incoherently. "All victims were," he choked on the next words, "severely beaten and mutilated." Suddenly he jerked his head up at her. Desperately, he cried, "Sara, I read that file a hundred times. I deleted all the names for our class exercise, but," his voice rose as tears suddenly spilled from his eyes, "your name was not in that file!"
Sara leaned forward and pulled him to her with one hand as she hastily pawed at her own tears with the other. She hugged him tightly, then released him as she drew in a ragged breath. "Grissom…think back. What do you remember about the victims?"
"All college students. All…brunette." He closed his eyes at the words. "All above average height. The ages were…" He thought back quickly and Sara was amazed at his mental acuity. He could always remember the tiniest details of the oldest cases…
"Valerie Williams, 23; Lindsay Thomas, 23; Melissa Alexander, 21; Jessica Hudson, 19; Alisha Alford, 18; and…" he sucked in his breath in a sharp hiss as the realization dawned. "A victim whose name was withheld because she was a minor," he said, his voice breaking. He looked up at her with the most child-like look she had ever seen grace his features and then screwed up his face in momentary confusion. "But, you were in college…how could you be a minor?" Her heart broke as she realized he was desperate for this not to be true.
"Grissom, my birthday is—"
"September 16th," he cut her off, dully, as sudden understanding washed over his features. "Late birthday," he whispered. "You were still seventeen when you began college," he said, to no one in particular.
She breathed in slowly, preparing herself mentally for the story she was going to tell for the first time in fifteen years. She picked at her cuticles as she began. "It happened eight days before my 18th birthday. September 8th, 1989. I had been in Boston for only three weeks," she whispered. "I told you I had a wonderful roommate my freshman year. She's the only reason I made it through." She paused as she remembered the roommate she had loved so well. "Ashley pulled me out of my shell. She saw something that no one else had ever seen before. I was such an outsider in high school, but Ashley looked at me and saw a girl who had the potential to be smart and popular. I never realized the two could co-exist. She got me to open up a little bit. She took me to parties, taught me how to drink," (Sara smiled at this) "and introduced me to guys. And damn it all, she was right. People liked me. For the first time in my life, I was popular." Tears sprang to Sara's eyes as she recalled the amazing feeling of being well-liked on campus. "I mean, damn it, it was Harvard—everybody was smart, so I wasn't an oddball because of that. All of a sudden it was cool to be smart. And then suddenly, on top of it all, everyone thought I was so pretty. No one thought I was pretty in high school. It was a feeling unlike anything I'd ever experienced." Sara looked up at Grissom sheepishly. "I would like to be able to say that being popular never mattered to me, and for the most part, it didn't. Still," her voice dropped. "I think there's a little part of everyone that wants to be accepted…" She shook herself back to reality. "It was a Friday night, and Ashley and I were going to an off-campus party. We got ready together and we left the dorm at about 10 that night." Sara's eyes softened as she remembered. "I was wearing this short denim skirt because Ashley said I had nice legs and I should show them off more often. She told me to wear heels with the skirt, so I did." Her face hardened. "That was a mistake. The heels kept me from running."
Grissom's eyes closed at her words.
Sara continued. "We went to the party and I only stayed for about an hour. I had a couple of beers and got really tipsy. That was only the fourth or fifth time I'd had alcohol, so it didn't take much. It had been a rough week in class, and I just didn't feel like socializing, so I told Ashley I was going to take a walk and I'd meet her back at the dorm later. She had met this guy, so she agreed. It was a stupid mistake on both of our parts. I was the one who ended up getting hurt, but it could have just as easily happened to her. She didn't know that guy she was with… We should have known better, but we didn't. We were only freshmen."
Sara stopped and swiped at her eyes. The tears were flowing freely now. She stole a glance at Grissom, who was staring off into the distance, tears evident in his eyes. She touched his arm and his gaze snapped back to her. "Do you want me to stop?" she asked gently.
He looked tenderly into her eyes. "Yes. I want you to stop. I want to wrap you up into my arms and pretend that this never happened to you. I don't want to hear anymore, because hearing it means acknowledging that someone hurt you." He stopped and swallowed. "But as long as you're ready to share it, I have to hear it. Making you stop would be the most selfish thing I could do. You can't run away from it. It happened to you. And you're the most important thing in my life. So I'm not going to run away from it." He looked up at the orange and white flag sticking out from the edge of the house, as if it held the secrets to the universe. After pondering the large "T" in the middle for a few more moments, he paused and sucked in a shaky breath, moving his gaze back to her. "Your problems are my problems now. I need to know." He stopped, indicating that she should continue whenever she was ready.
"There was a park about half a mile from the house where the party was. I had discovered it almost immediately upon my arrival in Boston, and it was a good spot for jogging. I decided to take a quick stroll through it to clear my head before catching a cab back to my dorm." She hung her head in shame, and her voice dropped to a mere whisper. "I was walking, feeling a little dizzy from the alcohol, and there was this…guy…walking toward me on the path." Her eyes became hazy with the memory. "He had on a black hooded sweatshirt and jeans. He had the hood pulled up, and I remember thinking that that was funny, because it's still warm in Boston in early September. He had his head down to the ground, so I never saw the ski mask over his face until it was too late." She shuddered. "Just as I was about to walk past him on the path, he—he reached out and grabbed me." Her voice was trembling now as she relived her nightmare. "He put one hand over my mouth and dragged me into some trees. I tried to run, but the heels… I tried to scream, but it was so muffled." Her voice hitched, and Grissom reached out and took her hand, brushing his thumb over her soft skin. She found the strength to continue. "He had a huge knife—the kind hunters carry. He…He slammed the butt of the knife into my face to subdue me."
Grissom thought he would be physically sick.
"He looked me up and down and then he said—" Sara stopped to compose herself. The tears were falling harder now. "He said, 'Well, now, we wore a skirt tonight, didn't we? This is going to make my job a little easier.'"
She watched Grissom carefully. He looked nauseous. It was too late to back out now, though; she had to continue.
"He shoved my skirt all the way up to my waist, then yanked my panties off. I had begun to recover enough from the blow to my face to resist, and I tried to claw at him. My reward for that was a broken wrist." She absently cradled her left wrist in her right hand as she said the words. "At that point I was in too much pain to do anything but lie there, and that's—that's when he—he…raped me." Tears were streaming silently from her eyes now. She looked up at him in desperation, as if asking him to please help her, to please make the pain go away. "The pain…God, it hurt so much. I cried out with every thrust, and he just kept his hand clamped over my mouth, telling me to just be quiet, and it would all be over soon. When he—when he, um, climaxed," she shut her eyes against the words, "his grip on my mouth softened and I saw a chance for help. I shoved his hand away and screamed bloody murder." Her face hardened at the memory of what happened next. Her voice became bitter. "That fucking bastard was furious with me for interrupting his pleasure. He had to interrupt his orgasm to shut me up." She peeled away the towel that was wrapped around her, revealing her left hip. She tugged the left edge of her bikini bottoms down, exposing the ugly scar. "This was my punishment."
Grissom gagged, then sucked in a deep breath and got his reflexes under control.
"He jammed the blade in, all the way to the hip bone, then yanked it toward him, severing every muscle in the way." A pause. "Surgery fixed it, but I had a limp for six months.
"He knew someone might have heard me, so he stood up, kicked me in the ribs, and ran off." She grimaced. "He was right. A Harvard professor out for a jog had heard me screaming. It took him a few minutes to find me. I was lying on the ground, beaten and bleeding, with my skirt up around my chest, and my pantieslying next to me." She was shaking.
"The rape kit was almost as bad as the rape. I hadn't even had my first gynecological exam yet, so I had no idea how humiliating it is to put your feet in stirrups and let some stranger poke and prod you. The doctors, nurses, and investigators were all so…cold." Her eyes snapped up at Grissom. He suddenly understood why she was so gentle and patient with rape victims.
Her eyes clouded as she slipped back into the past. When she spoke, Grissom wasn't sure if she was speaking to him or just remembering aloud. "It's strange," she whispered. "Of all the things that stand out about that night—the beating, the stabbing, the kicking—the one thing that I always remember the most is the pain when he was in me. I never knew sex could be so painful." Her eyes locked with his and he suddenly had no doubt that she was addressing him. As the next words left her mouth, the entire world around them faded into nothing, and it was just her—and him—sitting on a lounge chair.
"I was a virgin."