Author's Notes: djkittycat- Okay, so I confess New Hope was a random town choice. I live in Australia and know nothing about it, so the choice was just a coincedence. lol. oops.
Grissom's chapter will be last everybody, and in my opinion, it's probably the best of the lot. Which might have something to do with my ship preference...
A man who has committed a mistake and doesn't correct it is committing another mistake.
Confucius
Part five: Brass- Newark, 1994
It was the simple pleasures in life that did it for Jim Brass.
Catching five minutes of a Cardinals game between shifts at the precinct. The gentle, unassuming descent of the snow as it drifted over the streets, frosting up the glass. And coming home after a hard day at work, to find his wife waiting for him, cooking his favourite meal.
Except she wasn't, and here he was, sitting alone in his sparsely furnished apartment, a disordered array of unpacked boxes scattered aroundhim, with a half-burnt TV dinner set out in front of him.
He picked briefly at his meal, regretting the fact that in all his years he had never learnt to properly cook, before retrieving the icy beer at his elbow, and bringing it firmly to his lips.
It wasn't supposed to be like this. Twenty years of marriage, and it came down to this. Moving into a cramped apartment that he could barely afford, waiting half-heartedly for his wife to call, to tell him it had all been a mistake.
Soon-to-be-ex wife, he reminded himself bitterly. Helen had sent him the divorce papers via her lawyer, and there wasn't one damn thing he could do to stop her. Not that he wanted to. Not really. The last few months had been a living hell. No, the last decade of his life had been hell.
Call him old-fashioned, but he believed marrying your college sweetheart was the epitome of romance, all of that flowers and candy crap that women ate right out of your hand. It was the most spontaneous thing he had been capable of, and he had relished it at the time. And yeah, he had expected it to be a forever kind of deal.
After ten years of seemingly perfect marital bliss, he knew she was being unfaithful. He knew, in his gut, even if he was willing to completely deny it at the time.
He buried himself in his work, he thrived on the justice and satisfaction of putting away pitiless criminals, and when their daughter Ellie was born, he thought her infidelity had been a brief, momentary lapse, and nothing more.
A few years later he found a motel card with a mans phone number scrawled on the back as it slipped out of her purse, and a few years after that, she called him by another name when they were in bed.
They weren't happy, and he couldn't take it. It was exactly one week since he had packed together his things and moved out, and he had seen his daughter one time in the interim.
His gaze drifted slowly over the scattered mail on his kitchen counter, bills lying forgotten under the crumpled mass of divorce papers Helen had sent him to sign. Folded carefully over those, was a simple, cream coloured letter with official subscript, from the Las Vegas Police Department.
He stared at the letter, addressed to him from the Sheriff's office, informing him of the detective position awaiting him in homicide, should he choose to accept it.
Jim pursed his lips, staring vacantly at the words as they stared mockingly back at him. The proof that his life in Newark was, in fact, over.
He swallowed tightly, clutching the beer miserably in his hand, and the phone rang on the wall.
Jim jolted, startled by the shrill sound as it pierced the silence, and he rose with leaden feet, slowly moving to answer it.
"Hello?" he muttered hoarsely. His throat was dry and constricted, and he ached for another sip of his beer. Just one.
"Daddy?" a small, female voice warbled nervously.
He blinked, staring at the receiver in surprise. "Ellie? Is that you, kiddo?"
He heard the distinct sniffle, and his heart instantly contracted in concern. "Is everything okay, honey?"
"Daddy, mommy isn't here, and I'm scared".
Brass's fist unconsciously tightened on the counter. "What do you mean, she's not there?"
"She wasn't here when Mrs. Moloney dropped me home from school. I waited but she never came".
Jim felt his face darken at her blatant disregard for her daughter's welfare, and he reminded himself he still had one reason to stay in Jersey. "It's okay, Ellie, I'll be right there."
He reassured her again before he hung up, and ran a hand loosely over his day-old stubble. He was momentarily worried. Helen had always been undependable when it came to him, but when it came to their daughter; her affection for her was obvious. She would never willingly put her in jeopardy.
He scrambled around for his keys, locating them under a muddle of casefiles on his table. He hurried for his car, swiping the snow clumsily off the front window as he quickly jumped behind the wheel, and steered it onto the slippery road.
His old house was a ten minute drive, and he clutched the steering wheel fearfully, unwilling to let paranoia set in. Finally, he swerved to a halt at the curb outside the house, and slammed shut his door, swearing as he stumbled on the front step before twisting open the front door.
It wasn't locked, and he wasn't sure if Ellie had forgotten about it, or intentionally left it that way so he could let himself in, and he reminded himself to lecture her about it when he found her.
His eyes scanned the living room as he slid off his gloves, not bothering to swipe his boots on the doormat. "Ellie? Where are you?"
"It's all right, Jim", a familiar female voice filtered from the kitchen. "I'm here now".
His face twisted in a scowl, and he stalked towards the room, barely allowing his relief to settle in as his eyes narrowed dangerously. Helen stood behind the kitchen counter, calmly staring back at him. Ellie sat at the kitchen table with a colouring book laid out before her, swinging her legs innocently under the table.
"Where were you?" he hissed, eyes drifting over her as he realised she was preparing dinner.
Helen wiped her hands on a dishtowel, hanging it evenly over the stove. "I had an appointment. It ran overtime. That's all."
"That's all?" he repeated disbelievingly. "Ellie was here by herself for three hours."
Helen sighed, tucking her blonde hair vaguely behind one ear. She was completely unaffected by his anger, and it only served to incense him even further. "Georgia and Liam are next door if anything happened. Ellie knows she can go to them".
Jim clenched his jaw. "Then why did she call me?" he said lowly.
Helen stared back at him. "She missed you. She's used to having you around". She scoffed slightly. "As much as you ever were around".
Jim opened his mouth in silent disbelief. "You're blaming this on me now?" he fumed. "Funny, that's the first I've heard about it. I always thought you enjoyed it better when I stayed late at work".
Helen met his heated gaze, maintaining her cool composure. "I don't think we should be discussing this in front of Ellie, Jim".
Jim blinked. She was really pulling that card? After what had just happened, she was acting like the indignant one?
"Ellie, can you go colour in your room for awhile?" he asked tightly, glancing at his blonde haired daughter briefly.
Ellie glanced at them, eight-year-old eyes reflecting some level of familiar understanding which he didn't like at all, and she silently hopped off her chair and carried the colouring book and her wad of crayons silently to her room.
Helen turned to him irritably, hands immediately flying huffily to her hips. "Did you have to upset her? I thought you moved out to spare her that, Jim".
Jim glared at her. "I moved out because we were both hurting her, Helen. Don't you understand that?"
She glanced down, and started resuming her stirring as she lifted the lid of a bubbling pot on the stove. "Well, look, it's probably good you came here, because there's something we need to talk about."
Jim folded his arms, watching her expectantly. The open hostility in their relationship was uncovering years of pent-up resentment and anger, and the tension that suffused the air saddened him as he was aware of it.
"I've discussed a few things with my lawyer and I've decided to file for full custody of Ellie".
Jim's head snapped up. "What?"
She sighed, as if he were a petulant child. "Jim, it's for the best", she said fluidly. "Think of her for a second here. How do you think it's going to affect her, making her unsettled by constantly shifting between two houses? She doesn't understand what's happening. She needs to have something stable in her life, and Jim… you're not exactly an appropriate parent right now".
Jim stepped forward dangerously. "What?" he repeated loudly. "You come home late, after leaving her here for three hours, and you call me the bad parent? Are you out of your damn mind!"
Helen slowly lifted her gaze, staring at him intently. "I'll fight you for her, Jim. And if they put us up against each other, who do you really think will win?"
Jim stared at her, unable to belief that she would stoop so low to get him out of her life completely. It killed him to comprehend that she was right. He couldn't fight her on this. She would win.
He slowly looked away, clenching his fists dismally at his sides. "I hope you realise what you've just done here, Helen", he hissed momentarily. "And I hope you'll be able forgive yourself when you do."
Without another word, he turned and stalked swiftly out of the house, the house he had spent the last twenty-years of his life investing in, slamming the door reverberatingly behind him.
The next morning, he called the Las Vegas Sheriff's office, and told them he would be accepting their position. He left his daughter, and went to Vegas, and inwardly knew it was probably the single biggest mistake he had ever made in his life—not to stick it out, and fight.
