Chapter four: Different decisions.
A/N: Warning for mild offensive language.
Thanks again to Ace, for the great work and for fixing up what needed to be fixed. And thanks so much for the reviews.
After several hours of confusion and incoherency, Sara's mind was now completely lucid, surprisingly lucid, and clear - she was seeing things more clearly than she had ever seen before.
Things were surprisingly numb and lukewarm, and she didn't know whether it was the drugs they gave her or her body's way of coping with the Trauma it had undergone.
She knew something was different, and she couldn't point it out yet; she just prayed it would last.
She was lying in her hospital bed, awake, entirely aware. She didn't think she was ever this aware of her surroundings, of the people that came and went, or of herself.
She had always been very self-aware, and she had always been a person with high self-awareness, but never like this.
Most of the time she found that quality to be burden, and an inconvenience, to say the least. It just heightened her misfortunes, her pain, and her lack of control.
She was reminded of an article that she had once read – that in theory, highly self-aware people should be happy because they know themselves better when compared to low self-aware people. They attend to themselves more, since once they know who they are, they can start defining what they really want to become and grow toward self-improvement and contentment. However, research consistently showed that high self-consciousness was actually associated with both psychological health and distress — depression, low self-esteem, and anxiety.
Before tonight, Sara would have agreed with that paradox - it made sense, it always made sense, but not now.
Now she was discovering that the source responsible for the unusually high levels of self-awareness that she was experiencing had nothing do with depression, discontentment, or certain negative attributes that had dominated her throughout the past few years.
That source was still hidden from her view, but she didn't feel the urge to seek it. She didn't try to rationalize it or make sense of it; she was just glad it was there.
That was enough for her; it was enough to know that something had changed. Something had changed for the better because it was better, she just didn't know why - yet.
The details of her accident were still a bit sketchy, so the gaps in her memory were filled in by a nice looking doctor, or was it a med student? She wasn't sure, and she didn't really care enough to ask.
Everything she could remember was still in the form of a puzzle - a puzzle she had all of the parts to, but some of them were still floating away somewhere out of her reach.
She tried figuring out when it happened, when something had hit her, when everything went black, but she wasn't doing a great job with it. All she could confirm was that she was in her apartment, and then she went out for a jog. After that, things were getting complicated to recall.
Sara was almost positive that she went into the coffee house, but she wasn't completely sure. She remembered seeing a couple there, but was it tonight, or some other day?
'No, it was tonight… I know because…Shit…Definitely tonight,' Sara grimaced as a little piece of the puzzle found its way and attached itself to other parts.
She still couldn't believe this was happening to her… to her of all people. How many bad things could happen to one person? She rolled her eyes at the irritating realization.
She then closed her eyes for a second and felt a rush of anger and guilt start to build up inside of her.
'Be careful what you wish for, Sara,' she scorned herself, her jaw clenching tightly.
The regret and the anger - they were all familiar emotions that she had dealt with for a long time, but they were always wrapped up in a package together with the self-hatred and self-loathing; they never came up to her like this.
Something was different this time, in a way she couldn't quite explain. They weren't linked to each other in a long chain anymore, binding her and restricting her from feeling anything else. The chain had broken, and she was now moving, free to walk away.
However, she soon came across other negative emotions, but these ones didn't have the same devastating effect on her, they just seemed to lay on the surface, pricking her like little needles barely even penetrating her skin.
The slight noticeable change in her emotional atmosphere was the first sign that things were starting to look a whole lot better from her point of view.
Everything looked better, everything felt better, to the point where she had to wonder if she was fed with a happy pill before she had woken up in the hospital.
Technically she wasn't exactly happy, she was still far from happy, if she ever knew what happy was, but the opposite side of happiness was a whole lot further, a thousand miles further, and it had been a really long time since she was this far from the dark side.
Surviving a near-death experience probably had a lot to do with her new perspective on things, but Sara was sure it wasn't all caused by the various opioids that were running thorugh her system.
It was real, she was sure of that; this wasn't some sick joke her body had played on her. It was the real deal, and she wasn't about to accept any alternate possibility.
More than anything, she just needed to believe that what had happened to her had happened for a reason, that it wasn't another curve ball designed to finally push her off of the edge, but a ball she was destined to catch and throw back into oblivion. So she did, she believed.
This was not going to be a last straw that would signal the start of her demise - she was more than determined to prevent that from happening.
With renewed energy and a refreshed outlook, she once again tried to recall the events that led her to her current location.
'Okay, so, let's see…,' she started arranging thoughts in her head, taking a deep breath and preparing herself for the upcoming reminiscence.
'Apartment, running, coffeehouse, couple, crying, death wish, home, black, pain,' she listed the events in her head like they were nothing more than a shopping list.
Fortunately for her, the memories between the 'home' and 'pain' were completely erased from her mind, and she was truly thankful for that. She had a hard time coping with the outcome of the accident as it was; she didn't want to remember and relive yet another painful memory.
'Look at the bright side Sara, at least amnesia is not a part of that list. That could have really been something,' she told herself and was relieved to find out that her sarcasm was still intact.
'Could my life be any more cliché?' she asked herself rhetorically.
'I could have easily filled up a bunch of cheap novels with my life story,' she proclaimed to herself, 'no problem.'
'Sara Sidle's life story - a messed up childhood, her mother murdering her father, the emotionally unavailable man she'd been in love with for the past decade or so, either ignoring her or manipulating her; she becomes suicidal; she's hit by a drunk driver, and she gets amnesia, read all about it,' her smile grew wider, and she struggled not to laugh. She didn't want to laugh - she could still barely breathe, let alone laugh.
She nodded slightly in spite of the pain in her neck, 'Definitely a best seller.'
She then rewound a couple of thoughts back to the 'drunk driver' part, and her smile disappeared along with the urge to laugh.
"You were hit by a drunk driver," she recalled the doctor's words.
'Drunk driver,' she repeated the two words again, letting them echo through her head.
'Can't get any more ironic than that,' she admitted, and oddly enough, there was no bitterness to go along with the admission, just a slight sting of sadness and a bucket full of remorse.
Sara turned her head and stared out the locked window. She didn't know what time it was since they had taken her watch, but the beautiful colors of yellow, red, and purple reflecting through the window all meshed up together to form a line of stunning bright stripes were evidence of the upcoming sunrise, a sunrise that for the first time in her life would hold a different meaning that just a beautiful sunrise. The hot planet would not only signal the start of a new day but the start of a new life.
She decided to make sure, from that moment on, that her new life was more than a mere existence of working, eating, and sleeping.
She would treasure that life and do her best to preserve it, no matter how hard of a struggle it might turn out to be.
Enough was enough; misery had been her friend, or enemy, for too long, and it was time to venture out and find a new company, one that couldn't hurt her as much or make her lose sight of herself.
She knew that, that life would not be free of the past; she could never put it behind her because she would never be able to forget it, or him. It was a part of her, and he was a part of her, but she vowed they would never hold her captive under their tight grasps again.
Sara vowed that they would never control her life or her entire existence and that she would never allow them to take her down a dark path ever again.
She was done, done with the dwelling and the whining, done with the waiting, waiting for happiness, waiting for him. She was going to take control of her world, of her destiny. If happiness didn't find her, she would find it, or at least try. She would have to fight hard for it, but she was more than prepared for the challenge.
Sara had made her decision, and she was going to stick by it; she was leaving.
She was going to leave what she should have left years ago: resentment and bitterness. She would leave Las Vegas, and she would leave him. This time, he could send her a thousands plants, he could scream and beg, hell, he could even ask him to marry her, but all she would say would be no thanks and goodbye.
It would pain her, pain her more than anything, but the decision was made, and she was going to stick by it.
'Should have been hit by a car five years ago," she thought sadly, 'would have saved he and I a whole lot of trouble.'
Sara's train of thought was interrupted as she noticed a figure approaching her from the corner of her eye.
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His palms were sweating, and his fists were clenched by his sides. He was petrified.
He was sure he was ready to say all of the things that he ever wanted to say to her. He was sure nothing could stop him from telling her the things she needed to hear, the things he needed her to hear, but it all went out the door as soon as he entered the room.
He realized then that it would be absolutely absurd to do that. He knew all too well that any surprising declarations of love from his part, at this time, and in these circumstances could easily be misinterpreted as a mere lapse of reason, or God forbid, pity. He couldn't believe that he actually even thought about doing that. What was wrong with him? Did he completely lose it?
Of course he lost it. He thought that he had blown his chance and that he would never see her again. He thought he lost her.
There weren't many things that pulled Grissom into irrational thinking, but even the slightest prospect of the one thing, the one person in his life that he would never be able to live without, dying, lying on a coroner's table, sliced and opened up was more than enough to make him lose control over his body, his mind, and the part of his brain that was responsible for logical thinking. What logical thinking? When it came to Sara, logical thinking was not a part of his vocabulary.
He was well aware of that; he could fight it and deny it until he had no strength to, but he would still be aware of the power that Sara had over him.
He didn't like that fact, he hated it, he was scared of it because ultimately, one of his worse fears was the loss of control. It had always been about his fear of losing control, everything he ever did was derived from that fact - his failed relationship, his inability to properly display his emotions, his inability to form close bonds. It all stemmed from his main fear of losing control because if he did lose control, he would have been vulnerable to anything, and he couldn't allow that, he couldn't allow himself to open up and be vulnerable; it was way too risky.
And indeed, he never allowed it. He didn't allow it until Sara came along, and all he could do was watch her destroy all of the thick walls that he had built in four decades of hard work.
Not to say he didn't try to fight it, to fight her, but it was one war he couldn't win. It was a war that he had already lost before he even went to battle.
So the only thing he could have really done was to stay away from her, from the world she brought with her, from the cloud of eminent danger that surrounded her. He considered her to be a danger, a serious danger, to the way he functioned, to the way he lived his life, and to everything he had ever known.
Tonight that changed; that danger was replaced with a fear that his life would never be more than an empty shell, that his whole life would mean nothing. He couldn't take that chance - he couldn't take the chance that his life was about to end before it even had a chance to start.
Grissom had made a decision to wait for just a little longer, but as soon as she got out of that place, as soon as she was up to facing him and his decisions, he would have to say goodbye to security, reason, and control. He was going to risk everything, and he didn't care; he didn't frickin' care. He needed her, he wanted her, and by God, he would get her.
He had entered the terrifying little space and stopped near the entrance, glancing at the well lit hospital room.
He noticed two beds; the one closer to the door was empty, and the other one at the opposite side of the room was closed with a curtain. The bright florescent lights were starting to hurt his eyes, and he blinked to relieve the stress.
Gathering the little bit of courage he still had, he started walking slowly to the dreaded little space where Sara would be lying, but he only made it half way there before his legs started to buckle.
'Gil Grissom, you better get a hold of yourself. It's too late to turn back now,' he reprimanded himself, and he was right, it was too late to turn back now.
As he proceeded, he made a mental note that he would bring her flowers the next time he visited, and as he continued, doing his very best not to pass out along the way, he noticed a shade moving behind the white hospital curtain.
He shuddered at the rattling sound of the curtain being moved.
"Oh, sorry, sir, I didn't know anyone was here," said a young nurse with a slightly frightened voice.
Grissom cocked his head at her, a bit confused by the whole situation; he wasn't expecting to see another nurse.
"It's alright," he assured her, "Is it okay to see her?" he asked, his voice just above a whisper.
"Yeah, sure," the nurse replied with a tentative smile.
"I have a lot to do, but I'll need to check on her later," she continued and began to walk away from him.
He then stepped a little closer, his heart thumping hard inside his chest, his pulse climbing to a three digit number, and for a second, he fought the urge to stop and measure its speed. He quickly chased away that thought; doing that was probably not the best of ideas, but then again, great ideas were in serious short supply at the moment.
Closing the distance between them, he took a final small step, fearing what he would have to face in next few seconds, expecting a sight that would terrify him to death, and he wasn't far wrong.
It took him a few long seconds to take in the sight - Sara was awake, her head slightly turned in the other direction. He ran his eyes over her body, traveling up and down, stopping at each IV line that disappeared under her skin, tracking each tube that disappeared under the sheets.
He then took an extra moment to examine the small bandage on her temple. It was a small and unremarkable bandage, but that didn't stop a surging hatred towards the man responsible for causing the wound to threaten to erupt inside of him.
When he was done inspecting that part, he shifted his gaze down to study the small gash near her mouth, all the while fighting to push down the bile in his throat.
The slight bruising on her face was not as bad as he had thought it would be, but he could only see one side because she still refused to acknowledge his presence.
She was also unusually pale, as pale as the china dolls his mother used to collect. The fragile and delicate dolls had bared a frightening resemblance to the younger woman in front of him, and that did not sit well with him. Grissom's comparison was quite fitting, for he could still see the beauty beyond the delicate cracks that used to adorn the small dolls, and that were now adorning the passionate CSI.
He couldn't see anything below her chest since she was covered with a hospital sheet, and that was a relief. He had to admit to himself that he had imagined her naked body on more than one occasion, but his imagination was already working overtime; seeing the real thing now was not a high priority, and seeing her hurt was not something he would ever look forward to.
The gruesome pictures that he had imagined of her during what could only be described as a harsh ordeal were going to haunt his mind for as long as he lived. He certainly didn't want to make it worse by adding a real image to the list.
Seeing her like that had severed a nerve deep inside of him, but he had to remind himself that although she was hurt, it wasn't irreversible, she was still in one piece, and that was the most important thing – that meant the most to him.
Before he knew it, he was staring at her, his intestines tying themselves in knots, and his mind going completely blank, he suddenly realized that he had no idea what to say to her.
Taking a deep calming breath, he opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came out. He had to remind himself to breathe again as his lungs stopped inhaling, and his body became rigid.
His whole body cringed inwardly as the feeling of helplessness took its position right in the pit of his stomach.
Grissom was suddenly overcome with the urge to hug her, hold her in his arms, and comfort her. He was so sorry that he wasn't going to be able to do that, to be there for her the way that he wanted.
It broke his heart, but he would just have to pick up the pieces and remind himself that it was another thing that fell under the category of 'inappropriate.'
He swallowed hard, pushing the bile down his throat once again, managing to regain his composure long enough to utter a single three letter word.
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The drugs were wearing off a little, allowing small waves of dull pain and unpleasant sensations to appear throughout her body, so she figured it was time for another fix of those fabulous drugs that they gave her. 'Oh, the miracles of modern medicine.'
Sara didn't have to wait long as another young nurse, who appeared to be a part of a long list of lovely nurses coming in every couple of minutes or so, started replacing some IV bags that hung beside her body. It didn't bother her since she presumed that she was about to be saved from any further discomfort.
She didn't like the next thing the nurse did though, which was shining a bright light into her tired eyes, causing her to wince in pain.
The nurses and that doctor seemed to be doing that a lot in the past few hours, so she figured she must have a pretty serious concussion to warrant such close attention.
They didn't actually come out and tell her that she had a concussion. The only thing that they did tell her, or at least the only thing that she could remember them telling her about her condition, was that she had quite a few injuries, and they would have to keep a close eye on her for the next few days.
They also told her not to worry. She was going to be fine, and all she needed to do was rest and concentrate on getting better. That was exactly what she was planning on doing.
She thought she heard them say something about a leg and physiotherapy, but by then she was way too tired to bother listening.
When the nurse was done, Sara thanked her and once again tilted her head toward the window. She closed her eyes and planned on catching some sleep which she was sure would be interrupted yet again in a couple of minutes. Her plans were cut short as she heard two whispering voices, one of which was strangely familiar.
She shot open her eyes, but by the time she spotted him from the corner of her eye, it was too late for any decent reaction or a well-thought saying - she just froze.
'Oh god, not now,' she bit her lip, almost drawing blood. She didn't want to see him or face him, not right now when she had just made the very crucial decision of leaving him.
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He cleared his throat, never shifting his gaze from her beautiful profile.
"Hey," he said softly, grabbing a chair and sitting down next to her bed.
When his simple greeting reached her ears, she was left with no choice but to reluctantly turn her head and regard him.
Their eyes locked for a brief minute as they both took the time to study each other's features.
Sara was stunned; was it her imagination, or did he really look that bad? The redness in his eyes had stood out the most, but the other disheveled parts of him weren't left unnoticed. He looked stricken by something that she could not identify because there was never a previous similarity to compare it with. Was she the cause for her supervisor's strange appearance?
She didn't want another hope dashed and another expectation shattered, so she quickly dismissed the theory and chalked it up to the slight haze that she was still experiencing.
Right next to her, Grissom's mind had formed its own questions, for he could finally see her entire face.
Something was different in her eyes, something he couldn't put his finger on. Was it pain, sadness, some other emotion he never knew existed? Why was it so damn hard for him to read other people's emotions, Sara's emotions? Was he even sure he wanted to?
The deafening silence had dragged on to an agonizingly slow minute, and the tension in the room had become palpable.
Grissom finally dropped his eyes, losing the staring match to his younger opponent.
After she couldn't bare the uncomfortable uneasiness that had settled between them any longer, Sara finally broke the silence.
She was not going to make this any easier, so she went straight to the point. "Grissom, what are you doing here?" she asked hoarsely.
Sara's question felt like a punch in the stomach for Grissom. Was she just confused and didn't remember anything about emergency contacts, or did she think he didn't care enough to be there? It hurt him to think that she would even consider that, but he knew he deserved her skepticism - he had given her no reason to think otherwise.
"I was registered as one of your emergency contacts," he explained, trying hard to disguise the hurt in his voice.
"They called you?" she questioned, and not waiting for an answer, she continued, "I'm sorry, I've been meaning to put the lab, but…"
"Sara it's ok," he interjected, raising his hands in a soothing gesture, "I understand."
"Did I pull you from a running case?" she prodded further.
"No, I was just doing some paperwork when they called me," he paused, and before she could take his answer the wrong way, he added, "It doesn't matter, I would have come anyway."
Not wanting to ponder on the meaning of his latest statement, she quickly changed the topic. "Does anyone else know I'm here?"
"No…I uh…" he replied, licking his lips nervously, "didn't have any time to let the others know…" he added, and as soon as the words left his mouth, he realized that he had just given her some sort of admission that he wasn't prepared to make.
Sara furrowed her brows in confusion. What did he mean by not having time to let the others know? He said he was in the office, was no one else there? Did he want to make sure he didn't violate her privacy? Or did he mean something else?
Grissom was about to ask her if she wanted him to call anyone for her, but sensing that she was onto him, he told himself that he would ask her later.
He then made a quick getaway to the safe realm of small talk. "How are you feeling?"
'What was that all about?' Sara wondered as she took in a breath, releasing it with a heavy sigh. "I've had better days," she answered.
He raised an eyebrow. "Yes, I can see that."
"Gee, thanks Griss, you sure know how to compliment a lady," she said with only a slight hint of humor in her tone.
Confused and obviously not taking the joke, he awkwardly apologized, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean…"
"Relax Griss," she cut him off, "I was just kidding," she told him, managing to conjure a smile in spite of herself.
He nodded in embarrassment. "Oh."
They both simultaneously broke eye contact, their faces not facing each other. Silence had once again taken a stubborn stance between them, and for a moment, Sara's mind wandered off to much happier times where the silence between them was a comfortable one, and they didn't feel the need to fill it with anything; times that seemed a thousand light years away.
It was then that she considered telling him about her decision, but it didn't take her long to decide against it. She knew him too well to know that he would just dismiss it anyway and associate it with her current condition, plus, she wasn't in the mood for arguing, and she was pretty sure that he wasn't either.
Again, she was the first one to break the silence. "So, did they tell you already?"
Grissom's eyes narrowed at her.
"About what happened," she explained, and he nodded in response.
"Ironic isn't it?" she asked.
"It was my fault," she confessed, not letting him have a chance to answer her own rhetorical question.
Grissom's brow furrowed. He was completely surprised by her statement. What was she talking about?
"Sara. It wasn't your fault," he spoke softly, "they told me what happened."
"I know…I meant…" she stopped, letting her sentence trail off into silence.
Feeling tears welling up inside of her, she closed her eyes for a second and tried hard to force them down; the last thing she wanted to do right now was cry. She couldn't afford to cry in front of him again; she'd just have to deal with her emotions later.
"You wouldn't understand," she finally said.
Grissom took a moment to process the possible meanings as the same doubts he had earlier crawled their way into his mind. What did she mean by that? Was she trying to tell him she jumped in front of the car, that she did it on purpose? He had to find out, even if the possible answers would scare him half to death.
"So, make me understand," he said gently, holding his breath, waiting to hear her response, expecting an admission of guilt that would crush him.
"Forget about it," she told him simply, screwing her face up in an attempt to control her emotions.
"No, Sara," he said firmly, wondering again if deep inside of her beautiful body she carried demons strong enough to make her do something terrible, something that went against her personality, morals, and beliefs.
"I want to know why you think this is your fault," he pressed on, desperate to get to the bottom of it.
"Grissom, you don't really want to know," she stated matter of factly.
Grissom shifted in his seat. "How do you know what I want?
Feeling on the defensive, she blew out a breath and fixed him with an annoyed glare. "Look, Grissom…" she managed to say in a voice stronger than she felt, "I appreciate you coming here, but I'm really tired."
Grissom got the hint and felt like an intruder all of a sudden. He nodded in response. He didn't want to leave it like that, but he respected her wishes, and he wasn't about to upset her when she was still so broken. He would just have to find out later.
"Okay," he agreed with a sigh, "I'll see you tomorrow."
"Grissom, this is tomorrow," she pointed out with her head, her eyes drifting to the window.
"Well…" he started, pressing his lips together, "I'll see you in a couple of hours then," he continued, raising his arms slightly in the air.
"Thanks, but that won't be necessary," she lied. At first she didn't want him around, but now that he was here, his comforting presence was something that she was going to miss.
Her words rendered Grissom speechless for a moment, and she could clearly see the hurt in his eyes, but she didn't regret it. He needed to know that she was done playing the little school girl who chased after the boy she had a crush on.
He needed to know that she wasn't going to depend on him for approval anymore, or for anything else for that matter.
The game was over, and it was time to admit defeat. She wasn't going to complain about the cheating or the unfairness. She was going to stand proud and walk away, knowing she gave it all her best, knowing that it was time to move on.
Grissom watched her for a long moment. If he didn't know better, he would have believed her, but he knew her, and he knew her eyes, and they were telling an entirely different story.
He leaned forward, grabbed her hand, and squeezed it. "I'll see you in a couple of hours," he repeated, determined to let her know that in spite of her protest, he wasn't going to bail out on her now.
"Get some rest."
Sara looked down at his hand, annoyed at herself for allowing him to make her feel like she was about to lose something, something that she had never had in the first place.
Grissom then stood up and walked away, leaving her dumbfounded for what seemed like the millionth time, leaving her to wonder if she had made the right decision.
TBC…
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