Chapter 62

Unfixable

Gil let Sara leave his house without chasing her. She'd already gotten outside by the time he'd left the bathroom and he wasn't about to start begging her not to leave him in front of all the neighbours.

He left a message on her answering machine requesting she call him when she got home, but for two hours he waited at home to hear from her and she didn't call him back. He decided not to be pushy, he didn't try to call again. He decided for now he would leave it, give her time to cool off, and give himself time to think about what he would do next.

The walk to work was long, and had him tired before he'd even gotten there. When he went to hand out the assignments, everyone was unnaturally quiet, which left him wondering if Catherine had even mentioned to Warrick and Nick that he had not hit Sara.

Sara's stoic attitude towards him during the handing out of assignments was enough to raise any other suspicions. She wouldn't look at him, and replied to him with a tone devoid of any emotion or enthusiasm. Gil had noted the raised eyebrows of the others, and felt disgraced.

He'd intended to go out on the field with Warrick today, but felt so completely isolated from the team – he didn't want to be near anyone. He assigned himself to the labs doing several experiments to prove theories on a case right, which helped take his mind off of most of his troubles. Being able to get into some real work again provided him with just enough solace to get through half of his shift.

But once he was done with it, the thoughts began to return. Trying to keep himself busy, he decided to do some of the employee evaluations he'd neglected to do earlier in the week. He managed to cover Catherine and Greg on the case they were working on. Their evaluations came out fine – Greg's work still needing some improvement. Nick was still out on the field, so his evaluation would still need to wait. Warrick and Sara, however, still had their evaluations to be done.

He would have rather left Sara until last, or not at all, even trying to deal with her work just reminded him of the argument in the bathroom. Still, this had to be done. He couldn't ignore work, or it would come back to haunt him.

Gil waited until both Warrick and Sara were interrogating a suspect, and he slid into the small observation room behind the one way glass of the interview room. Gil stared through the glass, he had a clipboard in his hand, evaluation sheet at the ready, determined to pick out any flaw, or any particular accomplishment in their interrogation skills.

Sara was anxious, he could tell right away, she had a look on her face he'd seen before and had to think long and hard to remember when. She clenching and unclenching her fist, her wrist pressed on her thigh under the table so that the suspect wouldn't see her doing this. It indicated agitation. Gil noticed it right away.

Gil sucked in a breath, he could tell something was going to wrong, and yet, somehow, he knew he wouldn't have been able to prevent it if he'd tried. It happened so fast he hadn't even been sure what had been said, but Sara was raising her voice. Accusing the suspect of wife beating. Gil now knew why she had that look on her face.

Every time a case with domestic abuse came up, that was when Sara began to get emotional, uptight, and somewhat violent. He'd tried to keep her from those cases as best he could but even he didn't have a clue of what he was handing out until the cases had been properly investigated.

Gil put the clipboard down.

"You think we don't see this every day? Women covered in bruises, husband trying to cover up with stupid pathetic lies?" Sara was saying, her voice loud and sharp, her eyes were like liquid black venom.

"Who the hell do you think you are, you don't know shit!" the suspect, a black man in his forties, was retorting, his eyes were just as dangerous as Sara's.

Sara did the stupid thing of pointing her finger at him, "I know enough to have you arrested for domestic abuse! For attempted murder!"

Gil knew how agitated that would make any suspect, but when Sara did it, she had this look on her face that just invited trouble. Gil saw the suspect go for her, leap right across the table with hands towards her throat. He saw Warrick and the police officer in the room dart towards the suspect to haul him off of her, Sara's back hit the glass.

Gil dropped the clipboard to the floor and rushed towards the interview room, not caring about the red light outside indicating interview in session. He threw the door open and rushed in. Sara was trying to break free of the grip from the suspect, Warrick and the police officer had trouble prying the large man off of her. He had his hands around her throat and had no intention of letting go

Gil somehow got between them, crying out in frustration, "get him off of her!" he screamed at Warrick and the young cop, he shifted his weight with all he had to push the suspect away from Sara until the guy had to let go of her.

Sara somehow got away and dashed towards the door, she was outside in a flash. Gil waited until he was sure Warrick and the cop had the suspect firmly in their grip and under control, before he left the room to find Sara.

Sara was standing in the hall, breathless, her hands on her throat, "I'm fine," she croaked.

"The hell you are," Gil frowned. He wanted to be able to comfort her, he wanted to put his arms around her, but the hallway, in the way of surveillance cameras and passing colleagues just wasn't the place for it. Something deep in his heart told him that this shouldn't have mattered, but he still couldn't bring himself to do it. "We need to get you checked out by a doctor," he pried her hands away from her neck to see."

"Leave it," Sara pushed him off, "jesus, I can deal with this okay?"

"My office, now," Gil gestured down the hall. He made Sara walk in front of him so he could observe her behavior. She was shaking, but doing a good job of holding in the frustration he could see lingering just beneath the surface of her cool façade.

They stepped into his office, he shut the door, and drew the blinds closed so that no one could peer in.

"Fire me if you're going to fire me, just get it over with," Sara uttered under her breath.

"I want an explanation," Gil said, "are you crazy? You just went off on that guy…do you know how stupid that was!"

Sara gave a shrug that said she just didn't care anymore, she looked away from him, her cheeks flushed, she was still shaking.

Gil clenched his fists, "every time you get on one of these domestic abuse cases, you go off your head like some crazy woman…do you have a deathwish?"

"No," Sara muttered, she took a deep breath, "I lost my temper and I'm sorry."

"You lost your temper?" he asked, "that guy had his hands around your throat! You could have lost your life!"

Sara turned her eyes on him, "he did it, Grissom! I know that look – he had it plastered on his face!"

Gil put his hands on her shoulders, "you don't know nothing until you can prove it…" he said firmly.

"The wife is bruised, she's not telling anyone what he did…the husband is making up excuses for how she got bruised. She fell down the stairs… I mean come on!" Sara cried.

"Yes, come on!" Gil grunted, "you have a bruise on your face, and I told Cath and Greg you fell over a chair. I didn't hit you, me and you both know that. No one else can prove it. How it looks isn't always what it seems! Remember that!"

Sara pulled away from him, "you just don't get it!"

"What don't I get?" he lowered his voice. "I get that you get too close to the victims, that you keep putting yourself in their shoes, but the only thing it's doing is driving you crazy, and I can't keep bailing you out every time you go off on another suspect for hitting his spouse."

Sara shook her head at Gil, "y'know what, every time I'm on one of these cases, it rips me apart…"

"I know that, and I try hard as I can to stop you from being assigned them. But sooner or later, you have to be able to handle these cases, Sara. It's your job…"

"I know that, god, I know that," Sara dropped herself into the seat in front of his desk, she put her head in her hands.

Gil spent some time looking at her, trying to work out what was going on in her head right at that moment. He moved over to his file cabinet and opened it, pulling out her file, he let her sit there in silence while he checked on the last few cases she'd worked on. "Sexual abuse on a minor…" Gil trailed off. "The last case you worked on before your day off…"

He tried to pinpoint certain dates in his head when she'd come to work with the noticeable signs of a hangover or the stench of alcohol still following her. "Rape of a minor," he listed off, "domestic abuse…domestic abuse…sexual abuse of a minor…rape of a minor…" he noted them off. "And now today…domestic abuse…" he drew his breath, he put down the folder with her files in it.

Oh…my…God. How could I have missed this stuff? I should have noticed this, I should have been more attentive…how could I have my own head so far up my ass that I could have neglected this stuff!

Sara remained quiet still, she was sitting quiet, her hands now in her lap, although they were shaking.

How could I have missed the look in her eyes…the look I've seen on those kids, the wives…the women raped and abused…How could I have missed it in Sara's eyes. How could she have hidden it from me so well?

"Sara…?" Gil tried to soften his voice, "is…this something to do with…what we were talking about?"

Sara got up quickly and headed towards the door.

"Don't walk away from me two times in one night, Sara…" Gil said softly. "I might be making a complete asshole of myself in the process but I'm trying to help…trying to understand…" he stood behind his desk watching her.

Sara stopped and turned, "sometimes I just want to forget…" she said softly, her eyes glittered with fresh tears she refused to let free. "There's nothing you can do to fix this, Grissom. It's unfixable."

Gil swallowed back the emotion he felt welling up in his throat, "maybe I can't fix it…but I can try…try to do something…anything…anything you need to help the pain go away…"

Sara's eyes dropped to the ground.

"Trying to forget won't fix whatever happened…" he moved towards her. "It won't change anything and it won't prevent it from coming back to haunt you either."

Sara didn't say anything, she didn't even look at him as he spoke.

"Seeing you like this…it…scares me…it kills me…" he confessed, "when someone you love is hurting, it hurts you too…" he sighed, "I can deal with my own pain…but I can't stand seeing you in pain…you hurt…" he reached over and took one of her shaking hands within his.

Sara's chest rose and fell with a long unhappy sigh, "I have to deal with this myself…otherwise…I'm just weak."

"No…you're not weak, you're strong..." Gil drew in a nervous breath, "you're even stronger than I am. And I love you for that…" he admitted, he squeezed her hand.

Sara bit down on her lip, falling deep into her thoughts.

"Sara…I'm going to take you home…and I want you to talk to me…I want you to tell me everything…and I'm going to sit and listen to every word."

"And then?" Sara asked, she met his eyes.

"And then I'm going to love you even more than I did before."

Normally I'd mention everyone who reviewed from 60-61, but there hasn't been many because I've updated fast. So I'll wait until 64 and catch them all then (plus the reviews page is taking ages to load up).

I promise i'll do it in 64.

Yeah, I know, I'm going to recieve complaints of being OOC, etc etc. I'm trying, but I'm tired and weak lol.

Ash