Leslie: I'm sorry, a three way call to Jersey and Australia and weird non-existant voices and crazy accents has me all eff-ed up. Pardon me. OH! And VTA is a Vapor Trace Analyzer... just think Warrick in 'Bully For You.'
Chinos, she decided, were her new favorite thing. Especially this pair; they hugged all the right places, and flared just a bit at the end. Yes, her credit card might have taken a huge hit, and yes, she'd nearly cleaned out Ann Taylor, but she was overjoyed with her purchases. Something new...
She was wearing a light pink top with the khakis and when she looked in the mirror, she was so startled that she had to assess her image a few times before accepting the look. The whole 'brand new day' theory that she was putting to the test really seemed to be working out for her.
It wasn't so difficult to do away with the old. It had actually been startlingly simple. She'd boxed up remnants of her old passion, a man she'd never had; she shoved it in the back of her closet and put a new box of shoes in front of it.
She'd even painted her nails, a soft, soft lilac, and when she held out her hand they glinted in the light. Peter Kingston; he took her hand graciously and shook it, a warm smile painted sincerely on his face. "Sara Sidle, pleasure to meet you... again."
Sara shook his hand firmly and recalled the first time they had met. They had consulted on a case with days nearly four years ago and she'd only met him for a few brief moments. He had impressed her with his easy manner, with his charming but crooked smile, with his confident stride. She was a bit shocked that he recalled that day, but smiled warmly in return. "I read the paper you published in the last quarterly, moisture removal from hair and fiber without destroying evidence." Her smile turned a bit coy. "Interesting."
Peter laughed and flashed his strangely alluring grin at her. She quirked a smile back at him and shook her head. "Heard you told off the bossman..."
Sara licked her lips and thought of Grissom. Then she realized what he was referring to. "Oh, yeah. That was... me in rare form I suppose." A shrug accompanied the explanation. Peter flipped his hand at her amusingly.
"Don't think we all haven't thought about it. I'm just too much of a pansy, you see." He stuck a pen behind his ear and rearranged some files on his already incredibly tidy desk.
"Well," Sara said, eyes for a moment on her clamped hands, "I think they'll be hanging onto someone who had a part in perfecting the VTA." Peter met her eyes with mirth and chuckled lightly.
"Yeah, I'm a celebrity," Peter began in jest, steering her towards the break room. His hand was warm on her lower back. Welcome, unthreatening. It didn't make her shake uncontrollably like... "It's true. Now, I'm pretty sure you've met most of days already but..."
He trailed off and gestured before him with a grand sweep of his hand.
And she met the people she was to work with. Sara already knew them all but it didn't hurt to get reacquainted. 'Didn't hurt' she thought as she shook hands and doled out obligatory smiles. They were nice people; they were smart people. They weren't as human as Nick or Greg or, (god-forbid) Grissom, but they were good people and she saw herself working alongside them fluidly. No emotional snags, no breakdowns in the locker room.
Jokes were made and laughs were given and Peter handed out assignments with a smile rather than a frown. It was refreshing, in an odd way, and she pushed down feelings of sadness and guilt as she watched her co-worker Morgan pluck their assignment sheet from her new supervisor's hand. His smile and friendly shove sent the woman into a fit of laughter.
They all exited the break room in an excited manner, each to their respective crime scenes. Morgan caught up with her outside of trace, snapping what she could only guess was Nicorette loudly. Sara remembered those days all too well and for some reason was anxious to see if the other woman would hold out.
"I heard you got reprimanded by douchy McDouchster awhile back," Morgan had said as she retrieved her distressed denim jacket from her locker. Sara raised a brow and clipped the grin that was attempting to spread across her face.
"Yeah that was uh-"
Morgan laughed and slammed her locker shut. "No explanation needed, that man is so tight he'll implode on himself." The woman smiled and motioned to the door with her chin. "Someone needed to take him down a peg, just that no one has the balls." It seemed that everyone had something against Ecklie.
For the first time in nearly a week Sara laughed long and hard. She fell in step next to the short blonde, feeling an odd sense of something close to closure. "No one has the balls?"
Morgan pulled a cigarette out of a crumpled pack once they were outside and lit up. "Yeah," she blew a plume of smoke out between her lips. "We like our jobs too much." A wink followed her explanation and she unlocked the Denail.
Sara frowned a bit. "And I don't?"
The woman shook her head and licked her lips, the nicotine burnng away between tense fingers. "No, it's not that. You could get in anywhere with your credentials. Fuck it, work for the feds." She tossed her half-smoked cigarette out the window and started up the Denali.
Sara blew a cleansing breath between her lips and rested a hand on her palm, looking out the window. She wouldn't empathize with the victim today. She wouldn't bother getting upset over something she could not change. Objectiveness was her objective that evening and she seemed to conquer it easily, cataloguing evidence with detachment and precision.
She brought the evidence back into trace as Morgan hugged the building, having one last smoke before going inside. Sara almost wished that she had never quit.
She passed Greg on the way there, and he gave her a goofy look; she smiled back, held up her evidence and moved on as if nothing was different. Sofia offered her a pleasant 'hello' and a smile and disappeared into the break room. When she saw Grissom, he glanced at her but kept moving down the hall, as if she existed but didn't really matter. That was fine. He didn't matter to her. A lie, but she could pretend for the sake of her mental well being. The equivalent of a mental shrug wracked her body and she left for home, a whole person but so lost.
For one brief second, while stopped at a red light she flashed on Morgan's smiling face, how happy she was. She then flashed on Peter, smiling back, shoving her playfully. They seemed so at ease. A team, to be sure, but friends. Friends, easy going, simple... Simple was a wonderful word; two syllables, nothing to hide, just there. A grammatical triumph of sorts.
Sara went home and had a simple dinner, a simple shower. She sat down and enjoyed late night comedy, laughing along with Conan O'Brien, finding the Michael Jackson jokes old but amusing nonetheless. Her bed offered her a little modicum of comfort and as she drifted to sleep she pushed thoughts of the real world from her head, wanting nothing but to muse about carburetors and ice skating.
She dreamt that evening, her mind filled with dark crevices, vestiges of night she had so hastily left behind.
He was bathing her, hands clamping over her shoulders as honey-rich wine rained down over her body. It bubbled and tickled and kissed her skin.
"It's me," he murmured as he drew his fingers through her hair steadily, raking out bits of paper and sand. Work and time, he washed it all from her with loving fingers. "It's me," he uttered again, pulling back the wine to flow into her mouth. It tasted of him, she was sure of it.
She drank from the never-ending jug greedily, bathed in the cool vestiges sluicing over her body. She was naked, wasn't she? No, she couldn't tell. She just knew that she was being touched all over by him, but he, he had his face turned away. Cold feet, so, so very cold. Ice.
Why do you turn away Grissom? You're kissing me everywhere, but you turn away? Tell me you want me, please? Something, anything but- Why do you turn away?
"Because you left me, Sara." A kiss on the crown of her head and the jug fell and broke. He wanted her to know it wasn't her fault, but she couldn't hear him over the rush in her ears. Blood surrounded her, and she was drowning, floating away, trapped between the desert of Las Vegas and the coastline of California, the tide sucking her down, and he was there on the shore, watching her drown, turning away...
Drinking a glass of wine as red as her blood.