Disclaimer: I don't own them, but I'm willing to treat them out to dinner if they're interested.
Author's Notes: This is a little longer than I had planned on it being, but once I got into the mood to write, I just couldn't stop. Hope it makes sense, please leave a reply on your way out. On with the story, usually I babble, but tonight I have a date. I was supposed to meet him earlier, but work interfered, and he called at the last minute to ask if I wanted to go Cajun Dancing with him. I haven't been dancing in years. Since he's going to be here any minute now, I'm cutting it short.
I got a question as to what I do for a living, and I'll sum it up quickly. I'm an assistant to the medical examiner in the 'Parish Medical Examiner's Office and Forensic Research Center'. I'm also in college, majoring in Chemistry and Criminal Justice, but I'm supposed to graduate at the end of this summer, and I'm going to apply for a 'Crime Scene Technician' with the Harris County PD this fall. I actually have the application filled out completely, I'm just waiting for the degree to back it up.
Jenny
Five:
Sara had long ago decided not to answer the knocking on her front door. She had collected evidence at the scene as quickly as possible, going home as Warrick and Grissom headed back to the lab, telling Grissom she wasn't feeling well enough to work.
Boy, was that the truth. Her stomach was killing her, a burning sensation rising from the top of her legs to her chest, even up her spine. She had been so relieved to collapse on her couch, she wouldn't have gotten up to answer the door even if she wanted to see whoever was on the other side.
She didn't want to see anyone, it could be the Queen of England for all she was concerned, she wasn't moving from this spot until she eventually starved to death. Her mind began to drift away from the knocking as she reasoned with herself. She would dehydrate and shrivel up before she'd actually starve to death. 3 days without water, 3 weeks without food.
Her name being shouted through the wood brought her back to reality, and she groaned softly, pulling a pillow over her face. She wasn't in the mood to deal with anyone, she wanted to wallow in misery alone, despite the old saying that 'misery loves company'. This miserable girl wanted to keep it all to herself. Everyone should be working. Greg and Sophia were on tonight, and there was no way Warrick had finished his case with Grissom. That left Nick and Catherine, but they had obviously been too busy to assist Warrick, so chances are they were tied up at the lab as well.
It wasn't as if either of them would stop in to check on her anyway. Sure, she and Nick were friends, but there was no way for him to know she was sick. It wasn't as if they worked together and he noticed she didn't show up for work, and it wasn't something that would come up in a normal conversation, so she ruled him out as the unwanted guest. Catherine would probably have to be tied up and forced a gunpoint before she'd show up for a visit, there had been no love lost between the two for some time now.
The knocking continued, and Sara let out an angry sigh as she tossed her pillow against the wall, she wasn't going to get up. She wanted to be alone, she had the right to be alone. Hadn't she been through enough? Couldn't she get just five minutes of peace? She couldn't let anyone see her on the verge of a nervous breakdown, that would be the downfall of her career.
She wanted to scream several curse words as the phone began to ring. After two rings, the answering machine picked up, with the familiar, You've reached Sara Sidle. Sorry I'm not available to take your call right now, please leave your name and number and I'll call you back.
Moments later, an all too familiar voice filled the apartment, "Sara, it's Greg, I know you're home. Please open the door, we need to talk. Gris told me that you bolted from a scene earlier, and I just want to make sure you're okay. Since you're not answering, I'm going to assume you're not, and if you don't open the door soon, I'll call 911."
Sara rolled her eyes, pulling herself tiredly off the couch, her body feeling like it was floating 3 feet above the ground, causing her to bump into nearly everything she came close to. She slid open the lock, nearly falling into Greg's arms, and causing him to protectively wrap an arm around her, leading her back inside.
"You okay?" Greg asked, obviously concerned, "Do you want me to take you to the doctor?"
Sara could feel the irritation boiling through her veins, accompanied by a sudden burst of anger. She knew she didn't have a reason to be so feel upset with Greg, he was just trying to help, but she couldn't help the way she felt. She probably needed a few more of the "happy pills" her doctor had prescribed her, because the one she took wasn't taking the edge off.
She could feel the worry on his face, and deep down she knew it should make her feel guilty and she should reassure him that she was just tired, cranky, and sore, but she had no desire to make things any easier for anyone else. After all, when the world was against you, why should you make anyone else's any less painful than your own? Should you have to suffer alone? No. Everyone should have to suffer.
She knew that wasn't fair either, but still didn't really care. Life wasn't fair. Death wasn't fair. Nothing was fair. And with that in mind, how could you define fair? What seems fair for one may be horribly cruel or unjust for another. When people talk about fairness, they only are speaking from their side, their point-of-view. For instance, right now Sara thought it would be fair for everyone to feel the aching loss and heartache that she was feeling, but to anyone else, that wouldn't be fair. Fairness was just one of those objective feelings that no one could control or justify, a weaker person's way of complaining and excusing whatever behavior they were trying to get away with or condone.
He was still looking at her, so she decided she should answer his question, just to be fair. No, not fair, to be polite. Not that she cared about that much, either, but one day she may snap out of this funk, and she needed to be able to get along with at least one person when that day came.
"I don't need a doctor, Greg." She wasn't able to keep the irritation out of her voice, although she had tried to make herself sound sincere.
Now that she had caused the hurt look to cross his face by practically biting his head off, she no longer felt the need to be polite. The damage was done, it didn't matter what was said next.
"Could you just go away? I'll be fine." Her voice was cold, but she made no move to hide the bitterness in it. Her anger was rapidly melting away, guilt taking it's place with a vengeance. That hurt look wasn't going away from him, and he was just trying to be a good friend and check on her. He hadn't meant any harm, and she knew that. She sank back onto the couch, knowing she was losing control over herself and her feelings as the anger and guilt battled each other, causing her head to ache and her eyes to water. She wasn't going to cry in front of him, she'd cried enough. She just needed to get a grip on herself, she could hold it together a few more minutes.
Greg watched her closely, trying not to let her tone of voice sting him, but failing miserably. He couldn't even imagine to know how she felt, but he knew it had to hurt, and he knew Sara well enough to know that when she was hurting, she pushed people away. He had news for her, he wasn't scared off so easily.
Her voice snapped again, bringing him back to reality, "Greg, I told you I'm fine. Don't you have somewhere to be? A job to do? I don't need a babysitter. I am fine."
He knew that was a lie. He knew she wasn't fine, although she was putting up a tremendous effort to convince him that she was. Maybe, to someone who didn't know what she had been through, who didn't know her as well as he had come to know her since shifts had been split up, would think she was fine, but he knew her, and he could detect the anxiety in her eyes, even though it was barely traceable.
His grandmother had once told him that eyes were the window into someone's body, to their soul. You could see how they were feeling, you could determine their health, you could determine the struggles they had went through during their years. As a child, he had told her she was crazy, although not in those terms, but through the years he could see what she had meant.
Looking into Sara's eyes he saw raw pain, extreme fatigue, and a look of panic that came and went every few minutes, as if she was playing a mental tennis match, trying to decide if she was going to remain calm or collapse on the floor in sobs. He really hoped, for his sake, that she remained calm, although he knew that crying would probably be therapeutic to her right now.
He had never been good at handling people who were falling apart, and he didn't want to stick his foot in his mouth (or down his throat, for that matter) when it was his closest friend who was in need of a shoulder to cry on. When it came to Sara, he knew how to handle most situations. When she was angry, it was helpful to let her vent. When she was frustrated, it was best to leave her alone and let her handle her problems. When a case was getting to her, coffee and a friendly ear were better tolerated than lectures and comments on separating emotions from work. He knew that her work was her life, therefore she couldn't separate the emotion from it.
He had never had to deal with a depressed Sara. Sure, she had been sad on occasion, but at that time he had been able to make her smile by telling jokes or just talking her out of her blue mood. This, he knew, would be much harder. It would probably be not only harder, but more painful for him, because Sara wasn't one to accept help easily and she definitely wasn't one to go down without a fight.
Therefore, he muttered a quiet prayer before saying in what he hoped was a caring, not condescending voice, "Sara, don't lie to me. I know you're not fine, you can be honest with me."
"I said, I was fine." Sara snapped again, trying to think of the right thing to say that would cause him to leave so she could continue her nervous breakdown in solitude. "Don't you have something you need to be doing?"
Greg decided to go ahead and play her game for awhile, to see if he could talk the truth out of her using other techniques besides a heart-to-heart. It wasn't exactly like they were 17, heart-to-heart conversations weren't protocol at this point in their lives. "No new cases, Sophia and I are at a dead end with Anna Thomas, and until we hear back from the other states who have similar cases, our hands are tied."
He couldn't help but add, "Gris and Warrick are worried about you, they said you assisted them on a case earlier this afternoon, and you seemed out of it."
"It's none of their damn business, they have no right to be worried about me." Sara snapped, "I was sore, I told Grissom I wasn't feeling well. That doesn't make me 'out of it'. That makes me human. Last time I checked, that was allowed, is it not?"
Greg held up his hands, "Hey, don't shoot the messenger. And they care about you, they just wanted to make sure you were okay."
"How can you expect me to be okay?" Sara asked, her voice shaking slightly. She hoped and prayed that Greg didn't hear the shaking, though, because she wanted him to disappear, and if she started bawling like a baby, he'd probably stay the night. That was the only problem with your best friend being a 'good guy'. 'Good guys' never seemed to know when they should leave. They never seemed to get the hint.
Greg shook his head, watching as she started to tremble. He didn't have to see the tears in her eyes to know she was about to cry, he could hear it in her voice. He said gently, "Hey, I don't expect you to be okay. Grissom and Warrick don't know. And before you ask, no, I didn't tell them anything. I just want to help you Sara."
"Then you need to go away. I need to be alone." Sara said firmly, closing her eyes and clenching her fists, "Please, Greg, trust me."
Greg stood with a sigh, not wanting to leave, but knowing that if she had decided this conversation was over, she wouldn't divulge any more information to him. He was lucky he had gotten this far, if her attitude upon his arrival was any indication of her current mood. Anger, he supposed, was easier than sadness. When you're angry, you can pass the blame, you can beat on your pillows, you can scream and cry. When you're sad, all you can do is cry.
He motioned for her to sit as she made a move to walk him out, and he took her hands into his, forcing her to open her eyes. His heart broke as he saw the tears filling her already red-rimmed eyes, and he squeezed her hands gently, keeping their gazes locked, "When you want to talk, if you want to talk, you know where to find me. If you need anything at all, anything, call me up and I'll drop everything to get here. I don't care if it's the middle of shift, if it's noon, if it's 6 next Tuesday, just promise me that when you need someone, you'll remember me. You don't have to do this alone, Sara."
"I..I know." Sara murmured, giving his hands a tight squeeze and shutting her eyes again as he let himself out.
As she was left alone, once more, she couldn't get Greg's voice out of her mind. She knew that right now she wouldn't be able to call him, she wasn't ready to let anyone into her personal hell yet. She didn't need the help yet, she could still manage this on her own. As she succumbed, again, to the tears that she couldn't seem to get rid of, she prayed that when she really did need the help, she wouldn't be too far gone to remember Greg had offered.
Greg sat in his car, unwilling to go back to the lab, but afraid of what Sara would do to him if he stayed. He was really at an impasse, should he do what she asked, when he knew it wasn't what she needed, or should he stay and anger her, causing her to push him farther away. Neither would help, and he was suddenly unable to make a decision on the matter.
He had seen the apprehension in her eyes, the wild look of desperation as her emotions slowly slipped out of her control. He had always known Sara was an emotional person. Sure, she may not show her emotions to everyone and wear her heart on her sleeve, but after studying her habits since he had known her, he knew she had strong feelings inside of her. It was apparent by her reaction to cases, her dedication to her job and the victims, her loyalty to her friends, and her passion for everything she set her hands on. If she deemed a task worthy for her time, she focused on it and gave it 115 percent. There had always been a spark inside of her, even on her worst days, and he knew that with the spark still lit, she was going to be okay.
He'd only have to worry when she stopped snapping at him, when she gave up the fight. Sara had been through a lot in her life, and although she hadn't said anything to Greg, he knew there was more to her life than she had shared with him after the miscarriage. She couldn't have gone through all of that and turned out to be a wonderful person if she didn't have incredible inner strength. It was her strength that would pull her through this, the same inner force that had helped her survive her past struggles, the same determination she used to solve her cases, to take the extra step to make a difference. If she didn't lose her strength, her sense of self, then she'd be fine. She was a fighter, a survivor, and she could handle whatever life was throwing at her now.
All he could do was trust that if she started to lose the ability or willpower to fight the demons inside, she'd let him help her heal. She could handle this, he had complete faith in her, she was one of the strongest women he knew.
He pulled out of his parking space, feeling confident that she would be okay without him watching over her shoulder, and vowing to return once shift was over to check in. After all, even though he knew she was strong, he wanted to see with his own two eyes that she was still fighting.
Sara was in pain, she couldn't deny it. She presumed that the physical strain of working earlier, along with being tense from crying for hours, was the cause of her muscles to ache, and although she knew that if she went to sleep and forced herself to calm down she'd probably feel better, she decided to take her pain medication anyway.
She took two long yellow caplets, swallowing them dry, and then searched the cluttered coffee table for her Zoloft. She probably shouldn't take any more, it was a once-a-day prescription, but it had been over eighteen hours since she had first taken it, and the effects had definitely worn off. She never cried this much, she never had such a hard time controlling her emotions in the past, and she was now starting to worry that she really was going to have that nervous breakdown she kept teetering on the edge of.
The Zoloft hadn't really helped earlier when she had taken it, she still felt miserable, her heart still felt like it had a huge gaping hole in the center of it, and she still couldn't keep her mind off of everything that had happened, past and present. The only difference was the crying. The medication enabled her to keep those thoughts and feelings inside, instead of flowing freely out of her in the form of a salty secretion from her tear ducts. Right now, she'd take what she could get.
She took two of the small white pills, even though the bottle said to take one, and tiredly got up in search of something to eat. She knew that the strength of the medication, combined with her stress levels and physical condition, would make her ill on an empty stomach. She poked around the fridge, not finding anything that looked like it hadn't gone past it's expiration date.
She then moved towards the pantry, sighing as she pulled out a bag of pretzels and poured a few handfuls into a bowl. With a tired sigh, she pulled a beer out of the fridge and lightly walked to the living room to turn the TV on. What she needed was something to focus on. Work had been a good distraction, the only drawback was the torture on her already-sore lower abdominal muscles. Tonight she'd watch some mind-numbing generic comedy on television. Maybe she'd be able to crack a smile. Maybe, with the aid of her anti-depressants, she'd even laugh. And laughing would be better than crying, thus starting the healing process.
She had already had three beers by the time she realized that she shouldn't mix alcohol and medication. She had noticed over the past hour and a half that her movements were getting clumsy, her mind foggy and dizzy. She hadn't really thought much of it, just assuming that it was the pain medication kicking in and wiping her out, and suddenly couldn't remember how many she had taken.
She pulled the bottle out, counting the remaining pills and deciding that she hadn't overdosed or anything, laughing giddily when she saw the alcohol warning label. It wasn't funny, but the idea of being worried or upset wasn't as appealing to her as the waves of laughter that sent her falling from the couch to the floor. She blamed the response on the anti-depressants, they weren't letting her cry. Apparently, two were better than one. Of course, the 3 completed beers and the start of a fourth clouded her judgement as well, and she had drank enough over the years to know that when she had been drinking, everything else seemed a lot more comical.
Her brother used to tell her that she should drink more often, since it helped her see the funny side of life. He had explained that some people were serious when drunk, some were silly, some were violent, some were thinkers. He said that by his observations, the way you behaved while drinking usually was the total opposite of the way they behaved sober. So, in his logic, she was too serious and needed the alcohol to have fun. She had been 17 at the time, away at Harvard, and the only reason she had even been near her brother was because she had bailed him out of jail on a Track 1 drug charge. At the time, she told him she refused to take advice on alcohol from someone who had just been arrested for possession of drugs.
They had grown up seeing a lot of alcohol in their lives, and she had told him she wasn't going to stoop to the level their parents had fallen to. She had insisted that the only reason she had been drinking that night was because he bought it for her, and it was a one-time thing. She had confided she had never even had alcohol before, which sent him into peals of laughter and disbelief, and insisted that she wasn't going to be a person who relied on alcohol to loosen up.
That was true for many years. It wasn't until she started working as a CSI that she drank to unwind, and even then, it wasn't drinking to the point of getting drunk. She could count on one hand how many times she had actually been drunk, and even though she had only drank 3 and a half beers tonight, she would have to count it on her list. Of course, it wasn't just alcohol in her system, but she was definitely past "just tipsy" and veering from "messed up" to "totally messed up".
Somewhere in her disoriented mind, she realized she should probably call Greg and let him know what she had done, because at the moment she couldn't remember exactly what happened when you mixed the alcohol and medication. She was certain she knew, she had learned that years ago, but at the moment she could barely remember what TV show she was watching, and why it was so damn funny.
By the time she found the phone, she forgot why she was laughing, and who she was planning to call in the first place. After a few minutes, she realized she was supposed to be calling Greg, and managed to find his number in her cell phone through her foggy head. By the time he picked up on the third ring, the alcohol, medication, fatigue, and stress had gotten to her and she had passed out on the sofa, the phone falling to the floor.
TBC, if I'm bribed with replies...