Disclaimer: These characters are the property of CBS, inc.
A/N: I am sorry to be so slow with this chapter. I am afraid it is the only I can do the rest of my life and write all at the same time. I want to warn you; we are dealing with flashbacks, people. We are moving in and out of the present and the past. I have chosen to not use obvious symbols as I want my writing to be strong enough to do it without hints. Please let me know if this is working for you. Thanks to the many people who took the time to comment on the first chapter. This is a story that won't lay out answers for some time to come. Thanks for taking time to enjoy this with me.
Sheila
Chapter 2
Hope Springs
She sat outside his office hunched over, doing her best not to make eye contact with anyone who walked by. One foot tapped nervously on the floor, beating out a rhythm that no musician could follow. A hand touched her shoulder gently and she jumped back. A blonde man in a tailored suit stepped back in surprise.
"Shit, Matthew!" She ran her shaky fingers through her hair.
"Sweetie, what is wrong?" He sat down in the chair beside her.
"I am waiting for Marc."
"In the doghouse, huh?"
She narrowed her eyes at him. "Don't act like you don't know."
"Honey, Marc is my boyfriend, but that doesn't mean I get the skinny on everything that goes on here."
"I screwed up, Matthew. I'll be lucky if I keep my job."
Matthew scrunched up his face. "Okay. Truth. I know. Marc was really freaking out about it last night. I'm here for moral support."
"For me or Marc?"
"Marc has known you since you were undergrads. You have no idea how excited he has been about having you back in San Francisco. You're family, Sara. I'm here for both of you."
Sara patted his knee. "I'm back two months and already my job is in jeopardy. What are the odds?"
"That's a good question." A handsome man with caramel colored skin and a close cut 'fro spoke from the doorway. He leaned against the door frame. "Another good question is why my partner is here in the middle of the day when he should be in court prosecuting cases for the city."
"Was just worried about you, both of you." Matthew grinned sheepishly.
"So?" Sara swallowed hard as she asked.
"Well, I just spent 45 minutes on the phone with the chief of homicide. I assured him that you would never do something like that again. I also assured him that you would be happy to go through SFPD safety training."
"But—" Sara said.
He put a hand up. "And I told him that you would work only in the lab until that training was completed."
"You're kidding. I am taking an intro class with the new recruits. Do you know how many years I have been doing this?"
Marc shook his head. "Don't even start, Sara. You ignored orders and you almost got killed. By all rights, you should be on your way to the unemployment office right now. I fought hard for you so I expect that you will suck it up and fight hard to make this work."
Looking down at her lap, she nodded.
"Yes!" Matthew said, pumping his hand into the air. "Let's celebrate. I'm taking you both out tonight. Fisherman's Wharf. I'll call Manny and have him put his best sea bass on ice for you, Sara."
Sara looked at Marc. "I'm going to be processing samples?"
He shook his head. "You're a great scientist, Sara, but you're an even greater investigator. I'm giving you some cases. All of them unsolved. I need a fresh eye, a fresh perspective. I want you to take a look; maybe you'll see something we didn't."
"You want me to look at cold cases?"
"Yeah, I do. These are the cases that keep me up at night. And there is nobody I trust with them than you."
Sara got up. "The files?"
"Already on your desk."
Matthew stood up, arms outstretched. "Hello! Sea bass. Fisherman's wharf."
Sara leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. "Not tonight, Matt. I want to take a look at this."
"I rescheduled cases for this." He narrowed his eyes at her. "Promise me that you're not going to sit at home and think about Dr. Mung Beetle all evening."
Sara looked away.
Marc walked over and stood in front of him arms crossed. "Ah, a night on the town, and nobody to go with except the love of your life. Matthew, what will you do?"
Matthew grinned. "I guess I will have to settle for romance."
They stood for a moment, smiling at one another. Sara envied their bond. Ten years together as partners and friends. They were as comfortable with one another as an old pair of shoes yet still were capable of intriguing and challenging each other. She felt a pang in her gut thinking of this elusive thing, this connection; this idea of having someone who shares their life and their soul with you. She wondered if anyone had ever woken up and got excited at the thought of seeing her.
Marc noticed her silence. "You sure you don't want to come?"
She gave him a lazy smile. "No. You gave me a puzzle my friend. I want nothing more than to sit down and look at the pieces."
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A sub wrapped in white paper was set down in front of him. Grissom stared at it, oblivious to the person in front of him. He reached to it, and ran his fingers over the white paper. Then he drew his hand away and sat back. Catherine sat across from him. "You okay?"
He didn't answer.
"You didn't eat at lunch. I thought I would pick up a sub for you on my way back."
Grissom blinked rapidly and looked at her. "I'm sorry, Cath. Thank you. It was very thoughtful of you."
"What are you thinking about?" Catherine took a bite of her own sandwich, looking puzzled.
"Nothing." He attempted a thin grin.
"The sandwich doesn't bite, you know."
He made a half-hearted attempt to pull apart the paper. Then he looked up at her. "I guess I am not as hungry as I thought."
She flipped her hair. "You didn't eat."
"I did actually. Had an apple. Other stuff. I'm fine."
"You sure?"
He gestured with his head. "Why don't you see if one of the guys is hungry?"
She raised her brows, but took the sandwich and got up. "Okay."
He swallowed. "Thanks though. Thanks a lot."
She shook her head and left him alone in the break room. He picked up his pen and returned to the notes he was making in a file. Thoughts barraged him, but he set his mouth grimly and continued. A few minutes later, he slammed his pen down in frustration. Two sentences were his total output, and neither sentence made any sense.
He reached under his glasses to the bridge of his nose and rubbed his tired eyes. The hint of a throbbing ache began at his temples and he sighed deeply. He closed his eyes and tried to relax his muscles. He knew that it was probably too late to slow down this migraine. He folded his arms across his chest and let his chin rest forward. Meditating sometimes helped ease the progression of the pain. He used guided imagery to block out the noise and movement around him. His thoughts kept going back to the sandwich, and finally he let himself remember.
It was about a week after his Uncle Gil moment with Lindsay. Sara had walked to the break room with a bag and flashed him a big smile. He found himself grinning in return. Life around Sara had taken a turn for the better of late, and it relieved him greatly.
She pulled a sandwich out of her bag and set it in front of him. He looked up, confused.
"I hear you and Jim visited Gerard at the Sands yesterday."
He nodded.
She pushed the sandwich toward him and sat across from him. "Tell me about it."
"What's this?" He couldn't stifle his grin.
"Your reward for being such a good guy for Catherine and Lindsay."
He began to unwrap the sandwich. She reached over and grabbed his wrist. "Tell me first."
He found himself wanting nothing more than to please her. "Well, you know Catherine wanted to go."
Sara's eyes widened. "I know. She was apoplectic after Lindsay told her. I mean the idiot never actually touched her, but Catherine is every inch a mother bear. There was no way she was going to let this situation go unaddressed."
He leaned forward a little as if to contribute to the conspiratorial nature of the conversation. "So Jim and I talked to her, and we told her that this would go better if we went at this from a position of law rather than anger. And she said she could handle it, and we said, great but she should focus on Lindsay, and it would be good for her to not be the bad guy. That convinced her."
"So then you went to visit Gerard." She prompted.
"Yeah, we caught him at the Sands. Brass went into his whole tough cop routine. Threatened him with prosecution that isn't even on the books. Scared him pretty good."
"And what did you do?"
Grissom scratched the back of his neck a little and looked away.
"Oh no, you don't. I want to know."
"I told him that I would pay to have him beat within an inch of his life if he ever talked to Lindsay again."
"You would pay?"
"Well, I figured that telling him that I was going to kick his ass wasn't going to carry much weight. I don't imagine that I look too scary."
"You could have fooled Greg."
He let out a throaty laugh, surprising both of them. She joined in, and began to unwrap her sandwich. He took that as his cue and he unwrapped his. He smiled when he saw that she got him a nice roast beef sandwich, his favorite. He took a bite and savored the rich flavor of the beef and caramelized onions and what was undoubtedly brie cheese. "This is good, Sara."
She smiled. "I thought you might like it."
"Where did you get it?"
"A little place called Humperdink's. Right off the strip."
He stopped right before he took another bite. "Humperdink's. Like the little sandwich shop in Berkeley?"
"Yeah. The owner's daughter moved down here, and opened one about six months ago."
"I remember Humperdink's. Said that sandwich was the best I had ever had." Grissom seemed distracted.
"I know. I took you there after that week long seminar you taught. Remember?" She studied him carefully.
"You hassled me through the entire course. Dr. Grissom, tell us more about this. Dr. Grissom, how does this variable explain this." He rolled his eyes.
She grinned. "I must have grown on you."
"When you invited me out to dinner, I thought we were going to a sit down place with menus."
"Instead, we sat on the grass and ate humongous sandwiches and drank homemade root beer."
"One of the best meals I ever had."
They grew quiet for a moment, each playing with the heaping sandwich in front of them. Finally Sara sighed. "It was a good day."
Grissom worried his lips with his teeth. "It lasted all night."
Sara blinked. "I never thought I would ever hear you speak of it."
"I probably shouldn't. We're at work." He glanced around him, but the lab was pretty quiet at four in the morning."
"Why did you?"
He shrugged. "It happened. You and I slept together that night."
"Grissom, we haven't talked about this in 8 years."
"In the morning, when I woke up, I looked over at you, and realized, in a panic, that I liked you too much to lose you to a relationship."
She smirked. "So you promptly declared that it would never happen again."
"And have you screaming at me in three months because I wasn't fulfilling your emotional needs? You bet I did." Grissom wiped a piece of lettuce off his beard.
"It was confusing for me. I felt like a one night stand."
"I'm sorry about that. I'm not good at expressing myself as you well know. I'm just glad that you are still in my life. Makes me think I did something right."
"This satisfies you?" She pointed at herself and then him.
"It feels safe, I guess." He began to wrap up the remaining half of the sandwich. "It feels like all I can afford sometimes."
She sat back and looked at him. "I don't know what to make of you, lately."
"Do you ever look back on your life and find yourself puzzled by some of the choices that you made?"
"Uh, no."
"I do."
"Going to illuminate me on what you have discovered?"
He let out a deep breath. "Okay. I like having you around, and yet, I have maneuvered it such that we spend an inordinate amount of time unhappy with one another. And I guess I am wondering what the point of all of this is."
Her eyes widened. "Really?"
He shifted uncomfortably under her gaze. "What would have happened if I had never backed away? What if it had worked? What if…?" He licked his lips and grew silent.
"Wow! Talk about your mid-life crisis." She got up and stepped away from the table, hands on her hips, and began to pace.
He dropped his face into his hands, breathed in deeply, and looked up, folding his hands under his chin. "Probably shouldn't have said anything."
She stopped her pacing to point at him. "Wrong answer!"
He watched her walk back and forth in front of him, glaring at him as she moved. "This is not going well."
She snorted. "You think?"
"I'm sorry. I've opened old wounds…for both of us."
She stopped and stared at him, arms folded. "They were never closed, Grissom."
"Yeah." He looked down at the table.
"Hey, Gil Grissom! Do you want me?" Her brown eyes snapped with energy. Jackie out in the hall stopped dead. She caught the looks on her colleagues' faces and moved on quickly.
"Yes…I think that I—"
"You think!" She threw her arms up. "Stop thinking! Thinking is not feeling. Do you understand that?"
He closed his eyes and sat back. He began to say something, but stopped before he got a word out. He bit his upper lip as if considering his next move.
"Grissom, talk to me!"
He snapped his head forward and met her eyes. "I want you. I feel… a great deal for you."
She stepped backward, her mouth open. For a moment, they stood like this in total silence.
He swallowed. "Um, how are you doing, Sara?"
She blinked at him. "I don't know."
"How would you feel if I asked you out on a date?"
"I…I…I should get back to work." She gathered up her files and left the room before he could think of a response.
A sharp pain brought him back to reality. He realized he should have taken Catherine's sandwich. Eating would probably help stave off the migraine that had angrily settled into his head. He opened his eyes and saw that it was only midnight. He had 7 more hours of this mind numbing pain before he could go home and knock himself out with pain pills and Trazadone. Grissom got up slowly and went in search of some Tylenol.
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She found a corner of the lab that was quiet. The files Marc left were almost more than she could carry. As carefully as she could, she slid them onto the table. She placed a legal pad and pen beside them. She picked up the first file and began to read. She kept the pen in her hand, taking meticulous notes on everything of importance in the file.
Some time early in the morning, she found the file of baby Doe. A girl estimated at four years old who was still unidentified in the city morgue. Sara felt anger fill the pit of her stomach as she read the trials this child had endured. The idea that this four year old girl lay alone in the morgue with no family to put her to rest left her empty and frightened.
She picked up the file and walked down to the coroner's office. This lab was set up quite different than Doc Robins' arena. It was just as sterile but there was none of the open learning that the Doc offered. Here a young man with a crew cut nervously told her that he didn't allow visitation at this time of the morning. Sara told him who she was, and asked to see baby Doe number 39. He seemed reluctant to do that. "Under what auspices, then." He asked with a stern face.
She frowned. "I am a CSI 3 with San Francisco. What more do you need?"
He was impossibly skinny and awkward. She was reminded of Greg in the first days she knew him. "People been looking at her, but they don't do anything else."
"I can't promise you anything, but I want to look at her and I care."
He narrowed his eyes at her.
"Anybody can say anything when they come in here."
"Is your supervisor around?" Sara asked.
"No, she works day shift. I work night shift. Assistant coroner works in between. You missed both of them."
"And your name?"
"Thomas."
"I need to see the child." Sara stared at him with a steady gaze.
He led her to a drawer in the corner. He pulled it out to reveal a long, gauzy bag. She stepped beside him and stayed quiet while he undid the strings to her bag. The remains of a small child emerged and she steeled herself for the sight of the child in a state of advanced decomposition. The child had been sitting in the drawer for almost six months. She took her time, carefully examining the body from all different angles, jotting down notes in her small, precise handwriting. Finally, she stepped away and let Thomas close the drawer. He was careful about this as if he didn't want to startle the little girl with an abrupt noise as the door closed. Sara felt herself softening towards the awkward young man. She appreciated people who didn't treat corpses as if they were never human.
She thanked him and left the room. In San Francisco, the morgue sat at the end of the building so she had something of a trek to get back at the lab. Her thoughts began to turn to memories of the last few months, and she fought to bury them again, telling herself to stay focused on work. She felt the heaviness grow in the pit of her stomach and knew she was fighting a losing battle. Her eyes stung and she slipped into an employee bathroom. Locking the door behind her, she sat down and held her arms tightly around her middle. She choked out sobs desperate for release, and rocked back and forth anxiously waiting for the pain to pass.
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Grissom got home by 9 a.m. He pulled his jacket off and dropped it on the couch. The pounding in his head had become a heavy metal cacophony of pain. He pulled a bottle of pills out of the cupboard and a bottle of water out of the refrigerator. He started back to the couch when he remembered to check his machine. Since she left, he checked his machine every morning when he got home. There was a sole message blinking on the screen. His heart skipped a beat, and he hit the button. The message began and he heard the voice of the assistant district attorney, "Grissom, the grand jury is rescheduled for 1 p.m. today. I know, I know. You worked all night, but we didn't have any choice. I am going to need you to be down at the courthouse by noon. I'm a jerk. I know. We rescheduled and I forgot to have my girl call you last week. I owe you, Grissom. No doubt about it. I'm taking you out for happy hour right after the hearing. You pick the place."
Grissom pulled off his glasses sharply, and let loose with a few expletives. He put the pills back in the cupboard and slammed the door. Rubbing his eyes, he walked over to the couch. He was only going to be able to rest a couple of hours, and taking any kind of medication was out of the question. Grissom stretched out on the couch fully clothed and closed his eyes. Every few moments the pain came sharply and he found it impossible to fully relax.
Anger swelled up in him, but it wasn't focused on the ADA. The ADA was a jerk, but this was nothing new. Last minute changes were all a part of that thoughtless man's routine. The hearing was important. Eric Rogers was being indicted for the murder of Julianne Phillips, and Grissom felt every bit as responsible for her death as Eric Rogers.
He closed his eyes but could see her face clearly; a young woman, rape victim, terrified, staring at him as if she was drowning and he held the only life vest. It made him uncomfortable, but he didn't look away. Her boyfriend had beat and raped her, threatened to kill her if she told anyone, and yet she was at the hospital begging for help. Normally, this interview would have been a job for Sara, but she was already on the scene with another case. He had almost considered calling her away, but knew that his challenges could not be ignored. He quietly retrieved samples for the evidentiary, and then sat down to listen. The boyfriend has been terrorizing her for six months. She tried to leave, but he was always there, beating her, threatening her daughter's life. She talked of running to shelters or hiding at friend's, but these solutions were only temporary. He always seemed to know where to find her or he would wait at her work. She couldn't hide in the stale, stark rooms of a shelter forever. Beaten and worn, she confessed that she would have given up fighting long ago if it wasn't for her three year old child.
Grissom assured her that he had retrieved some very promising samples and that detectives were out looking for Rogers at this very moment. She seemed relieved and lay back on the hospital bed. Her daughter was with friends, and the hospital wanted to keep her due to a possible concussion. He packed up his things and left. While he tried to keep focused on the case, his thoughts kept going back to the conversation he had with Sara the week previous. Confessing his feelings as best he could, her reaction, agitation, and then her walking out at the suggestion of a date. It hurt him more than he had ever imagined possible, and he had given her as much space as possible in the ensuing days. As usual, his avoidance left her sullen and frustrated. He wished he knew how to undo his confession. The discomfort of a repressed relationship had to be better than this torture.
A call to a crime scene Greg was working sidetracked him for a couple of hours, but he finally got to the lab. He was glad to go indoors as the heat was excruciating in the low 100's. He reached over to remove the samples from the cooler that kept them fresh. To his horror, the cooler was empty. He looked wildly around the back of the SUV, and found his sample kit sitting there next to the cooler. He hadn't remembered to put the samples in the cooler. In twenty years of forensic work, he had never made such an egregious error. Anxiously, he grabbed the kit and ran into the lab, praying that the two hours in the sweltering heat of the hot car had killed his evidence. Without a word to anyone, he dug samples out and put them in the refrigerator. He decided he would leave them there for the next hour before checking them. For most of that hour, he paced angrily back and forth, cursing his negligence and the personal distractions he allowed himself.
When he pulled the samples out and tested them, he found that almost all of them were compromised. He would have to testify to this in court if he tried to use these samples. He had been meticulous in his evidentiary and just prayed that she still bore evidence of the attack. The idea that she would have to endure another intrusive exam filled him with rage. This time, he called Sara and gruffly told her to get down to Desert Palms and do the exam. She tried to argue with him, but he sharply told her what he had done and hung up.
Brass found Rogers and held him in custody. Together, Grissom and Brass did everything they could to elicit a confession, but the man was cold and remorseless. Sara brought samples back, but they were no where near as damning as what Grissom had especially since she had showered for an hour after Grissom left. Despite all their best efforts, Rogers got bail three days after the attack. Julianne Phillips was found dead a week later, her neck and three other bones broken. Grissom insisted on taking the scene. He spent hours collecting the minutest samples, and had Catherine and Warrick process them simultaneously. Two shifts later, Grissom finally went home, buying a cheap bottle of scotch on the way. He was on his fourth double when Sara showed up with a pizza and a 12 pack of beer. Even drunk, he was reluctant to let her in, but she ignored him and brushed past him. She told him many things about the humanity of mistakes. She reminded that their most recent fight had probably left him distracted. She made him eat pizza and he realized that he had probably not eaten in two days. She poured him glasses of scotch and matched it with her bottles of beer. She spoke to him in low, urgent tones about how much she needed him, and how much he needed her. Then the memories started to float in and out regarding that night, the only thing certain was that the two of them had engaged in their second one night stand in eight years.
Grissom fought sleep as he waited until it was time to get up and shower for the hearing. He would testify today primarily about his interview with her. On the stand, he would have to recount every haunting word she had said to him in the hospital a mere ten weeks ago. The pain settled into his head like a permanent fixture, and he wondered if he would have time for any sort of decent sleep after the hearing.
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TBC