A Shattered Christmas
A/N this requires a bit of mind play. As for CBS's site that says Sara's an only child, well, they proved themselves wrong in one of the episodes. So I'm thinking those two cancel each other out and I'm free to play around with things. Also, chronological order for this story is basically non-existant. Enjoy anyway :)
The megaphone crackled as Sara and Grissom walked down the busy street, edging through the thick crowd on the sidewalk and slowly making their way to the café.
"Perhaps this wasn't the best choice?" Sara said lightly, squeezing through the doorway into the warm room. Grissom shrugged with a slightly embarrassed look, having misjudged how busy the Santa Claus parade would make everything. As the door closed behind them the cackle of the announcer's megaphone sounded again.
"MATTHEW!" Sara's mother bellowed and the panic inside of her seeped out. The mall was busy with Christmas shoppers, and she couldn't find her four year old anywhere. People around her looked on with pity as they passed, and she yelled his name again. Sara held onto her mother's coat sleeve, afraid herself and not wanting to get separated.
"Through the sleeves? Mom, I'm six. I don't need to do that anymore." Sara was adamant, whereas Matt didn't mind. He'd gotten into enough trouble losing mittens. Their mother joked he'd lose himself one day.
"Kidnapped? Or was Matthew just lost?" Grissom was as confused as Sara had been her entire life, ever since the day Matt disappeared. But he had wondered if there'd been an underlying trigger for her father's abusiveness, and losing a child seemed like it would have been the spark.
"I don't know." Sara replied dejectedly. "By now, it's been so long that I don't think I'll ever find out."
The idea of never finding Matthew weighed heavily on their parents' minds; Sara noticed that the reassuring statements of the police didn't seem to be working. They had no leads, the pictures of Matthew that were in the news hadn't given anything either, Sara's parents were fighting out of exhaustion, and still no Matthew. He'd been gone for three days.
"I'm 31 now, it's been 25 years. Some days I think it's just a mirage, that I never had a brother."
The coffee scalded her tongue, but Sara barely noticed. The taste buds had been numbed long ago, and it was now more of a comforting scent than anything else. Grissom watched her, her eyes avoiding his as they stared at a coffee ring stain on the table. Blurred in the window beyond her, Grissom could see the parade in full view, little candies being thrown from floats to the crowds.
"But you do have a brother," Grissom said, "you remember him, and you obviously cared about him."
"Sawah! Wait up!" Matthew trailed along behind her, an annoyance as she walked home from school. Her mother told her that she had to walk him home, but she didn't say they had to walk close together. As she got closer to their house Sara waited for Matthew to catch up, so that they would arrive at the same time. She looked over her shoulder impatiently, to see how far behind he was.
"Suspect is a white male, about six feet tall, hundred and thirty pounds, blue jeans and a red t-shirt," Brass flipped through his notebook to see what he missed.
"Hat, Mattie! Be sure to put your hat on!" Sara's mother called from the kitchen. Matthew's favourite hat was a green one that had become deeply faded by the sun. His name was written on it, and even though Matt preferred it to any other hat he owned, he still forgot it once in a while. When they were out, it had become Sara's job to ensure that Matthew didn't leave it behind.
"You bitch!" Her father roared, as Sara cowered in the corner of the kitchen. The police had left to go back to the station, and now that there were no witnesses the anger was released. "You left my son behind!"
Sara bolted out of the room to hide in her own, closing her door and partially drowning out the noise of the loud smack. The yelling faded as Sara prayed, a ferverent wish to fix the mistakes of the day, to find Matthew and bring him home to her parents. Her father slammed the front door and stormed out as her mother sat in the kitchen crying, as Sara curled up in bed.
But the night was a long one, as they always were when Sara had the shift off. She enjoyed the time to herself, but then she also enjoyed her job, and the distraction it provided. She had few acquaintances in Las Vegas, and the ones she did have worked during the day and therefore slept at night. And she tried too, a fit full sleep encumbered by a busy mind.
She gave up around two am, the voices in the hall finally quieting, and letting her drift away, but not for long. She startled in bed soon after and sat up, rubbing her arms strongly as she shivered uncontrollably.
"I'd wake up, and not be sure whether it was a nightmare or not. It would just seem so real, the somber faces, the overcast sky, the quiet cemetery, and the casket waiting to be interred. I'd walk up to it, and never be able to open the casket. Never be able to see if Matthew was there."
"Is that the cause of your insomnia?" Grissom asked, watching her with concern. She appeared to be deep in thought though, and he waved his hand a little to catch her attention.
Matthew waved as Sara walked up to the house after spending the night at her friend's, but her dad didn't. Her father stood behind Matt, watching her. Sara walked up towards her front door and waved back, but when she came into the living room only her dad stood at the window, staring out and waiting for Matthew to come home.
"Sara."
She looked up at Grissom as he pointed to the cell phone on the table.
"We have a call to go to. Domestic disturbance."
They never took the calls seriously, and in the past Sara had watched as the police would interview her parents, and admonish her father for letting his temper get the best of him. This time, however, they'd come back only a day after Matthew had disappeared, to find that her father's anger had transformed into bruises on her mother's face.
"Sara, be sure to take pictures of the wife's bruising, and then I'll meet you back at the lab."
She only nodded to Grissom, surveying the mess in the kitchen. Dirty dishes in the sink, a pile of Christmas cards on the floor by the table, and broken ornaments scattered in pieces everywhere. And a broken woman, holding her self as she stood leaning against the wall answering questions.
"When did you stop believing in Santa Claus?" Grissom's question caught Sara off guard and she laughed. "You first."
A week later Sara went to bed, in a cold house with her parents long worn out from arguing. At least it was quiet. A lonely Christmas night, and the only thing she wanted, her brother home, she didn't get. The first Christmas she realized that Santa didn't exist.