Writing on a Blank Slate
Disclaimer: CSI is not mine.
Rating: M for content of other chapters
Chapter 21: "Tell me what you meant."
Being with Nick, Sara thought, had to rate as one of the best things – no, she amended after doing a quick review, the best thing – that had ever happened to her.
He had finished making arrangements with Warrick and they were once again laying side by side, her head pillowed on his arm. A love song was playing on the radio and he was crooning along, not jokingly as he sometimes did in the car, but softly, as though he meant every word, and she wondered whether she could ever have felt like this with Grissom. Somehow it seemed difficult to imagine it.
The song finished, and she turned her head to smile up at him.
"That was really sweet."
"Shame about my voice though," he replied modestly, but she could tell he was pleased.
"I thought you sounded fine."
He shook his head and sat up, sliding her head onto the pillow as he did so.
"You wanna go out, get a bite to eat?" he asked.
She laughed – his appetite was a long-standing joke – but agreed.
He knocked on the bathroom door while she was getting undressed to take a shower.
"Mind if I join you?"
For a moment she felt an irrational desire to refuse, but then she smiled and opened the door.
"Come on in."
"Are you sure?" he asked, aware that she had hesitated.
She grinned. "Yeah, I'm sure."
"Really? I don't want to overstep any boundaries…"
"You mean like letting me see you all naked and soapy? Oh, how will I ever recover?"
As she had intended, he laughed and stopped worrying.
Unsurprisingly, their shower ended up taking rather longer than they had anticipated, so it was late when they headed out to dinner, later when they got back, and later still when they finally lay back in bed together.
"Nick? Sara asked, staring at the ceiling in the darkness.
"Yeah?"
"Can I ask you something?"
"You just did," he pointed out by way of reply, and she rolled her eyes.
"I'm being serious."
She rolled over so that they were facing each other, and his smile faded at her tone. He had a feeling he knew what she was going to ask, and it was not a conversation that he had been looking forward to. He swallowed.
"Okay."
She drew a deep breath. "You remember the night before last, when I was crying and you asked me what was wrong?"
"Yeah?"
"Well, I remember I was telling you about my foster brother, about how bad it was, and you said something."
She felt him tense slightly and was quiet, waiting for him to speak. After a moment he nodded and said, very softly:
"I said 'I know'."
"Tell me what you meant."
"What do you think I meant?" he responded.
She just continued to look at him, a sad smile on her lips, and he sighed and rolled over onto his back, unable to meet her gaze.
"I was just a kid. My parents were going out, and my eldest sisters were away somewhere, I forget where. The normal baby-sitter cancelled at the last minute, so they got this other girl." He swallowed.
"I was in bed when I heard the door to my room open. I thought she was just checking on me, you know, but she came in and sat down on the bed… I couldn't stop her, Sara! I just lay there and, and let her do it, and I didn't even try to stop her!"
"Oh, Nick." She could feel tears stinging her eyes and bile stinging her throat. She wanted very much to reach out and comfort him but she lay still, uncertain of how he would react to being touched just then.
"I should have stopped her," he went on. "I was a boy. Boys are supposed to be tough, to fight back. But I didn't."
She touched his cheek with the tips of her fingers.
"You were just a kid, Nick. What were you supposed to do?" She paused. "You never told anyone, did you?"
"Catherine got it out of me on a case a few years ago. But back then? No, I never said anything. I was too ashamed."
Sara's other hand, the one not touching Nick in tenuous comfort, clenched into a fist against the covers.
"She's the one who should be ashamed, not you."
He didn't say anything more, but after a moment he reached up and took her hand, pressing it more firmly against his cheek before raising it to his lips and kissing it. He turned his head, once again meeting her eye.
"Love you," he whispered in a voice that betrayed the tears the darkness almost hid.
She drew her hand back, bringing his with it, and pressed it to her own cheek before kissing it in return.
"Love you too."