Title: Him's
Rating: R, though rating won't kick in until later chapters.
Spoilers: Without A Trace: early season one, nothing specific. CSI: 215 Burden Of Proof
Timeline: pretend that Martin joined the team on WoAT a few months before BoP on CSI.
Summary: They both had their past him's that had left them broken. But the past is gone, and the future is what is at stake.
Note: The past few months have been really hard on my family, my grandfather being in the hospital and essentially dead but not quite there yet, but things should be getting back to normal (whatever that feels like) in the near future. Hopefully.
I'm a big fan of closure, which is probably why my grandfather's death didn't even seem real until after the 'celebration of life' ceremony we had on Saturday. So, in keeping with the theme of closure in my life, I'm going to be winding down some of my stories that have been languishing in fanfiction limbo for ages now. While this story is just beginning, other stories will be wrapping up soon... at least, that's the plan. But you know what they say about the greatest plans of mice and men...
Resisting the urge to kiss the oily cement when he stepped out of the car, Martin vowed, once again, to never give Samantha the keys to the car, no matter how much she used his obvious feelings for her against him. No matter how much she pouted and whimpered about the cold, he would not let the keys out of his sight.
"Think the tapes are here already?" Samantha asked as she grabbed her black butter-soft leather shoulder-bag style briefcase from the back seat.
"Probably," Martin said as they headed for the elevator. "You still think that this is more than a simple kidnapping?"
"Unless a ransom demand has come in, yes," Samantha said. "And Jack wouldn't forget to tell us something like that." She checked the pager she kept clipped to her hip and sighed sadly. Martin knew that that was where she kept a count of how long their missing person had been missing. He did the same on his cell phone, but he tried not to look at it too often. It was like watching the counters by the freeway that showed how many people had died of smoking while you were stuck in traffic. Depressing to the nth degree. "We're going on ten hours missing."
Martin's shoulders sagged. Even though he knew that they might have finally gotten somewhere it still felt like they hadn't done a thing to find Sylvia. "More if your theory that this isn't a kidnapping is correct," Martin agreed.
"It's not my theory, Martin. It's a theory that we're investigating while pursuing the original kidnapping angle," Samantha said. "Just because I happen to be leaning towards one theory other the other doesn't make it my theory."
"But the fact that you're the one who first proposed it does," Martin said, effectively halting Samantha's line of argument.
The elevator finally arrived and they headed up to their floor. Danny, Jack, Samantha, and Vivian were gathered around the conference table, concentrating on something that they had spread out over the surface of the large table. "You guys get anything good at the school?" Jack asked without looking up from the tabletop.
"A lot of insight into the minds of eight year olds than I could probably do without, but there was one thing that jumped out," Samantha said as she took a seat at the table. She took note of the artwork that was spread over the table. "And this would be a good example of what I'm talking about. The teacher, Anytia Fuller, was worried about Sylvia's home life. Scenes like these were the focus of most of Sylvia's art projects. Fuller said she had written a suggestion that Sylvia see the school's psychiatrist but it hadn't gone home yet. Apparently it was in the report card."
"Which don't go home until next Thursday," Jack said. Samantha raised an eyebrow at his comment. "Report cards on Thursday, parent-teacher conferences on Friday. Marie is going to be in Boston so I'm in charge of whatever punishment Kate and Hanna might need to receive."
"They're gonna love you," Danny said, rolling his eyes.
"At least if I punish them I'll have to be home to enforce it," Jack said with a shrug before turning his attention back to the artwork.
Vivian looked at Samantha. "Did the teacher have any idea what the drawings could mean?"
Samantha sighed softly, sounding defeated. "Just that they worried her. One time usually just means that the kid had a nightmare or saw something on TV. But Sylvia was constant in her genre of… art."
"Dark, painful, angst-filled excerpts from her mind that are more fitting for depressed teenagers than eight year olds," Jack nodded.
"My teenage years were pretty shitty but I never felt this bad," Samantha muttered as she traced her fingernail over the horrific scene she had in front of her.
Jack shrugged. "Sylvia is incapable of dealing with whatever is happening to her. I just can't tell whether it's because she's too young to comprehend what is happening or because it's just too common in her life for her to know anything else," he said. He sighed. He hated it when it was kids. "Maybe it's both. Regardless, she doesn't know how to ask for help because she doesn't know how to explain why she feels she needs help. Obviously painting, drawing… art in general… is her way of telling people what she is going through without having to find the words."
"But she's just a kid," Danny said, thinking about his nephew, "so this could all be nothing but a disturbed imagination. Maybe something happened, but, because she's eight everything is the end of the world."
"I thought that gene didn't kick in until puberty," Vivian said. It was clear she was thinking about Reggie who was on the cusp of the hell that is the teen years.
"Childhood is getting shorter and shorter," Martin replied as he took off his suit jacket and started rolling up his sleeves.
Jack let out a low growl at that thought. He remembered the day he had been late picking up Kate and Hanna and their principal had told him that whenever he was late they started wondering if he had been shot. "Those are some of the scariest words a parent can hear," he confessed.
Martin made a mental note to find a few days to visit with his nieces before the world made them anything but the innocent little angels that they were. The thought of anything happening to those little girls was like a stab in the heart with a dull knife, and Martin couldn't even imagine what it would be like if they were his own little girls instead of his nieces.
"Has the mother seen these?" Samantha asked.
"No. She left before these arrived. Agent Li went with her to her apartment. Apparently mom is on medication for stress and chose a bad day to leave the pills at home," Danny said. He threw the few sheaves of paper in his hands down onto the table and dragged his hands over his face. "I'm going to go check on those tapes. These aren't going to tell us anything without some kind of context and we're not gonna get that without more information," he said bitterly as he pushed his chair back and headed off to the realm of the FBI's resident tech-geeks who were currently working on the tapes that had recently come in from the Manhattan Transit Authority.
"I think I'll join him," Vivian said softly before slipping away after the Latino agent.
Jack sighed and pushed the artwork away. "Danny's right. All of this is out of context right now. For all we know the mom could be a monster movie fan and Sylvia's dreams are being influenced by the TV," he said.
"Maybe we should check the apartment. I know it's not SOP for kids this young, but Sylvia clearly had some issues," Samantha said. "Maybe there's a hint of what the source is there."
"Okay. Sam, I want you and Sara to check the apartment out. Martin, contact the Centre for Missing and Exploited Kids and see if any of their files track with what we've got here," Jack said. He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms. "I have to go see Van Doren," he added grimly before the four people at the table stood up and went their separate ways.
It's short, I know, but the next chapter will be longer. That I can promise because it's already nearly complete.