AN: I took most of this from a script I found, sorry if it doesn't match the original scene in all places, haven't seen it yet...
It takes her a good hour to finally arrive back at her car and when she's there she drives straight home and falls onto her bed. She is too tired to worry about what happened. Too tired to think about the shooting. Too tired to care that she hasn't even taken a shower. In fact she is so tired that she is asleep before she can even pull the covers up over herself.
Her sleep is restless though and she soon finds herself tangled in a mess of sweaty jogging clothes, bedsheets and her cat, staring at the ceiling.
She sighs and rolls over, startling the furball by her side who promptly jumps off the bed to find a place more quiet. She sighs again, drags herself up and staggers to the bathroom.
A quick shower and slight shade of make-up make her feel human at last, her grumbling stomach adds to that by telling her she needs food, urgently.
She grabs some cothes and her keys from the hallway table. In passing her eyes catch the empty hoster and in a flash everything comes back to her. She shakes her head. This has to stop, she decides. She has to let it out somewhere.
Since the meeting with Grissom has gone disatrous at best she considers calling someone she knows will understand -Brass.
The phone only rings once before the detective's deep voice is heard.
"Um, hey." she starts, unsure of how to ask for his support without actually asking. "It's me, Sofia."
"Hey, how're you holding up?" He asks gently. She knows he's not as hard on the inside as he lets on but the concern in his voice surprises her.
"I...I'm on my way to get some food and I kinda needed to talk to someone, so..."
He doesn't let her finish, just asks for the place and tells her he'll meet her there.
"Thanks" she mutters before the line goes dead.
At the diner she finds herself a seat and orders some breakfast. She's not too sure her stomach can handle much, but her brain tells her she needs to try. It's been too long since she last ate.
When the waitress disappears she turns to stare out the window. Everything is so ordinary yet she feels it's all surreal. Nothing is ever ordinary when you have killed a person.
"Hey" Brass interrupts her musing as he sits down at her table. She takes in his appearance. He doesn't look well rested either.
"I'm glad you called. I've been thinking about you." He tells her, holding eye contact so she can see the worry on his face.
"Good." she smiles grimly, "Yeah, I wasn't sure" and she still isn't really sure -of anything.
"How you doing?" he asks, hoping to keep her talking.
"I've gone a little crazy" she confesses with an awkward smile.
"Yeah, It's the waiting."
"Yeah."
So far they're not really going anywhere. Brass feels the need to console her, make her feel better, take away her guilt. He wants to erase that withdrawn expression from her face.
"You know, I've been suspended or disciplined like six or seven times and it's always the same, the waiting. What you never forget is that you know a police officer lost his life."
Sofia nods. She knows he understands. She knows he cares.
"I've seen it so many times, I don't know if it's real or not." she pauses briefly, collecting her thoughts. "Jim, it's like he's looking at me, like, as if he...as if he knew." she hopes she's making sense even if she feels like she doesn't. Brass seems to get it though.
"Sofia," he adresses her, needing her to see the importance of what he wants to say "You got to get it out of your head. That's poison."
"You telling me you're not thinking about it?" she snaps.
"Oh I am thinking. I'm thinking about a lot of stuff." he knows how it feels, being stuck on these thoughts. He knows how hard it is to stop these mini horror movies inside one's head.
Sofia's gaze zooms in onto the tv monitor on the counter, her eyes are fixed on the newscast. An officer killed. Cross-fire. Brass takes a sip of his coffee. Those words are bad for her, the pictures even more so, he needs to take them off her mind.
"Let me tell you something. You know, when I was a young cop in Jersey there was this kid, responded to an all shots fired. Never got a radio call, never knew what hit him. I was the first officer on the scene, a patrolman, too. You know, it tore up the department pretty good. Everybody was all twisted and... but we managed somehow to... I don't know, get through it someway."
She has watched him tell his story intedly. He should have expected her question.
"Who shot him?"
He doesn't tell her what she thinks she needs to hear, he tells her what he thinks she needs to hear.
"It really doesn't matter."
But Sofia is not one to give in easily. "It does matter" she decides. "I could see Bell's face when I was shooting him, which means I was... I was shooting near him. I made a mistake. I shouldn't have fired." She won't cry, Brass knows that, but he can see the wetness, her desperation, her guilt.
"No, come on. It was chaos, you were just responding to a situation. It was instinct. It was training." He tries to reason with her. They can't even be sure it was her fault. She needs to keep from destructing herself like that.
"No. Don't. Don't think that way." How badly she want's to believe him, believe she wasn't responsible. She can't.
"I'm always gonna be the cop who shot a cop."
Brass sighs. It'll be a lot of work to make her think otherwise. And deep inside he's afraid. She might just be right.
"Sofia," he tries again, unwilling to give up on her. If he does not catch her he doesn't know who will. "You gotta think outside that box, okay? If it was really your bullet that hit Bell it still doesn't mean it was your fault. It was an accident. Things like that happen. We need to deal with that and move on." She looks up at him as if to disagree. "But" he continues before she can open her mouth, "the investigation hasn't yet been closed, so please. Don't beat yourself up over facts that have not even been proven."
"I..." whatever it was she wanted to say, she lets the words hang in the air. She can't really say anything. It's pointless. Brass won't let her sulk over it but in the end he won't convince her either.
So she smiles. Thanks him for his comfort. It didn't help much but her gratitude is genuine nevertheless.
"If there's anything..." he offers. "I know, thank you. But I guess I'll just go home, try to sleep some more." She waves for the tab and he takes it as a sign for him to depart. She will get through, he has faith in that. She's strong.
When Sofia goes to bed this time she is still tired, just not enough to fall asleep. She looks the apartment up and down for her pet. Finally she finds her underneath the kitchen table and picks her up. She doesn't want beer, or a movie. But the comfort of soft breathing in her ears will hopefully help her finding some peace.