Intervals in Broken Time
A.J. Breton
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See Ch.1 for Disclaimers and Summary.
The fragmentation continues…Sorry about the delay in posing this, I never meant for there to be a case file in this story, but since I put the whole thing in with Gabriel, I had to figure out where to go with this.
Lots of spoilers, but I don't know any episode names. I assume if you're a GSR person, you'll catch on to the scenes described.
Reviewers! Thank you, you guys make this worthwhile.
A/N: chapter's title comes from the Korn song "All alone I break" I heard the song on the radio and knew immediately what to title this chapter. The Nietzsche quote that Grissom gives is from Thus Spake Zarathustra.
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Chapter 4: all alone I seem to break, does this make me not a man?
Puzzles. There were always problems, riddles to be unraveled. Normally, Gil loved riddles, he enjoyed puzzles. Even as a boy he'd gotten a certain excitement from untying mental knots. He'd been a short, stocky, non-athletic kid, and with his mother's deafness, he didn't speak out loud at home, which made him feel awkward speaking around others. But puzzles were like potato chips to Grissom, just a small taste of a mystery that might need solved, and he would become enraptured, following all leads to their conclusion, crunching down to the last salty crumbs in the bottom of the bag.
But today wasn't normal, and Gil didn't feel like wrapping his intellect around this problem. Sara had found a hair on Gabe Hovanec's body, Mia had run the evidence. The hair belonged to a first-degree male relative. Gabriel had no brothers. The man that Catherine had interviewed with Gabriel's mother was his step-father, no genetic relationship.
"According to Laura Hovanec," Catherine continued, filling Sara and Griss in on her and Warrick's interview, "Gabriel never knew his real father, a man named Gerald Mongiardi, in fact she never told Gerald she was pregnant. Gabriel was a year and a half old when she married Peter Hovanec, Peter is the only father Gabriel has ever known."
"Well, obviously Gerald found out about his son, and met him." Sara interjected, her fingers twitched on Grissom's desktop they way they often did when she was trying to figure something out. Griss watched them out of the corner of his eye. Catherine nodded and continued.
"Gerald has a record," she flipped through her file, "petty theft, breaking and entering, possession of stolen goods…nothing violent and nothing in the past five years. His last known address was in Ohio, two years ago." She sighed, "that's where our trail goes cold." Silence hung in the office as everyone took in the information.
"What was your take on the mother and step-father?" Grissom asked, his voice unusually quiet. Catherine couldn't suppress the frown at his voice, two days after his father's death and Grissom still seemed a million miles away. Anyone else and that might be expected, but since when did Gil Grissom let things, any thing, bother him? She decided not to pursue that now, though Catherine noted Sara's expression seemed to be echoing her thoughts.
"I can't point to anything directly, but Laura seems edgy about something. Peter was very quick to point out that he wasn't Gabriel's real father. I'd bet good money that Peter's a drinker."
"How can you tell?" Grissom again.
"He's just got that 'been-drinking-for-twenty-years' look to him, rosy and slow. I don't know that for certain, it's just a feeling I got from him." Grissom nodded. He didn't understand Catherine's 'feelings' but he knew that they were usually right.
"What did they say about the abuse?" This time it was Sara speaking.
"Usual lame non-answers," the frustration in Cath's voice was plain, "he got the bruises playing with other boys, or because he was clumsy…" she trailed off, pausing before speaking again. "I don't which one of them beat Gabriel, maybe both of them, but none of that explains how Gabe got in contact with his birth father. They claimed to be totally shocked about the molestation, and I'm not sure if they were faking that or not."
"It's a puzzle." Sara sighed, eyes flicking toward Grissom, she was starting to hate puzzles.
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A few years earlier…
"Oh we'll have dinner again…just not together." Terri Miller's words had stung him, but he'd hoped that the subtle flirt in her sultry voice was real and not just his imagination. His blood thundered in his veins later that night when he'd asked for another chance with her…how many times had he asked a woman for another chance? Her eyes seemed to want to say no, but the word yes came from her mouth, Gil saw her gorgeous lips move, but his ears failed at that moment and all he heard was the whirr of his pulse.
Dinner had been awkward, both of them searching for anything not forensics related to talk about. They finally stumbled on art. Terri had seen an exhibition of German expressionist prints at a local gallery, and seemed genuinely surprised when Gil spoke quite competently about the Nietzschean theories behind their abstraction.
"What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not a goal; what is lovable in man is that he is an over-going and a down-going." He quoted.
"How is it you became interested in art?"
My mother is a dealer and owns a gallery, she loves art passionately and spent hours teaching me its history and describing its forms, her hands flitting through the air… all this ran through his mind…he only shrugged, feeling his instincts already pulling him back inside himself.
"What other exhibits have you seen recently?" If she noticed the deflection, she didn't give any indication, and instead told him of the Gustave Moreau paintings she'd seen in Pittsburgh.
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Double parked in Vegas:
He wasn't sure why he was there. He had no business being at the Dominion, Heather didn't want him, like every other woman he'd tried to be intimate with she'd eventually become disgusted with him and his reclusiveness. He sat in his SUV looking at the door of the building. Heather wouldn't accept him as a visitor, but maybe as a client? He mulled over the idea of paying for…for what exactly? What was it he wanted from her? It wasn't sex he wanted, though it'd been a long time since he'd had any. Gil wasn't above paying for sex, he'd done that before. There was a legal brothel many miles north of Vegas. His favorite girl there was Samantha. He never called her that. On his visits to her she'd been Amanda or Jennifer or Terri or Judy…once she'd been Catherine, but only that one time.
In his car he now thought about Samantha, she could be Heather, he supposed…or Sara…he'd never called her Sara before. His mind wandered, the brothel had many rooms, places that could be staged to whatever one's whim desired.
Samantha as Sara in a clean white-tiled bathroom, hands pressed against the shower door, gasping voice echoing under the pounding water as he watched the streams cascade down her back…
Suddenly Gil snapped out of his fantasy. He shook his head quietly. That's not what he wanted. Even if he did drive up to the brothel he wouldn't have the nerve to call her Sara, and now even if he went into the Dominion he wouldn't have the nerve to face Heather.
He'd spent the last two hours in his small townhouse staring at the ceiling of his bedroom, not sleeping. The rest of Vegas was awake, vital, but Grissom felt like the walking wounded. Every time he closed his eyes he saw Gabriel Hovanec's face, when he had started to dose off, he'd been with Sara in the shower again, taking in her scent, slitting her throat…
Between the memory of Gabriel's pleading face and the dream-sensation of Sara's hot blood making his hands sticky, Grissom had felt like he was coming unhinged. He needed to get out of that room, that house, and so he had, jumping in his car and screeching his tires as he pulled out of his driveway.
And now he was here. The Dominion cast a shadow across the hood of the big vehicle. He had kissed Heather once, hands cupping her face, she tasted sweet. Even then he had idly wondered how many others had kissed those same lips. His knuckles turned white around the steering wheel. He tried to move to open the door, but his body wouldn't cooperate. He knew he wasn't going in. As much as a part of him wanted her punishment, her acceptance, he wouldn't see it through. With his brain still protesting, he loosed his hands from the wheel long enough to start the car and pull away. Still feeling disconnected, and unhinged, he pulled out into traffic quickly, not looking. He needed punishment, he needed…well…something… but not from Heather…
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30 years ago under the warm California sun:
She always looks gorgeous in the sunlight, he thought, a lopsided grin breaking his usually somber face as he took the steps up to their apartment two at a time. Being in college full time he really couldn't afford this place, as basic as it was, but staying with his mother and being with Amanda was not going to happen, mother had made that clear.
So Gil got a job, two jobs actually. One was part-time between classes on campus, the other a night job off campus. His paychecks were meager, but combined with Amanda's waitress tips they were enough, just barely.
He'd been dumbstruck the moment he'd seen her on campus. He had acted like a complete idiot, making an ass of himself trying to impress her. It had taken a long time, but he'd finally gotten the nerve to ask her out. On their first date they'd gone to dinner, the second date was to a movie, and on the third date she'd snuck him into her bedroom at home while her parents were out, showing him how to do things he'd only fantasized about while looking at his stash of Playboys, he'd crawled out her window before dawn with scratches down his back, having already made his decision. Before midday he'd gone into town and bought the nicest ring he could afford, just for her.
Gil fumbled with his keys as he reached the door to their apartment. Everyone said they were too young, that this was a mistake, that this thing they had was lust, not love. His mother had been furious, and Amanda's father even more so, actually threatening Gil at one point. But for the first time in his young life, Gil didn't care. He was in love, he knew he was. This afternoon, with his seminar cancelled, he was going to take his fiancé out and enjoy the warm California sunshine.
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Griss sat in his SUV in front of Sara's apartment complex and snapped off the ignition. Thinking about Heather, he left his car and started toward the entrance. Thinking of Samantha he stormed up the steps. Thinking of Amanda, he burst out into the hallway. Thinking of Debbie Marlin, he paused at Sara's door. As his knuckles hesitantly rapped against the cold, metal door, thoughts of Uncle Danny swept through his mind…
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Sara twisted in her sheets…
"Pin me down."
…memories were echoes making her squirm, half asleep…
His hands felt like they could crush her thin wrists as they wrapped around her. His grip was more firm than was necessary, but not too tight. He was standing unbearably close, she could feel the heat of his body as it almost, but not quite, grazed against her.
They were talking about blood stain patterns on the sheet that hung behind her, trying to determine how the players in this fatal melodrama had moved. She was aware of the conversation and of her participation in it, but all she could look at was his jawline under his neatly trimmed beard. She'd never looked at Grissom from this particular angle before, and her brain worked quickly to file away the view and the sensations for the next time she was sleepless and horny in her little, empty apartment.
He seemed to have no clue at the dirty thoughts his mere closeness caused her to have, but Sara felt a flush of shame inside her anyway. She became aware of the fact that she was talking, over-talking, about them…oh God, Sara, shut up! She left the room in a hurry, leaving Grissom looking confused, his mouth opening and closing around words that wouldn't come.
Sara moaned as her fingers rubbed hard between her thighs. The memory of Grissom's scent, the imagined weight of his body, the image of his clenched jaw playing across her mind.
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Memories were like raindrops, their noises splattering inside his head as he waited, still knocking at her door…he hated it when mother cried…I'm sure he'll be a good man…
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Sara stood, slightly slackjawed, in the doorway to her apartment as her supervisor shifted his weight anxiously. She'd been sleeping, though not very well, when the knock on her door had pulled her out of her half-dream-half-memories. Not thinking about the shorts and tank-top she wore, she'd groggily opened the door, and nearly slammed it shut again in surprise. Gil Grissom stood there, looking a bit blurry-eyed.
"Can I come in?" Sara realized that this wasn't the first time he'd asked her that. Finding her senses she stepped aside.
"Uhh, yeah, yeah…come in, I guess." He was past her before she finished speaking, in her living area before she even closed the door behind him.
Gil felt like he was on the verge of panic. He'd just flown down city streets from the Dominion to here, to Sara's apartment, and now he was barging inside, where he had no right to be. What the hell was wrong with him? What did he want from her? He turned on his heel and looked at Sara. She'd obviously been sleeping. Gil felt his pulse begin to thump in his ears looking at her disheveled state, her shorts stopped mid-thigh and her tank top was cut wonderfully low, hanging loosely off her shoulders, so loose it might just slide off her…Gil pulled his eyes away from her. A tirade bubbled up inside him, but his instincts were pushing the words back, already instructing him to leave, to run, it isn't safe here…
"Griss, are you okay?" Sara was fully awake now. Grissom, for all the world, looked like he was wrestling with some invisible demon.
"Yeah." (No. I'm breaking inside.)
"Are you sure? Do you want some coffee or something?" Sara wondered if he was drunk again, his erratic phone call playing in her memory.
"I..uh…I'm sorry, S-Sara, I shouldn't have come here." (God, Sara, hold me, help me, I feel like I'm falling to pieces.)
"Why did you come here?" (Did you need to hear my voice…)
His mouth opened and closed, but no words came out. (I need you.) He shook his head.
"Well…" there was a long pause, "let me get you some coffee anyway."
"I look just like my father." Grissom felt his face go flush and his heart skipped a beat. His internal censor immediately came down on him, and he fell silent just as suddenly as the revelation had escaped his lips. He could feel himself shutting down, his emotions getting forcibly pushed aside. Sara stood staring at him, her hands stopped in mid-motion, filling the coffee carafe with water.
"I..uh..didn't know that." Sara fumbled with the taps, turning them off. She didn't know why, but she felt like he had opened a door for her, she needed to go through it. "You weren't very close to your father were you?"
Grissom stood rooted to the floor in the living room, speechless.
No, no you don't, Sara thought. No more reeling me in just so I can bounce off your defenses. Out loud she said, "I never heard you talk about your dad until you called me from California."
Still he was silent.
"When was the last time you saw him?"
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45 years ago:
Mother was crying. Gilbert hated it when his mother cried, but as usual he felt powerless to help her. He sat on the floor at her feet in the master bedroom, looking up at her as she sobbed into her hands.
The bed bounced a little as father dropped his suitcase on it and calmly started opening the dresser drawers, moving his well-kept clothing into the case.
"Sean…" mother looked over at him, she wiped her face. Gilbert thought she looked scared…but he didn't understand why… "Sean…" she said again, but father didn't stop packing, "please reconsider this. If you must leave…fine…but divorce…"
Not many people had ever called young Gilbert handsome, but everyone said he was smart, he felt comfortable talking to adults, but mother's words had left him confused.
"Mama…what does that mean?" His small voice seemed too loud in the room he put his hand on his mother's leg. Mother snapped her head down, glaring at the boy.
"Shhh! Not now, boy." Gilbert pulled his hand back suddenly, as though it had been slapped. Mother sometimes got upset with him, but he had never heard her voice sound that angry before. Mother was already talking to father again, she stood and put her body between him and the suitcase. Gilbert stayed sitting on the floor, watching, trying to understand…
"Sean, please talk to me…"
"I've said all that I intend, Elizabeth." Father's voice, as usual, was calm, quiet. "Don't be so dramatic. Let's not make a scene in front of the boy."
"No, let's!" and with a sudden movement, mother's hands snapped down onto the stack of shirts father was holding, knocking them to the floor. Gilbert saw his father's face go blank, his blue eyes narrowed. Gilbert knew immediately that he was mad, very mad.
The last time Gilbert had seen that look on father's face was when he'd accidentally bumped his desk in father's den, sloshing a cup of coffee onto the papers father had been reading. Gilbert had just caught a beautiful, red butterfly and had run into the house to show him…Gilbert thought that the slap mother now got across her face had to have been even harder than the one he'd gotten in the den. Mother fell to her knees, crying again.
"This is exactly the sort of nonsense…" Father stopped, took a deep breath, and unclenched his fists. When he spoke again, his voice was calm.
"You knew this was coming. It was inevitable. You know that if you'd never gotten pregnant in the first place," his eyes flicked, for only a moment to the boy who stared back at him, raptly, "we'd probably never have gotten married." Mother was still on the floor, looking up at him.
"I never planned it that way, Sean."
"It doesn't matter. With my absence, you can raise the boy as you see fit. Put him in that Catholic school you keep talking about."
"How? Sean, how can I support us both?"
"I thought you wanted to be independent." The last word was spit out of his mouth like something sour. "Isn't that why you nagged about opening that insipid gallery? Besides, I'm sure my brother Daniel will be happy to help you."
"Nothing happened between Danny and I, Sean, I'd never…" Father cut her off.
"Elizabeth, stop. The decision has been made." He stooped, picking his shirts off the floor. He packed them into his case then snapped it shut, pulled it off the bed and slid it next to the bedroom door. He then turned toward Gilbert.
Cold blue met young confusion as their eyes intersected.
"Take care of your mother, my boy. You're to be the man of the house now." He turned back to mother, his voice sounded tired and even a little bored, "I'm sure he'll mind you well enough. I'm sure he'll be a good man."
Those were the last words Gilbert Grissom ever heard his father say.
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Back in the moment:
"Griss?" Sara was getting a bit worried.
He still wasn't speaking or moving. If silence were water Sara felt she would've drowned. Finally, after it seemed neither one of them could breathe for the lack of air, Gil shifted his feet.
"I was five." His voice was a whisper. His heart thumped so quickly in his chest, he found it hard to stand still. Feeling slightly lightheaded he became aware of the fact he was swaying a little. His mouth was parched and his palms dripped sweat.
Sara saw Griss swing back on his heels then forward again. Maybe he was drunk. Suddenly, with an edge in his voice that made her jump slightly…
"I'm sorry, Sara. I shouldn't have bothered you. I don't even know why I came here." He started toward the door. Instinctively Sara stepped into his path.
"Griss, wait." She put her hand up in front of his chest. He stopped barely an inch away, she could feel his heat on her palm. She locked eyes with him. "Tell me." She hoped she looked and sounded authoritative or at least confidant, neither of which she felt. "What is going on with you?"
"Nothing." His voice was icy. His suffocating self-control struggling to re-establish itself.
"Wrong answer." Sara was surprised by the strength in her own tone. "Tell me."
It was a simple request. Tell her. Grissom's heart continued to race, he resisted the urge to grasp at his chest. His mind clicked on overdrive. Tell you. Tell you? Tell you what…
…my dad left because he never loved my mother…I don't think he ever loved me…I wrote him letters…he never wrote back…never called…never visited…Tell you? Tell you that his brother, my uncle, my only father figure…was a pedophile…oh the things he did to me…whispering he loved me…he was going to make me a man…Tell you? Tell you that every day of my adult life I've been terrified that I might turn into what I've been taught…that Gabriel Hovanec could've been my son if I'd ever had one…all because my father never loved me…
His eyes stayed locked with hers. Across his mind's eye he saw a flash of white tile streaked in blood. His voice could barely be heard as he whispered to her, still standing in front of him…
"I could loose myself to you…I could destroy us both…"
With a gracefulness he didn't feel, he stepped around her outstretched arm toward the door. Her voice stopped him as his hand rested on the doorknob.
"I thought I was your girl." Sara sucked in her breath. Why the hell did I just say that?
"You are." And he was gone.
Anticipating the nightmares that were surely going to wrack her, Sara walked half-dazed to the cupboard above her sink, opening it she reached inside, her hand grasping the cold neck of the vodka bottle in the back.
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30 years earlier, under the warm California sun:
Gil stood rooted in the doorway of the apartment. Amanda, his beautiful Amanda, was being slammed against the far wall of their one-room apartment, her bare legs wrapped tightly around the waist of the tall, dark-haired man who groaned loudly as he thrust into her again and again…
"Uhh…Ryan…God, Ryan….ohh…" His beautiful love…was getting her brains fucked out against the wall…his wall…Gil never really knew what rage was, until that moment…He felt the sensation of fingernails digging harshly into his palms, his own fingernails, drawing blood. He didn't remember crossing the room, nor did he remember grabbing 'Ryan' by the throat, but he had a clear image of himself bashing that fucker's head against the wall.
"Gil wait!" Amanda's voice was panicked, "Gil, wai…" she was silenced by the backhanded slap that spun her around. Gil watched her cower away from him in the corner of the room, her eyes totally eclipsed by her sudden fear of him. He felt a surge of power. He felt dangerous, disconnected, unhinged. He'd deal with her later, for now…
He turned back to Ryan.
TBC…..
Thanks for your patience, I hope it was worth the wait.
