Disclaimer: They're not mine
Rating: T or PG-13 for language and violence
Summary: It's 2am. The doorbell rings. A baby is crying. What are you going to do? W/S with GCR moments and a major case
Thanks once again for the wonderful feedback, Megara1, nick55, CatStokes (Okay, fine, how's this?), spikes-storm, Review1234 (heh heh – I feel loads better, thanks!), Lizzy Sidle (got it in one, Lizzy! But shh...don't spoil it for Warrick), JennCorinthos, Aleja21, icklebitodd (thanks! I never thought Grissom'd be the kind of person to get all jealous over Sara either), MissyJane and Joyce3. Please continue to read and review!
And once more, I'm encouraging visitors, members and writers to my Live Journal creative writing community (write underscore impulsive). Everyone's welcome! But for now, I'll leave you to just read this chapter and, if you like it – or really hate it – review it at the end. Enjoy! Love LJ xXx
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Wake The Hope. Chapter Nineteen. But You Linger On, Dear
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"A confession has to be part of your new life."
LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN
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Sara's grateful that he knocks only very quietly on the door, almost as though he knows she's only just got Nate off to sleep. He still has the spare key, she forgot to demand it back midst the morning's shouting, but he thinks it probably wouldn't go down too well to use it right now. She opens to door to him and they stand there staring at each other expectantly for a moment before Warrick finally finds his breathless voice.
"So," he begins. "What did you want to tell me?"
She offers him a half-smile and takes his hand, leading him inside. "Everything," she says. "I want to tell you everything."
They sit. Both of them sit at the dining table, hands wrapped around their own mugs of coffee that grow cold and un-tasted as she tells him. She tells him about her childhood, about growing up and about her parents. He never interrupts her further than the occasional word of sympathy or support when she revisits the night her father was killed. He tells her she doesn't have to go on, but she fiercely disputes this – she does have to go on, she does have to tell him everything because she wants to. She wants him to know. So he fetches the tissue box off her desk and sets it between them with a smile. She takes a small sip of her drink, just to keep her voice going, and then carries on: investigations, doctors, nurses, social workers, cops, carers, files, folders and more unwanted children – the foster care system, moving from house to house to house.
"The rape," she adds – words that curl cold fingers around Warrick's heart, "wasn't a first either." She smiles wryly into her coffee cup, choosing her words carefully. "Foster care kids get messed up. I guess we handle it differently. Some become quiet, withdrawn science geeks and some are just...angry." She shrugs her shoulders. "There was an older kid in the group home – I think he was sixteen or seventeen; I was thirteen years old – scared out of my mind. And nobody believed me; foster kids are always making these things up. You can't tell which ones are lying and which ones really need your help. I guess that was when it really hit me – that I was on my own in this, in everything."
It all comes as a bit of a shock at first for Warrick, but, as it sinks it, he realises how much about her it explains. When Sara draws to a close, her voice more tired and worn but lighter somehow and more comfortable, he stares into the darkness of his cold coffee before speaking finally.
"You never mentioned anything about it before," he says, rather lamely. Sara shrugs her shoulders.
"It just seemed too fragile, my life now." she admits, frowning in an attempt to phrase things properly. "I worried that if I looked back and saw it all again, remembered what it sounded like, smelt like, felt like – that I'll be back there and wouldn't find my way again. It sounds stupid, doesn't it? I just – I'm happy now, I really am, but I always worry that what I have now isn't strong enough to stand up against what I had then. That if I looked back now, I'd wake up and then growing up and moving on would all be just another dream."
"No, I understand," he assures her gently. "And since we're sharing, you might want to know why I grew up with my grandmother. It isn't an unhappy memory – I had a wonderful childhood – I couldn't have asked for more, growing up with someone who loved me. And I did get a chance to know my mother but she died when I was about seven."
Sara unconsciously reaches out and puts her hand on top of his across the table as he continues, staring down at the tabletop as though watching it all projected on there,
"I used to sit out on the – on the veranda, play in the dirt at the front of Gram's house with these toy trucks I had and watch the end of the street for when my mother's red Beamer came round the corner. I know Grams didn't much like me doing it; I'd get my clothes all dirty and would dig up her flowerbeds but she let me do it anyway because she knew how much I waited all day for that car.
"It was just this one time in August, I think, and she didn't come back. And the phone rang in the house, I was still outside waiting, and when my grandma came outside she was crying. I remember that part most of all because I'd never seen her crying before and I didn't understand. I just couldn't get what it meant for someone suddenly to not be around anymore."
He smiles weakly. "It was a car crash. It happens." Then he laughs slightly as he adds, "I guess we're not doing too good on the whole grandparents-for-Nate front, are we?"
Sara grins. "That's one way of putting it," she murmurs and then sighs. "Thank you for coming round. I wanted to let you know – I trust you, 'Rick. And I wouldn't want to keep things from you."
She gets up and pours her cold coffee down the sink. "You can stay if you like."
Warrick nods. "I'm good on the couch," he says quickly, not wishing to encroach on her anymore, especially after her long silence following their first kiss only last week. Sara shrugs her shoulders once more and throws him a blanket.
"Goodnight then," she calls, heading into her own bedroom and shutting the door behind her.
Warrick sits on the edge of the sofa for a while, still taking in this whole day. He thinks about this morning, how this very room had been filled with her yelling; about everything Grissom had told him and how their supervisor had, as ever, been right; about how they must all be breaking down the perp's door now with the oblivious Sara drifting off to sleep; Sara – he thinks about Sara most of all. He lies down on the couch, pulling the blanket over him. It has been a long day and, curled onto the small sofa, he slips uncomfortably to sleep.
About ten minutes later, Sara creeps quietly back into the living room after forgetting her cell phone on the desk and she watches Warrick sleeping in an awkward position on her tiny couch. He'd always slept there, without complaint, but she smiles fondly at the way his feet stick out way over the edge and realises he must've been very uncomfortable for the past week, without saying a word.
It doesn't help that he moves in his sleep, either. While she's standing there watching him, Warrick rolls over in his sleep and falls with a thud onto the floor. She can barely suppress her laughter when he wakes with a jolt to find her standing above him.
"Come on," she whispers with mock exasperation and holds out her hand to him. He gets up, still partially asleep. She leads him to her bedroom and he wakes up just enough to realise where he is now standing.
"Sara..." he begins, about to launch into a warning about how he doesn't want to force anything on her. Sara rolls her eyes, knowing what's coming.
"If you want to spend all next year at a chiropractor, Warrick," she tells him sternly. "Be my guest."
He chuckles. Even late at night Sara can still muster up her usual standards of sarcastic quips – he should've known. Uncomplaining, he climbs into bed beside her and, spooning up behind her and curling an arm around her waist, falls asleep almost instantly anyway.
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