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
Sorry it's taken me so long to update, so here's an extra long chapter. Thanks for the reviews, folks – that's to Cindy Ryan, JennCorinthos, Aleja21, icklebitodd (I promise, the next couple of chapters will have a lot of Nate), MissyJane (thanks for the luck! It was very much appreciated!), Jenuine, charmed1818 (thanks for the luck!), Juliette7179, Megara1, Nikita1506 and Lizzy Sidle (heehee, no problem!). Also, in answer to your question, SueBlue32, yes I do watch the show and if you insist on leaving ignorant reviews, please next time don't be so spineless as to leave no contact to talk about things like adults. Thank you!
So here you have it – Chapter 23 of 26. Enjoy! Love LJ xXx
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Wake The Hope. Chapter Twenty-Three. Through The Glass
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"Consult not your fears but your hopes and your dreams.
Think not about your frustrations, but about your unfulfilled potential.
Concern yourself not with what you tried and failed in, but with what it is still possible for you to do."
POPE JOHN XXIII
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There's just something different about starting your day with someone who you don't mind it when they steal the covers from you, Warrick muses in the drive to work. There's something better about starting the day with Sara Sidle who'll entertain you at breakfast with her vain attempts to get the majority of Nate's breakfast into his little mouth rather than all over them both. Sara, who'll slap you lightly around the head for laughing at her baby-food-covered appearance and challenge you to feed Nate instead while she takes a shower, where she'll subconsciously start singing a Beach Boys track but later deny it.
He smirks across at her in the passenger seat and she knows exactly what's going through her head.
"Even if I was," she mutters. "Which I wasn't – there's nothing wrong with The Beach Boys."
Warrick tuts and shakes his head, signalling into the lab's car park. "Cheesy pop," he comments lightly.
"It's good!" she protests but can't stop herself from laughing when she sees the outraged look on his face. She knows how much music means to him and comments like that can be considered blasphemy to Warrick Brown. It's what made making them so much more fun.
Halfway down the hall, however, the good feeling suddenly vanishes when the pair of them notice the two security guards standing smartly in front of the door to one of the questioning rooms. One of the security guards notices Sara too and watches her carefully as she passes. But Sara is, as ever, unperturbed and stops in front of them, trying to see past the door.
"Ms. Sidle," the guard says sternly. "You can't go in there."
"You know I was one of the first people on this case," she tells the guard, irritated.
"We've had very specific orders..." he begins but Sara cuts him off with a wave of her hand.
"Yes, yes – I know." she sighs and forces a smile for Warrick. "I'll catch up with you later." And with that, she stalks off down the corridor with Nate. Warrick watches her and then, taking a breath, goes into the room.
Tom Redley looks up at the fourth CSI to enter the room. Already sitting across the table from him were three CSIs, Grissom, Willows and Stokes and the homicide detective Jim Brass; Tom Redley couldn't really remember the last time he'd been brought for questioning, high on coke, but he doesn't think there were this many in the room at the time.
"So, Mr Redley," starts Grissom as Warrick grabs chair between Nick and Brass. Nick sits on the left side of Grissom; Catherine takes the right. "Would you like to tell us what happened on the night Katie Taylor was murdered?"
Redley scuffs his shoe on the floor like a child in the office of his principal before muttering, "Never heard of her."
"Really?" Catherine takes up the questioning. She slides a photograph of Katie's lifeless face across the table to him and then follows it up with ones of Marcia Keating and Susanna Jacques. "Do any of these jog your memory?" Her voice drips with sarcasm. "Katie Taylor? Marcia Keating? Susanna Jacques...?"
She pauses for a moment – they all do, knowing whose name should follow on that list. Sara Sidle? Warrick stares with hardened eyes at Tom Redley.
"Don't know 'em," Tom replies, indifferently. He'd just been shown three photos of young women lying with their throats slit on their apartment floors and he didn't even blink.
"Well you should," Warrick snaps, leaning forwards. "You raped and killed them."
"Can I get a lawyer in here?" Tom Redley responds, matching Warrick's glare. "So this nut will quit making up stories about me?"
"Making up stories?" Warrick gets up, despite Nick trying to grab his arm. "The only reason why you stopped your sick routine of luring women out of their homes with your recordings was because your last victim survived, didn't she? You know it – you know she did. So you had to stop playing your fucked-up game."
"Warrick," Grissom intervenes sharply. "Warrick, sit down."
Looking at Grissom for a moment, Warrick sighs and sits back down. Tom Redley smirks but says nothing.
"Mr Redley," Nick tries to take a calmer tone. "We've found DNA evidence on one of your victims the links you to her so you can't pretend you've never met her. Your last victim, remember her? Sara Sidle."
A shared flinch runs through the four of them and even Tom Redley's face changes if only briefly. Noticing this flash of weakness and hanging onto it, Brass reaches for the file and pulls out a photo of Sara, handing it to Redley.
"Here – Sara Sidle," he passes the photograph to Tom Redley. "Ring any bells, Tom?"
Tom stares so long and hard at Sara's face in the picture that Warrick cannot bear it longer and, slamming his palms on the table, jumps to his feet once again.
"She has a baby son, Redley. You saw him – he was in the room." he bites furiously at the man, snatching the photo from his fingers and flinging it on the table, not wanting to see it in Redley's hands any longer. "What the fuck is the matter with you?"
"Warrick," Grissom cuts in. "Warrick, please leave."
"What!" Warrick turns on him, incredulous, furious. He can barely spit his words out. "Griss, this guy – this bastard raped Sara. He raped my girl. And he would've killed her too..."
"We know what he did, Warrick," Grissom replies calmly. "But I'm asking you to leave."
"But – " Warrick can't think of anything else to say.
"Hey man," Tom Redley drawls with a smile and reaches for the photograph. "She's your girl? Well done. She was really hot."
Nick moves quickly. It must have been all those years playing high school football – he knew they'd taught him something other than how to chug a beer like a pro. As Warrick, blindingly livid, darts towards Redley with a raised fist, Nick manages to grab his arm just in time. Warrick's whole body shakes with fury and Nick has to struggle to hold him back.
"Hey - relax, man," Nick murmurs to his friend. "He's not worth it, 'Rick. Let us sort this one out, okay?"
"Get out, please, Warrick," Grissom orders. "Now."
Warrick lowers his fist and looks from Grissom staring at him seriously, Catherine biting on her lip and Nick holding onto his arm, concerned. With a sigh, he turns to leave.
"You don't even deserve to look at her," he tells Tom Redley in a low and shaking voice as he walks out of the door. He takes deep breaths in the corridor and paces the shiny floors for a while, swinging his arms. He shouldn't have lost his cool like that in there, he knows. And now it's even more tormenting to not know what's going on in the room. He shouldn't have done that – but then again...Sara...
The door opens and Catherine steps out. She offers him a smile and touches his arm lightly.
"You alright?" she asks gently. He raises his eyebrows and sighs with his nod. "I know – I couldn't stay in there either. That man makes me sick."
"I just..." Warrick begins with conviction but trails off. There was nothing he could explain with 'just'. This wasn't a simple matter. He only looks at Catherine, knowing she understands.
"Here, come on," she leads him into the room adjacent to the questioning room to watch through the two-way mirror. In his rage, he hadn't thought of that but, on opening the door, they both see that someone else already did.
Sara has her eyes fixed on Tom Redley in the other room from where she sits on the edge of the table, both feet flat on a chair, and holding tightly onto Nate. She doesn't look up when they enter the room but already knows who it is.
"Sara..." Catherine goes to her, followed by Warrick.
"Hey Cath," Sara greets flatly.
"Sara, you're shivering," Catherine comments, noticing her pale and trembling hands that cradle baby Nate.
"It's cold." Sara responds in a dead and empty voice. Outside, the city is smothered in a blazing Nevada summer. Catherine doesn't want to say it though and, instead, lifts Nate from her arms.
"I'll watch him for you," she says.
Sara recoils slightly when Catherine touches her arm but doesn't object to Nate being taken away. Catherine throws a pointed look at Warrick, as though asking him to keep his cool this time round and to remember what's important here, and then she silently leaves the room. Warrick sits beside Sara on the table and looks at her though she stays staring at Tom Redley.
"That's him," she whispers. Warrick makes to take her hand but she clasps them both between her knees, huddled alone and not touching anyone.
"I know," he tells her softly. "We know it is – we'll get him."
It's just Grissom, Nick and Brass at the table now. Tom Redley has the eerie look of someone who knows they're winning at a game they shouldn't play. Two down – three to go. But Grissom has other ideas.
"So you admit to having met Sara Sidle," Grissom questions. Tom's face falls. He'd got him there.
"Yes. Once." he replies shortly.
"Would that be while you were raping her?" Brass asks. Tom bites his lip and Brass goes on, "Because you know you didn't kill her. And, in fact, you made the terrible mistake of attacking one of the best CSIs in the state. We have DNA evidence that puts you at the scene and a reliable witness to account for your actions."
"Why didn't you kill her, Mr Redley?" Grissom furthers. Tom stares at Sara's photograph on the table which smiles back up at him. "Why didn't you kill her like Katie Taylor? Or Marcia Keating? Or Susanna Jacques? What made Sara so different?"
Tom Redley looks a haunted man. He doesn't care anymore about sentences and lawyers.
"She wasn't like the others," Tom blurts out, not taking his eyes off Sara's picture. The three lean forwards; Tom Redley is coming clean.
"And why not?" Grissom presses quietly, not wishing to scare off the man's confession.
"The others shut their eyes and tried to pretend it wasn't happening," Redley murmurs, frowning hard at the photograph and visualises each attack, each rape, each death. "She was different – she looked right at me."
"Surely that'd be more reason to kill her," Nick suggests. "She I.Ded you. She'll put you away."
"She looked right at me and..." Redley repeats and trails off into a mumble.
"What was that?" Grissom leans closer.
Tom Redley looks up at Brass, Grissom and Nick as though he wants some sort of forgiveness now. Forgiveness for killing three women. Forgiveness for attacking their friend. It's needless to say he gets nothing.
"She looked just like her – she reminded me of my kid sister." he confesses in a whisper.
"How?" Sara begins quietly in the other room. "How does a man do that to a woman if he has a sister he cares about?" She turns to face Warrick and lets him when he pulls her into a tight hug.
"I don't know, Sara," he murmurs. "There are a lot of sick bastards out there."
Sara buries her face into his shoulder, losing herself in a feeling of security. "You didn't have to flip out like that," she tells his shoulder.
"Yes, I did." Warrick answers. She looks at him and smiles, resting her head against his chest as she glances back into the room. Tom Redley's wrists are met by cold metal of handcuffs and he's pulled roughly to his feet by a cop.
"Come on," she says, getting up and taking Warrick's hand. Sara leads him out of the room and stands in the hall as the door to the adjacent room opens. Warrick puts his arm around her waist and holds her close to him as a cop drags Tom Redley out.
The last thing Tom Redley clearly remembers before everything becomes a blur of city-owned buildings and cells, is seeing the cold and unforgiving expression in his fourth victim's brown eyes as he passes her in the hall. The man with her doesn't look at him, but only at the woman around whom his arms are wrapped. She should've been imprinted in his memory as The One That Got Away. She should've been remembered with bitterness as his downfall. But all Tom Redley will remember for his lifetime behind the same metal bars, is the way Sara Sidle never cried like the others. She never screamed or sobbed or begged. She just watched him as though she forgave him, quite a different look to the one he sees in passing now.
That last look will haunt him forever. It's him, now, who wants to cry. He wants to scream and sob at her feet. He wants to beg her. Forgive me, please forgive me.
Somewhere inside of him, his last scrap of humanity calls distantly through a cracked and rotten exterior. In his first night in jail, he gets the first taste of a nightmare that'll wake him sweat-drenched every night for the rest of his life: Sara Sidle, victim four, The One Who Never Begged just stares at him with her pitiless, hardened eyes. How many people had he let down? How many families are missing their daughters, nieces – sisters? He couldn't have dug that blade into her throat; he could never have found it in him.
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