Sorry, there been a slight mess up... I hated the way the original chapter 9 ended... so I changed it... The new bit starts at "Gil carefully walked over erupted roots and flagstones," if ya have already read it...sorry again... x
Disclaimer: I own nothing
A/N: Thank you to soooo much to Bene (so happy I managed to do suspense, thank you), xxxsarasbutterflyxxx (hope ya had a good weekend and thank you for reviewing) and aemie (who I just wanna hug, thank you so much for reviewing and adding to faves). I can't believe how fast the story like, coming together... I thought I would have quit it by now so thank you again to anyone who has taken an intrest in it, its just been wonderful.
x
The white diamond burned up in heavens zone.
"Thanks for doing this Nick. I guess this is just one more thing for the list."
"There is no list. You know that. Never has, never will."
Grissom's lips curved softly and he looked back out to the road. Gil and Nick, the entomologist and the cowboy, had been sat in Nick's car for almost four hours; the air stood motionless around them. Sometimes they talked for a long period of time and then they would sit quietly and in a comfortable silence, enjoying each others presence. Gil had once glanced at Nick, during the silence, and noticed that his eyelids were hiding the deep coffee eyes and that his breathing had softened slightly.
Grissom watched wild Boreas blow around the ankles of the car. Grissom thought that maybe he could compare the relationship he had with Sara to something. Boreas and Orithea, perhaps, Boreas went to hug Orithea and because of his powerful, raging winds, he shivered and shattered the fair pri ncess from the top of a cliff. Maybe that's why they couldn't be close, he always blasted her away.
Nick's body shuck awake suddenly and violently with agitation. He rubbed his eyes and then opened his eyes, adjusting them to the surroundings. He looked at Grissom looking back at him. Behind his boyish smile, Nick had a cesspool of monsters. Grissom handed him a bottle of slightly warm, still water which he guzzled greedily, trying to conceal the tremors in his hand. He couldn't hide the two thick, hot tears streaming from his large eyes.
"Thank you."
"S' Okay," Gil let Nick breathe.
"So what's her name?" Nick stirred, stretching his sharp shoulder blades.
"Sara."
"No, I meant now."
"I know what you meant…its Sara. Whether it's eclipsed or shining brightly, the moon is still the moon. Just because she is living under a different name, doesn't mean she still isn't Sara inside."
"So, have you only seen her once?"
"Yes."
"Well, time changes people and it may still be Sara inside, but the Sara eight years ago is going to be different from the one now. None of us know what she has been doing. Is she married? Does she have children?" Nick's questions made everything seem surreal and realistic at the same time; truth but no logic.
Greg was furious, beyond livid; the hot bubble of poison was going to burst. If that washing machine gave him anymore grief, he was getting a new one.
"I thought you said you had fixed it. Does this look fixed?" There had been so much water, that the plants outside were benefiting from the water leakage. The plumber sprouted out some technical talk while Ashley shimmered with glee as foam massaged her cherry-red toenails. Her shoes, which were the colour of emerald ice, had most of her giggling flesh as she stood there, sometimes yanked out soft flirtatious and harmless laughs and jerked out talk with the stranger fixing the once-again broken washing machine.
Ashley felt her phone vibrate against her hip and flicked it out in a serious of simple movements.
"Hello…MOM! Yeah, I'm okay, are you? Yes…I can't wait to see you. I've got dressed up and everything so we can have dinner together or something…Are you in Las Vegas…" Greg watched Ashley discreetly.
"What? Why?" He saw her face downfall. Her voice lowered down from its bright, happy, girly, usual tone. You wouldn't be able to tell over the phone, but the small difference boomed outwards.
"Oh…yeah…right…Yes of course I understand…" it returned to normal, Ashley could taste the change on her tongue and didn't like it. Greg could tell that the new spell of brightness in her flowing cocktail of a voice was plastic but she didn't falter in making herself believe it was plastic.
"Okay, I'll get Greg to call you. Yeah…so I will see you in a few weeks then…Bye."
Greg didn't even see a flicker of emotion on Ashley's face after she closed down the flip on her phone. She did it with a sharp force as if she was saying lusciously and sarcastically in her head, "Love you too, Mom." She put her phone down on the table, as if by touching it, she would gain a horrible disease.
"Mom says can you call her in about seven hours, because she, urm…" Now Greg saw the flicker. It was a brief and tiny one, but it was there when she had quickly glanced down at the phone which had severed the connection between mother and daughter.
"…is on a flight. She said will be back in a few weeks, she wants to sort things out with my Dad but she wants to talk to you about me staying here."
"Okay-."
"I can still here, right?" Ashley's voice snapped in.
Greg had never seen such worry on her face before, eyes wide, just showing the rims above her iris.
"Of course."
Ashley pulled down slightly at her dress and looked at Greg with dazed eyes.
"I think I am gonna go change." She started to walk in her clattering heels.
"Hey, we can still go out for food if you want?"
She smiled, childlike with childlike sadness.
"No thanks, I'm not really hungry." Ashley exited the room, performing ballet over the foam bubbles.
"Sorry, you had to witness that." The plumber stood up, rummaged for some tools.
"Nah, it's okay." Greg's house phone began to ring and he excused himself from the plumber's presence.
It was now midway through the afternoon.
"Maybe it was a different woman, Griss'. It was a long shot."
Gil mmmmm-ed in response.
"But it was a shot worth taking."
"Mmmm."
"If you say you saw her, I do believe you, Grissom."
"Yeah," he said absently.
"But at least we know that she is alive and you're not even listening to me, are you?" The realisation hit Nick like a grey tennis ball.
"What…Oh, no I am…and that means a lot, it's just that curtain keep twitching, every 15 minuets or so. It's been moving for a couple of hours now. At first I thought maybe it was just, you know…a breeze blowing through the house, but the movements have gotten more frequent."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"I wanted to see if you were still as sharp as you were when I was your boss."
Nick laughed slightly.
"Are you gonna go or am I?"
"I'll go. You can see the door from here, so if she hits me with something large and heavy, you'll have to come get me."
Nick moved his head side-to-side, laughing through his teeth and nose.
Gil carefully walked over erupted roots and flagstones. Wooden columns held up the house, long windows with shutters and a rocking chair on the porch, chipped blue paint wooden railings. Hanging next to the door was a crucifix, Spanish in style- the Christ grotesque and poorly proportioned but suffering with beyond the appropriate horror on the rotting cross. The house was devoid of life. Thin and frowsy drapes hung in the windows. There was a hanging basket. It did stink of different flower scents and he looked at the petals that were surrounded by the greenish blue leaves that waved, in the hanging basket. They looked so frail, that with a stroke it would bruise them. Grissom's minded suddenly jolted to the information of Sara having a bruise on her wrist and yelping in pain. Gil looked up to see the soft, sweet vines of ivy twining and dripping from the roof. There was a spider's blowing in the wind like rotten lace. He knocked on the door, so very gentle. It was a red door with a glass misty rectangle running straight down the centre. He was about to knock again when a dark figure could be seen through the glass. There was a rattle and snap. The door open but stopped; it was restricted by a chain.
"Yes." Sara's half face was shown.
"Hi,"
"What do you want?" She leaned her head against the door, her eyelids heavy, as if she was falling asleep or as if she was clinging to the door to stop white, floating angels from taking her away.
"To help,"
"I don't need your help." her voice was husky and unsteady; the space between her eyebrows was pushed together by speech and she leaned even more forward, pressing her body through the door. Her eyes were fully closed now. Her smooth hands moved down to her stomach. Forefinger scratched the skin beneath the faded black sweater. Hands clasped over her belly button. Gil burned her in to his memory.
Who the hell wears turtleneck tops in Las Vegas?
"Okay, Susan," Her eyes opened revealing a cocktail of auburn; gold; coffee; tan; soft ice.
"But if you do," he took a white rectangle from his snug pocket, "this is my card." He offered her it, his hand crossed the threshold.
"It's got my home and cell phone number on, in case you do need help."
Her eyes cast downward and back upward to Gil. She felt her subtle heartbeat in belly.
"Or if you need to talk." He prompted her to take it.
She reached out slowly and Gil unconsciously dipped his finger. She snapped her arm back. Gil swallowed deep in to trachea as his left hand corkscrewed itself in to his pocket. He nodded his head and she shut the door quickly.
"How did that go?" The first thing Nick said, before Grissom even sat down.
"Better than I thought it would. She didn't say much."
"What did you expect her to say?"
"I don't know…"
"What some water?" Gil needed something stronger. He slurped it in to his mouth, swirled and spat it back out the window as if the liquid of life that caressed his tongue would cause it to rot and die in his mouth. His Hand moved to his mouth and with a thumb and forefinger pinch, he wiped away any water that hung like diamond stalagmites from his darkened lips. Gil brought both his hands up and they squeezed his neck muscles, applying pressure behind the ears and his forefingers dug in to his flesh. He opened his door…
"Come on, let's go."
"I guess your observation skills have gone down too." Nick nodded to Sara's house. Gil took a deep, cool breath. Sara or Susan as she was called now was taking out the rubbish in a small, ugly bag.
"It really is Sara… She is so beautiful." Nick felt so overwhelmed and Grissom just looked at him with confusion.
"I mean that she is alive, she looks half dead there."
The two men watched her, completely enthralled.
Sara looked around, neck arching.
"What is she doing?" They watched her. She did something with her hair, cat like in movement. She was brushing her brown flat locks. She looked once again around and placed something on the trash can and ran back inside.
Gil and Nick were smiling.
"Smart girl, Sara."
"Yeah, you go girl," Nick had already leaped out of the car with a plastic evidence bag so Grissom barely heard what he had said. They drove away, sitting in silence, stewing with something that was too weak to be called happiness but made them feel less hopeless. Ten minuets later, another vehicle parked in the place they had been.