Author: Joyce
Title: Choices
Disclaimer: Not mine. Really, they are not.
Note: First off, it really wasn't my intention to turn Sara into the bad guy, eh...woman in this story. Yes, she has made a mistake but in the end she's just human and she's paid for her mistakes. She just misses Warrick and would do anything to get him back, chapter two was about that feeling of desperation and not about her being a bitch, as some of you have said.There, I defended my girl.
Secondly, I'm sorry for this chapter, I promise that this will be a one time thing. Writing this chapter was extremely difficult and I will not be doing it again. I am strangely proud of this story however, it was the hardest one to write but I do feel like it's the best thing I've written so far. But, for my own good and yours, my next story will be as fluffy and happy as always. Thank you all for reading this and please, let me know what you think. I really, really want to know this time. So review! That's an order...
The last goodbye
3 years later...
A single bullet. She had processed thousands of them and never once thought that only one of them could take him out but it had. It had taken a single bullet to drain the life out of him. A single bullet, shot in a microsecond, had took away the only man she had ever loved. Something that small should not be able to kill a man that strong, that kind, with so much love to give but it had and Sara still had trouble accepting that fact. After three days, in which all she saw was that bullet racing towards him, she still couldn't believe it.
But she was standing here and she was watching them from a distance. Greg, who looked serious for once, staring at the ground while trying desperately not to cry. Nick, who didn't even pretend not to cry, mourning his best friend openly. She even saw Grissom, back from LA, mourning the man who had been like a son to him and with whom he had shared a love for the same woman. Catherine was standing next to him, she and Lindsey supporting each other. She recognized at lot of people, she figured that almost the whole lab was there.
In the center of the crowd stood Maddie, the woman she had never seen before because Sara avoided gatherings where he would take his wife, she couldn't stand to watch them together but now she couldn't keep her eyes of the woman. Couldn't shake the fact that while they looked nothing alike they shared the same pain. They had both lost him.
Maddie was holding her little daughter, a gorgeous two years old, who had the green eyes of her daddy and couldn't understand why her mummy was crying. Just like she didn't understand that her father was being lowered into the ground while all his loved ones said goodbye to him.
Greg was the first one to leave a single white rose on the coffin, saying his farewell and soon they all followed. She saw Nick speak while he lowered his rose to the ground but she couldn't make out what he was saying, he was probably promising his friend that he would take care of his family. Lastly his wife stood in front of his coffin, leaving two single white roses on his grave while Nick stayed behind holding Warrick's daughter and supporting the grief stricken woman. Together they made their way to the black limousines that would take them all away from him.
She stayed in her hiding place until they were long gone before she came out and into sight, making her way towards his grave with little steps, a large part of her not wanting to see it because that would make it real. Seeing his grave would mean that he was really gone.
When she reached the grave she watched it for a long time, reading the inscription on his tombstone.
Warrick Brown, 1973- 2010
Beloved father and husband
A great friend
Sara smiled while she read it before she lowered herself to the ground, sitting before his grave on her knees and adding her own line. " The love of my life," she whispered and she traced his name with her fingers, letting herself cry for the first time since she had heard the news.
"You were not supposed to leave me," she yelled in the quiet cemetery. "It's not fair," she mumbled before her crying turned into sobbing and she remembered the last time that he had visited her.
Flashback, several weeks before
Sara was sitting in front of her TV when there was a knock on her door. Getting up she expected to see Greg there, or maybe Nick, but not Warrick, never Warrick.
"Rick," she said, surprised by him standing on her doorstep, a place he hadn't visited for six years now. "Is everything ok? Did somebody get hurt?" Her question wasn't out of the ordinary, they never talked about anything personal, not since that talk in the locker room when he had returned to the night shift as their new supervisor. A job that turned out to be made for him.Warrick was a fair boss and never afraid to work just as hard as the rest of them.
"Nobody is hurt," he said and he looked around, almost like he was still debating if he did the right thing by coming here.
"Do you want to come in?" she asked him hesitantly, having dreamt of moments similar to this one many times before but not knowing what to do now that he was here.
"Ok," he mumbled, stepping into her familiar home that hadn't changed a bit since he used to spend all his time here. "It looks the same," he observed, a look of surprise on his face and she shrugged.
"I lost so much that I didn't want to lose the only place that still felt like home to me," she explained and he nodded, silent now.
"Why are you here, Rick?" she questioned and for a while it seemed like he hadn't even heard her question.
"Why can't you leave me alone?" he asked her after a long moment of silence, "I try, I try so hard but you never leave me alone," he finished.
"I give you space," she commented, "I never talk to you unless I have to, I do everything that you asked me to do when you came back. I accepted your marriage, your daughter. Don't tell me I don't give you space."
"It's not you," he sighed, turning around and facing her, "It's me... I can't seem to stop loving you."
"What?" was all she could say, to perplexed to think of anything else but she didn't have time to say anything else because he was standing in front of her in the blink of an eye, his lips capturing hers a couple of seconds later and while she knew that this was wrong, she also knew that she had missed his touch for six long years. Closing her eyes she let him kiss her, she allowed his kiss to erase some of the loneliness that she had felt in the last six years of her life. He pulled back after a couple of minutes.
"This is wrong," he told her, resting his forehead against hers. "But I can't seem to stop, I keep missing you," he admitted and his green eyes looked at her with so much love in them that she had to blink back her tears.
"I keep missing you too," was the last thing she told him before his lips descended on hers again and the hours that followed were a blur. They knew that they could never erase six years of hurting and heartbreak in one night but they tried. In those few hours they tried with all the passion and desperation that they had been hiding for so long now.
Afterwards they were lying in her bed, her head on his chest, finding the place where she would always lay down her head when they were still together. He just held her, tracing patterns on her back until he sighed and she knew that their bubble was broken.
"I should go," he told her. "Maddie is waiting for me and I promised DJ that I would take her to the zoo today."
She smiled a bit, trying to keep her tears inside.
"She's a beautiful kid," she said to him and he smiled the proud smile of a father. "She is," he agreed.
They looked at each other in silent understanding, knowing that this could never happen again because it wasn't fair for either one of them or the people involved.
He was already dressed and ready to go when her voice stopped him.
"I will always love you, Warrick," she told him and he stopped briefly, looking back at her shortly, before he walked out of the room.
She turned around and grabbed her pillow, allowing herself to cry while she could still smell him on her sheets and then he was back, kissing her in a desperate way before he pulled back.
"I'll always love you too, Sara" he whispered in her ear before he disappeared out of her bed room and she smiled with tears still rolling down her cheeks.
Sitting here now Sara still didn't comprehend why he came to her after six years of separation.
"Did you sense that something bad was coming, Rick?" she asked out loud and for a moment she could almost hear his reply in her head, saw him roll his eyes and laugh at her silly question and she missed him so much that it was almost unbearable.
"I'm sorry," she whispered while she lowered her own rose on his grave, a red one since she knew that red had been his favorite color. He used to love the color on her. "I'm sorry for wasting six years of my life that I should have spend with you," she continued. Her hand touched her stomach and she smiled a sad smile.
"I promise to take good care of our baby," she told him, having known that she was pregnant for a couple of days now. "I just wish you would have known," she cried, "I wish I had the chance to tell you."
Flashback, 3 days earlier
Sara was pacing in the locker room, her stomach in knots. They had been idiots and irresponsible morans but she had never thought about protection and now she was pregnant with his child. She was only a couple of weeks along but he needed to know the truth and they needed to find a solution. She was keeping this baby but she needed him to know what they had created together. She looked at her watch, wondering what kept him so long since shift had been over an hour ago. When the door opened she jumped up.
"Warrick?" she asked and Nick shook his head, tears in his eyes.
"What's wrong?" she asked him, a feeling of dread coming over her and Nick answered her question, shattering her world.
"Rick has been shot, Sar. The suspect was still on the scene and he shot him."
"Is he ok?" she demanded to know. "Tell me that he's ok, Nick!" she said again, panic in her voice and her eyes wide with shock and worry.
"He died on his way to the hospital," Nick choked out, really crying now. "I'm sorry, Sara. I know how much you loved him."
"No," she whispered. "No, no, no," she said like a mantra and when Nick reached out and held her she let him, repeating herself over and over. To shocked to even cry.
In the cemetery Sara stood up, giving the place where he would find his eternal peace one last look. She was leaving Las Vegas, this city would never be the same for her and people would know. They would know once she was showing, they would see it once the baby was born and she couldn't do that to him. She didn't want to betray his memory like that. What they had shared that night was theirs alone and his family didn't need to be hurt by it.
"I'll always love you, Warrick," she told him one last time, wishing that she had made a different choice six years earlier. "I'm so sorry," she cried, knowing that she would never make it up to him. She sighed and turned around, heading for her car to find a home for their unborn child where it would be safe and where she could raise their baby in memory of him, the father it would never know.
Walking away from his grave she turned around one last time, "Goodbye, Warrick," she whispered while looking up to the sky, hoping that he would hear her somehow and when she stepped further away from him she realized that she was leaving her heart here with him. Forever.
The End.