Author's Notes: I'm continually unable to adequately express my thanks for all the people who take time out of their lives to read and review my stuff. I try to make my gratitude known here, and I hope it doesn't ever seem faked:) Thanks. I hope you enjoy this chapter, but I'm also realistic...
Someone Else's Star
by Kristen Elizabeth
We are prone to sacrifice others when we are ready to sacrifice ourselves. – Eric Hoffer
She arrived home as the sun was setting. She could remember driving around, but would have been hard pressed to name a street she might have turned down or a landmark that she might have passed.
Closing her door, she locked it, slid the chain into place and dropped her keys in their usual spot. She didn't bother to turn the lights on as she moved through her apartment, towards her bathroom. She dropped clothes as she went, not caring where they fell.
She turned the hot water on all the way and stepped into the shower. Steam began to fill the room. The heat of the spray would have hurt if she could have felt it. She grabbed her sponge, added soap and started scrubbing.
"I think…we just made a very big mistake."
Sara wanted him off of her. Out of her. She wanted to wash him down the drain. Every last trace of him.
"This happened too fast. We didn't think. We can't go from one extreme to the other in such a short space of time. At least I can't."
When she started rubbing raw patches into her body, she turned the cool nozzle on, pressed her forehead against the tile, and began to sob. Her anguish echoed off the bathroom walls; the walls themselves shook when she pounded them with her fist.
"We're no good for each other, Sara. I can't be your missing father figure. And you can't be my midlife crisis."
The water was freezing by the time she stopped.
Sara stepped out of the shower and wrapped a towel around herself. Back in the bedroom, she dropped the towel and reached for a bottle of lotion.
"We gave in to a temptation that we've both felt, and now it's done. We need to move on. And maybe someday…we can be friends again."
Slicking the lotion over her burned skin, she stared at herself in her mirror. Her hair dripped in brown rivers over her shoulders.
He disappeared into his bathroom while she got dressed. She waited for about twenty minutes, sitting on the bed in which they'd fucked. Not made love like she'd thought. But the shower water didn't change his mind about anything, because he never came back into the bedroom. She'd let herself out.
Sara reached for a box on her dresser and opened it. Her fingers were still slippery from the lotion as she dug through cheap necklaces and dozens of mismatched earrings. Underneath the junk, she found what she was looking for
She'd tried to return it six years earlier, but he'd sent the package right back to her with a note that said it was bought for one person and belonged to one person. Something back then had kept her from selling it, and only now was she grateful for that.
Sara stared at Matt's engagement ring, seven thousand dollars worth of proof that at one time she'd been wanted. Worthy. Loveable.
She called the lab. "Judy," she said when the receptionist answered. "This is Sara. I'm not feeling well, so I won't be coming in tonight. Please let…" She couldn't say his name. Not just yet. "Please let the team know. Thanks."
Maybe it was the lotion, but when she slid the ring onto her finger, it still fit perfectly.
"Mr. Grissom!" Behind the reception desk, Judy waved her arms in a last ditch attempt to catch the CSI's eye. When he finally looked at her, something in his eyes told her to keep it short and make it quick. "Messages," she blurted, holding out a pile of pink slips.
He snatched them up and moved off without a word. Judy breathed a sigh of relief, silently wishing the graveyard shift luck with their supervisor.
It was Grissom's habit to read his messages as he walked to his office, because generally if people saw he was engaged in some activity, they'd be less likely to approach him. It didn't always work, but generally it was a good deterrent.
Message from D.A.'s office regarding Butler case…memo from Ecklie about parking spaces…memo from Ecklie about PD versus lab softball game…message from Sara…memo from Ecklie about…
Grissom stopped in the middle of the hallway and flipped back to the previous message slip. "CSI Sidle out sick" and the date scribbled in Judy's handwriting. Not a lot. And yet, too much.
Sara had taken a night off. If it were anyone else, this could be explained away without another thought. But this was Sara. The woman who came in on her nights off…the woman who had two months of vacation time on the books…the woman who'd worked after a lab explosion and a hostage attempt by an insane rapist…she'd called in because of him.
He probably should have been relieved. He wasn't.
Grissom stuffed his messages into his jacket pocket and turned back around. As he passed by the receptionist desk, he barked at Judy, "I'll be late. Let Catherine know."
"But Mr. Grissom…" There was no point. He was already halfway out the door.
A block away from her apartment, he pulled off to the side of the road and turned off the engine. He found himself struggling for air, even in the spacious confines of his Denali.
"What are you doing?" Grissom asked himself out loud.
He couldn't go back now. He'd made a decision and it was too late to change his mind. There were invisible strings tying Sara to him, and he'd severed them with one clean strike. Because she was too stubborn to admit that she deserved better.
She was free now. So as much as he wanted to bang on her door until she forgave him for every cruel word, he just couldn't do it. Keeping her from a life she ought to have, simply because he loved her…that would be the cruelest thing he could do.
Grissom started his car and turned around. He drove past the lab and kept going, arriving a few minutes later at a place he usually tried to avoid.
He stared at the grey stone building for a long time before entering. He knew what he'd find inside. A moment's peace. A split second of complete and absolute reconciliation. Better than nothing.
It smelled the same as the one he'd frequented in his youth. Incense and guilt. This one was more old-fashioned; there were still dark booths in the back. He slipped into one quietly.
"Bless me, Father…" he began on the tail end of a shaky breath. "…for I have sinned. It's been twenty-one years since my last confession."
On the other side of the screen, the priest nodded. "Go on."
A long moment passed before he spoke. "I lied to someone…I care a great deal about. I did everything in my power to make her hate me. I hurt her, Father."
"Is this your only sin?"
"In twenty-one years?" Grissom choked back a rueful laugh. "No. But it's the only one that's mattered so far."
"Often we are doomed to repeat our sins if we do not understand them. Why did you so sin, my son?"
"Because I didn't want to break the tenth commandment, too." He closed his eyes. "Coveting what doesn't belong to me."
There were a few blissful seconds of sheer weightlessness after the priest absolved him, a spiritual high like none other he'd ever experienced. Once a junkie, always a junkie. But as soon as he passed through the church doors, he stepped back into the city of his sins. And he remembered why he'd abandoned the rituals of his youth.
Absolution was never as simple as ten Hail Mary's.
Sara woke in a cold sweat. A glance at her clock told her only an hour had passed since she'd laid down, sure that she'd never be able to sleep.
Traces of a dream stayed with her. She lay in the dark, putting the jumbled pieces back together. Finally, she reached over and turned on her bedside lamp. Blinking back the light, Sara fumbled for her cell phone.
Matt answered on the second ring. "I'm sorry to call so late," Sara apologized immediately.
He sounded more awake than she did. "Don't worry about it. Are you at work?"
"No." She offered no further explanation. "I had a dream."
"One of your 'trapped in Jurassic Park' dreams?"
She almost smiled. "I haven't had one of those in years." He waited for her to go on. "I was walking through this house and I found a staircase. I started climbing it...but it just kept going. I felt like I was climbing forever. When I finally got to the top, there were two doors. One open; one closed. The open one led into a bedroom, nothing out of the ordinary."
"What door did you pick?" Matt asked.
"The closed one." Sara looked down the folds of her bedspread. "I opened the door…and behind it were more stairs."
"Better than a pack of raptors."
That made two near-smiles. "I was just about to start climbing them when I woke up." She shook her head. "I'm not sure why I'm telling you this. Other people's dreams are never interesting."
"I don't know about that." Matt paused. "Are you all right? You sound…sad."
"I'm okay."
He sounded skeptical. "Are you sure? Because I can be there in ten minutes with beer and Xanadu."
"You remember that?"
"Sara, the day won't ever come when I forget the most basic facts about you." He snickered. "Especially not your thing for really bad musicals from the 80's."
"It's an underrated classic," she protested.
"It has roller-skating goddesses."
This time, she allowed a smile to creep onto her face. "There is something you can do for me that doesn't involve Olivia Newton-John."
"Name it."
"I'm giving a dinner party for some of my friends next week." Sara drew in a breath. "Will you come? I'd like them to meet you. And, you know, you to meet them."
Matt hesitated for a moment. "Will this be a date?"
Sara didn't have to hesitate. "Yes."
"Are you sure?"
She answered a question he'd asked her much earlier. "I am now."
To Be Continued
A/N: "Trapped in Jurassic Park" dreams are a real problem facing many people these days. If you or someone you love has ever had the unfortunate experience of dreaming about being chased by a T-rex or hunted by a raptor, there is help. I hope. God, I hope.
Also, Xanadu freaking rocks. You probably just haven't watched it drunk.