thank you red lighting for reviewing me again and thank you sye04 for reviewing.
You sat on your own. You can't sleep except when Momma sleeps. You can't smile except when Momma smiles. You have been surrounded by people who knew your mother, who were curing your mother, but all you wanted was your mother. And to go home. Las Vegas isn't your home, San Francisco is. Momma asked you on her last visit if next time you would like to live with her for a while. Go to school for a year in Las Vegas and see what happens. You said "yes, yes," straight away. You miss the steep-sloped streets where Uncle J. taught you to roller-skate. You smile and remember that he was deemed irresponsible; Grandmother had shouted at him, "taking a seven year old girl out skating on Nob Hill, what were you thinking?" You miss your school because now you have to work hard all day to be like other girls. You get picked on too, that's why you had been miserable for weeks, why Momma had taken you to the special park, too cheer you up. If you had pretended to be happy, you wouldn't have gone to the park, Momma wouldn't have been hurt. This was your fault. You looked through the glass hospital window at all the men in with your mother. You had seen most of them at the police station. You never knew your father but you sometimes asked about it. Your Mom told you that he was a nice guy. That she didn't know him very well, that sometimes people can mean a lot to each other for a short time. You think about your last Parent-teacher night, your teacher had told you Mother that you lacked a strong father figure; that you are very self-reliant, very independent which was not always a good thing. Your teacher said it was unhealthy to take on adult roles too early, you knew that Momma knew that too well.
Warrick, Nick and Brass were questioning Sara. Laura Sidle was still stuck at San Francisco International Airport, her plane was delayed due to bad weather but Sara's brother, Joshua, had managed to get one from Oakland's international. Joshua was a scruffy, slouching, longhaired vision of male perfection, in his 40's, younger than Grissom but older than Warrick. His liquid gold eyes were patient, restful like the eyes in a painting, fixed and reliable. His face was sharply defined, beautiful features and well-moulded checks. His skin was light bronze and hands, a perfect pale gold. The indigo shades concealing the true depth of eyes that absorbed with colours grey and violet easily. His mane, that tousled and curled, was presentably plaited. Impressions are everything and he had never met anyone that belonged to Sara's world of Las Vegas.
"I think you should hold on to this for a while." J. pulled the handmade necklace over his niece's head. Lorena fingered the uninspiring sparkling crystal and let it drop, her movements full of lacklustre. He shifted her pigtails so they rested in front of her shoulders. He found her to be a very unique girl. He had spent ages trying to convince Lorena she didn't want to play goal keeper. That it was either "boring, boring, boring or oh-my-god, oh-my-god, oh-my-god." There is no getting around her.
"Has your Mom talked to you about what happened?"
She sat forward and dropped her elbows to small knees.
"No, she hasn't talked to me much," Lorena mumbled.
"You should never have to worry about anything more serious than baseball."
"I didn't ask for any of this," words dropped lifelessly out of her mouth, "I just want to be a little girl."
Joshua stood up and moved into Sara's room.
Lorena strained to hear but she picked up certain things from his diplomatic voice.
"Excuse…long…to be…? Your daughter…to talk...do remember you have a daughter?"
He returned and seated himself again, in one gracefully, lean moment next to Lorena. His lips curled in to another opulent smile. "They are just going to ask her a few more questions and then you can go in. Why don't you go tidy yourself up a bit?"
Lorena sighed loudly and hung her head.
"Hi Mom."
Sara looked up to see her tiny brunette meeklyhovering at the door. Sara groaned and sat up, smiling at the girl who yawned deeply.
"Are you tired, baby?"
"A little."
Sara pattered the bed and Lorena walked slowly and gently sat herself upon the hard mattress. Sara took a deep breath. She took Lorena's hand and squeezed it hard. She could feel her blood thundering in her fingertips. To Sara's surprise Lorena's tiny fingers entwined with her other hand.
"I think you have gotten bigger since I last saw you."
"I have?" Lorena looked at her body, she didn't feel any bigger.
"Yeah."
There was a strange, abnormal silence between mother and daughter, it had never been there before.
"Have you met my friends from work?"
"I think so, Catherine is very pretty."
"Who did you meet first?"
"I don't know his name. He wearsglasses and has weird coloured hair.He doesn't talk much. Is he your boyfriend?"
Sara's face had gone from smiling at her descriptions to experiancing shock.She asked her daughter why she thought that.
"He held your hand when you first came in to hospital," Lorena grinned mischievously
"And he kissed you when you were sleeping. He said he hoped it would wake you up because you are a princess." Lorena had said everything so innocently, her eyes often catching with her mother's big brown eyes.
"And it did."
Sara was stunned. There was no other way to describe how she felt.
"Mom?"
"Yes?"
"Is it my fault you are hurt?"
"No, baby, not at all. Don't you ever think that, Lorenna. It's just sometimes bad things happen…and…" Sara had been trying tothink of a wayoftrying to get her daughter to understand without making her upset and ruining her childhood purity. "You know how Grandma had hurt Grandfather in order for him to stop hurting her?" Lorena had been told that story two years ago, when she was five and asking about her grandfather.
"Are you going to be sent away?" Her eyes looked likethey were melting because the oftearsofdespair were too acidic.
"No... but lots of people hurt me very badly and now…" Sara realised she couldn't explain it, not all of. How could she explain something she didn't even understand.
Sara gently put her arms around her and pulled her daughter softly towards her torso and lay back slowly on to her propped up pillow. It hurt Sara so much; it felt like her entire body was contracting and convulsing with pain. But Lorena felt safe for the first time since the attack in the protective harbour of her mother's arms. Although Sara a bruised in different shades of yellow and purple, to Lorena she still seemed soft, and she still smelled like macaroni and cheese.
"Sometimes…the world can seem a very nasty, mean place. But believe me there is more goodness in it than bad. There are more princes than monsters. You have to promise me that you will remember that, Lorena, my sweet brave Lorena." Sara's eyes leaked out brittle tears, frigid like diamonds as she pulled the little girl closer.
"Promise, Mommy, I promise."
