Chapter XI
Hurt and Comfort
The empty condolences and senseless phrases of comfort that she become so used to giving others seemed pointless. This was Sara. In her own words, Sara-Off-The-Deep-End-Sidle. Over the years, since Sara had come to Vegas, Catherine had thrown many acid-laced, razor-honed barbs at the woman across from her. She'd thought she'd had Sara's number. She had been Grissom's pet. A know-it-all, naive busybody who'd been out for her job. The woman sitting across from her was none of those things. Sara Sidle, the real Sara, was brilliant, compassionate, and stronger then anyone she'd ever known. She was also hurt, deeply and forever scared by the bitch that had been nothing more than a genetic donor and a murderer. Laura Sidle didn't deserve the title "mother". From what Catherine had just heard, she was a walking advertisement for the death penalty.
She looked at Sara. She'd seen the woman angry; shove-a-suspect-on-a-scene angry. She'd seen her shocked and scared, when they'd found out about her centerfold. She'd even seen Sara sad, when That-Bastard-Hank had pulled his crap with her. This, though, this was something else all together. It wasn't Sara Sidle, CSI sitting across the booth from her. It was a thirteen-year-old victim with no one to hold on to. Though she knew the grown woman would sneer and pull away, Catherine left her side of the booth and moved to Sara's. She looped her arm around Sara's too-stiff shoulders and, though Sara barely acknowledged her, Catherine knew that she was grateful. She gently tugged at the woman, pulling her into a hug. She laid her head against Sara's. "Oh, Sweetie, I don't know what to say...but I'm not letting you go home alone today." She could actually feel the protest brewing in Sara's inhaled breath. "No arguments, Sara. You're coming home with me. Besides, Lindsey could use a Saturday tutor."
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She didn't turn away. She wasn't disgusted or repulsed; she didn't give her the look. Catherine had hugged her close and offered, no demanded, that she come home with her. Home, to Catherine's home with Catherine's Lindsey. She wasn't hiding her daughter away, or gently letting Sara down with a white lie.
Sara remembered all too well, what had happened after that night. The story of the Sidle Homicide had spread through the small town like a wild fire. She had gone from being 'That Girl from the Trashy Sidle Family' to 'The Girl Whose Mother Stabbed Her Father to Death'. It spread around school, how she was the daughter of a murderer. Was there a murder gene? She still didn't know. What she did know was that she'd instantly become an Untouchable. No one spoke to her unless it was to remind her of that night; to taunt her. Even the teachers backed away. They'd watched her like a hawk, waiting for her to snap. Parents had carefully eased their young children around her, giving her a wide bearth. Foster Parents didn't really want her in their homes; they were afraid of her. No one said it, but she knew. She could see it in their eyes. She could hear their whispers, even though they thought she could not. As if a single raised hand that halfway covered their flapping mouths could shield her from their gossip. She'd never been right in the head, they said. Why, hadn't her brother been sent off to juvie? A bad apple doesn't fall far from the tree. That's what she had been considered in the small and conservative seaside hamlet of Tamales Bay - the bad apple.
For a long, long time, that's what she had believed she was. She had worried that she was a murderess in waiting. She had feared the poison that was in her DNA. The vicious violence that had to run in her blood. She had learned to clamp down tight on her temper, on all of her feelings. She couldn't let herself become Laura.
She would never be her parents, she'd kill herself first.
Catherine was not the first to offer her a kind hand, but she had been the last she'd expected to do so, which made it all the more confusing…and more healing.