A/N: Thank you SO much to those of you who have taken the time to read and review this fic!
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Disclaimer: I do not own any part of CSI or its characters. That honor goes to the good folks over at CBS. Thanks also goes to QuoththeRaven, for letting me incorporate her The Life & Times of Sara Sidle into this chapter.
Title: Sara's Story
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"So… you want to know about my deepest fear…?" Sara asked, staring down at the empty tinfoil wrappers littering the ground around Grissom's feet. "Okay, I'm afraid that I will slip further into depression… and become more self-destructive, until I have no more self to actually destroy…" she said, her words hanging in the silent air. "Grissom…?" Sara then asked. "Are you… sure… that you actually want me to talk about all of this…?"
"We're all here to listen, Sara," he replied. "You tell us whatever you want to tell us, and we will listen… non-judgmentally."
"Okay…" Sara sighed, looking at the fire. "Well… I, uh… don't do this whole sharing thing very well, so… whatever I say… it stays here, around this fire. Is that… understood…?"
"Of course, Sara…" Nick replied.
"Absolutely," Warrick told her.
"You betcha," Greg added.
"We're just here to listen, Sara," Catherine quietly said.
"Right. So… cough drops are my favorite food…" Sara mumbled.
"I don't… understand…" Greg said, looking up at her.
"I like to suck on cough drops… for breakfast, for lunch, for dinner, before bed…"
Nick looked puzzled, as he stared across the fire at Sara.
"Cough drops… cover up the smell of… alcohol…" she explained, kicking a pebble away from herself. "And for awhile now, I've been doing a lot of drinking…"
"But… I don't understand," Greg repeated. "Why…?"
"Greg…?" Grissom warned. "Tread lightly," he mouthed to him. Greg nodded back, indicating that he understood.
"Because I have so much anger, and so much sorrow, that… I don't know what to do about it anymore. And… the alcohol makes it go away. Well, for a couple of minutes, anyhow."
"Sara…" Catherine started to say, but stopped herself, frowning.
"Sara… why didn't you say anything to us…Why didn't you tell us that you were hurting so badly?" Nick quietly asked, still looking at her.
"What did you want me to say, Nick…?" she replied. "Hey guys, I want to die, but instead, I think I'll just drink myself silly…? That my childhood was so horrible, that… there is nothing else that I can do to make the memories go away…?"
"What… was so bad about your childhood?" Nick quietly asked, resting his elbows on his knees, and looking over at her. Glancing around the fire, he once again noticed that his friends were staring at anything but Sara: their hands, the fire, stones by their feet, the stars. They were trying to process what she was saying, he knew, but… he also realized that their actions were inadvertently pushing her away.
"The answer to that question is probably much more than you've bargained for…" Sara mumbled, looking at Nick.
"Go ahead, though," Greg finally spoke up. "We won't judge, remember…?"
"Okay…" Sara sighed. "So…I don't want… to be like my mother. She, uh," she nervously said, "She, uh… killed my father one night, when he came home drunk. Again."
Warrick looked up at Sara, squinting. "For real…?" he asked, shocked.
Sara just nodded. "My father… he wasn't the best…" she said, wrapping her arms around herself to keep warm. "He was… pretty abusive…towards me…" she trailed off.
Catherine finally looked up at Sara, once again frowning. "Verbally..? Or physically…? Or…?" Physical abuse was something that she herself was familiar with.
"'Or…'" Sara replied, lowering her gaze to the ground again. "He used to come into my room when I was young… six, maybe…? Why… are we talking about this, Grissom…?" she then asked. "Why are you making us do this…?"
"I'm not making anyone do anything," Grissom carefully replied. "It's… whatever you feel comfortable sharing with us…or not sharing with us… but this weekend is about getting to know one another. What makes us tick... what makes us…break…"
"What makes us crazy…" Sara supplied.
"You're not crazy, Sara…" Nick firmly told her.
"Oh, no?" she asked, angrily wiping away a tear before it had the chance to slide down her cheek. "I'm not crazy? Are you sure, Nick?" she asked him. "Because my entire family is crazy… I might have the crazy gene in me…" she added, as more tears threatened to spill down her face. "My father used me when I was young, my mother ignored what was going on under her very own roof, my brother didn't bother to take the time to protect me, and I'm not crazy?" she repeated, as the tears started to flow.
"You're not crazy, Sara," Nick repeated, as he slowly stood up, and walked towards her.
"What are you doing?" Sara asked, glancing up at him. "Stay over there! What are you doing?" she repeated
Catherine's gaze went from Nick, to Sara, and then back to Nick again, while Greg ran a shaky hand through his hair.
"Nick," Warrick quietly said, shaking his head no.
But Nick didn't listen to any of them. "You're not crazy, Sara…" he whispered, sitting down on the log next to her, and slowly wrapping an arm around her shoulders.
"I don't need you, Nick! What are you doing?"
"Yes, you do need me. You need all of us," he told her, as he gently drew her body towards him, his other arm encircling her neck. "And we're here for you…"
Sara tried to pull away from Nick, feebly pushing against his chest to get away.
"Don't run away from us, Sara…" he said, as his hand gently rubbed her back. "It's okay…"
"Nick…" Grissom warned, as he watched Sara try to once again push away from him.
"Nick, maybe you should just let go…" Catherine started to say, but it was already too late.
Sara, her body wracked in sobs, threw herself back into Nick's arms, burying her head against his chest.
"It's okay, Sara…" he whispered, as he pulled her closer to him. As he continued to gently rub her back with one hand, his other hand moved up to the back of her head. Slowly running his fingers through her hair, he repeated, "It's okay…"
Sara just clung to Nick, shaking. "I remember… everything…" she whispered. "How… I thought that what my father was doing was normal… how… my father looked, dead, at my mother's feet. I can remember… the sirens of the police cars as they came speeding down my street… and the disgusted looks on the faces of my neighbors, as they watched them take me away. I…" Sara added, starting to sob again.
Nick looked down at Sara, wrapping his arm more tightly around her shoulders. "It's okay…" he whispered.
Angrily wiping another tear away, Sara continued. "I remember the fear that I felt as they took me into foster care, even though I don't really remember who 'they' were… I just…" she sighed, staring down at the ground, and trying to avoid the gazes of her friends. "And I remember what…he… felt like. Not my father, but my… foster brother…" she whispered, wiping some more of her tears away. "Because foster care is not what it's cracked up to be…"
"Sara, did someone… hurt you in foster care…?" Catherine quietly asked, starting to put the puzzle pieces together.
Sara nodded, leaning against Nick, who was still gently running his fingers through her hair. "My foster parents went out one night, and Matthew, my foster brother… he… called me into his room," she whispered, "and he… r-r-raped me…" she said, closing her eyes. "And I couldn't get away. I tried, so hard, but I couldn't get away…" she added, barely above a whisper. "And you know what the worst thing about all of it was…?" she asked everyone.
"What…?" Catherine quietly asked.
"They… were supposed to be my family. My father… my mother…my brother… they hurt me. And then my foster family… they hurt me, too. The people who were supposed to love and protect me… they were the ones who hurt me the most."
Nick swallowed, not sure what to say. Even Greg, for once, was completely silent. "And then at the asylum…" Sara continued, "When I got locked in the room with Adam… and he…" she trailed off. "I just can't take it anymore. I can't…it's too much. I want to…"
"You don't want to do that, Sara…" Catherine whispered, watching her with Nick. "That's… not the answer."
"What isn't the answer…?" Greg quietly asked Warrick, who looked just as confused as he felt.
"Suicide?" Warrick asked. "Are you talking about killing yourself..?" he asked Sara, looking over at Grissom. "If you are, that isn't the way to deal with it…"
"Then what is the way?" Sara whispered, not moving out of Nick's arms. "You tell me, because… I can't do it anymore…"
Greg cleared his throat. "We can be your cough drop…"
"What…?" Warrick asked, once again confused.
"The cough drop… helps take care of the after effects of drinking, right…? It helps deal with the problem…?" Everyone except Nick and Sara nodded. "We can be your cough drop, Sara… lean on us for support…we can help you deal with the after effects of your childhood…"
"I… don't know how to trust you, though…" Sara whispered. "I just don't."
"We'll help you," Nick told her, gently rubbing her back. "We won't let anything happen to you. We're your family, Sar…"
"But… that's just it," Sara whispered, closing her eyes. "You're not my real family… you're not my flesh and blood."
"A family, Sara," Grissom spoke up, "Can also be defined as a group of people who share similar values and goals…"
"And who care about one another, whether or not they share a common ancestor," Catherine added. "What he's trying to say, Sara," she clarified, "Is that we care about you… and we're here for you…"
"Definitely…" Warrick agreed.
"For always…" Greg put in.
Nick just continued to run his fingers through Sara's hair, looking around the fire at the faces of his friends.
"Then don't let go of me…" she whispered to Nick, as she once again buried her head against his chest, sobbing.
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TO BE CONTINUED
