AN: Okay, some may think that Sara would not tell Catherine her past so quickly (it took her six years to tell Grissom), but I believe in how close two women can really become if something just finally clicks. Plus, they're both inebriated just now. ; ) So please read and enjoy and review, I don't mind... I just want to know what you think about it.
Disclaimer: I don't own CSI, CBS does. I don't own the songs. Their owners are specified.
The Red Rose and the White Lily
A Series of Perspectives: Part IV
"Everybody's Got a Story"
Its the human condition that keeps us apart
Everybody's got a story that could break your heart
Yeah everybody's got a story that could break your heart
Amanda Marshall
I don't know what is making me trust Catherine with my secrets… with my past, but something tells me that I can. That she won't stare at me with pity, but instead, she will come to understand me a bit more. She's one of those "secret-keeper" people that you can just release a burden to without worrying that it might make the evening news. I'm also sufficiently drunk enough to risk it.
"My parents were born into the age of 'free love.'"
"They were hippies?" She certainly sounded surprised, and I guess that I've tried my best to be completely different from them.
"Yeah, you can say that. Except, they became ex-hippies soon enough. They had just opened the bed and breakfast when my older brother Shane was born. Everything was still fine back then. Enough so that the B&B really had no trouble getting off the ground, and my parents still seemed like everyday sort-of people. There was nothing about them above average… There was nothing about Shane that was above average. He did okay in school and excelled in baseball in the same sense as every other kid around the block at his age. He was seven when I was born. I was my parents' little child prodigy." Even saying that left a bitter taste in my mouth. "I think the trouble started then."
"I grew up thinking that I had the best older brother in the world. He helped me relax and live my life when it felt like my parents were choking me. They wanted the best for their little girl. Their little daughter who understood math and finances well enough that by age eight planned a future for their B&B. They paid my way through the best schools even though I had a rough time at most of them, not really fitting in anywhere. I sometimes felt like it was my fault that my parents started having some financial problems. Plus, I also had a younger brother born only two years after me… His name was Samuel, but everyone called him little Sammy." I couldn't help the smile as I remembered the cute, little brown haired boy that would spend the afternoons following me around the B&B pretending to be a duck. "It began to strain their relationship. It started out as yelling, but soon, my parents started getting abusive, especially since my father fell for the bottle." I stared down at the amber liquid in my glass… It was liquid sin, but it could also be a miracle drug as I've discovered. You can just drown your problems away… "They mostly took out their anger on each other, and only once did my father strike any of his children in a drunken rage. He had slapped me across the cheek when I accidentally rammed into him in the hall playing tag with my little brother. My mother saw and pulled me away. She told my father that if he ever raised another hand to any of his children, she would kill him. I should have guessed then where it would lead. I've already seen the hospitals more than once, but I, in all my naivety, would never have thought that it would lead to two visits to the morgue."
"I was eleven when the last straw broke. My dad had picked Sammy up from violin practice, he loved that instrument for some reason, and wasn't entirely sober… To put it simply, there was an accident, my dad was drunk but pulled through, but Sammy…" I could feel the tears running down my face, and I couldn't stop them. "He didn't make it. He died on the way to ER from massive internal bleeding. After the funeral, no one was ever the same again. Shane became angry and more overprotective of me than ever before, dad looked dead and started attending AA meetings, but mom… Looking back now, I should have realized something was going to happen. There was a madness that had been growing in my mother's eyes ever since Sammy's death. The seed had already been planted, but it was my brother's death that caused it to germinate. Then, the night came…"
I could hear my voice forfeiting the details to a memory long etched vividly into my mind, burned into my brain. What hits me the strongest was the haunting melody of one of Chopin's Nocturnes wafting through the house that night. I should have realized it then because my mom hated classical music, but it was one of Sammy's favorites, the one he constantly tried playing for dad on his violin. I could still hear each individual note as it kept me awake that night, filled me with fear and trepidation. I could hear the voices and struggling through the floor of my bedroom, and I stared at the door… waiting to be dragged to the hospital again, but it wasn't mom or dad that came in after the silence took over… It was Shane, and his face was ghost white. He told me to lock my door and never open it unless I heard our secret knock. I had nodded without a sound. He hugged me then and sobbed into my hair. Then, he pulled away and went out the door… I could hear the sirens when the police and paramedics arrived, and for the first time, I disobeyed my brother. I sneaked outside and down the stairs clutching my doll in my arms. When, I turned the corner into the living room, all I saw was a mess… Nothing to remind me of what it once was. I didn't see anyone except faceless blurs in white. I could hear my brother yelling at a detective.
"I don't care about your freakin' theories. I just want the freakin' truth. Did she or did she not kill my dad?"
I knew that he meant mom, and even as I watched them cart a sheet-covered body away, I knew the answer to his question. Numb, I sneaked back into my room and lay on my bed waiting for the nightmare to be over. "I didn't cry a single tear that night or at the funeral. I didn't even cry when I found out after the trial that my mom would be put into a mental asylum and that I would be given away to complete strangers. Reality finally crashed into me when Social Services separated me from my brother. I realized then that my family was gone, that my own mother had killed my father… I cried and screamed and fought with tooth and nail that day when they dragged me out of the room. Social Services soon relinquished all responsibility for me after tossing me into the foster care system. I never heard what happened to my brother after that. I couldn't find him."
"The rest of it, you know. I went to Harvard, learned how to function again at least, graduated, and landed a job as CSI in San Francisco where I stayed until I came here." My voice shook badly as I finished, and I couldn't look at Catherine. I wondered, "What's going to happen now?"
Catherine squeezed my hand gently. I hadn't even noticed when it got there. "Sara, you know that it wasn't your fault, right?"
"Yes, I know, but it's hard that even after twenty-four years of telling myself that it wasn't my fault, that I'm not a murderer, I still wonder every other night whether my family would have been better off if I had never been born."
"That's not true Sara Sidle, and you better know it. The predisposition for a failed relationship was most likely already there. You had nothing to do with it. You can't help it if your father was an alcoholic or if your mother was unstable. It has nothing to do with you as a human, and it should, therefore, have no impact on your future potential. Sara, don't lose yourself to your past because then, you lose your present and future as well. Remember, we're all here for you… me, Gris, Nick, Warrick, Greg… all of us."
I gave her a weak smile. "Thanks Cath."
I'm glad she's here, and I'm glad I've told her. It felt like I've drained some of the poison that's been seeping into my soul for the past twenty-four years, and I feel so relieved all of a sudden that I'm not isolated and alone in my own little world just crying my eyes out. For the first time in a long while, I really feel the support holding under my feet, and I feel ready to test the waters in life again. I feel warm.
"Still Under the Weather"My first lesson in losing a love was you
Learning to live with your memory was lesson number two
And I can't lie, baby
I still cry sometimes
But I've come a long way
Towards gettin' you out of my mind
I'm still under the weather
But I'm over the storm
I still miss the shelter
Of your loving arms
But what I thought would kill me
Has just made me strong
I'm still under the weather
But I'm over the storm
Shania Twain