Trigger warning: details of physical and sexual child abuse
Avery 10 years old
Avery had her knees pulled up to her chest again, her main defense mechanism, as she clung to Grissom's arm in the chair beside her. She hadn't looked up from the floor in at least ten minutes.
"Hey, Avery," Grissom said softly to her. "Everything will be okay. I know this isn't fair to you and you shouldn't have to do this, but we need to make sure that no one else can be hurt like you were."
Silent tears rolled down the child's face and Grissom silently wiped at her cheeks. He could feel the anxiety coming off of her in waves. Her sapphire eyes reflecting just how terrified she was.
Avery still barely spoke to anyone so the judge had to make a list of yes or no questions for the child. Grissom knew that she could talk and actually had a fairly large vocabulary considering she hadn't been taught to read or write.
The door to the chamber opened suddenly and Avery jumped accidentally digging her nails into Grissom's arm. "Sorry," she said quickly as her bottom lip quivered.
"It's okay," Grissom told her reassuringly.
The blonde clerk came over and knelt in front of Avery. "Alright sweetheart, it's time for you to come and answer some questions for us, okay?"
Grissom felt the pressure on his arm increase before it lightened again and he looked over to see the child staring at him. "I will be there right there with you," he told her gently. "I just have to stand on the other side of that railing like we talked about. I'm not leaving you."
Avery broke her stare before she took the blonde's hand. The woman led her down the hallway and to the door for the courtroom. She gave Avery a smile and then led her into the room and got her settled in the witness seat. Avery's breathing increased as she saw her mother sitting at the table with her lawyer.
"Avery," the judge called gently. "Are you ready now to answer some questions?"
Avery nodded, her eyes shifting to Grissom who was standing where he said he would be.
"Avery, do you see your mother in this room?" Avery nodded. "Okay, can you point to her for us?" Avery again did as she was asked.
"When you were living with your mother, did she ever hurt you?"
"Yes." Her small voice was barely more than a squeal.
"Did she allow other people to hurt you?" Another affirmative. "Did she do a lot of drugs when you were around?"
"Yes."
"Did a lot of different men do the drugs with her?"
Avery's face was soaked with tears at this point, the liquid making the light dusting of freckles across her cheek stand out. "Yes."
"Were any of the people who your mom did drugs with nice to you?"
"No." Her whole body was shaking as she tried to control her fear. Her gaze constantly switched between Grissom and the floor, never looking at the judge or her mother.
"Did she allow them to touch you in inappropriate ways in order to get the drugs?" A small shake of her head. "Was your mother present during those encounters?"
"No."
"Last question, honey, even though your mother wasn't in the room when these men would touch you, did she ever put a camera out to record them?"
"Yes." Avery's breathing had intensified. She was having trouble taking in a full breath causing her to hyperventilate.
"Avery!" Grissom called to her seeing the beginning of one of her panic attacks.
"Daddy!" Her scream was loud and filled with terror.
Grissom felt his feet moving and was over the railing before Avery had even got out of the witness chair. She had never called him that before. They met in the middle of the floor and Avery jumped into his arms. Her legs were wrapped around his waist, arms surrounding his neck, as she sobbed into his shoulder. Grissom made soothing noises against her head as he swayed gently trying to calm her.
"That little bitch is lying!"
Grissom turned sharply to look at Avery's mom, one hand on the back of her head so Avery wouldn't look at her.
"She liked being with those men!"
"Mr. Daniels control your client," the judge ordered.
Before anyone could react, Avery's mom jumped across the table and grabbed a handful of her daughter's long curls. Avery's scream was ear piercing as her head was jerked harshly with Grissom refusing to let go. The baliff yanked her mother away from her, two other officers coming to help subdue and handcuff the woman. Grissom immediately turned and walked out of the courtroom, trying to get Avery as far away as possible from her mother and the horrible words she was screaming out.
Grissom sat on a bench away from the room, rocking and staying with Avery. He waved off the court clerk and the social worker as he tried to calm Avery down before she had a full blown panic attack.
She pulled back a little after she had finally calmed down and looked at Grissom. By this point the collar and shoulder of his shirt had been soaked by her tears.
"Daddy?"
"Yes, my dear?"
"Can we go home now?"
Grissom let out a breath he didn't realize he had been holding. "Yes, Avery, yes we can go home now."
Grissom stared in contempt at Avery's mother as she told the parole board about how well she was doing and could be rehabilitated because she would never go back to jail if they paroled her.
Sara sat beside him, her fingers interlocked with his as she tried to calm the distress coming in waves off of him. Since she was only a support person she wouldn't be allowed to talk at the hearing but she was able to be there for Grissom.
He had made the decision not to tell Avery about the parole hearing. He didn't want to have to see that look of terror in her eyes that had taken so long to go away. So he sat there in her place to protect her from the one person who should have loved and protected her from the start.
"Thank you, Ms. Martin. Today we have a Gilbert Grissom who is going to speak on behalf of the victim, Avery Martin."
Grissom squeezed Sara's hand before he got up and moved to the podium in the front. "I'm here today to speak about my daughter, Avery Grissom, formally Martin. I was at the house the night that Ms. Martin was shot and later arrested. I remember the day vividly, walking into the house, seeing the bodies on the ground and I was shocked to see this tiny child sitting on the couch in the middle of all of this chaos. She was only nine and had been systematically beaten and tortured for years. She couldn't read, she couldn't write, didn't know her numbers and it wasn't due to any fault of Avery's, it fell on the neglectfulness of Ms. Martin."
Sara could hear the anger and sorrow in his voice as he took a small pause to take a deep breath. Sara took a chance to look at Avery's mom and wanted to strangle her as she realized the woman didn't show an ounce of remorse for what she did to Avery.
"That first night when I had her at my house before taking her to social services, she sought me out. Instead of sleeping in a warm, soft bed, she chose to sleep on a cold, hard floor beside my couch because it was next to me. Because I was the only one who had made her feel safe her entire life. The next morning I had to take her to the doctor checkup that is required through social services. A full exam showed that Avery was half of the weight that a child her age should be, at that time unbeknownst to me since she didn't show any outwards signs of pain, she was suffering from four fractures ribs, two dislocated fingers, and a broken collarbone. She had lacerations and contusions on 70% of her body."
Sara almost jumped up to hug him as his voice caught and he had to take a steadying breath before he continued.
"She was barely nine years old and the doctors found vaginal and rectal lacerations consistent with rough sexual assault. She had heroin in her system, her bones showed signs of multiple breaks that were never treated by a doctor or probably anybody. She wouldn't make eye contact and refused to speak even though she was able to. I was told that she would more than likely become a write off. They said that she had suffered too much abuse for her brain to fully comprehend everything that happened to her and she would probably have to be committed to an institution due to severe mental anguish."
Grissom looked to the side at Avery's mom noting how she seemed indifferent and almost bored at the abuse she has laid on her daughter.
"I loved her from the start," he continued. "I fostered her, I taught her to read and write. She thrived under my care, but that's not to say every day was easy. She had episodes where she would just scream whenever I came near her. Avery suffered from severe panic attacks which required hospitalization twice. She had nightmares and was on an almost unbelievable amount of medication both for her physical and mental health."
Sara admired Grissom and what he had gone through to try and help Avery. She had heard bits and pieces of the early years from both of them, but she hadn't known how bad it truly had been. If anything his dedication to this child he didn't even know made her love him even more.
"This is Avery at nine years old." Grissom held up a picture taken at the hospital showing how truly thin she was almost like a skin covered skeleton. The hospital gown him off of her gaunt frame, her arm was casted, had a patch covering her severely injured eye from her mom's boyfriend hitting her with the butt of his gun. She didn't smile or acknowledge the camera at all, instead just stared straight ahead at a wall. He put the picture down and picked up another to show them. "Avery today. She is this beautiful, amazing, smart woman. Unless she told you, you would never know how the first years of her life were spent. She graduated high school a year early and immediately went into college. Graduated with honors. She's an amazing criminalist and I believe that she will one day be lab director of the Las Vegas Crime Lab."
Grissom looked back over at Avery's mom. "This is who she is in spite of you and what you did to her. You were supposed to love her unconditionally." He looked back to the board. "I don't think Ms. Martin here has spent enough time paying for what her dau- I mean my daughter endured. I honestly feel like releasing her will put Avery in direct danger. This woman has already shown that she cares nothing for a young child and has threatened her life throughout the years. For those reasons alone she can't be released. Thank you."
Grissom turned and walked away from the podium only stopping long enough to hold a hand out to Sara as he hastily made his way out of the building. Once outside he bent over as the nausea he had been feeling threatened to turn into more. Sara stood beside him, rubbing his back in a comforting gesture. They made their way over to the car after he started to feel better, Sara insisting she should drive.
Sara watched him periodically throughout the drive him. He hadn't broken contact with her since they left the hearing, keeping his hand in hers or on her leg when she needed both hands to drive. Sara didn't mind. They both craved physical touch from one another when they needed to be comforted.
"You're an amazing man," Sara commented. They would be back in Las Vegas soon and she would be able to get him home and in a bath to calm the distress he was still feeling. "Not many people would have taken in a child like that and fought tooth and nail to be able to adopt them. Most people would have considered her damaged goods."
Grissom made a grunt of agreement. "They didn't want me to adopt her because I was a single, 26 year old workaholic. But I knew without a doubt she was meant to be mine." He pulled their locked hands over and placed a kiss on Sara's. "Plus because of her, I met you. I only did that lecture at the college that day so I had an excuse to come and see her without her accusing me of smothering her," he explained with a smile.
"Well, then, maybe we should throw her a party as thanks for all the amazing sex we've had and the much more to come."
Grissom blushed and looked out the window. "You can talk about anything, can't you?"
"With you, yes. Because I love you."
.
Before he can answer her his phone rings. "Grissom."
Sara glanced over to see Grissom's hardened expression as he listened to the other end of the phone. He didn't speak a word, just listened, until he hung the phone up. His hand had tightened almost painfully around hers.
"Please tell me they didn't..." Sara let her sentence end.
"After all of that they granted her parole." He was shocked. Shocked and angry and scared for his daughter. "How am I supposed to tell Avery that this horrible person can hurt her again?"
"She won't hurt her," Sara told him gently. "No one is going to let that woman get anywhere near Avery. She will be safe."
Grissom stared straight ahead, a haunted look on his face. "They said that because now Avery is an adult they don't believe that she will try and hurt her. That she is only a danger to Avery if she was a dependent. Why would they do this?"
Sara didn't get to respond as there was an echoing boom that surrounded them and in the distance of Las Vegas a huge fire cloud was mixing with the dusk sky.