Author's Note: In response to a couple of reviews--I actually have been working on this story for several months now, so I guess my muse is always a little angsty! It likes to bounce back and forth between "Oh, god, the pain" and simply "Oh, god!" I just needed to figure out a direction and do some major editing, so that's why it's appearing now. Keep the faith! It will go good places. And that brings me to my second response...when I said it was a dark story, I did not mean to imply that it will be depressing or violent all the way through--just that some of the things in the dreams are more graphically violent than I usually write, and I wanted my audience to be prepared. Those things being clarified--here comes chapter two! (Also, this chapter should make it clear, but the timeframe for this story is early to mid season five, prior to "Nesting Dolls" and "Committed.") Thanks, as always, for reading!
Disclaimer: Don't sue. I have a CSI tee shirt my husband bought me from Vegas, but that's it. I swear.
Chapter Two: Aftermath
Sara sat up abruptly in bed, her face and body drenched in sweat and tears. Her thin blue pajamas clung to her damply, and she shoved the covers from her, scrambling from the bed and into her bathroom to heave frantically into the toilet. As her dinner and stomach acids revolted up her esophagus and splashed into the pool of water and against the porcelain, she clung with scrabbling fingers to the edge of the seat. It was long minutes before the vomiting subsided, and she could slump against the cool floor of the bathroom. She slowly unbuttoned her pajama top, tugged it from her clammy shoulders. Standing with some help from the bathroom sink, she pushed the matching blue pants down around her ankles and stepped out, reaching over to flush the toilet. Her fingers found the hot water handle of her shower, cranked it on. As the steam rose, she pushed aside the curtain, nearly falling into the boiling water.
She had to turn down the temperature to avoid blistering her skin, but she kept the water as hot as she could stand as she stood under its furious spray. Fifth night in a row. This dream had woken her nearly every night for a week, most of the time after little more than an hour or two of sleep. She was unable to return to bed after each nightmare, too terrified that the terror would repeat, or worse, pick up where it had left off.
Her lips were dry, and she licked them, longing for a nice long pull off a beer bottle wet with condensation, or a sip from a clinking glass of whiskey. But after the dismay of being pulled over and given a breathalyzer test, and the humiliation of being turned over to Grissom like a truant child and taken home to sleep it off by her boss, she was fighting the demonically strong urge to drink. Instead, she fumbled for her bottle of body wash, opened it, and inhaled the clean scents of eucalyptus and spearmint. The smell was woodsy, both sharp and soothing, and she poured a big glob onto a soft white sponge, slowly massaging the suds into her shoulders and chest. Once upon a time, in a steamy shower like this, soap running slickly down her skin, she would have thought of him standing behind her, touching her gently, running his fingers through the damp ribbons of her hair. Now, if she closed her eyes, all she could see was silver chains around his wrists, the odd delicacy of his bare feet, the sensual flow of black silk and cotton over his tanned skin…and blue eyes, piercing and cold, staring into her own as his lover beat her to death.
Her eyes shot open wide, the whites delicately threaded with crimson so prevalent that on Doc Robbins' slab, the phrase "petechial hemorrhaging" would be offered forth as indicative of cause of death. Because, of course, the whip slash across her face would be invisible. She shuddered, the soapy sponge slipping into the hot water pooling around her feet. Fumbling for it, she slipped and sat down hard in the tub, and the tears came again, streaming down her cheeks as animalistic cries slipped out from between her lips. Her hands moved numbly over her body as she sat limp beneath the hot flow of water, scrubbing her feet, her calves, her thighs. She imagined as she sobbed that she could feel the sting of the soap in the dream wounds she had sustained, washing in circles over her thighs and stomach. She lifted the sponge and squeezed, soapy suds dripping down onto her breasts and throat, her sinuses and throat closing with the force of her tears.
The eucalyptus and crying were cathartic, and by the time she could stand again to rinse off, her sobs had slowed, and she could see well enough to reach for a gentle peach face scrub and rub the fruity exfoliating lotion over her skin. She massaged the granules into her forehead, her cheekbones, her temples and her chin. She saw from behind her closed eyes and inside her mind the thick scrub obliterating the raw red slash of Lady Heather's whip mark. She had to stop herself from scrubbing her skin away, so caught up was she in the visualization.
Last, though normally she would have done it first, she worked lathery shampoo into her short dark hair, the scent of lavender beginning to overpower the mint and woodsy tones of her body wash. A rinse, a layer of conditioner, another rinse, and she shut off the rapidly cooling water, standing still for a moment to listen to the drip of water beads sliding off her skin and hair and plummeting to the damp surface beneath her feet.
From the back of the bathroom door she tugged down a plush white towel, tipped her head upside down and wound it around her hair the way her mother had taught her to when she was a little girl. Another towel, this one an extra-thick bath sheet, she wrapped around her body and tucked in securely above her left breast. She moved slowly out into the living room, the kitchen, and set her teapot on the stove filled with tap water. She would make some hot chocolate, as she had every night for the past five nights, trying to avoid the beer and stronger liquors that called to her from her refrigerator and cabinets. Actually, it was about 10 am, but even though the sun and moon continued on their linguistically-dictating course for the rest of the world, she could not seem to wrap her mind and tongue around the correct light-based phrasing for her life. She worked at night; she slept during the day. But when she left the lab every morning—or afternoon, sometimes—she still said goodnight. Everyone did.
Blinds and shades darkened her apartment to a degree where she could pretend it was night, that she was not on a humanly abnormal cycle, but sadly it just meant that almost everywhere she went, every time she went, it was various shades of darkness—inky black, dusky purple, velvety indigo. Appropriate, maybe, to live in perpetual shadow. She was not sure.
The pot whistled, drawing her out of her morose reverie, and she pulled a packet of instant cocoa out of the cupboard and dumped its contents into an enormous mug, covering the pale brown dust with hot water and then, from her fridge, a small amount of whole organic milk. She no longer ate meat or even fish since Grissom's experiments had made her nauseated at even the thought of pork or ground beef, but dairy products were still her downfall, and kept her from calling herself vegan. She dipped a silvery spoon into the cup and stirred, first counterclockwise, then clockwise, then counterclockwise again. Satisfied, she lifted it to her lips and took a tentative sip.
TBC...