Love Is Your Color

Chapter 15: Bringing Up The Past

The waddling had started. Roxie couldn't walk anywhere without waddling there. She found herself waddling through the halls of Dessert Palm hospital, but not for herself, but for work. It was one of the few occasions that she could get out of the lab for work. Tonight she had the task of collecting an SAE kit because nobody else was available to process a sexual assault victim. She found herself in a curtained room with a young woman. The young woman looked so afraid. Roxie gave her a weak smile as she came in and opened her box.

"Hi…Chelsea. My name is Roxie... CSI Roxie Stokes. I'm here to collect any evidence from you and just give you a little check-up. It will help nail who did this to you." Roxie said kindly as she put on her gloves. "First we will start simple and I'll take photos of your injuries. Is that okay?"

"Okay." Chelsea said weakly. Roxie let out a sigh as she took her camera and started snapping photos of injuries on Chelsea.

"Alright Chelsea I'm going to take this plastic piece here and scrap under your nails for any trace from your attackers." Roxie said. Chelsea nodded and handed Roxie her hand. Roxie started working on Chelsea's nail.

"Why did this happen to me?" Chelsea asked. "I've always been a good girl. I don't party or wear skirts too short. I stay to myself…Why?" Roxie felt her heart jump into her throat. She closed her eyes for a second trying to hold her tears back. She knew exactly how Chelsea felt and it broke every part of her heart. She then folded the paper with the trace from the hand she finished and put it in her box before just sitting there and just looking at Chelsea.

"You know Chelsea… I can't tell you exactly why, but I can say there are some sick assholes in this world and they don't care. They don't care who they hurt and how they hurt them. They just want us to feel pain, but that pain eventually fades with time and healing. You'll get past this…. You will get past it and I know you will. I know because I was there. I was here in this hospital with some lady I didn't know scraping my nails and taking photos of me. You'll survive. I promise you will." Tears were now falling from Roxie's eyes. She gave Chelsea a weak smile.

"Did they catch the guy who hurt you?" Chelsea asked. Roxie simply shook her head.

"No, but as long as I am working this case I'm going to do my best to make sure we catch the guy who did this to you. I'm not supposed to make any promises, but I promise you I will do my best." Roxie said.

Roxie returned to the lab feeling broken inside. She dropped off the kit where it needed to go and she found herself wandering. Just wandering around the lab looking for her husband. She needed her husband in that single moment. She found him in the break room on the couch. Without a word she sat next to him and put her head on his chest. She started to cry and she cried hard. Nick was confused. He had no idea why Roxie was so upset. He knew her hormones were going off the rails lately. Just the day before he left a dirty plate in the sick and she cried over it. He just wrapped his arms around her and allowed her to cry. It has been a long shift and he figured that she was just burnt out.

"Shhh Rox. I'm sure whatever it is. It isn't a big deal." Nick said as she rubbed her arm trying to help her feel better about whatever it had been.

"It is a big deal." Roxie affirmed at once. "I felt like I just looked into my own eyes when I was at the hospital processing that girl. I knew her pain and I understood her questions. I was that girl once. An innocent young girl who kept to herself and one night one person decided to violate me to the extent of violation. That one night when all I was doing was coming home late from the library and …. And I was raped."

"Roxie." Nick said then pulling her up and looking into her eyes. "You've never told me any of this."

"I lock it away. I keep that part of me. That part of my life hidden away. Not really something to chat about casually. The thing is I have collected plenty of SAE kits in my time as a CSI, but my past never really hit me until tonight. Maybe it's the pregnancy or maybe tonight was the night I was going to face it again, but it hurts." Roxie said looking at him.

"Oh Rox…sweetie. I understand. We see a lot on this job and sometimes we see it so much we get desensitized to it until that one case slaps us in the face and takes us back to places we'd rather forget. It happens to the best of us babe." Nick said. His mind went back to that case that took him back. The case that took him back to being a little boy who was molested by his babysitter. He could feel Roxie's pain and he knew where she was coming from.

"I'm tired and it's time to go home. Can we go?" Roxie asked looking at him.

"We can definitely go." Nick said as she stood and pulled up his pregnant wife. He put his hand on her belly. He felt Sophia kick his hand. "Yeah Sophia we are going home." Then Nick's cell phone beeped. He looked down at it and groaned. "Well I'm not going home. I've got a 419 off of Fremont Street. I guess I'll see you later."

Roxie frowned. This really wasn't the morning she wanted to go home alone. She let out a sigh. She stood on the tips of her toes and gave Nick a quick kiss. She didn't know when she was going to see him because his shift had obviously become a double. She watched him leave. If she wasn't pregnant she would have a very strong drink, but alas she had baby Sophia to think of. She slowly made her way to the locker room to get her things.

The house was quite when she arrived at home. She made her way through the dark to the couch and just sat there. She starred off into space just thinking. She thought back to that night when she was 19 and a student at WLVU. It was the week of Midterms and she stayed must later than she wanted to at the library, but she was determined to ace her biology midterm. She decided to take a shortcut to her dorm room and she was grabbed. She remembered trying to fight her attacker off of her. She remembered the pain, not just physical, but emotional that she felt in those moments. Though that single moment in time is what gave her the desire to be a CSI. From that moment she wanted to solve crimes like the one that had been committed against her and she wanted to use science to do it. Could that have been fate? She would have never met Nick if from that even she hadn't decided to be a CSI. Suddenly she felt a giant kick from within. She put her hand on her belly.

"Oh Sophia." Roxie said as she held her belly and lied down on the couch. She slowly drifted to sleep.

Nick walked into the alley where his crime scene was. Sara was already there along with Dave. He walked up to where Dave was kneeled. There was the body of what appeared to be a young woman. He sat his kit down and sighed. This never seemed to get easier even though he pretended that it did.

"What do we have here Super Dave?" Nick asked.

"Female. She has a Dessert Palm hospital bracelet. She was hospitalized or in the ER recently. The named on the bracelet is Chelsea Matthews." Dave said as he lifted her arm. Nick took his camera and took a picture of the bracelet.

"Well I processed the alley. Nothing special." Sara said as she approached Nick.

"Well if you guys are ok I'm going to get this body out of here." Dave said.

"Yeah take her away." Nick said.

"I think I will head to the hospital to see if we can get anything from them about her." Sara said.

"Yeah I will do a double check of the alley and head back to the lab." Nick said as he looked down at the body. "This never gets easier." He then said with a sigh.

"Not really." Sara commented as she placed her hand on his shoulder for a moment before she walked away.

Nick stood over the lighted table examining the clothes that his vic was wearing. She was obviously a college student as she was wearing a WLVU hoodie and sweatpants. He took some fibers from her sweatshirt and put them in an evidence jar. Sara then came in the room with a folder in her hand.

"The hospital gave me stuff and DNA just got back to me. Chelsea Matthews was raped last night. She went into the ER hysterical. A CSI was sent to process her. The nurse didn't know the CSI's name, but said it was a young pregnant, black girl with short hair. Obviously it was Roxie and I pulled the SAE kit. It was Roxie." Sara explained.

"Wait this is the girl." Nick then said. "Roxie was all upset about a girl she had to process at the hospital. Roxie was a wreck right before I got this call. She said something the girl said and questions the girl asked triggered something. She was hysterical."

"Well…" Sara started as she opened the folder. "The seaman found in Chelsea Matthews was a match to about 8 open cases all rapes taking place on or around the campus of WLVU including one from 9 years ago." Sara said.

"What's special about this case from 9 years ago?" Nick questioned.

"The victim age 19 was raped one evening when she was taking shortcut from the library to her dorm. The vics name was… Roxanne Jones." Sara said looking at Nick who stood there in shock.

"Oh God Roxie." Nick said shaking his head. "I need to call her."

Roxie awoke to the sound of her cell phone. It was still in her pocket. She groaned as she reached into her pocket to pull it out. She pulled it out and answered it without looking at the screen.

"Stokes." She said answering the call.

"Hey Rox it's me." Came Nick's voice.

"Hey babe. Are you coming home soon?" Roxie asked with a yawn.

"No, but we need you to come into the lab. It's about the girl you processed." Nick said. Roxie then sat up. "We got a DNA hit and we want to know more about what she said to you."

"Yeah…ok… I'll be right there." Roxie said as she stood. She went in the bathroom and quickly ran water over her face. She grabbed her jacket and left out of the house to the lab.

Nick waited patiently for Roxie. He was afraid of how she would take things especially with how upset she had been with the whole thing when she'd come from the hospital. He hated to see his wife upset. It broke every bit of his heart to see her cry, but he knew that he needed to talk to her about this. They needed to know more about what happened to her. He looked up when he saw Roxie come in. She walked into the room and saw the photos on the wall. She saw the crime scene photos of Chelsea Matthews' dead body in an alley.

"She's dead?" Roxie instantly asked.

"Yeah she was the 419 I was called to." Nick said somberly. "I'm sorry."

"The thing is the kit you took form her. It stirred up a lot." Sara said. Roxie hadn't even noticed Sara in the room.

"What kind of stuff?" Roxie then asked.

"Rox… I know you most likely don't want to talk about it, but we need information on your attack." Nick said as he walked to her. He took her hand into his.

"Why?" Roxie asked.

"Because the same person who attacked you is the same person who attacked Chelsea and 7 other girls over the years. Plus there could be others who haven't reported it. Finding her attacker, finds yours." Sara said looking at Roxie who simply nodded.

"Umm… I studied late at the library. It was about 11pm when I left. I knew the best way to my dorm was to take the main pathway, but I was so tired and that adds an extra 10 minutes to the walk. I decided to take a shortcut that takes you through a small wooded area. It's quick and easy. I'd done it a lot of times. I was walking and I was grabbed from behind. It was so quick. I remember being shoved to the ground pretty hard and I hit my head. I was dizzy and disoriented. My attacker ripped my shirt open; it was one of my favorite shirts at the time. He also tore my tights and violently ripped my underwear off. I remember his hand over my mouth when I tried to scream. He did what he did and then just walked away. He simply just left me there. I called my mom. I knew she was on patrol that night. She came to the school and got me and took me to the hospital." Roxie explained. She felt tears falling down her face. It had been 9 years since she had told the entire story out loud.

"Rainbow." Nick said as she pulled her into his arms. He just stood there holding her. He didn't know what to think.

"You know. I always thought Catherine looked familiar to me, but I figured I'd seen her around with my mom being a cop and all. I'd banished that night from my mind as best I could and now that I think about it. I could see every detail clearly. It was Catherine who processed me at the hospital that night." Roxie said.

"Babe…" Nick started. "When you came in earlier you said something about Chelsea asking questions and talking. What did she say?"

"She wanted to know why it happened to her. She said she wasn't a party girl and didn't wear short skirts. She didn't know why she would be a target." Roxie said. "She reminded me a lot of me when I was 19."

"Hey we got all those case files you guys asked for." Greg's voice came. He walked into the room carrying a few boxes with Morgan right behind him carrying more.

They spend an hour going over all the connected rape cases. Roxie had no idea how she was functioning. She knew the only thing that was keeping her sane was knowing that if they caught this guy then justice would be served not just for these other women, but for her too.

"It seems this guys MO is the same. Always college age girls on or around the campus and they are always the so-called good girls. They all had great grades, didn't party, a few were very conservative. He targets Good Girls, but all of his victims are alive and well except Chelsea Matthews his latest victim." Morgan said as she sat a folder down.

"So this Good Girl Rapist has escalated to murder then?" Sara questioned.

"I don't know, but this son of a bitch is going to get caught and brought down." Nick said with a growl. Roxie put a hand on his arm. She smiled at him. She knew he was upset and she just wanted to calm him. She knew giving the details of her rape was hard for him to hear.

"I'm going to get a little air." Roxie said as she stood.

"Do you want me to come with?" Nick asked her.

"No. I'm good." She said as she left the room.

She walked outside into the morning air. It felt good to be alone for just a moment. This had been one hell of a shift. Having to face all of this and being 5 and a half months pregnant didn't help anything. She put her hand on her belly and just stood there. She took a deep breath.

"Nice morning." A familiar voice said. She turned to see Russell.

"Yeah it is." Roxie commented.

"I heard about the case. Are you up for working it?" Russell asked.

"For now…yeah… I can't talk for later." Roxie said truthfully.

"I think you can do it, but I might have to remove Nick. I can see it getting to him and it being emotional for him. He's got a bit of a temper and I don't want him to explode under the pressure." Russell said.

"For now I think he will be ok, but I agree. It wouldn't be nice for him to explode." Roxie said.

"My wife wants to know if you and your other half would like to come for dinner. She wants to meet my new favorite CSI and her ok CSI husband. My Dos Stokes." Russell said. Roxie laughed.

"Yeah I'm sure we could make it by." Roxie said.

"I'll let her know." Russell said as he turned to go back inside, but then he paused and turned back to Roxie. "If you need anything. Even if you just want to talk. You know where to find me… alright Lady Stokes." He said. To keep the confusion down with having two Stokes in the lab, recently Russell had taken to calling Roxie, Lady Stokes.

"Thanks." Roxie said. "I appreciate that."

A/N: Thought I would add something to the storyline. Also guys remember if you want some fun insight into my stories and my writing plus a better way to contact and interact with me you can go to my facebook. It is Facebook /TheMoonyAngel7 - Remember to 'Like' the page for all the great updates.