Chapter 15:Hey, Little Razorblade

Warnings, disclaimer: see chapter one

She stood up. Dropped the sheet. Got into the shower. Ahhhh, hot water.

Showers cure everything...

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"Hey hey little razorblade,

Girl, you're so so dangerous
You say you wanna try and get away
And that's just so obvious
But I've got the keys so lets put it into drive

Hey hey little razorblade,

Girl you're so so serious
You're only pretty when you walk away
And you act oblivious
But I've got the keys so lets put it into drive

And you're right that its wrong
To spend the night alone
You stand on the shore as I'm treading water
and wave as I sink like a stone..."

"Hey little razor-blade" by The Pink Spiders

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She could smell the coffee the second she stepped out of her bedroom. She hated this apartment so much, the memories, even walking through her hallway made her feel nervous.

Grissom was in the kitchen, sitting at the table. She plopped into the seat opposite him. He looked up at her.

Sara felt weird, it was like one of the T.V shows, where the kid was sitting at the table with their parents, and then they got grounded for being out to late, then the kid swore, then the parents said, hey we're doing this because we love you, and the kid said I hate you, then they said tell us what the matter is, then the kid cried and told them, then they fixed the problem, and everyone was happy again...

Not quite.

"Sara?" his voice jerked her from her thoughts. "Coffee." he pushed the cup over to her.

"Griss. I...I can't...I don't...I...urgh."

"Sara, let me speak." Oh no, was he going to ground her? Sara wanted to laugh. Then realised that this was the guy she had wanted to sleep with since she was like, 20. That was eight years. Oh god, she was so old...

"honey, you've been through so much. I mean, with Bounto-"

"Don't say his name near me." her eyes glittered. "Don't."

"-with him, and then this, but please, Sara, acting like you did when you were younger-please, it won't help. You could've died back then, you could've died last night. Sara, how did you know he wasn't following you? How do you know if he's left Nevada or not?"

"I don't care." She didn't. She didn't care. Finally, Sara recognized what that feeling was, the one she had felt last night when she went out. The same feeling she had felt since Him. It was ambivalence.

"Honey? Sara?"

"I don't care any more Griss. I just don't care. I don't care if I'm alive or dead. I don't feel either." She fell silent.

"Please, talk to me."

She shook her head, her wet hair, starting to curl, fell down the sides of her face, so he couldn't see her eyes. "Talk to me."

He was so scared. He couldn't see her like this. He felt sick, felt his heart rip, his stomach in knots, his eyes fuzz, his brain pound. Sara was losing her spark. He had to help her get it back.

"Sara. Look at me." he put his fingers under her chin, and brought her head up. "Please baby, tell me. Please. Tell me what you're feeling." He knew he couldn't get her to go to a shrink or counsellor. He hoped this would be the next best thing. She pulled away from him, and ran from the kitchen. Ran from him.

Grissom followed Sara from the kitchen, to her bedroom, where she was furiously stripping the bed.

"Sara. Ignoring this isn't going to fucking work." he was so frustrated. He needed to help. How could he?

"No. Griss. Just- just stop."

"Sara, talk to me. Talk to someone. Please."

"LEAVE ME ALONE GRISS. STOP IT. I CAN'T FUCKING DO THIS."

He backed out of the room, and walked from her apartment, into the outer hallway. Sara, his Sara, had just said she couldn't do it. She couldn't do it.

She couldn't do it.

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She finished stripping the bed. She couldn't deal. She just couldn't fucking deal. Her mind had blanked out. She punched the headboard. Harder. Harder. Her knuckles started bleeding. She kept hitting it. Harder. Harder. Harder. She couldn't fucking deal.

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He heard banging. Collecting himself, he went into the bedroom. She was punching the headboard. The tears were streaming down her face. Harder Harder Harder. She just kept hitting it. Grissom could see that she had burst the skin on her knuckles. But she kept hitting it. Harder. And harder. There was blood on the headboard. But she kept hitting it.

He went up behind her, and gently took her hand, as she brought it back to hit the headboard again.

"Don't" her voice was so quiet, compared to her screaming earlier. It hurt.

He pulled her close. "Sara. Talk to me. Please. I love you. I want to understand."

"You want to fucking understand? You can't. I want to die. It fucking hurts to smile. I'm fucking killing the outside so I can just fucking kill the thing on the inside. I hate not knowing what I'm doing. I'm not me, I'm just floating. You don't fucking understand."

"honey I-"

"Don't honey me. Don't, Grissom. I can't listen to this shit. I can't listen to how you care, how you all love me, how everyone wants me to take fucking care of myself. Please. I can't hear it. I can't listen to it."

"But Sara, we don't want you to hurt yourself, any more than you're hurting right now."

"I don't care what any of you want. Why can't everyone just leave me alone? I just- I just- I need to be not here."

"What do you mean, you need to be not here? Sara, we want to help you. I want to help you. I love you."

"oh? And it took me being fucking ABDUCTED, AND KEPT IN A FUCKING HOLE FOR YOU TO REALISE THAT?"

"No, what I m-"

"No Griss. NO. I can't- I can't fucking deal with this. I can't deal with this. Oh god. It's not right. It all...nothing is making sense to me right now Grissom."

Her voice had gone from sad to angry to sad to furious to confused. She wasn't making sense. Grissom suspected it was her coming down from a high, mixed with all her undealt with feelings. He knew that if he left it she would clam up, then they wouldn't be able to do anything until next time she did something self-damaging.

She walked out the apartment.

Grissom stood paralysed for a matter of seconds, then after locking up, followed her down the stairs. Well, he thought she's gone down the stairs to the carpark. What if she hadn't? The little rat of worry gnawed on his mind. What if she went up to the top of the building, the top floor, and... this question hung in his mind. It's never the fall that kills you...

She was standing by the Tahoe. Waiting for him. Where was her car? Why did it matter?

She looked at him. He opened his mouth, but she shook her head, as if to tell him not to even try.

The ride 'home' was silent.

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She woke up in the townhouse. This was all getting very confusing, all this falling asleep, then waking in different places...last thing she remembered was being in Griss's car. Grissom was sat next to her, absent mindedly stroking her hair. When he felt her stiffen, he looked down at her.

"hey."

"hey. What's the time?"

He checked his watch. "2:30pm"

"oh."

"Sara, we really, really need to talk."

"okay."

Okay? well, maybe this would go well after all.

"First, how much of that stuff did you take? Did you take it at all?"

She couldn't look him in the eye. "I'm...I don't know. I- we- I drank too much."

So she had taken it...

Silence

"Did you mean what you said earlier, about wanting to die?"

"I don't know"

"I know that the psychiatrist at the hospital was a bad experience, but you need to talk to someone. If I can ge-"

"I can't talk to anyone about it. I just want to forget that it ever happened."

"You can't do that, honey. What happened last night, it was how you coped when you were younger.," she tried to interrupt, but he put his finger on her lips. "it didn't properly work for you then, and it definitely won't work now."

"But I-"

"You can talk to me. Tell me honey. I'll listen. You need to tell someone, get it away, get it out of yourself."

"Grissom, you don't want to hear it."

"Please baby."

Maybe it was the term of endearment added to the end of his sentence. Maybe it was the serious tone of voice he used. Maybe it was his baby-blues, shining with hope and love for her. Or maybe it was just that he was right. She had to get it away from herself.

So she told him.

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It was hard just listening to her. Grissom could barely stand it. It hadn't been this bad when he was reading her diaries, that way he could distance himself from it. Here, she was talking about things that wouldn't be allowed on the most open of all talk shows. She spoke of her childhood. She spoke of her teens. Then she told him about what had gone on in that basement. The mind-fuck that he had played with her. The beatings, the torture. How she had envied the others, who had been allowed to die. How she was stripped of everything: dignity, hope, happiness. Until nothing was left.

He didn't know what to say: how to respond...saying "How awful that must have been for you" didn't exactly get him the sympathy of the year award.

While contemplating this, he hadn't realised Sara had stopped talking.

He looked down at her when he noticed the silence. "Sara, I- I just don't know what to say."

"Now do you understand? Why I just want to forget? Why I don't, and didn't want to talk about it?"

"I do. But Sara," He slid down till, he was facing her. "Sara, I meant what I said. I love you. I know it's not an appropriate time. But I love you."

Sara could feel the wall crumble. Her first defence had just been breached. Why did it have to be Griss? She had coped before. He was ruining it. And he damn well knew it.

"I can't let you hurt yourself. You mean so much to me. Do you remember when we met at that seminar? And you kept asking questions? The feelings I had for you then, I've had them for eight years. Eight years Sara. And you're kidding yourself if you think I haven't wanted to act on them. So now I've plucked up the courage to do so, I can't let you go drink yourself to death, or cut yourself, or fuck yourself up with drugs. I can't let you do it."

He could feel her shuddering, as she cried into his sweater.

He knew, he knew what had just happened had made a difference. And he knew his little 'I love you' speech had completely, and totally finished the process of changing the dynamics of their friendship.

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Once she finished her marathon sobbing session, she sat up next to him, and he put his arm around and behind her shoulders.

"Do you still need to get away? Away from here?"

"I think so. Griss, I just need to clear my head, I need to figure out what to do."

"We could go together. Go away together, I mean. Where would you go, if you could go anywhere?"

Remnants of her dream floated back to her. "I would go back to Carmel."

He knew she had been to Carmel, had worked there the summer before college.

"Fine. Today or Tomorrow?"

"Huh?"

"Do you want to leave today or tomorrow?"

"Uhm Griss, the impulsiveness is nice and all, but you sort of have a job and-"

"I took some holiday time. My first in six years, you know."

She raised an eyebrow. "I've only taken one in the entire time I've worked for your lab. And I've always done overtime."

"I've been working the job longer."

"Pah. Quantity isn't the same as quality." she stuck her tongue out at him childishly, and he laughed quietly...how quickly her moods changed... She got a serious look on her face, and the humorous aftermath of their humour and joking around dissipated.

"Can we go today? But what about if Nicky, or War, or Sandra want to talk to me?" she asked him, with Grissom muttering "again." under his breath, referring to the sheer amount of calls from the sheer amount of people he had intercepted since she got out of hospital.

"just leave the message on your phone to say you'll be away for a while. Say you've gone back to san fran for a holiday"

She couldn't see any flaws, except for the obvious. "Uh Griss, what if they try and get hold of you? And don't you think its suspicious that we're both unreachable at the same time, and all?"

"Every one knows to phone me on my cell." he didn't answer the second part of her question, he just hoped nobody noticed that they were away at the same time. Sara also noticed he didn't answer the second part of her question, but decided not to speak on it. Sliding her legs off the bed, then following with the rest of her body, she ambled lazily to the guest bedroom. Grissom looked after her retreating back, feeling more than slightly confused. "Sara?"

"Didn't you say today or tomorrow?" she smiled at him over her shoulder. "I'd rather go today."

He could hear the old Sara in her voice. It wasn't a specific way she would intonate, or the tone, or accent...it was just something uniquely...Sidle...

He followed her lead by sliding off the bed, and going to go pack a small bag for the next few days...

sorry guys, the fluffiness wil be continuing for a little bit longer...I'm gonna try update w two chapters at a time now, so i cn get back to les angstiness sooner! xoxoxox