A/N: Just wanted to thank you all for sticking with me and sending me reviews. I really do appreciate every one and I am sooo glad you are still enjoying this story as much as I am enjoying writing it. I like this chapter, that may mean it is rubbish but I like it anyway. I haven't had time to respond to you all individually so pkease accept this as my thanks and read on. Much Love, Charli xx
When Sara was twelve she had gone back to her house.
She was supposed to be walking to school, normally she loved school. It was a place where she excelled almost naturally and she enjoyed the constant gratification of her collection of A+ grades but instead she had slipped through the hole in the fence on the far end of the street and walked along the path behind the houses where the beach met the grass.
Sara had always loved that her home was by the sea. It was the one thing she missed most while in Vegas. The sound of the sea had been the only constant in her life for so long it had took a lot of getting used to.
Right now she sat on the patch of grass where her father had told her about the stars, she closed her eyes and listened to the sound of the waves lapping at the shore. It almost felt like she was being washed away by the movement, she felt just like she had when she was a child; Small vulnerable and paralysed with fear.
She never dared to look back at the house back then. Something inside her tore her away and told her not to, an instinct perhaps to protect her already fragile sanity. She had walked with her eyes trained on her toes and sat by the gate gazing out to sea. She never looked back, never allowed herself the moment to deal with her trauma at the site.
It was a strange feeling being here again, her inability to face it hadn't been a regret she had harboured. In fact, she barely thought about it but now she was here she had a sudden need to rectify it. This time she was older, stronger and while just as frightened she realised she had nothing left to lose. With a deep breath Sara turned to gaze at the shadow behind her, in place of the house stood an old woman. She watched Sara with some interest as though studying a painting. No spark of recognition lit in Sara's eyes. She was certain she didn't know this woman and yet here she was waiting for her with such awe and gratitude it genuinely made her feel uncomfortable.
She stood in the centre of the now empty plot of land. Sara noticed she was barefoot and the mud left from the demolition covered her toes. She wore a long blue dress with a flowered apron tied neatly around her waist, her eyes were friendly and smiling even when her lips weren't. She was what a young Sara would have considered a stereotypical mother and wife.
As Sara approached her she realised that this woman held something in her hands. It was the item she held that told Sara who she was rather than some kind of recognition. The brightly coloured package seemed to shine in the daylight, ribbons danced in the gentle breeze and Sara felt an overwhelming sense of love for this stranger as she studied the present in her hands.
It was a book, of course. As It always had been.
When Sara turned her eyes back to the woman she was smiling and a small army of children stood behind her. They looked translucent almost like shadows but they were there and she could feel the love and admiration in their presence.
"Hello Sara" The woman said, she spoke in soft welcoming tones and instantly put Sara at ease.
"Do I…. know you?" Sara asked quietly. She had to admit she was a little scared of the answer and it must have shown. The woman took a careful step closer and smiled her beautifully kind smile once more.
"Maybe not" She said "But I know you Sara. My name is Juliette Conway"
Sara tossed the name about in her mind for a moment, searching through her vast library of knowledge for the connection. She did recognise the name, it was a far reaching vague recollection though, a newspaper article or an awards ceremony of some kind back in the bay.
Sara studied her surroundings in greater detail. The mud had slowly disappeared; grass and flowers were in its place. The sun shone down on them and a gentle breeze shifted the air around them awakening the soft floral scent of nature. The children still stood behind her, although their images were grainier now and even more transparent.
"Are those your children?" Logic told Sara it couldn't be possible. There were too many of them, at least a hundred kids stood behind her of various ages and descriptions.
Juliette smiled; fondness shone in her eyes as she gestured behind her and nodded her head.
"You could say that… But they wouldn't have been if it wasn't for you"
Sara frowned, she was sure she'd never met this woman so how she had influenced her prolific reproduction she couldn't begin to guess.
"I know what you went through" She explained, the sympathy in her voice almost palpable "I wanted to help but all I could do was remind you that you mattered. You inspired me to foster… I've seen so many children come through my door, some so broken I wasn't sure I could repair them but if it wasn't for you…I wouldn't have even tried" Juliette held out the parcel in her hands, passing it to Sara without another word.
It felt heavy in her hands, the weight of the symbolism rather than the contents she suspected. Sara carefully peeled back the paper with trembling hands, it had been a long time since she had opened an actual gift and there was something exciting and joyful about doing so.
The contents this time took her breath away though. A tattered and torn old copy of 'Plato's republic' She recognised everything about it; the turned up corners, the well leafed pages, the tiny tear on page 247… with some level of desperation she flipped to the back pages and there scratched on the corner was the initial; one tiny 'G' that had been imprinted on her soul for so long.
"How did you…?" Sara couldn't even begin to express how much this book meant to her. It stunned her to some extent that this woman had been able to bring it to her, even in the limbo-like state they were in. It stunned her even more that the woman seemed to understand the significance it had. She stood back in silence and allowed her all the time she needed to reacquaint herself.
"You're still angry with him…" Juliette commented.
Sara's eyes shot from the book to the woman in front of her. She had felt anger towards Grissom for a long time. She was angry with him for making her wait so long, for making her second best, for leaving her alone but most of all she missed him and her heart felt the grip of grief around it once more as she allowed those emotions she had supressed valiantly for so long return.
"No, not anymore" Sara defended, although she wasn't entirely sure that was true. Her emotions were not straightforward when it came to Gil Grissom, they never had been and she figured they never would be.
"He didn't mean it you know. He just didn't know how to express his feelings" Juliette continued, ignoring her protests "Childhood is a very important time for shaping personality and character"
Sara found herself feeling suddenly defensive, of both herself and of Grissom.
"I know all this…child psychologists reminded me of it every day" Sara dismissed her as another do-gooder attempting to psychoanalyze her. She'd had enough of people telling her what her traumatic childhood would mean for her life. In fact, she'd spent her entire life attempting to overturn those assumptions and judgements.
"Just like you were changed by your childhood, so were other people" Juliette explained "some for the best… and some…not so much"
Juliette pointed directly over Sara's shoulder to a place where Sara knew would hold only the ocean. She turned on her heel all the same, releasing a sigh of exasperation as she did so. The breath, however, caught in her throat as she came face to face with a suburban living room, the walls cut away like a doll house.
Sara stood glued to the spot, her eyes taking in every inch of the scene in front of her. There was an amount of fear in her stance, her body was rigid and she had to consciously will herself not to turn around again. Juliette rested her gentle hand on Sara's shoulder, a reminder that she wasn't alone and one she welcomed.
"You need to see this" She whispered.
Before her eyes the scene came to life. The TV flickered and a young boy sat on the floor in front of a floral sofa with a long shadow stretching out on it. She knew this scene already, before the confirmation, before a single word was spoken and tears stung at her eyes as it unfolded. That young boy was Grissom; the shadow on the sofa was his father. She was about to witness his death. She didn't want to see it, she was afraid.
It took all her will not to call out to the innocent young boy in front of her. He was happy in that moment, his father by his side, his mother singing happily in the kitchen. She knew it was all so fragile; it was all about to shatter into a million pieces like a pane of glass.
He was watching a cowboy movie; she could hear the sound of the horses' hooves against the ground as the light shone on Gil's face. He looked so full of fascination, like he used to be. His blue eyes shone with excitement and joy, this was a kid who wanted to be one of those cowboys. He wanted to ride a stallion and throw his Stetson up in the air as he hustled a bull or a herd of cattle. He had dreams and wishes like every young boy had, he was happy.
It all unravelled so quickly. Even the sun seemed to hide away as Betty Grissom came strolling into the room with a tray full of cold drinks. The ice cubes jingled off the glass like bells as she laid the tray on the small coffee table forming a barrier between Gil and the TV.
She spoke to the shadow, holding a glass in her hand as she did so. When he didn't respond she raised her voice and took hold of his outstretched foot. The shaking didn't work and as she inspected him closer a blood-curdling scream formed on her lips that shook Sara to her very core.
Gil looked around with wide eyes wondering what was going on. He took to his feet, yelling at his father to wake up and stop upsetting his mother. Tears rolled down his face, matching the tears on hers. She could feel his pain, his confusion and his desperation. She could feel it all and it hurt.
In among the paramedics, Coroners and mourners that streamed into the house over the next while Gil Grissom stood with a sombre expression beside his mother. Neither of them spoke, not to each other and not to anyone else. Betty stared at the floor, a handkerchief pressed against her lips. She had become detached from everything; her life had become nothing but a shadow of the man she loved with all her heart. An echo left over from a time gone by and Grissom could feel this. Nobody ever told him how or why his father was taken away like that. His mother forbade him from speaking about it and he had no one else. His father had been his confidante, his mentor and his friend.
There was no resentment from his mother but neither was there the deep love she had expressed before. She didn't bake him cookies on a Friday anymore, she didn't read to him before bed, she didn't watch television sat on the floral sofa with him at her feet.
At the funeral a man came up to Grissom and shook his hand, he was an elderly man, probably a friend or colleague of his fathers. He spoke in a low gruff voice as he offered his condolences and then he crouched to whisper into his ear.
"You need to be the man now Gilbert, you must be strong and solid like your father was"
With that he disappeared into the crowds of people and became yet another person Gil didn't know.
Sara's sobs didn't even attempt to stay inside her chest as the vision of the sad little boy in the suit faded back to the view of the ocean. She would be lying if she claimed that she hadn't noticed the age gap between Mr and Mrs Grissom. He was many years her senior, something Grissom had failed to mention to her. He had barely spoke of his father, she knew basic facts that he had told her, much like he was reading them from a case sheet but he had never delved into it any further. He had never explained the loneliness he had suffered or how shut out he felt by his own mother. He had never told her about the funeral and the strange man's advice, he had never told her how in the space of a couple of hours his childhood had been wept from under him and washed away into the chasm of adulthood.
It was no wonder he was so afraid of his emotions, he had never been allowed to have them.
Sara composed herself for long enough to turn around and see Juliette disappear along with her children. She nodded a silent thank you in her direction as she faded away and the house returned to shadow the light.
She wasn't afraid anymore; it was just a house after all.