Disclaimer: This piece is a sequel to my first story "To fall below adversity" so I suggest if you haven't already, to read that one first. Further warning, this is also going to be angsty and somewhat dark and depressing story at times; like my first one. I don't own CSI or anything relating to them, I'm just borrowing them to satisfy my stupid brain. Any references to real life events; anything I may have read, seen or heard are completely unintentional and coincidental. I gain nothing from this other than to finally get this idea to stop repeating in my head. So please don't sue me or threaten to kill me. If this offends you in any way or it just plain sucks, I apologize that you've wasted several minutes of your life you'll never get back. Just pretend you never saw this, know for future reference to avoid it at all costs should you ever see the title again, and go on with your life. Any and all mistakes are mine. Also, any names, places or references are purely fictional! I have taken liberties to make this interesting and keep it flowing, so not everything is going to be 100% realistic and true to life.
A/N: Thank you for the review Rach5 . I apologize if these last few chapters haven't been up to par. I know I am straying from realism a little bit...and probably will a little more...I'm sorry if its distracting, but for some reason its where my mind wants to go with this. I'm going to have to ask you suspend your disbelief a little bit...I know there are procedures in place to protect the public from this type of abuse from the healthcare system...and personally I have worked with some really good social workers among other professionals...and a few who have burned out from the horrors we see every day, so in no way do I mean to demean or insult any profession. I'm not sure where this came from...but I'm delving into some dark themes now that were difficult to get into. Sorry if the believability has diminished. Thanks again for sticking with me and please continue to let me know what you think and if there is something I can do to make it better. Take care everyone!
At long last, Catherine's stint in rehab is completed. She is five minutes away from being sprung, and she couldn't be happier. While the time there had been beneficial and delving into all the loss and pain Catherine has endured over the past year was long overdue for professional attention; the best therapy Catherine could receive is having Sara back in her arms again.
She has even booked both herself and Sara several follow up sessions for upcoming weeks. There is so much healing they still need to do together...after everything they have experienced, Catherine is actually quite proud they have made it this far. Losing a child is one of the worst things a couple could have to endure...add all of the other drama and its actually remarkable they have still held on this well...recent suicide attempt notwithstanding.
Catherine stands in front of the mirror and takes in her appearance for the third time before checking her bags to make sure she has all of her belongings in place. She is dying to be able to see Sara again and to apologize for putting her through this. She just hopes to God Sara isn't disappointed in her. Despite everything, she's cautiously optimistic that they are going to grow from this experience. She's excited to share with Sara some of the tips she's learned on ways to help distress and communicate better.
A soft knock on the door interrupts her thoughts and she smiles in anticipation of finally seeing her love again in person.
One by one the team files into the room and take turns hugging and kissing Catherine. While they all comment on how good Catherine looks, she can't help but notice the same can't really be said for them...and the thought alone sends a wave of guilt coursing through her body that she was probably the cause of that. They all look like they've aged and poor Jim is sporting a shaggy untrimmed beard.
Fear and disappointment floods through Catherine as the one person she wanted to see the most is nowhere to be seen. She swallows down the growing lump in her throat as she takes in the defeated appearance of her friends.
The guys all share a nervous glance at each other and Catherine feels the knot in her stomach tighten. She knows something is wrong and can sense that even the guys don't know how to break it to her.
Unable to take the awkward silence any longer, Catherine voices what they are all afraid to address.
"Where is Sara? Please just tell me she's okay!"
"I think you should sit down Catherine. This is not going to be easy to hear. We are so sorry we couldn't tell you this sooner...we really didn't have a choice." Grissom finally says before taking a deep breath to prepare himself. He spares a quick glance at Jim who just looks utterly devastated. Suddenly he thinks they all need to sit down for this.
"We actually don't know where Sara is Catherine. It's a long and complicated story. The rehab team here have offered to let you stay here for another few weeks if you'd like...because this is the last thing you need right now...they said you were doing so well here and that..."
"What do you mean you don't know? How could you not know? What do you mean, she ran away? Are you kidding me?"
"Please Catherine, let me finish...this isn't easy...I know how upsetting..."
"You know nothing! I've been locked up in here for two months isolated from everyone I love...wishing every moment just to be home again in Sara's arms and now you tell me she's gone? Did she know today I was coming home? Is that why she left?"
"Please sit back down Cath." Grissom says while slowly closing the door. He can already see the staff in the hall looking in to figure out what all the commotion is about and he knows they are the last thing Catherine needs right now. If they are going to get her through this, the team is going to have to band together like never before.
Catherine glares at each member of the team and is frightened to see that Jim hasn't taken his eyes off the floor since he came in the room.
"Jim..."
"I'm so sorry Catherine...I wanted to tell you right away but was told it was against policy. You had a right to know...I'm so sorry."
"Jim, please look at me...please tell me this is going to be okay."
Out of the corner of her eye she can see Greg nervously picking at his fingers while both Nick and Warrick clench their jaws and grind their teeth in anger.
The strangest sensation washes over her, as if she's almost watching the scene play out in front of her detached from her body; and she numbly wonders if she's about to pass out. I guess this is why Grissom was insisting that she sit down.
Seeing that Jim is unable to answer at the moment, Grissom once again takes over the role of being the bearer of bad news.
"Catherine, we haven't seen Sara since the day she was discharged and you entered the program. She was supposed to have breakfast with Nick the following morning, but when he went over to your place she was gone. We have had all of Vegas looking for her this whole time but nothing has shown up. She hasn't used her credit cards and we have been monitoring your bank accounts..."
Agitatedly adjusting himself in his seat, Warrick leans forward before addressing the group.
"Sara knows how to cover her tracks...she knows we are looking for her and she doesn't want to be found. If this damn place hasn't treated her like shit, none of this would have happened!"
"Warrick please..."
"No Gil...please just someone just fill me in for God sake!" Catherine practically shouts unable to take the pressure any longer. She feels disorientated from being isolated from the outside world for so long. It's almost too much to even comprehend.
"It seems as though someone in the allied health team blamed Sara for everything that happened to you. Elizabeth came to us and told us that the social worker, among others, had shaken her up pretty badly...but before we could investigate, she was gone."
"She's not dead if that's what you're thinking. I know she's not dead...I can feel it..."
"No Catherine, we don't think she's dead. We are looking into her bank account and noticed it was slightly going down. We think she withdrew money somewhere just outside Vegas." Grissom continues in a low, calm voice. He can feel his heart pounding in his ears, but for everyone's sake is trying to keep the facade of cool control.
"Then why are we all still here then? Let's find out where she is and go get her!" Catherine says while jumping back to her feet.
"It looks like she's probably outside of Nevada...I'm going to get a hold of the local PD in Arizona to see if they know anything. This is the best lead we've had in weeks." Jim's hoarse, tired voice startles Catherine and she slowly walks over to him and places a sift kiss on his cheek before wrapping her arms around his neck.
"Are you sure you don't want to stay here Cath? I'm not trying to be condescending, but after everything you've gone through..."
"Grissom...guys...I'm so sorry I did all of this to you, but I promise you I'm not going to break. What I did was beyond stupid and I'm so ashamed. I don't know what I was thinking...but it will never, ever happen again. No matter what happens. I'm stronger than that...I just faltered under all the strain...but trust me, I've learned from my mistakes. I'm going to keep up with proper counseling and I'll take Sara with me. We are going to get through this...all of us...I love you all so much and I'm so grateful to have you all in my life."
Catherine looks at each team member and gives Jim's arm a reassuring squeeze before wiping at her eyes and clearing her throat in the hopes of ridding her voice of the emotional quiver.
"Now, if we are finished with all of this emotional sappy stuff...can we please go get my girl back now?" Catherine tries to lightly joke to cover up the fact that she's scared out of her mind and just wants to cry.
"Then let's go." Nick says while getting up and opening the door.
While the guys head back to the office to make some calls, Brass drives Catherine to her house. The drive is made in relative silence as Catherine takes in Jim's disheveled appearance. The bond Jim and Sara share has always been special...almost to the point of making her jealous...but now she actually fears for the other man's health. She knows Sara would never want to hurt them intentionally, but her leaving the way she did has almost destroyed Jim completely. They will all need some serious counseling when all of this is over.
As soon as they get in the door, Jim's phone rings and he quickly walks over to the dining room table and grabs a pen.
Catherine throws her bags on the floor and gazes at the house she hasn't seen in so long. Someone had stayed here recently and cleaned up for her. Neither she nor Sara had ever kept things this neat...despite their best efforts...
Her thoughts are cut short by the sound of Jim closing his phone and taking a deep shaky breath. Biting her lower lip, she stares wide eyed at his concerned expression.
"That was Gil...I think we know where she is. It looks like she was arrested last month on drug charges...she tried to buy from an undercover cop in Arizona and they kept her a couple days before letting her go. Grissom said they think she's homeless in a known tweaker area...I have a couple addresses here...I'm sorry Catherine..." Jim trails off breaking eye contact and resuming his downward gaze.
"Oh Sara..."
Neither Jim nor Catherine can fight the tears that spring to their eyes at the implications of what they will probably find.
After talking to the guys once more, they had all agreed that Jim and Catherine should head to Arizona right away to see if what the local police had suggested was true. As much as she wishes it wasn't true, she knows that Sara has struggled with her demons in the past and used less than healthy means to relieve the pain. Words can't even begin to express the amount of turmoil Catherine's mind is creating while contemplating those implications.
While Jim drives, Catherine opens her purse to look for a pain killer to relieve the growing tension headache forming behind her eyes. In her rush to leave the house and find Sara, she had practically dumped the entire contents of her kitchen drawer into her purse; making the search for the elusive painkiller that much more irritating.
Sighing in frustration, she turns to Jim whose eyes she feels burning into the side of her head and asks if he has any Advil or Tylenol.
"It's just for a headache by the way..."
"Catherine..."
"I'm sorry...I didn't mean to snap...and that was in poor taste...I heard that you were the one...oh Jim, I'm so sorry!"
Reaching into the giant mess of a purse to now find a tissue, Catherine's hand finds a carefully folded piece of paper with Sara's signature chicken scratch writing on the front.
Wiping the stay tear with her finger and placing her hand briefly on Jim's arm, her attention is now focused on the mysterious letter.
"My dearest Catherine, if you are reading this you must have completed your rehabilitation program; congratulations I'm so proud of you! Words cannot describe how much I love you and I can only hope that one day you can forgive me for everything I've done to hurt you. Never, ever was it my intention to out you through all this pain...please believe me. I know it's my fault that you tried to end your life, and that knowledge will haunt me until the day I finally die...and probably beyond. Please don't try to find me...I can't continue to destroy your life the way I have...I only drag you down...so I have decided to leave Vegas so I can remove this burden from you. Don't worry about me, I'll be fine. I promised you and swore on Lindsay's memory long ago that I would never try to kill myself again...and I'm not breaking that promise...but I have to go...and you have to move on...I'm affectively dead to you...it's the only way. You have saved my life Catherine...I would be nothing without you...so please allow me to return the favor now..."
Her vision now blurred with tears, Catherine puts down the letter and looks at Jim in utter despair.
"Sara wrote me a good bye letter Jim! It's probably been sitting in our kitchen drawer since the day she left! She left because she thinks everything is her fault! What did those bastards say to her? It's three pages long...full of apologies...I can't believe this!"
Angrily wiping more tears away, she glances back at the paper and continues to read the long passionate letter from her distraught love.
"We have to find her Jim! This is really bad! My poor Sara! What did they do to you?"
"We are bringing her home Cath...I'm not going back to Vegas without her! No matter what it takes. I'm not going to let her down again!"
Catherine looks at Jim's death grip on the steering wheel and can see him clenching his jaw in anger. She spares the letter one last look before carefully folding it back and placing it in her purse.
"Jim, if there is one thing I can take away from these last two months is that we can't blame ourselves for the actions of others. Sara knows how much we all love her...you couldn't let her down if you tried. She loves you like a father and would die for you...just like I know she would for me. Life is just cruel...and none of this is fair. We have all suffered so, so much...there is no proper answer to any of this pain. But we have to keep going...and keep loving each other. Whatever we find...just hold on to that love...we have to get each other through this...we just have to..."
As they pull up to a red light, Jim wordlessly leans over and places a soft kiss on Catherine's forehead. The short remainder of the car ride is made in respective silence until they pull into a dark alley way in front of what looks like an abandoned, dilapidated house.
"You have your gun...just in case?"
Looking down at the spot that once held her gun; she shakes her head as Jim unstraps his spare and hands it to her.
"Don't worry, I don't think it will come to that...but just stick it in that back of your pants...I'm not taking any chances."
They slowly enter the beaten down building and are met by a nauseating stench. Trying to breathe through her mouth, she passes people lying on dirty old mattresses covered in substances she doesn't even want to think about. She feels her heart tighten and fear begin to flood her senses at the conditions these lost souls are living under. As much as she wants to find Sara, she hopes to God it's not in a place like this.
She looks up and is startled to realize that Jim is no longer in front of her. She's about to call out to him just as he hears his voice to her right.
"Sara! Oh God...Catherine!"
Whipping her head to the side, her vision strangely seems to process the images as if in slow motion. She sees Jim on his knees with his hand on someone's neck. Passed out on a dirty broken mattress she sees dull unkempt brown hair surrounding a sunken in emaciated face.
"Sara...no..."
Catherine drops to her knees next to Jim and places her shaky hands on either side of Sara's face, desperately trying to get her attention. While her eyes flutter and roll back in a drug induced haze, Catherine isn't convinced that Sara is even aware of their presence.
"Baby, look at me...its Catherine. Oh sweetheart, I'm so sorry!"
Getting no response from the younger woman, Catherine looks to Jim before turning back to the broken body in front of her.
There are old and fresh track marks up and down her grotesquely skinny arms as well as a dirty gauze bandage on her lower left arm. Under her right eye sits a rather disturbing scar that Catherine isn't sure she wants to know the origin of. Her eyes are so dull and sunken into her skull that Catherine can hardly recognize her love in this broken shell.
As tears run down her face Catherine leans in closer, not even aware of the filthy dangerous environment she's sitting in and whispers apologies to her soul mate.
"Cath, we have to get her out of here now. I'll carry her; you just keep your eye out and start the car." Jim says before looking back down at Sara with tears filling his own eyes. "God Sara...what happened to you? You were always skinny, but now you have to be less than 90 pounds...this is not good sweetheart! But everything is going to be okay now...we've got you honey."
"Okay Sara, let Jim help you, he's gonna pick you up, then we'll get you cleaned up in a nice hotel for tonight okay love?" Catherine addresses Sara while grabbing her face again. Sara has had issues with being grabbed by men in the past...her fight or flight instinct has always been on high alert...and in this confused state she may not recognize who they are. When Jim goes to hold her, the last thing they need is a confused kicking and screaming Sara Sidle in this less than pleasant environment.
To her surprise, she's greeted with a lazy lop sided grin from her heavily drugged love. If she wasn't leaning so close to Sara, she wouldn't have heard the soft slurred words that followed.
"I hope you're doing well babe...I miss you Catherine and love you so, so much."
Looking over to Jim, before glancing back at Sara, Catherine realizes that Sara probably doesn't even know where she is right now and thinks what she is seeing is part of a hallucination.
Sara's glazed eyes well up before a lone tear rolls down her dirty cheek leaving a pale streak in its wake. Her eyes continue to droop and flutter before rolling back into her head.
Taking this as an indication that she isn't going to fight them, Jim gently picks her up and they carefully head out of what must have been Sara's self-imposed hell.
Catherine's heart is pounding so hard and so fast that she's sure it has just split into two. Her whole body is shaking so violently that she's grateful the other occupants in the room are also so far gone that they are not perplexed with their intrusion...because in this state, she can't even see straight, let alone be able to shoot straight.
Looking around one last time at the disgusting abandoned building, Catherine remembers the last time she knelt down on a dirty, dingy floor...holding the body of her beautiful daughter. As she follows Jim out the door she can feel her knees going weak and the air leaving her lungs. Oh God, how she misses her baby girl...
But Sara is still alive...she hasn't lost her yet. She's not going to lose her the way she lost Lindsay. She can't give up now...she has got to keep fighting...they both have to keep fighting because they are going to get through this.
Her wobbly legs somehow make it to the car and she carefully helps open the door and gently lays Sara in the back seat before jumping in herself. Words cannot express the fear and sorrow both Jim and Catherine feel at the moment. As glad as they are to have found her, not even they were prepared for the sights they just witnessed. As Jim starts the car and Catherine carefully places Sara's head on her lap, the two shaken friends silently shoot up a prayer for help and guidance.
Both reminded of Lindsay from the desolate environment they found Sara, Jim also remembers when Sara called her name as she lay bleeding to death after being shot. He firmly believes that Lindsay was there that day guiding and comforting Sara in her moment if need.
Looking in the rear view mirror at the two broken women in the back, Jim hopes and prays that she will be there for them all now. They are going to need their special angel now more than ever.
A/N the second: Sorry guys...I think I need to go back and re-read the first story again to see if I can bring back the overall feelings from before. I wonder if my wanting to get this completed is rushing me into becoming complacent...sorry if I'm letting those of you who have decided to follow this down. I think I need to step back and see what I can salvage. Any and all advice is welcome...and I apologize in advance if there is a delay with the next chapter. Thanks again for putting up with me...I'll try to make it worth it.