A/N: No idea where I'm going with this, well actually I do, I'm going to revisit the call that split them up, the night following it and the morning after, more appropriately I have no idea why I'm doing that...Anyhow, I have and this is what has happened, warnings for this chapter, my head went a lot of places I did not expect...Enjoy...
Chapter 5
In The Dark...
Two Weeks Earlier: The Phone Call...
The phone. Ringing. Again. Again it was ringing and again it was him. Again, she ignored it.
She could see this irony of this. The bitter irony. All those months she had called him, desperate to hear the sound of his voice, needing him with the desire normally associated with feeding an addiction. In the end she stopped calling with any intention of actually talking to him. The sound of his voice on the answering machine was enough...
Now she was avoiding him. Avoiding him like the drug she needed and hated for that very reason. Every word he spoke physically hurt her, especially when she had a fairly good idea of what those words would be.
She knew it needed to be done. That those words needed to be said. But not now.
After she had gone the day ignoring him, with Finn and Russell forcibly reminding her that she worked with trained investigators, she knew that she could not live the rest of her life this way, could not ignore him forever. Especially not after Russell had vacated his own office to her the privacy to answer the call.
"Hello." She said, softly, holding her breath.
"You've been pretty hard to get hold of." He told her quietly. For good reason...
"Yeah, um, I'm so sorry." Was she? "How are you?" she asked, awkwardly. How are you? That was all she could manage?
"I'm okay-"He was about as 'okay' as she was. She did now want to know what was following 'okay', "Is uh, now a good time?"
No, now was not a 'good time', not here, not in the lab with everyone watching, judging, and prying. The only place she had ever felt safe, ever felt like she belonged. He could not do this to her now...
"Yes." She found herself whispering without permission. No!
"Sara...I've been thinking," So have I, it's not a good time, please, "I think maybe," No, stop, please, don't say it..."We should consider a separation."
Oh God no...Not this, not here, not now. She could feel herself clinging to Russell's desk. The harsh contact and pain the only thing reminding her of reality and preventing her from sinking to the floor and breaking down completely for all to see.
"Maybe we should." She somehow choked before hanging up.
She knew he would want to talk, would need to talk. To give her all of the evidence that he had carefully evaluated before neatly presenting his findings to her.
She couldn't. She had to run, had to get away. To hide. To run from them all, pull the shutters down and withdraw into herself until she could convincingly feed them the lie that she always fed them, that she was fine...
There were tears in her eyes that she would not let fall, not here, not in front of Russell. Russell. Watching her as she practically sprinted from his office.
"Sara! He called.
She could not stand it. The concern, the pity. He didn't know her, none of them did, none of them could, none of them would.
She did not trust herself to drive. She could not see, could not think, could not breathe.
She knew the streets of Sin City too well. It was too easy to just run, to lose herself to them until she could find a taxi to take her home.
Home. Their house was no longer her home. His house was no longer her home. 'Home is not where you live; it's where people understand you.' That was not where people understood her. In a sense, she was running from her home, from the only place she had been understood, to the one thing above all others that she could never comprehend herself.
...
He sighed, pressing the phone to his lips. Apparently it had not been a good time...It was never going to be a good time. How could it be? He was trying to end a relationship that had spanned so many years, in a few, insignificant, meaningless little words.
No...That sounded cold. He was not 'trying' to end it; he was forcing himself to end it. It was something they had to address. They could not just say 'hey, we're married now, that's enough, we'll deal with the details later.'
The trouble with details was that, sooner or later, we all find the devil in them.
His fingers moved blindly over his phone, dialling her number again.
He knew she would not answer. Knew she would be running. But he also knew that he could not leave it like this. It felt too cold. 'I think we should separate'. 'Maybe we should.' It couldn't end like that. He knew he shouldn't; knew what kind of message it was likely to produce when he was in this state, but he had to try. He owed her that much.
He waited for the agonising length of the time the phone rang for, hating the part of himself that still believed that she would answer, condemning it for being selfish and for not knowing her.
"Sara Sidle." He closed his eyes as; every time, he felt the bitter sting as it continued, "...leave a message."
"Sara I, I know what this must feel like just now but...You know it's the right thing to do, it's the only thing to do. I know that sounds cruel but I, I've always only ever had your best interests in mind...You know that..." You have to know that..."I, I lo-"his voice broke. He couldn't, couldn't say it, couldn't do that to her, couldn't do that to himself, "I will never regret the time we had together, we need to talk, we need to do this properly...We owe each other that much..."
He hung up, and somehow felt worse for trying to make himself feel better...
He did not regret what they had, would never regret that. However much it was hurting them now, it had been worth it. He would go through what they were going through now for the rest of his life for one night with her. For one more night with her...
God why had he done that? Any of it? Because it needed to be done. Not like this. Yes like this, the longer you waited the more it would have hurt her. I love her, I shouldn't have hurt her at all, there must have been some way to do this without hurting her, to fix this. There wasn't...They both knew that.
Resigning himself to a night filled with insomnia fuelled by caffeine and relentless psychological analysis, he padded into the kitchen to make himself the first of, inevitably, many cups of coffee.
He skimmed over the usual instant at the front of the cupboard in favour of the smaller, more meaningful packet at the back. Greg's infamous 'Blue Hawaiian' that had made him infamous around the lab.
Every year he would be sent a small supply of it with notes such as 'Just because you're not at the lab anymore doesn't mean you can't mastermind me into giving you my 'community' coffee. Enjoy!'
Hank trotted noiselessly into the kitchen behind him. His large, soft brown eyes reminding him forcibly of Sara's deep velvet ones and seemed to be telling him that he did not deserve that after what he had done to her.
"I had to..." he murmured, "I love her, it was the only way I could..."
Hank did not look impressed.
Grissom sighed and turned back to making his coffee, noting that Hank had become a silent, unpaid psychiatrist to him in the last few weeks. One who was increasingly losing patience with his patient.
He returned to the living room and slumped into a chair, playing absent-mindedly with his wedding ring. Sighing as the dog settled himself faithfully at his feet, looking reproachfully up at him as he carefully twisted it off his finger and placed it on the glass coffee table.
...
She was greeted, as she so often was by nothing. The cold chill of the empty apartment clung to her. She did not know how she felt about it. She was confused. On one hand she was angry; she hated him, even though she knew he was right. On the other, she just wanted him here to hold her and to give her something to cling to because at the minute, everything she had been slipping away from her and she was not sure how much more she could take.
The worst part was, she still felt for him too. And she hated herself for that weakness. But she could not help it, she had empathy for him. She understood. She knew what he had done and why. Hadn't she done the same thing, and for vey similar reasons? She had been sure that she had been killing him, tying him down and suffocating him, toying with him as she made him wait. She had been unable to bear the thought and she had sent him that video filled with half-truths and dressed up lies. Telling him that she was good and that she wanted him to move on from her, to move on with his life, to find someone else to make him happy because she did not think that she could anymore. And while she had said all this to him, the thought of him being with another woman had made her want to commandeer the ship, get herself back to Vegas and tell the stupid man that she loved him and she didn't know why...
He had seen through her pretence. Her sentiments had made him come to his senses, had shown them what they both knew...But somehow, she did not think there would be any reunions under the stars this time...
Her phone rang.
She could not do it, could not leave him on the other end, waiting, hoping, praying that she would answer. She picked it up to put him out of his misery and then realised who was actually calling her.
D.B Russell.
Shit...He was worried about her. And no bloody wonder after she had fled like a lunatic from his office as though a wormhole to Hell had opened up inside it and she was now being pursued by all of its demons. Not too far from the truth though, is it?
He wanted to talk and she couldn't trust herself to coherently string two words together in her head never mind hold down a full length conversation over the phone. She couldn't. But she had to. Otherwise he would know. Would know that something had happened, that she was falling to pieces, and then she would...
"Russell, I've just pulled a triple shift and most unfortunately, nature demands that I sleep at some point." She told him, in what she hoped was a casual tone.
He chuckled politely at this before saying, "No, no, that's not why I'm calling Sara; you can get to your bed in a minute I promise. I just...Are you OK?"
"I'm fine, really I'm great." She told him, closing her eyes as she told herself forcefully, when you want someone to believe that you're OK, don't bloody tell them that you're 'fine'...
"You sure Sara. You know you can talk to me, about anything, right, because lately, I get the feeling, and feel free to tell me to mind my own here, I just think that maybe things aren't as 'fine' with you as you like to make out..."
"I...I..." she stammered, she wanted to tell him, wanted to say that her husband had done the unthinkable to her.
In the middle of the lab, over the phone of all places and things, that he was not her husband anymore but she couldn't. Then she would have to accept it, would have to deal with it, would have to deal with them dealing with it and she couldn't. She would, in her own time, but not right now. Right now, she needed to trust what her instincts were telling her and that was secrets, you are only safe when you have your secrets and so she replied, softly,
"I'm okay, really, I'm dealing with it." Why did you say that?
"With what?" he asked, gently, as she kicked herself for being so stupid, "Sara, whatever you're dealing with, if it's affecting-"
"It's not affecting my work." She broke in too quickly, revealing her desperation.
Her work was fast becoming the only thing she had left. She could not lose it as well.
"I wasn't going to say that Sara, you're a professional, I know that...I was just going to say that if it's affecting you this badly, whatever 'it' is, maybe you should talk to someone. My door's always open, you could come round tonight, have dinner with us-"
"I, I, thank you but I can't...I really need to get some sleep or I'll fall over. Rain check..."
"Yeah, OK, I'll let you go, but if you need anything, you call me?"
"Of course."
"Alright...Goodnight Sara."
"Night..." she murmured, as the line went, reluctantly, dead.
He knew that he had gone too far, that he had pushed too hard, crossed a line from which she had no choice but to pull the shutters down and block him out. Something that affected her more strongly than she had anticipated. They had become close during his time in Vegas. Of all the new members of the team, she had connected more with him and it pained her to lie to him, to shut him out and to have him know exactly what she was doing to him. She didn't have a choice though, she couldn't...Or so she told herself.
Realising that what she had said about needing sleep had enough truth in it to force her to bed, as ever with the sleeping pills, the only thing standing between her and eternal insomnia.
She slipped helplessly into an uneasy sleep, and soon the reasons for her insomnia returned in full force.
She was standing alone in the middle of a large, dense expanse of woods in a small clearing. A firefly bobbed, invitingly, in front of her, asking her to follow it. She knew she shouldn't but she always allowed it take to tempt her away. As she followed it deeper into the dark tangle of knotted trees she jumped and squinted between the trees, a sudden flash of movement in the darkness drawing her attention to a shadowy figure standing between two bowed oaks. When she looked back however, they were gone.
Shaking her head and passing it off as a trick of the light, she continued to follow the firefly deeper and deeper into the forest, stumbling on trailing roots becoming hopelessly lost as they continued through the natural maze.
She kept flinching, her muscles becoming permanently contracted in fear as the sinister black silhouette continued to dog her movements through the trees, coming ever closer, but always she had the reassuring presence of the little firefly to anchor herself.
She stumbled into a clearing and the little light she had been following so faithfully, went out, leaving her quite alone with the claustrophobic darkness closing in around her, snatching the breath from her lungs and making it impossible to take another one in the consuming, dense forest. She stood in the grim, black, waiting. Waiting for what she did not know, starting violently as devilishly strong, icy hands closed around her waist, flipping her onto her back on the cold, hard ground, pinning her in place as the unmistakeable voice of her father, soft and poisonously sweet, hissed in her ear,
"You will never be good enough for anyone now that I have destroyed you my little broken bird. They will not want you anymore, they will not have you anymore, he will not have you...Damaged is enough, no-one wants a bird that cannot fly..."
She could see Grissom standing on the opposite side of the clearing. She screamed and called out to him but he simply turned and began to walk, silently, back through the trees. Away from her. Leaving her, the broken bird he no longer had any use for...
As the silver knife flashed above her, her eyes snapped open and she found herself screaming.
She pitched forwards, curling in on herself in the bed as her limbs trembled and the light pyjamas she had on clung to her in a cold sweat. She buried her face in her hands as her muscles convulsed in fear and her chest heaved, as she took great, rattling breaths attempting to force oxygen into her lungs and control herself. Quiet tears seeped from beneath her clawing fingers.
It took a long time to calm herself down. It had been a recurring nightmare that had dogged her in the darkness for years but every other time it had been the cause of broken sleep and shattered windows, Gil had been there to hold her and to reassure her.
Now there was no Gil and no reassurance. Following the events of the night before, it felt as though even her subconscious had turned against her...
Knowing that there wasn't enough Zolpidem on the world to overcome the level of insomnia she was now burdened with; she pulled herself from the bed on shaking legs and moved automatically from the living room, seeking to cleanse herself of the horror within.
The pictures of what was now her old life, smiled mockingly down upon her and it was only with great difficulty that she refrained from tearing them from their shelves and throwing them violently at something only she could see...
Unable to allow herself to remain stewing in the light clothes that still clung to her damp skin, she stripped them off, dived into a cool shower for a few minutes before changing and entering the kitchen, purposefully leaving her phone on the bedside cabinet.
Pulling open the cupboards she soon found that the only thing in them that was remotely alcoholic was a half empty bottle of red wine, the shelves now being filled with various herbal teas. She remembered, bitterly now, telling someone,
"I've spent enough of my life feeling numb. Alcohol makes me feel nothing; tea makes me feel better..."
Right now she didn't want to feel 'better' she wanted to feel what he had done to her and then she wanted to have an excellent excuse to go out and numb everything and to never feel again as all she seemed capable of experiencing was pain and she had spent enough of her life in that already...
She suddenly realised that she had been in Vegas for thirteen years. Thirteen years and had danced with far too few demons in Sin City, something she intended to change that night...
A/N: Thank you for reading/reviewing!