Chapter 14
Bleeding Hearts and Broken Dolls
Nick smiled slightly as he checked his phone, causing Sara to look up from what felt like her sixth cup of tea that day. It seemed his cure for her fragile state was to cause her to overdose on the stuff. Though she did have to admit it was helping. She was glad that she did not have to have the house to herself.
Usually she welcomed the silence, preferring to think of it as peace. It was a chance for her to get away from the chaotic lab and the howling clamour of Vegas. Before she had welcomed that as it had awakened something within her and had given her a purpose. She had soon found that that was why she had burnout. She had to find some kind of equilibrium, a balance between work and her personal life, or lack of as it was these days, to stop herself from exploding.
In her first few years of Vegas, she had needed the sound, the endless clatter of voices and cars and slot machines that seemed to ring through her mind at all times in the town whether she was in a casino or not. She needed it to remind her that she was not alone, that she was not vulnerable, not exposed, not defenceless, that there were other people with monsters on their backs and demons in their souls who hid them just as well as she did.
She wanted the noise of the city to drown out the screaming in her head.
Now however it was different. The silence reminded her of peace. Of luxurious nights spent beneath the dense, velvet strips of inky sky in Costa Rica, with his arm draped lazily across her shoulders as they lay on the sand and he pointed out constellations, some of which she later discovered, had been of his own invention because he had run out of real ones...She had never confronted him on that...
Now the shrieks of Vegas' nightlife only served to remind her of the screams in her past. Either her own or her mothers, in that darkened house, alone and terrified, the howls of pain and terror the only things to rent the suffocating silence that had swallowed her.
She took comfort in it now. She associated it with times where she had not had to fear the oppressive, daring silence, when she had felt safe and comforted by it because he had been there in it.
Since Basderic however, she had reverted to her old ways. Grissom had been gone for too long and the silence was beginning to be quietly corrupted by the poisonous influence of Basderic.
Giving herself a little shake, she pulled herself back to Nick, forcing a strained smile on to her face in response to his expression and burying the emotions she could not quite cover herself in her mug as she asked,
"What is it?"
"Finn." He said, smiling wryly and shaking his head, "She wants to know why no-one's brought her grapes." He told her, chuckling,
Sara smiled and found a laugh bubbling from the depths of her throat, "Yeah, that sounds like Finn...She gets stabbed and all she wants are grapes..."
"You know I was thinking about going to see her today...We could bring her some." He said, smiling and not adding that he also wanted to get her out of the house.
"Alright..." she said, smiling slightly as she set her cup on the table, "On one condition..." she told him, the grin becoming wolfish at the panicked expression on his face, "I drive." She winked,
Shaking his head he grabbed his jacket and said, "Alright let's go...Before you come up with something really crazy..."
She clambered in to the car and was glad that he had made her do this. She was almost able to escape the claustrophobia that was constricting her mind on the long open roads through the desert.
She watched with an amused expression as he continued texting Finn, unable to resist jibing,
"So, what's going on with you and Finn?" she asked teasingly, raising her eyebrows at him,
"What?" he spluttered, turning beetroot in response to her mocking suggestion and the flirtatious tone in which she had said it, "Nothing..."
"Nothing? Really? Is that what they're calling it these days?" she pressed mercilessly, watching him floundering helplessly,
"No, no, she's just a friend." He insisted weakly, knowing full well what he had walked in to and fully expecting her to take advantage of it. Right on cue, she smirked,
"With benefits?"
"No. No benefits, no gossip, no steamy office romances...That's your area of expertise." He retorted, taking a chance to bite back good-naturedly,
She stared at him, laughing in disbelief before she quipped defensively, "Well I was a damn sight better at it than you..."
"No, no, because I have nothing to hide." He told her superiorly, smiling now, glad to see her laughing again, even if it was at his expense.
"Really you trying to tell me that nothing's happened?" she pressed, eyes dancing mischievously,
"Nothing has happened." He told her, chuckling at her insistence,
"You trying to tell me you haven't thought about anything happen?" she pushed daringly, grinning at him from the corner of her twinkling eye,
"Hey, this is becoming insulting, "he said, in mock hurt tones, "How long have we known each other, nothing's ever happened between us!"
"Yeah, not for lack of trying on your part." She replied deadpan, unable to contain herself at the expression on his face, able to forget for a moment about Basderic and Grissom, allowing herself a moment of happiness for what felt the first time in a lifetime.
They arrived at the hospital almost half an hour later, by which time Sara was wracked with feelings of guilt for not going to see her sooner. She had become so wrapped up in Basderic and she had wanted to keep her distance while she had figured out what he was doing. She had not wanted Finn to be in any more of a vulnerable position than she was in.
Nick sensed her discomfort and pushed her towards the door saying,
"You go in first...I'll go and get a coffee and then me and my grapes will come and rescue you later."
She smiled and nodded, appreciating this, "Thanks..." she murmured as he gave her shoulder a small squeeze and left her to push her way quietly in to the room.
"Hey..." she murmured, quietly taking a seat beside the other woman,
"Hey..." she said, forcing a bleary-eyed smile, "I was worried about you..." she said huskily, pushing herself up on her pillows and wincing,
"Yeah, I'm sorry I-" she began uncomfortably,
"No, no, I understand..." she said quickly, reaching out and wrapping a comforting hand around the younger woman's arm, "It's OK..." she paused a moment, lowering her eyes to look in to Sara's as she asked quietly, "Are you?"
"Yeah, yeah I'm fine..." she shrugged defensively, brushing her off as she did so,
"Picture that..." Finn muttered, rolling her eyes and quietly withdrawing her hand, the defensive paranoia of her younger colleague not going unnoticed,
"How are you?" Sara asked, clearing her throat and smoothly changing the subject, not wanting to stray in to uncharted territories, not trusting Finn to not hit a nerve and trigger something she could not control, knowing that the other woman had already noticed how on edge she had been.
"I'm fine..." she said, grinning slightly, before shrugging and adding in an off-hand voice, "The hole in my lung whistles every time I breathe but..."
Sara smiled at this and said, "Something for you to talk about at parties."
"Yeah..." she said, grinning, "You were a lot more sympathetic to that than Russell any way..."
"Really? What did he suggest?" Sara asked, smiling slightly in spite of herself,
"That I stop breathing." Finn replied flatly, trying, and failing, to look un-amused as the smile tugged at her lips,
Sara laughed, "Yeah, that sounds like Russell." She paused a moment, the laughter dying in her a little as she asked, "What happened?"
She took a deep breath and shook her head, "I was stupid..." she murmured quietly, wrapping the cotton sheets nervously around her hands as she spoke, "I went to check back on the little girl..."
"Finn..." Sara murmured quietly,
"I know, I know..." she said, shaking her head, "I just...I don't know...I...She...She was the victim in all of this, and no-one seemed to care about her..." she said quietly, fumbling with her words and watching the sheets twisting uncomfortably in her hands,
"They never do in these cases..." Sara murmured quietly, having a little too much experience of this herself.
Whenever doctors or nurses or social workers had tried, in vain and infrequently, to address the issues at home, it was never her they spoke to and more often than not it became about politics and protocols rather than an abused, smothered child...
"Sara..." Finn murmured gently, her chest constricting at the thought that had just entered her head but needing to give them both a chance to address it, she breathed softly, "What you said...Back in that house. About your mother...Was that true?"
Sara drew a deep breath and fidgeted, answering before she even opened her mouth, "I...It..." she began, faltering as the words caught in her throat,
"Hey, it's OK...I was just saying, if you wanted to talk..." Finn said hastily, wanting the other woman to open up but not wanting to push her and make her clam up.
"No...No, I would like to it's just..." she said, taking another thick breath that rattled in her lungs. She took a moment to compose herself before beginning in a soft, flat whisper, "My mother was schizophrenic...One night, a long time ago, she got up in the middle of the night, she took a knife from the kitchen, and she stabbed my father in the chest while he was sleeping..."
Finn stared at her for a moment her eyes flicking down for a moment before she raised them. Sara was surprised not to find pity or sympathy, but understanding and a faint film of bitter tears,
"Why?" she whispered, surprising her,
"He was controlling, manipulative, abusive...He beat and raped me...She had enough."
"Yeah..." she murmured quietly, "Battered women will only be pushed so far..."
"How far did he have to push you?" she murmured softly,
"What?" she asked distractedly, pushing away a stray tear that had managed to escape from beneath her stubborn iron lids,
"Come on Finn..." she said softly, "Something about that got to you and it wasn't my poetic words." She told her quietly, "What did he do to you?"
"You remember me telling you about Mike?" she said quietly, brushing her eyes looking irritated with the corner of her sleeve,
"The Seattle ex?" Sara asked quietly, confused, having met Mike and not being sure where this was going,
"Yeah...Husband number two and if he was an idiot, then the first was a real son-of-a-bitch..." she said, the last word being spat from her throat in a choke. Sara placed her hand gently over the other woman's, knowing that there was nothing she could say to make this easier for her and sensing that this was not something she had spoken about often, "He..." her voice shook and Sara gave her hand a soft squeeze as her breath rattled in her lungs, "He was abusive..." her voice cracked again and her voice became laboured, coming in short, sporadic bursts, "Shocking." She spat, rubbing her eyes again, looking irritated, "Nothing was physical to begin with, all emotional, all subtle, everything was kept hidden, even from me...It got to the stage where I could barely breathe without him telling me no and still I couldn't see what he was doing to me...It had to get to the point where something pushed him too far and he snapped...Once he did that, I was out, and I realised how much of my life he had stolen from me..."
"What happened?" Sara murmured softly,
"I was five months pregnant..." she replied in a strangled whisper, "I miscarried...He blamed me...Sent me back to hospital..."
"I'm so sorry..." Sara murmured quietly, giving her hand another comforting squeeze, "I didn't know, Finn, I..." she said, trailing off, not knowing what to say, wishing she had not told her and wishing she had not been so blunt about it,
"Well now you do." She choked, channelling a certain bluntness that was specific only to Finn.
Sara rewarded her with a strained smile and was quiet for a while as they both struggled with similar flashbacks before saying softly in to the silence,
"When are they going to let you out of here?" she asked quietly, knotting her hands absently in the thin sheets on the bed,
"I don't know..." she said quietly "Soon I hope..." she said brusquely, before adding in a quieter voice, "I cannot sleep in here..." she said, trying to be blasé, "And speaking of that, you don't look like you've slept in about...Three years? You OK?" she asked gently, gazing at the brunette as she laughed uncomfortably and averted her eyes,
She knew that after Finn's faith in her she had to give something back, but with her being in such a vulnerable position in the hospital, she did not want to tell her about Basderic and potentially make it worse. This was her problem and hers alone. She would not allow anyone else to suffer for her own recklessness.
"You know...Since the whole thing with Taylor Wynard at the hotel and Basderic swapping out my pills..." she took a deep breath, eyes darting towards the ceiling as though hoping to find solace in the cold, yellowing tiles, "I haven't really slept since I stopped taking them..." she paused, still running her hands through the thin, prickly sheets beneath her fingers, "I could only sleep with a shot and a sleeping tablet...Now I just can't sleep..." she sighed and brushed nervous fingers over her lips before saying, "I can't sleep with them...Won't sleep without them..."
"Yeah..." Finn murmured quietly, "I know the feeling...Insomnia's a bitch..." she said, "Is it nightmares or can you not even bring yourself to that?"
"Bit of both..." she admitted with a shrug, "It's a vicious circle..."
"Yeah, you can't sleep because you think it will give you nightmares, and then you try, the nightmares wake you, and you still can't sleep because you know you'll have nightmares..." she murmured bitterly,
"Voice of experience there?" Sara asked gently,
"Bitter experience..." she replied coolly, "It used to be, I wouldn't get cases that kept me up at night because they got under my skin and I couldn't stop working on them, they kept me up at night because they got stuck inside my head and I couldn't stop seeing them when I slept. The victims. The killers. And I always ended up a screaming wreck trying to run on less than three hours of broken sleep..."
"How did you deal with it?" Sara asked quietly, having gone through just about every trick in the book and finding herself fast running out of healthy options.
"I don't know..." the other woman replied quietly, not making eye contact, "I tried the alcohol and the pills...It worked for a bit, but then I just found that I still had the nightmares, I just couldn't wake up from them...I tried reading, I tried working, I tried just about everything..."
"What worked?"
"I don't know...Some days I still think nothing." She said quietly, "There are some dark secrets inside my head that aren't going to leave for any reason, I've learned to accept that, but...Talking helps...Russell was great..." she laughed a little at the memory, "He had noticed that I had become irritable at work-" Sara raised an eyebrow and Finn shrugged, smirking as she said, "More irritable then...He called me out on it, guessed, correctly, and started prescribing me all of these strange teas...I thought he was nuts but I went another rough patch a few days after it and I decided it couldn't hurt...It didn't." She said with a small smile, "But if there's something that's bothering you Sara, then all the tea in China won't fix it..." she told her perceptibly,
"Yeah, I, uh, I think it's just bad memories..." she said quietly,
"You sure?" Finn pushed quietly, knowing that there was more than ancient history tormenting the brunette,
"Yeah, I'm sure..." she said, forcing a sad smile.
She could not tell her about Basderic. And she would not tell her about Grissom. She had had enough of that with Nick. She could not do that with him anymore. She had made her choice and now she had to deal with it.
Fortunately, at that moment, Nick provided a welcome distraction for both of them,
"Hey..." he said, walking up to Finn and pulling her in to a brief hug, careful not to brush her injured side,
"Hey." She and Sara answered him silently,
"It's crazy serious in here..." he told them, drawing back from her as he glanced between them,
"Yeah..." Finn said heavily, giving her loose blond curls a shake and hitching a smile on to her face that told him not to push it.
"Well alright then." He said quietly, taking a seat behind Sara. He looked between them again, noticing that neither of them held eye contact with them before sighing, leaning forwards and asking Finn in a deadly serious voice,
"Would you like a grape?"
They stayed with Finn for a few hours and gave in to her protests, filling her in on some of the recent cases they had worked at the lab and giving her something to puzzle over before she started climbing the walls before they both agreed that they had to leave.
They quietly slipped from the hospital and back in to the car. As Sara began to head for Nick's apartment he glanced at her and said,
"You wanting me to stay another night with you?"
"No." She replied bluntly, something he picked up on as he snorted, "I'm sorry..." she said, smiling slightly at his expression and shaking her head, "I just...Uh, I think I just need to start learning...How to do this myself. I'll be fine, I promise..."
She had already let him get in too close. It had been stupid and selfish of her, knowing that Basderic was there and knowing how much danger she could have put him in. She would not do that again. Whatever it cost her.
He agreed without comment but as she pulled up outside his apartment he leaned in through the open window and told her quietly, "You know that if anything happens, you can call me, right?"
"Sure, Nick, now-" she began, brushing him off easily,
"I mean it Sara." He told her sternly. Like Finn, he too had noted the discomfort that had settled around their cagey colleague, "Anything."
"I know Nick." She said, forcing a light laugh as she leaned over and gave him a friendly shove in the chest, "I've got you on speed-dial, now go."
"OK, alright, I'm going..." he said, also smiling and stepping away from the car.
She quietly pulled in to the drive of her own house and sat for a moment, enjoying the dark and the quiet that followed her chaotic day after she had pulled the keys from the ignition.
Finally forcing herself from the car, she swung her long legs from it, planting them as firmly on to the drive-way as she could and staggered up it on exhausted feet that were telling her that now more than anything, she needed to sleep. Regardless of the nightmares that came, she knew that she had no choice tonight.
Ducking in to the house, she slowly punched in the alarm code and numbly dropped her keys in to the little bowl on the wooden shelf beside her.
She stumbled in to the living room, intending to head straight for bed and not bothering to turn on the lights.
She froze as she saw a familiar outline sitting on the chair that had always belonged to him, back to the door.
She watched as it rose and felt ice cascade in to her stomach,
"I thought I had told you to go?" she murmured softly as the shadow moved in to the light, revealing their face to her.
A/N: A little iffy on this chapter and so your thoughts, any and all, are welcomed and much appreciated! :)