Sara

Morning light bathes the yard in a softness that feels entirely out of place, coral skies painting the horizon where the sun has yet to break over the mountains. It's eerily quiet despite the flash of cruiser lights, a group of curious neighbours that have gathered behind the police tape, whispering amongst themselves. They have no idea the magnitude of horror that lies inside.

"Greg and I are heading back to the lab, you and Nick good to finish up here?

Catherine's voice is tired, a soft hand sliding to my shoulder in a rare display of comfort. I nod, glancing over at Greg as he walks down the front steps, demeanor nothing short of defeated.

He meets my gaze, dark and pained, and suddenly I'm longing for yesterday.

We'd been stuck for hours along the far shore of Lake Mead, waiting for the dive team to arrive. Catherine had passed the time pacing around the dock, complaining about a lack of departmental efficiency while Greg followed the fragments of shade offered by a single Joshua tree, fiddling with the strings on his wide-brimmed hat.

"I thought Norwegians were supposed to be tough" Sofia had mused, worrying a toothpick between her teeth. He frowned, rubbing the last bit of sunblock onto his neck.

"Obviously if we were dealing with perpetual darkness or the freezing cold, I'd be the one thriving"

"Convenient that he'll never have to prove that" she noted, head tilted towards me, just loud enough for him to hear.

Her and I had slipped away from the stagnated scene, brought together only by the desire for air conditioning and caffeination. We walked half a mile in relative silence to a run-down cafe, shoulders occasionally brushing, skin sticky from sweat and sunblock.

As I watch her now, squaring up for a confrontation with a burly man who has slipped under the crime scene tape and is rushing for the door, that quiet afternoon feels lifetimes away.

"Sir, I'm sorry but I can't let you in, this is an active crime scene"

A firm hand to his chest stops him, but he fights. It's his god-damn house, his family, his right to enter- he argues this with vitriol as she presses her other hand to his shoulder and repeats the statement. She warns off the officers ready to haul him down the front steps with a single shake of her head, staring the man down until he relents.

I watch as she leads him into the yard to deliver impossible news. Your children have been violently slain; your wife is missing. I can't hear the conversation, but she speaks with a tensed jaw, shoulders stiff. Her eyes drift momentarily to where the sun is about to break over the mountains as he drops to his knees, grasping her wrist like a lifeline.

I tear myself away from the scene, blinking back tears. I help Nick process the perimeter and by the time we return to load up the Tahoe, she's leaving the father- numb and despondent- in the hands of a social worker. She strides across the lawn to her SUV, parked down the street beneath an overhang of heavy Poplar branches. Hands on her hips, she tilts forward, ponytail falling over her shoulder. For a moment I'm afraid she'll be sick, but she straightens, chest rising and falling with deep breaths.

It feels intimate and invasive seeing her like this, but I can't seem to look away. Fingers come to the buttons of her blouse as she clumsily undoes the top few, as though the garment were suddenly suffocating. She pulls at the fabric, trying to create some space between it and her skin.

Nick, clearly witnessing the same display, starts towards her. I grasp his arm firmly, stepping in front of him.

"Don't"

He frowns, glancing over my shoulder at her, his face tightening in renewed determination.

"She needs a friend right now, Sara. I'm just going to make sure she's okay"

He starts to move past me, but I block him once again.

"She's not, Nick"

I fix him with a serious look, hand heavy against his chest.

"Let her get through this morning, check on her once we're all back at the lab"

His gaze remains fixed on her for a long moment before shifting back to me with a look of irritated skepticism.

"You never see her break down because she doesn't want you to see it, not because it never happens. Just… give her some space"

I'm not sure where exactly this is coming from, but it feels instinctual. I may detest her- her brazen approach to everything, her soft eccentricities, how she charms men and women alike. How Grissom allows her into his personal space, both literal and figurative. But I understand her. To some degree, we relate, and in this moment that overrides our mutual distaste for one another.

I squeeze his shoulder lovingly but press firmly enough to let him know that I won't let him past. His frown never breaks, but he crosses thick arms over his chest in resignation.

"I really hope you're right about that" he mutters, turning towards the Tahoe.

I don't allow myself to look back at her, though by the time we're pulling away she's got her aviators on, sauntering over to a group of officers with a typical air of nonchalance. It's professionalism at its finest and I'm deeply unnerved.


Catherine catches me as we return, relegating me to the layout room where she already has blood-stained blankets and items of clothing laid out for analysis. I offer to attend the autopsy alone, but she insists on being there. One of the children had been in Lindsey's dance class, which has whittled Catherine's patience down to a razors edge. If I balance just right, I can avoid annihilation. I allow her to order me around, to step in where she wants. This is unlike me but one too many fights over the past few months has led to this new method of submission.

We pull a double and I don't go home after. I don't accompany Nick to the diner for breakfast or take Catherine up on her offer of something stronger. Instead, I find myself at Sal's, an indistinct pub on the outskirts of town.

I'm on my third beer before I notice her, seated at the bar, looking utterly hollowed out. To a stranger she probably appears tired, worn down from a long week at work. Only I know that it takes a hit of emotional devastation for her immaculate ponytail to fall so far from grace. For her practiced attentiveness to be narrowed to a single glass of whiskey, everything else be dammed.

I watch her fingers ghost along the edges of the glass and wonder what the hell she's doing in a seedy pub sandwiched between a Mexican restaurant and a 'for lease' retail space on the edge of town. Wonder why she's not softening the edges of today in one of the typical cop haunts, numbing herself in sympathetic company. I suppose it's the same reason I'm here- to be alone amidst people. It solidifies my earlier notion that what she needed was some space.

But it's later now and I'm three drinks in and she looks so incredibly fragile. It's a word I'd never think to associate with Sofia, forever emboldened by brazen confidence. Anything she can't take in stride she takes on the chin. Even when she falters, she's okay.

But here, beneath dim bar lights, inhaling the nauseating scent of liquor and stale cigarettes, I'm not so sure. It's an uncertainty born from my own pain and justified anger. From my third beer and the desire to keep going until I can't remember details. Can't picture young, lifeless faces. The softness of their small hands.

She shifts on her bar stool, pressing a hand to her forehead for a lingering moment, as though trying to repress similar thoughts. I flex my fingers around the now-warm bottle in my grasp, fighting the instinct to be closer to her. To comfort her. To draw comfort from this strange, miserable kinship.

The truth is that the chatty bartender, or the handsome man eyeing her from a few seats down, or the rowdy group of men entering the room with eager glances will never understand what we're feeling. What we're thinking. God willing.

I almost sit down beside her, two years of tension and irritation be damned. I almost touch her slumped shoulder and attempt to find some comforting words. I almost order us another round and save her from a man who, at best, will serve as a regretful distraction. But he's already on his feet, approaching her with a tone-deaf grin, and there aren't any words.

I stay long enough to watch a lazy smile play over her features, reacting to whatever line he had used, an eyebrow quirking as she turns to regard him fully. I scoff, tossing back the warm remains of beer and tearing my gaze from her, heading out into the lingering heat of dusk. I bum a smoke from a woman outside the bar and choose to walk the six blocks back to my apartment, too restless to be still, my thoughts far too loud.