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Infliction
Chapter Four - Nightmares
Sara felt as if she had been
frozen to the spot. Everything suddenly felt incredibly surreal. One moment,
she had been enjoying a magical evening with Grissom. Now all of that had
fallen away, to be replaced with shock and grief.
Her throat closed over, a sob
building there but refusing to surface. She had no idea how long she had been
standing there, but gradually she became aware that Grissom was talking to her.
‘Sara?’ she barely heard him
say.
She dragged her eyes away from
the telephone and looked at him. His expression was worried, his eyes tender.
She couldn’t bear to look at him and so her eyes darted away once more.
‘Sara?’ he tried again.
‘What’s wrong?’
She shook her head, whether in
response to his question or to clear the images that were flooding her mind,
she wasn’t sure. She felt the tears building and squeezed her eyes shut to
stave them off.
‘Talk to me.’
It was a conversation she knew
she needed to have with him. She’d accepted that. She’d planned out what she
wanted to say – what she needed to tell him – in minute detail. She had planned on bringing it up. She had planned
on sitting him down and talking him through the horrors that had been her
childhood. She had planned for his reaction. She had planned it all.
She just hadn’t planned on
doing it right now. And she certainly hadn’t planned on her mother calling, out
of the blue, while Grissom was within earshot.
Grief and fear and who knows
what other emotions shuddered through her and she knew this was not the right
time to tell him. She wouldn’t be able to form the words.
‘I can’t,’ she whispered. ‘I
can’t deal with this. Not now.’
Turning away from him, she
strode quickly to her bedroom and shut the door.
Grissom stared at the space
she had just vacated, worry and confusion mingling in his soul. He had never
seen Sara so complete shut down. He had seen her upset, angry, frustrated and
even frightened, but this seemed to go beyond all of that. It was as though her
entire system had gone into shock.
Not for the first time in his
life, Gil Grissom felt completely helpless. Knowledge was power in his neat,
orderly life. He craved knowledge like other people craved food. To know was to
be in control, and at this precise moment in time, he didn’t know enough about
Sara’s past to explain why she was so upset. And because of this, he felt
completely out of control and powerless to help her.
Deciding to give her a few
moments alone before going to her, he moved to the kitchen and made tea.
---
She was shaking from head to
foot. Tears stung her cheeks and she pressed angry fists into her eyes, trying
to force them into retreat.
Why now? What possible reason
could her mother have for contacting her after all these years? She had last
written two years before, with a change of address and contact number ‘just in case you change your mind, Sara,
and want to get in touch.’
Sara didn’t know how Laura
Sidle had found out she’d moved to Vegas. She hadn’t written back to find out.
A fresh wave of guilt swept
through her like nausea. This was her mother.
The woman had given birth to her, had raised her for the first thirteen years
of her life. And yet, the thought of talking to her, of being in the same room
as her, sent a chill through her heart. To face her mother was to face her
past; and that was something Sara, as strong as she was in other aspects of her
life, was completely unable to do.
She sat down on the corner of
her bed and took a long, steadying breath. Wiping her eyes, she remembered the
man she had left, alone and confused, in her living room. She’d have to explain
things to Grissom. At least enough so that he wouldn’t worry about her. She
owed him that much.
Moving from her bedroom to the
adjoining bathroom, she splashed water on her face and regarded her reflection
in the mirror. Puffy red circles were an immediate give away that she’d been
crying. Reaching for the compact on the counter-top beside her, she dabbed on
make-up and checked the effect. Satisfied that she at least looked less of a
wreck than she felt, she moved back out to the living room to face Grissom.
She found him leaning against
her countertop, staring into a cup of tea that was growing colder by the
second. His face was lined with worry, and she felt her heart constrict at the
thought of him worrying about her. It was all he seemed to do lately.
‘Hey,’ she said softly and he
turned, the lines on his face easing slightly as gave her a small smile.
‘Hey. You okay?’
Sara shrugged. ‘I… uh. I guess
you want to know why I freaked out like that.’
Grissom cocked his head to one
side and looked at her. ‘I do. But you’re not ready to tell me.’
Surprised, she frowned. ‘How
do you know…?’
‘I’m an investigator, Sara.
As… socially inept as I am, I am still fairly skilled at reading people. And I
know you’re not ready to talk about it.’ He moved towards her and placed a hand
on her cheek. ‘It’s enough right now to know that you want to tell me. That
you’re willing to tell me. And when you’re ready, I’ll be here to listen.’
She smiled at him in wonder.
‘What did I ever do to deserve you?’
‘You have that backwards,
honey. I’m the one who doesn’t deserve you.’
She placed a hand on his arm
and gave it a gentle squeeze. ‘How about we call it a draw and say we both
deserve each other?’
He smiled broadly. ‘I can live
with that.’
He drew her towards him and
held her close, making her feel so safe and warm that, in that moment, she felt
like nothing bad could touch her. They stayed like that for the longest time,
basking in each others warmth. Finally, with a certain amount of reluctance,
Grissom pulled back slightly.
‘I should go and let you get
some sleep. Big day tomorrow.’
Sara was confused. ‘Big day?’
‘Oh. Didn’t I tell you?’ He
grinned. ‘Hmm. Must be a surprise then.’
‘Gris…’
He smiled again and kissed her
on the nose. ‘Trust me,’ he whispered. ‘It’ll be fun.’
When she nodded in agreement
he kissed her, soft and gently on the lips. ‘I’d better get going,’ he told her
and started towards the door.
‘Grissom?’
‘Mm-hmm.’
‘Stay with me?’
He turned back to look at her.
She looked fragile all of a sudden and his heart ached. ‘Sure.’
---
The
smell of iron lingered, thick and cloying in the air. There was so much blood.
Sticky and red, she felt as though she was covered in it from head to toe; the
smell of it creeping down her nose, down her throat, making her want to wretch.
She
stared at the cast-off on the wall, like some grotesque Pollock painting she
had seen once in a book … and when she finally looked away from the wall, he
was still there - dead eyes, staring blindly at her.
Her
mother sat, curled like a child in the corner, grasping a steak-knife, sticky
and red. Sticky and red. Sticky and red. The words repeated in her head, over
and over, like a children’s rhyme.
Her
mother did not cry. She didn’t do anything, in fact. She was just… gone - her
eyes as vacant as those of the body that lay motionless on the bed.
Laura
Sidle didn’t move, so Sara crept forward towards her father. She felt the bile
rise up in her throat as she felt both grief and relief, horror and nothing…
nothing at all. He was dead. She was free. And yet, she was not.
His
eyes locked with hers. A bloody hand reached out and grabbed her arm.
‘You
worthless little bitch,’ her dead father told her. ‘Like mother like daughter.’
Sara woke up screaming. Coated
in sweat that at first felt like the blood in that room, she panicked,
struggling to throw off the sheets that tangled round her writhing form.
‘Sara?’
Grissom awoke to a
train-wreck. Sobbing and shaking, when she felt him put his hands on her
shoulders, she turned towards him and sank into his comforting arms, seeking
sanctuary from her nightmares.
No.
Not nightmares.
Nightmares were a fiction. Her
memories were real. Over and over, she could hear the viciousness in her
father’s voice, as he punched her again and again, telling her how worthless
she was, telling her how like her mother she was.
He had beaten her to within an
inch of unconsciousness, like she had seen him do to her mother for years. And
that, in the end, had been the last straw for Laura Sidle.
Still haunted by those words,
Sara cried herself to sleep in the arms of a man she knew would never treat her
like that.
---
She was closer to her old self
again when morning came, but dark circles told of a night of little rest.
Grissom made it clear that he would press her for no information that she would
not willingly give, but he still eyed her cautiously all through breakfast.
After breakfast, he left her
for an hour to ‘get things ready’ and returned with a picnic basket brimming
with fruit, snacks and pasta salad.
‘What’s going on?’ she asked.
‘Told you,’ he smiled in
reply. ‘It’s a surprise…’
They spent the day at
---
Grissom had taken four days
off work, the remainder of Sara’s leave. On the second day, they lazed around
his townhouse, reading journals, watching movies, making love. Not that she
complained, but for someone usually so active, Sara was still having the
culture shock of her life not being at work for such a long period of time. So
she suggested they find a project for their remaining two free days.
Grissom’s hand paused in its
caress of her skin when the suggestion was made, and he smirked. ‘This could be our project.’
Her laugh, when it came, was
deep and throaty and, most importantly, genuine. Grissom huffed out a sigh of
relief. In the two days since the phone call, he hadn’t once heard her laugh.
‘Has the workaholic finally
decided to slow down?’ she asked him.
‘The ‘workaholic’ has found
another workaholic with whom he’d like to slow down,’ he replied. ‘Just a
little,’ he qualified.
She rolled over and kissed
him. ‘Well, tomorrow you can slow down in my apartment and watch me paint my
bathroom.’
---
‘No woman should look that good in overalls,’ he commented
appreciatively. She was wearing an old pair of overalls from the lab and they
hugged her in all the right places.
Smiling suggestively, she
wiggled her butt at him.
‘You really went to town with
this ‘home make-over’ thing, didn’t you?’
‘Well, you know me. I don’t do
things by halves.’
Grissom was sitting on the
floor, in the hall outside the bathroom, drinking a beer and watching her work.
He had tried to help, but she refused to let him, saying – ‘I like the idea of
my workaholic entomologist kicking back and doing nothing for a little while.
Besides, you’ll only be under my feet.’
He had only agreed not to help
when she had promised to engage in his suggested ‘project’ once the bathroom
was finished.
Glancing down the hall to the
living room, he cocked his head in contemplation. ‘I kind of miss the purple.’
‘Oh yeah? Tough,’ she grinned
as her cell phone began to ring. Wiping her hands on a rag, she picked it up
off the counter. ‘Sidle.’ Her smile faded instantly.
Grissom grew more concerned
every moment she spent on the phone. Sara’s whole body had tensed; gone was her
happy demeanor of moments ago, now replaced with a frown and a clipped
telephone manner. He caught words like ‘trial’ and ‘testimony’, and realized
who she was speaking to.
‘Brian,’ she told him when she
disconnected the call with the Assistant DA. ‘He wants to meet me tomorrow
about Jill’s trial.’
‘Three days time,’ he
recalled. ‘I’d forgotten.’
Sara smiled joylessly. ‘I hadn’t.’
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