FanFiction.Net - unleash your imagination
| FanFiction.Net - unleash your imagination |
|
| Home Just In Communities Forums Beta Readers Dictionary Search | Login Register Extras |
SEASONS
Summary:Life, like the seasons, is continually changing, constantly evolving. Sara’s life and its changes over two years, seen through the passing of the seasons.
Rating:Teen
Disclaimer:CSI and all related characters belong to CBS/Alliance Atlantis
Author’s Note: This was originally intended to be a short vignette but my muse decided to destroy my original outline and make a new one.
For a little clarification, part one will follow season five and focus on Sara. Part two will follow season six and focus on Nick as seen through Sara’s eyes. The whole thing is done is Sara’s perspective, which both limits and gives depth to what we see as the audience. Happy reading.
In summer, the heat of the Vegas desert was nearly suffocating. Smog and soaring temperatures competed with one another to wreck the most havoc on the human population. Humidity was rare but the sun was a constant presence. The blazing sun, beating down on the dusty desert ground, turned everything a dull sandy brown. Not dead, not yet, but dying, quenched of thirst. The only things that thrive during the Nevada summers are the cactuses.
It was near the beginning of summer that everything fell apart. Her near arrest for drunk driving had left Sara on leave for three works. The requirement that she see a PEAP counsellor duelled with her forced vacation for the title of thing she hated most. She disliked the assumption that she had problems. She disliked the assumption that working would interfere with the supposed recovery she was apparently to find with her counsellor.
After her three weeks off, Grissom had allowed her to return to work. Her counsellor had been reluctant to consent to her return but the promise to continue seeing the middle-aged woman past the mandatory sessions swayed the short and greying counsellor. Sara had never been so thankful in her life.
Returning to work hadn’t been as easy as she would have liked. Rumors had abounded during her time off. Few had any connection to the truth. Barely a gossamer thread linked them to what had really happened. Most centered about burn-out. A couple claimed that it was a combination of stress and an unrequited obsession that lead to the three week leave. It seemed like the responding officer had apparently listened to Grissom and had dutifully kept his mouth shut. But still gossip flew through the circulated air of the Las Vegas Crime Lab like the flies who fly through the thick air to reach the newest dead body. Each responded to the barest trace of scent in the air.
Her co-workers were one part suspicious and four parts ignorant. Catherine and Warrick for the most part just ignored her, like they were prone to do anyways—they were blissfully unaware of what was brewing just beneath the surface. Greg was sweet but he listened a bit too much to lab gossip. Grissom continued to live in his own little world, apparently satisfied that he had successfully handled yet another Sara Sidle Situation. Brass tried to reach out to her, as if he suspected the truth reason behind her leave. She refused his help. She didn’t need his empathy, his support, she told herself. Nick was the worse, though.
Once upon a time, they had been friends but at some point during the past year they had slowly becoming nothing more than mere co-workers. The competition for the Lead CSI job had undoubtedly played a factor but it seemed like several things had conspired to drive a wedge between her and Nick. And Grissom, being Grissom, seemed oblivious to the tensions that remained between her and Nick. He assigned them together frequently, probably figuring that their friendship would be helpful to her. He couldn’t have been more wrong.
Their personalities clashed more than ever these days. Each approached the crime from a different perspective and while in the past this had worked now it just didn’t. They refused to accept that each had a perspective that might be valid. It was perplexing, to say the least, for she and Nick had always gotten along before. Now it seemed like everything was upside down.
But when she thought about it, Sara had a few ideas about why her and Nick were so at odds. When she had first returned to work, Nick had tried to be friendly. She had rebuffed him, feeling that his concern was too forced, too unnatural given all the tension that still lingered between them. The look on his face had seemed to say that he was only trying to be there for her because his Texas upbringing demanded it. Afterwards, their relationship had spiralled downwards, back to what it had been in the weeks leading up to the announcement of who Grissom had recommended for the promotion. Her counsellor said that it was because she had an irrational need for approval from father-like figures. She wasn’t so sure that the nosy woman wasn’t right. It didn’t make her relationship with Nick any less strained, though. He wasn’t trying to resolve their differences and Sara wasn’t about to make the effort herself. It wasn’t her way.
The one constant thing in those early summer weeks appeared to be her position on the outside, looking in. She was no longer comfortable in her own skin. Her counsellor said she needed to talk to her co-workers, who really made up the inner core of her friends. She disagreed.
Towards the middle of August, a heat wave descended upon Las Vegas. Temperatures scored to past the one hundred degree mark, reaching on average a high of one hundred and ten. As the heat rose, so did the tensions between her and Nick.
The usual myths about skyrocketing crimes waves accompanying heat waves were once again proven to be only crime myths. Still, crimes were being committed and those crime scenes still needed to be processed. Grissom continually paired Sara and Nick together during this time, oblivious still to the tension between the two investigators. The differences in their crime solving styles were only exacerbated by the heat. Ever small things could set them off, at crime scenes and in the air-conditioned halls of the crime lab.
After another week of snapping at each other and another two sessions with her counsellor, Sara had felt that the situation between her and Nick had escalated to the point that it was bordering on ridiculous She wanted her friend back and, since she had already rejected Nick’s probably friendly advances one, she’d have to be the one take the leap of faith. She was terrified but at the same time oddly relieved. Her counsellor said it was all part of the healing process.
She had invited him over for cokes and baseball. When Nick stated that beer and baseball went much better together, she quietly informed that it was alcohol, not stress, which had been the cause of her three week leave at the beginning of July. A flash of recognition and something akin to understanding had passed through Nick’s dark brown eyes. He had touched her arm before saying that he would love to spend the afternoon watching baseball and drinking chilled soda with her. A bolt of pleasure had gone through her under his touch but she passed it off with a laugh. Before she had been required to say anything, her pager had gone off. Escaping from the break room, Nick had called out that he would see her Saturday. A smile had been present on her face when she had entered the DNA lab moments later.
Ultimately it was a single touch that had proved to be their undoing. Their fingers had brushed when Sara had handed Nick his second can of soda. Their eyes had locked and the tension that had been present for the last several months had filled the air before snapping like a length of string pulled too taut. Their lips had crashed together and suddenly there was no going back.
She had woken up hot and sweaty, the sheets sticky to her body. A heavy male arm was draped across her abdomen, Nick’s grip firm and possessive around her slender waist. Their bodies were pressed together, both sticky with sweat, underneath the thin cotton duvet that covered them. She slowly slipped from Nick’s grasp. She grabbed her silk robe before escaping to the kitchen, terrified at the implications of what they had done.
She was leaning against the kitchen counter when Nick came up behind her, cool tile clenched beneath her fingers. He placed his hands on her hips, fingers resting lightly on hipbones, and whispered into her ear. He told her that it didn’t have to be just one night, that it could be something more. He told her how it did mean something more to him, telling her all this in a low husky tone that set shivers up her spine. She leaned into him and wrapped her fingers around his, clutching painfully.
She had whispered yes to the question that was left unspoken as Nick stopped talking and began to sweep his fingers across her stomach. The kisses he trailed up and down the column of her neck were his answer.
In summer, in hazy days filled with sunshine and heat, Nick held out his hand and Sara took what was being proffered. There were mumbled promises of hope, of love. As the sun shone down on the earth, causing vegetation of all sorts to grow, Nick offered her a chance to grow herself. They gave into temptation that was as high as the days are long.
But she couldn’t help but wonder if maybe all that connected them was a tenuous link forged in the heat of the moment. Would it all pass, like everything else in her life? These thoughts consumed her, even when she was with him.
As they lay in bed together, limbs a tangled mess, she played with his fingers as he slept. He slept while she pondered. While she worried that his place in her bed was only a temporary thing, a refuge for an all-too-brief second. Her fears built as their fling continued, as the summer months passed and a cooler wind welcomed in autumn.
In autumn, they walked through the park as the colored leaves danced to an invisible beat. The trees that lined the gravel walkway were still heavily burdened by leaves and the leaves that had fallen were each distinct as they floated in the air. Sara watched this dance as she walked along the path, her fingers entwined with Nick’s as they walked in the October afternoon.
Shift for Nick didn’t start for a couple of hours and Sara still had hours left before her shift started. There was still plenty of time for her to catch her five hours of shuteye. Instead she tried to enjoy the crisp October wind and the feel of Nick’s fingers. His fingers were warm compared to hers and she could feel that heat transferring from him to her right where their fingers were tightly joined.
It was an odd feeling, walking in the middle of the afternoon in the nearly empty park. It was odd being there with Nick, walking so close that their bodies touched with almost every step that they took. The leaves may have been dancing but the couple was engaged in their own little dance. That wasn’t a thought that gave Sara any more comfort. The whole oddness of everything made the butterflies in her stomach flip and flop over and over again.
Nick smiled at her, pulling her into a warm embrace as he stopped in the middle of the gravel pathway. Around their feet the leaves swished and swirled. Their eyes locked and Nick brought his fingers to her face, where they brushed away a piece of stray hair that had fallen from her ponytail. It was a gesture that was intimate and revealing, much more so that their clasped hands. Her breath caught in her throat and she struggled to breathe with all the emotion that Nick’s simple but intimate touch had brought to the surface.
He pressed his lips to hers, the kiss chaste and soft in the cool air of October in Las Vegas. The kiss was sweet, achingly soft, completely unlike their heated, fevered embraces of summer. When he pulled back, all Sara could do was smile. Nick’s smile had grown wider and he had pulled her closer to him, rubbing her back.
An elderly couple passed them. Both were white-haired and smiling in the afternoon sun, dressed similarly in track suits. They had the air of a happily-married-couple. The two couples exchanged smiles and Nick waved at the couple before they had passed them by completely.
As they watched the couple’s figures grow smaller and smaller, Nick pulled her even closer, whispering in her ear how he wanted them to be like that in thirty years. He kissed her again and she returned the gesture while the panic inside her chest built up, threatening to explode until it did one day two weeks later.
It hadn’t been a big scene. Sara had merely said that it wasn’t time. She wasn’t ready. She wasn’t and so she made her escape. Nick’s dark brown eyes were sad but he nodded and graciously accepted her retreat. He hugged her and whispered that one day it would be time. Then he gave a sad smile before exiting her apartment, leaving Sara alone to cry in the empty apartment that was devoid of everything that she had ever wanted. She was just too scared to hold onto it, afraid that if she didn’t remove herself from the situation that she’d end up loosing her heart and her soul. She told herself that it was better this way; that she was protecting herself from the inevitable pain relationships brought to a person’s life. But that didn’t make her sobs hurt any less.
In autumn, the leaves started out bright green before dying slowly. As they died, the colors changed from cool green to warm yellows, oranges, reds and, at the ultimate stage of death, browns. They fell silently from the tree branches, littering the ground. As autumn progressed, the leaves fell faster and faster, until the trees were bare, each standing alone, just waiting to face the winter elements.
In autumn, Nick asked for more and she had been too afraid. Of what, she couldn’t quite say, but all those fears that had begun to build in summer grew and grew until she collapsed under their load. The dam sprung a leak and it was all that she could do to stay afloat in the churning waters. She clung to what she knew, which was to be alone. Alone but independent; functioning but not living.
She said goodbye and stuck to her decision, even as she fell headfirst into a spiralling depression. The fall was rocky and fast. Before she knew it, she was stuck so far down the tunnel that even if she wanted to she wouldn’t be able to find her way home again on her home. She struggled to but it was hopeless.
As the leaves continued to die as the autumn months raced by, she too died by bits and pieces. Nick watched with sad eyes as her downfall progressed at an alarmingly rate but he kept to her wishes and stayed away. The others just pretended that they didn’t see and refused to look any deeper. Soon even he stopped looking and all Sara could do was spend her brief moments away from work crying in the cold sterile placed she called home.
She was safe, protected from hurt, but at what cost? Winter came and each bare tree was left to fend for themselves, just like she was. This had been her choice. She grew to hate it in the end.
Sara spent the first part of winter alone, just like the trees in the park. She had taken to walking in the park in the afternoon. She avoided the park she and Nick had frequented. Instead she would drive to a park close to her apartment complex and travel along the artificial walkway, strolling through the man-made park until she came upon the small man-made pond. There she would stand for long moments, eyes staring at nothing.
The sky was often a pale golden color, the bright sun of summer muted in these dreary winter months. A cool breeze would sing, its melody achingly sad as she walked the gravel pathway alone, hands stuffed in her coat pockets for warmth. She no longer had Nick to provide that warmth. The wind would ruffle her hair and sting her eyes but the tears were already there, the wind serving only as a mask for the tears that she shed.
She was the sad, lonely girl that walked through the park in slow patient circles. She would make her circuits before coming to a halt before the still pond water that was murky grey in color. She would stare at that stillness, crafted by man. The walking, the staring, it cleared her mind, gave her time to dwell. On what could have been. On what might still be. The ache in her heart wasn’t due to the cold that surrounded her but by the loneliness she had inflicted on herself.
At work she felt isolated, alone once more. Everyone else went on with their lives but it was like she was going backwards, back to the girl she had once been and no longer wanted to be. She wanted to be different. She had thought she had been moving on since her near-DUI but, since the ending of her relationship with Nick, it was like everything she achieved was gone. She was spiralling towards and there was no one left to catch her. Nick had before; now he was gone, by her choice.
A case at a mental institution brought back all the bad memories from her childhood. The past haunted her yet and there was no one but herself to face those demons. Everything was a reminder of what she had run from. Then it all culminated with a near-death experience. A make-shift knife held to her throat, the crude but sharp tip pressing into her skin. She had been scared, just like she had been years ago, in another city, in another lifetime.
Later, after Grissom had brought her home, Sara broke down. She confessed of a childhood spent living in fear, of those periods of time when her father would no longer be the man that she loved and become a monster that was unrecognizable in the harsh light of day. An endless cycle, almost always predictable. Something negative would occur and propel her family back into a nightmare that always seemed to last just a bit longer each time until one day when her mother feared so much for her life that she stabbed her husband as he came home from the bar.
She spoke of the warring conflicts she had been faced with as a child. Her childhood hadn’t been completely bad, creating this conflict. She had loved her father, despite everything. He had still been her father. She had desperately wanted his approval. She still needed that approval, would still strive to be the best, just like her father instructed her to do nearly thirty years ago. It was ingrained, painfully so.
She thought she saw a flash of recognition of Grissom’s face when she spoke of this need for approval. A part of her hated him for that. She knew he had always been wondering about her turn to alcohol last year and she hated that he made the leap from her need for approval, driven in by an abusive father, into an explanation for why she had turned to alcohol. It was a parsimonious explanation, to be sure, but the whole trouble with parsimony was that it assumed that the best explanation was the simplest explanation. Life couldn’t be distilled down to the lower common denominator, could it? She didn’t think so but Grissom was a scientist and parsimony ruled in a scientist’s mind.
After that she stopped speaking. It took Grissom a while before he realized this. Perhaps it confirmed the parsimonious explanation he had thought of. It didn’t matter though. She no longer wanted to talk. She no longer wanted to reveal the deep, dark secrets to a man who would just use them as evidence to explain her nature. She didn’t want to be a study. She wanted to be human, in a world composed of the many shades of the rainbow. Life wasn’t as black-and-white as science suggested. She wanted to live in the world not dictated by science. Grissom resided in that realm of science; she wanted out.
It wasn’t easy. She had already distanced herself from so many people. She had retreated into herself and the others had let her. To reach out meant to overcome assumptions that the others had made about her. It meant the danger of perhaps one day exposing herself. She could only hope that they would offer support when that day came. She was tired of being judged by her parents’ actions.
The going was slow, as slow as the nights are long in winter. But then a helping hand was offered and she gratefully took it.
What happened was that Nick, Warrick, and Greg all had plans to play soccer one late Saturday morning. Normally they didn’t invite—sports really weren’t her thing. Nick must have seen something in her eyes when they were discussing their upcoming game in the locker room during the brief overlap between swing shift and night swift. The invite had been impulsive—she had seen the looks of surprise on Warrick and Greg’s faces—but she had jumped at the chance. To be normal, even if for just a couple of hours, was all that she wanted. It was a chance and she wasn’t about to turn it down.
She and Greg had been tired after only a few scant hours of sleep that Saturday morning but it had been worth it. The weather had been cool and overcast. They had all dressed in warm clothing, the LVPD symbol decorating each of their clothing. Nick supplied the soccer ball and they played several short rounds, alternating teams.
Most of the games were spent bent over in laughter, as they fought over possession of the ball and engaged in some behavior that was normally absent from more formal games of soccer. It really didn’t matter. The purpose was to get together and share some brief moments of companionship before they had to go back to separate shifts and work in an atmosphere that reeked with tension.
Near the end of the last game, the sun peaked through the white-grey clouds, showering them with golden sunshine. With the golden glare reflected off his brown hair, Nick scored the final goal of the day. Warrick and Greg moaned about the sun glaring in their eyes while Nick spun her around, victory theirs.
As Nick’s warm arms wrapped around her waist and lifted her feet off the ground, his eyes locked with hers. Suddenly he stopped spinning, both of them frozen in that moment. The look in her eyes gave her away and the small smile on Nick’s face said that he understood. He began to spin her again in mere seconds, the moment over. Warrick and Greg were still crying foul as Nick and her laughter rung out across the soccer field, their bodies still wrapped around one another.
At the end of winter she had said with her eyes that maybe there was hope. At the break of winter she had been completely alone but the end saw a change. Spring was about to break, with fresh new life, and Sara took the proffered hand that she had rejected back in autumn, as she looked at life with new eyes.
In winter, the days were dreary and the nights were long. The sky was intermediately a pale golden or a whitish grey mixture of clouds tangling in the sky. Everything was bare and alone, just like she had been in the park, just like she had been at the mental institution.
But winter always ends on a note of hope, for waiting behind the wings in spring, just bidding its time before it can rush into being and bring with it a fresh start. This hope is timeless. She found a way to touch upon it, to bring it into her life and offer to Nick the hope of something more. That something more that Sara had wanted in the park but had been too afraid in the dead of winter to accept. Now, with spring just around the corner, she welcomed everything she had been afraid of, allowing hope to creep into her life in a way that she had never before.
Winter passed and spring darted into life. She hoped for the very first time in a long while.
The warm but not too warm weather drove people outside. Soon summer would be upon them and the heat would be unbearable but, for now, the temperature was perfect. People took to taking walks. The laughter of children and the barking of dogs echoed from parks. The sun shone down on their smiling faces, as their faces titled upwards to receive that bright golden light.
Sara felt the vibrancy of spring in an unusual way. In the past, the passing of the seasons had been meaningless. Arbitrary. There was a set pattern and the world followed these standards to the lesson. Mother Nature abandoned these laws and the seasons always followed in the same order, a never-ending cycle.
As Nick and her walked through the park they had frequented in the past, their bodies were close but not touching. Their hands swung from their sides but were empty. They shared smiles and small talk but left the bigger issues for some other time, choosing instead to enjoy the warm spring sun that had driven everyone else out into the wild outdoors to enjoy the good, decent weather while it lasted.
Getting to this point had been a slow process. It had started with a late winter soccer game with Warrick and Greg. Numerous outings and events, all with the four of them present, had followed until she and Nick had become comfortable once more in each other’s presence. With the others around, the moments that caused their breath to catch in their throats would quickly pass.
When they were alone, those moments lasted longer, the stares more meaningful and more tempting. It was harder to break away, to end those delicious stolen moments that reaffirmed that all wasn’t lost. The desire to give into one of the moments was strong, especially when there was no third party to temper desires that could so easily escalate into something more concrete.
But they were restrained. She was still afraid, still hesitant to let go of that control that meant so much to her. That control had been her lifeline for so long. The thought of giving it up terrified her. She hung back, fears ever-present. Nick seemed to sense this and he didn’t press the situation. The moments would come but he would let them pass, because that was what she wanted. He let her set the pace.
They were tiptoeing around the larger issues, Sara knew, because of her. She hoped that soon she would be able to take the next step. Everything was heading towards it. It was going to happen. Soon, most likely. The hope the coming of spring had given her had only grown as the early spring months passed. Lately she had found herself wanting more, wanting the moments to go past the almost-happening to the actually-happening.
As they continued walking, their bodies began to brush. Accidental touches that were nothing but intentional. First she would step just a bit too close before backing away slowly. Then Nick would repeat the process that Sara had just performed. It was all seemingly innocent, except for the way that their fingers were linger just a second too long for their touches, brief as they were, to truly be coincidental.
Around them, the pink-white blossoms of the trees were rapidly descending upon the ground, leaving small green buds in their wakes. The green grass was littered with the small blossoms. Green mixing with pale pink, pale lilac purple and white tinged with a honey brown. The achingly gentle breeze would push the blossoms around, the blossoms fluttering in a soft dance, quite unlike the wild dance the autumn leaves had engaged in.
She whispered how she loved cherry blossoms as they had come to sit at an empty bench. A small pond faced them, lined with trees that had dropped the pink blossoms onto the blue-gray water. The blossoms spun lazily with the water’s current. Nick whispered back a reply too soft for her to hear. When she moved closer, he turned his face to hers. Their eyes locked and suddenly the whole world around them faded. The sounds of children’s laughter disappeared. It was just the two of them, time locked in those few seconds.
Instead of pulling back, instead of letting her fears dictate her every move, Sara had closed the distance with a song of hope in her heart. Her lips had touched Nick’s, just barely. His breath was light against her cheek as she pulled back slightly. Her eyes had traveled upwards, meeting his, the dark chocolate of his eyes radiating love and acceptance. Her lips met his again, this kiss different than all the other kisses they had shared. It was a kiss of new beginnings, full of passion yet soft, beautiful and heartbreaking.
They walked out of that park with Nick’s arm around her waist, her head resting in the crook of his neck. Happiness was in their smiles as the sun danced on their hair, making them appear ethereal to the two young children that had ran past them on their way to the playground.
As the cherry blossoms continued to fall to the ground and as the new leaves appeared, the days grew longer and the shorts grew shorter. Spring breathed new vitality into the air that fed not only the plant population but also the human population. Everything turned green; people walked with a spring in their step, joy written across their faces.
In spring, the world started out again. It was a magical time, full of lightness and everything new but familiar. Spring breezed by, bringing so many things into the world. As spring rushed into summer, Sara looked forward to the future, something she hadn’t done since childhood, when she had been pink-cheeked and light with optimism. It felt good.
It was only a couple of weeks later, with summer still in that growing phase, that all the hope that had sprung up in Sara’s heart during those spring months was tested with a situation so unpredictable that it had nearly brought everyone involved to their knees. Nick had been kidnapped and buried alive. A tape was sent to the crime lab and all they could do was watch, and hope that somehow they found a way to rescue him.
During those horribly long, draining hours, it had been difficult to not fall apart. They had to stay strong, for Nicky. The weight of the task before them had been enormous and all Sara had felt was an overwhelmingly sadness as she realized she had never told Nick that she was in love with. So many squandered moments, all because she had let fear dictate her life. And now all she had left was hope, a double-edged sword at best. There were no guarantees to hope.
Her logical mind told her that there were no guarantees accompanying love but her heart told her differently.
Somehow, though, they had come together to be the team they had been months ago, before the shift changes, before the petty rivalries and minor jealousies had compromised all their relationships. They worked together, a team once more, and their hope stayed high and was ultimately relieved. Nick was, against all odds, rescued, not in perfect condition but at least he was breathing.
She spent the drive to the hospital filled with nervous apprehension. She had already made the decision that she had spent months agonizing over. When she thought about it, this event hadn’t changed her mind but had rather just reinforced what she already knew. Her logical brain was satisfied and her heart was full.
She wasn’t been the first person to see Nick, despite her almost overwhelming need to make sure that he was breathing, that his heart was beating, that it wasn’t too late. But no one knew. She made a vow to change that, to stop living in fear at work. Once Nick was better, she told herself, they would tell the gang together. Until then she would just have to pretend that she was nothing more than a friend and a colleague.
She sat there in the waiting room, not-so-patiently waiting for her turn. Her fingers tittered nervously as she studied a poster about fertility. She was lost in her own world as Nick’s mom sat down next to her and placed her fingers over Sara’s own. Sara’s shocked eyes at met the older woman’s. Jillian Stokes smiled before rubbing Sara’s fingers with her own, comfort radiating from that small but caring gesture.
They sat side by side for a long while, waiting. They didn’t speak, as if they each recognized with each other a kindred soul that understood that the other one without any words needing to be said. They drew strength from each other. Sara, so unused to this type of support, was surprised at how easy it was to accept and how effortless it was to give. She found that she wanted to give her support to the woman sitting next to her on the hard hospital chairs. She wanted to lend a bit of her hope and receive a little bit of Jillian Strokes’ own hope.
When they were allowed to see Nick, his mother told her to go on ahead. She nodded before venturing down the sterile hospital hallway to the room where Nick lay sleeping in a bed that seemed to big for him. She nearly laughed at the absurdity of that thought. Everyone knew just how small those hospital beds were but, at that moment, it was all she could do to not burst into tears at seeing how small Nick looked just laying there.
She took the empty chair that was placed conveniently next to the bed. Before she sat, she closed the white curtains that could be used to surround the bed, offering a small measure of privacy in an otherwise very public place. The cuts shut, she sat down. She reached out a tentative hand, almost afraid to touch him, afraid that he was a ghost, a mere apparition. Finally she could stand it no longer and she had to touch him. She needed to be sure that he was here, really here.
His skin was warm under her chilled fingers. She had imagined that his skin would be cooler but it wasn’t. It was almost hot to the touch. His skin was covered in small insect bites, the spots swollen and red. She gently traced the painful bites that had played a large role in their finding Nick still alive. It seemed so completely unfair that something so painful could be such a blessing but Sara had found that life was often a mass of contradictions.
She had never been so happy to see someone open their eyes.
Physically, Nick recovered. Emotionally was a different story. Most things were gone now, memories the only ghostly remnants of the past. They had never expected this. Memories of lulls and smiles shared, of everything green and fresh, lingered but could no longer be found in their everyday lives. Now everything was dull, muddied, the future just as unclear. Answer me this, said the riddle. But the riddle ended there.
They put on masks to hide their crumbling interiors. The thought of alcohol to further dull the senses appealed to Sara, on more than one occasion. One hot early August day, mere weeks after Nick had been released from the hospital and had returned to work, she gave into temptation. It was all too much to deal with. The next morning she woke up hung-over and disgusted with herself, in more pain than ever before. Alcohol had proven once again that it wasn’t the band-aid that could cover all wounds.
She tried to get him to talk but Nick firmly believed that he was fine. So summer rolled around and the leaves began to die just a little bit more each day. Life was going through those continual changes but they were stuck right where they were.
Summer passed with silence.
As autumn floated by, she saw him slipping more and more each day. The harder he fought to maintain his façade of normality, the larger the cracks in his worn armor grew. All of this had been illuminated by the Cassie McBride case, a horrible case in which Sara watched Nick spin closer and closer to the edge of the abyss. In the end he had rescued the little girl but the case had proved to her that Nick was one step away from falling over the edge of the abyss.
She wanted to save Nick from that fall but she was terrified. How could she, already a broken mess, save someone who was even more broken than she was? After Cassie McBride, Sara realized that Nick would never be able to save himself. He could save everyone else but not himself. But, more than that, she realized that she couldn’t save him. To be truly fine, Nick would have to save himself but he couldn’t. If Sara was the Princess of Denial than Nick was the Prince of Repression, and together they were the rightful inheritors of the Kingdom of the Socially Maladjusted.
She went to crime scenes and was deeply affected but she always denied that she had a problem dealing with sexual and physical abuse cases. It was a lie but one she was comfortable with. Nick’s way of dealing was worse than hers in so many ways. Nick pretending nothing had happened, burying everything deep inside him. It was what Nick always did. He repressed, presenting an image of a guy only resembled Nick in the most superficial ways. Repression was his method of coping. He presented a face to the world that simply wasn’t true.
He was the happy-go-lucky guy. The guy with the easy smiles. The guy who always took things in stride. He was the one wit the happy, normal childhood. Two parents, siblings, a white picket fence. A real All-American boy, raised in an All-American family who in their grips held that elusive American Dream that everyone wanted but few ever achieved. It was all a façade, a carefully developed one.
Nick never talked about being seven years younger than his next sibling, and how resentful his siblings had been of the youngest member of the Stokes family. He didn’t tell of parents whose jobs had always come first. And, most importantly, he never spoke of being raped at nine, left alone with an unknown babysitter because his parents and his siblings wanted a night away from the energetic little boy. Only one other person knew, and Nick had only told her the barest details.
He never mentioned the private school hell he had endured. He never talked of his need to gain the approval of his father, only he had never been the smartest or the most athletically gifted. He had never been good enough. He had only been Nick, gold old dependable Nick who, at nine, had ceased to be rambunctious. A reserved and quiet boy had been left in the wake of that one night. No one seemed to question the changes. Sara wasn’t what sure what was sadder. Was it the fact that his trust had been taken advantage of by a last-minute babysitter or was it the fact that no one is his family apparently thought the changes that Nick underwent were significant?
Nor did Nick speak of a promiscuous youth spent trying to erase the memories of childhood. An attempt to outrun the memories, to prove that he was normal and fine. It had been an utter failure. He had ended up disgusted with himself, his self-esteem at its lowest.
Las Vegas had been the city Nick had run to after meeting Grissom. Grissom had become his new father figure, replacing the father Nick already had. That father had never given Nick the support he needed. Grissom had offered a new chance to be that beloved son, only Grissom had never wanted a carbon copy like William Stokes had. Grissom had wanted Nick to think for himself, had never wanted to be place upon some pedestal and admired like a god. Both she and Nick were guilty of that. It might have been the reason why Warrick was the favorite.
These were things that Nick had never confessed to anyone but Sara. He had whispered the words to her in darkened bedrooms, beneath dangled sheets in that world that if halfway between awake and sleep. His confessions had broken her heart. They had created a more nuanced image of Nick. The man behind the mask had been revealed and he was heartbreakingly broken. Worse of it all was the fact that Nick refused to acknowledge that he was broken. He deluded himself with false assurances and a belief that acting fine meant being fine. He created a distorted reality for himself, one that Sara hated. She herself had grown to hate the distorted reality she had lived in for so long. Selfishly she wanted Nick to do the same, believing that this step was necessary in the pursuit of actual contentment.
The burial hadn’t helped matters. Nick hid more than ever. Even worse was the fact that no one had the gull to call him on it. Of course, Sara couldn’t be sure that her co-workers even recognized that façade Nick was hiding behind but she liked to believe that they did because the other option made her too angry. How could they not miss how Nick would shake off any bug that touched his bare skin? How could they miss how he would pause before entering a confined space, as if he was mentally telling himself that he was fine? How could they miss all the signs, like the Cassie McBride case, that pointed to Nick not being fine, that pointed to Nick not dealing adequately with the aftermath of his near-death experience?
Sara couldn’t just lose Nick to his own demons. She had pushed and Nick, true to form, had retreated. Repression was second nature to Nick. He couldn’t even see the holes in his armor. He desperately needed to be the hero in white, sitting astride the gallant steed. Nick couldn’t save himself but he wanted to save the world. He didn’t seem to realize that if he continued on the path he was that eventually he would get swallowed up by the dark abyss that was constantly hounding his heels. It was the abyss that Nick refused to acknowledge, the one the contained the dark demons Nick wanted to escape. The hard lesson she had learned was that it was impossible to outrun those demons.She had tried, failed, and was left with pieces she was still trying to put back together.
At the core of things, she recognized that even if she wanted to save Nick she couldn’t. He had to save himself. It wasn’t something she could force. It wasn’t something she had any control over. She could try to talk to him but it was troubling because Nick just couldn’t see behind the mask she wore. It was that deeply embedded into his psyche. As much as Sara wanted to save Nick, she couldn’t. The only thing she could do was be patient.
If he did fall into that dark abyss, if he did shatter into a million pieces, then Sara would be there. This she had already vowed. She would help him pick up the pieces but she would leave the gluing together to Nick. That was the only way that they could one day have a future together. These days she understood that she wanted that future but that it would be a long time coming. Life changes only slowly.
In autumn, a time when the changes the land undergoes as it prepares for its sleeping period are visible to all, Nick insisted upon standing still. He couldn’t move past his burial. His refusal to acknowledge how the event impacted him made it impossible for him to recover mentally, even if he had recovered physically.
This autumn Sara held out a hand but Nick, too scared to turn his back on what he knew, rejected her. She wanted to do more, wanted to refuse to accept his professions of being ‘fine’. She wanted to show Nick how love could be unconditional but she knew he wasn’t ready. He was dancing on the edge of the abyss but only he could save himself. As much as it pained Sara to accept this she did.
As autumn faded into the dull gray of winter, Sara had to face her fear that Nick would never be able to take that final step. She feared Nick would tumble into the darkness while she watched helplessly from the sidelines. She feared that he would never recover from this fall. She feared that one day he’d be too scarred to ever find his way again and then her future would be over before it even begun. Nick didn’t want her now and, truthfully, Sara wanted a Nick that understood his strengths and his weaknesses. She wanted a person, not an illusion.
Autumn become winter without the situation being resolved, and Sara just had to resign herself to that reality. Unlike the seasons, life can move at a snail’s pass. That was just something she had to accept, however hard it was for her to do so.
The winter season rolled it with gray clouds and cool temperatures. An endless parade of cloudy days blew threw Vegas, the wind a constant presence that refused to dissipate. The days were short and the nights were long. It was winter at its finest.
Sara watched as Nick continued with his path of avoidance. She saw her co-workers make a few tentative overturns to Nick but they always let him off when he replied that he was fine. They allowed themselves to be reassured by the too-bright grin Nick kept plastered to his face. The grin was too large to be real but it seemed that it reassured their co-workers that Nick truly was fine.
As the months passed, she saw Nick become better and better at hiding his reactions. Bugs were no longer hastily wiped off his skin. Pauses before entering an enclosed room became almost non-existent. There were only brief moments when Sara saw the man hiding behind the mask. If she hadn’t known about Nick’s past, she just might have been like her co-workers. She might have been willing to accept the large grin but she knew better and so she couldn’t.
A part of her wanted to shake Nick. She wanted him to deal, to stop hiding. He didn’t have to stop hiding to their co-workers because Sara knew she still did that. But she wanted him to stop lying to himself and if one of their co-workers calling him on his behavior would have done then Sara would have been grateful. No one called him and so Nick kept hiding, aided by his co-workers and his ability to blind himself to reality.
Christmas was spent alone at her apartment. She had to work Christmas, just like Nick, but where in past years they would have gone for breakfast, this year they did nothing. They each left work at the end of their shift and traveled to what Sara suspected were equally empty homes.
As the days grew longer, she grew more and more tired of just passively accepting her and Nick’s current situation. Her counselor may have advised her not to push Nick, just to let him know that she was there if he needed to talk, but she felt useless doing so. The strategy didn’t seem to be working. Nick refused to talk to her and with each day he became more of an expert of pretending to be fine. She was sure that a case would come along sooner rather than later that would shatter Nick’s façade, leaving him permanently broken. That event would change him but not for the better and Sara feared that her current passivity only made increased the risk that she would lose Nick forever.
Things didn’t happen quite the way Sara expected. It wasn’t a case that ultimately broke the metaphorical camel’s back but a rainstorm that brought Nick back to her in a manner she had never imagined.
Occasionally Vegas did get a heavy rainstorm. This winter, colder and wetter than normal, was one such time when the rain came down in buckets. Freezing rain, pounding down on the ground so hard that the sound was audible. Rain that was visible to the naked eye. Rain that soaked everything in its path. Rain that made everything seemed dark and dreary, things taking on the perspective that they were utterly hopeless. That was how Sara felt.
They had been driving back to the crime lab from a scene out in Henderson. They were tired and cranky. The rain was coming down hard and the visibility was extremely limited. By the time they got back to the lab, tempers were on edge. Once she stopped the car, Nick threw himself out and started walking. With a long suffering sigh, Sara checked the evidence in and waited for Nick to return. When he hadn’t in thirty minutes, she got frustrated and went to find him. Her search eventually led her to a small park ten minutes from the lab.
She found Nick sitting on a bench, soaked to the skin. She was just as wet, shivering from the cool rain hitting her. She at least had a warm winter jacket on; Nick was just wearing his thin CSI windbreaker. Seeing Nick just sitting on that bench, freezing from the cold rain, caused something inside Sara to break and she was no longer content to just sit idly by, like her counselor had advised following that disastrous attempt to get Nick to talk months ago.
Stalking over to Nick, her mouth opened and a stream of reprimands erupted. He stared at her while she yelled at him for being stupid, for sitting outside in a rainstorm while everyone with an ounce a sense was safely inside a warm lab. He let her go on for a while before regaining his voice and yelling at her that she had no right to be concerned. He hadn’t asked for anyone to come searching for him and he was fine being in the rain. She retorted that she was worried. He replied that she had no reason to worry.
They exchanged barbs as the rain continued to fall around them. They were soaked to the bone, hoarse from yelling, left bare by rain and accusations. She accused him of repressing the truth and hiding behind an illusion he presented to fool not only everyone else but himself as well. He responded by accusing her of a having a tendency towards denial. She retorted that he was the Prince of Repression while she was the Princess of Denial and said that they would one day rule the kingdom of the maladjusted, once Grissom the king and Catherine the queen gave up the rule to their rightful heirs.
Once the words left her mouth, Sara couldn’t help but laugh at the image her words had conjured up in her mind. The laughter just bubbled over, refusing to be held in. Here they were, arguing over their respective neuroses in the pouring rain. It was in a word ridiculous. It was no wonder that they would one day inherit the kingdom. They were messed up enough to deserve it.
A small but genuine smile graced Nick’s face as Sara laughed. Then he crossed the small distance separating them, shoes squishing against the muddy grass. He linked their fingers together before asking if their castle was built out of sand. She gave him a confused glance. He continued, saying that if the castle was sand then it was crumbling down around them. Her only response was to nod and accept Nick’s subtle confirmation that things weren’t perfect. It was a start and that was enough for Sara.
They shared secret smiles before turning and walking in the direction of the lab, traveling the muddy path that would bring them back to the world. Nick didn’t let go of her hand and Sara kept her grip firm, her way of telling Nick that she wasn’t going anywhere. Maybe he read her message because he squeezed her hand after a quick glance towards her eyes. And again it was enough for Sara.
After the storm, things settled back down. The fresh scent that accompanied rain lingered for weeks following that storm. It was that scent of just-burnt wood that seemed to characterize rainfall for Sara, ever since her childhood. The freshness lingered until it was just another aspect of the approaching spring. Spring was in the air and it wasn’t the only thing fresh in the air.
In winter, the season where living things appear dead but are merely resting until spring breathes new life, the silence that had persisted between her and Nick came to an end. Their standstill was finally broken, each acknowledging that they were indeed broken and imperfect, the essential characteristic of human beings.
As winter ended and spring begun, they began the painful process of learning how to learn again. Sara had already started this process but Nick was just taking his baby steps. It was slow going, just like how no leaves or flowers pop up the minute spring began. It took time before everything could come alive again but it was worth having that patience for the end result was the lash beauty spring ushers in.
She paused in the open doorway, quietly observing the scene unfolding before her eyes. Two little bodies were curled around Nick. All three were snuggled together on a small twin bed, a child’s bed covered in a pink Barbie comforter.
An open book lay on Nick’s lap. The little boy and the little girl listened intently as Nick red the words to their favorite bedtime story. Both of the children had brown hair, the boy’s hair straight while the girl had the same wavy hair Sara cursed on a daily basis. They were both dressed in foot pajamas, the boy in blue superhero ones and the girl in yellow Winnie-the-Pooh ones, fresh-faced and adorable. The eyes went from the pretty pictures of the storybook to their father’s face and back again.
“Goodnight Moon. Goodnight…”
As Nick continued to read, he looked up, his eyes meeting hers. He continued to read, the words long-ago memorized. His eyes beckoned her to enter the room, to the place that they had earned after years of dedication and hard work. They were no longer strangers, looking in on what they could never possess. Now they had the two-storey house, the white picket fence, the two perfect children, the dog and the cat, and the minivan. It had taken them years to get to this point. At times sheer stubbornness had been the only thing going for them but somehow they had managed to muddle their way through the roadblocks and now they were here.
Both accepted that life was never going to be perfect. Sara still tended towards her ways of denial while Nick was still prone to repressing the unpleasant. They had learned to accept these flaws and worked to overcome them as best as they come. They learned to live with the imperfections and learned to accept the person they were. It was far from perfect but that didn’t matter. They were happy and that was all that mattered.
In spring, they found happiness.
Second Author's Note: The end got a bit mushy on me. Hope that's all right.