Author: Summer Reign
Rating: T
Disclaimer: I am not a sadist by nature so, obviously, I do not have any affiliation to CBS or anyone involved with the creative decisions of CSI.
SPOILERS: YES! I can't stress this enough. This is a story loosely (but definitely) based on spoilers for the season finale of CSI. DO NOT READ THIS is you are spoiler-free for the finale. I mean it! Bookmark the thing, if you want, and read it at the end of May. I'm not kidding now. I can't do more to protect you from spoilerage other than coming to your house and powering down your computer, and I'm too poor to do all that traveling.
Summary: A familiar voice helps Sara find her way.
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The sound of her own heavy breathing was making Sara crazy. She was finding it difficult to breathe. Two thousand pounds of metal perched above her. That's all she could think of. She needed to calm herself or she would bring about a panic attack that would make things a thousand times more uncomfortable. She almost laughed out loud at the thought. She wasn't sure why she stopped herself. No one was around to pass judgement on the woman trapped beneath the car, slowly getting hysterical.
No one was around. And no one would be around.
Not until it was too late.
And the real horror of it all was her first hand knowledge of exactly what happened to dead bodies in the desert..
Betwixt mine eye and heart a league is took,
And each doth good turns now unto the other:
When that mine eye is famish'd for a look,
Or heart in love with sighs himself doth smother
With my love's picture then my eye doth feast,
And to the painted banquet bids my heart;
She remembered gently putting after-shave on his sensitive skin. He winced slightly, not having shaved in weeks. Sara ran her fingers up and down his smooth cheeks until he smiled warmly and she returned it in kind. All the hurt feelings from his sabbatical were forgotten. They made love in the bathroom, showered—this time, together—and tucked themselves in bed.
He told her about a letter he wrote but never sent and pulled it out of the top drawer of his night table. And then he started to read it. His beautiful voice. Those beautiful words. No one had ever recited poetry to her. If they had, she probably would have laughed.
She didn't laugh at him. He recited poetry all the time. The first time she saw him, he was waxing poetic about his beloved bugs during their seminar. It was part of who he was. A man, a scientist: often uncomfortable with his own words. Perhaps because he was so in love with eloquence, he felt anything he could dream of saying would never measure up.
She didn't laugh. She sighed and leaned back against his bare chest, listening to him tell her—using his words and the words of Shakespeare—that he missed her and, yet, she was always with him. Always a part of his soul. Life was very good.
Life had been very good.
Sara slowed her breathing. Calm. She needed to try and be calm. She tried moving each part of her body. She was sore, but didn't think anything was broken. She was, however, almost mind-numbingly tired. There was the taser and then…then…she couldn't remember much of anything. There was water. She woke up at one point and the woman who worked in the housekeeping department had given her water. Yes, Sara remembered that. And she remembered drifting off again, realizing--too late--that the woman was not there to help her. She had drugged the water and she had been the one with the taser gun. Okay. That made sense. But whatever drug she was given obviously didn't kill her and would probably wear off soon. It was time to move on.
Thirsty? Yes, she was thirsty, but not desperately. Not yet. She tried to move her head a bit to see what kind of plant life was in the area. Some might help her keep herself alive if she could get to it.
She sniffed the air. No smell of gasoline. That was good.
But there were the elements and animals and…so many, many things that could and probably would get to her long before she faced a "natural" death. And not a soul to save her.
Her breathing became shallow once again.
Another time mine eye is my heart's guest,
And in his thoughts of love doth share a part:
So, either by thy picture or my love,
Thy self away, art present still with me;
She could almost hear the sound of his voice piercing the air.
How long? How long would he grieve?
She knew him too well.
He always thought she'd leave him. Just like that Sara-look-alike left her middle-aged lover. And he would feel he killed her just as surely as Lurie killed Debbie Marlin. By not solving the case, by not finding her in time. By not loving her enough to be with her years before so they could have been done with the LVPD and moved to the suburbs with two kids and a dog.
She smiled to herself. No dog. No kids. Not yet, and now probably not ever. But they did have their time together. And it had been…wonderful. She could die with some sense of peace knowing that.
She closed her eyes and saw his face.
She had made him read the poem the next day, while they were eating their meal before work. She had wanted to hear those words…one more time. And look at his beautiful face as he was doing it. He smiled and granted her this indulgence. Without fuss. He did it because she wanted him to.
He took a chance loving her. The biggest chance of his life. She had encouraged him each and every step of the way.
And, if she died, he would go to his own grave thinking that leap of faith was the biggest mistake he ever made.
It would make her love…her life…and her legacy…pointless.
For thou not farther than my thoughts canst move,
And I am still with them, and they with thee;
Her eyes flew open.
The car was at a very strange angle.
Sara knew more about cars than almost anyone in the lab. She could dismantle one in hours.
And she'd be damned if she died underneath one.
It was time to move.
Slowly, she moved one arm. She did so freely. No injuries whatsoever. Her breathing was much easier now that the drug wore off, so internal injuries seemed unlikely. She didn't sense real damage on any part of her body, actually.
Sara looked at what she could see of the car. It was an old model car. Very old. There was a lot of rust. Suddenly, she was sure she wasn't in the car when it crashed. This thing was…staged…somehow.
But, frankly, she didn't care how. It was immaterial at this point. Somehow, that woman—what was her name?—got her here and she had to get herself out.
She moved one leg freely. The other was definitely trapped. Or was it?
She took a deep breath and tried to bend herself off to the right side, enough to see exactly what was holding that leg in place. After several deep, calming breaths to assure herself that the car was not in a position to crash down on her further, she saw pieces of wood wedged between the car and all around her leg.
After what seemed like several scary, agonizing hours, she managed to work a few planks out and rolled herself free.
Sara stood up after a few more moments of just lying in place and surveyed the scene. Nothing. Not much of anything in sight. For miles.
She turned toward the car.
If they found her body…when they found her body…at least Grissom would know she went down fighting. She could only hope he'd leave the processing to someone else. Perhaps that would help him find some level of peace, in time.
They could not have been a mistake.
Or, if they sleep, thy picture in my sight
She would always see his smile in her soul, hear the sound of his voice. That was what was keeping her alive now. She was so thirsty. The fucking nutcase had left her in the most barren place imaginable. Sara had walked for miles in every direction but always came back to the car. Every few hours, she would send up one of the flares she freed from the trunk of the car. And she'd wait.
She had just used her last flare.
And she wasn't stupid enough to think she had much time left.
She crawled in the car for shelter. God, she hated this thing. She had been right. This was not a recent accident site. It seemed to have happened years before, but in such an isolated location, no one had ever removed the debris. Still, it protected her, in some ways, from the elements. Especially at night.
She needed her knight in shining armor. Or her geek in police-issued windbreaker.
She needed someone.
No, she just needed him. Only him. And when she closed her eyes, his smile was before her, and his voice…was in her ear.
Awakes my heart, to heart's and eye's delight.
She heard his voice now. It seemed far away, but raspy and yelling. Stop yelling, Gris. You'll wake the dead. She laughed at her own joke in her sleep.
There was talk of flares and hospitals and she could feel his touch on her shoulder, on her face. This must be what it was like to die. To imagine the touch of a loved one sending you off…somewhere. But she then felt someone else's touch and Grissom was yelling again. She felt herself floating and Grissom wanted someone to be careful and hurry, at the same time.
Good. There was a voice of reason telling him to calm down. It sounded like Brass. He needed to. His mother had high blood pressure and that kind of thing runs in families. She didn't want him to have it. Sara never added salt to his food, just lemon. He hated that.
He needed to keep his blood pressure—and his voice--steady.
Steady.
Steady.
And then she heard something steady…but equally annoying after a while. Beeps. Steady beeps.
And nothing much else.
No, that wasn't true. His voice was there. But it was whispering.
Not the sonnet. Not her name.
But the same words over and over again.
"Hail, Mary, full of Grace
The Lord is with Thee,
Blessed art Thou, Amongst Women
And Blessed is the Fruit of Thy Womb, Jesus,
Holy Mary, Mother of God…"
She slowly opened her eyes and saw him by her bed, one hand over hers, the other with his mother's rosary beads wrapped around his fingers. He was alternating between mouthing the words of the prayer and softly whispering them.
That morning, she heard something she had never heard from him before. He was praying. For her. She didn't think anyone had ever prayed for her before.
And she heard something else as he looked up from the rosary beads and found her staring at him. She heard the sound of a sob escaping from somewhere deep inside of him.
It was the most touching sound she had ever heard.
Yet one sound she hoped to never hear again.
The End
A/N:
Props to Shakespeare (long past caring) and Sobell who wrote incredibly funny CSI reviews on Television Without Pity, and reminded me (through one of those reviews—it's not like I was hanging out in her living room) about Sara's super-ability with cars. It was very helpful and all the pieces of this story suddenly fell into place.
This thing has been sticking with me like glue for a week (much to my horror). After an extremely hormonal Friday night, I was actually indulging myself in a bit of an angst-fest…over spoilers. I wasn't sure if that made me somewhat pathetic, hideously pathetic, or just a really devoted writer vbg .
There are stories you want to write, and--sometimes--stories you feel you have to write.
For me, this was a way of keeping my sanity (such as it is) while dealing with spoilers and speculation. Don't get me wrong…I love spoilers. If this stuff was "sprung" on me, I would definitely need a padded cell- for-one during the summer.
Next week, since I got this thing off my back, I will finish off the fluffy story I've been working on. I hope.