The Diner
Part 3 of the Diurnal Dreaming Series.
by maven
STANDARD DISCLAIMER: Characters owned by CBS Television, Jerry Bruckheimer and a few other production and distribution companies.
RATINGS DISCLAIMER: PG Rating. Catherine/Sara. Just two people talking. A few bad words.
CONTINUITY DISCLAIMER: Season Five spoilers and setting. No real case specific spoilers.
CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE: This is the answer to Femvamp's snowbound challenge where Catherine is to fall back on her coke habit and Sara is to find out. Couldn't quite do that.
RESEARCH DISCLAIMER: I watch the show, I read an article in the Toronto Star and this website http://members.aol.com/remiped/csi-news-realcsi.htm. That's about it.
STORY SPECIFIC NOTES: None
FEEDBACK, COMMENTS AND FLAMES: Email at maven369@sympatico.ca
It's a large building but not that large. If you want to find someone it's pretty easy. If you want to find Sara Sidle it's dead easy. Check her favourite lab, then check the break room to see if she's reheating her coffee and then check back at her lab.
I find her on the first stop, sitting near boneless in a chair typing on a laptop. The evidence that we'd processed until four in the morning was gone. Most of it sealed and packaged in the vault where it would wait until Armageddon. The various samples taken from them where at the labs and departments so that trace, DNA and the expert on what sharp things did to human bodies could compare and confirm.
Standing in the doorway, leaning slightly against the jam I wait for her to acknowledge me. She doesn't. I shift a bit. Nothing. I clear my throat. Zip. Little cough. Oblivious. I say her name and she nearly dumps the laptop as she looks up.
"What!"
"You lied to me," I tell her.
"I did?"
"It's after nine. In the morning. You said you'd head home as soon as your shift was over."
"I was just finishing up some reports. Waiting for trace and--" She trails off, shrugging.
"That might be hours," I say when she gives no sign of continuing. "DNA will be days if not weeks. Paul might get back to us by his shift end."
She shrugs again, turning her attention back to the computer. "I'll be fine."
Muttering silently to myself I walk over, reach down and pull the laptop away. "Now, young lady, eyes off the screen and on me. You promised me that you'd go home at eight. You didn't."
There was a flash of something in her face, probably fury, which turned quickly to humour. "Actually, I said I'd leave the lab. I did."
"How far?" I ask.
"The, uh, breakroom. I got a sandwich and a Coke."
I take a peak in the trashcan beside me. One empty tin of Coke. One sandwich with only a lone bite missing to mar its pristine condition. "Sara--"
"Are you going to go all mom on me, again," she asks. "It's kinda funny yet unnerving."
"Why didn't you go home? Get some sleep?"
"Ah to sleep. To sleep perchance to dream. Ah, there's the rub."
"Shakespeare?"
"Hamlet, act three, scene one. Right in the middle of the 'to be' thing."
My memory goes back way too many years and dredge up the soliloquy and the Cliff notes that explain it. "So you're going to stay awake forever?"
The smile is lopsided and self-mocking. "That's the plan. Not a good plan. But a plan."
"Come with me. Bring the laptop. But come with me." I turn and walk away.
I'm not sure what I'll do if she doesn't. Go back and drag her by the ear like Mrs. Davidson did when you wouldn't follow her to the principal's office. Fortunately I can hear her, half jogging to catch up.
"Why didn't you go home?" I ask again.
"If I go home there's nothing to do so I'll either watch TV until my brain runs out of my ears or drink enough to maybe fall asleep without dreaming."
I glance sideways, wondering exactly how to reply and deciding that silence is golden. She's jamming stuff into her laptop case; battery pack, files, keys. She looks exhausted and pissed off but she's following me right out of the lab, the building and into the parking lot, sneaking little sideways glances at me.
"Car," I say, pointing and pushing the door locks. "Buckle up."
She does, her expression flickering between amusement and annoyance. "Where are we going?"
"All day breakfast place. I'll accept that you can't or won't sleep. I don't accept you starving."
She's silent, playing with the zipper on the case. "I'm not sure I can eat much."
"How long have you been awake?"
She glances at her watch. "If I can hold out another two I think I'll hit 24 hours."
"On how much sleep?"
"Five or six," she mutters.
The trip is only a few blocks and we're pulling into the lot for the last question. "Final jeopardy. How much food has Sara had in that 24 hours?"
She looks blank and then it's as if a light bulb went off. "Right. Um, what is a bagel for breakfast, a donut on the way to the scene and a bite of a stale vending machine sandwich?"
I stare at her. "Damn it, Sara, you don't need a bullet to kill yourself."
I regret it immediately as the slight smile she had disappeared. She looks down and begins pushing wires and cables deeper into the laptop case pocket.
"C'mon," I say, unwilling to apologize. "Let's get something to eat."
It's not until were seated, food ordered and we're staring at our coffee that I can find the words.
"I'm sorry about the suicide crack. I guess I was worried about you."
She's dragging her cup across the table, causing rings to form. "It's okay. I asked for the thing earlier in the garage." She frowns at the cup and the rings and drags it some more across the table. It starts to make a humming sound.
"What would you have done with it?" I ask. Conversations like this seem easier when we're both concentrating on the rings in the coffee mug.
"Honestly? Right at that second I'd have used it," she says harshly. The smooth motion of the cup is jarred by the shaking of her hands and the rings disappear into a chaotic pattern. She stops, takes a deep breath, and starts over.
"You still had your gun," I say, it suddenly striking me that leaving her alone in the garage as I had with a loaded weapon maybe wasn't that bright.
"That wasn't the deal," and suddenly there's little balls of coffee bouncing on the surface of the coffee. "It works better with a Styrofoam cup," she tells me, grinning like a kid.
"How do--?" I ask, distracted from the conversation.
"Magic," she says, voice soft before raising it to normal levels. "Or physics. Same thing."
Further talk is stopped by the arrival of our food. Bland and meatless for Sara. Cholesterol time bomb for myself.
"Your side? It doesn't hurt?" she asks her scrambled eggs.
"No. Not even a bruise."
"Good. Good," she tells her toasts, spreading marmalade on one half.
"Like I said. It was an acci-"
"I'm glad I hit you," she says softly to the grits. My fork freezes halfway to my mouth and it takes conscious effort to continue, chew and wait. I'm slow. But I'm learning.
"Why?" I ask after a few more bites.
"I was scared, no, I was terrified that when I hit someone that I'd like it. That it'd make me feel powerful and strong."
"And it didn't," I confirm for her. Not for me. Her reaction in the garage was not that of someone who got off on causing pain.
"No," she said, stirring more salt into the grits, "small and weak and-" she shrugs and the lopsided smile is back, "-fair amount of self-destructive, self-loathing. Thanks for not giving me the bullet. And for staying six hours after your shift. And-" she shrugs and makes a motion to include the breakfast. "Thanks. I don't deserve it."
"Probably not," I answer, struggling to keep my voice light and smile firmly in place. Something has happened and I’m not sure what. "Hey, let me see that dollar."
"Umm, yeah, sure," she says, reaching for her PDA case on her belt.
"I thought it was in the wallet," I ask as she takes out a stiff dollar bill and hands it to me.
"I, um, laminated it."
"You did what?"
"Laminated it."
"But you can't," I pause as I realize that I'm attracting a fair amount of attention from the nearby diners, "use it for that purpose if it's laminated. That was the point. You need to be able to roll it," I explain.
"Yeah, but, I--"
"What possessed you to laminate it?"
She stirs the grits so fast I'm afraid they're going to escape the bowl.
"Well?" I press.
"Metaphor!" she says. Somewhat desperately, in my opinion.
"Metaphor. Right."
"Really. See paper is fragile. It burns, it tears. If it gets wet it falls apart. Just like you."
"If I get wet I fall apart?" I interrupt, an amused smile tugging.
"Uhhh, metaphor. Anyway, paper is fragile, like a person is. Like willpower can be. The lamination is like armour. Its like support. All the people who help you stay strong like Lindsey and your family and friends. It, ah, stiffens your resolve. Makes you firm. But it's transparent. You can still see you, be you. Only stronger." She sighs and slumps back into the booth.
"That actually made sense."
"Thank you."
"You just made it up on the spot."
"Yes," she nods. "Yes, I did."
"So why did you really laminate it?"
"It was going to fall apart. It was starting to tear on the folds."
I look at the bill. "But it was just sitting in your wallet, how--"
"I take it out sometimes," she says as I continue to look at it. "I take it out a lot."
"Why?"
"To remind me."
"This would go faster if you use multiple sentences."
"You said you trusted me. Even after what happened in the garage. After I've failed you professionally and been disrespectful and sometimes just plain mean you said you trusted me with this. So I'd look at it to try to figure out why, probably about a hundred times since you went home, and it was starting to tear."
"Did you figure it out?"
"No. I'm fairly sure you couldn't put it into words either, though."
"No. It's just a feeling."
"Do you?"
"What?"
"Fall apart when you get wet?"
I stare at this version of Sara Sidle I have never met before, my eyebrows racing upwards.
"Sorry," she says, breaking eye contact and desperately looking for some food to toy with. "That was inappropriate."
"Were you teasing, being mean or flirting?"
"What?"
"Or were you talking about getting caught in the rain?"
"My, ah, mouth said it before my brain realized it was thinking it. But not mean. Or rain," she says, flushing a bright red. "Now would be a really good time for me to use that bullet, Catherine."
I reach out and catch her hand. "Which?"
"Teasing. Not mean, not flirting."
"Why not?"
She looks bewildered. "Because I've given up being mean to you and there's something you don't know about me that would make flirting uncomfortable and obviously I'm beyond exhausted so if you could take me back to the lab so I can grab my stuff and take a cab home before anymore feet squeeze into my mouth, that would be great."
I nod. "I've got this," I say, grabbing the bill. I hand her the car keys. "Be right out."
By the time I've paid the bill and reached the car she's buckled in, seat slightly reclined and sunglasses firmly in place.
"Listen-" she starts but I interrupt.
"It can't be any of the boys," I say, referring to Warrick, Nick and Greg, "because I’m their supervisor. It can't be Sophia because she's too new and Grissom is too Grissom. The start of why I trust you with that dollar was because there was no one else to trust. But the more I trust you with it the more reasons I find to continue. Do you understand?"
She nods and I pull out into traffic. She gives a few head nodding jerks.
"Lean back and close your eyes," I suggest. "The ride'll go faster."
By the time I reach the parking lot she's sound asleep, head supported by the shoulder strap. I pull into lot with a little bit of shade. Smiling I turn off the ignition and reach backseat for my own laptop.
END
Next: The Disclosurer
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