Part 8/?
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Sara frowned, her forehead creasing as her eyes adjusted to
the darkness. Swivelling around, she noticed that she was in a
quiet, dimly lit, suburban street. The night air was cold causing
her to shiver, her thin top little resistance against the chill. A
crisp breeze swayed the trees lining the street, their skeleton-
like branches casting eerie shadows.
Sara moved forward slowly down the street, her steps at first
tentative. As she walked, she found herself drawn towards
one particular house. There was no outward sign of movement
within the house. A single outdoor lamp threw a soft round
beam of yellow light on the porch. Carefully, she moved
closer until she stood at the bottom of the four uneven steps;
steps that would take her up within the glow of the candescent
light.
The weatherboard house was in need of repairs, white paint
peeling in large, irregular flakes from the long planks. The front
door was ajar, no light escaping from inside. Sara went up
each step cautiously, the old woodwork creaking ominously
beneath her weight and sending a shiver of fear down her
spine. She moved forward, somehow knowing that this was
what she must do despite an insistent warning that told her to
leave. A distant memory tugged at her, but remained sealed.
Pushing the door open, Sara gingerly stepped over the
threshold into a pitch black hallway. She left the door ajar to
allow some light to guide her way down the carpeted hall. She
grimaced and shook her head. Instinct had her wanting to turn
away, knowing that what she would find would haunt her. A
deeper force was drawing her down the darkened hall like an
insignificant mosquito to a light trap. She had to go down
there, searching; searching for what she did now know. Her
feet picked up the pace, her strides becoming longer as she
began a gentle jog. A ball of fear welled in her chest, her
mouth opened to call out a name that didn't reach her lips.
In the darkness, Sara felt her foot collide with a solid object
seconds before the impact sent her to her knees, falling to the
ground beside the thing that had caused her to lose her
balance. She frowned as she felt her hands connect with a wet
surface on the carpet. She pulled her hands away, holding
them close to her face in an attempt to identify the substance.
It had a distinctive odour. Sara felt the dampness leeching
through the knees of her jeans as well.
Tentatively, she reached out to touch what had caused her fall.
Shock filled her as she realised it was a body. Sara suddenly
recognised the odour. Her mind rapidly connected the pieces
of information her senses and hands had discovered and she
rose to her feet seeking to find a light switch.
She found one within the room opposite. Her hand rested on
the switch as light illuminated the room and hallway. The pitch
black scene was a harlequin of colour. In front of her lay the
body of her best friend in a pool of blood, dark red stains on
her torso revealling multiple stab wounds.
"No."
The sound broke through the silence in the room. Sara jolted
awake. She took in the scene around her, relieved to find
herself on top of a hospital bed, far away from the scene which
had haunted her for over a decade. Catherine was leaning
over the edge of the bed, her hand resting on top of Sara's.
"Hey," Catherine greeted her, her blue eyes wide with
concern. "You okay?"
Sara nodded, running her tongue around the inside of her
mouth before speaking. "What time is it?"
"Just after two."
"Catherine, I can go see a doctor in the morning," Sara said, a
note of pleading in her voice. She pushed an errant strand of
hair away from her face as she tried to displace the painful
dream into the deep recesses of her memory. "As I said, I'm
sure it's just a sprain. It's silly to sit here and waste the
hospital's time and money on a simple sprain."
"Sara, my daughter knows better than to continue to bug me
with the same argument..." Catherine trailed off, letting her
colleague make what she would of the statement. "Besides,
Grissom'd roast me alive if I came back without a doctor's
evaluation of your injury."
Catherine knew she wasn't far wrong with that assessment
either. She had witnessed the look on Grissom's face when he
had seen Sara curled up on the ground. It wasn't an
expression that she wanted repeated. The combination of
shock and horror had rooted him to the spot, absorbing the
crime scene in front of him.
Those who didn't know Grissom would have assumed that he
was doing his job, taking in the body of the boy to his left, the
middle-aged woman with half her head exploded over the
porch and his cowering CSI. But Catherine had known better.
He had been scared, frightened that one of his own had been
injured while doing a job he had given them. There was no
way she was heading back to the labs without Sara having
been given a full once over by the ER doctors.
"Sorry I fell asleep." Sara let her hand drop to her side,
resigned that she was not going to be able to wheedle
Catherine into agreeing to let her go home.
"You looked like you needed it," Catherine stated, her eyes
narrowing as she pondered the small snippets of distress she
had witnessed prior to Sara waking.
Sara nodded, her eyes hooded as she sought to clear her mind
of the image that filled it.
"Although I'm not sure it gave you much rest. Nightmares?"
Catherine forged forward, deciding that it would be best to
bring the subject to the fore, since Grissom seemed to be
unable to broach the subject. "You don't need to answer that.
I'm pretty sure that I know the answer. Sara, we've all
suffered from the problem of a case getting to us. There is
always going to be that one case that hits too close too home.
Grissom's worried about you."
"Grissom worries too much."
"Maybe you don't worry enough."
"What do you mean?" Sara whipped her head sideways to
stare at her strawberry-blonde haired colleague.
"You live your life through your job. It's dangerous. You will
burn out," Catherine told her matter-of-factly. "Maybe not this
year or the next, but time will catch up with you and you'll be a
shell of the Sara that everyone knew."
"Why does everyone think I don't have a life outside of
work?"
"Because you don't. Sara, we see you every day. When do
you take time off for yourself? You need a balance between
work and everything else. Otherwise you'll be another
Franovich."
"What do you suggest?"
"Find an interest outside of law enforcement."
"That's what Grissom said."
"He gives good advice." Catherine gave her a meaningful
look.
A short, dark-haired doctor walked into the room, a
stethoscope around her neck. She hardly looked old enough
to go to college let alone treat patients in a busy emergency
department.
"Sara Sidle?"
Sara nodded and sat up, swinging her legs over the edge of the
bed, dangling over the speckled linoleum floor. She
introduced Catherine, stating that she didn't mind her staying in
the room during the exam.
"Dr. Langmead." The young doctor introduced herself before
quickly confirming the necessary details on the form completed
by the triage nurse. "I'll take your blood pressure before I go
any further." As she went through the basic exam, she asked
Sara various questions about her general health. "A bit low."
"How low?" Catherine interjected, concerned.
Dr. Landmead looked to Sara for guidance, who nodded her
consent, not worried by the result at all.
"98 over 60."
"It's fine, Catherine. My BP is usually around that level. My
mother and grandmother both had low blood pressures. It's
probably a family thing."
"You should be careful though," Dr. Langmead warned her.
"You need to make sure you eat and drink regularly."
"Yeah, I know. I've been told that before."
"She's not great at following instructions which relate to her
health," Catherine told the doctor sardonically, remembering
the numerous times that Sara had forgone both food and drink
to forge forward on a case. It wasn't even taking into
consideration her unusual sleeping habits.
Sara shot her a dirty look, thinking that she should have made
her wait outside.
Dr. Langmead accepted the unsolicited information, narrowing
her eyes as she looked at her patient. "You fell on an
outstretched hand?"
Sara nodded.
"No other injuries? You've got blood and...." The young
doctor stopped as she realised what the other substance was.
"No other injuries. And yes, I have blood and brain matter in
my hair," Sara stated curtly. If she had had it her way, she
would have gone back to CSI and had a shower before going
anywhere else. Grissom and Catherine had other ideas and at
the time, she hadn't felt like fighting the two of them.
"Okay, let's have a look at it."
Sara held out her left arm as the dark-haired doctor poked
and prodded it this way and that, eliciting a few sharp intakes
of breath as the movement sent waves of pain up her arm.
Dr. Langmead applied a temporary splint to the arm and
an ice pack to the area to help reduce the swelling.
"Okay. It looks like it could be a scaphoid fracture. I'm going
to send you for an x-ray. However, with scaphoid fractures,
they are difficult to visualise on an x-ray due to the variable
blood supply. Either way, I will be placing your wrist in a
cast," Dr. Langmead said as she made several notes on the
chart. "I'll send a nurse down to take you to x-ray shortly."
The doctor left the room and Catherine sidled up beside the
bed where Sara was still sitting, silent, contemplating the
ramifications of the injury.
"And you said it was only a sprain."
"I was hoping," Sara said softly, fiddling with the battered,
loose gold watch band on her left arm. Undoing the clasp, she
held it out towards Catherine. "Can you look after it for me
while I'm in x-ray? It's special."
"Sure," Catherine agreed as the watch was dropped into her
hand. She gently rubbed over the surface. "You must have
cracked the face on the ground. You'll have to get it fixed."
"No I didn't. It's been like that for over ten years."
"Why don't you get it fixed?" Catherine was confused. Why
would Sara have such a nice watch, obviously expensive, that
didn't fit her wrist properly and have a damaged face.
"It's a reminder to pay attention. I didn't do that tonight. I
was so engrossed in the scene, in my own thoughts that I
didn't hear her."
"The mother?" Catherine asked, reeling at the sudden change
in the direction of the conversation.
"Yeah, she was standing less than two feet from me and I
didn't notice. Why didn't she shoot me?"
"I don't know. It's not your time. I can give you all sort of
glib answers, but no one really knows. If I were you, I'd be
grateful that I had been given another chance and make the
most of it. Life is for living."
End Part 8
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