Disclaimer: Do I really need to do one of these?
Summary: Lost time is never found again. This is the first in a series of vignettes focusing on various moments in time and place.
***
Friendship is a special kind of love.
--Unknown
Catherine was crouched idly on her living room floor, half-heartedly struggling to determine what was wrong with the cable wiring, when she felt a sharp pain deep in her stomach, and almost keeled over in surprise.
Eddie was out on the town, on some seemingly lucrative business venture that was ultimately going to result in nothing. They had been struggling to make ends meet for a while now, ever since she was forced to temporarily take some time off of work.
She winced now, clenching the coffee table painfully as the sensation came again. A minute later, her water broke.
Catherine squeezed her eyes shut tightly, taking a moment before whoosing a deep breath, and hoisting herself clumsily to her feet.
She was alone. Of course she was alone. Her neighbours were at work, and they didn’t like them much anyway. She hobbled slowly to the phone, hesitating as she placed the receiver to her ear, the dial tone offering a dull buzzing in her ear.
Then she made an almost reflexive decision, and punched in the number of the one person she knew she could rely on.
“Grissom”.
She breathed in a sigh of relief at her friend’s monotonous greeting.
“Gil, it’s Catherine”.
She could hear the distraction in his voice, and she assumed he was working on something. When wasn’t he working? “Oh, hey Catherine. I already asked Cavallo if you could help in any active cases, and you know what he said, so I can’t—“
“This isn’t about that”, she cut in impatiently, clasping her stomach strongly. “I think I’m having the baby”.
She could practically see him blink. “Oh. Well, congratulations. If there’s anything I can do…“
She rolled her eyes at the inanity of his response. Did he really think she was calling up for a chat now?
“No, I’m having the baby NOW, Gil!” she yelled. “I need—“ She paused as another sharp contraction went through her body. “—A ride to the hospital!”
She heard him swallow. “Where’s Eddie?”
“I don’t know”, she said, somewhat helplessly. “And I’d call my sister but she’s halfway across town—“
“Okay!” he said quickly. She swore she heard a hint of panic is his normally placid tone. “I’ll be there as soon as I can”.
He hung up, and she replaced the receiver, grimacing painfully. She carefully breathed in and out, vaguely wishing she had attended at least one Lamaze class instead of just assuming they were stupid.
She slowly leant against the armrest of the sofa, willing the flutter her heartbeat to slow. She couldn’t afford to panic. This wasn’t how this was supposed to happen. Her husband was supposed to be here right now with her, soothing her as she got into the car and she actually had the assurance she was on her way to imminent medical attention.
She closed her eyes. It was less than ten minutes when Grissom knocking hurriedly on the door, before stumbling anxiously inside. His blue eyes were wide and worried, and she wondered how many speeding laws the usually stoic man had broken to get there so quickly.
“Cath. Are you—?“
“Just get me in the car. Please”.
He immediately came forward, taking one arm as he guided her along. He quickly fastened on her seatbelt, adjusting it to fit her wide girth, and ran around to the driver’s side. The tyre’s squealed as he swerved onto the road, and she clasped the side door tightly.
“Grissom, I said I want to GET there, not DIE doing it!”
“Sorry”, he exclaimed, slowing marginally on the gas.
She drew in a few deeper, calming breaths, not really going in any sort of rhythm, and narrowed her eyes at him slightly. “Geez, who’s more worried here, you or me?”
He wisely chose not to answer her question, and glanced at her sideways as she hissed from another sharp stab of pain. “Are you okay?”
She clenched her teeth. “If this part is this damn bad, I can’t wait for the real thing”.
Grissom made the turnoff for Desert Palms, knuckles white from their clutch on the steering wheel. “We’re almost there…”
She took the time to study him, and for a brief second, she wondered what her life would have been like if she’d married Grissom. A hell of a lot easier, that was for sure. She knew she could rely on him, definitely more than Eddie. They had known each other for about three years now, and she felt like she could trust him in a way she had never allowed herself to trust another man before. But there was passion between her and Ed. Sure, it was sometimes bad, but when it was good, it was really good. That flame just wasn’t there with her and Gil, and it never would be. She had never looked for safety and security in a relationship and maybe that was her flaw. She always went for the passion.
They reached the Desert Palms ER, and he quickly aided her out of the car. Her contractions were a little further apart, but no less painful. She’d heard the first kid was always the worst.
Yeah, well, knowing my threshold for pain, it’ll probably be the only one, too.
A nurse who looked more than a little like she might have once known Catherine in a professional capacity hustled her into a hospital gown and onto a stiff, hard bed.
That was what she loved about this town. A stripper by night might be instructing you on proper breathing and prepping you for labour by day.
Catherine took a while to realise Grissom was missing, and her eyes darted around frantically, as a sudden, unbidden fear gripped her.
“You husband’s in the hall, ma’am”, the pretty nurse informed her. “He’s making a phone call”.
Catherine blinked, realising they assumed they were together. It was probably easier a lot that way.
“Can you get him in here, please”, she pleaded.
God, she was a wreck. She thought she’d manage through childbirth with her usual feigned control, but she was slipping fast, and she needed an anchor.
Grissom wandered tentatively into the room, looking extraordinarily out of place.
She reached for his hand, not caring if he was uncomfortable, because God dammit, she was the one having the baby, wasn’t she?
“I tried to call Eddie”, he said, barely concealing a wince at the force of her grip. ‘I left a message with the recording studio”.
She nodded, barely taking it in.
“All right, Mrs Willows”, a cheerful male voice announced, upon entering the room. The doctor, whose nametag read Hopkins, wound his stethoscope around his neck, and snapped on his latex gloves. She took the time to marvel at the differences between her job and his. At least her patients were guaranteed to be silent.
“Let’s get ready to push”.
Dr. Hopkins went about checking if she were properly dilated and prepping the nurse, and Catherine leant back with her eyes closing, clutching Grissom hand the entire time.
“Okay”, he announced. “Are you ready?”
***
Catherine studied the small, docile bundle wrapped securely in a pink blanket and nestled in her arms, unable to gaze away. The small life enthralled her in ways she had never begun to imagine. Oh, sure, the pian had been as bad as all hell, but it had definitely been worth it.
Grissom strode slowly back into the room, hovering by the bedside chair uncertainly. “Hey”.
He glanced up, smiling slightly. “Hey, Gil”.
“I called your mother, and your sister. They should be here soon”.
“Thanks”, she said, returning her gaze to the baby immediately.
Grissom looked similarly fascinated, though she was sure it was from an entirely scientific standpoint.
“I still couldn’t get onto Eddie”, he admitted apologetically.
She shrugged, ignoring the niggling of hurt inside. She was too tired, and nothing would destroy this moment. “That’s okay”.
He hesitated, lowering himself into the chair beside her. She allowed her gaze to drift up to his again, and she bit her lip. Their friendship was still reasonably new, and she knew she had asked a lot of him today. She hadn’t really realised until now how much she valued his presence in her life. He had given her her job and her livelihood, but he had also resecured her self-respect and she was eternally grateful to him for it.
“Listen”, she said softly. “I’m uh, sorry, I freaked out on you today.”
He smiled slightly. “I think it’s entirely understandable”.
“Right. Well, you didn’t have to be so good to me and stick around, and I just want you to know… I appreciate it”.
He shrugged, but he looked infinitely more relaxed. She realised she had really worried him, and it gave her a strange, warm feeling inside. “It was nothing, Catherine”.
“No, it was something, Gil”, she insisted quietly. “For all the people who’ve abandoned me in my life, believe me, I would know”.
He shrugged, embarrassed slightly at her praise. “What are you going to call her?”
She glanced down again, smile tugging at her lips. “Lindsey. It’s what Eddie and I agreed to. After my grandmother”.
A loud patter of footsteps sounded down the hall, and Eddie’s tense, pinched features peered into the room. “Baby, I am so sorry! I can’t believe I wasn’t here!”
Catherine smiled, relief at the sight of him dispelling any anger. “It’s okay, Ed. Come here and meet your daughter”.
Eddie quickly came forward, and Grissom silently melded off into the background. By the time she realised he was gone; Eddie had gently swept Lindsey up into his arms, and was cradling her in a state of disbelieving bliss.
A small smile graced her lips, and she knew he hadn’t gone far. It was how he would always be in her life, on the fringes, but there.
***
A.N. I’m assuming Cavallo had to work his way up in the lab somehow, so in this story, he is the nightshift supervisor.
Sara idly folded one leg over the other, barely taking in the heavy buzz of city traffic, as her attention remained riveted to her book, Sense and Sensibility.
Her leg cramped up, and she glanced down at her watch, shifting slightly on the bus stoop.
Other people her age had a car by now, but she wasn’t about to complain about the fact that she didn’t. Every last penny she earned from her part-time job at Roy’s Diner went into her Harvard account, and there it would stay.
Sure, her current foster family were great, but she wasn’t going to rely on them for financial support. They had a biological daughter of their own to get through college, and they were just managing to survive off Marty’s fisherman wage anyway. No. Ever since she was thirteen years old, she had learnt that only person to rely on was herself.
The bus hissed as it shuddered to a halt, and she climbed on, immediately resuming her reading at the chapter she had left off.
She had already been skipped a year ahead, and graduation was fast approaching. She was waiting to hear whether or not she had been accepted for a full academic scholarship to Harvard, while trying to pretend it wouldn’t shatter all of her dreams if she didn’t.
Harvard had been her goal for years now. The epitome of proof that she would not end up like her mother, and that she had the ability to make something of herself.
It took half-an-hour to reach the Silverman house in the outer, coastal suburbs of the city, and she clutched her book under her arm, hopping onto the sidewalk. It was a short walk to the modest, neat little two-story house at the end of the street, and she took her time, zipping up her jacket as the frigid ocean wind gusted inland.
Her foster sister’s pink bicycle was laid out on the driveway, and she absently shifted it so Marty wouldn’t run over it when he came home from the docks.
She was almost at the front door when a shadow caught her eye along the narrow road running down to the small inlet along the side of the Silverman house, and she realised a rusty, beaten-up blue Chevy was parked under the trees there, partially obscured from view.
Sighing deeply, she dumped her backpack on the front porch, striding slowly down over the lawn. A darkened figure leant casually against the rear door, and didn’t move until Sara neared slowly.
The late afternoon light panned over their roughened features, and Sara took a moment to recognise the features.
“Hey, kiddo. Remember me?”
Sara paused on the dirt track, eyeing the figure warily. “Blake? What are you… doing here?”
He older brother blinked back at her steadily, rapping his knuckles vaguely against the side of his car. “That’s quite a way to greet your brother, Sara”.
“I haven’t seen you since I was fourteen”, Sara retorted icily.
He nodded, looking down guiltily. She assumed he was supposed to look guilty. She didn’t trust his motives in the slightest. “You know I would’ve gotten you out of all this shit if I could have”, he said earnestly. “But look at me, Sar. I’m not ready to have a kid around”.
“I’m seventeen, Blake”, she said briskly.
He bit his lip, sensing he was not making an ideal impression on her. “Right. I’m sorry”.
She folded her arms over her midsection, warding away the cold as well as using it as a self-protective gesture. “What do you want?” she said impatiently.
Blake was four years older than her, and rarely around by the time their parents’ arguments really escalated. He was only in the system for a year, and as soon as he was out, he was out. No looking back. No coming back for her.
“Okay”, he said evenly, stuffing his hands gingerly in the pockets of his leather jacket. “I need your help”.
She stared at him. Unlike her, he was clearly well along the family track.
“You need money”, she guessed shrewdly.
He didn’t deny it. “Well, yeah”.
Sara narrowed her eyes. “I don’t have any”, she snapped angrily. “Does it look like I have money?”
Blake lifted an eyebrow. “What about your family? They must have some”.
Sara glared. “They don’t”, she said forcefully. This wasn’t happening. She wanted him gone.
Blake stared at her, rather helplessly. “Look, Sara, you think I’m proud of myself here? Hitting up my kid sister for money? This is… This really matters, Sara. I wouldn’t be asking if it didn’t”.
“What do you mean?” she asked carefully.
He drew in a breath, frowning. “Look, they’re… I’m in a bit of trouble. I might be in danger. That’s all you need to know. Sara… if you don’t help me, they’ll… I need your help, kiddo. I promise; when I get a chance, I’ll make it up to you, stay out of your life, whatever. But you’re my last chance.”
Sara felt a cold shiver run through her, but it wasn’t from the cold. She would never give him her Harvard money. Ever.
“I don’t have any”, she said desperately.
Blake closed his eyes, indicating the house behind them pointedly. “No, but they probably do. Right?”
Sara stared at him; every nerve ending in her body screaming against the reply she knew was forthcoming. “They have… They have a stash hidden away. For emergencies”, she blurted unwillingly.
Blake stared at her intently. “How much?”
She told him.
He was eyeing her dangerously now. “I need you to steal it, Sara. For me”.
She swallowed, feeling her hands shaking. She knew she was trapped, and it was entirely self-inflicted. She could never betray her brother, not if it ostensibly led to his death. But the Silvermans… they were the closest thing to a real family she had ever had.
“Please”, Blake murmured desperately.
She lowered her gaze, shivering involuntarily. “O-okay. I’ll… I’ll get it to you tomorrow. Is that okay?”
When the Silvermans were asleep, she crept up to the attic. She wasn’t even supposed to know the money was up there. She had found it one day, when Amy threw a ball up into the window. It was hidden under some floorboards, which came dislodged when she stepped on them.
She bent, stuffing the wads off cash unsteadily into her backpack. Then she climbed out onto the sloping roof, and broke the window from the outside, carefully using a balled up rag to protect her fists from the impact. She knew enough about physics to understand which way a robber would smash the glass.
As soundlessly as possible, she attempted to make the attic room look ransacked, and then tiptoed back to her room.
In the morning, Marty spotted the broken window and they called the cops. They assumed it was some rogue teenager on a random burglary, and never apprehend a suspect.
The Silvermans lost their money, and Sara went away to college soon after, never being contacted by her brother again.
The guilt at her crime overwhelmed her, and Sara began to save her money to pay back the Silvermans. She never told them why. She said she was grateful for their kindness, in taking her into their home. And they believed her, because she was smart, sweet, innocent Sara Sidle, and nothing like her mother.
***
Nick waved to a few guys from his varsity team as they pulled away, and chuckled hazily to himself as he staggered awkwardly over the front curb. The looming white, two-story house was shrouded in darkness, and in the dim recesses of his mind, he attempted to make his steps as soundless as possible as he stumbled up the front porch and fitted his key into the lock.
He stumbled on the hall runner, and scoffed loudly at his sudden clumsiness. The loud, monotonous ticking of the grandfather clock he had hated so much as a child was the only ominous sound in the silence of the household, and he glanced at it with a grimace, noting its dark clock face read two thirty am.
He tiptoed through the vast family room towards the staircase the led to his room, wondering if his mother would be able to identify the smell of alcohol on his jersey shirt in the morning, when a loud, pointed cough stopped him dead in his tracks.
He whirled around, as the dormant corner lamp flooded the room with light. He blinked against the sudden brightness, head instantly throbbing with a heightened aversion.
“Well. Where have we been so late tonight?”
His father, the stoic, straight-faced figure he had inwardly come to know as The Judge stared intently back at him across the room, as he slowly rose to his feet from the stiff leather armchair he had occupied at least a good portion of the night.
Nick cleared his throat, attempting to mask the guilt from his eyes. The Judge didn’t miss it. He never missed anything. “I was just out celebrating with the guys, Dad”, he said carefully. “We won the big game, remember?”
The one you wouldn’t even show up for, he thought distastefully.
The Judge’s thick eyebrows narrowed over his features reproachfully. “Until two am?” he prompted pointedly. “You have a college admissions meeting tomorrow, or have you forgotten that?”
Nick gulped, swaying slightly unsteadily. He really just wanted to crash on his bed. The Judge noticed his wobbly posture immediately. “And you’ve been drinking?” he said darkly. “That’s a great impression you’re going to make on the admissions committee. Drowsy and hungover. Nice to see you have your priorities in order. We never had any trouble like this with your brother or sisters”.
Like he wasn’t reminded of that, every day. The youngest of seven, and he never seemed to measure up. He got straight A’s and was at the top of his class, but Danielle just got her Bachelor in Law with record high marks, or Doug was the youngest rookie ever to get a commendation. He was the bottom rung of a family of overachievers, and he was expected to head in the same straight-laced direction as the rest of them. His entire life had been planned out the moment he was born to a Supreme Court Judge and Defence Attorney. Law was his calling. There was no other option.
“Your priorities, you mean?” Nick blurted out suddenly. His lessened inhibitions forced him to say what he had formerly never been able to.
The Judge blinked back at him, surprised at the sudden resentment in his tone.
“Excuse me?”
Nick rolled his eyes. “They’re your plans, not mine”, he spat. “What if I’m not ready for college yet? What if I don’t want to go into Pre-Law?”
The Judge sighed impatiently. “Don’t be ridiculous”, he said calmly. “We’ve already discussed this. This is what you want. This is what is best for your future. You’re tired and you’re not thinking clearly. Obviously this is not the best time for this discussion”.
“No”, Nick said angrily, and he shot forward suddenly. The Judge was a towering form, and he barley matched his full height, but he ignored the vague warnings in his mind as he stared up at his father, infused with a sudden courage. “You decided. I never had a say in anything. You expected me to just go along with everything because you say so. I don’t want to go to Rice yet. I want to… take a year off. I want to play football. You know UCLA sent me an acceptance form yesterday to go there on a football scholarship?”
The Judge stared at him like he didn’t comprehend a word he was saying. “Nick, football is not a future”, he said flatly. “We’ve tolerated it for now because it’s socially valuable. That’s all. Now go to bed, and try to sleep it off. We want you ready in the morning”.
Nick swallowed as The Judge started to retreat for the stairs.
“I don’t want to be a lawyer!” he yelled unexpectedly.
The Judge turned, face barely showing a sliver of emotion. “You don’t have to be a lawyer, Nick”, he said evenly. “There are many other equally suitable options in law enforcement.”
Nick closed his eyes, scoffing disbelievingly. “You’re not listening to me!”
“And you’re not listening to me”, his father said, suddenly vehemently. Nick blinked at the shift in his usually unruffled tone. He was deathly serious, and Nick swallowed, stepping back slightly in alarm.
“You are going to that college admission meeting tomorrow, and you are going to be accepted, just like your brother, and just like your sisters, because you are a Stokes. That is the end of it. If you want to throw away your future and all of your potential, then fine. But you can do that in another house, and in another family. Because that’s not something I will tolerate here”.
He turned abruptly, leaving Nick standing alone in the middle of the room.
Nick felt a shiver of disbelief run through him, quite convinced he had just heard his father disown him. His eyes slowly narrowed, and he waited several moments until he heard his father close his bedroom door up the stairs, before swiping the keys to his parents car off the silver hook beside the front door, and stalked out into the yard.
He swerved the dark blue Sedan angrily onto the road, pressing his foot deeply into the accelerator as he drove blindly into the night, no clear destination in mind. He scoffed as he glared down at the dashboard of the car, another thing his parents had deprived him of in favour of his academic success.
When he came to a shuddering park out the front of his darkened high school football stadium, he slowly cut off the ignition and stalked towards the oval.
He jumped the small fence; staring vaguely up into the bleachers as his shoes sunk into the slightly damp, lush green grass. He stopped in the middle, and just sunk to his knees, falling onto his back and staring up at the stars.
The Texan sky was vast and all encompassing, and he stared at it with a similar minuscule wonder as he had when he was a child.
His father could not dictate his life this way. It had to stop. His plans were a conflicted muddle in his mind, but they were there, as indistinctive as they were, and they had nothing to do with what his father wanted. His father had ruled his life with a heavy fist for as long as he could remember. He closed his eyes, wondering if his mother had heard their raised voices from her bed.
Unlike his father, she had attended his game, along with his sister Madeline and Doug. He reminded himself that though he was in a constant state of competition with his siblings, they never let him know it. The only person who made it that way was his father. They had supported and coddled him since he was born, four years younger than his next oldest sister. They made up for the Judge’s emotional detachment, and he loved them all dearly.
Will they be disappointed if I don’t do what they wanted? Will they abandon me too?
Of course he knew they wouldn’t. But he could just imagine the strained state of his family if he did do what he wanted, the firm, domineering way The Judge would ignore him from his life, and how the rest of them would be forced to tread around his name carefully, and visit him in secret. He had no doubt the true influence The Judge had over the rest of his family, and though he knew they wouldn’t intentionally abandon him, he would be isolated in a way they couldn’t prevent.
Sighing deeply, he came to an inward decision, and climbed slowly to his feet. His slightly inebriated state had made his usually rational, responsible nature recede and he realised it had been stupid to drive here while he was still drunk.
He drove the Sedan back to his house with added carefulness, and climbed silently up to his room, collapsing on his bed.
In the morning, he dressed in the carefully ironed clothes his mother had set out for him, and popped a breath mint in his mouth. His mother never questioned him about the night before, and his father never even acknowledged the argument they had had. And Nick went to the meeting, just like they had asked.
***
Warrick stared at the simple, flat envelope with a significant amount of reluctance, turning it over slowly in his lean, brown hands. The legible, black handwriting on the front merely read:
Warrick Brown
Las Vegas Criminalistics Lab
North Tropicana Boulevard
He swallowed uncomfortably, glancing at the tiny red stamped logo on the corner of the stamp. It was that which gave him considerable pause. Calder and Co. Investigative Agency.
Several months ago, he had contacted the private investigators with the intent to track down his father. A man who had been absent all of his life, but who he had harboured an inner, secret unwanted desire to know for most of that time.
Sighing, he considered the seal as he sat in one of the soft, leather chairs in the break room, nursing a steaming mug of coffee at his elbow. He had almost forgotten about his hesitant request until now. He knew his grandmother wouldn’t approve. She had more than blatantly established her opinion of George Brown, and he couldn’t blame her for her sentiments. He felt the same way.
George had abandoned him when he was a baby, leaving his mother to raise him alone until she died when he was only seven, overworked and unappreciated. Not so much as a stray Christmas card or late night phone call. He had forgotten them, and they had done their best to forget about him.
Except Warrick had a difficult time convincing himself to hate someone so vehemently who he had never met, and who was fundamentally a part of himself.
He glanced up at the sound of brisk heels as they clicked loudly in the hall, jolted from his reverie. Catherine strode into the room; flicking her short blonde hair loosely over one shoulder and looking harried, as she strode directly for the coffeemaker.
She drew in a deep, relieved sigh as the warm beverage slid down her throat, a sensuous, pleasing sound that unwittingly appealed to him and that he struggled to ignore. She was an attractive, slightly older female co-worker, and she was strictly off-limits because she was married, and she had a kid. Even if everyone with half a brain knew her marriage was on the rocks.
“I needed that”, she announced unabashedly, leaning idly back against the smooth wooden bench, run her other hand tiredly through her untidy locks.
“Tough case, huh?” he guessed wryly, smiling at his friend sympathetically.
Catherine nodded, eyes widening earnestly. “Oh yeah, the worst”, she agreed fervently, glancing around until she finally lifted the half-empty coffeemaker, and studied her reflection, attempting to fix her hair. “Man, once I see that bastard behind bars, I’ll sleep a lot better at night.”
He tilted an eyebrow in agreement, dimly recalling her case. A crack addict who kidnapped and raped a ten-year-old girl. Cath always had trouble with ones like that. They all had their weakness, and hers was cases with little kids. But then he thought they probably affected everybody. He drew in a deep sigh, hating what it was about innocent children that made them so susceptible to harm. He glanced back down at the unopened envelope in his hands, studying it distractedly.
Catherine noted the shift in his attention, and slowly crossed to one of the chairs opposite him, sliding gracefully into it. “So. What’s up?” she asked nonchalantly, gesturing languidly at the envelope.
He followed her gaze, noticing how he had worried the edges. “Oh.” He pursed his lips, inwardly cursing himself from bringing attention to his obvious unease. “Uh, nothing, really. Just something I don’t really want to take care of”.
She nodded carefully, turning her lips down in sympathy. “Ah. One of those things”.
“Yeah”, he murmured, leaning back in his chair.
Catherine considered him quietly, nursing her mug carefully between both hands. “Anything you want to share?” she asked slowly, sensing his reluctance to do so.
He shrugged, musing it over for a moment. Catherine was one of the lab’s most notorious gossipers, but he knew when it came down to something important, she was ideal to confide in. After all, there had to be a reason she and Grissom were so close.
“Do you talk to your father much?” he asked at last, glancing at her over the short length of table between them.
Catherine shrugged one shoulder, taking another sip of her coffee. “I don’t really know my father”, she admitted unperturbedly. “He walked out on my family when I was a kid. My mother never even went to him for child support”.
He stared at her in surprise after this admission. He’d never really considered that he might have his parental dysfunctions in common with anyone else.
“Really?” he said slowly.
She nodded. “Mmm hmm. I learnt to get over it. If he could do something like that, then he just wasn’t worth crying over.”
He frowned, tapping the envelope vaguely against one palm. “My father left just after I was born”, he confessed quietly. “I never knew him”.
Catherine paused, eyeing him with genuine sadness. “I’m sorry”, she said sincerely.
“How do you get past something like that?” he mused aloud, studying his reflection in the shiny table veneer. “Your own parent not even wanting you?”
Catherine blew out a contemplative sigh, flexing her perfectly manicured fingers absently on the tabletop. “Well, the way I see it, we all have some sort of mommy or daddy complex”, she started, waving her hands vaguely. “Some of us just have them a lot more than others. You’ve gotta look past it, realise that there’s something wrong with them, not you, or you just won’t be able to move on. If someone can have a family before they’re ready for it, and they’re not willing to face up to it afterwards, then they’re not really worth it anyway, are they?”
He glanced at her, realising she had obviously thought quite a bit on the subject herself. She shrugged absently, placing her empty coffee mug on the table, running her hands carelessly over the armrests of her chair. “I just tell myself the family I’ve made for myself now are the ones who are really important. The people I can really rely on, not the bastard who left me before I could even know him”.
Warrick glanced at her; surprised at the perspective she had managed to give him on the situation.
She appeared slightly sheepish at the amount she had disclosed, and rose to her feet, moving quickly to rinse out her mug. “Yeah, well, I should really get to DNA. See if Greg has those results back for me yet”.
“Sure”, Warrick said, smiling slightly at the speed that she retreated. He knew Catherine had been beaten around the back path a fair bit in her life, but it had certainly allowed her some inner wisdom on aspects of her life that he envied in a way.
His gaze lowered once more to the envelope in his hands, and drawing in a deep breath, he ripped open the seal. Good or bad, whatever it contained would not affect him. It would be knowledge, nothing more. It would resolve his inner conflicts, and allow him to move on.
Dear Mr. Brown,
We regret to inform you that the above cited, one Mr. George Brown, has been located, and declared deceased as of the 17th March 1991, in New Hope, Pennsylvania.
We apologise for any undue distress this may cause you.
Yours sincerely,
Calder and Co. Investigative Agency
Warrick blinked at the paper, slowly lowering it to the table. One option he hadn’t even entertained was his father’s death, and for a moment, he allowed himself to grieve for the man, a man he would never know enough to properly resent, or to allow himself forgive. But the discovery filled him with an uncontrollable sense of relief, and he closed his eyes as he realised it had given him what he had really wanted.
A new beginning.
***
It was the simple pleasures in life that did it for Jim Brass.
Catching five minutes of a Cardinals game between shifts at the precinct. The gentle, unassuming descent of the snow as it drifted over the streets, frosting up the glass. And coming home after a hard day at work, to find his wife waiting for him, cooking his favourite meal.
Except she wasn’t, and here he was, sitting alone in his sparsely furnished apartment, a disordered array of unpacked boxes scattered him, with a half-burnt TV dinner set out in front of him.
He picked briefly at his meal, regretting the fact that in all his years he had never learnt to properly cook, before retrieving the icy beer at his elbow, and bringing it firmly to his lips.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Twenty years of marriage, and it came down to this. Moving into a cramped apartment that he could barely afford, waiting half-heartedly for his wife to call, to tell him it had all been a mistake.
Soon-to-be-ex wife, he reminded himself bitterly. Helen had sent him the divorce papers via her lawyer, and there wasn’t one damn thing he could do to stop her. Not that he wanted to. Not really. The last few months had been a living hell. No, the last decade of his life had been hell.
Call him old-fashioned, but he believed marrying your college sweetheart was the epitome of romance, all of that flowers and candy crap that women ate right out of your hand. It was the most spontaneous thing he had been capable of, and he had relished it at the time. And yeah, he had expected it to be a forever kind of deal.
After ten years of seemingly perfect marital bliss, he knew she was being unfaithful. He knew, in his gut, even if he was willing to completely deny it at the time.
He buried himself in his work, he thrived on the justice and satisfaction of putting away pitiless criminals, and when their daughter Ellie was born, he thought her infidelity had been a brief, momentary lapse, and nothing more.
A few years later he found a motel card with a mans phone number scrawled on the back as it slipped out of her purse, and a few years after that, she called him by another name when they were in bed.
They weren’t happy, and he couldn’t take it. It was exactly one week since he had packed together his things and moved out, and he had seen his daughter one time in the interim.
His gaze drifted slowly over the scattered mail on his kitchen counter, bills lying forgotten under the crumpled mass of divorce papers Helen had sent him to sign. Folded carefully over those, was a simple, cream coloured letter with official subscript, from the Las Vegas Police Department.
He stared at the letter, addressed to him from the Sheriff’s office, informing him of the detective position awaiting him in homicide, should he choose to accept it.
Jim pursed his lips, staring vacantly at the words as they stared mockingly back at him. The proof that his life in Newark was, in fact, over.
He swallowed tightly, clutching the beer miserably in his hand, and the phone rang on the wall.
Jim jolted, startled by the shrill sound as it pierced the silence, and he rose with leaden feet, slowly moving to answer it.
“Hello?” he muttered hoarsely. His throat was dry and constricted, and he ached for another sip of his beer. Just one.
“Daddy?” a small, female voice warbled nervously.
He blinked, staring at the receiver in surprise. “Ellie? Is that you, kiddo?”
He heard the distinct sniffle, and his heart instantly contracted in concern. “Is everything okay, honey?”
“Daddy, mommy isn’t here, and I’m scared”.
Brass’s fist unconsciously tightened on the counter. “What do you mean, she’s not there?”
“She wasn’t here when Mrs. Moloney dropped me home from school. I waited but she never came”.
Jim felt his face darken at her blatant disregard for her daughter’s welfare, and he reminded himself he still had one reason to stay in Jersey. “It’s okay, Ellie, I’ll be right there.”
He reassured her again before he hung up, and ran a hand loosely over his day-old stubble. He was momentarily worried. Helen had always been undependable when it came to him, but when it came to their daughter; her affection for her was obvious. She would never willingly put her in jeopardy.
He scrambled around for his keys, locating them under a muddle of casefiles on his table. He hurried for his car, swiping the snow clumsily off the front window as he quickly jumped behind the wheel, and steered it onto the slippery road.
His old house was a ten minute drive, and he clutched the steering wheel fearfully, unwilling to let paranoia set in. Finally, he swerved to a halt at the curb outside the house, and slammed shut his door, swearing as he stumbled on the front step before twisting open the front door.
It wasn’t locked, and he wasn’t sure if Ellie had forgotten about it, or intentionally left it that way so he could let himself in, and he reminded himself to lecture her about it when he found her.
His eyes scanned the living room as he slid off his gloves, not bothering to swipe his boots on the doormat. “Ellie? Where are you?”
“It’s all right, Jim”, a familiar female voice filtered from the kitchen. “I’m here now”.
His face twisted in a scowl, and he stalked towards the room, barely allowing his relief to settle in as his eyes narrowed dangerously. Helen stood behind the kitchen counter, calmly staring back at him. Ellie sat at the kitchen table with a colouring book laid out before her, swinging her legs innocently under the table.
“Where were you?” he hissed, eyes drifting over her as he realised she was preparing dinner.
Helen wiped her hands on a dishtowel, hanging it evenly over the stove. “I had an appointment. It ran overtime. That’s all.”
“That’s all?” he repeated disbelievingly. “Ellie was here by herself for three hours.”
Helen sighed, tucking her blonde hair vaguely behind one ear. She was completely unaffected by his anger, and it only served to incense him even further. “Georgia and Liam are next door if anything happened. Ellie knows she can go to them”.
Jim clenched his jaw. “Then why did she call me?” he said lowly.
Helen stared back at him. “She missed you. She’s used to having you around”. She scoffed slightly. “As much as you ever were around”.
Jim opened his mouth in silent disbelief. “You’re blaming this on me now?” he fumed. “Funny, that’s the first I’ve heard about it. I always thought you enjoyed it better when I stayed late at work”.
Helen met his heated gaze, maintaining her cool composure. “I don’t think we should be discussing this in front of Ellie, Jim”.
Jim blinked. She was really pulling that card? After what had just happened, she was acting like the indignant one?
“Ellie, can you go colour in your room for awhile?” he asked tightly, glancing at his blonde haired daughter briefly.
Ellie glanced at them, eight-year-old eyes reflecting some level of familiar understanding which he didn’t like at all, and she silently hopped off her chair and carried the colouring book and her wad of crayons silently to her room.
Helen turned to him irritably, hands immediately flying huffily to her hips. “Did you have to upset her? I thought you moved out to spare her that, Jim”.
Jim glared at her. “I moved out because we were both hurting her, Helen. Don’t you understand that?”
She glanced down, and started resuming her stirring as she lifted the lid of a bubbling pot on the stove. “Well, look, it’s probably good you came here, because there’s something we need to talk about.”
Jim folded his arms, watching her expectantly. The open hostility in their relationship was uncovering years of pent-up resentment and anger, and the tension that suffused the air saddened him as he was aware of it.
“I’ve discussed a few things with my lawyer and I’ve decided to file for full custody of Ellie”.
Jim’s head snapped up. “What?”
She sighed, as if he were a petulant child. “Jim, it’s for the best”, she said fluidly. “Think of her for a second here. How do you think it’s going to affect her, making her unsettled by constantly shifting between two houses? She doesn’t understand what’s happening. She needs to have something stable in her life, and Jim… you’re not exactly an appropriate parent right now”.
Jim stepped forward dangerously. “What?” he repeated loudly. “You come home late, after leaving her here for three hours, and you call me the bad parent? Are you out of your damn mind?!”
Helen slowly lifted her gaze, staring at him intently. “I’ll fight you for her, Jim. And if they put us up against each other, who do you really think will win?”
Jim stared at her, unable to believe that she would stoop so low to get him out of her life completely. It killed him to comprehend that she was right. He couldn’t fight her on this. She would win.
He slowly looked away, clenching his fists dismally at his sides. “I hope you realise what you’ve just done here, Helen”, he hissed momentarily. “And I hope you’ll be able forgive yourself when you do.”
Without another word, he turned and stalked swiftly out of the house, the house he had spent the last twenty-years of his life investing in, slamming the door reverberatingly behind him.
The next morning, he called the Las Vegas Sheriff’s office, and told them he would be accepting their position. He left his daughter, and went to Vegas, and inwardly knew it was probably the single biggest mistake he had ever made in his life—not to stick it out, and fight.
***
A good beginning makes a good end.
-- English Proverb
Part six: Greg- Las Vegas, 1999
Greg Sanders was petrified. Of course, he wasn’t going to let anyone know that.
He unconsciously straightened his black Metallica shirt as he strode confidently through the automatic doors of the Las Vegas Crime Lab, headphones swinging lazily around his neck, blasting some incomprehensible punk rock so loudly more than several passing lab employees shot him dirty looks.
His messy dark blonde hair stuck up at odd angles that could only have been prearranged, and he shot the receptionist a smooth smile, instantly attempting to turn on all his boyish charm as he set his new LVPD ID fluidly on the desk.
“Hey there. I’m Greg Sanders. I’m looking for Jim Brass.”
The young, redheaded woman whose nametag red ‘Judy’, blinked back at him slightly, and he couldn’t tell if she was impressed by his blind brazenness or just incredulous.
She glanced over his shirt briefly, before pointing down the hall. “Mr. Brass’s office is down the hall to the right. You can’t miss it.”
“Thanks”, he said cheerfully, offering her another grin.
He lobbied down the hall, switching off his music as he walked, taking in the imposing facilities of the nations’ second best criminalistics laboratory, suitably impressed.
Yeah, I could definitely get used to this.
“Excuse me?” a sleek female voice spoke abruptly from behind him. “Are you lost?”
Greg turned, eyes scanning over the beautiful blonde as she eyed him disdainfully. He was immediately transported back to high school, quivering in the face of a stunning, scornful cheerleader. He cleared his throat, confidence noticeably shaken. “Uh, no, I’m… I’m the new DNA tech”.
She blinked, eyeing him with newfound bewilderment. “You’re Greg Sanders?” she said doubtfully. “Stanford graduate, top of your class, San Francisco lab tech?”
Greg slanted an eyebrow, slightly annoyed by her immediate scepticism. He got that a lot. “Uh, yeah, one and the same”.
Her lips twitched slightly, and she surprised him then, by extending a cordial hand. “I’m Catherine Willows. CSI”. She wasn’t as derisive as he had initially assumed, and his youthful heart instantly bloomed with infatuation.
He accepted her proffered palm, grasping it lightly. If all of their CSIs looked like she did, then he was definitely in the right place. “Nice to meet you”.
“Likewise”, she noted. “Brass is in the field, so I guess you’ll have to report to Gil. I’ll show you to his office”.
She strode ahead of him, obviously expecting him to follow behind, and she cocked her head slightly back at him when she passed a pair of guys loitering in the hall, who immediately stared at him with interest.
Greg lifted an eyebrow quizzically, instantly feeling like the newest specimen under their microscopes, and quickened his pace after the brisk blonde, getting the feeling she found his appearance highly entertaining.
She rapped lightly on an open doorframe, gesturing fluidly back at him as she swaggered nonchalantly inside. “Our new recruit’s here to report for duty.”
Greg followed her hesitantly inside the dimly lit office, eyes briefly straying to the assortment of odd specimen jars jumbled on the steel shelves. His eyes caught onto a fetal pig, and he unconsciously took a step back, gaze darting sharply over to the owner of this bizarro office.
Gil Grissom sat evenly behind his desk, earnest blue eyes taking in Greg with an acuity that intimidated him more than the two men out in the hall. He looked reasonably young, in his mid-forties at most, and Catherine perched comfortably on the edge of his desk, watching his assessment in amusement.
Greg glanced between them, unable to stop his disappointment as he considered that perhaps the stunning blonde had a thing going on with this weirdo. He inwardly sighed.
“So”, Grissom drawled at last. “You’re Greg Sanders”.
“Yep”, Greg chirped, then realised how unprofessional that probably sounded. “Uh, I mean yes, sir”.
Grissom nodded, and Greg thought he was struggling not to chuckle. Greg heaved a sigh. So apparently he was a living joke. What was new?
Well, who cared? He was here to do his job, and he was itching to check out his working space. That was all that mattered. He would prove to them he was a master at his craft, and they wouldn’t care what the hell he wore when he did it, as long as it helped them catch the bad guys faster.
“Well, I suppose you’d like a tour of your new domain?” Grissom said after a moment, lifting an eyebrow shrewdly.
Greg glanced at him, surprised that he seemed content to completely skip pleasantries, and that he had sensed what Greg was really thinking.
Maybe this guy isn’t so bad after all.
“Uh, yeah”, he said hesitantly. “That would be good”.
Grissom nodded, gesturing swiftly to someone out in the hall. “Nick, can you come in here?”
One of the men who had given him a previous appraisal out in the hall sauntered steadily into the room, eyes drifting over its occupants briefly. He was a broad shouldered guy, with one of those earnest, chiselled faces girls always swooned over. He was built like a football player, with a lean, well-sculpted body, and Greg scowled a little, wondering how it was that all of those people he had considered vacuous in high school were suddenly invading what he considered to be his natural environment.
“What’s up, Griss?” he drawled casually, in a distinct Texan accent.
Grissom nodded towards Greg, hand flexing vaguely over his ballpoint pen. “This is Greg Sanders, our new DNA tech. Would you care to show him to his lab, please?”
Nick nodded gamely, and Greg realised he had probably been waiting in the hall just to grasp onto this opportunity. He hid a glower. Guy probably had some kind of bet going. Swell.
“Pleasure to do so”, Nick said graciously, starting out into the hall without waiting to see if Greg was even following him. Greg glanced back at Grissom and Catherine fleetingly, and glimpsed something in Grissom’s gaze that was vastly unfamiliar to him, and infused him with a sudden amount of buoyancy. Conviction.
Greg frowned, whirling quickly to tag after Nick, hurrying to catch up to him.
Nick turned to regard him, stopping just outside an open entryway, smiling slightly as he gestured inside. “Well. This is your new home. I’m guessing it’s a lot better than good old ‘Frisco, huh?”
Greg peered inside, and a grin slowly overtook his features, as he momentarily forgot his first-day jitters. Oh yeah. This was paradise.
The technology was top notch, and the sterile, vast working space was at least a third bigger than his one previous. He feet peddled him gradually inside, gazing around to take it all in, and Nick leant back against the doorway, chuckling lightly at his reaction.
“Yeah. That’s what I figured.”
Greg peeled his gaze reluctantly away to look at the Texan again, lifting an eyebrow deliberately. “So. What do you wanna know?”
Nick blinked back at him, uncomprehendingly. “Excuse me?”
“For your bet”, Greg supplied airi