Date: July 2006
Title: Absolution
Author: losingntransltn
(Jennifer)
Disclaimer: Don’t own anything associated
with the show… I just like playing with the characters in it.
Rating: T – Teen (language and adult
issues)
Pairings: GSR
Spoilers: Thru Season 6 - Post Ep for WtG
Summary: It’s been a month since Brass
woke from his ordeal, and Catherine has been doing some serious soul searching.
A/N: Had a little writer’s block in
another fic and this idea just kind of blossomed,
took root, infiltrated and grew over my entire brain like kudzoo.
And if you’re familiar with that stuff, the only way to get rid of it is to
burn it completely out of existence.
Absolution
She had often
complained about the size of her office, but in reality it really wasn’t any
smaller than most. Today, however, it seemed like the walls were moving in on
her as thoughts continued to plague her mind. Those thoughts had been building
up for more than a year; ever since Nick had been abducted.
Life was
different after that, more so than anything else that had ever happened in her
life. His abduction was something she thought about nearly every single day,
but more importantly she thought about the “what ifs” surrounding that
incident. She started listing them all in her head once again (something she
had done almost daily since it happened, and the list just kept getting
longer): what if that call had come to another shift, what if Gil had been the one
in that box and couldn’t help them identify those bugs, what if Warrick had
been in there and not handled it the way Nick had, what if she hadn’t been
bogged down that night and taken the call herself (what would have happened to
her daughter), what if Nick hadn’t shot out that heat lamp, what if he ran out
of oxygen and they hadn’t gotten there in time, what if Gil had been blown up
by that man, what if she hadn’t gone to her father for the money, what if Sara
hadn’t gotten that girl to talk to her, what if Sara hadn’t made the connection
between the ants and the girl’s previous life.
It was
those last two “what ifs” that bothered her more than any other in her list,
and it gave her one more “what if” that she had to carry around: what if Sara
had been fired a few months before Nick was abducted.
That last
one had been plaguing her mind constantly for months now, ever since the Sidley
case. Catherine had been working side by side with Sara on that chimney and
that was when it hit her: Sara was still a CSI and because of her she almost
wasn’t. Slowly, over the year since her altercation with Sara, the younger
woman had changed. Gone was the angry and aggressive side of her that had
always rubbed Catherine the wrong way, and in its place was a more confident,
stable, calm and analytical woman.
The
changes had seemed quiet, but if Catherine was honest with herself, it could
have been loud and crazy and she wouldn’t have noticed, because she had been
very preoccupied with other things. And if she was brutally honest about it,
she’d admit that it was because her radar had gotten very selfish during that
time as well. That selfishness had managed to touch all the aspects of her life
and damaged a lot of her relationships in the process.
It was
that realization that had made Catherine take a long
hard look at her life, and she was not happy with what she saw. She had finally
started to work at mending her relationship with her parents and her daughter.
Unfortunately, things seemed to have been going better with the former than the
latter, but she supposed that was only natural. Lindsay was a teenager and that
by itself meant the two women would be butting heads
on a fairly regular basis, but at least they were talking again (even if it was
at an elevated volume most of the time).
With that
progressing as well as it could be, Catherine still had a lot of work to do, so
she turned her attention to her other relationships. First on that list was
Gil, but true to form, he hadn’t even been phased by her often times territorial
behavior during their time apart, and in fact he had even tried to apologize
for her having to come back to nights at his request. The man never ceased to
amaze her in all the years of their association. Most of the time, she was
absolutely certain he was completely clueless about the people around him, and
then he would blow her mind with an insightful conclusion about someone’s
behavior or situation. She was convinced that she probably knew him better than
anyone else, but she also knew that it still only scratched the surface. She
could spend the rest of her life trying to figure out Gil Grissom, but she
doubted she would ever truly understand him.
And then,
just when she was starting to make some headway in cleaning up her life, Jim
was shot. Jim, the man who had covered her ass more times than she ever cared
to think about, the man who had stuck his neck out for all of them whenever the
rubber hit the road, and the one man she had never doubted in her entire life.
With his life hanging in the balance, Catherine felt like her world was being
ripped out from under her. The one constant in her life for more than ten years
was being threatened and it scared the hell out of her. When he waved at them
through that ICU window she felt her entire world come into focus. She would be
grateful for that moment for the rest of her days.
It had
been just over a month since that night in the ICU, and Catherine was still
trying to work up the nerve to deal with her last bit of unfinished business:
Sara. It was right after the ordeal with Jim that Catherine realized she had
done a serious injustice to the younger woman. After all the smoke had cleared
surrounding Jim’s shooting, Catherine recognized that Sara had been the
stabilizing factor for most of their team. She had remained calm, tended to the
members of the team and still managed to keep her professionalism in place
(even when it came to dealing with Gil). She wasn’t sure everyone would have
been able to hold it together if it hadn’t been for Sara, and it made what she
had to do even harder.
She was
shaken from her thoughts by a knock to the doorframe of her open office. “Sorry
Catherine, but Wendi asked me to tell you she’s got your DNA results ready.”
Sara had
only briefly stuck her head in the door and was already on her way down the
hall when Catherine called out, “Hey Sara?”
The dark
haired woman leaned back just enough to be visible and said, “Sorry, did you
need something?”
Catherine
took her glasses off and blew out a fast breath before jumping right in. “Ah
yeah… Do you have a few minutes?”
Sara’s
brow instantly scrunched together in the familiar gesture she was used to as
the woman tried to figure something out. “Uh, yeah, I guess so...” She looked
back down the hallway and Catherine had to wonder what she was keeping the
younger woman from, but she quickly turned her attention back to the office and
stepped forward. “I was just getting ready to head out, but I guess can spare a
few… What did you need?”
Catherine
gestured for the brunette to take a seat, so she watched as Sara cautiously sat
down in the single guest chair in front of her desk. When she started to fidget
in the seat, Catherine understood that she had not spoken again and so she took
in a sharp breath and looked for the courage to get the ball rolling. “I’ve
been meaning to talk to you for a while now, but it just never seems to be the
right time.”
Sara’s
posture suddenly became defensive and then she launched into a tirade, “Look, if
this is HR trying to give me grief about my vacation days again, I’ve already
p-”
Catherine
held up her hands and said, “No, Sara… This has nothing to do with your
vacation days… This time.”
That
confused expression was back in place as Sara leaned back in the chair. “Then
what’s this about, Catherine?”
Her tone
told Catherine that this really was long overdue, but that only increased her
anxiety. “I know you and I have never really, I don’t know, connected? I mean,
we’ve managed to work together without it getting in the way too much, but I’ve
been thinking lately that maybe it isn’t enough that we only tolerate each
other.”
Catherine
wasn’t sure Sara’s eyebrows could get any closer together at that point, and it
just made the whole thing a little bit harder. “I tried to figure out exactly
when things got this bad between us, and what I found out kind of bothered me.”
“I’m not
sure where all this is coming from, Catherine, but honestly… None of this is
necessary. I mean, it’s not like we all have to be swapping lunches and going
shopping, as long as we can work togeth-”
Catherine
was shaking her head and interrupted before she could finish that statement,
“No, Sara… It’s not enough. If this whole thing with Jim has taught me
anything, it’s that we have to be able to trust each other on every level.
Watching Gil agonizing over his responsibility for Jim’s care made me realize
some things about myself. Who’s gonna be there to
make those decisions for me? Is the whole team going to be there for me like they
were for Jim? Would I rate that kind of concern?” That last question had really
been bothering her, when she combined it with her treatment of the woman before
her.
“Everyone
is still feeling that whole thi-”
“Sara, I
need to say this, so can you ju-” Catherine stopped
herself that time, because she had fallen right back into bitch-mode so easily. I really need to work on that. “Look, I
just need to say this, so if you could just listen, that would be great.”
Her face
visibly softened a little, she uncrossed her arms and laid them in her lap as
she nodded her understanding to Catherine. “Okay, so this thing with Jim isn’t
the first time I’ve had these thoughts, but the one thing that always comes
back is that you and me have some unresolved
issues...over your suspension.”
Catherine
thought she saw something like understanding cross Sara’s face, or maybe it was
just that her eyebrows weren’t kneaded so tightly together anymore. “We always
managed to do more than just tolerate each other, until the stuff that lead up
to your suspension.”
That was
when Catherine saw the confusion start to creep back onto Sara’s face, so she
decided she needed get to the point. “Look, I should’ve handled things
differently, and I’m always gonna have that regret.
I’d like it if we could get past that whole business, so I thought it would be
good if we got the whole thing out in the open.”
Sara was
unable to sit quietly any longer and she put a voice to her confusion.
“Catherine, I’m not exactly sure what it is you think you owe me, because like
I said before, I earned that suspension all by myself.”
“Sara, I
just ne-… Wait, what?” Catherine’s gears ground to a complete halt with Sara’s
declaration. “When you said what before?”
With her brows
pressed tightly together Sara said, “I earned my suspension?”
Shaking
her head, Catherine said, “No, the part about having said it before… When did you say it before?!”
Sara
rocked back against the question and answered through her confusion, “In my
apology, of course.”
Now it
was Catherine’s turn to scrunch her eyebrows up in utter confusion. “What apology?!”
Leaning
forward in a gesture of disbelief, Sara said, “The one I wrote out as part of
the after-action report I turned in to Ecklie… Well, yours
anyway, since I still refused to bow down to Ecklie.”
“What do
you mean?”
“Well,
that was actually why the suspension stuck, because I wouldn’t apologize to
that pompous windbag. The Sheriff couldn’t budge to lift it as a result, since
he didn’t want to throw it in Ecklie’s face, so they
told me to enjoy the vacation.”
Listening
to Sara’s tale was both laughable and infuriating. Catherine decided to go with
the latter. “That fucking rat faced, back stabbing, conniving son of a bitch!”
The shock
on Sara’s face at her outburst was almost enough to deter her from her ranting.
“I can’t believe that lying mother fucker!”
Sara
leaned back and crossed her arms over her chest as she finally responded to
Catherine’s outburst, “Well, I guess that would explain a lot, huh?”
She shook
her head at that logic, not understanding what she had meant, “What?”
“I mean,
I gave you what, I thought, was a heartfelt mea culpa and when I got back you
were still pretty much keeping me at arm’s length.” Catherine was beginning to
understand why things had been so strained between them for so long;
miscommunication. “I just assumed that I had crossed a line that couldn’t be
fixed. I accepted that and just tried to minimize any further friction for the
good of the lab.”
“God,
Sara… I am so sorry this thing went so far. I just don-” She was interrupted by
the ringing of Sara’s phone.
Sara took
the phone out of her pocket and looked at the screen to see who it was. “I’m
sorry, but if I don’t take it, h-they’ll just keep calling.” Catherine nodded
that it was all right and tried not to listen, but for her that was simply
impossible. “Sidle… No, actually I’m in the middle of something… No, not right
now… Can we talk about this later?... No, seriously,
I’m right in the middle of something… Okay… Yeah, I’ll let you know… Bye.”
Sara
closed up her phone with an ever so subtle look of bliss that intrigued
Catherine. She would have to look into that once the smoke had cleared from
this fire. “Am I keeping you from something?”
She immediately
pulled herself away from her attention on the phone and Catherine almost
thought the younger woman blushed as she answered, “Ah, no, not really.”
Catherine could actually see Sara switching gears as she started speaking
again, “Catherine, you don’t owe me anything… I wouldn’t have turned in that
apology if I wasn’t in the wrong. Truthfully, that suspension was probably the
best thing that ever happened to me.”
Catherine
was completely baffled at Sara’s admission. How
in the world could a suspension ever be a good thing!? But then she
realized that Sara had taken the pains and time to write her a formal apology,
but she had never read it, so maybe the answer laid there. She would have to
get with Gil to find out if it was still in her employee file, but of course
that meant she would have to tell Gil what had happened. Gil and Sara had
managed to finally strike out a decent working relationship, and Catherine was
a little afraid of what this news would do to that; do to him. Her fear led her
to think of another way around the situation. “Sara, you wouldn’t happen to
have a copy of that, would you?”
“Ah,
yeah, I made a copy of the whole after-action report for my records. Why?”
Catherine
wasn’t sure she should tell Sara why she was asking her for the document, but
in the end, she knew it would have to come out. “Well, first of all, I’d like
to see what’s kept you and me from getting along for nearly two years. And
second, I need to know exactly what I’m looking for so I can nail Ecklie’s hide to Burdick’s desk.”
The two
women joined in a shared laughter that could only come from the taunting of a
common foe. However, before either could respond Sara’s phone started going off
again. She gave Catherine an apologetic look and took
out the phone. “Sorry about this.” She flipped it open and said, “Sidle… No,
I’m not done yet… Of course not… Yes, I know… I have no idea… Yes… No, it’s not
that… Just go ahead… I’ll figure it out… Okay, bye.” Catherine watched as Sara
shook her head and closed her phone once again.
“Problems?” These calls were seriously beginning to get Catherine’s curiosity
shifted into high gear.
“Not
really, I just had an early rollout, so I rode out to the scene with the guys.”
“And that
was your ride?”
Sara
smiled a little uneasily and shrugged as she said, “It’s no big deal, really.”
She shifted in the chair and then, not so subtly changed the subject, “Look,
when you didn’t say anything after my suspension, I just hoped that we’d be
able to at least work together. I never expected us to kiss and make up and be
the best of friends, or anything. If I know anything, it’s that I’m no picnic
when it comes to any kind of relationships. So, I really wasn’t upset at your
position. And honestly, what I said that day went way over the line. There were
some mitigating factors, but that doesn’t in any way excuse what I said, or
especially the way it came out. I never should have said those things to you,
and I felt bad about that day for a long time. I ju-”
Catherine
had heard enough. She couldn’t sit idly by and listen to it any longer. “Stop…
We’ve both said things that crossed the line, but that shouldn’t have mattered.
We have to be able to depend on each other in this job, and I wasn’t there for
you when it came down to the brass tacks. I should have been with Gil fighting
for you, not sitting there with Ecklie, silently
letting it all happen.”
Sara’s
face betrayed a hint of emotion she hadn’t seen in a long time and it made
Catherine’s heart cringe just a bit. She decided that she might as well go for
broke. She’d always heard that confession was good for the soul. “I guess
things haven’t changed as much as I thought.”
Catherine
was met with Sara’s startled gaze. “I guess you guys have just gotten better at
hiding it?” Sara’s nervous smile was all the answer she needed. “Oh well, maybe
one day you’ll both figure it out.”
Catherine
stood up, shut down her computer and reached for her purse before smiling down
at Sara and saying, “C’mon, I’ll give you a lift. I think we’ve both had enough
for one morning.”
Sara
pursed her lips together in that odd smirk of hers and tilted her head down as
she said, “Okay…” She stood up and smiled in a way Catherine wasn’t quite sure
she’d ever seen before. “I’ll meet you outside… I just need to grab a few things.”
Catherine
waited by her car for a few minutes, shielding her eyes from the sun as she
stared at the entrance to the lab. And just as she was about to whip out her
phone and call Sara to find out what was keeping her, the lanky brunette walked
out the door with the phone at her ear once again. She closed it up as soon as
she got within a few feet of the car and smiled. “Hey… Sorry, but I had to get
through the geek squad.”
Catherine
chuckled at the thought of the younger woman’s throng of nerdy admirers as she
turned to get into her car. “Expressway, right?”
“Um, not anymore.” Her answer seemed out of place, but then she continued,
“Right out on
Their
conversation was light as Sara navigated out to her place. Catherine was trying
to figure out when the woman had moved, because she couldn’t recall anyone
talking about it. When her curiosity finally got the better of her, she just
had to ask, “So, when did you move?”
She
watched from the corner of her eye as Sara worked out the timeline in her head.
“Ah, about six or seven weeks, I think.”
“And what, no house warming?” Catherine was fishing now.
“Ya know, with everything that’s been going on, there just
hasn’t been the time to even get unpacked all the way.” If there was anything
going on, Catherine couldn’t get a read on what it was, so she let it drop.
When they
rounded the corner into the neighborhood Catherine’s curiosity had launched
into overdrive. They were driving through a series of widely spaced, rolling
ranch houses on large plots of land (an acre to an acre and a half). Then Sara
spoke again, “Right at the next one, third house in on the left… Just go ahead
and pull up the driveway.”
Catherine’s
jaw dropped and she could no longer hold in the things that were going through
her mind. “Do I need to worry about where you’re spending your time now?”
Sara
pressed her eyebrows together and said, “What do you mean?”
“Sara, we
work at the same place… And I know I’m not pulling down this kind of green, so
it has to be coming from somewhere.” Catherine never had been one to mince
words, and this was no exception. “And I’ve noticed you’re not chaining
yourself to the lab anymore.”
Chuckling
as they stopped at the end of the driveway, Sara shook her head and said, “No
moonlighting, no mysteries, nothing illegal; just some good investment choices,
spending most of my adult life having no life and socking everything away.”
She
opened the door and motioned for Catherine to follow, “You drove all the way
out here… So, you might as well come in and get the tour.”
Catherine
was shocked when Sara invited her in. Since
when did Sara share anything personal? But, shocked as she might be, she
wasn’t about to pass up the chance to see inside this amazing house, as well as
Sara’s inner sanctum. “Oh yeah, that would be great.”
“Just try
to remember the boxes are only temporary… I’m taking a few days off next week
to try and unbury the mess. It’s been making me totally crazy… Plus, I can’t
even find my scanner.”
Catherine
nearly snorted at Sara’s exasperated admission. “What?”
“I guess
some things never change,” was the only thing Catherine could say.
Sara
turned the knob to the front door, and before Catherine could admonish the
woman to be more careful about locking up she gave her a big toothy smile that
was obviously suppressing some laughter that was sitting just below the surface
and said, “Just remember that, huh?”
They
walked into the house and Catherine’s nose was instantly aware of the scent of
cinnamon and apples. She had never imagined Sara would be one of those
potpourri people, but she couldn’t imagine any other explanation. When she was
about to make a joke about it, Sara threw her keys down onto the entry table
and started sorting through the mail sitting there.
She was
about to make another comment about how long the woman let her mail build up
before she actually looked at it, but then Sara pulled a magazine out of the
stack and smiled. Catherine was sure she was going to gush about something to
her, but instead she started walking towards the center of the house and called
out, “Hey! They finally got my subscription to the Applied Psychodynamics in
Forensic Science transferred.”
Catherine’s
mouth was open and about to ask her if she had really subscribed to that
journal when all the color washed completely out of her face. “And you tried to
accuse me of making that one up…” Gil walked out of the kitchen with a towel
thrown over his shoulder, a pitcher of orange juice in one hand and a basket of
muffins in the other. “If you want something stronger, you’re out of luck… We
still haven’t found the liquor.” Gil set the food down on the dining room table
and then disappeared back into the kitchen.
His voice
then called back out to the dumbstruck Catherine. “Cath,
you’re gonna have a hard time eating breakfast if you
get lockjaw standing there with your mouth hanging open like that.”
She
turned back to find Sara smiling at her with a devilish grin. “I guess we
finally figured it out.”