Light In The Mirror
Fandom: CSI
Rating: PG
Pairing: G/S
Summary: Time to make a choice.
Disclaimer: Most of the characters and situations in this story belong to Alliance Atlantis, CBS, Anthony Zuicker and other entities, and I do not have permission to borrow them; any others are mine, and if you want to play with them, you have to ask me first. No infringement is intended in any way, and this story is not for profit. Any errors are mine, all mine, no you can't have any.
Spoilers: Through "XX"
Note: Grissom's books do exist. So does the poem, though Warrick's assumption about Google is incorrect. A thousand thanks to my generous editor, Nire the Evil!
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Prologue
He expected nightmares.
They didn't come, at first. He barely made it through his shower before collapsing onto his bed, ears ringing and body shaking with low blood sugar and absolute exhaustion--physical, mental, emotional. Sleep swallowed him up in oblivion for six hours, then spat him back out to rehydrate himself. He gulped down three glasses of water and staggered back to bed, barely conscious enough to remember Catherine's threats of dire harm should he show up any time before the shift after next.
And the dreams came. Boiling up out of the underside of his mind, they invaded his sleep with gleeful enthusiasm, exacting the payment he'd put off for too long. They weren't all horrifying; some were merely the normal, illogical jumble of images and actions, while others were laden with anxiety and urgency, and he never seemed to be able to accomplish what he needed to do. But the horror came in its turn, soaking his hands with blood, filling his arms with brokenness, leaving him standing over something that had once been beautiful and vibrant. The glassed-in butterflies on his walls came alive again and flitted through his sleep, sending him signals of danger and terror. They landed on her, and became colorful patterns on her skin and hair. Sara was crying, and he couldn't help her. Sara was dying, and his hand on hers could not keep her. Sara was dead, and his fingers gripped the blade.
When he finally made it back to consciousness, poetry was running through his head.
Sara sat in darkness. The sun was up, but she had carefully closed the blinds and ensconced herself in the middle of her bed. She needed to do some serious thinking.
A murder victim who looked enough like her to be a twin...that was unnerving enough. The reactions of her colleagues hadn't helped the feeling, either; Catherine's careful normality was enough to make Sara twitch. But Grissom...
That was completely freaky. She was used to her boss acting peculiar--he'd certainly done it often enough around her. But this weirdness outstripped any previous behavior. She'd only been puzzled, and concerned, though he'd avoided her as much as possible. She hadn't been able to put the pieces together.
Until.
She'd wanted to watch--wanted to see if they were able to corner the man they thought responsible for the slaughter of two people. She wasn't expecting the confession to come from the other side of the table. Hours later, she still didn't know what to make of it.
On the one hand, she wanted to shake Grissom for being such a stubborn idiot. On the other, she could understand why he found the risk to be too great to take. Nothing in life was guaranteed, after all. The case was proof enough of that.
But what he'd said, in that frighteningly calm voice, upset all her assumptions. I thought he didn't care, or he didn't know. He knew all along?
The thought made her throat hurt, burned in a space just below her breastbone. She could feel the grief building, but she didn't want to let it out just yet. How did we get here? How did it all go so wrong?
There were no answers. There was only the silent morning.