Title : WHEN THE DEAD AWAKEN
Chapter Three
*****
The sky was a brilliant pool of blue calm with a bright sun in its centre,
blazing merrily as Warrick stepped out of the car. It was hot; he could feel the
heat lick against his skin and the wind was warm and hardly a wind at all.
He smiled lazily as he walked, no need for the sun to make him feel warm. It was
good to be alive in this bright day and Catherine stood waiting for him inside,
radiant as a sun on her own.
“Hey,” he said and she smiled at him, welcoming and promissory at once. “Where
is Griss?”
She shrugged. “Last I saw him, he was talking to Sara. Unless she has abducted
him to have her way with him, I assume they’re around here somewhere.”
He smiled quietly, knowing she saw what he did, the telltale sign of love. Sara
looked at Grissom and Grissom looked at Sara and it shone in their eyes, this
love and longing. Even in the quick glances they would throw each other, it was
there. Buried deeper with Grissom perhaps, but Warrick was used to look at the
details and what they told.
He looked into Catherine’s shining eyes and he wondered what he might read from
them.
“I don’t think that’s Sara’s style,” he remarked dryly after a moment. “That’s
more the sort of thing you would do.”
Catherine looked on the verge of an indecent reply when Brass hurried up to
them, face serious and eyes worried, shattering the mood.
“Victoria Klein. The friend Tara MacNichols was supposed to meet last night
hasn’t been seen since. The parents have just reported her missing.”
“One dead, one missing,” Catherine muttered. “Am I the only not liking the
pattern here?”
Warrick didn’t say anything, but he met her gaze and saw she was thinking the
same as he, already fearing the worst.
One more dead beneath the sun.
*****
He watched her sleep, watched her slow breathing and still form in the dark of
his office. She looked paler in the dark and her lashes seemed unnaturally dark
against her skin. If it was not for her breathing, she would almost look dead.
It was a morbid thought and he tried to shake it, but it would not go and stayed
lurking in the shadows of his mind.
How long had she been this pale?
“Gil?”
Catherine’s voice was soft, and Sara did not stir.
“Tara’s friend is missing. Want me to talk to the parents?”
“Please,” he replied quietly. He had almost forgotten the young dead and he felt
a moment of guilt. But sometimes, the dead had to wait. The living could not.
“I’ll go along,” Warrick’s deep voice said, but still Grissom didn’t turn,
keeping his eyes on Sara’s sleeping form, willing her to breathe and sleep on.
“Get Nick and Greg to look at the trace evidence,” he said after a moment.
“There were some fibres on the clothing.”
If Warrick or Catherine found it strange he seemed to include himself out,
neither said anything, and a moment later he was alone with Sara again.
He put his head in his hand, fighting a desire to carry her home and sleep with
her there until she awoke. As if that would wake her, truly wake her, fade the
nightmares and make it all right again.
But this wasn’t about him. Wasn’t that what she had said? But her pains were his
pains, even if he was not sure when it had become so. Could he make her
understand that? Could he make himself understand it?
He closed his eyes for a moment, feeling his heartbeats pound in his head.
He had not done right by her. But he did not know how to do right and she could
hurt him, a flame that could warm him and burn him the same. So he did nothing.
And somewhere along the way, winter seemed to have fallen over her and he had no
idea what to do, no idea what to say or how to say it.
So many ways to say ‘I love you’. How did you find the right one? How did you
brave the flame?
He was tired, he realised. But he couldn’t sleep, not now. The dead awaited out
there somewhere, but he couldn’t move, as if he had been made into stone.
And so he watched her sleep, her chin resting against his desk, the blanket he
had put over her rising and falling slowly with her breathing. So beautiful, his
Sara. He had no right to her, yet he made the claim. She had not denied him
that.
Kissing her dark lips in the bright sunlight. That could have been his life. Had
he forfeited it? For science, for safety, for no pain?
“Grissom?”
He met her confused gaze, eyes still cloudy with sleep.
“You feel asleep.”
Her shoulders slumped slightly, almost as if she felt shame. He moved over
without thinking, placing his hand on hers. The hostility in her gaze almost
made him wince.
“Don’t pity me!”
“I don’t,” he said quietly. “I want to help.”
She looked at him for a long time, searching his face for some answer, but he
had no idea what the question was. Whatever she found, it made her face softened
and she looked even more beautiful. With a sigh, she leaned her forehead against
his and he could feel her breath against his skin.
“It will be all right,” he promised. He wasn’t sure if she heard, but it didn’t
matter. He could tell her again, whisper it in her ear over and over until she
believed it, believed him. She was strong. He had always known that about her.
And whatever darkness she felt lost in, she would walk out.
He had to believe that, for losing her would be a greater pain than any other.
He didn’t move and neither did she, the office dark around them with lamps off
and only faint light coming from the hallway outside to cast twisted shadows
across the floor.
Outside the sun flamed on and burned the world in the rage of life.
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