Title : WHEN THE DEAD AWAKEN
Epilogue
The first pink on the horizon promised morning, promised life. But not for Lena
Fields, sleeping in a body bag.
Sara hoped she had rest now. No more dreams. No more whispers of the dead. The
dead should sleep. It was the living who had to face the pain of being awake.
“Here.” Warrick suddenly appeared beside her, a coffee cup in hand. She took it
without comment, feeling it warm her hands. Police officers swarmed around, but
she did not pay attention. They had asked their questions and she had answered.
But none of them understood.
And the only one who might wasn't there.
“Hey,” Warrick said, his voice as soft as a summer breeze, “you did well, Sara.”
He left her, greeting a worried Nick who was practically leaping out of a car,
worry all over his face. She watched them talk; Warrick subdued, Nick
disbelieving.
Another car pulled up, this time Catherine being the one exiting. Her gaze swept
through Nick, pausing on Warrick as an expression of relief flickered across her
face and finally settling on Sara.
“Hey,” Catherine said, walking over. “I heard... Did you...?”
“No. She turned the gun on herself.”
Catherine closed her eyes. “So young...”
“She said the dead awaken,” Sara said dully. Her lips felt cold.
“It is we who wake the dead and demand answers from them,” Catherine said and
looked at Sara, eyes dark with understanding and sympathy. “That's why I never
look back.”
Her gaze moved back to Warrick, standing some paces away and still talking to
Nick.
Sara felt no surprise. She merely nodded and watched Catherine walk away.
Strangely, she felt no envy for all she wished Grissom would be the one standing
waiting – and waiting for her.
*****
Nick slipped away as Catherine approached the two, perhaps sensing their desire
to be alone. She was too tired to even consider what that meant. All she could
think of was her desire to throw herself at Warrick, kissing him senseless for
just being alive.
But she halted a few feet from him, hands in her pockets, just staring at him.
“It's over,” he said softly.
“No. It is solved,” she corrected. “It's not over. The dead remain dead.”
“No,” he said, stepping closer. “The dead awaken in us, the living and we carry
them with us.”
“You sound like Grissom.”
“You sound like Sara,” he countered.
She smiled slightly. “And will you then seduce me over bugs and butterflies?”
“Only if you wear a brown wig.”
She laughed; she could not help it. He smiled through the tired lines on his
face and she knew that under the fatigue life awaited.
“And where to now?” he asked, taking out her hand and holding it in his,
stroking his thumb across her skin. She would protest such a public display of
affection, but found she didn't care.
“Take me home,” she said, feeling the last of her strength sap away.
“Let's go then,” he replied. “We'll pick up pancakes for Lindsey on the way and
have breakfast.”
She looked into his face and saw herself mirrored in his eyes, a mirror was
softened by love.
I'm going to love you, she thought, and though there's never any happily ever
after, there will be an after and that is enough.
They went home.
*****
Grissom could not remember driving, but he must have, for suddenly he found
himself at the scene, police still swarming about. And he looked and looked, but
she seemed nowhere.
He finally found Sara just after he'd almost given up, thinking she had left the
scene, gone home and he was too late. But there she was, at the edge of the
park, eyes on the horizon, watching the rising sun.
He walked up next to her, feeling the first rays of sun on his face. They were
still cold, but soon the warmth would return to them and it would be day.
“What do you want?” she asked quietly.
“You.”
She froze, but did not look up, and he could feel his future condensed in the
air around them, thick and almost strangling. Two paths ahead. One with her, one
without. Both were pain, but in different ways.
“Why?” she asked, voice low.
“I don’t want to wake up to see I have never lived, Sara. And without you, my
life is less.”
The revelation made her look up, eyes dark and filled with pain. His own hurt
flared up and for a moment he almost wished she had not brought him to this
point. She could hurt him, even in the scientist tower he had built in the sky.
So far away, yet she reached in.
Hurt was life, human life. No pain and you were sleepwalking.
“It is time to wake up,” he told her and held out a hand. For a moment, he
thought she might refuse. For a moment, he was the man in the moon, distant and
untouchable.
But then she touched him. Hesitantly and with eyes still dark, she took his hand
in hers. And there would be hurt and pain, complications he would not know the
solution to and effects and causes and he would not be able to merely observe.
It would be life. Dreams would still haunt, but they would be just dreams. You
could always come awake.
And he kissed her in the bright sunlight of the morning, the long night over and
the moon gone.
It was past time to wake up.
*****
FIN
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